Matt D

Given the 5 new 86 Germany matches we have of his (Steinblock, Wright, Dieter, Wanz, Dieter/Wanz), on top of the Hansen singles and Buddy Rose tag, I wonder if Vader isn't on this list somewhere. It takes him a while to figure out the Vader character, but he was pretty far along as Baby Bull/Bull Power.

I think my list will be pretty good in 2036. Look, it's been a crazy decade. I did a lot of watching FOR 2016, filled in gaps, and ultimately decided that my list was going to be limited. For 2026, I have filled in a lot of gaps and explored wrestling in places I would have never imagined, like 300 hours (or whatever) of French Catch. This list is much more about my journey than any attempt to cover all grounds. The additions to the list represent France, the AJPW watching I've done (comprehensive from 89-mid 91 and so much before that), the NJPW UWF 2.0 watching I've done (Comprehensive from 86-89 and lots of what was before that), Comprehensive AJW 76-early 82, a lot of new German footage from 80-81, the Puerto Rico work I've done, and the work I've done for Found Footage Friday. There are still gaps. I don't feel like I understand the totality of guys like Liger and Hashimoto, or even someone like Anjo (but I do have a pretty good sense of Yamazaki so he slipped in at the bottom). I feel like I have enough understanding of the pillars to exclude three out of the four. That's a conscious decision. I ultimately decided not to rank active wrestlers or wrestlers who primarily made their case in the 21st century. Some of that is because I just don't feel like we have the distance and it wouldn't bring me joy even if it would, in part, represent my journey. Some of that is on merit and stylistic preference. I don't think many would get on my list anyway with all of the new people I had to shove on, but it would have made me joust with guys like Danielson, Samoa Joe, etc. Rey and Christian were people I clearly would have ranked but didn't for these purposes as well as so much of their case is as 2000s TV workers. I think we'll have more of that distance by 2036. If we did this even a year or two later, I'd almost certainly be able to rank Jaguar/Devil/Chigusa/Lioness/Dump. I am doing that work literally right now. I feel bad that they're not on there though. The point is that this is a lifelong journey and these lists, while they should be reasoned and consistent, are much more about your own personal relationship with wrestling than trying to figure out any truth. I wouldn't have made a list even except for that I wouldn't want to let down the kids who care about this and are trying to express themselves. So let's go with what I've got. I may tweak a few things here or there but this is my list for now. I feel pretty good about the first ~15 or so. After that, it's dodgy as hell. That's ok! We're on a lifelong journey here. 1 Nick Bockwinkel 2 Terry Funk 3 Genichiro Tenryu 4 Negro Casas 5 Buddy Rose 6 El Satanico 7 Yoshiaki Fujiwara 8 Jim Breaks 9 Andre the Giant 10 Jerry Lawler 11 Ric Flair 12 Giant Baba 13 Dick Murdoch 14 Jumbo Tsuruta 15 Stan Hansen From 2026, Virus obviously got moved down. That was untenable. A moment in time that he was there last time, though he did nothing wrong. More opportunity cost than anything else. Tenryu is someone who I have watched forward from my point in time. As I've come to care so much about immersion and not showing strings and intrinsic storytelling and depth and broadness of character. He's undeniable. Funk represents this too and while he doesn't clear Bock for me, he's firmly my number 2 now. Fujiwara is one of the most fascinating wrestlers ever, so self-aware and in the moment and transcendent over such a long period of time. You don't want to look away from a single exchange. Baba like Andre, understands who and what he is and what he represents and enacts it to an amazing degree. Murdoch is so much like Funk in so many ways himself, and his New Japan work is really wonderful. I think a match that represents this list as much as anything else is the Fujiwara vs Murdoch handheld we got. I love the 