Ditch

*brain explodes*

I grew up in a semi-rural exurb. The cable company line ended like one house down the road and we couldn't get cable until 1994.

If you're talented, willing to be content with your slot on the card & don't cause much trouble then you can last quite a long time in WWE as a bottom of the barrel guy. Plus they need a token guy on the roster for stops in Japan.

I wish he used the Million Dollar Buster in WWF like he did in '93 All Japan. He clearly had it up his sleeve in the '80s based on the above post. Not that there's a problem with the Dream, but the Buster would have been effective in lots of situations (ie. quick finish after Virgil interference; as the big nearfall before a Hulk-Up).

Well, why not? Who else is there? You prefer he name Triple H? It's that WWE wrestlers are only going to have like 4-5 guys to choose from (ie. Shawn, Bret, HHH, Austin) as a 'dream match', because wrestling outside WWE doesn't exist... even though WWE owns a ton of footage and doesn't need to pressure people to toe the line like that. It's entirely possible that Kofi and some others only know WWF/WWE, but the unanimity across the roster gets to be ridiculous.

No; it's every time anything happens in a match. Since I don't watch WWE much, I'm not used to it, so I have a hard time with this when I decide to watch the MOTYCs.

I see that Kofi Kingston discussed 'dream opponents'. I know very little about Kofi, but I knew Shawn Michaels would be the top dream opponent. Sure enough, he was. In the WWE Universe, Shawn was an untouchable superworker.

HOF discussion for individuals seems like it could easily be in the Microscope forum.

He was actually 'handsome' when he got started.

You can tell Moolah is way older than the guys. Nick doesn't look 8 years older than Harley, though Nick aged better than maybe anyone in wrestling history.

This might blow some minds: Ohtani has now been a chubby heavyweight for almost twice as long as he was a junior. He recently reached the 20 year mark in his career, and he's managed to go that long with no significant injuries or time off (that I can recall). Yet nobody really talks about him anymore. In the famous Smarkschoice vote he was in 27th place, 12th among all Japanese and 9th among Japanese men. A more recent poll on Ohtani at DVDVR has him in the top 30 for Japan, which strikes me as a lot closer to the truth. Ohtani's junior career is something most of us are familiar with. The feud with Liger, the big matches with all the big names, the facial expressions. Because he didn't wrestle much in the US, Ohtani was one of the first wrestlers you'd be introduced to upon getting tapes of '90s puro. Over the years my opinion of him as a junior has *improved*, especially from '97 on when we got more un-clipped and small-show footage to show his consistency. He was capable from a very early age, especially compared to his heavyweight counterparts in NJ. But then there's heavyweight Ohtani. Not bad by any means, but not elite either. For starters, Ohtani as a junior was compelling as a heel and as an underdog/upstart. Veteran Ohtani rarely had either of those things going for him, though when he did it tended to produce good results. Ohtani in post-Hashimoto Zero1 is the rather uninspiring leader of a rather uninspiring promotion. Good matches here and there, but arguably nothing that could be considered 'great'. He has no significant drawing power. Zero1 has been treading water as a semi-indy for years, and Ohtani as an outsider in other promotions is an upper-midcarder. He hasn't 'made' anyone, with the exception of training Hashimoto's promising young son Daichi. He wasn't a pioneering, legacy-having junior like Sayama, Dynamite, Fujinami, Liger, Ultimo, Sasuke or Benoit. Because there's nothing to the 'case for Ohtani' besides match quality, the second 60% of his career is a big drag. He's not one of the 50 best wrestlers ever, or the 20 best from Japan. All that said, it isn't as though heavyweight Ohtani is *bad*, and he was quite the junior-heavy. This isn't about Ohtani being garbage. It's more that his career doesn't hold up to those of other stars in wrestling history who had longer, more productive/important peaks.

Given that the overwhelming majority of matches are under 10 minutes, I can understand it. But it definitely helped this match a lot.

Loser of the fall...?

I vividly recall this segment from my childhood. IIRC it ended the show, and the announcers put over how they wanted to stay with it as long as possible but time ran out. Rare to have a dramatic ending to Superstars.

...which is why he needs to drop things like show recaps and break up the content between pro wrestling and MMA.

