Grimmas

Control21 said: A well-traveled shoot-style veteran that has been going strong since the 1990s. Nagai was a product of Maeda's RINGS dojo and became one of the key native mid-carders for RINGS up until he left the promotion in 1997 due to a disagreement with his mentor (Maeda, of course). Nagai was very raw at first, but quickly became a solid pro-wrestler and had some great matches with the likes of Volk Han, Yamamoto, and his dojo partner, Masayuki Naruse. Nagai would later try his hand at kickboxing and would later participate in BattlArts, NJPW, AJPW, NOAH, and GLEAT. He was also a key figure in the early years of post-NOAH split AJPW as an undercard worker. Not the flashiest name, but someone with a lot of longevity. Recommended matches - vs Volk Han 4/24/93 vs Volk Han 12/24/94 vs Nikolai Zouev 12/19/95 vs Yamamoto 3/18/95 vs Naruse 12/16/94 vs Kawada 3/3/2001 vs Kojima 3/24/2002 w/Kakihara vs Shinya Makabe & Yuji Nagata 6/8/2001 w/Dajiro Matsui vs Minoru Tanaka & Masakatsu Funaki 12/30/2021

Control21 said: While never a major star or a main event player, Naruse was a very skilled wrestler who was very capable of working a solid pro-style or shoot-style match. Naruse came out of Maeda's RINGS dojo and became a key undercard player during the promotion's history, eventually finding his way to become a secondary star and fan favorite. Naruse would win RINGS' Light heavyweight title, although he didn't defend it very often, if at all. Naruse would later find himself as a common participant in Inoki-ism era NJPW during the early 2000s. Someone who could work very hard to put on a good, entertaining, and hard-hitting match. Recommended matches - vs Volk Han 10/25/96 vs Dieusel Berto 9/10/93 vs Wataru Sakata 12/23/97 vs Kiyoshi Tamura 8/28/98 vs Volk Han 5/22/99 w/El Samurai vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 9/23/2002

Ma Stump Puller said: Kenoh is the ultimate utility talent. You want him to get over semi-good guys in tags? He can do that. You want him to do goofball comedy with a 50+ Kendo Kashin and make it work? Yeah, it's not hard. He can do stiff battles, longform bouts, hard-hitting affairs, heel cut-offs, UWF-style bouts, building underdog talent up for big comebacks, you name it. Hardcore bollocks with Great Muta? He'll knock it out of the park WHILE not making himself look bad when ultimately jobbing a loss. You want him cutting angry pissy promos that get yourself noticed out of everyone else during inter-promotional bouts, he's perfected that as well, even goofy DDT comedy stuff. He's literally fantastic in any field, and it's a bit of a shame that he hasn't had a proper main event run yet. That's half because of the above: Kenoh can literally pull any role off either at the bottom or top of the card, having fantastic matches with a sensational range of workers. You can look at his workrate stuff on one side, his stiff shit in the middle, and everything else on the other. His range dominates everyone else on the roster by a good mile. It also helps he's been having top notch matches for the last 6 years or so, to the point that simply throwing out 4 or 5 of them is a bit of a injustice to the guy. I'm typically not a fan of the "hit really hard over and over" style of wrestling but Kenoh's record proves he has a LOT more than just that to rely on. Vs. Taiji Ishimori (NOAH 31.01.2016) Vs. Masato Tanaka (11.11.2017) Vs. Eddie Edwards (22.12.2017) Vs. Kaito Kiyomiya (I could really put any of their matches on here but their early 2019 match is a lot of fun) Vs. Masakatsu Funaki (12.02.2021) Vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (26.09.2021) Vs. Go Shiozaki (11.02.2022)

EnviousStupid said: While never the flashiest or most standout, Lethal has proven himself one of the most well-rounded and capable wrestlers in the last two decades. Showed promise as early as 2003, became a fixture of TNA's X-Division, before returning to ROH and shifting to a more fundamental approach in his style, where the bulk of his best work lies. Has played babyface, heel, underdog, ace, serious and comedic roles all to great effect, along with consistently delivering on plenty of great matches and performances over his career. That consistency led to him having one of the best midcard title reigns I've ever seen, that transitioned to one of the best world title reigns of the 2010s. vs. Samoa Joe (7/5/2005) vs. Kurt Angle (9/9/2007) vs. ACH (9/8/2014) vs. Roderick Strong (21/8/2015) vs. Jonathan Gresham (8/9/2018)