70s Jumbo test series. I learned so much seeing Jumbo's hypocrisy and fall through his Gladiator era in 88-90 and becoming grumpy Jumbo. I don't think everything hits but this is where he belongs on my list. And I understand Hansen much better now so he jumped about ten spots. Him always being in the moment and creating meaningful wrestling simply by being himself, but also serving the match in ways that, let's say Brody, does not. 16 Tully Blanchard 17 Ricky Morton 18 Arn Anderson 19 William Regal 20 Invader 1 Not much to say about this chunk. I moved Tully up because I feel like I've come to know him better and he's perfect and stark in what he does. So true to himself and so entertaining and effective. I saw no real reason to drop Ricky, Arn, Regal. Invader is maybe the best seller ever, a great puncher, amazing comebacks. I don't connect to HdS as much as some others do, but when I do connect with him, it's straight to my veins with rousing babyface fire. 21 Riki Choshu 22 Randy Savage Choshu and Savage are unknowable in so many ways, seething, electric, always on. I probably dock Savage for some of his 94-96 formula, but I tend to think of these two together. They create such a mood, even if the details of what they do are very different. 23 Hijo del Santo 24 Bobby Eaton 25 Gilbert Leduc 26 Blue Panther 27 Virus That's where Virus landed. It's probably more accurate. Panther moved up a bit. A brief word on the French guys. We have so much footage with them. I spent so much of the pandemic watching and writing about them and the years later, going back through and making gifs and everything else. Very few people have gone through all the footage, because it is so much work, but I hope people do. It's not always many matches but it IS many minutes and you really get a sense of these wrestlers. Some of the stylistic differences can be hard to deal with because the ebbs and flows are not always what you expect or would prefer, but you see the work put into it and the skill at play. Some of this is based on what we do have though. If we had another ten Tony Oliver or Ami Sola or Jean Rabut matches, who knows, right? But based on the evidence we have I stand by all 10 or so I ranked and I could have ranked another ten easily. Someone like Pierre Bernaert was so good at what he did. Or we KNOW Modesto Aledo was so good and versatile but we just can't prove it like we can some of the others. 28 Tatsumi Fujinami 29 Steve Grey 30 Bret Hart These three make wrestling feel like sport. I ranked them how I did in part because Bret has inconsistency through the 80s and feels like more of a peak candidate to me. What follows are some of the best babyfaces ever, broken up by Cota and Saito (who is actually a wonderful babyface when he gets to fire up in Japan rarely). Corn, who people might not be familiar with is such a great French stylist, who could work even holds with anyone in the footage with build and payoff but had some of the best fiery back and forths down the stretch when things boiled over. Again, he spoke to me. For the French guys, it's a matter of inches. 31 Jacky Corn 32 Ricky Steamboat 33 Rick Martel 34 Mocho Cota 35 Tito Santana 36 Masa Saito 37 Sangre Chicana 38 Dustin Rhodes 39 The Destroyer 40 Franz Van Buyten 41 Barry Windham 42 Black Terry 43 Roger Delaporte 44 Andre Bollet Almost none of you will be interested why I put Delaporte over Bollet. Bollet is more wild energy but Delaporte does so much more with so much less, just with his facial expressions and his body language. But they belong together and they're two of the great villains of the 20th century. 45 El Dandy 46 Masked Superstar 47 Atlantis 48 Larry Zbyszko 49 Masa Fuchi 50 Antonio Inoki Inoki at 50. I love him. When he is on, he is so, so on. But I do think sometimes he makes the wrong creative choices for the wrong reasons. That's part of his genius like almost everyone on this list but with him it's turned up to 11. I don't get the sense he was in control of himself like some of the other great wrestlers in the top 20. That effortless mastery is a lot of what I was looking for up there. Fuchi is a guy who is full of that mastery actually, able to go from a great technical jr. heavyweight title match, to a comedy six man where he plays the fool or the straight man (he can do both), to a brutal six man where he's just killing some young punk, all in the same week. Brilliant wrestler. 