ohtani's jacket

#84 Dustin Rhodes Dustin Rhodes has a 7.09 rating on cagematch. I'd struggle to think of too many people in PWO circles who'd rate him a 7.09. I loved his early work as The Natural, but was never that high on his work as Goldust. He's not a guy I'd fight for in a top 100, but I recognize the talent and his commitment to the craft. Cody Rhodes vs Dustin Rhodes (AEW, 5/25/19) This is some big important match in the history of AEW. At least. that's what people like Jerome were always saying. I'll probably be dead before I start watching matches from 2019, but I guess this is a match I should see before I die. I dunno what the fuck Dustin is wearing. He looks like the love child of Kane and Chessman. This is actually the first time I've seen a Cody Rhodes match in full. He reminds me of Shocker. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if a young Cody Rhodes bought a best of Los Guerreros del Infierno comp from Alfredo or Highspots. I liked the early parts of this when Dustin was on offense, but less so when it was Cody controlling things. I didn't realize that Hebner was the ref, and there's DDP. Can anybody join AEW? Jesus Christ, if it had started earlier, you'd probably see Rene Goulet, Tony Garea and Blackjack Lanza involved. The match is famous for its bladejob, and it's an all-timer. Great performance from Dustin. If you had to submit a match for acceptance into the top 100, this would do the trick. I didn't love the finish, and kinda don't like that move of Cody's, but Dustin was a champ. Maybe I'm an insensitive prick, but I could have done without Cody needing his older brother. You just beat him into a bloody pulp and smeared his blood all over your chest. Dustin should have given him a DDT. This may be the first AEW match I've seen that I actually liked. A momentous day.

#85 Chris Benoit Chris Benoit has a rating of 8.76 on cagematch, but if you dive into the comments they are divisive. I debated whether to watch a Benoit match, but since I've been watching Benoit matches while going through 2000s matches on this site, I thought it would be posturing to change my stance now. I wanted to watch a match against my namesake, but that's not as easy as it used to be. So, instead you get this: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Pegasus Kid (NJPW, 8/12/92) I may or may not have seen this match before. I don't really care if I've seen it before because I don't care that I've seen it now. Jushin Thunder Liger is a guy that bores me. The only time I care about Liger is when a wrestler I like really pushes him. Intellectually, I know that he's a great worker, but I just don't care. This was an attempt to recreate Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid for the 90s, but I'd rather watch the sloppiest TM/DK match than this shit. At least, TM/DK felt fresh. Benoit tries to play heel, but it can't compare to Billington's soccer hooligan vibe. I liked the finish, but that was about it. I have no feelings about Benoit making the top 100. Excuse my apathy but it's all I can muster.

#86 Ricky Morton Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey vs. Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson (MACW, 8/16/86) Ricky Morton is another territories guy that cagematch does dirty. I dunno what the frack is going on over there, but there's some sort of generational divide going on. I'm not gonna say anything bad about Ricky Morton. You know the resume. I could go either way on whether I think he belongs in the top 100 depending on my mood and the time of day. This match didn't do a ton for me. It felt like an over-glorified house show match. I've never been a ride or die territories guy, but I like a little bit of US territories stuff every now and again. The only time this caught my attention was when Eaton went to the top. There were some cool moments here and there, but nothing that rewrote the book on tag team wrestling. A lot of people swear by this match as the best Midnight Express vs. Rock 'n' Roll Express match, and maybe it is, but the way it's shot means you're constantly watching the back of Morton and Gibson's heads, so even if it is the best match in their feud, it's not great for diving into the things that made Morton great. It's actually a better Gibson performance, fwiw. Back of the head notwithstanding.