Ten years ago, I enjoyed Tenryu as a lumpy grumpy veteran in post-split All Japan. I'd seen some of his '80s work and thought he was good, but nowhere near the level of Japan's all-time best. Now, I see him as either #1 or #2 from Japan, and certainly a GOAT candidate. THE CASE -Drawing. I don't think anyone can be on the GOAT list without a lot of big draws to their name. Tenryu has been in either the #1 or #2 match for dozens upon dozens of 10,000+ attendance events, including several Tokyo Dome cards. Pre-split and post-split All Japan, New Japan, WAR, SWS, UWFi, World Japan (debut show), and his series of semi-main Budokan matches was a big part of NOAH's successful 2005. -Charisma/personality. You can be great at putting a match together move-by-move, but unless you have something to make the fans care about why your match matters then those moves of little use. I don't know if Tenryu is considered a great talker, but his facial expressions and body language are easy to appreciate in any corner of the globe. Lots of wrestlers can display pain or fire; Tenryu excels at radiating contempt for his opponent. -Adaptability/longevity. In '83 he gets the spotlight as Jumbo's partner, and has a few small singles title matches with the likes of Ted DiBiase. He's decent at this stage but not world-class. Then when Choshu comes to All Japan in '85, Tenryu GETS IT immediately and actually surpasses Jumbo in-ring for a bit. Tenryu carried the All Japan side of things for the first six months of the feud and pretty much established the style he'd use for the rest of his career. While sticking to that style he was still able to do good work in a variety of situations and with a variety of opponents. In '87 he strikes out on his own to feud with Jumbo, leading to a series of great singles and tag matches. Matches that served to lay the groundwork for the super-classics that Misawa & Co. did in the '90s. Tenryu showed more fire and presence, solidifying himself as a main-eventer. By 1990, when he jumped to SWS, Tenryu carried himself like a company ace. This was, in turn, the absolute key to the New Japan vs WAR feud in '92-'94; Tenryu was head-and-shoulders above the rest of the WAR squad yet was so great that the feud wasn't one-sided. Despite being practically a one-man army, NJ vs WAR was the most successful (in terms of sustained intensity and quality) of any of the NJ vs ____ feuds- which is in turn what New Japan is based on. The fact that Tenryu was able to move on to UWFi and work for several months despite being almost the antithesis of shoot-style is further credit to his ability. Even with WAR slowly dying in the late '90s, Tenryu remained relevant, winning the IWGP heavyweight and tag titles. He got a really good match out of Sasaki in the main event of the January 4th 2000 Dome show, and I think Sasaki going through it was vital to his being able to turn in an even better performance in the famous match with Kawada later in the year. I hope most everyone here is familiar with Tenryu's return to All Japan, why that was important, and how fun Grumpy Old Tenryu was. Not many wrestlers in their 50s are turning in MOTYCs, but Tenryu did. He led the remnants of WAR to All Japan, and AJ vs WAR was more important to post-split All Japan on a show-by-show basis than AJ vs NJ. Again, Tenryu was the only big star on his side yet he was enough to make it work. Tenryu shifted away after a couple years, and had successful runs in 2004 NJ and 2005 NOAH. And if 55 year old Tenryu hadn't done enough yet, he even managed to get some mileage in HUSTLE. He turned in a couple more good performances even in recent years, though he wrestles very rarely. Tenryu returned to the ring a couple weeks ago at age 62. His career has lasted 36 years, which isn't actually that remarkable in terms of wrestling history. What is remarkable is that he had a ~20 year peak (1985-2005) with very little interrption due to injury. He didn't have to re-invent himself and he didn't get stale. The only Japanese heavyweight who could possibly match Tenryu for longevity is Baba, but with so little '60s footage available it's hard to judge Baba's early years, and time was much kinder to Tenryu. Jumbo's peak was cut short by disease; Hashimoto's by death; Kobashi's by injury; Misawa's by the toll of bumping; Kawada's by apathy. I can understand preferring a wrestler on a personal basis based on things like personality, a really hot 2-3 year run, a memorable feud, or a couple great matches. However, in terms of objectively weighing the GOAT durability must be a major factor. That's why I think Tenryu is clearly a top contender for the best to come from Japan. -Great matches. All Japan '80s: http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/topic/5...-1980s-results/ All of the top four, and 16 of the top 29. Japan in the 2000s: http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/topic/4...y-year-results/ Granted, my votes are a smaller sample size, but they are an excellent representation of the best Japan produced. He had two of the top 10 and one of the top 5 in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Two more top 10 matches in 2005, and another in 2006. Plus he was consistently good on smaller-show tags through 2005, with the exception of the suck-magnet that was World Japan in 2003. Tenryu in the '90s is something that is hard to fully appreciate because he was in so many places, and so much of the work was against second-tier opponents so that there weren't as many MOTYCs. But the quantity of good-to-great matches is still there, along with the accomplishment of leading the NJ vs WAR feud. I'm still finding more good Tenryu outings here and there. This is where the '80s and '00s work is so important, because Tenryu isn't a GOAT candidate if we just look at the '90s, but unlike pretty much any top '90s star his peak extends more than a couple years in either direction (let alone both directions). I'm hosting hundreds of Tenryu matches on theditch.biz, .us and .com. You'll be hard-pressed to find a bad Tenryu outing, and more than a handful of mediocre ones. The fact that so many matches still doesn't cover every good Tenryu match is a testament to the quality of his career.

