Clayton Jones

This was really good and had an interesting dynamic with the Can Ams not really playing babyface but still clearly having strong fan support. I'm probably in the minority on this but I thought Kawada was the weakest of the four in this one. That's not a big knock considering everyone brought their A game here. But at times he reminded me of an annoying character from a Nintendo game, jumping all over the place spamming kicks, then crumpling the second he got hit. Fuyuki was full of piss and vinegar and this was yet another great AJPW performance from Kroffat and Furnas. I liked the pace of this and really dug the finishing stretch.

Does Roddy Piper work the only compelling babyface nervehold in pro wrestling history in this match? Damn he is great in this, this is the best I've seen from Wiskowski/DeBeers, and in large part I think it was because he had to turn it up against Piper. You could see with some of Roddy's punch combos Easy Ed was hoping they'd end a punch or two earlier with how he was selling. No such luck. As a result though I don't think I've ever seen his heel offense look this convincing and build this much heat in a singles match. Each fall was paced exactly how you'd hope for a TV main event, with an equally fitting BS finish. But then Piper just keeps working his ass off after the bell to send everyone home satisfied and chomping at the bit for next Wednesday. This rocked.

It was interesting seeing Rey and Psicosis on opposite sides but not pair off hardly at all. Heavy Metal is not as dynamic an opponent for Rey as Psicosis or Juvi although some of his stalling and preening is entertaining. Psicosis is great throughout this match, bumping big, laying in his offense when he can, building to the tecnicos' spots beautifully. Correcting a few missteps along the way as well. But on a whole this was a pretty forgettable trios.

While I can't agree with Sleeze's Gary Hart hate, I do generally agree with his assessment of this match. Excellent Funk performance but just a pretty good match overall. Something about the way Mark Lewin wrestles feels small to me. It's fascinating watch Funk punch down but more so laterally down, figuratively speaking here. He gives a lot but always feels like the much bigger star and the more explosive performer. There were aspects of this that were frustrating but generally in a way that built anticipation for a rematch. Well worth a watch and one of the more interesting Terry matches I've watched in a while.

Akiyama very well might end up my #1, so saying Taue isn't better than him isn't saying much for me.

I agree completely. That Rikio match is the best singles I've seen from him and I love Taue in the No Fear match. I haven't started in on my GWE Taue viewing yet but he's popped up when I've been focusing on other candidates (Akiyama, Vader, Kobashi). While he might not always be the most outstanding wrestler in a match, he's almost always one of the smartest and giving one of the best efforts. I simply love watching the man wrestle no matter what role he's in. I'll have to watch the Kea and Gunn/Ace matches, I appreciate the recommendations!

I thought this was a low key classic, really light and breezy for its length. I'd seen the Funks VS Baba/Jumbo from this RWTL before, and that's also great, but on first watch I liked this match even better. The hierarchy and the different exchanges each pairing brought were fascinating. This felt like a sporting contest in a way few matches do, with pride, strategy, and luck all playing factors. I could see some of Jetlag's criticisms of Dory after the fact but in the moment watching the match his performance felt just right as the elder statesman of his team and probably the highest ranking wrestler in the match. I would say this is a great way to spend your time if you like more methodical technical stuff and have the time to invest!

I watched some Strong matches this time around that had some similarities but saw him thrive in a variety of roles. Roderick Strong (c) VS PAC - ROH FIP Championship 3/3/2007 Will Ospreay VS Roderick Strong - Southside Wrestling 7/18/2015 These matches both saw Roddy going overseas and taking on the local bland as porridge up and coming high flyer. He is a tremendous base, one of the best of his generation, and he makes both of these current stars look like a million bucks at points in their career when I saw very little in them. Strong's growth over these 8 years is impressive too, with a confidence in the Ospreay match to totally take the crowd on a ride he hadn't mastered back in his earlier ROH days. He also gets more out of less VS Ospreay but the PAC match is hardly overkill and has one hell of Fuck You finish. Dojo Bros VS Biff Busick/Drew Gulak - Beyond Wrestling 9/15/2013 Roderick Strong (c) VS Keith Lee VS Donovan Dijakovic - NXT North American Championship 10/23/2019 Both of these had Strong as a featured star while getting over a feud he wasn't the focus of. He was great in both, although once again you can see a lot of growth in those 6 years. In the Beyond tag he's a dream partner coming to aid his Dojo Bro against his arch rival Biff Busick (this Eddie/Biff feud is a really wonderful piece of booking). In the NXT title defense he has to look like a strong Champion literally wedged between two big big bad dudes trying to hash out their own rivalry. In both matches he carries himself with great presence while still building intrigue for the guys around him. His tag work has been well documented although his team with Edwards is probably the least covered and had a surprising amount of good output. The tag is more ambitious than the 3 way, it does lose its way a bit by the end, but is impressingly character driven and layered for a big indie tag. The NXT match is a breath of fresh air as 3 ways suck, WWE 3 ways suck even worse, and it'd be easy for Strong to look like an afterthought or to overcompensate. Instead as he usually does he strikes a nice balance and makes his opponents look great while keeping himself over big. GWE viewing has been a lot of fun so far but I particularly enjoyed Strong's work in all four of these matches.

