Tim Cooke

Going through Steve Sims old Lucha newsletter and found this excellent write up https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8dJb63uylCKZUhpMHpSeFBlQ2s/view?usp=sharing Goes into a lot of issues that Parv and others have had

Nominate: Super Fly/Carta Brava vs. Luxdor/Venum (3/4/16 - AAA) Probably my favorite tag so far in 2016. Lots of flying and everything is hit really well and builds to a satisfying finish. Gran Apache/Carta Brava vs. Luxdor/Venum (2/19/16 - AAA) A tad below the March match, but an opportunity to see Gran Apache in 2016. This match also evaded the rudo beat down to start that AAA likes to use so it's more or less wrestled as a technical match, building to the high spots.

Harley Race isn't my cup of tea these days but I enjoyed the Halcon match. The great thing about lucha holds and submissions on the mat is that it makes the non-mat high spots seem more important. Both times Halcon hit the belly to belly, it felt important. The finish to the third fall, which I won't spoil (SPOILER: it's nothing mind blowing), felt like the exact right escalation and ending to this match. Halcon's also got a nice in ring tope.

Mostly independent matches. Have ordered 4-5 times already from Black Terry Jr. this year especially if Virus, Terry, Navarro, Traumas, Cerebro, Caifan, or Hechicero are involved. Will watch the pimped/interesting AAA matches, usually when the full TV shows go up on the official YouTube channel but certainly not full shows (never been a complete full show person, though there are exceptions). Don't really catch much CMLL outside of recommendations or praised/terribly bad matches.

I may be a simpleton but with Funk, Danielson, Rey, Hansen, and Flair left in the top 10, that leaves Liger, Misawa, Kobashi as the only Japanese guys left. Not seeing the Japanese bias. I also don't buy Funk's case being made in Japan. Maybe Hansen.

With Santo falling at 29, I'm not sure Casas will make top 15, which I would have expected a few days ago.

That is clearly nonsense, but nevertheless I think sometimes it's easy to forget that Gibson did his fair share of playing Ricky Morton as well. Usually when they worked two FIPs, but still. It was an argument based on such a small sample size that unless you just watched the matches Jewett did, you couldn't reasonably come to that conclusion. It was a terrible talking point and Jewett did bring some positives to the table (first to review Baba/Robinson Christmas 2001 and giving David Crockett his due) but I'm glad Loss brought it up because I had completely forgotten about that.

I enjoy learning new things every day. Yesterday it was Bull Nakano is a gaijin. Today it is Japanese Shoot Style doesn't have roots in MMA discipline's. Breaks was a top 15 guy for me and still feel like I haven't scratched surface on him as I've mainly gone through OJ recommendations in last two years after first watching him post-Dean write up's in 2005 for the first time.

Totally agree. It's really hard to find Tamura... https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=kiyoshi+tamura&tbm=vid&start=0 I think I'd put it this way: I had a far easier time finding Tamura stuff today that classic Prince videos, thanks to his IP people taking a machete to stuff online over the past 3-4 years. Tamura, matches, in contrast, are accessible. They are also accessible in the sense of understanding and enjoying: really simply stuff, even if the holds and exchanges are intricate. RINGS put in copyright claims about three months ago so a lot disappeared quickly. I had about 10 Tamura matches that aren't available anywhere online and it got my account shut down, so accessibility is certainly an issue. I also think Volk Han has more accessible high spots to someone not completely gaga over how RINGS was worked from, especially in the late 90's. But you are right in the era of $2 DVD's, it shouldn't be an issue. God knows Lynch is probably funding college for his kid partially based on my money over the last 16 years.

A bias that thinks he's not a good wrestler. That's not a bias. No, a bias with regards to thinking one way without having actually gone through the material (in this case, matches) before making a conclusion. Conclusions don't matter if they aren't well informed. It's the old jdw line when responding to a "opinions can't be wrong." "It's my opinion that Andre the Giant was the greatest flying wrestler ever." It does make me laugh when a LOT of the complaints about styles of wrestling and individual wrestlers are not present in Tanahashi's performances yet not discussed in depth, but most people tend to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. He's amazing (Meltzer, etc.) or he stinks, which is something I have definitely been guilty of in the past. Like I said, I didn't have Tanahashi on my list and would be perfectly fine if I never saw another match of his, but there is validity in digging a little deeper. I have watched a TON of Tanahashi Never said you didn't but I also expect people with expert level knowledge on a subject to be well versed on it. I have watched five Dragon Gate matches in the last four years (three of which were just for Super Shisa). I know the style is not my cup of tea and can make a well informed argument about Toryumon and that style from 1999-2006 having seen most of it. But having basically stopped watching in 2007, I can't give a good, informed opinion on the promotion in 2016 without having to go through everything.

