Akira Maeda

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Phil Schneider]

Interesting case, he is a real hit or miss guy. His best stuff was out of this world great, but he also would just snooze his way through matches too. I am going to have him below Fujiwara obviously but I think he is my second ranked UWF worker. I am not sure where he ranks vs. the BattlArts guys, I think I am going to need to revisit his RINGS stuff, is there any RINGS classics I need to watch?

[Loss]

The big two for me are:

 

vs Volk Han (12/07/91)

vs Yoshihisa Yammamoto (07/20/98)

[Ditch]

Is he even top 10 for shoot-style workers? I've been irked by high placements for Takada but I'd definitely have Takada over Maeda, to say nothing of Tamura, Han, Yamazaki, Fujiwara, Minoru Suzuki, Ishikawa, Ikeda, and some combination of Anjoh, Kakihara, TK, Y. Yamamoto, Otsuka... hell he might not crack my top 15 if you include Takayama. And that's just shoot-style, which isn't nearly as deep as 'US territories' or 'traditional Japan' or (for those so inclined) lucha. Tough to fit Maeda in there.

[ohtani's jacket]

It depends whether you like real shoot style or that fluffy UWF-I crap. I wouldn't even call BattlARTS real shoot style since it was too much of a hybrid. I could see him both in and out of a top 10. I don't think it's much of a talking point since shoot style was so niche. Carl Greco would be in my top 10 and I can't see him making the top 100.

 

I would definitely take him over Takada, Yamazaki. Anjoh, Suzuki, Kakihara and Takayama.

[dawho5]

Didn't he have a great match with Fujinami in 1986?

[goodhelmet]

Yes.

[Timbo Slice]

I never got into Maeda, even with him and Fujinami having the incredible 6/12/86 match. Have a few things coming up to watch where it'll give me a better look at him, but right now, I don't see him making my Top 100.

[Childs]

Maeda has a shot for me because he carried some of that special Choshu quality where things felt bigger just because he was involved. Now, he created some of that air with bullshit like the shoot kick on Choshu. But he had forged a special connection with his audience before that. Old man Ueda eliminating him in the 3/26/86 NJ vs. UWF match might be my favorite moment in wrestling history, but it only worked as well as it did because the crowd absolutely bought Maeda. And that was still the case by the end of his RINGS run, even though he'd surrounded himself with more gifted shooters for years. Plus, his greatest matches were really great, from the Fujinami match, to the Fujiwara stuff to the match with Takada in Dec. 88. He was inconsistent, yes, and certainly less physically dynamic than the best shoot stylists. But he stood out.

[ohtani's jacket]

He has the body of work to be voted for if people are inclined.

 

You only need to watch the Takada match Childs mentioned as well as the brilliant Funaki match from 1990 to see how well his aura played into big time shoot style bouts.

[Childs]

Yeah, I forgot the Funaki match. Great young lion vs. established star showcase.

[ohtani's jacket]

It was a shame his knees gave out on him. A couple of more good RINGS bouts and he'd be a surefire thing.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

My take on Maeda:

 

Pros

• His real biggest plus for me is that I thought he was the best of the UWF guys on the New Japan set. That's not including Fujiwara. I thought he was really good at mixing in the shoot-style stuff into traditional pro wrestling matches, and he contributed a lot to lots of really good matches.
• Had really good kicks.
• As others mentioned, just had the aura of a big time player, something that sets him apart from others. I don't think it's the same as what Choshu had, as Choshu was just dripping charisma, and I don't think Maeda was that charismatic. I'd say it's more of a Triple H thing, where he kind of wills you to believe he's the man. Except more legit.

Cons

• I think it's a problem that in almost every shoot-style bout I saw him in, I thought the other guy was better. That includes Han, Yamamoto, Yamazaki and Karelin. Not that he was bad or being carried in these bouts, just that I found his opponent more engaging a lot of the time.
• It seemed that he wasn't that good until he started UWF. The earlier bouts I saw him in had him looking kinda out of his depth.
• He kinda sucked working from underneath.

Maeda is a definite contender for my list, based mostly on his work in the NJ Vs UWF feud. I would imagine he'd be somewhere in the bottom quarter, if he were to make it.

[elliott]

I'm really interested to dive back into his 90s work. I watched a really huge chunk of Rings back in the early 00s but I haven't watched or thought about Rings beyond Han/Tamura in forever.

 

Looking at the 80s sets, and this might be controversial, but I would only definitely rank Fujiwara, Fujinami, Tsuruta and maybe Tenryu above Maeda as far as Japanese workers from the 80s. He's similar to Choshu in a lot of ways but I think Maeda has more high end performances in the 80s.

 

Who am I forgetting (i'm leaving off Hansen intentionally)? Anyone else see Maeda as a top 5 Japanese Worker from the 80s contender?

[ohtani's jacket]

Choshu's body of work in the 80s blows Maeda away and I say that as a huge Maeda fan. I can live with people thinking he's top five for the decade because it's a cool idea, but I dunno that it's actually fair.

[elliott]

Choshu's body of work in the 80s blows Maeda away and I say that as a huge Maeda fan. I can live with people thinking he's top five for the decade because it's a cool idea, but I dunno that it's actually fair.

 

I think Maeda and Choshu share a lot of the same qualities that make them great. But you're right Choshu has a bigger body of work. The last two sets I watched were NJ and then Other Japan so I've watched a shit ton of Maeda lately and his best performances are some of my favorites.