Abby Jr has a good shot at my list, his highs put him among the best deathmatch wrestlers all-time. However I feel like I'm often a bit disappointed when I dig past his greatest hits, so I'm really hoping to discover some new favorite performances when I start focusing on him.

I honestly think this discussion has been very useful even if it is reaching an impasse. I've considered the same exact issues about the earlier well-preserved footage often coming from territories that were workrate focused (which makes some sense would also put priority on maintaining archives). I'd love more footage that would paint a fuller picture for guys like Destroyer, Brisco, Robinson, so many lucha candidates, so on and so forth. Clearly the decision then becomes how much weight do you put on what we have to be able to make a 1:1 comparison to someone like Danielson. I don't think I could do the same thing with wrestlers we have exclusively clipped footage of but I also don't think it's a total leap of logic to use the same method to try and compare them, when era VS era will always require some amount of these kind of mental gymnastics. There's no easy answers but that's what makes this project so compelling to me.

I appreciate it! I'll be sure to check it out.

Thanks!! I was coming up empty searching around for it.

Interesting, I never read that before, but having seen that match I'm not surprised. That makes the rest of his career that much more fascinating, that he still had so much more to give. Is the match where he eventually wins the title from Fuchi worth seeking out? Did it air in full?

Absolutely awful. One of the best heels I've ever seen live. Listening to him on the Art of Wrestling I felt his struggles so clearly, I've had too many friends fight the same battles. I wish things could have ended differently for him. What a talent.

I think he's worth considering but after my first round of viewing I'd categorize him as a longshot. He's so consistently very good but despite a handful of great matches to his name I'd struggle to call him great. But I will still spend more time exploring his career and am curious to see what comes in the future. I actually have been a fan of most of his NXT work I've seen, the WALTER match, the mini feud with Escobar, even the Gargano match that I had low expectations for. I agree completely that his tag work with Shelley deserves more attention and really helps round out his case. How do people feel about his pre-NJPW work and his early years there? I'm totally ignorant in these areas.

This was solid but I actually liked the match where KUSHIDA won the title a good amount better. The stipulation felt like it hampered the match here as they had to stick to certain aspects of the formula instead of growing on what they had done previously organically. Still there were good moments here, KUSHIDA's mid air readjustment on his cartwheel dropkick was beautiful, and Escobar was a treat once again. I watched very little NXT this year and I'm glad I went back and made time for these matches.

Kikuchi felt like a personal pick on my rough draft but I'm really not sure after my first round of watching. I might have him underrated sneaking in late. The deciding factor for me will be the mid to late 90s. Was he underused? Just hadn't found his next chapter of his career yet? I watched him teaming with Marufuji VS Naniwa & Hashi from the Baba memorial show in '99 and thought Kikuchi did a very good job directing traffic. In a pretty nothing match otherwise he was equally good taking it to Hashi and as a dance partner for Naniwa's routine. For opposite ends of his career I also watched his '92 fan cam with Kawada VS the Can Ams that Segunda Caida covered and the Akiyama match from 2006 Case mentioned above. Great stuff in both, I love how Kikuchi is never on his heels, always moving forward, always making his opponent react to what he's doing. Or he's selling his ass off. At his best he's such a compelling performer, like a character out of a Spaghetti Western more than a Japanese pro wrestler.

I will say as someone who just watched the sets and voted, I enjoyed DiBiase's matches on average much more than Inoki's, and it's unlikely either makes my GWE ballot.

There were more sets planned but the project died off during the Portland and Puerto Rico voting process from what I remember.

Cap nailed everything I came here to say. I'm not quite as high on it but this was a real revelation to me for where both were at in their careers. I'd expect Devil to be able to run a match close to this but the way she took this over and made a statement out of it turned it into a career moment. Kandori showing flashes of what she'd become and even just being malleable enough to let Masami sculpt this match is impressive in its own right. A great moment in wrestling history and a very good match.

This had a lot of good stuff but a lot of issues. I think by working so evenly with Aja overall Kyoko did herself a disservice as the Ace, not effectively portraying her struggle and perseverance. The early stretch where it was worked more like you'd expect had me really hopeful and even some of the work outside was very good. But by the end transitions were sloppy, stuff happened just to set up the next sequences, nothing really flowed. Overall disappointing but not awful.

The recent run of episodes have indeed been great with Will being the highlight even among stiff competition.

With what a lightning rod for controversy WWE has been for decades and decades does anyone think a company that has the means to buy them would ever do so? I hear this theory a lot but it seems so far fetched to me.

Vince watching Bryce Remsburg on AEW "Well God damn, who is this kid, and how did the Khans scout him before us??"