51 Akira Taue I understand Taue. Front and back. Up and down. I find lots of flaws in Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada. While I wish Taue would have gotten it just a little sooner, once he gets it, he never loses it. I believe in the guy. 52 Emilio Charles Jr 53 Guy Mercier 54 Roddy Piper If you told me that you'd put Mercier over Corn and Leduc, I wouldn't shrug that off. He's excellent. They all are. It's just down to preference and the footage we have. Piper is a massive beneficiary of found footage over the last decade. Lots of great stuff from him. We definitely undersold him for years. 55 La Fiera 56 Le Petit Prince 57 Billy Robinson/Billy Catanzaro (oops) 58 Greg Valentine 59 Bill Dundee 60 Fuerza Guerrera 61 Jerry Blackwell 62 Dennis Condrey 63 Terry Rudge 64 Steve Austin 65 Gilbert Cesca 66 Mighty Inoue 67 Matt Borne 68 Fit Finlay 69 Inca Peruano 70 MS-1 71 Marty Jones 72 Rene Lasartesse 73 Bob Orton, Jr. 74 Pirata Morgan 75 Jose Lothario If we had more footage, I could see guys like Lasartesse and Lothario even higher. Same even with Van Buyten who I put quite high. Van Buyten is undeniable as one of the best babyfaces I've ever seen plus he has one great heel performance. He, with Lasartesse, can just conduct a crowd and build a masterpiece. Peruano is so unique and electric. One of the most interesting wrestlers I've ever seen and he represents the journey of the last decade, while also representing guys like Sabu who are sort of unclassifiable. 76 Perro Aguayo Sr 77 Solar I Given what I've come to value over the last ten years, I could have stuck more British guys (Veidor for instance) or more stooges (Rip Rogers, Eric Embry, Chris Colt, Ron Starr, etc) here, but I wanted to represent the super babyface stars who moved the crowd and squeezed every inch of emotion and feeling out of every moment. You could mix up the next four pretty easily, but I wanted them here because they're part of what I've come to appreciate (In-ring! This is all in-ring!) in what they were able to achieve 78 Dusty Rhodes 79 Bob Backlund 80 Bruno Sammartino 81 Carlos Colon 82 Clive Myers 83 Tracy Smothers 84 Jackie Sato 85 Jon Cortez 86 Zoltan Boscik 87 Caswell Martin 88 Jacques Rougeau 89 Abdullah the Butcher 90 Super Medico I 91 Kazuo Yamazaki 92 Les Kellett 93 Kuniaki Kobayashi 94 Anton Tejero 95 Hector Garza 96 Yumi Ikeshita 97 Mami Kumano 98 Kantaro Hoshino 99 Chicky Starr 100 Haruka Eigen Not much to say about the bottom ten. Again, it represents my journey but everything had to be true. I think the Black Pair were great as personal picks. I think Eigen and Garza and Starr and Kellett and Jacques (and even Martin) were not just some of the funniest wrestlers ever but also so very good at so many other things. I understand Kobayashi and how explosive he was. A guy you never want to take your eyes off of. Hoshino was able to work against type almost like New Japan's version of Fuchi and he's excellent whenever you get to see him. Medico has amazing punches and was a great babyface but also super versatile as he had entire other lives. So it's a list. And it's my list. And it represents my whole life and my last ten years. I wish I could have put another fifty people on. I wish I had another two years to fix the AJW issue. I don't wish that I put on anyone who made their case in the 21st century. I actually feel pretty good about that. I do wish we had a little more footage of Ernie Ladd or Johnny Valentine, etc., or that i felt more confident about Brisco or Thesz or Rogers. But I don't. Wrestling's great. It's wonderful. I look at this list and I see so much that I love. Even if I didn't necessarily love making a list. I hope everyone had fun with their own journeys and hey, think of all that we still have left to learn.

