ohtani's jacket

If they think he's one of the 10 best workers they should since it's not like his career was bad.

But when we watch guys we're judging them primarily on No.1. You might watch a match and think about where it fits into the context of a guy's career, but first and foremost you're judging the bout on the work. When I watch Jumbo work a boring control segment, I don't think "wow, what an amazing two decades the guy had." Similarly, if I watch an outstanding Kawada performance, I don't think "I wish we had more of this over a longer period." It seems to me that as you go through the Excite Series that there's something about Kawada's work that doesn't resonate with you as opposed to the career argument. The career thing is so arbitrary to me. The peak vs. longevity argument has always been a part of these debates, but ranking the guy with the better career seems pointless. How do you determine whether Flair or Jumbo had a better career than El Hijo del Santo or Liger? You place a huge emphasis on output as well as variety of opposition, but lucha guys ran laps around the number of guys Flair and Jumbo faced and other workers like Liger have the same amount of longevity. I'm not knocking you for holding Flair and Jumbo up as your standard. But how do you correlate that with Breaks where we don't really know how many four star matches he produced with how many different opponents? The way I see it is that relatively speaking Kawada didn't have that bad a career compared to Jumbo, so the question is how do they compare as workers not is there a guy who faced more deadset legends over a decade span as Jumbo while still working the Sam Houstons of the world.

There are many things that British wrestling did badly, but this has to take the cake. Watch this from the 18 min mark onward and tell me if you've seen anything worse;

I can't remember anyone who was super into Kawada viewing him as a heel. Akira Hokuto, who was technically a heel, had a similar fanbase built up around her.

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

Surely, the most relevant point about Flair and Jumbo at this point is that there are 98 other spaces on the ballot.

When I first got info Japanese wrestling I felt the same way about Misawa. I generally saw the Misawa/Kawada feud from Kawada's POV and thought Misawa and Akiyama were like Batman and Robin. Then I moved to Japan and discovered that culturally Misawa was far, far more of an ideal than Kawada and my thinking changed. But you don't need to live in Japan to change your thinking on Kawada/Misawa. Instead of viewing Kawada as some sort of sympathetic babyface and wondering whether he'll ever be able to beat this guy, it's better to view him as an Owen Hart type character who knows he'll never be as good as his senpai.

Of course Jumbo didn't have to travel much. The money was in Japan and people came to him. Jumbo was fortunate to work in an era where the Japanese economy was booming, where the territory system still existed, the promoters he worked for were still young and healthy and had connections to offices around the world, the TV stations were prepared to bankroll wrestling and put it on during golden time, and a shitload of Americans were in their primes. If Jumbo had needed to rely on Japanese talent to have great matches he would have been fucked because the best Japanese talent was in New Japan at the time. None of these things have anything to do with Jumbo's ability as a worker. If Jumbo had been born the same year as Misawa, Parv wouldn't think he was a GOAT candidate even if he had the exact same strengths as a worker. What I'd really like to see Parv do is critique Jumbo. If Jumbo was so good then why did it take Choshu jumping ship for Jumbo to adapt to the changing wrestling landscape? How come even though Jumbo was a far superior worker to Choshu he was so slow to see the writing on the wall? If not for Tenryu would be have had a fire lit under his ass? If not for the younger generation would be have had a late career bloom? Credit to Jumbo for adapting but there seems to be extenuating circumstances that aren't being taken into consideration

Indikator, are you part of the Wrestlingdata team? Because I found a mistake there the other day.

