MidasGloves

I think his AEW stuff can give that impression because AEW loves the big prop stunt spots and Darby is the guy most down to do them. His indie work shows that he does have a really rock-solid basis as a wrestler that his willingness to ragdoll himself helps differentiate. If you're a heel and you're working Darby, you're basically leaving money on the table not doing at least one big spot where you chuck his ass halfway across the arena because most guys won't or can't take that. #1 with a bullet for showing what Darby can do without any frills is the WALTER match from 2019 EVOLVE; no gimmicks, no huge bumps, just one of the best David vs Goliath matches ever worked. He has other good work in EVOLVE and DEFY and other major indies right at the end of the 2010s; he only barely began to make a name for himself on the indies before AEW & COVID focused his attention. I swear I saw that he did an interview about five years ago saying he not only doesn't expect to be physically able to wrestle 10 years out, but that he'd be a little disappointed in himself for not going truly all out. If that holds true we're probably going to have Darby's full in-ring career in consideration for 2036.

Possibly the most recently-built case that has an outside chance on my list. If storytelling in wrestling is carried much by a wrestler's body language and facial expressions before, during, and after the actual moves of the match, Miu is a prodigy of wrestling storytelling. She comes out about as pink and cutesy as a wrestler could possibly be, but isn't afraid to work like a hoss and sell both the struggle and lack thereof in the heat of a match. There's selling the struggle of getting off a power move that was blocked or has bad leverage, or selling the anger behind a strike, but then there's moments like in a semi-recent tag to build to Yuki Arai's title match, Yuki has Miu on the mat and is trying to get into a submission and just cannot physically overpower Miu's legs despite having the position of control, and the look of bemusement and "wow, you really can't pull it off huh?" on Miu's face was perfection. And yet, in their title match once Arai got the better of Miu and locked the submission in Miu had a look of agony on her face. That wasn't even her best title match this year, as the Suzume match from early January was phenomenal. In a way it reminds me of John Cena in his prime, walking the tightrope of looking superhuman and still very human in big main event matches and TV-level tags alike. Perhaps it's much too soon to put her on a ballot of the 100 best wrestlers ever, but I think she is practically a lock for 2036 if she keeps this up (and gets to work more in other companies and/or outside of Japan).

Pretty much a perfect #100 pick, agreed with the nomination. I only just made this comparison in my head, but Lulu Pencil is basically the babyface side of the same coin Andy Kaufman is on: a non-wrestler who is not built for wrestling and has no business in a ring but is competing anyway. Whereas you want to see Kaufman take the one bump that will completely take him out, you want to see Lulu dodge that as long as possible or somehow find a way to keep going. Her feud with Chris Brookes alone tells such a great, simple story; you'll never see someone lose a match so triumphantly as their Iron Man together. Her and Emi Sakura made for a great team as well with their huge contrast in style and experience. I'm very much a longevity guy, but as far as short impactful careers go Lulu captured my heart quickly and completely and if that's not encompassing pro wrestling I don't know what is.

Claudio's physical consistency is really remarkable. He's been a freak athlete in basically the same incredible shape for over 20 years now, and all that's changed is that he lost the hair in the early 10s. I don't know if he's a very top-notch wrestler in any one category except for being one of the best bases for smaller high fliers ever, but as his career has gone on he's shown to be excellent in nearly every category in so many different settings (Chikara, wXw, 00s ROH, 10s WWE, AEW, etc). I think what's really won me over with him after all of his prior work is how he's adapted to working in CMLL; something about those crowds in Arena Mexico have unlocked another wrinkle to his work, and ironically I find that CMLL Claudio reminds me a lot of Ultimo Guerrero who is one of the only other contenders for the GOAT base guy. He's not a guy on my shortlist but once I hash out my list of names I think he'll find a way on the ballot.

