My Latest Insane Project

[JazeUSA]

are you interested in PWG, IWC, DragonGatUSA, & or Chikara? If so I could get you some matches to check out...

[Dylan Waco]

With DGUSA and Chikara I am willing to watch recommended matches, but I'm not a fan of either fed. PWG I will usually can get a hold of. IWC is the PA fed that runs it's own best of indies tourney right?

[Blehschmidt]

Yeah. IWC is the PA fed that runs the "Super Indy" tournament every year.

[Dylan Waco]

Would be interested in hearing what you think of Alexander vs. Elgin. I can see it being a match you hate but it is starting to get that Richards vs. Elgin buzz from last year. I think this match was better especially when they worked over Alexander's ear but they really kicked out of a ton of stuff going towards the 30 minute draw.

 

Watched this just now and hated it. The first ten minutes were actually way better than I would have expected and pretty smartly worked, but that's a staple of Elgin matches over the last year. The last twenty were just painfully awful and everything I hate about modern wrestling.

[soup23]

That is about what I figured and my enjoyment of the match would look like a straight sloping supply curve as the longer it went, the more annoyed I got. Around the 22 minute mark, Elgin did a few things like punching Alexander on the ear and I was hoping it would go that way into a gritty finish our courageous comeback but it was not to be. I do think both Elgin and Alexander are good workers (especially Alexander as he is usually a big monster and this was one of the more "indyrific" matches he has been in).

[Dylan Waco]

Tentative Mid Year Top 100. Comments on omissions, placement, et. are welcomed. Also note this is based on the first six months of the calendar year, i.e. no dated "Observer" rules or anything in the last week comes into consideration.

 

1. Antonio Cesaro

2. Negro Casas

3. Daniel Bryan

4. Virus

5. Rush

6. Vordell Walker

7. LA Park

8. William Regal

9. The Big Show

10. Kyle Matthews

11. Trauma II

12. Alberto Del Rio

13. Jun Akiyama

14. Dean Ambrose

15. Villano IV

16. Demus 3:16

17. Blue Panther

18. Rampage Brown

19. Robbie Dynamite

20. Kazushi Sakuraba

21. Sheamus

22. Dean Allmark

23. KT Hammil

24. Trauma I

25. Shaun Tempers

26. Timothy Thatcher

27. Necro Butcher

28. Damien Wayne

29. Kahagas

30. Sami Callihan

31. Seth Rollins

32. James Mason

33. Negro Navarro

34. John Cena

35. Tajiri

36. Jack Gallagher

37. Freelance

38. Black Terry

39. Alan Extreme

40. Casandro

41. Yuki Ishikawa

42. Roman Reigns

43. Terrible

44. Chris Masters

45. Valiente

46. Shockercito

47. Ryota Hama

48. Chico Che

49. Jeff Cobb

50. Andrew Everett Cross (Chiva Kid)

51. Minoru Suzuki

52. Dr. Wagner Jr.

53. Ray Mendoza Jr.

54. Jay Briscoe

55. Cyrus The Destroyer

56. Mark Briscoe

57. Tracy Smothers

58. Eddie Kingston

59. Amazing Red

60. Harry Smith

61. Namajague

62. Too Cold Scorpio

63. Pierrothito

64. Astral

65. Shinsuke Nakamura

66. Fuego

67. Califan

68. Cancerbero

69. Sami Zayn (El Generico)

70. CM Punk

71. Mark Henry

72. Drew Haskins

73. Jeremiah Plunkett

74. Angel Blanco Jr.

75. Kassius Ohno

76. Dolph Ziggler

77. Tomohiro Ishii

78. Tank Norton

79. Rich Swann

80. Rey Hechicero

81. Manabu Suruga

82. Jack Swagger

83. D.O.C.

84. ACH

85. Dinamic Black

86. Austin Aries

87. Jeremy Wyatt

88. Derrick King

89. Michael Tarver

90. Akebono

91. Gunner

92. KAI

93. Keith Hammil

94. Andrew Alexander

95. Randy Orton

96. Wade Barrett

97. Kazunari Murakami

98. Savio Vega

99. Bully Ray

100. New Jack

 

Last Five off: Jon Malus, JC Ice, Big E. Langston, Rob Conway, Raziel

[Tim Evans]

I'm surprised you have Virus over Rush. I can't think of anything Virus has done this year that is better than Rush's 6/28 match. I also thought Villano IV would be higher.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm surprised you have Virus over Rush. I can't think of anything Virus has done this year that is better than Rush's 6/28 match. I also thought Villano IV would be higher.