I'm excited for your 2036 ballot, if only for your clear flexibility of mind and growth/learning mindset.

Fascinated by this. What footage, new or reevaluated by you, would cause this between 2016 and now? Past some Rockers reevaluation (positively), there hasn’t been much shift in overall Shawn discussion. and poor Dandy and Casas.

Ah, got it. My list looks a lot like it did last time, but with Tenryu and Fujiwara inserted. Ironically, that might knock Lawler out, but more likely, it knocks out Flair.

You guys have no concept of just how much the kids hate even the idea of watching Lawler for moral reasons.

I was just thinking yesterday about having Sherri on the list. Oops. Barry Horowitz is the other one I regret.

Just don't try to vote for Lance Storm.

It’s @C.S..

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-footage-friday-master-list.html I've got a few things here on the FFF List. Not a ton. The Garvin match was just 30 seconds for instance.

I wrote up basically every single match of Danielson's AEW run (you can find those here: https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/08/aew-five-fingers-of-death-master-list.html) and it's sort of a weird scenario where he both didn't maximize the possibilities of his opponent and also didn't have enough vision and often let them dilute things in ways that weren't helpful to the match. And I say that thinking he's still great and still a top twenty contender. For me, those are criticisms that only come into play for a top ten contender, if that makes any sense.

On that note, I wrote about his match from last week. —— AEW Dynamite 4/1/26 Will Ospreay vs PAC MD: It's been a bit. Let's talk Ospreay vs PAC and Ospreay's selling. PAC ambushed Ospreay and his damaged neck before the bell with a brainbuster on the floor. Ospreay spent the rest of the match fighting back from that. The match was structured to build to a big comeback, have Ospreay nominally labored as he hit a bunch of his big moves (handsprings, springboards, a 450), for PAC to drop him on the floor a second time, with a second heat during a second commercial break, and then for Ospreay to come back, only to get jammed on his second comeback and have to sneak out a roll up win. Overall his selling of the neck when he was taking a beating was fine, good even. You believed it. The guy has a great personal sense of what neck pain is and can channel it through his connection to the crowd and his earnestness about wanting to fight and wanting to wrestle. He deserves credit for that. And he even made an effort to sell while back on offense, generally between moves. He'd avoid something and end up on the apron before hitting something else and sell in the middle, and there's something to that. It's stronger selling while on offense than I'm used to out of him, even if only marginally. The problem, so much as anything else, is conceptual. His movement when back on offense wasn't consummate to the amount of selling he was doing. The point of selling isn't to check boxes so people don't complain. It's to get fans to buy into the false reality being presented, not as real, but as important and worth caring about in a fictional sense, to immerse themselves in it. In this case, it's not even that I wanted him to sell more when doing a handspring or back somersault, if he was actually going to hit that stuff in the first place. How would that even work? I didn't want us to somehow zoom in on his wincing face or to have his body contort the wrong way midair. That's basically impossible. I get that. (Now him crumbling while attempting such a thing would have been a different story, but that's not even what I think would have been best here, maybe only once, because...). It's that he shouldn't have been doing his usual offense in the first place. If you have a broken hand, you can't just punch people like it's nothing. That defeats the purpose of the selling of the broken hand of the first place. What's interesting in that scenario is to see the wrestler have to use his other hand, or at least have to be more cautious and careful with how he punches and choose the shots he takes smartly with a much higher strategic cost. That's when selling while back on offense stops being rote and starts becoming engrossing and makes for more complete, compelling stories. If he is going to go to the effort sell the neck as that damaged, it should be for a greater purpose than to excuse why PAC is controlling the match and why he's going to have to use a banana peel slip to win. The logical conclusion, what would make it balanced and consummate (and more interesting!) is that he can't do his normal vaulting and flipping and that he should have to find other ways to hurt PAC. Instead, he had his cake and ate it too, and so did the fans. People will say toughness or adrenaline, and I get that. That's what lets him fight back in the first place. I get that people might see him as self-destructive and hurting himself more by doing this. Maybe even the match played out like that as his second comeback ultimately failed and he ended up in a Brutalizer. He couldn't use his superhuman offense to win as effectively as normal to win and had to rely on a roll up instead. But the story wasn't clear or crisp enough for that. Who knows it that was the intention? The dots weren't connected. They were barely dots in the first place. The performance and commentary didn't give us that. It gave us that PAC was too good during that finishing stretch, not that Ospreay was a half step slow and too stubborn to adapt. It would have been more primal, more interesting, more simple and direct, if he had to find other ways to hurt PAC as opposed to hitting all of his normal stuff like it was no big deal and then selling in-between or after moves. It would have been a tighter, cleaner story relative to his selling. Did hitting all of his stuff pop the crowd? Yes. Did it create the same level of honest emotion of him having to find another way to fight back? I don't think so. It was denying people candy and then giving it to them instead of giving them something with more substance. It's okay to give the crowd candy sometimes. It's actually wonderful to deny them it and then make them earn it. That's one of the best ways to get heat in 2026 and it should be done far more, especially with Ospreay. But this story shouldn't have been about candy at all. This was PAC trying to injure Ospreay in front of a grudge match with Mox. You don't maximize the theme of the story you're trying to get the fans to buy into (through Will's otherwise very strong selling). Again, if this is some greater introspective arc about how Ospreay refuses to meet his new reality and find another way, maybe that's different, but the commentary didn't pick up on that, the match only half led there, and I just don't think that's the sort of story that Ospreay would want to tell or would even see the value in. Why would he when the crowd popped for all of his stuff anyway? What we ended up with instead was a lost opportunity, something that took us halfway down a thematic road, before veering us aside and trying to stumble back at the end. ...Otherwise known as yet another Will Ospreay match that's spectacular in the moments but scrambled when it comes to the big picture. It's frustrating because he's so good in so many ways and because he gets close, he really does, but he, more than any wrestler I've ever seen (in part because the things he does excel at make the loudest noise when channeled erroneously) needs an editor to remind him to keep his eye on the ultimate goal at all times.

