Wrestler of the Year (1990-99)

[soup23]

The best vs those three opponents although the kobashi match may be the best match of Hansen I've ever seen. It is probably either that or the Andre match.

 

Date vs misawa is 5-21-93

[BigBadMick]

Thanks Chad.

 

Worth putting these in as food for thought - WON Wrestler of the Year

 

1990 Ric Flair World Championship Wrestling

1991 Jumbo Tsuruta All Japan Pro Wrestling

1992 Ric Flair World Wrestling Federation

1993 Vader World Championship Wrestling

1994 Toshiaki Kawada All Japan Pro Wrestling

1995 Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling

1996 Kenta Kobashi All Japan Pro Wrestling

1997 Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling

1998 Stone Cold Steve Austin World Wrestling Federation

1999 Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling

 

WON Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Year

1990 Jushin Thunder Liger New Japan Pro Wrestling

1991 Jushin Thunder Liger New Japan Pro Wrestling,

1992 Jushin Thunder Liger New Japan Pro Wrestling,

1993 Kenta Kobashi All Japan Pro Wrestling

1994 Kenta Kobashi All Japan Pro Wrestling

1995 Manami Toyota All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling

1996 Rey Misterio Jr. Extreme Championship Wrestling,

1997 Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling

1998 Koji Kanemoto New Japan Pro Wrestling

1999 Mitsuharu Misawa All Japan Pro Wrestling

[ohtani's jacket]

First five years for Mexico:

 

1990: El Dandy.

 

1991: Tough year. Fuerza Guerrera and Emilio Charles Jr. are probably the top two guys in CMLL, but there's no legendary year here. Hijo del Santo, Atlantis, and Blue Panther have arguments, Brazo de Plata was the man at the center of a big year for the Brazos, and Brazo de Oro is a darkhorse candidate given that he has the match with Santo in addition to his Brazos stuff. I'd go with Fuerza.

 

1992: This is a strong year for a lot of guys, so it feels kind of wrong to pick Negro Casas, of whom there is very little footage for the first five months of the year.

 

1993: Negro Casas, but Lizmark has a case.

 

1994: Rey Misterio Jr. maybe? This feels like the worst year of the five, although there's a lot that I haven't seen.

 

I'm ignorant of too much wrestling (as evident by the fact that I didn't list 1995-99) to judge whether any of these guys was the best wrestler in the world, but Dandy in 1990 and Casas in 1993 feel like the ones with the best cases. Casas was just as good in 1992 but was a TV regular for a little over half a year.

 

This is interesting. If you just go on talent then I think Casas has it sewn up for 1992 and 1993, but had a bit of a drop off in '94 from what I've seen. I like the idea of Fuerza for '91, but wonder if Pirata Morgan isn't a bit of a darkhorse candidate. 1994 is tough. It would require watching more AAA than I care to. Perhaps Santo?

[Timbo Slice]

The only joshi wrestler I'd consider would be Hokuto for 93, maybe Kong for 94.

 

Hash had a great 94-96 but I don't think he ranks at the top above any of the AJPW guys.

 

I have problems with Kobashi being the go to guy in 1993 because I don't think he was the best guy in any of the matches he was a part of, role or not.

 

Jumbo's 90 is superb, but his 91 is layered more with tag matches as opposed to standout singles matches (Although the Kawada match is a top-flight match).

 

So off the top of my head:

 

1990: Jumbo

1991: Lyger

1992: Misawa

1993: Hokuto (Just beating out Hansen)

1994: Kawada (Just beating out Aja Kong)

1995: Taue (I'll hear an argument for Kawada or Misawa though)

1996: Lyger (I almost put Ohtani here, too, but 1996 NJPW juniors is the best the division ever was for me)

1997: Misawa

1998: Kawada

 

1999 is a wild card year. Nobody in Japan stood out, really. I almost want to put either Tamura or Volk Han here. I like the Yoshida nods but I'm not sure if she has the match quantity. Maybe Ishikawa? BattlArts was in full swing at that point, right? Will's pick of Tajiri is a fun one because there wasn't a better character in ECW than him at the time. Honestly, Kobashi is a boring choice, and he had far outlived his usefulness to me at this point, and was only getting pushed because Kawada had broken his arm again and Misawa had the book. Hell, I'd probably take Vader over him and that was only because he was at least motivated in '99. Not familiar with Mexico at this point, as it seemed like a downtime until Mistico started making his run. Santo was winding down, Dr. Wagner, Jr. was too busy no-selling in NJPW...I dunno. Nobody in the States jumps out at me either.