#87 Tetsuya Naito Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito (NJPW, 8/13/16) I could never relate to Tetsuya Naito. He looks like he's been hit in the head too many times. I suppose he has an everyman quality to him, but he doesn't look like my Japanese wrestling heroes. I actually wanted to watch another Naito/Omega match that Dave gave five and three quarter stars to as opposed to the mere five stars he gave this, but these things are kind of hard to find and I wasn't in the mood to search for it. I hated the opening to this match with the pair of them spitting on each other. It was supposed to be a sign of disrespect, but it reminded me of actual fights in Japan where the guys grab each other by the collar and shut at each other with high-pitched voices. Just fight already. When they got down to the nitty gritty it was okay. I was amused by how much it resembled a WWE match. I imagine there were a whole bunch of people opining in 2016 how much better this was than the WWE when it was the same thing. Sure, their move sets are deeper and they go longer, but it's the same beats and the same structure. There is precious little difference between Kenny Omega and Shawn Michaels other than the fact that Michaels is a better actor. The end result was that it was okay. You can have your Naito if you want him. Omega was far more tolerable in Japan than he is in AEW. If you zone out and enjoy the nearfalls, it's not bad.

#88 Bruno Sammartino I don't expect the users on cagematch to be as quite as enlightened about Bruno as people in our circles, but it assumes me that he has a 9.28 rating yet his highest match rating is a 7.83. If that's not WWE lore for you, I don't know what is. Bruno Sammartino & Tito Santana vs. Adrian Adonis & Randy Savage (Steel Cage Tag Team Match, WWF 7/12/86) This is a fun match. It's not as fun as watching Bruno at the end of his prime, and all of the crowd-watching you can do with late 70s and early 80s MSG WWF shows, but it's a bit like reading your favorite comic books from when you were a kid. It's not high art, but the characters are there, and the art and the colors still pop. They work fairly hard for what this is. They just don't get a lot of time. You can imagine a dozen different scenarios where this becomes a dramatic masterpiece, but it's just a match, and as far as matches go, it isn't bad. Things that crossed my mind -- the amazing Savage/Santana feud, whether Adonis gaining weight mattered or not, and how concerned Bruno was with his hair, or lack thereof, once they won the bout.

#89 Roderick Strong Roderick Strong vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (PWG, 4/3/15) This match has a whopping 9.26 score on cagematch. With a score that high you'd think it was the second coming of Flair vs. Steamboat. Well, it's not. It's just another ragged indie match. This was my first time seeing Zach Sabre Jr. He was playing a heel, or maybe he wasn't, but either way he seemed like a bit a tosser. I'm in two minds about doing the faux World of Sport style in this day and age. On one hand, it looks out of place in a typical US indie match. On the other hand, it's a point of difference and adds an element of styles makes fights. Having watched hundreds of hours of European wrestling, nothing Sabre did stood out much. His strikes were incredibly limp. However, this isn't about Sabre. It's about Strong. I like Strong. I like most of the Strong matches I've seen. He's a good hand. There have been hundreds of good hands in the history of professional wrestling. Pick your favorite good hand. That guy that you really like. I can guarantee that Roderick Strong isn't better than your favorite hand. You don't get a prize for being consistently good. Roderick Strong, we've got a thing around here called the top 100, and you're not in the top 100.

You've undoubtedly seen more Kandori than I have. I could be way off, but I also like the Kandori/Toyota match more than the Hotta bout, and I don't think fans of the Hotta match will agree with me there.

#90 El Dandy Man, the way El Dandy is treated on cagematch is rubbish. His most well-known matches have been rated (but only by 30-40 people), but he only has something like 17 matches with ratings and half a dozen of those are WCW matches. I suppose that's indicative of what lucha is up against as a whole, but I feel that we've let El Dandy down a bit. We were so excited to discover his work in 2006 and were championing him so hard, then we kind of abandoned him. People move on and watch other things, and Dandy didn't add to his case a lot after the Navarro feud, but hopefully as Loss enters the '89-90 period with Wrestling Playlists, there will be a Dandy revival. Chavo Guerrero Jr., Juventud Guerrera, Lizmark Jr. & Super Calo vs. El Dandy, La Parka, Psychosis & Silver King (WCW, 1/24/98) I'm fairly certain I've seen this before, but I'd seen everything else on the list and I was curious as to why Dave gave this four stars. It's not a bad match, but it's no different to a match they could have had on Nitro or Thunder and not what I'd consider four stars. Dandy is in it. His stuff looks good as he was fairly fit around this time period, but he's not a major participant in the bout. It's most notable for Parka attacking everyone with his chair afterwards. Interestingly, WCW may have spawned a thousand La Parka fans and all the El Dandy doubt, thereby making them responsible for their individual placements on the GWE list. I wish I'd seen something better for El Dandy, but cagematch is clearly not the place for lucha hidden gem research.

