Go Shiozaki

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[BillThompson]

Won't make my list, though I am higher on him than most people seem to be. He can be very good, even great, at times. But, he's too inconsistent, and doesn't have enough quality performances to measure up to others who will make the list.

[InYourCase]

I always thought you were anti-Shiozaki, Bill. Glad I was wrong. I could see Shiozaki making the tail end of my list. I need to go back and watch his GHC runs because I haven't seen those matches in forever and I have almost no memory of them. His run as a young boy doesn't touch Nakajima's, but he's sustained his momentum, unlike Nakajima, which gives him a better shot of making my list.

[W2BTD]

He's a guy i'd love to put on my list, but there probably won't be room.

[BillThompson]

I always thought you were anti-Shiozaki, Bill. Glad I was wrong. I could see Shiozaki making the tail end of my list. I need to go back and watch his GHC runs because I haven't seen those matches in forever and I have almost no memory of them. His run as a young boy doesn't touch Nakajima's, but he's sustained his momentum, unlike Nakajima, which gives him a better shot of making my list.

 

I understand the complaints most people have with him, but I like more about him than I dislike. He has moments in certain matches, like the final ten minutes of this years 08-29 tag, where he is just about the perfect wrestler. But, I do wish he had those moments more than he actually does.

[Reel]

I think Go is the wrestler who has had the best run post-GWE16. He got a lot of hype last year, and he was great, but I think compared to his 2018 and 2019, it was a relatively down year for him. He seems like he could fall apart at any moment now, but for as long as this run lasts, he's one to watch for 2026. 

[Jetlag]

Honestly? Shiozaki is among the wrestlers who killed my interest in Japanese wrestling. And in recent years he's looked way worse than as a young guy. At least the Fake Kobashi act had some charm.

[Clayton Jones]

I'm high on Go, I think leaving for AJPW lit a fire under him that was much needed and he hasn't looked back since. Loved his team with Nakajima but love them as opponents even more. Their match last year was probably my MOTY.

[Makai Club #1]

I'm a Go Shiozaki guy too. Maybe he was too much of a Kenta Kobashi or Kensuke Sasaki try hard but if you ignore those two being clear influences, you have a heck of a fun wrestler in a what was a dry, lifeless promotion for a lot of his main event run. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

He's gotten better since his mostly terrible "I'm trying to be Kobashi guys!" style that even NOAH had to poke fun at by having him get murdered by Sasaki when he tried to do the same dances. He's gotten a better grove of what he wants to be and his 2020 run is pretty solid beyond some eh title defences. He's very emotive and works best in not overly long matches, of which he seems to stumble greatly in terms of pacing. I've never watched a long Shiozaki match where I've been able to keep my attention because he kinda just reverts to the same habits over and over again. Give him 20 to 30 minutes with a competent opponent, he's great. Anything longer starts to drift. It's not a huge issue but because they have tried endlessly to make him a Kings Road style guy, it bites him in the ass more often than not. 

That being said outside of his AJPW stuff (which is mostly good because his habits were curbed with the change of scenery mostly) and said 2020 run, really not much to grade him on outside of the occasional good match now and then. Don't really care for his tag stuff and he struggles when his opponent isn't bothering. For me, there's not enough for him to be anywhere major on the list. He'll be on the higher spots for sure.

 

 

[Clayton Jones]

Just want to mention I still really, really love watching him and Nakajima wrestle each other. At this point both are fighting to sneak into the back end of my ballot but if they wrestled like they do against each other year round they'd have much more comfortable spots.

[fxnj]

I'm a little perplexed at the meager discussion here in comparison to Okada and how it's mainly centered on him as a lower end candidate while people view Okada as a high-end guy. For my money, Shiozaki has been far better than Okada for almost the entirety of his run and is a real highlight in the midst of a scene undergoing heavy stylistic degeneration. I've seen a surprising number of gems from Shiozaki's early years, but 2009-2011 is when he finds his character and his singles/tags opposite Sasaki and Sugiura were reliably high quality. I'm struggling to remember anything memorable he did in 2012, so I'll grant that as a down year, but he follows that up by going to AJPW and having banger after banger with everyone there along with working awesome exchanges in Kobashi's retirement tag. Shiozaki/Nakajima vs. Akiyama/Omori is my 2014 MOTY and the rematch from 2015 is probably the best match I've seen live. My viewing after 2015 is spotty as him jumping back to NOAH really bummed me out and the Suzuki-gun invasion angle made me lose a lot of interest in following Japanese wrestling, but the big matches I've seen vs. Nakajima and Sugiura have lived to the hype. The 2020 Nakajima match is my current MOTD. So, that's nearly 20 years of good stuff dating back to near his debut with multiple MOTY level performances. Doesn't sound at all like a guy who should be struggling to get on a ballot if you're into his style.

[Jetlag]

3 hours ago, fxnj said:

I'm a little perplexed at the meager discussion here in comparison to Okada and how it's mainly centered on him as a lower end candidate while people view Okada as a high-end guy. For my money, Shiozaki has been far better than Okada for almost the entirety of his run and is a real highlight in the midst of a scene undergoing heavy stylistic degeneration. I've seen a surprising number of gems from Shiozaki's early years, but 2009-2011 is when he finds his character and his singles/tags opposite Sasaki and Sugiura were reliably high quality. I'm struggling to remember anything memorable he did in 2012, so I'll grant that as a down year, but he follows that up by going to AJPW and having banger after banger with everyone there along with working awesome exchanges in Kobashi's retirement tag. Shiozaki/Nakajima vs. Akiyama/Omori is my 2014 MOTY and the rematch from 2015 is probably the best match I've seen live. My viewing after 2015 is spotty as him jumping back to NOAH really bummed me out and the Suzuki-gun invasion angle made me lose a lot of interest in following Japanese wrestling, but the big matches I've seen vs. Nakajima and Sugiura have lived to the hype. The 2020 Nakajima match is my current MOTD. So, that's nearly 20 years of good stuff dating back to near his debut with multiple MOTY level performances. Doesn't sound at all like a guy who should be struggling to get on a ballot if you're into his style.

I think he suffers from the fact that he was at his best when Japanese wrestling nerds had much higher standards so he wasn't considered anything special. Then the Okada shock happened and New Japan gained a ton of new fans when they became more available to an international audience. Then Shiozaki changed his look to Okada lite which was just weird and didn't make him super interesting to the new fans. If someone now was having the kind of matches Shiozaki had during his best years people would be all over him.

[Troyvang]

I'm going to say it: I love watching this guy wrestle. I wonder if it's what Jetlag posted above me talking about how he was judged at his time. I just started watching Japanese wrestling in 2022 when I started doing this project. The matches I'm seeing against Nakajima, Akitoshi Saito and others are just really hitting with me and he's going to be really, really high on my list. Just prepping everyone for that, haha