KB8

I haven't watched the Tiger Jeet Singh match yet but the DiBiase match is indeed good and probably their best (it's not a great match-up, as has been mentioned in this thread, but I did quite like the one that made the All Japan 80s set. The Hansen/DiBiase v Jumbo/Tenryu match from 12/12/86 is also one of the best sub-10 minute matches ever and worth mentioning whenever Tenryu v DiBiase gets brought up).

Yeah, I had Hennig at 82 the first time around, but I'm not sure he'll make the cut next time, and I've rewatched a lot of the Bockwinkel feud since then (which is still great, in fairness). I checked to see where I had him in relation to DiBiase as that was one of the major comps earlier in the thread, and I had DiBiase 9 spots higher, but he likely falls off this time as well. Then again I haven't seen much of Hennig's Portland run so we'll see if that pushes him back into contention.

I've watched a lot of 80s Tenryu recently, and to the above point I think you could probably make the case he didn't actually find himself until 1988. Prior to Choshu jumping to All Japan there was no way Tenryu was going to carry the load in a match by himself, but if you gave him something to play off of then he'd usually bring the goods. As an example, there's a match where he teams with Dick Slater against Hansen and Umanosuke Ueda in 1982, and it's a ton of fun and Tenryu ruled playing off of Hansen being a whirlwind and Ueda being a scrub and the crowd subsequently being all in on it. On the other hand, there's a match from the same year where he teams with Mighty Inoue against Jerry Blackwell and Rufus R. Jones and it is not good at all, which I suppose you can't really blame HIM for specifically, but transplant Tenryu from a decade - or even two decades - later into that exact match and he makes it interesting just on sheer presence and how he exudes charisma alone. When the Choshu feud kicks off he almost immediately looks more assured and some of that grumpy streak comes out, but even as someone who had Tenryu top 3 in 2016 and will have him top 3 in 2026, I don't know if I'd bank on him on a consistent basis if he needs to be the one leading the match. By 1988, or certainly 1989, he feels all the way there, but even then there'll be matches where he's in there with a Mike Miller or some other random dude doing a tour and he ends up giving them a ton of the match when you really want him to smash them to bits. He had so many years of good-to-great stuff into his 40s and 50s (and even 60s) that I don't really hold the earlier stuff against him. Although I guess I'd say that if he was even at 1985 level going back to, say, 1982, then I'd probably have him #1 rather than way down there at #2 or #3.

I'd lean Ishikawa as well, but I don't think there's too much between them. Their strengths are different, but I think both are absolutely great when it comes to borrowing a page from the other's playbook. Like, Ishikawa is an all-time amazing punching bag fighting from underneath and absorbing punishment, but there have been instances of Ikeda in that role as well, where he'll take a complete hammering and sell brilliantly and basically play Ishikawa about as well as Ishikawa (some of the 2010s FUTEN stuff comes to mind). On the flip side, Ishikawa could be an unbelievable dickhead bully and just destroy someone about as well as Ikeda (albeit probably more with grappling than brutal striking). They're both amazing and I'll have them both top 20 (again).

I didn't think this was in the real upper tier of Jumbo v Tenryu, but it's still Jumbo v Tenryu in 1989 so by the same token the floor on that is always going to be fairly high. It was more of a slow-burner than their match from June, and like that match you can see them bringing elements that the 90s crew would take and develop and use to create those epics that folk would write longform essays about. They both know each other inside out, they know what the other is likely to try and so early on you get a bunch of great moments built around scouted strikes and regrouping, neither of them wanting to overplay their hand. It's sort of tentative, but the way they use it to let the heat boil is pretty much perfect. Then we get the payoff when Tenryu chops Jumbo in the throat off a break and Jumbo goes batshit mental. He chucks the ref' away and smashes Tenryu with one of the all-time great dropkicks, punts him to the floor and throws a table at him because he's had just about enough of all this. And they give us lots of setups and payoff throughout, some of them little, some of them bigger, a few of them paying off previous payoffs and building upon the narrative and all that good stuff. My favourite of these is probably Tenryu waiting for his moment and absolutely making Jumbo regret introducing that table. They've both matched up about three dozen times by now as well, so we're at the stage of the rivalry where they need to start thinking outside the box for ways to catch the other off guard. The powerbomb has been a staple in the feud, but they both have it scouted by now and either of them actually hitting it becomes increasingly difficult. There are a bunch of awesome struggles over it during the match, where the person on the receiving end goes dead weight to fight it, or if they're lifted up off the ground they start flailing legs wildly until someone takes a heel to the eye socket. Tenryu has evidently decided to cut away with some of the setup and just hoist Jumbo onto his shoulders with a double leg lift (very technical term because I am very smart), so by the end there's that lingering presence of the powerbomb and the idea that Tenryu has more than one way of hitting it. Jumbo rolling through into a pin is such a cool finish, not just because it ties brilliantly into the story but because it's Jumbo Tsuruta hitting a fucking hurricanrana. Of course this was badass.

