JerryvonKramer Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Watching Kawada on the All Japan 80s set made me wonder: who has the best pre-peak career? Obvious candidates include Tenryu (although I strongly disagree), Steve Austin, and Bret Hart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rovert Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 What would people classify as Rey Mysterio's peak? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Well, since I'm at it : Mariko Yoshida (super worker for 6 years even before she peaked in 98/99). Nobuhiko Takada (peaked in the mid 90's, already great as early as the mid-80's). Crazy statements I don't think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 For fun we can also talk about the WORST pre-peak workers. I'd think there's a case for Rude here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Worst ? Yoshihiro Takayama. Just a bad bad worker in UWF-I, and not particulary good in AJ before finding his ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 My highly controversial pick is Tenryu before 1987. His work itself is fine, but his working of the crowd is non-existant, he's an awful babyface if you ask me. He just never looks bothered at any stage. I mean maybe it's just Tenryu's face itself that bothers me, he's got that permanent non-plussed look, but I can't recall the last time I took against someone like that. He's awesome now I've reached 88-89 and he's a heel, but before that I couldn leave him. Even in the absolutely off-the-charts 86-7 tags with Jumbo vs. Choshu and Yatsu he wears that expression during these balls-to-the-wall hate-feulled battles. I don't think he's doing anything particularly DIFFERENT in 88-89 it's just that he's booked stronger and in a position that suits his natural dickery. --------- Another worst pre-peak for me is Mark Calloway. Does anyone here have any serious love for the Skyscrapers that they'd like to explain to me? Marc Mero would be another one. And DDP. Both guys who somehow got A LOT better with XP, and against each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Mean Mark had a really fun match vs Luger in 90. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Mean Mark had a really fun match vs Luger in 90. From watching it recently, I thought it was rather bad actually, and certainly Luger's worst big match in a long time. And it wasn't Luger's fault. Mark was just limited in what he could do outside of the realm of a squash match. Had a few nifty stuff, but nothing was coming together yet. As far as the Skyscrapper goes, the equation was simple : Dan Spivey worked, Sid sucked/Mark was doing one of two cool spots and that was it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 It's a good match. Mark looks good with his sort of duck and dodge stance. His mannerisms are pretty good (especially looking to Paul E). His chain wrestling isn't even that bad. The story is smart. For instance, the shine period: Mark tries to out power Luger, gets outpowered and shifted into the corner, clean rope break. Mark tries to out out wrestle Luger, gets out wrestled, clean rope break, tries to bully him and gets hip tossed and throws a fit, shifts Luger into the corner and hits him to take over for a little bit, playing to the whole of the match so far. He hits some intense looking punches. They do some back and forth and Luger gets back on top with a body press and goes to the arm. That's all good stuff, executed well. Mark was pretty good in there. He still had crappy kicks, but he was also super athletic when he did stuff like leap frogs or lightning big boots. The mid match arm-work is nice because it gave old school a little more meaning. It didn't make any sense for heel taker to do arm work after all. Finish is a bit of a mess, I will grant you. I think at the very least the opening segment was really quite good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Obvious candidates include Tenryu (although I strongly disagree), Are there actually people arguing that Tenryu had the "best pre-peak" of any worker? That would be a new one to me. It's also a hard question to define. Three examples: If Jumbo's "peak" was his work in his 1990-92 Grumpy Old Jumbo run against Misawa & Co., it's a rather ridiculous pre-peak because he was awfully good at times for a long term. If Flair's "peak" was 1989 which some folks really love, then he has a long pre-peak loaded with a lot of good matches. That's prehaps extreme. So instead: If Steamboat's peak was briefly reached in 1989 opposite Flair (playing ultimate babyface challenger) and Luger (as a vet helping a younger worker hit a new level), Steamer sure has a lot of quality work prior to that. So... it's a hard one to wrap your head around. "Best" also limits the discussion because a poster is looking for one answer ("42!") rather than tossing out a half dozen examples of people who were quite good before their peak, or good for long time prior to reaching their peak. "Best" discussions tend to do that. You're forced to compare Masa Fuchi with Jumbo, rather than taking Fuchi out on his own: "I knew Fuchi might might have hit his peak in the early 90s as a grumpy old bastard, but I was surprised on the DVDVR set to see he was quite good back in 1986." That's kind of a useful discussion. But do the discussion get there if it's narrowed to "best"? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Should we just refine it to the first few years of guys' careers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Beats me. I'm just pointing out that it's a hard question to wrap one's head around. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJH Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 It's whomever you have as GOAT. Their '99%' is by proxy better than anyone else's. Pedantry . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I'm thinking "peak is more a longer period of time. So peak Flair is 83-9. Peak Jumbo is 85-92. etc. Does that make sense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Akira Hokuto springs to mind, ppl don't talk much about her pre 92-93 run but she started wrestling in 85 and was really damn good by the late 80's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Could peaking early count? Because, Kurt Angle in 2000-2002 certainly comes to mind. Even aside from the big hyped matches with Austin and such, his inconsequential little time-fillers with the likes of Kane and Big Show were a hell of a lot more fun than his Epic Best Worker Ever show-off marathons in later years. For fun we can also talk about the WORST pre-peak workers. I'd think there's a case for Rude here.Yeah. Rude around early 1988 was godawful, having shit matches with practically everyone. When neither Ricky Steamboat's workrate nor Jake Roberts' psychology can get anything worth a damn out of you, that's pretty terrible. But in those Ultimate Warrior matches just a year later, he looked like a completely different guy; let alone his WCW work around '92. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I had mentioned Rude in another thread. He really figured it out around the start of the Warrior feud in 1989 and started putting on good matches. How about Vader? Even as the Baby Bull Leon White in the AWA he was putting on good matches against Buddy Rose and Doug Somers and Hansen. He wasn't even wrestling as the super stiff guy he became. He was working more as a big bumping, big man that did some high flying moves to wow the crowds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I'm thinking "peak is more a longer period of time. So peak Flair is 83-9. Peak Jumbo is 85-92. etc. Does that make sense? A peak can be long or short. Some guys it might be as short as a couple of months, other guys like Flair would be several years. This can also be effected by injuries, promotion moves, other external stimuli. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kostka Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Short peak: Samoa Joe (04-06) Long peak: Stan Hansen (was great from as far back as ive seen him in 78 or 79 vs Beyer all the way through 93, which is as good a year as anyone ever.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I was watching a Legends of Wrestling Roundtable yesterday (Renegades & Outlaws) & Jim Ross said that Stan Hansen might be the best American wrestler to ever wrestle in Japan, or have the best career in Japan (something to that extent). Coming from J.R., that's pretty big praise. Especially with how tight he was with Dr. Death and knowing wrestlers like Benoit & Guerrero competed in Japan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty safe statement. When I look at the body of Benoit's Japanese work compared to that of, say, Ric Flair, there isn't much difference in quality. I could see an argument for either guy over the other guy, but it's not a huge gap in either direction. Terry Funk had better and more high-quality stuff than both of them, most likely. Doc is probably #2, then Funk, then Gordy and then maybe Flair/Benoit. After that, probably Johnny Ace. (Ace's output can be credited more to who he worked with than anything he did, really, so it all depends on what you care more about -- output or individual performance.) And Eddy in Japan usually disappoints me, because the mask negates one of his biggest strengths, which is his facial expressions. The Black Tiger gimmick -- while he had some good matches in it -- was largely a loser from my point of view. I like babyface Eddy in WCW, but generally speaking, 1995-1996 Eddy hasn't held up well on rewatch because Eddy was not incorporating all of his natural charisma into his matches, at least not in Japan. Eddy had the match with Scorpio in 4/95 that I liked so much more than the Malenko series because he did all the cheating between highspots that made him so much fun. Eddy in '97 against Otani in '96 would have blown Starrcade '95 out of the water. (Wait ... yeah that sort of makes sense.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I'd say the statement was true... but I'd also say that JR probably isn't an expert on Japan. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 After that, probably Johnny Ace. (Ace's output can be credited more to who he worked with than anything he did, really, so it all depends on what you care more about -- output or individual performance.) Wait, what ? Being Miss Baba's favourite register as having a great career in Japan ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Ace was in a lot of good matches. Re-read my post. I didn't give him credit for that, I merely pointed out that he happened to be part of some. So if you're saying "Who was in the most good matches?", he's in that slot. If you're saying "Who brought the most to their matches?", he's obviously not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Ace was in a lot of good matches. Re-read my post. I didn't give him credit for that, I merely pointed out that he happened to be part of some. So if you're saying "Who was in the most good matches?", he's in that slot. If you're saying "Who brought the most to their matches?", he's obviously not. Understood. But that wouldn't register as being a great wrestler, which I thought was the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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