rzombie1988

Rumi was kind of an idol in 80's, so it somewhat makes sense. She was on a bunch of national shows and sang. She also was better looking than Cuty Suzuki when she was very young. She did two adult videos and a third mostly just modeling video a few years ago and hasn't done anything since, so I wouldn't call her an AV star now. Most of the girls own a bar like Chiggy, Tateno, Kyoko, and others. But then again, most of the guy wrestlers do too. There has to be at least 25 bars owned by former male wrestlers there. Rumi also isn't the only joshi girl to do AV. Toyota did some a BDSM scene that wasn't good and of course Emi Tojo did a few scenes, though she now works in soaplands. She also likely makes more money in it than she did in wrestling.

It's possible but WWE wasn't built in a day. They've been doing this for 60+ years now and they've been the king for around 30 now. You'd need a steady promotion with long term thinking and a Russo-free environment. A smart promotion would also follow the OVW model - Get a building and do your training/tv/shows from it. I do think it's a bad time though because there is too much wrestling already, a bad economy and millions of entertainment options.

Mesias is old too. He's been around since the mid-90's.

Sonoko Kato and Manami Toyota are two of the nicest wrestlers I've met. Add Hayabusa, Munenori Sawa(Miss that guy), Tony Atlas, Terry Funk, Bryan Danielson, Mickie James and a bunch of others to that list. Almost all of the Japanese wrestlers are nice. Meanest wrestlers? Ozaki, Arn Anderson and Fit Finlay. Oz has been a douche to me twice, even though I spent a bunch of money to see her show. Arn flipped out on me for saying hi. I can't ever think about Arn without remembering that. Scariest wrestler? Chigusa Nagayo. She's nice but I'll take on Arn or Finlay before I'd try her in a fight. I'm being totally serious too. I honestly don't like to meet wrestlers. The #1 way to turn on a wrestler you like is to meet them.

The only person who I'd think could even challenge Lawler for #1 in America is Flair. I have no idea how to compare him with some of the foreign wrestlers though. The big thing is the talking. We really don't know how good any of the non-Americans are on the mic. He's even with them though on the great matches and likely above them on carrying crap to good matches.

Neon colors and bad fashion weren't just a Lawler thing in the 80's/90's. It was a world wide trend.

Goldberg doesn't belong in this poll but he took the ball, ran with it and really was WCW's top guy for it's last few years. He did great in his role. I think he's honestly not given enough credit and he seems to be forgotten for the most part. I have no problem with him doing all of those squashes. IT WORKED. If someone's going to get me money by squashing people, he can do it until the end of time.

I truly felt we never got to see him at his best. Money wise, he made the right call by going to WWE. But for this purposes of this poll, staying in ROH would have been the better choice. He looked on par with American Dragon when I saw him and it's a shame he never got a shot.

The promoters and the politics. No one from the deathmatch scene, minus Hayabusa, ever really got a fair shake in any other Japanese promotion. Masato Tanaka had a hard time finding home when FMW closed, did some indies, joined up with Zero-1, was misused, then joined NJPW and was misused as well. Kanemura did some Z1 and FMW knockoffs but never got anywhere further after FMW. Mr. Gannosuke? Same thing.

He was very unlucky and misused. Anyone not named Maeda, Funaki or Takada from UWF ended up having a mess of a career due to promotions closing and having to switch promotions. It kind of was his own fault though. Takada and Maeda were like crazy girlfriends. They have their on/off switches. The good times are good but the bad times are bad and you never want to put your career in their hands. If you do, you end up like he did - switching from promotion to promotion in between the good and bad periods. He really should have been the shoot style Kawada but egos were more important. He likely would have had a better career if he hadn't left NJPW. Great wrestler.

He's one of the deathmatch guys that got his career ruined due to the "deathmatch stink" ala Masato Tanaka and any old FMW/BJW/IWA alumni. Was very good early on and was an indy star. Then basically got to do nothing for 8+ years. He finally got into NJPW and was still mistreated and misused due to the deathmatch stink. I feel very bad for him.