I wanted to throw him a low vote in 2016, but couldn't really justify it based on the lack of footage. I don't even know if any more Kurisu has been unearthed since last time, but I do know I've watched a good chunk of what's out there now and I need to find space for him this go-around. Last night I watched the 6/90 New Japan tag that Tim mentions and he was incredible in it as a vicious, hatemongering wee bastard. He also has the Tarzan Goto match from FMW (1/7/90), the awesome Hashimoto match (8/3/90), the Aoyagi match from 2/5/91, some fun six-man stuff in WAR, at least one great extended squash in Kitao Pro (the debut show, I think), and that's not to mention the other appearances on the New Japan handheld stuff that I haven't watched yet. He's not for everyone. I like how stingy he is with the selling because it gives his matches a feeling of being on the verge of breaking down, almost to the point where it sometimes looks like he's SHOOTING~ on his opponent. The "he makes his opponents earn it" bit won't always fly for some people though and I get that, but I generally love how uncooperative it all looks. Then of course there's the fact he just seems like a miserable prick and his general conduct lends itself very well to matches where the participants do not like each other and lots of potatoes are flung about and really that's the best kind of wrestling (prolly). He also scores very well on the "I would watch this wrestler against pretty much anybody if it popped up on YouTube" and that has to count for something.

I'd like to give Harley another shot for this as well. Most of the All Japan stuff bored me to tears last time so I'll probably skip that, but the last handful of matches from America that I watched were much more interesting. Could do with a reevaluation.

My short answer is probably WAR v New Japan. A longer answer is one I'd need to actually think about properly and for more than 30 seconds. But I suspect WAR v New Japan would still be in there somewhere.

He'll be top 10 for me in 2026, a few places up from last time (he was my #13 in 2016, I think). Of everyone I'll have in that top 10 he might be the one with the most scope to move up as well, just because it feels like there are still stretches of his career I haven't properly jumped into (Zero-1 era, mostly). I know nobody really does the extensive wrestler DVD comps anymore, but other than Tenryu he's probably the one guy who I wish got the goodhelmet treatment.

Mariko Yoshida & Aja Kong v Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue (AJW, 3/21/95) - GOOD This was a semi-final match of a one-night tag tournament (at least I think it was the one night), so they never went full bore, but I thought they played to their spot on the card really well. Under different circumstances maybe they'd have gone longer and built to a bigger finish, but even at 16 minutes they still managed to do their thing and it's not like the finishing run was a lead balloon. Aja was outstanding in this. She didn't even do that much, it was mostly standard fare for where she was at in '95, but where she was at in '95 was top of the mountain (for another few days at least) and she very much carried herself as someone at the mountain top. She also thumped the hell out of both Inoues, and often at that. Yoshida was almost little sister in that respect, where she would come in a try to sustain the advantage, but rarely would she actually gain it for her team. I was looking forward to her exchanges with Takako but it seems the former teammates didn't harbour any ill will towards one another. Maybe their pairing ended amicably and not with one of them throwing the other head first through a barber shop window. I had no idea who was winning this so the last few minutes were pretty exciting, and the finish itself ruled. GOOD in isolation, possibly GREAT within the context of the tournament.

I also said I wasn't going to jump into any more of these Flair discussions (I'm not the biggest Flair Fan, nor am I a particularly low voter on him, so I don't really have a strong stance one way or the other), but those week-to-week matches are really my favourite ways to watch Flair at this point. Part of that is because I've seen all the major "building a case" type stuff, several times in plenty instances, but all of that aside he's still one of the easiest wrestlers to watch in a weekly TV setting. I doubt I'll lean into the out of the ring stuff when ranking folk, but if I was ranking wrestlers I'd want to watch on TV every week then Flair would be at or around the top.