[funkdoc]

yea parv, kobashi as the best worker of 93 has long been common consensus. it's definitely a matter of consistency, though, because the people who watched the '93 yearbook didn't get that impression from him either. the point made in response to that was that his week-in-week-out performances on AJPW's TV were what made him stand out, with virtually no duds - he was the best possible arn anderson as a worker, basically.

[Timbo Slice]

Actually, Rippa made Meiko Satomura the Wrestler of the Day this morning and her 1999 was tremendous with the 4/4/99 tag and the fucking fantastic title match against Aja in September. She's in the running.

[jdw]

This is why Great Match Theory should not be the be all and end all, because there is no way Kobashi was the best wrestler in the world in 1993.

 

 

People never put up Kobashi's 1993 campaign as an all-time great campaign because of Great Match Theory bullshit. If it were due to Great Match Theory, people would have pointed to Kawada.

 

 

 

This is why Great Match Theory should not be the be all and end all, because there is no way Kobashi was the best wrestler in the world in 1993.

 

This is outstandingly ignorant given the cherry picking you and Steven have seen. Watch the Kawada/Taue vs. MVC title change to see Kawada give a disappointing performance. And that isn't saying that Kawada wasn't outstanding in 93 and could be a viable pick for WOTY, I am just saying that you have seen 6 Kobashi matches of the 20+ that have made tape.

 

 

He was in 39 matches on TV that year, out of 51 weeks of new AJPW TV that year. Then there are handhelds, like the Carny match with Hansen.

 

We had a similar discussion during the 1993 yearbook and how "best of" doesn't remotely capture why people were amazed by his campaign at the time. I liked to point to this match:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o57rfqqWUIE

 

It was one of the 3 to 4 *lowest* rated matches he had in 1993. I was a bit surprised seeing how low it was rated when looking back through the 1993 ratings, since I recalled it being pretty watchable. Sure enough on rewatch whenever the Yearbook discussions were going on, it was still pretty watchable. As it was when I just watched it again when searching youtube for it.

 

If Mutoh/Muta and Bossman has this exact same match on a WCW or WWF ppv in 1993, it would be long remembered as one of the best matches of Bossman's career, and a terrific performance by Mutoh.

 

It happened in All Japan, with 1993 Kobashi who had all those other matches, and with Bossman having to be judges against the gaijin standard of 1993 Hansen (rather high on the gaijin list of campaigns), right as Doc was really picking up his game with Gordy out, and with "beloved-by-hardcores" gaijin like Kroffat & Furnas working for the promotion. It pretty much got lost, and strangely rated.

 

That's 1993: his throwaway TV taping match against Bossman, which was one of Bossman's more entertaining matches, is lost in time.

 

* * * * *

 

Before someone cares to point it out:

 

Yeah, Bossman is really good in this match. It's high on the list of really good performances out of him, and he's busting shit out to fit into All Japan. If one wants to say Bubba "makes the match", go for it. I dig his performance in at as well.

 

But...

 

Here's the fun one gets out of watching the shit as it happened, and watching all of it.

 

Bubba faced Taue in a singles match at the July Budokan. It was third from the top, behind Hansen-Kobashi and Misawa-Kawada. It was on TV, so maybe it's floating around the interwebs somewhere. I didn't easily find it on youtube, though it might be there.

 

Perhaps someone can talk Ditch into putting it up as a comp to the match with Kobashi. Then one can judge the performance Bubba had against Kobashi against the one he had against Taue. It would get a bit uncomfortable for Taue Fanboys.