Not the greatest ever, but she was good and very unique. Like a lot of the joshi girls and anyone from RINGS not named Volk Han, she won't get far due to no one knowing who she is. She came in at a pretty bad time as both AJW and GAEA died while she was a youngster. She's mostly known for being super fast and being a lesser 2014 Momoe Nakanishi. Very spunky, always the underdog and very reliable. I saw her live and on tape many times and she always put up a good performance. Natsuki vs Fuka was one of my favorite match-ups and I will always be happy that I got to see it live.

Booking always. Good booking can hide the least talented. Bad booking can destroy the most talented.

Oh and add John Kronus to the list. The man could do some cool stuff but got fat, aged quickly and made the great move of going to XPW. He literally looked about 45 by the time he was 30.

Didn't really like the Sting debut. I really would have went crow Sting here, especially since he's now old and doesn't need to wrestle except for Wrestlemania. Sting would just appear for months, get an attack in and build up to his WM match like they did in WCW(Hey they screwed up alot, but they mostly got Sting right up until the Starrcade fiasco). I would have had him repel down, point the bat at HHH or whoever, then Ziggler rolls up Seth for the pin. I am glad they atleast built something with this though.

A little in 2004-2006 with Coach on commentary, then more in 2008/2009 with Mike Adamle and then the start of heel Michael Cole, which was some of the most ear bleeding inducing stuff I've ever heard. It was literally the lowest point of commentary ever, and I've watched GLOW. I can't say JBL becoming a commentator was much better as he's totally into ripping on people, more into being right than anything else and just in general being a troll.

Don't know, but Han and Zangiev would be in contention, but I wouldn't put Hashimikov above him. I did enjoy Gregory Veritchev in FMW, but not that much. I think Kopylov was better overall than Zangiev, but Zangiev was always fun to watch. Anyway, I do like me some Andrei Kopylov. Not the best ever, but he really understood selling well and was definitely one of the better RINGS guys. He was a very good foil for Han and I'd like to review more of him in the future.

I wanted to like Jumbo but didn't at first. I was used to watching Misawa and Kawada and was disappointed when he didn't match the big moves or 2.9999's. Then I realized, he was the smarter worker and didn't need to do all that. Now I probably enjoy him more.

Brock definitely is responsible for whatever numbers he pulls no doubt. I have no idea what's going on booking wise though. I'd feel uncomfortable blaming him for the network though. There's too many tangibles.

I gotcha but it's hard to blame Brock for that run cause WWE hotshoted him so quickly to the top. I know it kind of turned me off personally because I was unfamiliar with him and it probably turned off a lot of casual fans also along with Austin and Rock leaving the company. So along with his run in 02-03, you have the following: His run in NJPW from 05-06 His UFC run from 06-2011 (with gaps of his illness) And his run on top WWE 2012 until now as a part timer. That is 3 runs as a wrestler and 4 runs all together at the top of the card. The less said about Brock's NJPW run the better. I think it's a moment in time everyone would like to forget. He only had 3-4 matches in NJPW anyway.