If I didn't make it clear, I'd take Kandori and Nakamura out of the top 100.

#91 Shinsuke Nakamura Kota Ibushi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (NJPW 1/4/15) I honestly can't remember which Nakamura New Japan matches I've seen. There's a good chance that I've seen this before. I know that I definitely haven't seen his WWE work, but I figured that he made the top 100 based mostly on his New Japan run. His entrance immediately reminded me of why I never vibed with Nakamura. His look was different for wrestling but not different from what a lot of non-salary men types are continuing to do today. He borrowed a lot of his showmanship from punk rock and J-Rock, and part of me thinks I should like it, but at the end of the day my Japanese wrestling hero is Akira Maeda and Nakamura is not Akira Maeda. He's fairly restrained here (by Nakamura standards) outside of his entrance. The problem is that Ibushi isn't that interesting. Nakamura may act like he's on speed, but Ibushi is plain boring. I liked the finishing stretch here, but five stars? Not in my sky.

This was presumably part of the build to the Hokuto/Satomura singles match. It's a typically messy GAEA match that favors heat over match structure. They cram a good 25 minute match into 13 minutes, which may be merciful depending on how much you like Joshi. The finish is exciting and the post match brawling is cool. You definitely leave feeling you've seen something good even if it's not quite as good as it could have been. Ozaki isn't far removed from her prime. She gives herself a hideous, unnecessary crimson mask, scraps, gets thrown around like a ragdoll, and sells great. I don't think she quite clicks with Hokuto as they're too similar, but she doesn't detract from the main storyline of Hokuto going after mother bear and baby cub. The Hokuto/Satomura match is one of the great matches of the early 00s, IMO, which makes the setup worth seeing even if it's pure setup rather than a great match on its own.

#92 Mayumi Ozaki Ozaki is a bit of a strange one. She has an overall 9.14 rating, but cagematch users have only rated a small fraction of her matches. It's a mix of her most well-known matches and random stuff from this century that I've never heard of. I'm intrigued by that stuff, but at the same time I'm not sure that I trust cagematch ratings. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura (GAEA 3/11/01) This was presumably part of the build to the Hokuto/Satomura singles match. It's a typically messy GAEA match that favors heat over match structure. They cram a good 25 minute match into 13 minutes, which may be merciful depending on how much you like Joshi. The finish is exciting and the post match brawling is cool. You definitely leave feeling you've seen something good even if it's not quite as good as it could have been. Ozaki isn't far removed from her prime. She gives herself a hideous, unnecessary crimson mask, scraps, gets thrown around like a ragdoll, and sells great. I don't think she quite clicks with Hokuto as they're too similar, but she doesn't detract from the main storyline of Hokuto going after mother bear and baby cub. The Hokuto/Satomura match is one of the great matches of the early 00s, IMO, which makes the setup worth seeing even if it's pure setup rather than a great match on its own.