A bias that thinks he's not a good wrestler. That's not a bias. No, a bias with regards to thinking one way without having actually gone through the material (in this case, matches) before making a conclusion. Conclusions don't matter if they aren't well informed. It's the old jdw line when responding to a "opinions can't be wrong." "It's my opinion that Andre the Giant was the greatest flying wrestler ever." It does make me laugh when a LOT of the complaints about styles of wrestling and individual wrestlers are not present in Tanahashi's performances yet not discussed in depth, but most people tend to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. He's amazing (Meltzer, etc.) or he stinks, which is something I have definitely been guilty of in the past. Like I said, I didn't have Tanahashi on my list and would be perfectly fine if I never saw another match of his, but there is validity in digging a little deeper.

Tanahashi didn't make my list but I think Paul does a good job covering why he isn't an absurd top 100 pick and actually probably belongs there if you don't let bias get in the way. http://www.crossarmbreaker.com/88-hiroshi-tanahashi-86/

My takeaway from the Thesz matches were that the credit should go to Schmidt because most of the other Thesz I have seen has been very "meh" Glad your enjoying them. Really have only seen jdw talk about Schmidt so that was part of the reason I felt compelled to put him on the list.

In January 2006, Schneider, TomK, and I were watching a pretty good night of wrestling. Bix had just found the Lawler/Dundee 1977 Hair match on Steve Friedlander's list. We watched that, Kobashi/Joe from ROH, and Barnett/Frank Shamrock from the 2005 one night only U-Style revival. We are watching Kobashi/Joe, which I had already seen and loved. They get to the Kobashi chop battle and both start laughing and Tom starts talking about how Kobashi chops, especially in NOAH in the 2000's, is basically a comedy spot. I hadn't looked at it like that, but there was a lot of truth to that. Kenta Kobashi, comedy worker.

There's also some level of availability of footage too, with Cesaro especially, over Hero. It's a hell of a lot easier for me to watch 200 Cesaro matches than 200 Hero matches. IWA-MS 2002-2004 has definitely not made its way online in large chunks.

via Black Terry Jr. From a small show where Black Terry Jr. didn't even list the promotion. I have been on the "Negro Navarro is really slowing down" train and while I still think that is true, this is a match where Black Terry is running the ropes at Yossino speed yet Navarro doesn't look slow at all. They work the first three minutes based around a hybrid lucha, WOS arm sequence, not even having to take a bump. In fact, one of the holds is broken because Black Terry tells an audible joke that makes Navarro and the crowd laugh. My spanish sucks but it was still a terrific spot. They do the maestro submissions back and forth but they sell each and every one and because of the opening where it is made clear that this is a respectful match between two veterans, it doesn't feel exhibitionist in the least. Really fun 11 minutes. ***1/2

BattlArts was a hybrid promotion. Otsuka and Ikeda worked a match in April 1999 that had all the usual submissions and striking associated with shoot style, but also included dives and some crowd brawling. That happened a fair amount. Ishikawa and Ikeda matches were heavily strike oriented, with their stiffness being the selling point in the late 90's over the mat work. You go through the Phil Schneider comp match descriptions from that era and Battlarts stiffness > BattlArts mat work. It's definitely not shoot style in the vein of the UWF style promotions that started in 1984 and ended in late 2004.

Are we talking the Havoc 97 match or the June 2005 Smackdown match?

Tommy Rogers is my first real disappointment. Way too low. Thought he had a legit shot at 100 and worst would be 150ish.

Also an unwillingness from people to pay for footage. BT Jr. tapes at least 1 Solar match a month (usually more), so they are all out there and he isn't charging Jeff Lynch prices (nothing against Lynch but he can be expensive). Back in mid 2000's, if Fredo got one lucha TV (usually IWRG) a year with a Solar match on it, it was considered a big deal.

Grey did really well on my ballot so he still has a fighting chance to get close to top 100

The top 20 in my list is pretty conventional. Fit the next 30 or so in confidently, but 51-100 could be reordered every day and I probably still wouldn't be happy with it. Someone like El Bracero is a right place, right time guy. He has had 3-4 Houston matches released by NWAClassics and was excellent in all of them. If this poll was two years from now, he probably wouldn't have even come to mind. Meanwhile, I regret not having a guy like Lizmark, who I've watched a lot more of from his 1992-1993 AAA run and should have made it regardless. Kopylov as second best foreigner in RINGS wasn't enough to crack the top 100 (he was sitting at 115). Yoshihisa Yamamoto, despite being in an arguable #1 Shoot Style match contender in 1999, didn't have the amount of matches that his counterparts in Han, Tamura, and Kohsaka did. Would have loved to put both in, but in March 2016, just didn't have room.

Wow, some potentially great matches!

Five people voted for Javier Cruz in 2006. I voted him at #21 in 2006. This year, I was the only voter and I voted him at #83. I think it's the lack of (new) footage and the fact that people have discovered a lot of other workers. I'm sure he would have ended up in several people's top 150. Cruz was 140ish for me this time around

Lynch has it