The 2/99 Yagi match and the Fujii match from '03 (presumably the one you're talking about) are two I've been hyped about finally seeing for a long time. I'm not sure why I seem to be saving them for a special occasion or whatever, but I'm up to the end of '98 going through the ARSION stuff so I'll at least get to the Yagi match pretty soon.

I'll definitely dive more into the AJW run. There seems to be more of it on youtube than when I last took a proper look (and searching her name in Japanese brings up even more results). Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (AJW, 1/4/92) - FUN This was alright, if a bit messy here and there with a few transitions even shakier than you'd expect. It felt like a bit of an off night for Yoshida, unfortunately. She flubbed a handful of things and there were some awkward moments as a result. On the other hand, one of those flubs led to maybe the most interesting part of the match, as Mita just started potatoing her in frustration. Yoshida countered what would've been an eardrum-exploder of a slap into a roll up and it did not look like Mita was expecting it. Mita was pretty fun here in general, how she was rolling out several big throws that got progressively more complex over the course of the match, culminating with a super fast airplane spin where she chucked Inoue across the ring. Towards the end Inoue and Yoshida started picking apart Shimoda's leg and it looked like they were going to make a thing of it, but then Shimodo just bolted to the corner immediately following a tandem missile dropkick and that was that for your late-match heat segment.

I think aiming to watch literally every Hashimoto match ever is a worthwhile venture regardless of anything else.

Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Bison Kimura & Madusa Miceli (AJW, 11/14/90) - FUN Pretty sure this is the earliest match I've seen from every woman involved. I didn't think Madusa showed up in AJW until a couple years later, but it turns out she'd already been there as early as '88. Her heel shtick was sort of amusing, she threw a few nice kicks and she wasn't afraid to cheapshot someone. Hotta never really potatoed anybody and worked pretty light with Madusa. Maybe she hadn't yet developed that crowbar streak, or she wasn't quite as comfortable full force punching the foreigner in the nose. Yoshida played a fun FIP, got ragdolled for a few minutes and took a few nasty face-first bumps off of hair swings. She wasn't into the shoot style/lucha funkiness yet -- this was her doing a bunch of Irish whips and bridge ups at a hundred miles an hour. Not the best version of Yoshida, but I'm interested in watching some of her earlier stuff and for a two year pro there weren't many holes to pick. Finish being a plain old slap was...strange. Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Debbie Malenko & Sakie Hasegawa (AJW, 4/25/92) - GREAT This was pretty much the definition of a Leaving It All Out There joshi tag, coming with all that entails. Not one of them had even been wrestling for four years at this point (Malenko barely two) so it was a young lions version of a Leaving It All Out There joshi tag, coming with all THAT entails. Yoshida is a personal favourite but even still I was shocked at how good this was. Some of the transitions were ropey and they raced through some stuff, the execution wasn't always perfect and at a couple points I wanted them to slow it down a bit and build some more heat before moving onto the next segment. But they had that crowd hooked completely by the end and I'll be fucked if I wasn't all in as well. Yoshida's the one I was most interested in here and she was really fun in that sort of lucha-esque way, where she could still tie someone in knots but she was also happy to take to the air at the same time. In ARSION she was more Negro Navarro or Blue Panther, here she was still Atlantis or Angel Azteca. Some of her flying was delightful and of course she got to apply a preposterous hold for fun. Debbie Malenko looked raw as hell but her exchanges with Takako got real gritty and I dug them slapping each other about the ears. Takako wasn't in full bitch more yet but she clearly had a mean streak a mile wide and Debbie bore the brunt of it. Sakie took most of the beating and played a fun babyface who wouldn't quit, quite literally I suppose as she spent a fair amount of time being stretched. Not all of her strikes landed flush, but she gets an A for effort and when they did land it was usually right under the chin. Liked the opening with Yoshida and Inoue going straight after her and cutting her off from her partner, and even if the hot tag could've been built to a little more I thought Malenko was impressive coming in bringing the thunder. All four of them probably overreached at least once but, not to sound patronising, there was a charm to all of it. More than the charm I appreciated how much they took the 20 minutes they had and tried to grab their chance at impressing. I think they succeeded all ends up. Super pleasant surprise. Mariko Yoshida v Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 8/30/92) - GOOD Yoshida is my favourite women's wrestler ever and ARSION is my favourite style of joshi. ARSION was something unique and Yoshida was the very best at doing what made it so fun. This wasn't that Yoshida and it sure as shit wasn't ARSION. This wasn't Yoshida with the awesome spider-suit and the grappling; it was young plucky flier Yoshida with about four years' experience as a wrestler. And it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a neat look at one of the coolest wrestlers ever in her more formative years, like Springsteen throwing out word salads on 'Blinded by the Light' before settling into his true calling of telling us about Wendy and the highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. She worked most of this from below with Kyoko controlling, often through half and full crabs. It wasn't always the most compelling honestly, but it was interesting how much more established Kyoko felt here than Yoshida despite them both debuting in 1988. Felt like Kyoko had her own style fleshed out a bit more while Yoshida worked almost as if she was a skinny rookie at times. I can't say I have much knowledge of early Yoshida overall though, so maybe she worked as the underdog often (and she was certainly good at it so I suppose that would make sense). It's not until she reels off a few big dives that Yoshida gains some even footing and that segues nicely into the short finishing stretch. It was a really good few minutes with a nice sense of drama. I never knew the result either so naturally I was pulling for Yoshida, and even if the finish wasn't TOTALLY perfect I liked the idea behind it a lot. It felt like a very Yoshida thing to do, just with a dive off the top rather than a Fujiwara armbar. Yumiko Hotta, Toshiyo Yamada & Mariko Yoshida v Bull Nakano, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 9/15/92) - GREAT This seemed to be geared more towards "fun" than "epic" (yet winding up being better than just fun), which I was perfectly fine with. It's 2/3 falls and the last 2/3 falls joshi match I watched went fifty minutes and they went into the finishing stretch after about seven of those minutes. It was not enjoyable. This wasn't like that and they never went overboard at any point. Maybe it's because I was focusing mostly on her, but I thought Yoshida was really good in this and my favourite girl in it. She's young and scrawny and rookie-ish so of course she gets steamrolled, but she had some awesome bumping for fat lady offence. She was also SPUNKY and stuff, so whenever she fired back with some offence it felt really scrappy and desperate, which is exactly what you want out of a four year pro against a couple monsters like Bull and Aja. She was very fun in this match is what I'm saying. Hotta and Aja really smack the crap out each other like you'd expect. Aja drills her with an absolutely fucking ungodly spinning back fist and it looked like Hotta's molars flew out a hole in her cheek. Mariko Yoshida v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 4/17/98) - EPIC Yoshida's first match in ARSION and fittingly it's a doozy. Some of her matwork in this was breathtaking, how she'd just yank Tamada into a hold and give her no peace whatsoever. One of my favourite things about her as a worker is how nothing against her comes easy, even if it's trying to gain side control or apply a routine hold, she makes you work for every little thing and we saw it in abundance here. Her dominance on the ground sort of created a story of Tamada being forced to try every other strategy possible in response, from taking to the air to attempting a bunch of DDT and suplex variations to straight elbowing Yoshida in the mouth. Not that she was a slouch on the mat, but if she was stubborn enough to keep the match there then it wouldn't be long before Yoshida hooked her in something she couldn't get out of. We saw this when she started going after Yoshida's leg, grabbing a few kneebars that forced her to scramble to the ropes, but then she got ahead of herself shooting in for the single leg and Yoshida tied her up in two seconds flat. I can't even describe how she did it, but man was it gorgeous. Classy match. Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC What a cracking little bout. Where the last match started with a minute of ropey fighting spirit guff, this started with a minute of sprawling and scrambling for limbs that ended in a stalemate. Yoshida was an absolute marvel in this. She mostly works dominant and it's because she's such a dynamo on the mat. Futagami is the more accomplished striker, but most of her big hits land almost surprisingly. She has to get tricky with them because Yoshida seems to have them largely scouted, and once or twice, probably out of frustration, she throws a couple that could be considered cheapshots. Early on they engaged in a knuckle lock and Futagami started throwing kicks, thinking she'd keep hold of Yoshida's hands so she wouldn't be able to block. Except Yoshida used her arm and managed to corral a body kick anyway, which she then turned into a rolling kneebar. On the couple rare occasions it looks like Futagami might have Yoshida in a dangerous spot, Yoshida will spring a counter and apply an ankle lock with her own feet or a kimura to escape a choke (and I love that she coughed and spluttered a bit afterwards to sell it). I'm not sure what prompted it specifically, but at some point Yoshida started selling her taped up wrist and it gave Futagami something to target in times of need. Some of her hits started landing a little more flush as well and they had me convinced she was winning after the brutal koppo kick. But really, Yoshida did about five things on the mat that I don't think I've seen before. There was one point where Futagami tried to pull some Manami Toyota neck bridging out of a pin shenanigans so Yoshida grabbed a choke with her legs. A couple beats later Yohida hit a folding powerbomb, and as Futagami kicked out Yoshida instantly transitioned into an ankle lock. The way she wound up with a gogoplata out of a gutbuster at the end was absurd. ARSION had such a cool house style and this was a superb ten minutes of it. Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC So earlier in the tournament it was established that Reggie Bennett is able to not only trade blows - albeit briefly - with Aja Kong, but even take her to the mat and put her to sleep. Yoshida is a different animal entirely, and while she can't throw bombs like Aja she can work the mat to an elite level. As you'd expect she goes right to that, so Reggie has to use every bit of grappling skill along with her clear weight advantage to stay above water. Yoshida is always shifting for position, riding Bennett and looking to grab stray limbs as Reggie tries to basically smother her at points. The story is pretty simple in that respect. Yoshida needs to win with her grappling while Reggie, who's competent on the mat from at least a defensive perspective, is looking to slam Yoshida through the mat. In the back half Yoshida has to do everything a little quicker because Reggie is finding openings and starting to unload. There's a great nearfall where Reggie locks in a similar choke to the one she put Aja away with, and Yoshida is just incredible at milking everything right up to the point she manages to finally grab the ropes. It's not Shawn Michaels flailing around in the ankle lock for five minutes, it's not big an exaggerated where she's playing to the back row of the Omni. It's much more subtle and I love that little moment before the break where she reaches the hand out, misses the rope by a millimetre, looks all but done for, but then with her one remaining bit of energy she weakly wraps her fingers around it before getting put out like a light. I've said it a few times on this dumb blog and it still rings true - she might be the very best ever at milking a submission nearfall. Of course this whole thing was badass. Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 6/21/98) - GREAT I'm not sure why this had a fifteen minute time limit, but either way it was kept relatively short and compact as a result. First half was solid enough but never had a ton going on. There was one cool moment where Aja hit the deck and tried to goad Yoshida into grappling, but Yoshida just strolled into the corner and crossed her legs. This was actually a pretty cool and different look at Aja. I'd never really seen her hit the mat before, and while it's not her game it did make for a fun dynamic. Second half picks up and really builds to a nice finish. Yoshida didn't get TOO tricky on the mat, but she did start rolling out some super neat stuff, and that forced Aja to go back to what she knows. What she knows is how to back fist people in the gub and holy lord did she back fist Yoshida in the gub. Yoshida's KO sell of it was fucking spectacular as well. This kind of almost stripped back style of joshi is far, far more my thing than the go-go-go bombfests, so I'm not sure why I've never really taken a closer look at ARSION in the past. Mariko Yoshida v Candy Okutsu (ARSION, 12/18/98) - GREAT This was pretty damn terrific. Yoshida was really awesome in this and came across as being totally unique, at least in comparison to all the other joshi I've seen personally (I haven't bothered with any joshi post-2004 or so, but I don't doubt plenty of girls are aping her these days). Okutsu isn't on the same level on the mat, but she holds her own fairly well when they take it down there. Some of the sprawling and grappling actually felt a bit like low-to-mid-level RINGS, and I absolutely mean that as a compliment because even low-to-mid-level RINGS can mean really damn good matwork (and when you talk about high-level RINGS you're talking about the level of Tamura, Han, Yamamoto, Kohsaka, etc., and only a handful of wrestlers in history reached that level). Yoshida herself will burst into super quick submissions by grabbing limbs and working them into angles limbs shouldn't be worked into. Her speed on the mat is pretty Tamura-esque, but she's not always grabbing shoot holds as such; more like something Trauma II would throw on someone. So, you know, I never expected a kind of Tamura/Trauma II mash-up from a joshi worker. She will also blast you in the face with a knee Ikeda-style so there's your Battlartsian influence to REALLY make me gush with praise. There was one bit where she literally monkey flipped Okutsu into a cross armbreaker and it just about blew my mind. Eventually the match takes on a grappler v flyer dynamic of sorts, which builds to a big climax that never feels overblown. Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 9/26/99) - EPIC I probably should've watched their May match before checking this one, but this felt like it was still pretty easy to follow on its own. I don't think I've seen Fukawa wrestle before, but she can handle herself on the mat. She's not as quick as Yoshida though, and it kind of leads to a few moments during the early exchange where Yoshida has to leave herself open or feed Fukawa in semi-obvious fashion. It's not massively glaring or anything, though. Thought Yoshida was really awesome in this, particularly as the match goes on and she can't seem to put Fukawa away. Fukawa kicks out of an air raid crash and Yoshida has this great look of almost shock before quickly gathering herself to go in again for the kill. Then Fukawa somehow makes the ropes when it looks like Yoshida has her Volk Han'd in the middle of the ring and Yoshida's "fuck sake, this should not be taking this long" expression was awesome. Fukawa sort of targets Yoshida's knee towards the end and I dug Yoshida's selling of it. It's pretty subtle, but at one point she tries to stand up and the leg buckles briefly, so Fukawa just launches herself at that leg like a shark smelling blood. Finish got an audible "What?!" reaction out of me as well. This was really good. I feel like I need to see every single thing Yoshida did in 1999. Mariko Yoshida v Cheerleader Melissa (ARSION, 8/29/02) - FUN This might be the first and only Cheerleader Melissa match I've ever seen. That seems unlikely considering she's been around forever, but other than her maybe showing up in ROH 12-15 years ago for a Shimmer showcase I can't think of any other reason I'd have been watching her. She'd just turned 20 here so you forgive her for not being great. She kind of worked like a slightly more spry Brian Lee, threw some clunky forearms to the chest, sort of lumbered around like you'd expect from someone who's only previous wrestling experience had been in a fairground. I don't know if it was the plan all along or Yoshida decided to take matters into her own hands but the match largely turned into Yoshida flinging her about the place with tricked out submissions. To Melissa's credit she actually grew into the match a bit and the last few minutes were pretty decent. It went 14 minutes all told and it never felt like that. So there you go. Mariko Yoshida v Carlos Amano (GAEA, 4/30/04) - EPIC Cracking little match. Yoshida is a wonderful pro wrestler and we got to see plenty of what makes her so here. Her early grappling and tying up of Amano's limbs was Navarro-esque, only quicker and slicker. Pretty soon this became about how Amano could possibly survive Yoshida's masterclass, and she'd eventually get her answer by using her head as a weapon. She'd just launch herself head-first at Yoshida with these wild headbutts from various angles, which opened the door for her to bust out some of her own slick grappling. For an eleven minute match they did a pretty great job of getting across how dangerous the Air Raid Crash is, as every time Yoshida went for it Amano would frantically try to escape or reverse it into a hold. That then meant we got to see Yoshida come up with ways of escaping those predicaments, and I don't know if there's anybody better at milking a possible submission than Yoshida. Those little struggles over a cross armbreaker or a neck crank -- nobody does them better. Mariko Yoshida v Yoshiko Tamura (NEO, 11/3/06) - EPIC This was edited to about half of its 27-minute runtime, although the editing was pretty damn good because it felt fairly complete as it was (I'd never have guessed so much was clipped out before seeing the runtime in the post-match graphic). You can't really judge the whole match (or maybe there's a full version somewhere in which case you can if you bloody well want to), but the 14 minutes we got were really good and Yoshida still looked fucking awesome in 2006. It started with some real Battlartsy grappling and Yoshida dropping punches from the mount, waiting for Tamura to cover up before grabbing a nasty key lock. Again, there may have been lots of dodgy no-selling going on during this and the editing did away with it, but for a match where one woman had their leg worked over and the other had their arm worked over I thought the long-term selling was totally on point, especially from Yoshida. Tamura worked it over initially with some cool fisherman busters where she dropped Yoshida face- and knee-first, and Yoshida never let you forget the knee was a problem the whole way through. Lots of times she'd hit a move and try to knock some feeling into that knee afterwards, or she'd attempt a move, fail, and slap the knee in frustration. The coolest example of it was when she went for a second air raid crash and just about muscled Tamura up, but then the leg buckled and she collapsed under the weight. She was also a machine going after Tamura's arm and I'll be fucked if I know where she got it from but there was one armbar that Han would've been proud of. Late in the match she wound up in the mount again and when Tamura wouldn't give up the arm Yoshida just started dropping Joe Riggs hammer fists on her face. I think this is the first Yoshiko Tamura match I've seen. She was clearly a compatible dance partner for Yoshida. Her grappling was strong, she threw mean forearms, and while her selling of the arm maybe wasn't as good on the whole as Yoshida's selling of the leg I sure bought her tapping on more than one occasion. I liked what was shown of this a lot. And I guess I should check out some more Tamura? Mariko Yoshida v Atsuko Emoto (IBUKI, 1/28/07) - EPIC It's a shame that most of these matches are clipped up a bit. Even if I'm not always into the idea of watching a 30-minute draw this had some truly awesome stuff in it and I'd like to see it in full. We get about 17 minutes overall though, so more than enough time to get a handle on what they were doing. It's another duelling limb work match, with Yoshida going after Emoto's arm and Emoto basically going after Yoshida's entire torso. I suppose it's hard to tell how consistent they were with the selling, but even with the editing it sure LOOKED like they were drawing constant attention to what ailed them. Sometimes it would be as simple as Emoto grabbing her arm after slamming or suplexing Yoshida, sometimes it would be something really cool like Yoshida grabbing her lower back WHILE being whipped into the turnbuckle. The actual offence was great all the way through and largely stayed focused. Emoto hitting a front suplex on the ring apron looked brutal, her Billy Robinson backbreaker looked brutal, that one release back suplex looked reckless AND brutal, and Yoshida was amazing at grabbing all sorts of submissions from unnatural positions. Loved the bit where Emoto applied a Boston crab and really leaned back at a nasty angle, then had to transition to a single-leg version because the bad arm couldn't keep hold of Yoshida's leg. Emoto was more than capable rolling around on the mat as well so there were a few sequences that were honestly breathtaking, not just because of how smooth they looked but because they felt appropriately desperate at the same time. I mean Emoto reversing a kimura into a stretch muffler was fucking badass. The last few minutes made up what was probably my least favourite part of the match, but Emoto's arm remained a factor right until the end. I don't even mind her gritting her teeth and going for a lariat with the bad arm - I'd assume it's one of her big moves and she'd approach it like a "this'll hurt me but it'll hurt you more" type of thing. They just ran out of ideas a little and you pretty much knew it was going to the time limit. Joshi feels dead as dirt in the mid-late 2000s but there was probably a decent amount of worthwhile stuff going on (never thought I'd be one of the folk going to bat for Kwame Brown/Laron Profit era joshi yet here we are. 2020 be wild as hell, boys).

