Ditch

RE: UWFi's financial management: I watched James "Guido" Maritado's shoot, and from what I can tell he was paid by UWFi to train for a couple years, and he only wrestled a couple shows as a jobber for 6 months and was gone. There were probably others like that.

It occurs to me that Jumbo-as-GOAT was much the same as Fujiwara/Lawler. Somewhat against-the-grain, based heavily on previously unseen/ignored footage, and many years after the fact.

The All Japan '90s crew, or let's say early '90s Liger, were received as being top-of-the-line workers within a couple years of hitting their prime. Granted in the '90s it was among a smaller community of people who traded tapes and read WON, but still. Whereas there was at least *some* Fujiwara floating around and he never got a whiff of such praise until recently. That's the difference. I think it's a matter of his work not getting nearly as much attention from consensus-makers like Meltzer, and thus not being widely seen, but there is a pretty clear distinction. It's really uncommon for a wrestler in the modern era to go from 'good hand/capable worker' to getting GOAT praise long after the fact.

Yes, the Fujiwara footage was 'there', but it wasn't all that heavily seen before the '80s and PWFG sets. I'm with you in that I don't think he or Lawler have enough all-time great performances to merit GOAT status, but the vast majority of Fujiwara's career was overlooked until the last couple years.

He gave Jimmy Rave a concussion, but that's about it from what I've heard.

I'm sure if Hokuto and/or Kandori ate shoot punches as regularly as Misawa took head drops there would have been serious consequences. And I'm also pretty sure that if Misawa saved those bumps for the big shows he'd still be around. There's any number of things in wrestling that, done outside moderation, are needlessly risky. Doesn't make any instance of them masturbatory.

I'm not big on the first one but I think the second is underrated. Shoot punches to the face is not something that gets less brutal over time. I don't know... I tend to think they get less impressive as time goes by. I'm not a lightweight about stiffness, but the shoot punches strike me as big of jerk offs as the unprotected chairshots. It's easier for me to watch two guys who died in ugly fashions working a chinlock-centric match than watch Tanaka and Awesome plonk each other in the skull... or Foley eating punches in a masturbatory quest for realism. Hokuto bleeding all over the place in their first matches is easier to watch than Kandori and Hokuto being dipshits in the rematch. "Punched Him/Her Right In The Face" is one of those dated that's a goofy to read now as "Droped Him Right On His Head" has become. John A couple backyarders can swing chairs and throw potatoes, so there is something to that. But Hokuto vs Kandori did it the right way: the matches were built to, the punches were built to and used to maximum effect. No different than All Japan head drops really.

I'm not big on the first one but I think the second is underrated. Shoot punches to the face is not something that gets less brutal over time.

I do think a long run of uninspired work should weigh heavily against a candidate. You can adapt to physical limitations (Fujinami) or try to avoid becoming a skipping record (Flair). In Flair's case, he did SO MUCH in his peak run that even 15 mediocre years, many of them part-time at best, don't come close to overwhelming it. With Fujinami, not so much. Fujinami was clearly a great worker in the '80s, and heck he could go in the late '70s, but was there a Flair-like depth of great performances such that the second half of his career can be forgiven? Fujinami could have gone in a Tenryu direction or a MUGA direction and been very capable in the '90s; instead he was just sorta 'there' most of the time and on occasion he'd be carried to something more. The '06 Nishimura match, to me, shows what he could have done if his heart was in it. How many Flair/Fujinami types are there, though? With Kawada, the weaker last 5 years is matched up against 16-18 good years. Jumbo was a good rookie and had 18-19 good years. Kobashi and Misawa worked to their physical limits after their peak and were reliable for a couple good outings a year. From what I gather, the lucha greats like Satanico aged incredibly well. Who else has 10-15 years of greatness followed by 10-15 years of middlin'? It's not about whether Fujinami had a great career, but whether it's better than the many wrestlers who didn't have that same career flaw.

That makes a lot of sense. I can certainly see people going with early UWFi over pre-Tamura RINGS. I mean, I would.

I'm not sure "was having very good matches relative to late '90s US TV" is all that ringing of an endorsement for GOAT...

I think there's a decent case for Mysterio. The number of promotions and opponents he had success with is a testament to his ability. I'm not sure he has much #1 support though. People who really like lucha tend to rate Blue Panther et al. higher. As a lucha/US crossover, Eddie gets more support. Mysterio is the type of person who would be top 25 no matter where you do a poll, but he'd struggle to hit top 5 anywhere. I'd compare him to Vader. The case is quite similar, both had lots and lots of good matches, both are loved by pretty much everyone, and yet neither gets significant GOAT hype. Fujinami just dropped too much as a worker after his (back?) injury to be considered for #1, or even top 5 really. He had about 1 notably good match in the '00s, and hardly any MOTYCs by any standard in the '90s. Lots and lots of very forgettable matches. Even if one rates him #1 for the '80s, I think you'd want him to be at least top 50 for the '90s, which he simply wasn't.

-Toyota was in enough matches that can reasonably called 'consensus great', and has another large number that are Your Mileage May Vary, that a case for #1 wouldn't be at all out of the question for fans of her style. I mean, I think her '95 broadway with Kyoko was awful, but I'm sure plenty of people still consider it MOTY if not top 5. She was consistent as far as effort goes. I disagree, but I understand. -I don't get "UWFi was flashy". In the sense that you'd get more traditional pro wrestling impact moves than, say, RINGS? Because to me RINGS is much more flashy as far as having a fast pace and innovation. I think UWFi getting notice ahead of other shoot-style has to do with two things: Vader and the NJ feud.

