Tim Cooke

I'm not sure I thought any of the Nigel vs Danielson ROH matches were even above average, nonetheless good. Fell into the trap of going 10-15 minutes too long each time (and 40 minutes too long in the case of the 60 minute draw). Not an impressive series for Danielson resume wise.

Tanahashi and Styles had a good match this morning at the New Japan PPV from Sumo Hall from the bits and pieces I saw while doing a couple of other things. His horrible forearm strikes were absent, so that automatically helped the match a lot.

I was looking forward to the ECWA 11/3/01 match with Ki for the 2000's Indies Project but when we actually got to it, there just wasn't much there. To be fair, Ki wasn't great in the match but Daniels was middling as well. Daniels won't come close to making my list but his one hour draw from ROH in July 2005 was a surprisingly good match live (saw it with Paul, Tom, and Phil) and 9 years later was surpassingly watchable. That was Daniels height for me as the original ROH three way was more about Danielson and Ki, the TNA 2005 3 way was okay but again was more about Joe and Styles. I also liked the Styles vs Daniels last man standing a lot, especially considering that most of their other matches ranged from poor to average.

Taka has a fairly good shot at making my list. From 96-97, he would have been the most charismatic heel in Japan, except that Dick Togo was in the same promotion and stable. Taka's flying was not only state of the art in 1996, but people aren't regularly hitting his springboard moves in 2014, none the less hit them with the height, accuracy, and style that Taka was able to. One a very basic level, Taka was fantastic in multi-person matches, excellent in regular tag team matches, and above average to great in singles from 1994-1999. Are there any Tozawa matches that I need to see that compare to Taka's best stuff?

In ranking wrestlers, I'm more interested in common comparisons. How do dry, technical wrestlers like Zack Sabre Jr., Shoichi Funaki, and Dean Malenko rate against each other? That gives some perspective and some more information. With someone like Tozawa, how does he fair against comparable guys like Ikuto Hidaka or Minoru Fujita? Tozawa, for what I've see from him in PWG, has some charisma and a fast, work rate move set. Maybe Taka is even a good comp as well.

Loss is spot on about this having the feel of a 1985-1986 Crockett Worldwide Main Event. Great heat, a lot of action, and just a ton of fun.

Is that 1992 stuff online?

I love that Jay Lethal match. If I recall correctly, didn't Ki talk shit to Lethal's mom, who was in the crowd? The Ki/Homicide vs. Joe/Lethal tags from '05 were also a lot of fun. Also hunt down his PWG BOLA match with Hero from '08, where the rope broke and they just murdered each other. And one of the Necro Butcher matches from IWA-Midsouth. The Danielson matches from '02 are probably his crown jewels. The Lethal match was terrific live and is still great on tape, though the lighting and the heat didn't come through with ROH experimenting with new taping equipment around that time. Lethal's mom was there. Ki and Smokes spit at her and she swung at them, which popped the crowd big time.

The Red vs. Low Ki match you want to see is from the 9/14/01 UCW Elks Lodge Show. Kenta vs. Low Ki from December 2005 wasn't great live and wasn't any better on tape. I've only seen big Kenta fans pimping that one. Some other Ki recommendations: 4/15/00 vs. Mike Mayhem (from the Pittsburgh promotion - I think ICW or IWC) 2/24/01 vs. Bryan Danielson (ECWA Super 8 Final) 7/21/01 vs. Bryan Danielson (ECWA) 9/14/01 vs. Red (UCW) 11/30/01 vs. Eddy Guerrero (UCW) 3/30/02 vs. Bryan Danielson (ROH) 6/7/02 vs. Bryan Danielson (JAPW) 10/5/02 vs. Samoa Joe (ROH) 10/2/04 vs. Jay Lethal (ROH) [Ki as a heel]

Even with a lack of footage, the three Santo singles matches (86, 88, and 92), plus his work as Santo Negro and Pentagon should be enough to get him on my list. Another one of those "if only we had more to see from his UWA days..."

Watching the 1998 Yearbook, I am way more excited for the Bossman vs Austin match at Survivor Series than I ever should be for a post-1994 Bossman match. Could be a 95-100 guy but he likely falls off in the final ballot for me.

Probably won't make my top 100 but she was a vital part of the Dream Rush tag, which as a single match is a lot better than a lot of wrestlers four or five best matches.

Dustin is absolutely awesome in the War Games match. Windham, Austin, Arn, and Dustin are the glue to that match, not to take anything away from Steamboat or Rude.