Fuck it

I brought up doing a Complete & Accurate of Yoshida in her GWE nomination thread a few days ago because: a) she's awesome so why the hell not? b) the ARSION stuff rules and it's probably my favourite joshi promotion ever and Yoshida is the primary reason for it, c) I haven't seen too much of her earlier AJW stuff and 00s Yoshida - like lots of 00s joshi, I guess - is pretty underexplored, and d) she's awesome so why the hell not? I had her at #69 for GWE 2016 based off of like a week's worth of watching her right before the deadline. I revised my list a couple years ago and I can tell you she was very many spots higher, and for 2026 I can see her being higher still. The ARSION peak is sublime, but is there enough outside that to make her a top 30 candidate? Is she a major peak candidate who's hurting a bit on longevity? Does she have the longevity but not a ton of quality beyond that awesome peak? I suppose that's what we're trying to find out. I may be joined on this journey by @elliott and I'm sure @El-P will have something to add as he may be a fan of hers. @Jetlag has also written about most of the ARSION run in his ARSION thread, which has been really useful as a point of reference. Big Stupid Master List of Shit You Should Definitely Watch will categorise matches into EPIC, GREAT, GOOD, FUN and SKIPPABLE, as Segunda Caida have a winning formula so why change it? I'll just start C&Ping stuff I've written here and on my dumb blog and it'll build from there. 1990 Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Bison Kimura & Madusa Miceli (AJW, 11/14/90) - FUN 1991 Mariko Yoshida & Akira Hokuto v Bull Nakano & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 6/5/91) - GOOD 1992 Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (AJW, 1/4/92) - FUN Mariko Yoshida & Takako Inoue v Debbie Malenko & Sakie Hasegawa (AJW, 4/25/92) - GREAT Mariko Yoshida v Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 8/30/92) - GOOD Mariko Yoshida, Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada v Bull Nakano, Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 9/15/92) - GREAT 1994 Mariko Yoshida v KAORU (AJW, 8/28/94) - GREAT 1995 Mariko Yoshida & Aja Kong v Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue (AJW, 3/21/95) - GOOD 1998 Mariko Yoshida v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 4/17/98) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 5/5/98) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 5/8/98) - GREAT Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 6/21/98) - GREAT Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 8/9/98) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Michiko Ohmukai (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GOOD Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 8/31/98) - GREAT Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 8/31/98) - FUN Mariko Yoshida v Candy Okutsu (ARSION, 12/18/98) - GREAT 1999 Mariko Yoshida v Mika Akino (ARSION, 1/17/99) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 9/26/99) - EPIC 2000 Mariko Yoshida v Aja Kong (ARSION, 10/17/00) - GREAT Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada (ARSION, 10/17/00) - EPIC 2001 Mariko Yoshida v Yuu Yamagata (ARSION, 12/8/01) - GOOD 2002 Mariko Yoshida v Cheerleader Melissa (ARSION, 8/29/02) - FUN Mariko Yoshida & Yumiko Hotta v Sumie Sakai & Megumi Yabushita (AJW, 11/3/02) - GOOD 2003 Mariko Yoshida v Yumiko Hotta (AtoZ, 11/9/03) - GREAT 2004 Mariko Yoshida v Carlos Amano (GAEA, 4/30/04) - EPIC Mariko Yoshida v Sakura Hirota (GAEA, 11/3/04) - FUN 2006 Mariko Yoshida v Yoshiko Tamura (NEO, 11/3/06) - EPIC 2007 Mariko Yoshida v Atsuko Emoto (IBUKI, 1/28/07) - EPIC

