El-P

Damn that's right ! Lance was so stiff in this at the end of each episode, explaining this and that. Who else was on that thing ? I also remember watching the Though Enough Austin season with Ivelisse, Matt Cross and Marty the Moth (just googled him, so he is/was a trainer at the Nightmare Factory !). The winner on the other hand showed up on RAW, got humiliated and it was the last of him.

It does. Quite the good match. All running jokes aside, I'm happy to see Christian Cage work again in the promotion in enjoy. The funniest (and honestly awesomest) thing to me is that I picture him during the creative talks about his presentation and he's like "I want my TNA theme." Yeah ! Go Dixieland !

Like, let's talk business here. She spent her entire career establishing her own personal brand and character and now she's "Frankie Monet". And of course she can't use her social medias outlet to do business and revenue on the side like every independent contractor should, because of course the awareness she has online is all about Frankie Monet, right, not the last 15 years or so hustling around the world as Taya Valkyrie. Such stupid bullshit.

This. Plus, Kandori is about the least representative worker of what joshi puroresu was stylistically at that time. She brought something very different, which was great at times, but she was very much her own beast.

Austin Aries vs SrS is like the lamest internet feud ever. The guy who doesn't believe in the germ theory vs the guy who makes up news. No one is a winner.

*facepalm* Pro-wrestling game name. What's betta' ? Franky Monet of TAYA MOTHERFUCKING VALKYRIE ? Also, her gimmick is that she has a dog, apparently. Hey, good for Taya, leaving the dream...

That's funny because when he debuted in WWF, he was clearly part of that new generation of indy guys who were doing odd looking spots (like Edge or the Hardys) that looked totally different from the previous generation to the point you could say they weren't "trained properly" (hum.... reminds me of something). And now of course, him and Matt Hardy are the typical "old school guys" who can do "solid old school matches". Same could be said of Kazarian BTW, who really became famous in TNA doing the X-division stuff and really wasn't the best at it either (never was a fan of his very early work) but now he's a totally relatable veteran worker who's gonna bring the really solid "old school work". Of course they have all matured in their work too but still, they are a very different from "real" old school workers. From the 80's I mean ! But yeah, times makes everything so bizarre.

...from the 00's. That doesn't make me feel old at all when people refer to some post-00's stuff (whatever it is, music, movies, wrestling) as "good old fashioned" !!! I'm such a boomer now, as they say.

Him and Kazarian are gonna have a super solid match that will be fun to watch... and that's about it...

Like you'd think he would considering how he looked the last time he was on TV. Yeah, AMW were awesome.

Why poor Akiyama ? He's certainly a guy who has suffered before and will suffer from the lack of awareness his later career gets, as he really stays in the shadow of Kobashi and even old Misawa in NOAH in the 00's and then his post-peak works (which seem to get a lot of love from some people) in NOAH/AJPW when both promotions really aren't spotlighted at all anymore (not to even talking about Go Shiozaki and the likes).

What is your focus on joshi btw ? I have the AJW Classics on a hard drive so that will be the priority, but I'd want to (re)visit some of JWP and also some of the late 90's/early 00's stuff we talked about (GAEA, Neo, Jd', revisit ARSION), and some "current" names (basically from the last 10 years) eventually (Kana/ASUKA).

BTW : This is very much appreciated.

It's a fake-ass lockdown anyway, it's about as efficient as a cage match in WWE in term of keeping the heels from interfering.

Ok, fair enough. If you've watched the 80's stuff (or the non AJPW Tenryu stuff) and you want to include them, of course, no reason not to. You can't watch everything.

I know this is PWO, I'll just say this as we're entering our third lockdown for one month : the COVID crisis management in France is booked by WWE.

I blame Gedo for shitty booking. I don't see Naito winning the belt this year. It would make more sense to me to have Okada get it back at the Dome from Ibushi. It would make even more sense to have Ibushi win the Never Openweight championship too and face Kenny Omega, AEW/IMPACT/AAA champion to determine the true God of Pro-wrestling !