This was pretty great. Wrestlers, I'm telling you, if you hate a guy, I mean really, really hate a guy, it's much better if you beat him up in and around the ring than in the bowels of the arena. Just letting you now. This obviously had great heat and a ton of fantastic violence. I loved how much Joe was enjoying throwing cats around at the start of the match. It was a nice bit of juxtaposition to the rage he showed after the bout was over. I like Necro Butcher. I mean, how could you not? He looks like a mentally ill vagrant, and has such a simple, direct approach to wrestling. Loved all of his exchanges with Joe, and the exchanges with Whitmer. Super Dragon was low key great in a style of bout that you don't automatically associate him with. Hero seemed to be ducking the action a bit. Perhaps the camera man wasn't following him, or the editor didn't find any shots he liked. I thought his selling was a bit iffy at times. They could have trimmed the fat a bit, but it was a heck of a spectacle, and a great set up for the Cage of Death match.

I may be the only person in PWO history excited for a Randy Orton vs. Shawn Michaels match. The thing I appreciate about this match is that it's a non-standard WWE match. It feels like Michaels and Orton are working instead of acting out some predetermined match layout. You can argue that the work doesn't go anywhere but at least it feels organic. I've ragged on Michaels a bunch in the past, but I really like this 2005-07 period of his comeback. He brought back a lot of old-school matwork during this run. At a time when everyone was trying to mimic the UFC, he was out there getting pops off a backslide. Orton is also strangely non-formulaic for a guy who everyone says can't work. The finish of the match is amusing. Michaels spazzes out after hitting the Savage elbow, trying to get the crowd into it. It's classic over-the-top Michaels bullshit. He tunes up the band and Orton hits him in the balls while he's going for the superkick. It's a bullshit finish in terms of Orton getting DQ'ed and retaining his title. That's a crappy rule that doesn't make any sense. Why didn't Orton just low blow him in the opening minute if he didn't care about losing the bout? At the same time, Michaels it for all of his carry-on before the superkick. I enjoyed this match for the most part, but the finish pretty much ruined it.

I was expecting this to be a bigger style match with plenty of nearfalls, though to be honest I don't know if that was McGuinness' style of match. Instead, this was tightly focused on head shots and attempts to decapitate each other using the ropes on moves to the outside. It was brutal at times, but captivating. Maybe it's me, but I don't think you should be allowed to hit a guy with a tope when he has his back turned to you. Topes are dangerous at the best of times let alone when get hit from behind. I'm guessing he was concussed. I don't think his selling was that good. Then again, he was able to continue with the match, so who really knows. I was into the finish. I don't know my ROH title lineage so I thought Aries might pull it off. Good fight even if it was a bit hairy at times.

This was OK, I guess. It kind of showed an alternative universe where Morishima was a classic pro-wrestling heel instead of a working big man. I don't know if either version is truly satisfying. This was one of those matches where Danielson's goofy selling reminds me of Backlund except Backlund never had the vicious offense that Danielson dishes out.

#93 Necro Butcher Necro Butcher may be the lowest cagematch ranked wrestler to make the top 100 at 6.96. Team CZW (Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon) vs. Team ROH (Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer & Samoa Joe) (ROH, 4/22/06) This was pretty great. Wrestlers, I'm telling you, if you hate a guy, I mean really, really hate a guy, it's much better if you beat him up in and around the ring than in the bowels of the arena. Just letting you now. This obviously had great heat and a ton of fantastic violence. I loved how much Joe was enjoying throwing cats around at the start of the match. It was a nice bit of juxtaposition to the rage he showed after the bout was over. I like Necro Butcher. I mean, how could you not? He looks like a mentally ill vagrant, and has such a simple, direct approach to wrestling. Loved all of his exchanges with Joe, and the exchanges with Whitmer. Super Dragon was low key great in a style of bout that you don't automatically associate him with. Hero seemed to be ducking the action a bit. Perhaps the camera man wasn't following him, or the editor didn't find any shots he liked. I thought his selling was a bit iffy at times. They could have trimmed the fat a bit, but it was a heck of a spectacle, and a great set up for the Cage of Death match. Claudio's cameo at the end was better than anything in the AEW match. There's your Claudio match, folks.

Man, I wanna see those matches.

You could kind of sense it coming, though I don't think anyone expected it to be mid-series. I wish he had held on a little longer, but NZ don't play enough test cricket for him to reach the milestones I was hoping for. I'd still call Hadlee our greatest cricketer, but Williamson is definitely our finest batsman.