What's the Inoki one from 1980? I don't think I've seen that before, which is exciting. Because every other one of those tags listed there are tremendous.

I went though a bunch of 2000s ROH late last year and I think I agree with Dylan's point in this thread about him being the best heel ROH ever had. Of all those candidates from that indie boom period I'd have him pretty high. Not sure yet if that gets him on a GWE 100 - I'd probably need to jump into the southern indie run mentioned in here at some point - but he was pretty great and I definitely never paid enough attention to him in the past.

I thought for absolute certain I'd seen every minute of Flair I ever needed to see after 2016 (or even 2013, honestly), but then I saw some of that 1980 babyface run, primarily from the Valentine feud, and man was he ridiculously fun. Truly awesome babyface energy, and not the sort of energy he'd bring to his babyface matches later, where he was pretty much still just Slick Ric but the crowd knew they were supposed to cheer him. He wasn't quite Slick Ric yet, not in 1980, not before the World Title run, and it was about as fresh as I ever could've hoped for out of a guy I've probably seen more often than any other wrestler in history. I don't know what his ceiling is this time, nor do I know his floor. I'd guess somewhere around 20-30. So not a whole lot different than last time, all things considered.

None of the Puerto Rico candidates were on my 2016 list. Right now the only one I'm sure will be there is Invader 1, but I might find space in the bottom quarter for a Chicky Starr or Carlos Colon (or Abby, as his Puerto Rico stuff was a hoot and primarily what shot him into contention). Hokuto will be there, and probably a few other joshi candidates I didn't vote for last time along with her. Probably Roman Reigns, who I wanted to throw a low vote to in 2016 but didn't. I'm not really sure who's definitely going to drop off yet. It might change again by 2026 anyway, but looking at my bottom 20 from five years ago as I try to put together an updated 2021 version, there are like 40 names I'd like to have in that 80-100 bracket and it'll mostly depend on how I'm feeling on the day for who gets in. I guess Austin Aries, who I had at 99 last time, falls off. He's about the only one that feels like a definite, though.

I guess I could say check out the Piper stuff in Portland, but I love that stuff with Brooks and Rose and Wiskowski and Martel and the Sheepherders there for much the same reasons I love all the other Piper stuff. You're not likely to find anything that changes your mind on the guy at this point so there are probably better ways for you to be spending your time.

He was maybe my favourite wrestler in the world back in 2013-14. CMLL TV was tremendous for a while there so there was decent stuff basically every week. I don't think the Casas feud had the most satisfying payoff, at least not in comparison to the incredible build-up, but the 6/28/13 trios is an absolute scorcher and Rush is at the centre of it.

Well that is very unfortunate. If they had an apuestas then I'll assume that's where the money is instead.

See what I mean?? That's awesome because I didn't know if the Gonzalez singles match was out there. I may even hunt it down this very night!