Like Loss says, feeding the different body parts for transitions on the mat is a huge part of shoot style (and any style of pro wrestling really). Tamura gets a cross arm breaker on Han, but leaves his left leg open, so Han can quickly seize a moment to grab the leg for an ankle lock to get out of the cross arm breaker. Tamura then spins out of the ankle lock and gets back to his feet, so both guys can trade kicks and punches. As RINGS developed, it looked like there was more grappling/dojo matches for the body of the match, with only the finish and the amount of points being per-determined. Meltzer says that the 12/21/96 Tamura vs. Yamamoto match was a work until the finish. They were told to fill 10 minutes and after that, shoot for the finish. Whether that's true or not for that specific match is debatable but you can definitely see that occur in 1997-1999 RINGS matches.

Shoot Style is possibly the one style of wrestling that you need to have context and understanding of history to really understand the nuance and why something worked/why something didn’t work. UWF 1.0 (1984-1985), UWF 2.0 (1988-1990), RINGS (1991-1995), and even parts of UWFI were recognized by the fans as being legit, even though that was almost never the case, except for the occasional undercard RINGS match prior to the company mixing and matching works and shoots throughout the card from 1996-1999 before going all shoot. This is also a case where watching with 2014 eyes can definitely alter the view of a match. With everything we know about MMA and what holds really work and what doesn’t work, a 1991 RINGS match may not look realistic in 2014. I would argue that most Maeda matches in RINGS didn’t look realistic in the early 90’s as they were occurring but because of the Choshu kick and his aura, he had the creditability that made the fans buy in. As far as the submissions being misapplied and forgoing more obvious and easier subs, it comes down to what people knew as legit in 1991. Using this logic in a regular pro wrestling match, why wouldn’t you just knock your opponent out with a punch and then pin him? That’s the more obvious way to present a story but it lacks drama, storytelling, and would have killed the theater aspect of professional wrestling. I would recommend watching a couple of full shows from the original UWF and UWF 2.0, Will’s PWFG compilation (disc 1), and a couple of early RINGS shows to understand where the style is coming from. You still may walk away saying it’s not your thing but I think it will help give you a clearer understanding of why certain thing’s are being done. My recommendations for full shows (knowing that these shows have some stinkers because to get the balanced viewpoint, you need to see the good with the bad): 12/5/84 – UWF 9/11/85 – UWF 8/13/88 – UWF 2.0 12/88 – UWF. 2.0 7/16/92 – RINGS 8/20/92 – RINGS As you get into the late 90’s with RINGS, the worked matches start to more closely resemble what was actually happening in shoots in UFC, Pancrase, and Shooto. It’s why a match like Tamura vs. Kohsaka from 4/22/97 is probably a work but what they are doing is so in line with MMA at the time that you aren’t a 100% positive. The 6/27/98 Kohsaka vs. Tamura epic, taking out the length, looks like what most non-punching on the ground to head MMA looked like in 1998.

For Russian guys in RINGS, I think he is #2. Zouev could be two and I'll be interested in re watching more of his matches.

If you want to start with the 90's: 5/26/90 Misawa/Taue/Kobashi vs. Jumbo/Kabuki/Fuchi 6/8/90 Misawa vs. Jumbo 9/1/90 Misawa vs. Jumbo 9/30/90 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue (Anniversary Show) 10/28/90 Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi vs. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi 12/7/90 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue (RWTL) 4/20/91 Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi vs. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi 5/24/91 Kobashi vs. Jumbo 9/4/91 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue 10/15/91 Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi vs. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi 10/24/91 Kawada vs. Jumbo 11/29/91 Misawa/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Taue (RWTL)

There is a good amount of Destroyer out there. I'll compile a full list over the weekend. But off the top of my head, you get the 63 match vs. Rikidozen, 65 vs. Toyonobori, 69 vs. Baba, 73 and 74 against Mascaras. That five match sample is over an 11 year period and at the very least, a good starting point. I'd rather see different timeframes than have a bunch of footage over one smaller period.

He's treading in being in the top 10 for 2014. Not even close to top 100 of all time.

After baseball season is over (or after the Orioles season is over, which will hopefully only be when the season is completely done)

His 2001-2002 actually holds up terrifically as well.

8/29/86 vs El Espanto Jr. (Mask vs mask) - probably the one match from the 80's that I would go out of my way to see from Santo

Decent amount of this stuff has been around for a while.

Goldberg vs. Sting is another one of those “why didn’t WCW run this on PPV” but what we got was a very interesting match, maybe the only thing that could reasonably follow up Flair’s return. Sting lead Goldberg through a heated match, even with the face versus face element. The finish made Goldberg look a little bit weak and the segment still couldn’t end the night with WCW winning the quarter hour, as they did a 4.26 for the match compared to 4.87 for the rings intros of Shamrock vs. Austin and the first six minutes of the match. Sting/Goldberg did HUGE numbers in the over run – 6.07. They wouldn’t get a quarter hour this close again until Goldberg vs. DDP from Halloween Havoc was shown for free on Nitro the night after Havoc due to cable company issues.