I kind of want to put Tenryu to bed as there's other guys I want to watch, so here are some general thoughts on the man: He reminds me a lot of Negro Navarro in the sense that he got better as he got older. In none of the Misioneros footage we have from the 80s or early 90s does Navarro look as good as the worker he molded himself into during the mid-00s, and the same is true for Tenryu prior to 1989. I'd put his peak at around 1989 to 1996, and I still think it's a crying shame that after the New Japan feud wound down in '94 there was that gap period where he did bugger all until the UWF-i feud began. 1994 and '95 seems like a significant chunk of his prime that was wasted. Nevertheless, he was an excellent worker during that period. His execution issues weren't nearly as bad as I thought. When he did have issues they tended to be clangers, but once I'd watched enough of his matches I tended to ignore some of the general sloppiness surrounding his work and appreciate other aspects of his work like his amazing selling. As mentioned above, the biggest revelation for me was how good he was at selling. I knew about his facials and his nonchalant heel attitude, but the nuanced selling was something I didn't expect. Selling could probably be broken down into various categories if people cared to take the time, but one of the major ones is selling pain, and outside of Mayumi Ozaki I'm struggling to think of anyone who sold pain in a more realistic manner than Tenryu. He was fantastic at grimacing and favouring a body part. When he stayed down hurt it looked like a sports broadcast. Such fine, nuanced work. If I have one criticism of him outside of giving too much of the bout to his opponent and working from underneath too much (regardless of how good he was at selling), it's that his performances were often better than his matches, and I think that's a huge problem when comparing him to his peers who were, more often than not, the driving force behind their matches. I think he worked intentionally smaller matches than the epics that were in vogue during the mid-90s, but how much of it was a deliberate point of difference is impossible to say. The end result is that while I think he was a fantastic worker, and one of the best sellers ever, there's only a handful of matches that I'd consider the cream of the crop. You mileage will vary on that, however. Offsetting that to an extent is the fact he participated in two of the all-time great in-ring feuds -- Jumbo vs. Tenryu and Tenryu vs. Hashimoto. To me the chemistry in those feuds was better than in rivalries such as Kawada vs. Misawa and Misawa vs. Kobashi even if the matches weren't. I'd probably put Tenryu in the second tier of Japanese workers, but I'd be comfortable putting him there. In many ways he was an overachiever who had an in-ring career that was better than it had a right to be. I don't think he was the most naturally talented athlete to grace a pro-wrestling ring even if had been a rikishi, and he got better because of smarts and not really by improving his technique as such. I'm not sure if others will agree, but the more he aged the more he seemed to work like Terry Funk with the punches and some of the selling tics. Anyway, an interesting candidate and one I'm sure will do very well.

Ric Flair vs. Genichiro Tenryu (9/15/92) Initially, I had no desire to watch this, but it got a bit of play in the Yearbook for being Tenryu's best match since he left All Japan and Flair's best match since 1990 so I felt compelled to watch it. It's almost Flair's best match by default given how seriously wrestling is presented in Japan. I've never really felt like Flair was all that over in Japan and the lukewarm response to his stylin' and profilin' here seemed further proof that the Nature Boy gimmick fell flat in Japan. It was interesting watch Flair take it to the mat as he wasn't really a great mat wrestler, but then again neither was Tenryu. Flair kept things moving enough that you could ignore the nuts and bolts of what he was actually doing, and mixed in enough strikes that Tenryu was able to put over the physical contest. There was nothing really gripping about the fall, but I loved the way Tenryu sold his jaw. The biggest revelation for me about Tenryu has been how good he is at those small details. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to whiff on the big stuff and I thought the finish to the opening fall was pretty bad. It started with a press slam off the top rope where Flair had to raise Tenryu's hand because it was out of position and followed up with some weak looking offense and another terrible powerbomb from Tenryu. Perhaps he had good reason to lay Flair down on a bed of feathers, but it kind of signaled to me that this wasn't going to be hugely physical. The second fall wasn't hugely compelling. Tenryu took a direct approach to begin with and the transition for Flair to take back control of the match was a poke to the eye, which I thought was lame for a match being held in Japan. Flair ran through a few of his suplexes, which went nowhere as they transitioned into a stand-up contest, and then there was a bunch of legwork from Flair leading into the figure four. The figure four passage took an age, but at least Ric got a submission out of it. Thirty minutes into the video and Tenryu had given most of the bout to Flair, which highlights a tendency that Tenryu had, which was to give too much of the bout to his opponent and work from underneath too much. I think we can agree that the Tenryu you want to see is the guy doing soccer ball kicks and punting folks in the face and not with his back to the canvas all the time. Tenryu being Tenryu he sold the crap out of his leg in the most realistic manner he could think of. It's unlikely Flair ever faced an opponent who put that much effort into selling the effects of the figure four, especially since Ric rarely got a submission with it. There was another lengthy figure four passage, which I think you'd have to be reasonably invested in the match to enjoy. Flair strategy buffs would probably point to the set-up work Flair did throughout the fall, which is fair enough, but while Tenryu did a nice job of hobbling about and hanging on by a thread, I couldn't really get into the spirit of Tenryu taking a constant beating. The finish was straight out of Baba's playbook, though Tenryu desperately trying to get Flair back into the ring on a bad wheel was a novel twist. I'd go about *** on this. Felt like a bit of a chore watching it. I can see whether other people are coming from, though, as Flair had nothing like it from WrestleWar '90 onward. Wasn't a particularly great Tenryu match for me, though.