Jerome and I may disagree with a thousand things about wrestling, but we are firmly united on this. I was watching the ROH/MLP show and he just drowns out the action. It's not additive. It's distracting. He's so busy calling every move with equal excitement and no thought to storytelling or what's the point of any of it is. When he tries to explain what he think is going on, he's way off base. Callis would set up Ian for a line or a comment on something and Mauro would shout "shotgun dropkick!" over them. It literally made it HARDER for me to tell what was going on. I had to rewind multiple times just to try to figure out how the action had gotten to a certain point because Mauro's commentary was so distracting. I'd love to say this is a bit or it's me using hyperbole, but it's really not. It's the most unpleasant pro wrestling watching experience I've had in a long time and made it almost impossible for me to watch. I've never encountered anything quite like it honestly. It's like trying to count to a thousand while someone else is shouting random numbers as loud as they can. You may do ok for the first hundred and forty numbers, but at a certain point, it becomes too much. He is enthusiastic and doesn't feel overproduced or plastic but it's exhausting and more detrimental than any commentator I've ever come across, even current WWE buzzwords and what not.

Pierre Bernaert One of the best, most workmanlike bad guys in the French Catch footage. We have around 25 matches with him spanning the 50s to the 70s, both singles and his odd couple pairing with Cheri Bibi. He's not an over the top character like Duranton or Bollet/Delaporte and he's not as stylized as guys like Peruano, but he's just incredibly solid in his role. He could stooge, lean on someone, feed, be serious or comedic, give and take. Just a great jerk. Matches: Cheri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert vs. Ami Sola/Jo Labat 9/6/59 (SC review: https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/09/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-bibi.html) Pierre Bernaert vs. Laurent Dauthuille 6/26/57 (SC review: https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/04/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-andre-rapp.html) Billy Catanzaro/Pierre Bernaert vs. Mr. Montreal/Vasilios Mantopolous 6/5/72 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2022/05/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-catanzaro.html

Partially my fault for telling him that I hope he had fun and that El Clon used him as a melee weapon at some point. Mostly, I blame society though. Thankfully, did not go viral, though if Mick Foley wants to cut a promo about it, I'm all for it.

I have nominations, including a spattering of French Catch guys. Haruka Eigen Incredible comedy worker and foil to Rusher Kimura. Able to change up his act from match to match while still playing the hits. Has a long career in other roles as well but I find him to be one of the best comedy workers of all time when it comes to timing, crowd interaction, avoiding and then getting comeuppance. Has a trademark "spit spot" which had Japanese fans acting like they were at a Gallagher show. reviews: Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Akira Taue vs. Harkua Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/27/90 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/12/found-footage-friday-tajiri-hhh-baba.html Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuo Momota/Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen/Isamu Teranishi/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 10/20/89 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/04/found-footage-friday-eigen-six-man-park.html Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 8/30/88 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/01/found-footage-friday-fuchi-inoue-eigen.html Jacky Corn One of the top babyfaces in 50s-60s French Catch. We have almost twenty matches of his, tags, singles, face vs face, face vs heel. Excellent chain wrestling. Great at working from underneath. And one of the best of the style at hitting hard as things are boiling over and heading towards a draw or a finish. In some ways he's the baseline, but being the base line for French Catch in these decades is no small thing. reviews: Jacky Corn/Guy Mercier vs. Ted Lamarre/Jo Marsalo ?/?/70 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/12/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-batman-inca.html Jacky Corn vs. Cheri Bibi 12/14/62 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/03/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-corn-bibi.html George Gueret/Teddy Boy vs. Michel Chaisne/Jacky Corn 7/30/56 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/06/tuesday-is-french-catch-gueret-teddy.html Modesto Aledo One of the greatest Spanish lightweight wrestlers. We have less footage than I'd like as him as himself, but enough to really stand out. You can just tell how good he is. What puts him over the top for me is that we have him in a number of matches as Kamikaze as well. In those matches he changes his look and style completely, subsuming himself in his character and channeling those skills to different ends. Probably hard to place but worth a try. reviews Modesto Aledo vs. Teddy Boy 10/13/60 http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/07/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-leduc.html Modesto Aledo vs. Bob Remy 7/29/67 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/09/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-gastel.html Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Kamikaze 1 and 2 12/26/68 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/11/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-boucard.html Guy Mercier Another one of the "baseline" French Catch babyfaces to me, but Mercier's stuff tended to be a little more technical, a little grittier, a little harder hitting. He had some wonderful takedowns (a fake out spin before a leg-pick or a rolling one), a bridging headcissors takeover, and lots and lots of hard shots. He could work from underneath against a bad guy or foreign menace and have a straight up technical war against another babyface. He was excellent portraying a sense of very believable (and undeniable really) exhaustion. A real anchor of the French Catch footage. reviews: Guy Mercier vs Allen Le Foudre 1/24/70 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/06/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-delaporte.html Guy Mercier vs. Mr. Montreal 8/27/83 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/01/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-bordes.html Peter Kayser vs Guy Mercier 8/22/70 https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2022/01/tuesday-is-french-catch-day-rene-ben.html