#94 Claudio Castagnoli Same deal as Kingston. Kenny Omega, Swerve Strickland, The Opps (Katsuyori Shibata, Powerhouse Hobbs & Samoa Joe) & Willow Nightingale (w/Prince Nana) vs. Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley, Marina Shafir & Wheeler Yuta) & The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson), Anarchy In The Arena Match (AEW, 5/25/25) What the fuck was this? This was one of the worst matches I've seen in my entire life. I hated crowd brawling and backstage fights while it was happening in the 90s. Why would I want to watch a pussified version of it in 2025? I think Claudio was the guy fighting Fat Joe. He did his giant swing a couple of times later in the match. God the shit later on was awful. The Bucks are awful. Kenny Omega is awful. Claudio deserved a better match than this, but Dave and his wrestling midlife crisis gave this five stars. The CZW match was so much better. I need to go watch a classic concession brawl to wash the taste of this match out of my mouth with mustard and ketchup.

That's probably true. I was just getting into it and it ended. I might watch it again at some point knowing that it goes short.

#95 Eddie Kingston Team Cash (Chris Cash, JC Bailey, Nate Webb & Sexxxy Eddy) vs. BLKOUT (Jack Evans, King, Ruckus & Sabian) (w/Maven Bentley & Robby Mireno) (c), CZW Tag Team Title Cage Of Death War Games Match (CZW, 12/11/04) I've only seen a handful of Eddie Kingston matches, though I'm aware of the following he has. Multi-man matches aren't the best way to judge a worker, but the rules are the rules and if I start making exceptions now I'm going to start cherry picking the type of matches I want to see. This was early in Kingston's career, so I'm not going to make too many judgements. It was a wild indie War Games match with more than a few insane spots. Kingston is eliminated fairly early on. The biggest impression he leaves is probably before the bout starts when he's jawing with the fans. I don't know where the line between the person and the performer was drawn, but he came across as legit. His work was sloppy and unathletic, but he was good at selling and was involved in some cool spots. I liked the shot of him selling his hand. That type of attention to detail will always get you extra points. Kingston kinda came out of this match unscathed compared to a lot of the other dudes. There was a part where a guy put a trash can over his head and did a moonsault off the top of the cage. I couldn't decide whether it was mad genius or the stupidest shit I'd ever seen. Props for staying inside the can though. There was a spot afterwards where he was upside down in the can with his legs sticking out. It was like a kid playing with his action figures or something. Some of the eliminations off the top of the cage to the outside were ill-advised. They were lucky no-one broke their neck. I don't love these types of matches, but I'm not a complete puritan. I doubt I'll ever watch it again, but as a one time deal there was enough batshit insanity for me to keep an eye on. Dudes marking out with their bros probably enjoyed it more. Eddie Kingston was a part of this match. That's all I've got.