Liger is definitely making my Top 5. He's incredible in the ring of course in every way this thread has discussed, but he also just ticks so many of my boxes on top of that: incredibly consistent, good until his last match; super innovative in terms of moveset but knew when to adapt it as well; awesome look that he adjusted and changed up several times while always going back to that iconic mask & suit; an insane comeback story of returning to wrestling after brain surgery to remove a tumor in under a year and keeping on for many years after (which resonates a LOT with me); always willing to try new things and put over the younger generations in both Japan and abroad. I was lucky enough to see him wrestle live in 2016 here in the US and despite everything he put in the work against Jeff Hardy and had a really good, fun match where he did a cannonball from the apron to the dirt ground of a baseball field. This post sent me on something of an adventure to either remember some matches that fit this or finally get around to stuff I hadn't seen because I also love Liger against larger opponents. There's surprisingly little of that from his ROH appearances; he's got fun matches there for sure but little where he has to work in that way (though his singles with Dalton Castle is fun and he has exactly one tag opposite the Briscoes which is obviously a solid watch). Anyway, here's what I've got with links if I could easily find them: vs Fujinami (NJPW 12/11/91) - as much a clash of generations as it is a clash of size. Liger uses bursts of speed to find his spots on the mat but much like the Hashimoto match he overextends towards the end. https://archive.org/details/njpw-tokon-v-history/NJPW-TOKON+V+HISTORY/Vol.+05-Special+Dream+Match/1991.12.11b-NJPW-Nagoya+Rainbow+Hall-Tatsumi+Fujinami+vs+Jushin+Thunder+Liger.mp4 w/ Power Warrior (aka Kensuke Sasaki) vs Steiner Brothers NJPW (2/17/94) - Hot sprint that keeps you on your toes structurally (Scott Steiner basically scouts multiple hot tags and forces Liger & Sasaki to build their momentum from scratch) and has a fucking sick finish where Rick turns a Doomsday Device into a powerslam on Liger in midair. Definitely a lesser-discussed gem for all four guys involved. vs Tenzan (NJPW 8/4/01) - Liger's first match in this year's G1. I really love how the crowd goes unglued every time Liger has any kind of hope to beat Tenzan but ultimately that leads to Liger exhausting himself and Tenzan taking it from him. vs Kojima (NJPW 8/8/01) - Perfect chaser to the Tenzan match where he actually realizes the dream. The blocking of the lariat and shotei at pivotal moments sells their power and Liger getting a 3.1 off of a perfectly placed shotei to the jaw and a deep cover before popping off as much as the crowd is feels so good. vs Samoa Joe (TNA 10/23/05) - Sick match to open a PPV with that isn't remembered as fondly as it should be since at the time it was considered disappointing that they only got 8-9 minutes, but I don't think that hurt them at all here with how Liger portrays and circumvents the power differential (my favorite being the foot stomp on the blocked vertical suplex to turn it into a Fisherman). Bonus for the hot crowd and production cutting to Simon Inoki looking lost and disinterested. vs Kojima (NJPW 8/6/06) - Great followup to their 2001 match; Kojima has control over this for a majority but Liger finds a really sick comeback that once again leads to a Shotei vs Lariat battle that Kojima takes this time. vs Giant Bernard (NJPW 8/12/06) - Super glad I found this match. Great compact match where it's a foregone conclusion that Liger is gonna just die if Bernard catches him, but we get to see how many ways he can delay that while trying to sneak one by. Liger just crawls under the ring to blindside him at one point. w/ AKIRA vs Daisuke Sekimoto & Mammoth Sasaki (BJW 12/23/08) - Sekimoto is wide, Sasaki is tall, and Liger's team manages to chop them down and keep putting the pressure on Daisuke only for the power difference to still be a deciding factor. Some nice heelish Liger here with blatant chairshots and some cockiness when his team is up. https://vk.com/video-198278016_456239405 vs Delirious (NOAH 10/31/09) - Definitely the weakest match I'm mentioning but you don't really get more non-traditional junior than Delirious, and for what it's worth I think Liger getting a win by being even less predictable than the guy whose gimmick is being unpredictable and winning the way he did is really smar w/ Sekimoto vs Bear Fukuda & Tomohiro Ishii (Legend The Pro-Wrestling 8/16/13) - Not the best tag in the world but notable for Liger being in there with three burly tough guys but being the veteran of the group and being the X-Factor for his team (even getting the hot tag of the match). https://archive.org/details/legend-the-pro-wrestling-07142013 vs Chris Hero (PWG 9/2/16) - Oddly underdiscussed given Hero's 2016 and this being a day before Liger was part of one of the wildest comedy matches of the decade. Hero beats down Liger and acts like a real asshole to him here, giving Liger just enough runway for good comebacks. Also is the match that made me realize that the only 1-counts that will ALWAYS get me is when they're after a finisher steal; Hero's smug Liger Bomb into the 1-count from Liger not taking that disrespect pops me huge every time. vs Taichi (NJPW 5/31/17) - Taichi's last great chickenshit heel performance before moving up to Heavyweight and Liger's final BOSJ match ever in a BOSJ where he got no points before this. Taichi is less of a wrestler here and more of a villain; the way he and the other SZKG guys just bully Liger, cut open his suit, rip his mask, tear off one of the horns, etc. is like they're trying to expose the old man under the costume to the world. Liger's comeback here is so fucking excellent and he gets his only 2 points of the tournament while spoiling Taichi's chances even with the humanity behind the gimmick on full display. One of NJPW's most underrated 2010s matches. And for the hell of it, here's that match with Jeff Hardy I mentioned before since I also rewatched it recently:

