Clayton Jones

I revisited this match tonight and it was much better than I remembered. I could see the criticisms of a few minutes of bloat but otherwise I was hooked on the back and forth. Peaks and valleys indeed. Their match from March is certainly better and more suited to their strengths at this time but this was still pretty damn good. Maybe great. Everyone had a clear role to play, especially Akiyama with his disappointed thousand yard stare. I thoroughly enjoyed this and feel like it largely got a bad rap by a guy who doesn't know that Ricky Marvin was a world class worker in the mid 2000s.

From the Spectrum, a 10 minute walk from my house growing up. My parents used to always tell me how popular Putski was, and they weren't lying. This was good crisp tag team wrestling while it lasts, which unfortunately isn't long at all. A fun watch for what it was.

And I also couldn't agree more.

I peaked in here to see if anyone had mentioned this and am very glad someone did.

If I'm going to be objective Jim Breaks is the greatest British pro wrestler of all-time. Why he he had an ex-wife who was 33 years younger than him is one of those things that feels wrong right off the bat. How a situation like this could occur, faculties about him or not, just reinforces that doubt. Just awful all around.

Disgusting response.

This sounds much closer to my opinion of this match than most reviews I read. I thought these guys did one hell of a job adapting and most likely turning in a more focused and meaningful performance as a result of the circumstances. When they stood toe to toe my first thought was "I hope they just beat the hell out of each other" and because of the ropes they pretty much had to do just that. The second rope break probably didn't do the match any favors but on a whole I thought this was brutal, gritty, and engaging. Also worth noting that Leonard did a great job on commentary (besides his strange emphasis on Lee trying to break out as a singles wrestler for the first time) and the match was shot beautifully.

I just sat down to this match for the second time and it floored me the first time I watched it and it did so again this time. A lot of great joshi is about the emotion more than the execution or even sometimes the internal logic, but this match strikes an impressive balance between all of those factors. Satomura feels more like a force of nature than a wrestler here. As others have said it's Aja's match, but even for the first half as she dominates you can tell that there's something about Meiko that is throwing her off her game. She does a fantastic job of subtlety showing frustration and especially that Satomura is doing more damage than she wants to let on when she does get her rare offense. That's a hard story to even articulate let alone convey through pro wrestling but Aja does it beautifully. Too often she tries to do things her way instead of taking Satomura out as efficiently as possible and as the match plays out it starts to backfire on her. At times it feels like her hubris is going to be her downfall. And to Meiko's credit the amount of fire and tenacity she shows is second to none and makes you believe she can actually pull this thing out. This match is fantastic, I wish it had been on the stage and spotlight that joshi had in its prime.

I just watched this for the second time and while this feud probably gets a lot of attention for the impressively athletic exchanges these two innovated, on second viewing the psychology of the match was what really impressed me. What starts out as a friendly game of one-upmanship gets increasingly competitive and snug as the lower weight class underdog Grey continuously gets the better of Myers. In the first round or so Myers almost seems a little dismissive of Grey in a good natured way but that doesn't last long. As we get into the later rounds Myers becomes increasingly aggressive, taking a handshake opportunity to almost attack Grey, landing some tight shots and throws. He also eventually turns the tide decisively in his favor which leads to Grey opening up late throwing caution to the wind in the attempt of victory. This is a beautiful match and among the best I've seen from Britain.

Wow, even by big match joshi standards this was something else. There was a moment in the last five minutes or so where I stopped thinking about the match critically and just went with it because it was too damn enthralling. More than a spotfest but also just as much spectacle as it is a match, I think the reason it could be misinterpreted as a spotfest is because it's based more around pride and respect than it is around hate. But still, it hardly felt like the point of this match was to execute cool moves, there was much more on the line than that.

