josephweirdness

I don't really expect the Pillars to fall too steeply. I'd put my money on seeing all four still represented on the final list. While I agree that there's been a pushback on the King's Road canon, I feel like this still comes from a more niche subset of the voters that are maybe just in the same general circles we frequent which is why we see the narrative more often. Just speaking anecdotally, of course, but I think the fact that the most remembered and requested aspect of my own work is still continued coverage of 90s King's Road means that there's still very high interest in the time period and that'll likely come through in the final list.

Was in the room for this and would say that Averno/Atlantis Jr was definitely the MOTN. This had some fun moments but suffered from some of Dorada's more airy offense. It works a lot more than it doesn't, but with this particular stylistic pairing, it was especially notable and dragged this down.

The IWE guys throw in the towel for Kimura. I think this is a pretty important bit of context if we're talking Kimura's selling performance in the armbar too. If you watch him, he does a great job selling it after the bell rings, but he's too stubborn to give Inoki the satisfaction in the moment, leading to his boys having to close it out on his behalf. Also this match fucking rocks.

Interestingly despite it being one of the best matches to feature Darby Allin, I wouldn't point to it as one of his best performances as I think Sting was fittingly the center of attention there. I think Darby's case glows much more when you look at the smaller scale stuff. The TV work, the non-gimmick stuff, and how all that stacks when it's finally time to go especially wild.

Tonight's title win is a neat little feather in Darby's cap just a few weeks before voting closes. He's cast in a different role than usual--conquering hero as opposed to scrappy underdog--and has an incredibly cathartic, major World Title win to his name on TV. If there's some doubt about Darby being difficult to root for (and those are doubts that I've shared in that past), I feel tonight did a fair amount to help dispel that idea. Hot hometown crowd, big win, great wrestler gets his moment.

Akiyama will do very well on my ballot, possibly Top 20 or Top 15. I am likely ranking him over at least one of the Pillars. His longevity case has been boosted a lot by the DDT work and I think getting to flex some skills as a comedy wrestler also rounds out his versatility case. Great thing to have some of his recommended work in the last five years be those heavyweight battles with Higuchi or just fucking around with Yoshihiko.

Throwing in my pick for Moxley as well (DP is a giveaway, I'm sure). That said, I do think it was close with Adam Priest having had one of his best years of the decade and really getting to display how he could be utilized at the peak of his powers with smart promotional work behind him.

Has that period significantly affected where he might land on your list? 100's a perfectly respectable slot for him as I do think he's a lower half of the list candidate, but I see myself ranking him a little higher.

Somehow never heard this one talked up despite it being the last ever Chigusa/Asuka singles match, certainly of historic importance at the very least. And guess what, it rocks too. In fact, it might be my favorite match they ever did in GAEA. I suppose an important distinction here is that I came away from the match charmed by it, more than anything else but there's a lot in here to enjoy. The first half of the match is basically a send up to their 80s series, with a lot more emphasis on the grappling and mat exchanges than we typically get from GAEA-era Chigusa. At some points in those first few minutes too, you wouldn't be crazy to assume that they might have been playing with or at the very least emulating the old shoot pin rules of AJW. That all takes a drastic shift in the second half when suddenly Asuka brings out her signature table and Chigusa brings out a BARBED WIRE BOARD. Is the shift disjointed and inorganic? Yes. Does it still fucking rock that suddenly they're working bumps into the board and anticipation spots building to those bumps? Absolutely. Tonally, I think it fits too of the sisterly rivalry here escalating and paying homage to the various eras of their work. Worth noting too that the escalation here from mat to weapons is in the correct order, unlike their 1999 matches which had a weird progression from gimmickry to mat to brawling again. They build the closing moments around a few big bumps into the introduced weapons and then share a big hug at the end. I loved it, Crush Gals Forever. ****

Actually disagree on this point as I think the finish works extremely well. Dundee spends the whole match running roughshod on both Lawler and Calhoun, and the rising tension between Dundee and Calhoun is a major element of the last third or so of the match. Having Calhoun stand in his way--which we've already seen precedent for with Calhoun breaking up the rope chokes--and having that be the opening that lets Lawler take the win is pretty pitch perfect American morality wrestling to me.

I've just never personally felt all those hyperbolics when it came to Chig to be honest. She's great and the sheer volume of her work gives her a fantastic case but there's a level of disconnect to her work that I've never quite bridged.

I think the strongest quality of Chigusa's case has to be her longevity and the versatility required to achieve it. Through the 90s and into the 00s, she transforms into that more power-based bruiser and retains a real powerful aura throughout those runs. That said, I find her work in the post-retirement run somewhat inconsistent especially by the time she gets to GAEA. Some of those wild brawls can span a spectrum of fantastic, violent explosions to just messy, scatterbrained slop. That said, there's great stuff in that GAEA period, for my money mostly in tags. Even the Crush Gals reunions churn out some great stuff in the early 2000s as these living legends sent after a roster of bad guys. Something that's worth noting with Chigusa though is that I've rarely left a time period or promotion coming away the most impressed by her specifically. Even at the peak of her 80s powers, Devil's right there working a sharper, more refined style on the mat. Once we get into GAEA, you've got Aja, Meiko, maybe even Chikayo sort of lapping her in quality as well.

Since we're here, I'd like to note that of the videos above, I stand by the Crysh Gals video the least. Chigusa, while still not my favorite of the joshis, has certainly gone up in my estimation and is likely a lock for my list.

Aja will be the highest ranking woman on my list, and I laid out a serious case for her here. I feel Aja's versatility is undersold as her bully heel work in the late 80s into the start of the 90s feels distinct from what she does as a top of the company ace through her red belt run, which even then is also still different from the more malicious veteran role she played in GAEA. Across the board in her career, she's moving between babyface and heel, sympathetic and imposing, and I don't think very many wrestlers ever have shown her capacity to switch up like that the way Aja does. Stylistically too, there's championship-style matches throughout her red belt days contrasted with gimmicked brawls like those against Bull and then later on the D-FIX heels in GAEA. She retains the asskicker persona, yes, but she does a hell of a lot with it in many different ways. You might also want to see her straight woman role in comedy matches against the likes of Sakura Hirota.

Just too inconsistent across the years to make the list despite some great stuff in there. Should be a real boon to him to get something as great as the 2019 Tetsuya Endo title match out of the latter given how quickly Endo became rather boring after that. I like Soup for the most part, and his AEW run has seen him show a little more diversity by adding some chickenshit heel work to his repertoire but I really don't see him being in consideration for my ballot at all.