Prime candidate for a guy with a chance to sneak into 98-100 but that's a big "maybe". Young Taichi is a fun watch in HUSTLE, but HUSTLE also had a knack for pulling the most entertainment out of everybody that worked there. His NJPW run has some incredible highlights that nobody else has really replicated and has had him work the entire spectrum from chickenshit Junior to grizzled Heavyweight, and that's the main reason he's got an outside chance. He had the honor of being the final BOSJ opponent for Liger in what I consider the company's most underrated match of the 2010s where Taichi is just a grade-A shithead and provides a beautiful on-ramp for a killer Liger comeback. His KOPW feud with Shingo is full of great matches with interesting stips; the 30-Count match they had is one of the most creative and open-ended stips for a match I've seen and they work it so well. His recent work mostly tagging with Ishii & Kojima has been really nice too. I've also gotten quite a lot of mileage out of this promo but that's neither here nor there.

Max recently listed off his in-ring influences in an interview, and in order he lists: Jericho, Punk, Piper, Flair, Tully, Don Muraco, Buddy Landel, Chris Candido, and Adam Cole. The tonal whiplash of the trajectory of that list of names and ending on Cole of all people (even though I know Max is a fan of his) is like a microcosm of watching MJF. I feel like my opinion on Max can swing rapidly depending on the month; his first AEW Title reign doesn't hold up well at all (Danielson Iron Man is its peak and the first 30 minutes of that 65-minute match are mostly spinning their wheels when you go back and NONE of the Cole stuff is good) and he's had some real overbooked messes of matches as well as promos that leave a bad aftertaste, and yet you look at his Punk & Mistico feuds with incredible blowoffs and how much better his current reign is going alongside some absolute gems of backstage promos and I can't really pin down my overall opinion on him. Ironically I think his indie work is basically his Median; usually pretty good stuff but nothing remarkable. I think the sentiment that he's one to watch for 2036 is right because he really could lean either way right now and that's not really conducive to ending up on my ballot.