I generally see the previous match get more praise but this is more my speed. The structure of this match is brilliant and with 20+ minutes of heated, logical and nasty tag action you can see how the next generation of AJPW mastered the art of heavyweight tag matches with this foundation. One of my favorite things about this match is how at multiple points it breaks down to grown men straight up slapping each other in the face, and not at all in the modern "test your machismo" kind of way, but in a "I fucking hate you and want to punk you" kind of way. Any time there's a submission that could be seen as a resthold the opposing team breaks it up before it can become tiresome. The champs do a great job playing to their size and playing up the underdog nature of the match. For someone who is criticized for taking nights off, it's crazy to me how much Jumbo puts of himself into matches like this. The four pillars +Akyiama definitely learned this from him and I love seeing a bigger guy use his entire body language to convey what's happening and not just to get himself over. Loved the finish as well.

Kong/Toyota was very good, this was great. They picked their spots more effectively, played to their strengths better, and knew when to take things home. In a fairly limited amount of viewing this is the best Kyoko performance I've seen. She has a tendency to try to do too much and against a force like Kansai that felt very reigned in. This was top notch from start to finish.

He literally worked his leg over for 14 minutes of a 22 minute match. If you don't consider that the body of the match then you are wrong.

Now that my memory is sufficiently jogged this also brings to mind some really good IWAMS matches VS Aries and Hero, the Hero one in particular being something special with the kind of reaction they get out of 50 or so fans for the entire duration. Also a pair of good matches VS Strong in FIP back when they were working in front of mostly empty seats as well and Strong was still a ways off as a singles wrestler. Which then brings to mind a great Joe/Whitmer VS Aries/Strong tag title match in ROH, which leads to a very good Strong singles match that shows a great progression. And all of that also reminds me that Joe has one of the 5 or so best BJ Whitmer singles matches ever to his credit on the first show of the CZW feud, Hell Freezes Over. And then I just noticed you only have one of the two Lethal matches, I'm not sure which date you have listed but both Manhattan Mayhem and Steel Cage Warfare are very good, bordering great matches. I also just assumed you had the impromptu Manhattan Mayhem main event which treads that "great angle, good match" territory but also builds his resume in terms of versatility. And then you have the other match w/Lethal VS Ki/Cide at Punk's last show which is maybe the best of any of the matches I've mentioned in this post.

Yeah the no selling of the leg work is exactly what I'm talking about. You can still look dominant while having sound psychology. Hase brought the structure, emotion, executed better, had better transitions, and was a world class babyface bell to bell. The finish would have been just as good and surprising had Hashimoto sold the great work Hase put in for more than half the match. And all of this wouldn't be such a noticeable detractor from the match had Hashimoto not chosen to go to flying kicks for the majority of his offense. The Ogawa feud is admittedly a blind spot for me and something I have on my long list of matches to check out. Once again thanks for the match recommendation.

I just watched this for the first time. First off thanks very much for the recommendation, I'd never heard about this one, and obviously love their '94 title match and also thoroughly enjoyed a shorter match I have on DVD somewhere between the two of them, I believe also from a G1. This was a ton of fun but almost all the positives were brought by Hase. Hashimoto's lack of selling actively hurts the match and keeps it from being great. There was one amazing moment from Hash where he starts pounding on Hase's back basically saying "why won't you stay down?!?" But otherwise when Hash goes into his stretch run this almost comes off the rails and is only brought back by a truly great finish. And I feel like I often have this problem with Hash. I love Hashimoto. There are very few wrestlers I get as excited to watch as him. But in terms of his actual catalog of matches I tend to side with Loss' comment a month back. And the problems with this Hase match, where there are really great ideas planted in the match that are wasted on a less than great finishing run and lack of coherence, are Hash problems that I don't think are exclusive to this match. I know it's often explained as not having the caliber of opponents they had in AJPW or the difference in strong style VS king's road, and I think there's validity to both those points. In particular the lack of one or two career defining rivals during his peak is a huge issue that held Hashimoto back from realizing his full potential. But I also think eventually you need to consider that Hash himself had some shortcomings that caused this lack of all-time great matches he left behind. I hate to even criticize the guy. His aura was second to none and I love watching him wrestle. These are just nagging thoughts I've had watching him for a long time that were hammered home by the Hase match.