Ric Flair vs. Genichiro Tenryu (9/15/92) Initially, I had no desire to watch this, but it got a bit of play in the Yearbook for being Tenryu's best match since he left All Japan and Flair's best match since 1990 so I felt compelled to watch it. It's almost Flair's best match by default given how seriously wrestling is presented in Japan. I've never really felt like Flair was all that over in Japan and the lukewarm response to his stylin' and profilin' here seemed further proof that the Nature Boy gimmick fell flat in Japan. It was interesting watch Flair take it to the mat as he wasn't really a great mat wrestler, but then again neither was Tenryu. Flair kept things moving enough that you could ignore the nuts and bolts of what he was actually doing, and mixed in enough strikes that Tenryu was able to put over the physical contest. There was nothing really gripping about the fall, but I loved the way Tenryu sold his jaw. The biggest revelation for me about Tenryu has been how good he is at those small details. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to whiff on the big stuff and I thought the finish to the opening fall was pretty bad. It started with a press slam off the top rope where Flair had to raise Tenryu's hand because it was out of position and followed up with some weak looking offense and another terrible powerbomb from Tenryu. Perhaps he had good reason to lay Flair down on a bed of feathers, but it kind of signaled to me that this wasn't going to be hugely physical. The second fall wasn't hugely compelling. Tenryu took a direct approach to begin with and the transition for Flair to take back control of the match was a poke to the eye, which I thought was lame for a match being held in Japan. Flair ran through a few of his suplexes, which went nowhere as they transitioned into a stand-up contest, and then there was a bunch of legwork from Flair leading into the figure four. The figure four passage took an age, but at least Ric got a submission out of it. Thirty minutes into the video and Tenryu had given most of the bout to Flair, which highlights a tendency that Tenryu had, which was to give too much of the bout to his opponent and work from underneath too much. I think we can agree that the Tenryu you want to see is the guy doing soccer ball kicks and punting folks in the face and not with his back to the canvas all the time. Tenryu being Tenryu he sold the crap out of his leg in the most realistic manner he could think of. It's unlikely Flair ever faced an opponent who put that much effort into selling the effects of the figure four, especially since Ric rarely got a submission with it. There was another lengthy figure four passage, which I think you'd have to be reasonably invested in the match to enjoy. Flair strategy buffs would probably point to the set-up work Flair did throughout the fall, which is fair enough, but while Tenryu did a nice job of hobbling about and hanging on by a thread, I couldn't really get into the spirit of Tenryu taking a constant beating. The finish was straight out of Baba's playbook, though Tenryu desperately trying to get Flair back into the ring on a bad wheel was a novel twist. I'd go about *** on this. Felt like a bit of a chore watching it. I can see whether other people are coming from, though, as Flair had nothing like it from WrestleWar '90 onward. Wasn't a particularly great Tenryu match for me, though.

These matches were proof that Mysterio could have a good match with just about anyone, but they were also cookie cutter big man vs. small man bouts, which is probably my least favourite type of Mysterio bout.

Baba vs. Gorilla Monsoon. Surely, everyone's dream match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4KvGphC7aE

I've been trying to watch as much 50s and 60s Von Erich as I can find. Highlights include a wild brawl with "Whipper" Billy Watson where Von Erich stooges for referee Rocky Marciano, and Gene Kiniski and a bunch of security guards get involved; film of a great looking fight between Kiniski and Von Erich where Fritz brutalises Kiniski before the bell; Fritz popping commentator Joe Blanchard with a right hand in the post-match interview, and clips of heated bout between the two; and a battle of the big boys with Yukon Eric.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 32 John Savage vs. Beau Jack Rowlands (10/31/85) John Savage was Johnny Smith of Stampede and All Japan fame. I don't think I've ever watched a Johnny Smith match so that doesn't mean much to me, but he got a decent win here over journeyman Jack Rowlands as Joint tried in vain to build up new stars in the wake of all the defections to All-Star. Rasputin vs. Greg Valentine (9/16/87) Rasputin was one of the worst guys on the circuit mainly because of how limited he was offensively, so I thought this would be a decent test of whether "The Promoter's Boy" Greg Valentine was worth his salt or not. To his credit, young Crabtree did a good job bumping and selling for the big man then got a cheap DQ win because, you know, he was the promoter's boy. Dave Taylor vs. Psycho Shane Stevens (8/30/86) Screensport bullshit under a big top. I don't think I can stress enough what a poor idea it was for a British promotion to try to be American. There are some things only the Americans can do well, and what made Freestyle Wrestling on WoS work for so many years was that it was quintessentially British. The "Psycho" Shane Stevens gimmick was an embarrassment not helped by the atrocious Screensport commentary or the lacklustre wrestling. Way too many duds like this in Taylor's locker. Jim Breaks vs. Peter Bainbridge (6/8/88) Breaks hadn't been on TV for two years when he made this random appearance on the stand alone ITV show. He was older and pudgier, and beginning to thin out of top, but petty much the same old Breaks. His job here was to carry 16 year-old Peter Bainbridge the same way he had done Dynamite Kid, Young David, Danny Boy Collins, and probably others too. It started out okay, but for some reason it ended prematurely. It didn't seem as though the editor cropped much out, so I guess Breaks wasn't interested in entering this into the pantheon of great Jim Breaks matches. i'll cut him some slack since it was 1988. Danny Boy Collins vs. Tony Stewart (4/7/90) Pretty easy workout for Danny Boy Collins. I've been harsh on the kid in the past, but he matured into a better wrestler in the 90s. It was just a bad decade for a British worker to mature into a good worker unless they ventured abroad to New Japan or WCW.