I don't think Toyota as best woman of the '90s is out of the question the way I think Takada (or Sayama) as best wrestler ever is. And certainly Meltzer touted both Takada and Sayama as great workers... but did he tout them as GOAT material? When I've seen people try to make the case for Takada, it invariably lacked the depth of analysis that such a claim would really need. The sort of depth one would expect from someone who really had 'seen it all'. And even then, yes, I'm sure Meltzer watched all those relevant Takada, Toyota and Sayama bouts. Was he getting every RINGS show? PWFG? Certainly he wasn't watching every Battlarts show. The case for Takada as the overwhelmingly best shoot-style wrestler, and a jaw-dropping junior, who thus was the best ever, always seemed predicated on ignorance. Either not having seen the numerous 'off' nights, or not having seen other shoot-style promotions to compare his best work with. The 'set in their ways' thing is beyond dispute. I guess what I'm getting at is, among people who are still actively seeking new stuff to watch, who are even a little bit open-minded, the type of person that would participate in something like another go-around of the Smarkschoice poll... are very unlikely to put Takada in their top 5 of greatest wrestlers/workers ever. To put it another way: when an opinion like that stops being propigated or defended, almost entirely, it's essentially dead in the water. If you visit enough corners of the IWC you'll find dozens upon dozens of wrestlers being discussed as, at the very least, top 5 all-time material. Takada as possibly the GOAT was in decline many years ago; with each passing year the case for it weakens and the case for others strengthens. Who's still carrying his torch, at least at that highest level of praise? Bottom line: I think it's safe to leave him out of these sorts of discussions.

I'm more referring to people exposing themselves to things they haven't seen before. For instance, other shoot-style promotions, since UWFi was the one that got by far the most attention at first. Or, watching more of the 'lesser' Takada bouts.

I thought it was a "joshi wrestlers are prostitutes on the side" joke. Either way...

I think Takada's taken multiple hits. -As an NJ junior, was he an all-time great junior? Past opinion: maybe, 'your mileage may vary' type thing. Now: no. Just too much detrius. That Cobra match... ugh. -As a main event shoot-stylist in the late '80s through 1996, was he the best at the style? Past opinion: yes, or close to it. Now: almost universally no. When you work once a month there is zero excuse for 'taking the night off', and what's more, you're compared to guys like Han and Tamura who almost never lazed around for 15-25 minutes in their bouts. Takada's stock drops while other shoot-stylists' rise... meaning Takada's GOAT rank falls precipitously. I do somewhat agree on the "people who used to think Takada was the best are likely to still hold that opinion" point, but only to the extent that they haven't watched much new-to-them wrestling in recent years. Same goes for Sayama. Plenty of people who once held both of them in very high regard have revised their opinion.

At this point the emphasis is on 'were'.

I've bought a LOT of UWFi shows over the last couple years, and several of the UWFi-in-NJ events. I find Anjoh to be more consistent in UWFi and wildly fun in NJ. Takada was hit-or-miss, and his low-end work was just abysmal. I mean, he was once out-worked in a singles match *by Nakano*. And meanwhile all this is in discussing who would be getting the 5th most support among shoot-style wrestlers. Here's a poll I did at WKO, which is full of shoot-style fans. The overwhelming choice is that he wasn't even top 10 within the style: http://z11.invisionfree.com/wrestling_ko/i...?showtopic=3674 Granted that's only a subsection of a subsection of the IWC, but then so is "shoot-style fans". If Takada isn't going to draw any 'one of the best ever' support from a group like WKO, where would it come from? I thought Takada as a GOAT candidate was bizarre and nonsensical in '05 or so. Now it seems more like an urban legend. I can only recall a single person making the case and that was ages ago.

2/23 WON: Um, wow. Also, she did quite well in an intergender tag five years ago, thanks to being in there with juniors (Hidaka and Minoru Fujita) who didn't loom over her. Same thing could happen in CHIKARA.

-I think Yamamoto was a notch below TK but not by much. -Anjoh probably had a bad rep a few years ago from his brief but high-profile All Japan stint. All I know is that over the last couple years I've seen almost entirely positive responses when he's brought up, and several people tout him as being on Takada's level (or higher) as a worker during UWFi. One thing I forgot about Takada is that he's easily a top 5 promo in Japanese history, it would be fascinating to see how that would influence things if more than a couple puro watchers were remotely fluent in Japanese.

Because TK didn't get *really* good until '96 or so, then RINGS was all-shoot four years later and TK did very few works after that. Han was high-end in '92, and I think Tamura was a hell of a semi-rookie when he returned after injury in '91. TK doesn't have the body of work to match up with Han or Tamura from the RINGS crew, and then you throw in the likes of Fujiwara, Yamazaki, maybe Maeda or Anjoh or Sano, and it's tough to crack the top 5. I think Yamamoto is really underrated but he's in roughly the same situation as TK.

This is mostly correct, but I'd expect Takada to drop more than the others. Most of the shifts are 'positive', that is, discovering the volume of greatness from great talents. Takada's case has really been obliterated over the years. Between the '80s sets and the increasing respect for shoot-style that wasn't UWFi, what support Takada had as a Top 5 type is now either going to shift to other shoot-stylists (ie. Fujiwara, Tamura, Han, maybe Yamazaki), or he'll just flat-out drop. I never really 'got' the case to begin with, and in recent years I think it's almost become a boogeyman. It's mentioned more by people who don't hold the opinion than by people who do.

Good job on #4 there Powerslam.

Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Fans 8/22 was JIP. Was released in full online by NTV but in crappy vid quality.