The biggest thing I learned about Bret in the last ten years is that he’s really a peak case. It seems counter intuitive considering how he presents himself, how conventional wisdom presents him, but it’s true.

Not going to step on Land's feet. People pretty much have to go through his Patreon to get them. I'm just glad they're out there. https://www.patreon.com/c/u110961841/posts

Doing a quick scan of the new Richard Land post for today. Looks like... 9/17/80 Hanover Chris Colt vs Axel Dieter (sounds great) Steve Wright vs Sal Bellomo (should be a really good babyface match) Caswell Martin vs Gran Vladimir (again, sounds really good and entertaining) UFO vs Tom Shaft (never bad to see more Shaft and UFO is always super over but not as exciting as the first 3) Achim Chall/Michael Schneider vs Moose Morowski/Ed Wiskowski (No reason to think this isn't very good; the heel team is a killer). 9/20/80 Hanover Kim Duk vs Louis Laurance (JIP) Steve Wright vs Takashi Ishikawa (again sounds really good) Chris Colt vs Caswell Martin (sounds super) Looks like a really good drop this month.

If I could avoid making a list at this point, I would. There was a certain purity to my 2016 list based on what I haven't seen but I've spent the last five years or so trying to rectify some of the missing spaces and it's like when you clean a room by taking out all of the mess first. I've got ten years before I'm going to be done. If ever. And in general, that's great because life long learning is the way to go. It's terrible for this list though. I am going to lay down some ground rules for myself that everyone will hate however. 1. No active competitors unless they were wrestling in the 90s. I don't want to deal with it. I'd love to not have to deal with Danielson too but I probably have to. Hero too. That means no Moxley, no Mistico. I want a more absolute picture of their career I guess? Mainly I just don't want to deal with it. Most of these people wouldn't have made my list anyway. The Omegas of the world aren't making it certainly. I don't particularly like their matches. But I'd have to think about people like Darby or Joe or Kingston or Hechicero and I don't really want to. The Dustins, Christians, Blue Panthers, Fujinamis, etc. are ok. 2. I can't rate someone unless I have at least a 50-75% understanding of their career (footage dependent) to my standards. I don't for Hashimoto. I'm doing the work now. I don't for Chono. I don't for Liger. I don't for Tamura, at all. I don't for Devil Masami. I don't for Dump. I don't for Yokota. I did a ton of extra work to fill in gaps for the people I was close to being able to rate in 2014-16. I'm not doing that this year. I'm just continuing on with my projects. Borderline people will be UWF 1 guys like Maeda/Takada/Yamazaki even though I'm limited into their 90s, people like Vader where I have big gaps still. someone like Yumi Ikeshita. Pillars are real borderline but I do have a sense of them even though I haven't seen much of their 00s and am limited after 92-93 in general. But I'll probably just rank them lower on the basis of incomplete comprehension. I won't rank Akiyama for instance, however. I'm making a list out of obligation but I take no joy from it this time around. I do feel like I'll be in great shape in 2036 though.

Kauroff worked babyface in 81, teaming regularly with Axel Dieter.

Fletcher had been doing pretty interesting things in working the crowd during commercial breaks back into early 2024 (maybe even earlier) but he was still doing the maximalist stuff against Johnson on ROH that wasn't hitting for me. The moment everything really shifted was the one-two punch of his C2 match against Shelton and a match against Komander about the same time.

We’re gotten some wonderful performances with an elated crowd from early 80s Germany.

We have a major Strongbow find in the last few years with the Otto Wanz match where he works heel. https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/10/found-footage-friday-omni-87-otto.html I mean I'm not voting for him but having that variety would be big for his case for anyone who might.

He had stood out the most to me from that footage if I remember correctly. I wish we had more radio broadcasts in general. That'd be a fascinating project for someone to do even with what English language recordings we might have. To examine the experience and what we can get out of matches from that.