Jetlag said: Easily overlooked Japanese undercarder who went from being a great tenacious underdog in AJPW and SWS to doing a heroic job carrying his own scummy WYF promotion, which is a story I'm really invested in. He also has some awesome feud under his belt participating in WYF vs. Shin FMW and WYF vs. WAR. Great outmatched hero type of guy, who also looks really good doing hard nosed technical wrestling and being a psycho potatoeing lower ranked guys. He''s grown to be one of my favourite Japanese heavyweights of the 90s, having a few Black Terry-like performances working his ass off on tiny shows, and he has a number of great matches from 1988-1997, possibly earlier than that depending on if I can find any of his New Japan matches. Footage is a bit of an issue but right now I'd say for someone who didn't make tape much he has a really strong body of work. w Shunji Takano vs. Ricky Fuyuki & Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 7/19/1988 vs. Genichiro Tenryu, WAR 1/23/1996 w Masayoshi Motegi vs. Tarzan Goto & Ryo Miyake, WYF 7/16/1997

Yeah, bad wording Deonna rules. Agreed totally with your first paragraph. Shimmer and 2019 till NXT are really strong cases. I'm still filling in the other gaps. I'll probably be the high voter and that's cool.

UDATED!

El-P said - An overlooked figure from the 00's indies to today's landscape. He's been half of the Motor-City Machinegun, which has to be considered one of the best and most influential tag team of the last 20 years (without MCMG, there's probably no Young Bucks as they are). Shelley is often thought about as the better worker (which is probably true), but Sabin has been a terrific worker for probably 15 years, still kicking strong to this day at age 40. A fixture in the early X-division, he really figured it out when he started the tag team with Shelley and they have many, many great matches against a variety of teams. In single he became a much more complete worker in the mid 00's, great flying and acrobatic X-div style guy of course, with great clean execution of complex moves and sequences, but also a great sympathetic babyface able to garner sympathy and work terrific and flashy comebacks thanks to his technical expertise. Way underrated compared to some of his peers. 2005.01.16 Chris Sabin vs AJ Styles vs Petey Williams (Ultimate X -TNA) 2005.07.17 Chris Sabin vs Samoa Joe (TNA) 2007.04.28 MCMG vs the Briscoes (ROH) 2009.01.11 Chris Sabin vs Alex Shelley (TNA) 2010.10.10 MCMG vs Young Bucks (Gen Me) (TNA) 2013.08.15 Chris Sabin vs Bully Ray (cage match) (TNA) 2021.08.17 Chris Sabin vs Josh Alexander (IMPACT) 2022.03.20 Chris Sabin vs Jay White (IMPACT)

conker8 said - One of the great brawlers of the 1960's and 1970's. We can see a lot of Kox in Dick Murdoch (they even share the same finisher) as he was his mentor. Hurt by lack of footage. vs The Destroyer (7/25/75) vs Dick Murdoch (12/9/76) vs Giant Baba (3/3/81)

Ed. said - One of my favourite wrestlers in the world today. You can tell as early as the Kairi Sane match in the Mae Young Classic that Bianca was gonna be a star, and that was only her third televised match ever. I thought she was a really good heel in NXT, but she's blown me away with her babyface run on the main roster. She's been in the best two womens matches in Wrestlemania history so she ticks the box for big matches, but her case is strengthened by a load of good TV performances in the past 4 years and with the title back on her again I think she's got a great chance to add to her case in the coming years. I think the beauty of her work is how many believable roles she can play; works well as either babyface or heel, incredibly athletic, good actor by WWE's standards when it comes to adding drama and emotion to her matches, she's freakishly strong to overpower any opponent she comes up against, but hardly the biggest girl on the roster so she can be overpowered and take a beating. Best use of hair in wrestling history must be worth a bonus point too! Vs Kairi Sane (14/7/17) Vs Sasha Banks (10/4/21) Vs Becky Lynch (2/4/22)

Clayton Jones said - A trailblazer in an era when intergender wrestling wasn't the norm, she made non-believers buy her against the toughest bastards going. At the same time she anchored women's divisions and worked around the world in a variety of roles that she usually thrived in. As an elder stateswoman she continues to deliver great performances and give back to the younger generation. Still doing some of her best work and finally getting some of her much deserved flowers. VS Necro Butcher - Stranglehold Wrestling KOTDM Finals 10/29/2006 VS Ayako Hamada - NCW Femmes Fatale Championship 3/12/2011 VS Jordynne Grace - Beyond Wrestling 5/29/2016

CurtainJerker said - She was Stardom's number one heel. Highly charismatic with great fan interactions. She did most of the heavy lifting to help carry the company with Io. She was the-on-the job trainer. Great body of work with rematches, tags, and feuds. Definitely a great and amazing worker who is danger of being lost to history. Won Stardom's official 2018 Best Match + 2017 Best Tag awards. Ranked #26 in Cagematch's Top Female Workers of All Time, under Aja Kong. She holds up compared to her contemporaries and today's batch of joshi. Sacrificed her body and career with high risk moves during her peak (2017-COVID). Mayu Iwatani vs. Kagetsu (12/24/2019) Io Shirai vs. Kagetsu Kagetsu vs. Jungle Kyona (1/14/2019) Kagetsu vs Mayu Iwatani (12/24/19) Kagetsu vs Hana Kimura (10/23/18) Kagetsu vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto (4/12/2017) Kagetsu vs Mei Suruga (2/09/2020) Kagetsu vs Stardom (Gauntlet Final) Kagetsu vs Meiko Satomura (Kagetsu's retirement match 2/24/20)

TY! Yeah I think I have the audio figured out now, the lastest one I was happy with that! Glad you are enjoying!