To be blunt, Bryan was always going to be a lock for Top 2 on my list. If you asked me my favorite wrestler of all-time any year since I started watching wrestling in my teens I would say "it's between Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson and [one out of Liger/Kobashi/Funk] but it's probably Bryan". My favorite match of all time is still him and Cena despite watching hundreds of bonafide classics since then. It's hard for me to even determine if what I look for in a pro wrestler is just what Danielson is, or if my criteria formed around how Danielson was the guy who made me fall in love with pro wrestling; I think he's a guy who can do anything he's tasked with and do something good with it. Him and Terry Funk are the only two pro wrestlers I could genuinely see being transplanted into any company in any era and being a highlight with no exceptions and that's why they're #1 & #2 (and trust me despite my biases which is which isn't set in stone yet). I'd trust him in bloody brawls, technical showpieces, comedic openers, tag matches, gimmick matches, sprints, long-hauls, anything. All that said, I get the criticisms. I think he's taken on so many influences that it can be hard to form what a signature prototypical Bryan Danielson match even is, and if you can it's probably a broadway with some long submission teases into rope breaks (so he can say the line), 50 stiff kicks, and a spot that gave someone (usually Bryan) a serious head injury. There's tons of matches of his that I love that are nothing like that, but I think if Bryan has total control of a match those are the things he leans towards, and when he's not I do think he's sometimes a little too nice about working his opponent's match (especially in AEW; the Ospreay match is just an Ospreay match with Bryan Danielson slotted in, and the MJF Iron Man is just like nearly every MJF PPV match ever for the first 25ish minutes). Ironically I think a lot of his WWE run holds up because it forced him to work outside of those Danielson-isms and as such I think his run there is about half or more of his best work between his insane run of TV matches in and around 2013 and some excellent heel world title performances that I think outdo a lot of his ROH World Title matches (both in his 2012 & 2018-19 runs). Plus: Team Hell No. If turning that into an over act with dozens of great matches despite the goofy therapy gimmick and his partner being 2010s Kane isn't the act of a GOAT-tier wrestler I don't know what is.

Top-tier comedy guy who has a really strong match catalog if you dig for it. I think Honda is emblematic of what DDT as a promotion is more than anybody else and he's been around for a huge portion of its lifespan to boot (and that's before you look at his work in adjacent promotions like Gatoh Move/ChocoPro, TJPW & BAKA GAIJIN). I love his actual in-ring style when he's not just doing his shtick, full of great body language and simple impactful offense; you can tell he studies his Dusty tapes beyond just copying some moves. The Togo match is definitely his best, but I've always loved his DDT Extreme Title match against Akito (another of my DDT-lifer favorites who I wish I thought to nominate) from July 2015 in a "Fall to The Hell" match which is basically a No-Ropes 2-Man Battle Royale.

Dump is a really interesting one for me. I'm very much in the consistency & longevity camp for Best Ever conversations but I'm not opposed to wrestlers with short/curtailed runs or incredible peaks being among them. Dump stands out for having one of the most distinct short runs of any wrestler I could think of, one that has basically established part of the language of pro wrestling (you look at depictions of female heels in media, especially in Japan, you're likely seeing a character taking Dump's style almost wholesale; there's a reason she got that Netflix series). Her case is made on a handful of matches, teams, and rivalries with a relatively small group of people, but almost all of them are rightfully praised as among the best ever in their own right with Dump as a big part of that. There's few wrestlers that pull off a "hidden weapon" type of sequence as incredibly as prime Dump, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a more fucked up heel spot than her just nonchalantly stabbing those scissors into Yukari Omori's arm hard enough for them to stay there. Her post-retirement run is certainly not anything to write home about, but because of what it's framed as I can't really say it detracts from her case either, it just doesn't add to it. She's just going out there and doing the Dump Matsumoto shtick. To me it's the equivalent of Iron Sheik at the Mania X-7 Gimmick Battle Royale; Sheik was one of the most hated heels in company history back in the 80s and he's out there much older and slower and doing the same shtick but he's a legend so he wins and it's a fun moment. That's every modern Dump match to me; I can't hate it. I'd sooner believe someone using her brief WWF run as a knock against her given it was solid but unremarkable when multiple of her contemporaries had better runs there. Do I easily have Bull & Aja above her as locks on my list because of their longer careers with many more incredible matches to their name as they carried on some of what she established? Absolutely, but once I do my big Preference Revealer to help form my ballot I won't be shocked if Dump sneaks her way into ballot contention despite her short peak.