From an old post of mine: My memory is kind of bad and I'm going off of matches I haven't seen in a while but here's my various MOTY's for different years: 1977 - Mil Mascaras vs Jumbo Tsuruta 8/25/77 1978 - Zoltan Boscik vs Steve Grey 3/18/1978 1981 - Funk vs Lawler Empty Arena. One of the most disturbing matches I've ever seen. You can never unhear Terry Funk screeching about being blind. 1982 - Dutch Mantel vs Jerry Lawler Memphis TV or Bockwinkel/Lawler MSC. Dutch/Lawler was a classic angle on TV with some awesome hate filled work and Lawler/Bock was just an awesome brawl with Nick showing another side. 1983 - Lawler vs Dundee Loser Leaves Town with props to The Von Erichs vs The Freebirds 1984 - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Super Tiger 1985 - Dump Matsumoto vs Chigusa Nagayo Hair Match or Lawler/Dundee Loser Leaves Town. Dump vs Chiggy is unforgettable and probably broke the innocence of every teenager in attendance. 1986 - Dump Matsumoto vs Chigusa Nagayo Return Hair Match with Bockwinkle/Henning or Jumbo/Tenryu vs Yatsu/Choshu as other candidates. Midnight Rockers vs Rose and Sommers was good too. 1987 - Flair vs Windham 40+ minute TV match 1988 - Not sure but Maeda vs Takada, The Fantastics vs The MX and others are possibilities. 1989 - Steamboat vs Flair 2/3 Falls. My favorite of the series. 1990 - El Dandy vs Angel Azteca with Vader/Hansen maybe 2nd. Vader/Hansen was a war while Dandy/Azteca was a technical classic. 1991 - Wargames 1991. Awesome match. Great heat, great work and an unforgettable finish. 1992 - Yamada/Toyota vs Kansai/Ozaki from Dreamrush. Legit my favorite match of all time. 1993 - This year is incredibly hard to pick but I'll go with Toyota/Yamada vs Ozaki/Kansai from Dreamslam 2. Super hot year here with Hokuto vs Kandori from Dreamslam, Kobashi vs Hansen and others. The girls tag was amazing but not as good as the year before, Hokuto/Kandori is rated as 5 stars by everyone and Hansen/Kobashi was a stiff shootout. 1994 - Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94 with a nudge to Toyota/Kong from Big Egg and Kobashi/Misawa vs Kawada/Taue. I really also enjoyed Liger/Sasuke from the J-Cup and believe it or not, Kawada/Williams which happened to take place on the same day in the same city as Liger/Sasuke. Loved Tenryu/Onita Exploding Cage also but it's not quite on the same level. Hard not go to with 6/3/1994 as its universally regarded in the IWC as the greatest match ever. 1995 - Kobashi/Misawa vs Kawada/Taue or Aja Kong vs Manami Toyota from Queendom. Really hard pick. Misawa/Kobashi was also very good as was Hokuto/Toyota. Loved Kong vs Toyota for the stiffness and the nasty Victory Star Drop. This one was the Toyota show. Hokuto/Toyota was an incredible spotfest. 1996 - Nobuhiko Takada vs Shinya Hashimoto NJPW Tokyo Dome with major props to Kudo/Toyoda Explosion Match. Takada/Hash is simple pro wrestling at its best. Nuclear heat to cap off the hottest and biggest money making feud ever. 1997 - Misawa/Kobashi or LLPW 8-Woman Tag match. The Kobashi/Misawa match was great but did have armwork that went nowhere and the LLPW Women's match had some of the best facework I've seen with great heeling. 1998 - Kawada/Kobashi aka The Last Great AJPW match. 1999 - Kyoko Inoue vs Manami Toyota 12/8 - Much like Kawada/Kobashi, this was the last great AJW match. 2000 - Atlantis vs Villano 3. El Super Classico. Lucha at its finest. 2001 - Rock vs Austin. Best WWF match ever. They went above and beyond to close out The Attitude Era. 2002 - Angle and Benoit vs Rey and Edge from No Mercy. The Smackdown 6 tore it up and this was my favorite match of their series. 2003 - Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa. Loved Benoit vs Lesnar too. Misawa/Kobashi was their last true AJPW style match and it had some huge bumps with stiff shots. Benoit/Lesnar was stiff and the finish was memorable. 2004 - Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama. Eddie Guerrero vs Brock Lesnar is close. Akiyama/Kobashi did everything they could and I thought Kenta got too much in. Brock vs Eddie was a classic and it was great to see Eddie finally get the big one. 2005 - Angle vs Michaels with Kensuke Sasaki and Nakajima vs Go Shiozaki and Kenta Kobashi in 2nd. I was live for Angle/Michaels and loved it. The tag was very good and the first sign that Shiozaki would be a star. 2006 - Benoit vs Finlay 5/5. Stiffness and headbutts baby. (2005 and 2006 were really bad years for wrestling all around aside from Finlay being amazing on Smackdown) 2007 - New Hazard vs Typhoon vs Muscle Outlaw'z or Takashi Sasaki vs Yuko Miyamoto scaffold match. The 3 way tag was nuts with a fast pace and tons of big moves. The scaffold match had some huge bumps in it and made Miyamoto. 2008 - Floyd Mayweather vs The Big Show (being serious too). Props also have to be given for Jimmy Jacobs vs BJ Whitmer I-Quit from IWA-MS. Whitmer vs Jacobs was disgusting and was so violent. Those two got the best out of each other. 2009 - Yuko Miyamoto vs Masashi Takeda Scaffold Match or HBK/Taker and a small nudge to Azumi Hyuga vs Kayoko Haruyama. Hyuga/Haruyama was a classic but HBK/Taker was a huge match on the biggest stage and Miyamoto/Takeda pretty much did everything you could in a scaffold match without killing each other. 2010 - The Miz vs Jerry Lawler TLC match. For a big Memphis fan like me, this was gold. I really thought King was going to do it and the heat was off the charts. 2011 -CM Punk vs John Cena. Great heat with great work. 2012 - Tanahashi/Okada Dominion. Everything was just perfect here and it was obvious to me that it was the MOTY. Didn't like Suzuki/Tana as much, but it was very very good. 2013 - Ishii/Shibata 1 with Polvora vs Titan 1/1 coming in 2nd. I stopped regularly watching in September so if there's been something good since then, I didn't see it. Ishii/Shibata was just unreal with nasty strikes and intensity upped to 11. Titan/Polvora was well paced with traditional lucha, flashy moves and a dangerous head drop. I haven't seen any wrestling this year really, so nothing from me for 2014. I saw maybe two Wyatt's/Shield matches but I work nights, so I miss everything.