So she is 20 plus years into her career is given ten minutes with a commercial break a few minutes into the match facing an opponent who has never appeared in the company before where she hardly has and pulls out a decent match instead of a great match and we are treating this has some big negative. WTF are we doing here?

TY, i"ll add this to the list!

2010.12.12 Tokyo Kinema Club ICE × 60 Championship [Champion] Command Bolshoi vs Hamuko Hoshi [Challenger] This is Bolshoi doing a basic match to carry an inferior opponent. It's pretty damn good for that and nice to see this other context. I like the cocky bad ass Bolshoi quite a lot. Some of the mean slaps she threw were so cool! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RuqBNDYNQs Sorry only one today.

100% they are not all for the same reasons. Shoot style is something I really dislike watching. I can explain why if you really want, but it's not for me. I can't fairly judge it.

Thanks! Yeah... there is something about WCCW that I think is good, but I just can't get behind. I can't articulate it yet. Kerry was clearly great, probably in the 26-30 range, but there is a lot of great wrestlers. One day I'll figure out my Texas thing, like I figured out why I don't like shoot style.

Kerry question.. oh boy I have no recollection, more details please!

Murdoch was in the KKK so had 0 shot and Lawler has some dark shit in his history so no, while the others I watched some of. Buzz, Kerry, DiBiase were all very close. I didn't think of Taylor actually, so not sure. Next 80s year I'll give him a good look. NJ/AJ I watched some of them, it's a lot of men being macho which is not my thing. Tenryu, Choshu, and Killer Khan almost made my list, last minute cuts really. Basically, for parameters, no to racists and sex abusers, and no to shoot style. I don't like masculinity a huge amount, so I steer away from that mostly. Thanks for listening and enjoying! I'm trying to be as unbiased as I can be in this biased projecct!

On this episode Dylan, from Stardom Quest, joins Steven to talk some Greatest Wrestler Ever candidates and Steven gives his top 25 wrestlers of 1985 and answers viewers question(s). Join the discord: https://t.co/QmdUimsSH4 Time stamps: 0:00 - Introduction 8:43 - 1985 List, #25 to #11 40:49 - Dylan GWE Talk 1:28:14 - 1985 List, #10 to #1 1:55:25 - Q&A and Outro Stream episode Maybe Not Taue - 1985 & Dylan by The PWOM Podcast Network podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

The next podcast will be 2010 and I started watching. I'm actually very happy with the joshi and Shimmer I've watched so far.

Done with 1985 and the podcast should be up on Monday. There ended up being a lot of great candidates, but this was really the AJW show.

Back after a lot of 1985 watching to get ready for the next podcast. 2006.4.23 JWP Joshi Puroresu Tokyo Kinema Club Azumi Hyuga vs Command Bolshoi We've seen these two mesh really well in tags and this carries over into this singles match! Great matwork, great chain wrestling, great flying! The match built so well and just got better and better as it went along. Bolshoi brought the vicious shootei back and added discus backfist that looked great! What's awesome is it didn't go from grappling to bombs, it kept the grappling mixed in through out. I bought on some awesome nearfalls and it had a definitive finish. I'm rather high on this one. Rating - 8/10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBDNgxMJa8U 2006.6.15 JWP Joshi Puroresu Itabashi Green Hall Command Bolshoi vs Toshie Uematsu They fought over who would do the rope walk, so this match was an A+ for me. This was more fun than great. A really nice mix of great wrestling and comedy. A good way to spend 10 minutes and it gets better and better as it goes. Really borderline DB territory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0KkkxKDUK8 2005.8.21 JWP Joshi Puroresu Tokyo Kinema Club Command Bolshoi vs Kayoko Haruyama I don't recall every seeing Haruyama before. Turns out she is an awesome kind of bruiser, but also good worker type of wrestler. This fucking ruled! Two wrestlers going all out for a win, but not some ridiculous kick out spot fest. Watch it. Rating - 8.5/10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MRWNDJEy0A

Yeah, saw those, and didn't like them or his performance, but that's a me thing. As for me, any bringing in of salary is just ridiculous. Bringing up Goldberg was just to illustrate that.