ohtani's jacket

His wife is an actress and TV celebrity. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer after becoming pregnant and had to undergo a hysterectomy to treat the cancer (forcing her to lose the baby.) They used a surrogate mother in the States to give birth to twin boys, but Japan being Japan, there are also sorts of archaic laws surrounding surrogacy. She eventually lost her legal battle to be registered as the boys' legal mother, but her case generated huge debate. Takada was most recently in the news for heart issues he's been having.

I don't think you could have scripted Brisco, Junior, and Robinson falling in succession.

I'm inclined to believe the list is more random than AEW-ccentric, otherwise surely MJF and Hangman Page would have done better (I'm assuming.) Strong showing for Black Terry. Not so great for Dick Murdoch and Fit Finlay, though not terrible.

I will say, in all seriousness, that I have a lot of respect for Takada's wife, and the battle the couple went through to be recognized as the legal parents of their surrogate children.

Well, I mean obviously I like seeing him get kicked in the head by Maeda.

I was joking. Kind of.

There were people who watched ROH and the indies in '06, but you had to buy those tapes. At the time, it was the equivalent of people who bought ECW tapes during the Monday Night Wars. A lot of us were spending our money on Japanese tapes instead.

How does a wrestler like Hayabusa stay in the discussion? That's not a knock on Hayabusa, I'm just curious to know. For some reason Terry Gordy popped into my head. Either he's in the top 150 or not on the list at all?

I should add to this that there were generations of fans before us that would have voted very differently had the list been done in 1996. We were reacting to collective internet wisdom as much as the 2026 list is. We just tended to go backwards into the past instead of focusing on the now.

It actually wasn't. None of the ROH/TNA guys made the top 100. They may have done if there had been a wider voting base. It was mostly a tight knit group made up of voters from several different boards. Most of the trends reflected the tape trading that was popular at the time. I remember there was some discussion about how guys like AJ Styles and Danielson would do in the future.

F--king Nobuhiko Takada. That's about 700 places too high.

I don't remember seeing Ohtani yet.

Interesting that MJF dropped. The plot thickens. 90s Juniors aren't doing as badly as predicted.

Maybe he likes Reigns' star power. Just like some people are gonna vote for the Undertaker because he was the phenom. These things matter more than people give them credit for.

To be honest, I'm not sure that Kikuchi was great for 12 straight years. I can't even remember what he did between those early 90s six-mans, his matches against the CanAm and his feud with Liger. Likewise there were a lot of years where Fuchi didn't do much. It reminds me a bit of the argument people used to make that Casas was one of the best in the world from 1987 to 20-and whatever. I think there is a lot more ebb and flow to most people's careers with purple patches and pockets of greatness. Unless you're Devil Masami, who I think was legitimately great from 1977-1997.

DiBiase did better than expected given there were people who actively wanted him to fall. I don't think Pirata could have done much better, either, even if talent-wise he was probably a top 100 worker during his peak. Jake Robert and Ultimo Dragon are the type of workers who seem to show up no matter what. I thought Reigns would make the top 100, but I guess the voting base leans more toward AEW. Don't see an issue with anyone voting him number one. You should be able to vote whoever you want as number one based on the anyone can vote ethos.

It's weird that Fuchi finished so much higher than Kikuchi, but I guess those two aren't joined at the hip. I'm not mad at Tito's ranking. That's a decent showing for him. Quietly happy for Ultimo Guerrero as well. Pretty much anyone in the top 200 is a winner.

Maybe, but for all intents and purposes, something like Kyoko vs. Lioness from J'd is just as substantial as anything Toyota did post-exodus. It seems to me that people are even spottier on post-1994 Joshi than they were back in the day. The focus seems to be on Dump-era AJW, the inter-promotional era, and Stardom or whatever the new stuff entails. I suppose those periods mark the highs, so it makes sense, but Kyoko has as much volume as any of the others. I dunno if she ever did anything good in NEO, but it's possible that it holds up similar to the veterans' work in GAEA.

I'm curious to hear how Mascaras improved his 2016 placement given how many territory guys have fallen. I don't think it's because of new footage. There must be some sort of discussion about him happening somewhere. Either that or elliott has huge pull with his Mascaras vs. Graham pimping.

You never really hear people talk about Kyoko Inoue these days. i think I left her off my ballot, and I was a big Kyoko fan back in the day. Smarkschoice was pro-Joshi, which accounts for the high placings in 2006. We did a separate women's poll, as well as various other lists.

This was okay from a technical standpoint, but not a very interesting match. I should have known better, though, since Danielson wrestling as a fish out of water against Go Shiozaki was never gonna do it for me unless they went a bit harder, which Shiozaki only showed glimpses of.

Is the Fabulous Ones match?

Peak Edge may be the Matt Hardy feud.

Ronnie Garvin is an interesting case. There was a real push in 2016 to highlight what a great worker Garvin was instead of being sandbagged as the worst guy to win the NWA title. Now that he's slipped back to where he was before, I wonder if that's a true reflection of where he stands and perhaps 2016 was an outlier.

Steve Grey not making the top 200 is disappointing. If you are a Steve Grey fan, you know this is wrong. My only solace is that cad was the high voter.