Agreed, although part of it for me was seeing the '94 matches well after the fact with huge hype and not seeing what the big deal was (similar to the WMX ladder match). Easily my favorite Nasties match.

I think the 60 minute broadways, while problematic in quality terms, didn't hurt. Instead they served to make the reign more epic and distinguish it from the standard Hashimoto-era 15-20 minute title matches. Also, Barnett was a strong challenger in the context of NJ vs MMA, and Nishimura was an upper-midcarder booked to get a title shot at a mid-size venue. What hurt the reign was the number of stars who left in the previous 5 years: Hashimoto, Mutoh, Kojima, Tenryu (who was around off-and-on through the '90s), Yamazaki. The main roster was weaker. Maybe they could have had Tenzan challenge, but it's not like NJ's roster was full of star power that didn't challenge Nagata. Other than getting a defense against someone from AJ or NOAH, I'm not sure what more NJ could have done with Nagata's reign. For reference, the 2002 G-1: http://www.purolove.com/njpw/history/g1climax02.php Tanahashi, Yoshie and Kenzo Suzuki were in no position to challenge. Koshinaka had no steam. Nagata defended against the rest except Tenzan. Ummmm... no.

I can understand that. But there's zero excuse for booking the Fedor fight, especially in 2003.

I only pimp GOOD matches... like this!

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/08/98) - this aired? Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs Johnny Smith & Wolf Hawkfield (AJPW 01/26/98) - remove Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Gary Albright (AJPW 02/28/98) - finish only Kenta Kobashi vs Johnny Ace (AJPW 03/21/98) - remove Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue (AJPW 03/22/98) - finish only Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Jun Akiyama & Masao Inoue (AJPW 03/29/98) - remove Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/29/98) - remove Stan Hansen vs Steve Williams (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/29/98) - remove Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/12/98) - remove Maunakea Mossman vs Satoru Asako (AJPW 06/12/98) - remove Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Akira Taue & Jun Izumida (AJPW 07/24/98) - finish only Mitsuharu Misawa & Takao Omori vs Kenta Kobashi & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW 10/24/98) - finish only Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito Kakihara (AJPW Real World Tag League 10/31/98) - remove. And who thought it was RWTL?! Vader & Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/21/98) - finish only Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Johnny Ace & Bart Gunn (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/21/98) - remove

This matchup happened a lot but most of the time it just didn't click (especially in '95). The 9/13/97 iteration, however, is good.

Let's not forget that there was a lot of interest in Goldberg vs Bigelow as a Tough Guys Fighting feud until all the late '98/early '99 nWo nonsense got in the way. That could easily have been another title defense feud for Goldberg if he beat Nash. Then do Hogan/Nash fingerpoke of doom as a #1 contenders match, turn Luger, and you'd get Hogan and Luger defenses to milk a couple more months. Keep Wrath's streak going and you'd have him in there too. Really not hard to give Goldberg interesting PPV defenses if they actually tried.

I keep seeing references to this. Did I miss the thread this is referring to? http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=18070

The way they booked Meng in the last few years, along with his persona/style, did establish his toughness. But they never let him get wins over ANY stars. It was all jobbers.