#96 Shinobu Kandori We've come a long way since the days of people believing Kandori was carried at Dream Slam. I don't think we should dismiss those opinions of Kandori outright. There's value in figuring out why the Kunzes and Lorefices felt that way about her as a worker. It's not as though people have been doing a deep dive on Kandori's JWP and LLPW work. Jetlag did some of the legwork on that, but let's face it, it requires watching a lot of LLPW. Aside from the odd match or two, voters are drawing from the same pool of matches. Fans in the past had access to the same matches -- the Hokuto feud, the Bull chain match, the Devil Masami match, etc. Kandori's case isn't based on anything new except for perhaps some recommended JWP bouts and the Devil handheld. So what has changed in the intervening years? Shinobu Kandori vs. Yumiko Hotta (LLPW, 3/21/98) I pretty much hate Yumiko Hotta, so I thought this would be like eating my Brussels sprouts. Then I started watching it and, in the moment, I thought it was awesome. Hotta was bleeding, and there was a bunch of cool shoot style shit. At one point, I thought it was easily the best match I've watched thus far. Then it ended after 12 minutes. Jesus fuck. This thing was not paced to end after 12 minutes. At least not as far as my biological viewing clock is concerned. How the hell this got 9.26 on cagematch is beyond me. So, what does the match tell us about Kandori? She was good at making scowling faces. She was good at projecting an image of being legit tough because of a combination of her background and rep. She leaned into her Mr. Joshi Puroresu gimmick with her attitude and manner of speaking. She was good at strikes and flash submissions. She had a charisma that was based not only on her toughness but her sense of humor and appearances on variety shows and in comedy sketch pieces. She wasn't very good at selling or transitions. She couldn't carry the narrative of the match. She wasn't a storyteller. This is just my personal take, and perhaps I'm pissed at the match ending after 12 minutes, but I think people are buying into Kandori's image over her actual ability. Her best matches were against Hokuto, Bull and Devil. Great storytellers, great at pushing a narrative. Kandori was a unique and interesting foil, but I don't think a foil should be making the top 100. A creator should make the top 100. She's the first wrestler who I think is undeserving of the top 100, especially because there were a number of better Joshi wrestlers who fell below her.

Sorry, I was mistaken about the Thompson/St. Clair match. I thought it was brought up as an example of a straight fall finish due to an injury and misremembered it completely. Mistakes aside, I still don't see the comparison. The only comparison I can see is that they're both straight fall, 2-0 victories. You seem to be arguing that myself and others would only consider the two submission victory as legitimate, but that was never the argument. The argument was about the execution of the KO finish. I think everyone can agree that the Leduc finish is well-booked. I think it's better than the finish to Thompson/St. Clair, which is fairly standard. Thompson/St. Clair isn't an injury finish or a KO finish, so there's not a lot to compare. Yes, it's effectively the same result, but one is significantly more dramatic than the other. I think Leduc gets an out for the injured "belly." I don't know whether it was his ribs or not. The commentator says he has a cut above the eye. He gets thrown over the top rope by the hair prior to the first finish, and is punched multiple times during the second fall. It's a beating, and a rather stunning one as far a the crowd is concerned. The commentator keeps harping on about the violence. Calling it an out makes it seem cheap, which I don't want to accuse it of being, but it definitely sets up the possibility of a rematch, and I don' think it makes Leduc look weak in any shape or form. A lot of the injury finishes in WoS are sold as unlucky. It's a different type of finisher. Off the top of my head, the only thing I remember being similar to Borreau's move in terms of impact is Kendo's finisher.

Nobody thought Thompson was going to beat St. Clair in that bout except for Thompson's mother. A draw would have been a good result for Thompson. It's not a matter of technical skill or a reflection on Thompson's ability. It's the perception that the promoters created about the weight classes. Lighter wrestlers weren't supposed to beat heavier wrestlers. That's why they "gained" weight to move up a class. If you want to call St. Clair's victory an upset then yes, the injury was an out. I don't consider it an out since I don't think there was any way Thompson was winning, and I don't think they would have booked Thompson to beat St. Clair in the first place since it doesn't make any sense and doesn't help business. The only way I could see Thompson winning was if they were moving him up a class and wanted to give him an extra push, but I'm not sure they'd use a rookie to put him over. The entire point of the match was to give the new kid a rub without making Thompson look bad. It's so commonplace that you don't batter an eyelid. The Leduc match, on the other hand, was completely out of the ordinary. There's a difference between destroying an opponent with two KOs and a typical injury finish. No one is arguing that the former isn't legitimate. You can't seem to distinguish the difference. I don't know why. If you watch the Leduc match properly, you will see the case for foul play. In any event, it's a great finish and there's no reason to turn it into a thesis on why everyone is wrong about the finishes in WoS. They're not even connected. I would be extremely surprised if any booker, or worker, in the UK ever had the finish to that Leduc match in mind when they came up with some cheap way to finish the match without jobbing.