 

* * * * *

 

If you asked me at the time, and if you asked me now, who at their very best was the best worker in All Japan in 1993 was, I'd say Kawada. One can point to 12/03/93, and plenty of us have over the years, but it was more the crystallization of what I'd been thinking all year. When on, when in the right setting, when he needed to be, or when he was inspired, he was the best.

 

The thing is... he wasn't always bringing it. Not that he was dogging it, but at times he was stuck opposite folks like Hansen & Dibiase, where he and Stan could light things up, but then Ted would be in... and it just wasn't any good. Ted's fault for no longer fitting in, but Kawada also couldn't figure out how to do much with him.

 

In contrast, Kobashi pretty much every night (i.e. every match) went out there to perform. If he could figure out that you could bring some cool stuff, like Bossman did in the match above, he was more than willing to let you get your shit in and take the ass kicking. In turn, when it was time for him to go, he had all sorts of shit he could bring to the table. There were TV tapings where people were going through the motions, including his high quality teammates and opponents. When Kobashi came in, he pushed things and performed.

 

All the bullshit we've used through the years to pimp Flair for bringing it every night, wanting to put on a show, it not mattering who he was against... that's Kobashi 1993. Much like Flair, some of his "great" stuff frankly was overrated, partly because of the name attached (Flair or Kobashi), and partly because he did brings "action" and "excitement" to the table all the time. The thing is, while people have circle jerked over the years far too much about the the "five star matches" that Flair has had, the real greatness of Flair is the mass of good-to-very-good matches he's had over the years. You see Flair-Garvin at a house show (as I was lucky enough to), and while it's not really a ****1/2 classic, it is a very good match with lots of good shit in it that had the crowd into it. I was a Flair Fan, so perhaps at the time I overrated it. But reflecting on it, and the bajillion Flair Matches that I've seen over the years, it was a good match.

 

That's Kobashi 1993.

 

Is Bossman-Kobashi a great match? Nah, though I suspect some might watch that and dig it. I can be hyper critical and point out some things, but I can (and have) pointed out even more in Flair's matches. But here's Bossman and Kobashi as "new" opponents to each other (half dozen tags prior to that), having to go out and fill a 20 minute match on TV, with the desire to make Bossman look good before he jobs in the end (that old who got over with the fans despite jobbing thing that was in some other thread), and in turn come up with a convincing All Japan way for him to job. They kind of nailed it on all counts. One can compare it with the prior Taue-Bossman to see how well it did relative to Bossman's first time of having to job in a singles in 1993 in the company.

 

So if you asked me which worker in All Japan had the "best year", I'd go with Kobashi easily. Not really close. One can try to point to Hansen, but the Yearbook also covers up quite a few Hansen performances that just weren't good at all. Including one that very month that was the most disappointing match that All Japan tossed out the entire year. One could try to point to Misawa, but the same goes for him.

 

Kobashi was the Worker of the Year in All Japan in 1993. I'm a Kawada Fan, was at the time, and thrilled when he was at his best. But Kobashi was the Worker of the Year for the promotion.

 

* * * * *

 

That's a different question from Wrestler of the Year.

 

The Wrestler of the Year in All Japan in 1993 is obviously Misawa.

 

Obvious in the sense that one would be obtuse to point to someone else. Like those WON voters who had Kobashi ahead of him in the Wrestler of the Year award voting. People are stupid sometimes.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yeah, I think that's a great post.

[jdw]

Kawada is the Great Match Theory / Great Performance Theory guy where one can cherry pick.

 

I'm a Kawada Fan. I was critical of Kobashi before anyone else was. But even I would find cherry picking my way into saying the Best Worker in All Japan that year was Kawada to be disingenuous on my part.

 

It's not really as if Kawada's best performances run circles around Kobashi's anyway. We're not talking about the difference of Kawada's work compared to Shawn Michaels that year.

[JerryvonKramer]

I should explain that my "Great Match Theory" comment was more about actually getting at what workers do within said great matches as opposed to how many they were a part of. Quality within a great match rather than quantity. That is, if you just take the great matches Kobashi was in, how many of them were great mainly because of him? I often feel the logic of Great Match Theory is simply pointing at a list of great matches and saying "he was in these great matches, therefore he was great".