Great list Woof. Those Homicide matches get criminally overlooked, that feud was one of my favorites that year. I also completely forgot about the Morishima match which is such a great departure from the NOAH style for Morishima. It felt like a culmination of all the 90s NJPW heavyweight Joe had emulated over the years truly becoming his own. A blind spot in your list is his PWG run, which I don't think was extensive but had two more very good bordering great matches VS Danielson, and two matches VS Super Dragon which are must watches. The first one is great and one of my favorite matches from either guys career as it's Dragon VS an outsider monster done better than maybe PWG ever did otherwise. The rematch is much more even which a lot of people didn't like about it at the time but I still thought it was very good. Also strangely absent on your list are his matches during the CZW feud. With the Cage of Death being more storyline driven with his role I could see leaving off, but the 6 man from the 100th show of him Pearce & Whitmer VS Hero/Dragon/Necro is a classic.

I'd disagree with a fair amount of that list but he definitely had the best match I've ever seen of Brad Bradley's career.

I couldn't agree more with GOTNW and have been saying as much about heavyweight Otani for a long time. While the '95-97 run is what cements him in my top 25 for certain, his consistently fun work as a heavyweight doesn't hinder him at all either. The three matches opposite Murakami are ones I can go back to over and over again.

The idea he was never legitimately booed in ROH is simply not true. If you had been there live for the matches he had in his feud with Delirious for example, you would have felt that the majority of those crowds were sincerely behind Delirious and against Danielson. When they would chant "same old shit" during matches like this it was not tongue in cheek. I think to an extent ROH crowds are being given too much credit for being super smart because the major matches that everyone has seen are in front of the largest crowds such as NYC and Chicago. Your average ROH crowd was still full of mouth breathing mongoloids of all walks who were just as prone to overreaction and flavor of the month groupthink as your typical pro wrestling crowd. So yes, during this time period there were legitimately large groups of fans who thought Danielson was boring and needed to go as champ. And he played to that perfectly and hand crafted babyface reactions for mid card guys like Delirious, Strong, and Cabana that were beyond what they achieved for the vast majority of their careers. And another great match from this run that flies in the face of the argument that he played to the crowd too much is VS Shelley during the whole CZW deal. That's a great piece of working against a crowd to draw them in and definitely in my top 10 in Danielson's career.

Totally forgot to mention his match VS Steen in ROH which at that point in Steen's career was the best singles match I've seen from him.

That Super Dragon match is an all-time great and maybe better than the Joe match. Other great Necro matches that haven't been mentioned here would include VS Scorpio, Klein multiple times, Masada, Homicide, insanely fun tags with Klein VS the H8 Club, tagging with Pondo VS the Briscoes, really good matches VS Kingston, JC Bailey, Corporal Robinson, Danielson... and I feel like I'm still only scratching the surface.

Eddie is one of the only people to ever make me like watching Kurt Angle wrestle. He is the only person I can think of to have not only good, but great matches with JBL. He had my favorite parking lot brawl ever VS Cena in 2003 at a time I couldn't care less about John Cena. Eddie made Chavo look charismatic and worlds better than he was. He was the first person to make me realize Big Show could be good. This is all speaking to points CapitalTTruth made in his excellent post above, but really he could find a way to sell just about anything. He wasn't a "great match" wrestler and yet he had plenty of great matches. I'm sure everyone has written off the Malenko matches but aside from the 2/3 falls blowjob exhibition on the way out I think there's some good stuff in there. And they have a WCW handheld that is better than any of their ECW matches. I love the Scorpio TV Title change as well, the only criticisms I have of that match are with Scorp's big match meandering tendencies. I don't put as much stock in this as some, but also keep in mind he was world class both as a heel and a face. There was a time when he was a lock for my top 10 and that may not be the case anymore but I couldn't imagine any lower than top 15 or 20.

I agree that the more limb focused style was refreshing as far as joshi in that era, which had as much to do with Aja's selling as it did Kudo's offense. I don't think Kudo wrestles a great match fundamentally though in that by the end she's working as if she's the dominant heel. Like I said I could be wrong about how I perceived her role going in, but if she's supposed to be a sympathetic underdog then I don't think she was an especially good one.