I actually struggled a ton with 3-5. I could see a case for all of them over the other. I have LOVED Rush this year and he has real momentum to the point where he feels like he could end up being my number one guy when all is said and done. I agree that Virus hasn't had a match as good as Rush's 6/28 match, but I think Virus may have slightly more volume of stuff I've really liked. It's really close

 

On Villano IV I have loved him, but he doesn't have the grand slam match he had last year. I could see him as high as 12, any higher I couldn't justify.

[Timbo Slice]

Hope you saw the Cesaro/Bo Dallas match, Dylan. Absolutely fantastic carry job from Cesaro. One of the matches that justifies a #1 ranking.

[Dylan Waco]

The primary reason I rate Cesaro one is that he was able to do so much and have so many strong performances even though booking was his enemy and his opponents were pretty much a who's who of boring, mediocre and uninteresting. I doubt he can hold for the course of the year because I think he's going to end up tagging with Swagger and I can't see that giving him the opportunities to shine, but who knows

[Loss]

Good stuff, Dylan. Are you prepared to rank the top matches you've seen this year as well?

[soup23]

Good stuff as always Dylan, only person I would have significantly higher (and I should preface by saying I havent seen nearly as much Southern indies and luchas as you) is Sheamus. He would be for sure in my top 10 and knocking at my top 5. I think he has been a poor man version of Cesaro but has had some great matches and I loved him in that Shield vs. Superfriends match at Elimination Chamber and his work vs. Cesaro in their main event match.

 

This year has been very disappointing to me overall match quality wise. This time last year, we already had my top 3 for the year and we also had other stuff that while I didn't love as much as everyone else (Taker/HHH), it still had a ton of hype and support. I have seen a ton of 2.5 - 3 star matches this year (mostly from WWE TV) but only a couple that I would rank at 4.25-4.5

[Hollinger.]

Love that Jeremy Wyatt made your list. One of my favorite dudes in the world.

[Jimmy Redman]

Good stuff as always Dylan, only person I would have significantly higher (and I should preface by saying I havent seen nearly as much Southern indies and luchas as you) is Sheamus. He would be for sure in my top 10 and knocking at my top 5. I think he has been a poor man version of Cesaro but has had some great matches and I loved him in that Shield vs. Superfriends match at Elimination Chamber and his work vs. Cesaro in their main event match.

 

This year has been very disappointing to me overall match quality wise. This time last year, we already had my top 3 for the year and we also had other stuff that while I didn't love as much as everyone else (Taker/HHH), it still had a ton of hype and support. I have seen a ton of 2.5 - 3 star matches this year (mostly from WWE TV) but only a couple that I would rank at 4.25-4.5

On the second part, I kind of agree on the prevalence of "good" rather than "great" matches, to put it that way, but at the same time I wouldn't call it disappointing myself. I feel like the volume of really good TV matches in WWE this year has been wonderful and is a fair trade-off to maybe not having so many clear MOTYCs. My only problem is that I find it hard to rank the 20-30 or so matches that are all roughly of the same quality in any order. And I like order.

 

Like, the Shield had pretty much the same great TV match for eight straight weeks of TV. How on earth do you rank one over the next?

[puropotsy]

This is awesome Dylan

[Dylan Waco]

Loss - My tentative goal is to do a top 100 matches at years end to go along with a top 500 wrestlers. To me matches are considerably harder than wrestlers, but I've had more than a half dozen requests to do matches so I'll probably do it.

 

Soup - On Sheamus, I think his best stuff this year has been really great, but in a weird sense I think he's been disappointing this year relative to last year. Part of that may be due to the fact that the Henry feud wasn't anywhere near as good as it looked on paper to me, another part may be that WWE ppv's have been really underwhelming this year, and an even bigger part of that may be the fact that I thought Sheamus was the best week-to-week performer in wrestling last year and this year he has been more overtly comedic even in the ring than I would like for a guy who had that run last year. Still I feel he's been very strong over all

[stunning_grover]

Are you going to include any women's wrestling?

[Dylan Waco]

Are you going to include any women's wrestling?

I am more than open to suggestions. I've watched a couple of Joshi matches this year, but nothing I saw was particularly good. I know Athena has a buzz around her here in the states. What/who should I be looking for?

[FLIK]

26. Timothy Thatcher

What Thatcher stuff have you been digging?

[Dylan Waco]

26. Timothy Thatcher

What Thatcher stuff have you been digging?