And so James Storm was having his 1000 match (kayfabe or true, who knows) in IMPACT/TNA. And who else shows up but Chris Harris. And of course, he screws Storm who loses the match against Eric Young. Just kidding, of course not. James Storm wins his 1000nd match *thanks* to Chris Harris, because IMPACT doesn't book stupid shit and always makes the most sense. That was quite cool, especially when you know about the absolute greatness that were AMW, one of the best tag teams of the last 20 years. Next week for the first Thursday show, Omega in action in 6 men vs Eddie Edward, Swann & Willie Mack !

Speaking of which, sorta, Inoki is not doing very good apparently.

To me the "universal standard" would come from within the workers themselves in term of how they are displaying their own greatness. I don't want to have a grid of lecture and apply my own criterias to workers, I want to let the workers themselves bring that greatness onto me, taking in account that my perception will always be subjective.

To be fair, Okada is apparently hurting pretty bad now. And he has a story going on, with him not giving any respect to Ibushi at all in the 6 men tag they are having together with Tana. I guess it could lead to Okada winning the G1, but he really should get some rest in the meantime.

I like that question. Because it does certainly apply to the in-ring stuff in term of the styles they are working. Which is why for instance, although the Shawn vs Taker matches at Mania weren't my favorite style at all, what they did absolutely worked wonders in this context and absolutely reached greatness status to me, although I liked the Batista & Edge matches better. From then of course, you have to try and grasp who did what that made it so great to you, and like you said before it's easier to judge a match than a worker...

But you don't ignore you are. The fact you end your post by underlining that "oh, the pillar stuff isn't gonna be fun" absolutely puts the focus on this very point. Basically you begin your post with this point and you conclude your post with the same point. Which is why I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt... As far as me fucking off, well, it's not like we're gonna debate since we're probably on polar opposites considering the approach, he doesn't have to worry about his safe space. That is a totally different thing since it also involves stuff like "How many hours of pro-wrestling are you willing to watch ?", which is the kind of gatekeeping stuff that had people ran away with fear the last time (and still may prevent some people to take part in this because they will feel they "haven't watched enough"). But no, my point was about announcing that you're going into this with a pre-conceived idea of watching stuff to "shove down" names. Again, WHY BOTHER ? I'd rather watch stuff that I will enjoy and maybe shoot up names, without preconceived ideas. As far as getting a whole picture, that's totally up to debate for several reasons, first you get the old peak vs longevity duality (and I'm not sure which one is more valid to me, I honestly understand both). And then like I said, unless you spend you life watching pro-wrestling, you're not gonna get the full picture for every name. And is it really necessary ? I honestly don't think so (so I guess I'm more of a peak guy in a way ?), because the way I see things, the brillance of one moment can be more important to someone than being really consistent for a long time. Or even having peaks at different times or different styles can seem more important. There's so many way to approach how you'd want to compare. And that is, I'm not even sure I'm comfortable "comparing" and even less "rating", although I'm sure I can basically get to the point of having a satisfactory "top 20" names of the greatness wrestlers ever to me. But I'm thinking the criterias can't be rigid, neither in term of styles neither in term of how I'll look at what is the most important. To me it will depend of what I get from each workers. Probably some will get high more because of the consistency over a long period, and some will get high because of an incredible peak. And also, and that's not a nice things to say I know, but having watched more than everybody else doesn't mean you understand better, like, at all. You can have watched pro-wrestling for 30 years and have some of the worst takes ever (yeah, you can apply that to me if you want ). Which is why the gates should be open to different kind of voters indeed.

You're just ignoring my point. The idea of going into this thing with a pre-determined idea that you've got to "shove down" some name is ridiculous and makes the thing pointless.

So you're gonna watch the AJPWNOAH stuff with the pre-determined idea that you're gonna "shove down" the pillars except Taue. Why even bother watching then ? This kind of approach is such a turn-off to me. Gives me the urge to make my list already, 99% japanese women wrestlers + Raven at N°1, for the fuck of it, really.