LONG ONE COMING UP. Chiming in on some others: Brian Pillman - He didn't disappoint me as a wrestler but he made bad choices and promoters were too worried about his height. Should have been Austin's main foil because he was the heel Austin. He really should have been like the Kurt Cobain of wrestling, and I think he could have led the Attitude Era. When I think late 1990's, I think Brian Pillman. Bam Bam - Had a good career, but was never really a star to me. Can't really say much else that hasn't been said. Should have been a top guy. King Kong Bundy - His career totally fell off after WM2. He did absolutely nothing from 1988-1995, when he should of. I don't think he was super great or anything, but I think he wasted his youth. Sucks though because once you lose to Hogan in the WWF, there's not much else to do. Billy Graham - Was way ahead of his time, wasn't good in the ring and should have had Hogan's spot. Also should have stayed away from the drugs. No one is cooler than the Superstar in the 70's. Jinsei Shinzaki - Should have made more of his WWF run and should have been the WWF's Great Muta. He had the tools, but constantly looks like he is going through the motions and didn't have much in the way of charisma, though I suppose that's part of the gimmick. Nathan Jones - Great backstory, foreign and had a cool look. Sucked in the ring and his push sucked as well. WWE would have likely kept him had he not been a pain, as he would have easily been their go to guy for Australian tours. Samoa Joe - Was the man in 2004 and was clearly going to be the heavyweight wrestler. Then you got TNA'd and have been a joke. Low-Ki - Easily on par with Dragon, Punk and others. Can't resist getting into trouble backstage and burning bridges. Teddy Hart - Similar to Low-Ki. Has the look and the name. Blew it two or three times in WWE and wasted his career. ************* Subsection 1 - WWE 2005-now talent If you weren't Cena, Orton, HHH, Batista, you probably didn't get what you were worth during this time. Let's face it, you weren't getting to the main event and you weren't getting a chance to succeed. Carlito - Hey Carlito, did you see Alberto's WWE run? It really should have been you who was overpushed and main eventing. I've met him a few times and can see why WWE thought he was a headache. Drew McIntyre - Oh Drew. You have the looks and the talent, why do you have to have a crazy girlfriend? MVP - Good gimmick, good on the mic and was getting good in the ring. Then got heat and got a losing streak gimmick, then got fired. Became a "former WWE guy", didn't look good in NJPW and then went to career hell, aka TNA. John Morrison - Had the looks and the athleticism. Then he got one of the worst character's ever in John Morrison and was treated to silence for the rest of his run. Shelton Benjamin - Was everyone's favorite for a week or two in 2004. Then he became one of the laziest wrestlers and one of my least favorite wrestlers ever. He then went to promotions that would push his athleticism and never looked good in any of them. Charlie Haas - Didn't get into you until your ROH run. You finally got a character after years of trying then retired from ROH before you could capitalize on it. Tyson Tomko - You figured it out after years of hard work and trying. You even went through the hell that is TNA. Then you got into drugs and legal trouble. Dumb. Paul Birchall - A 6'2+ guy who can fly, got into terrific shape and was from Britain? What, he even made a terrible gimmick decent? Sorry man, Vince doesn't watch movies. Not Paul's fault at all. Melina - Improved a lot and was good on the mic, but got into way too much trouble backstage and burned all her bridges. ************** Subsection 2 - Joshi I could do a whole section on Joshi girls who blew it. The key thing to takeaway is that 1) Japanese women's wrestling isn't drawing or making money and 2) women retire all the time due to that and wanting to get married and have kids. I think following or caring about joshi is completely pointless because anyone who looks promising will retire and it's just a hopeless business model. The list: Yuzuki Aikawa - She was a model in Japan and then became a wrestler. They pushed her to the moon. She quit after 2 years. Was very disappointed in her and upset because I wanted to see her succeed and she just gave it up. She really got wrestling too and just had everything you would want in a Japanese woman's wrestler. Yuhi - 16 year old phenom in Japan. Similar to Aikawa, she's retiring or already did retire. Thought she was going to carry Japanese wrestling. She had the best debut match I've seen in a long time and was my Rookie of the Year. Hey Yuhi, newsflash, you wrestle twice a week tops. You have plenty of time to do school and work and still wrestle. Fuuka - Similar story to the two above. Really good looking wrestler who improved and was a great self promoter. Had a cancer scare and quit. Works as an announcer and other things now but should have been a top girl. Toshiyo Yamada - Remembered for her stuff with Manami Toyota and little else. Seriously got passed by and depushed due to injures and ?. Almost everyone else in her class and time got pushed higher than her. Yasha Kurenai - Cool look but never got it in the ring. Probably could have done a Takako Inoue 1998 singles run had she been decent. Also had the misfortune of being in LLPW, where no one except Kandori got to do anything. Any of the Jd' Star Athress girls - Jd' star decided to teach a bunch of actresses and idol types how to wrestle in the early 2000's. On paper it seemed like a great idea. The girls would bring fans in based on their looks and if any of them became decent wrestlers, they'd instantly be a star. Sounds like a good idea right? Well, it turns out models and pretty girls who don't like wrestling don't like the injuries, bad pay or other crap that comes with wrestling. They all found out that this was getting them nowhere and all of them were gone within two years, minus a few. Oh and one of them is now working in soaplands and made AV videos, likely pulling in about 10x what she did as a wrestler. Jd' Star - where being in even sleazier industries than wrestling gets you further than wrestling does. Most of the STARDOM Girls - As I said above, you all are likely working for peanuts in a depressing joshi wrestling industry. Similar to the athresses, when you take pretty non-wrestling fans and make them wrestle, it usually doesn't pan out. Too many of you got injured then quit, wasting your time and ours. Yoko Bito gets a pass for her bad injury and Mika Nagano does as well for getting pregnant. Again, great idea but it can't work in today's age. Feel very bad for Yoko as she was going to get the push and was great.