 

LOVED the Jeff Cobb match from Supreme Pro earlier in the year. I also really liked his matches v. TJP and Willie Mack. There is an APW tag where he looked good and I liked his Gym Wars match v. Oliver St. John too even if it was really simple. There are a couple of other Supreme Pro matches where I thought he looked good but his opponent was questionable or the match ran off the rails from overbooking

[stunning_grover]

Are you going to include any women's wrestling?

I am more than open to suggestions. I've watched a couple of Joshi matches this year, but nothing I saw was particularly good. I know Athena has a buzz around her here in the states. What/who should I be looking for?

 

I haven't watched many 2013 matches to be honest (I've mostly been watching 70s, 80s and 90s wrestling lately), but there's an Athena vs. Ayako Hamada match from April 6 (SHIMMER Vol. 53 iPPV at Wrestlecon) that was good.

 

Athena is definitely a worker to look out for. Arguably the best American female worker right now. Also, I think Ivelisse Velez has been quite impressive from what I've seen (she's a regular for the SHINE promotion based out of Florida).

 

Even though I'm a joshi puroresu fan, I have to admit that 2013 hasn't produced too many good joshi puroresu matches (plenty of decent stuff, but nothing really good).

[FLIK]

and I liked his Gym Wars match v. Oliver St. John too

Heh, no clue whear you got St from but it's just Oliver John.

If you never saw it you should check out their 2012 match from SWF, similar style but I liked it slightly more.

 

Thatcher's been my pick for the best guy in Nor Cal for a while so always good to see him getting props.

[Dylan Waco]

and I liked his Gym Wars match v. Oliver St. John too

Heh, no clue whear you got St from but it's just Oliver John.

 

 

Not sure why but I always put an St. in his name even though I've been corrected at least once before. Now I feel obligated to keep it as a trademark, in the vein of "thear" and "whear."

[Stiva]

I'm psyched that Big Show is so high as he's a guy that I've really enjoyed watching, pretty much since his return in 08. When he's back from injury, I'd like to see him working with Daniel Bryan for a couple of PPVs to working long TV matches with Christian and just generally keep his high standard up. Show from 08 to whenever he retires is prime comp-material as he's been in a ton of fun matches.

[Alucard]

Are you going to include any women's wrestling?

I am more than open to suggestions. I've watched a couple of Joshi matches this year, but nothing I saw was particularly good. I know Athena has a buzz around her here in the states. What/who should I be looking for?

 

I haven't watched many 2013 matches to be honest (I've mostly been watching 70s, 80s and 90s wrestling lately), but there's an Athena vs. Ayako Hamada match from April 6 (SHIMMER Vol. 53 iPPV at Wrestlecon) that was good.

 

Athena is definitely a worker to look out for. Arguably the best American female worker right now. Also, I think Ivelisse Velez has been quite impressive from what I've seen (she's a regular for the SHINE promotion based out of Florida).

 

Even though I'm a joshi puroresu fan, I have to admit that 2013 hasn't produced too many good joshi puroresu matches (plenty of decent stuff, but nothing really good).

 

 

As far as 2013, these are the matches I enjoyed the most from SHINE:

 

Ivelisse Velez vs Su Yung (Shine 6, 1/11/13)

Brittney Savage vs Heidi Lovelace (Shine 7, 2/22/13)

Santana Garrett vs Jessie Belle (Shine 7, 2/22/13)

Ivelisse Velez vs LuFisto (Shine 7, 2/22/13)

Allysin Kay/April Hunter/Taylor Made vs Mia Yim/Su Yung/Tracy Taylor (Shine 7, 2/22/13)

Mercedes Martinez vs Nikki Roxx (Shine 7, 2/22/13)

Nikki St. John vs Luscious Latasha (Shine 8, 3/23/13)

Brittney Savage vs Su Yung (Shine 8, 3/23/13)

Angelina Love vs Rain (Shine 9, 4/19/13)

Ivelisse Velez vs Jazz (Shine 9, 4/19/13)

Kimberly vs Santana Garrett (Shine 10, 5/21/13)

Heidi Lovelace/Luscious Latasha/Solo Darling vs. Jessie Belle/Sassy Stephie/Sojo Bolt (Shine 10, 5/21/13)

 

I'd definitely recommend any Ivelisse Velez, she is fantastic. In general, I'd still rate Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrell from TNA Slammiversary as my favorite women's match this year.

Edit: the latest Shine show (7/13/13) featured 3 more Ivelisse matches where she continues to deliver the goods.