 

Who would you rate above him from Japan for the 80s? Fujiwara, Fujinami, Jumbo, Tenryu, and Choshu are obvious. I cheated and left Hansen off to fudge the numbers and get Maeda higher so you can toss him in as well.

[Childs]

Masa Saito might have been better. I'd have to think through that one more carefully.

[GOTNW]

An obvious inclusion. I'm not sure how high I can rank him but him hitting Fujiwara with an actual boxing uppercut is one of my favourite pro wrestling moments.

[Parties]

I have a lot of Japanese guys in my top 100 - more than expected on first draft - and Maeda is above Choshu and maybe even Jumbo. That said, I'm a huge proponent of UWF. Choshu's performances, while incredibly heated, often felt too repetitive and redundant during the New Japan set and the All Japan and 90s stuff that I've seen. That's not a moveset critique (though Choshu does often go for the same stuff over and over in his matches, to the point of tedium) as much as its that I find Maeda's own limited ("structured"?) approach of kicks and matwork to be more versatile, realistic, and entertaining.

 

I haven't seen that many mediocre Maeda matches, and the ones I don't much like are with guys like Mutoh and Koshinaka who I rarely enjoy. With good opponents, he was phenomenal. I'd also argue that he is often the ring general of the UWF-NJ invasion angle, which I and others here have called the best in-ring feud of all time. He's the guy who sets the pace of when those matches go to big offense or stay on the mat. He's the leader and most dangerous member of his faction, not because he was booked that way but because people bought it in his work.

 

There may be people here who downgrade him for being a sour, uncooperative dick, which he absolutely was. We all love Hansen for reckless lariats and smashing up eyeballs, so "good intentions" don't mean much to me on this topic. And there's no question that Maeda's rep as "real" (be it a real fighter or a real jerk) was vital to being so over with his audience, and gaining the "aura" OJ refers to above. He is if nothing else one of the most fascinating and dynamic personalities of 80s wrestling. And even if that weren't the case, he has one of the best sets of great matches of any singles worker from that time. Very, very few guys anywhere in the world were better or more consistent in singles matches during his WOTYC days of '84-'90, which is also probably wrestling's creative peak as a medium.

 

I really wonder in a lot of these comparisons of workers and eventual rankings how much recent viewing helps. It's been what, eight years since the DVDVR Other Japan set? Five since the New Japan set? Compare that to how much of the Tenryu and Hansen backlist people have been hyping online lately. Maeda's not a guy who's fresh on our minds, but he's worth revisiting.

[elliott]

I really wonder in a lot of these comparisons of workers and eventual rankings how much recent viewing helps. It's been what, eight years since the DVDVR Other Japan set? Five since the New Japan set? Compare that to how much of the Tenryu and Hansen backlist people have been hyping online lately. Maeda's not a guy who's fresh on our minds, but he's worth revisiting.

 

I agree with this (and all the other stuff before it). I literally just watched NJ and OJ sets and Maeda looks like one of the best guys on the planet from late 83-89. Maybe that would look differently if I watched all the week to week TV the set makers watched. But Maeda rivals just about anyone in Japan as far as peak performances and feuds.

[Childs]

I'm a Maeda fan and will rank him. But he didn't strike me as one of the best guys on the planet in '83. He was promising but needed a few more years to find himself fully. I'd say he really nailed it right around the time the UWF guys went back to New Japan.

[elliott]

Yeah I posted without looking at the matchlists and for some reason I thought the two singles vs Fujiwara from NJ were before the formation of UWF1. I would amend to say 84-89. Late 83 is pushing it but I liked him in NJ before the first jump to UWF. I loved his matches against Fujiwara, Tiger, and Yamazaki from UWF1.

[El-P]

As I'm going through Ishin Gundan vs NJ, Ishin Gundan vs Jumbo's army & UWF vs NJ, it just occured to me that the two workers who basically revolutionized pro-wrestling in the 80's in Japan (Choshu & Maeda) were actually Korean. I wonder if that has been discussed before and if that played a role in how they were perceived by the audience, including the fact they played the role of rebellious people turning against the establishment.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm really struggling with Maeda. On the one hand he was in a lot of my favorite matches in NJPW in the 80s, and i second Childs thoughts on the Ueda spot in the 3/86 match which is literally one of the five best matches of all time in my view. I even loved the Don Nielson match which was really polarizing as I recall.

 

That said when I was watching the New Japan Set at no point did I think Maeda was at the same level as Fujinami, Fujiwara, or even Choshu. I'm not entirely sure I liked his peak performances as much as the peak performances of Saito, Kimura, or Hoshino.

 

He absolutely does have that presence, that aura, that charisma that people like Choshu, Hashimoto, Fujiwara, and Tenryu have, but unlike them he's not a guy with a large volume of memorable matches that immediately jump to mind, or where I feel his performance was especially gripping. That might change if I watched his UWF run in a linear way as opposed to cherry picking which I've done in the past but I'm not sure of it. He absolutely doesn't stand out in RINGS, and I'm not sure I can really argue against Ditch's point about him not even being a top ten shootstyle worker.

 

Despite my criticisms he feels like someone who should my list, but when I look at some of the people on the bubble I feel a lot more strongly about them than I do Maeda.

 

I'd be open to a late push at this point on his UWF stuff which I haven't watched in ages. If people point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

[Timbo Slice]

The UWF 2.0 stuff with him might push you over the top on him a bit, but I agree with the idea that considering the style, he's not a slam dunk top-notch worker. I personally have him on my list due to my weighing his performances in big matches, and the presence like you talked about, but he wasn't a shoe-in, and the more lucha I watch as we come down the stretch, I might see him slide off.