Robert S

Ikeda and Ishikawa are two guys I am surprised that Tony Khan never booked as dream match opponents for Danielson. wXw got Ishikawa for three weekends, so he can't be completely against taking bookings outside of Japan.

Vader vs. Bockwinkel happened once in AWA, though I would bet that the match does not exist on tape (it was on a Denver show). Kobashi vs. Tenryu happened a bunch of times in tags (both in All Japan before SWS as well as in NOAH), most notably on two 2005 Budokan Hall shows during Rikio's GHC reign (Kobashi & Shiozaki vs. Tenryu & Akiyama, Kobashi & Taue vs. Tenryu & Akiyama) and Danielson vs. Ogawa also happened a couple of times in 6 men tags (including once on the Budokan Hall show that had the 60 minute broadway between KENTA and Marufuji on top).

Re. the Lucha discussion: I have struggled to get into Lucha for maybe 25 years now, at one point I just gave up. Thing is, stylistically it (and I realize that is a very broad generalization) is just such a big outlier to every other style of pro wrestling (or at least surviving style, Europe obviously also was drastically different from the USA/Japanese spectrum we have got basically everywhere but Mexico (and I guess Central America) for the past 30+ years). Looking at the different facets, I have always found the "title match" to be the most approachable kind of Lucha (something that could happen very closely in other places of the world as well) with trios matches being the most inaccessible one. Seriously, after all the trios matches I have seen, I am still struggling to get (or maybe enjoy) even basic psychology of those matches (besides basically every match ending up in a terciera caida). And I just assume I am not the only one having such issues. That is one reason why I never participate in these kind of polls, I find it hard to vote knowing that I am not fair to a big (and somewhat mainstream) portion of pro wrestling.

I would have bet A LOT of money that Liger would rank top 15 at the worst, most likely top 10.

I would guess mid to late 30s. Using the data from the honorable mentions and assuming that the average voter started watching wrestling at the age of 12 and doing some further simplications, I get to an average of about 36 years.

Strong has been stuck in an endless loop for me since 2005: every couple of years people on the internet write about how much he has improved or how he is the best wrestler on the planet, followed by me watching some of this current matches and thinking "he is absolutely competent, but I have to be missing something".

So Claudio is the guy who made the top 100 without being top 10 on any single ballot. Actually, he was on 211 ballots and only made top 25 on 9 of those.

Wait, Chris Hero is still in the running? WTF?

Regarding the list, Hase dropping that early is the first one that really hurt. The only thing speaking against Hase is his relatively short time of full activity. On the other hand, I am sure even at 65 he could still deliver a 3.5-4 star match if push came to shove, considering how great he looked in his last appearance three years ago.

Consider the number of unprotected chairshots he took and how many other of his generation who did the same ended up, it's more Tanaka being a physical freak than him wrestling smarter. I mean Jun Akiyama is still around and doing good last I checked and Kobashi didn't retire due to neck issues.

Not sure if Buddy Rose is the best name to make that point as there are a lot of long 2/3 fall TV matches of his around (mostly because Rose himself taped and preserved that stuff, of course).

Randy Orton too, right?

So another 14 years later, I finally rewatched that match and yeah, it definitely holds up. Marty taking the Fatu-bump on the clotheline made my laugh out loud.

Were they any good? When I was watching NJPW somewhat more regular when they were fresh as Roppongi 3K, I thought they completely blew. I also remember watching some Fantasticamania stuff from around that time and thinking how bad Raijin and Fujin were even before I realized who was under the masks.

In 96, Steamboat would have been fine. WWF did some real old-school booking that year and they were not that light on wrestling, though by the fall of 97 he would have felt like a relic.