I'm going with the obvious, as I'm the only member of his fanclub - TOM MAGEE: Cool background/character? Yep. World Strongest Man contender(almost won it), had some boxing and gymnastics training too. He was also a black belt, was in some movies and even had a documentary on him. If you can't figure that out, then get out of wrestling. Bill Watts would have went nuts for him. The look? Pretty much the prototype except that he wasn't blonde. Ripped, good looking and tall. Athletic? Yep. He could do moonsaults, handsprings, cartwheels and SSP's, but never really turned those into moves. Probably because those moves weren't really invented/well known yet. I know he's looked down upon as being horrible, but I don't think he was that bad. The Wajima match sucked, but Wajima was a horrible wrestler and shouldn't have been put in there with someone green. His match with Terry Gibbs was fine to good(http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vyfm_tom-magee-vs-terry-gibbs_shortfilms)), the Choshu match wasn't that bad) and he looked okay to passable in some of his other stuff. I really just think he must have been a pain to deal with backstage. That's really the only thing I can think of for Baba and Vince giving up on him, when the potential was clearly there. I also don't think the WWF really helped him by sticking him against Terry Gibbs and other low card guys for 1-2 years in squashes instead of putting him out there on these no name shows where he could work 10 minutes or so and figure it out. His match with Bret was supposed to be great, so I can't understand why they wouldn't have him work Bret more to have better matches and to learn how to be a better worker. Easily the most disappointing wrestler and one of the biggest instances of dropping the ball.