 

I have not seen all of the Kobashi matches that year, only the cherry picks. And for me, within those matches, many of which were great, I thought Kawada and Hansen came off as being the better workers, with Kobashi very spirited and rapidly developing into being a great worker, but not quite there. He's a guy who does 10 moves where he might do three for the same effect, which not only isn't always "smart work" but also can serve to detract from matches at times. I preferred the Hansen vs. Kawada match to Hansen vs. Kobashi. Kawada felt like Hansen's equal -- I don't mean in terms of hierarchy, I mean in terms of being a great worker. Whereas I felt that in the Kobash match, it was all about a great Stan Hansen performance elevating a younger (and lesser) talent. This is how things have come off to me. Of course, people can disagree with individual assessments of matches.

 

So I guess my point is that even if Kobashi "had the best year" in terms of consistency, in terms of putting in full shifts every night and in terms of having very few bad matches -- I still don't think he can be called "the best worker in the world" because he wasn't. Hope that makes sense.

[WingedEagle]

Yeah, I think that's a great post.

 

This is like the Camp David Accord of PWO.

[jdw]

Having watch Hansen in there with everyone in 1993, Hansen-Kobashi is a credit to both. Hansen's at an unbelievable peak, but the match is as much Kobashi as it is Stan. You can watch Stan's singles matches that year against Gordy, Doc and the two sleepy/dogish (out of four) matches against Misawa. Stan couldn't magically pull great matches out of anyone that year, even someone as good as Misawa who he actually had one really great match against.

 

I love the Kawada-Hansen match, but their match the year before was pretty damn close to the same thing. I'm not totally sure why we all lost out shit more over the 1993 match. Probably a bit due to most of us not overly enthused about Stan As Champ in 1992, while Stan As Non-Champ Target put us in a different mindset.

 

Kobashi had a very watchable match with the Ghost of Gordy where Kobashi was the whole show. Stan couldn't pull off later in the same series. Kobashi had the match with Doc that we've gone around in circles about for decades, but even those of us critical of parts of it don't think it's a dog. Stan had a dog with Doc. Stan had a very watchable match with Taue in the Carny, but it also had exactly half the match left on the cutting room floor. I'm not sold that if we saw all of it that it would rate as highly as Kobashi's match with Taue, which felt at the time like Taue's best non-Kawada singles had up to that point and a good building block leading into his TC challenge.

 

It's not just an issue of seeing Kobashi's matches that year. It's also the other folks. There are some things about the yearbook that make you weep at time constraints: Taue-Kobashi was the first big singles match of the year, and the undercard had more than half of the first Kawada-Akiyama tv singles match. There's loads of interesting and enlightening stuff that hit tv.

 

Again, I would love to argue that Kawada was the Worker of the Year for the promotion. I am the long noted Kawada Fan/Pimper online. If I can't and find it disingenuous to do so, it would be a tough one for anyone to make.

 

It's akin to if Elliott came on here and had to say nice things about Coach K being greater than Dean Smith. It's one think for me to say it, since I'm a biased Duke Fan. But if Elliott, a true blue UNC man, were to say that's he'd love to put Dean ahead of him but begrudgingly has to give the nod to Coach K... that's something you put some weight on.

 

Or...

 

If Will have Duncan > Kobe, he's a Spurs Fan, so you weight it one way. When Lakers Fanboy JDW says that Duncan clearly has had the greater career than Kobe, and that he would have much rather built a team around Duncan, that's something different. JDW might have his head up his ass on it, but... probably not.

[dawho5]

I've seen quite a bit of 93 AJPW myself and Kobashi's 1993 is one of my favorite years anyone had as a wrestler. If you've read anything I've written about late 90s AJPW or 2000s NOAH you know how I feel about Kobashi later on. I would put Kobashi above Kawada in 93 for the same reasons jdw mentioned. Kobashi was on fire in 1993 against everyone. And it's hard to argue with his point about Misawa. Regardless of match quality across the board 1993 was the year he firmly established himself as the ace of the company. And it was accomplished while changing the style from the Jumbo era to what is commonly seen as All Japan style. When you look at what was happening that year it's pretty amazing things went as smoothly as they did. It could have just as easily flopped due to Misawa being unable to carry the load after it was clear Jumbo wasn't coming back.