Iska Khan/Gen Tilly vs. Yves Amor/Pierre Rouanet This was another of those impossibly cool French catch matches. It wasn't the best of ALPRA's uploads by any stretch of the imagination, but gave us another look at the 60s French scene and more insights into the rich history of professional wrestling in France. Iska Khan was a wrestler of Mongolian descent who appeared in a number of French films, including Belle de Jour. He didn't come across as anything special in this, but any wrestler who appeared in a Bunuel film is all right by me. Yves Amor wore the skimpiest pair of trunks ever. They were at least two sizes too small for him. Steve Veidor and Tibor Szakacs would have been embarrassed to wear them, and if you've seen what those guys wore in the 70s you'll know what I mean. Some cool grappling in this, but it didn't really have the build that most of us are looking for. More of a long exhibition than a compelling threepenny opera, and Khan didn't shine enough for it to be a must-watch.

I'm just not sure I think like that. I mean if you gave me 10 wrestlers to rank I'd probably compare them against one another, but if you asked me who the 100 best workers are it's an open slather. Mind you, when I've done these sort of polls before I usually get hung up with whether X wrestler fits right at 23 and whether 23, 24, 25, 26 flows well. I probably care more about how it looks on the page than the rankings themselves.

My comment about Flair was perhaps churlish, but I don't get why Flair is used as a barometer for everything. I'm listening to a Rod Stewart album at the moment. It's the first Rod Stewart album I've listened to in my life. It's pretty good, actually, but I'm not comparing it to any sort of standard. Subconsciously, I may be comparing it to the music it sounds like, but I don't have any fixed standard in mind. The last movie I watched was Preston Sturges' Hail the Conquering Hero, which I probably compared to other Sturges films and maybe other screwballs, but I didn't really give a damn how Sturges' direction compared to anybody else. Wrestling is a strange thing in that we seem to compare workers to other workers and not to our collective understanding of wrestling as a whole. I agree with a lot of your criticisms. You know I don't like long All Japan tags, though you tolerance is clearly higher. But to me the argument is about broadway wrestling in general and not whether others were great at it. A dissenting view on Dandy/Azteca is a great thing. I will take people by surprise at first because it's been so well received after being anonymous for *years*, but in order to digest your criticisms you do need to give examples. I don't believe people are as set in their ways as you claim. MJH once critiqued Santo/Psicosis and I kind of balked at first, but I rewatched it and thought he was right. If you really want to critique matches, you have to get your elbows dirty. If you time stamped that, I think people would have watched it and offered an interpretation.

Compared to the amount he wrestled it's a handful. But I think it's 30 odd.

Of the original guys mentioned, Robinson strikes me as the best. Great offensive wrestlers to me are all about execution and not moveset. Finlay and Marty Jones were awesome offensive workers in the early 80s because their offence looked so good. Keith Haward was a wrestling machine. Even a guy like Breaks, when he'd wrestle, his stuff looked so good. Navarro is a beast. Hokuto had amazing execution. A lot of guys can have rollicking offence without great execution like Hashimoto or Tenryu, but everything Dynamite Kid did, for example, looked great even if his matches weren't perfect.

I thought this was an old thread that Childs bumped, but apparently Mick was only just nominated. So he's flying even lower under the radar.

The last time I watched these matches (for Ditch's best of the 90s poll), I enjoyed the early 90s era more than the '93-97 period. Not only the six-mans, but also the Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue tags. The only thing I wasn't high on was Jumbo's singles matches against Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi. The six-mans were the pinnacle. They're dream six-mans in terms of what you'd want from that tag format.

This isn't true. You said you would time code an example of what you didn't like about it and never did. A Kawada critique is a worthwhile thing. It's the constant comparisons to Flair that irk.

I always liked her better than Aja because of JWP being The Little Promotion That Could and Kansai being the heart of that. I doubt you'll get many takers, though.