El-P

Let the idiocy begin.

All these unmasked douchebags. I think I saw some of them at the Capital Hill. Das Racist is back. Ok now it's really a rib.

A bunch of old-ass blabbing nonsense ain't exactly hyping me for anything. Give me Orton vs Fiend NOW so I can go to sleep with the satisfaction of having seen a really stupid match.

Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi. Pretty elite company indeed.

Wow, Lawler really looks like an old man with pathetically colored hair now. What's the point of this pre-show anyway ? There's not even a match on there.

Between the NJPW stuff and the first year of AEW, this guy has added quite some heavy artillery to his case. Interestingly enough, he had already progressed from 2006 to 2016 so it's not like he got that much backlash either. He's one I'll have fun revisiting some of his WWE stuff I haven't seen in a while (or at all).

I actually wrote about it a long, long time ago. I loved Hokuto vs Kyoko, which was a MOTYC to me and hated that particular Toyota vs Yamada match, which I thought was a complete debacle. A rare instance of two workers who had a classic match the same year a few months later (the hair match) but totally laid an egg there. Again, Toyota was never a favorite of mine. There's plenty great joshi workers from any era I'd rather watch. But I still consider her a great worker. As far as Yoshida being better than Toyota, of course she was.

She was in 2006 and I take full credit for that one.

Hopefully more than this. Plus Yoshida plus plus plus...

Yep. 14 made it in 2006 (Hokuto highest at 15). In 2016, only Hokuto, Bull, Aja & Manami made it back. Aja was the highest at 49 (!) and Hokuto was second at 52. Yep....

He's one of the current NJPW guys I will have the pleasure to get deeper into. I can't wait to see where he stands alongside Naito & Okada.

She was one of the only 4 women who made it last time. She'll probably do fine. She will get people supporting her case.

3 hours really. The first half hour was waiting for the rain to stop.

16/17 Naito was some of the best pro-wrestling I've seen. I need to see what came before.

Not seen this one. I have some great pro-wrestling to watch !

FWIW, I believe Tanahashi said that Styles has been his favorite opponent. That's some praise.

That it's as irrelevant as people saying the same thing about Vader. It's what contributed to make Aja so great for the style she was going after.

Great match against PAC, great match against Page, great match against Fénix, great match against Mox... Nah, his AEW only reinforces his case thus far. He's been killing it showing up in IMPACT too.

His infamous long reign was the greatest since Kobashi in NOAH. Fascinating big match worker. Gotta dig up the years I haven't seen.

The three greatest matches I've seen in 30 years of watching pro-wrestling involve Kenny Omega (vs Naito for G1 Climax 17, the third Okada match, with Page vs Bucks in AEW last year). And that's from someone who really hated him at first. I'm gonna go back and watch his stuff in DDT and early NJPW and there's 5 years of US wrestling upcoming. But he was very instrumental in the three greatest matches I've ever seen... That's quite something because I've seen a whole lot of great pro-wrestling from everywhere and every era.

I mean, she certainly went way overboard at times, and she absolutely isn't (wasn't, because I haven't watch any of that stuff in probably 15 years) one of may favourites stylistically in this era, but to me the "she doesn't sell" bits doesn't bother me that much because selling certainly wasn't one of her priorities. She had others, in term of pacing, offensive-minded style, a sense of acceleration and culmination of bigger and bigger spots until the apex, a sense of desperation and fighting spirit that absolutely had the audience she was working for go batshit insane for her, the intensity of the work, the bumping, the velocity... Yes, she was not about long-term selling most of the time and yes she could get grating with the way she would run around without much transitions, but she brought up so many other elements at an insane level (that I'm not sure I've seen a lot since). I'm not sure what I'd think of it with my eyes of today, maybe I'll enjoy it less than before, maybe I'll see other stuff that make me enjoy it more, I have honestly no idea.

Who cares about overall, I'm telling you what times it is. Lashley vs Drew was very good. Rollins vs Cesaro was great. Sasha vs Bianca was excellent, with Sasha having a career performance. If you enjoy the idea of Bad Bunny playing Ricky Morton to Miz' Arn Anderson (yeah, I know), you'll probably love this match too. Overall (damn), a fun Mania night.

And you won't tell us what he asked and what Jericho answered ? Damn !

People got smarter and accepted pro-wrestling as some kind of "performance art" and put more and more value in the performance itself as they showed more appreciation for the work of the pro-wrestlers (which goes along caring more for them as human beings), while at the same time wanting to keep the "innocence" of playing along. Mike Oles was a prophet.

Oh, ok, makes total sense then. Yeah, it's crazy, he could have totally decided to go into cruise control for years considering how bad the booking got (aka Samoa Joe, who got seemingly demoralized after they screwed him up). Instead, he piled up great matches after great matches, against all kind of different opponents, all kind of different dynamics, all kind of different gimmick matches year after year. Actually I still have the last two years of his stint to watch (but I did see the biggest matches from this period already).