[Gregor]

This is interesting. If you just go on talent then I think Casas has it sewn up for 1992 and 1993, but had a bit of a drop off in '94 from what I've seen. I like the idea of Fuerza for '91, but wonder if Pirata Morgan isn't a bit of a darkhorse candidate. 1994 is tough. It would require watching more AAA than I care to. Perhaps Santo?

Just to be clear, Casas was my pick for '92; it just seemed like a tough call because of the missing stuff and how many guys were great that year. Atlantis might not be in the 1992 top five and his 1992 is better than anyone's 1994.

 

I agree that Casas isn't the answer for 1994 (he and Cota never seemed to click), but I can't recall many standout performances from Santo that year, either. Lizmark and Parka had good years but their singles matches don't help their case.

[ohtani's jacket]

Santo seems as good as anyone else in trips that year. Rey and Psicosis weren't as good as they'd become in '95. Panther might have had a case if the Octagon matches hadn't been so bad. Satanico fell off in '94, and Patka and Lizmark were victims of Pena's irritating booking.

 

I always have positive things to say about Mano Negra in '94! My pick would have been Dandy if he'd shown me anything outside of the Llanes feud and maybe some exchanges opposite Casas.

 

I'm figuring it has to be an AAA guy.

[alexoblivion]

I don't know, looking at what made tape for Casas, I think there might be the possibility that he was the wrestler of the year for CMLL in 94 as there is quite a bit out there. Cota feud has its moments, and not including their hair match or tagging together, they only have 6 matches or so against each other that made tape so there is more out for his 94 besides Cota.

[Matt D]

I know you've been getting some stuff so I'd love to see some more reviews out of you on the 90s CMLL we haven't seen.

[Frankensteiner]

Santo seems as good as anyone else in trips that year. Rey and Psicosis weren't as good as they'd become in '95. Panther might have had a case if the Octagon matches hadn't been so bad. Satanico fell off in '94, and Patka and Lizmark were victims of Pena's irritating booking.

 

I always have positive things to say about Mano Negra in '94! My pick would have been Dandy if he'd shown me anything outside of the Llanes feud and maybe some exchanges opposite Casas.

 

I'm figuring it has to be an AAA guy.

 

Was Fiera doing anything in '94? I know there's the feud with Emilio which I thought was pretty good but otherwise I'm drawing a blank.

 

Looks like he had a hair match with Black Magic late in the year but I've never seen it.

[ohtani's jacket]

The trouble is there wasn't much CMLL taped during that era because everyone wanted to trade AAA. We'll probably never know who had the best year in '94.

[alexoblivion]

90's CMLL has been has been a mixed bag, but it’s been interesting nonetheless. My goal was to watch as much 94 CMLL as possible and go from there, but at the moment I'm just picking shows from the 93-97 range that look interesting or to get a better look at certain guys. Definitely a few things out there, good and bad, that I should do a quick write up on. Regarding that Magic/Fiera hair match, isn't that the one where Fiera works over Magic's arm a majority of the time? Pretty crazy to think that there is one person out there responsible for so much of the footage that we do have of CMLL from the 90’s and that if he happened to miss a recording, then it doesn’t seem to be circulating. Watching AAA from the same time period can be difficult. Even when the booking doesn’t kill the match, so much of it feels disjointed and meandering, though the company does have its moments. AAA entrances are great though, sometimes more interesting than the match itself.

[Matt D]

I really love AAA entrances too.

[Gregor]

Fiera and Black Magic had a mano a mano in 1992 that's available in full, but I've never seen it. I'm not sure if their 1994 match is available in full. I actually have a clip of the last two minutes of the match; it looks okay, but I think they screwed up the finish, so Fiera had to win with a random small package instead.

[shoe]

I think I'd go Kobashi in 98. He had a lot of great performances. My dark horse pick would be Tamura who feels like a Brock Lesnar pick.