Makoto Hashi

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jetlag]

Insanely good in 2010 and 2011 in his Futen appearances. Inspired throughout his NOAH run. Far superior to a lot of other japanese 2000s worker, but I think the early retirement ends his case.

[Parties]

Not a top 100 guy, but his charisma was a much needed shot in the arm for 2000s Japan. The headbutt was gold, and the FUTEN stuff is a career performance. Just watched him in a pretty mediocre singles with Luke Gallows from Apache Army, but in it noted that he's one of the better sellers in Japan these days.

[InYourCase]

Hashi has earned his way onto my list. Different than Kikuchi circa All Japan, but equally as great as an underdog. Kikuchi was a lightweight, Hashi was a hard-headed, stronk sort of guy. The 7/18/05 tag from the Dome w/ Akiyama vs. Suzuki & Marufuji is arguably his best performance. He shines in the Dome and it's lovely. He has really fun chemistry against Marufuji. The Dome tag and the 2003 tag w/ Kanemura vs. KENTAFuji are two matches where those two steal the show.

 

Hashi's work in FUTEN convinced me that he deserves to be on my list. I don't love FUTEN, but Hashi was very entertaining in the stuff I watched and it showed that he could be versatile. Probably a 90-100 guy, but someone that I feel the need to rank for his awesome run in NOAH and his short, but fun FUTEN run.

[Ma Stump Puller]

Him being the bumbling sidekick to Akiyama's typically all-heel Sternness group was a lot of fun and he showed he had the chops to actually work when it mattered; a shame most of his best work is in a promotion where we don't even have 30% of it on tape. His AJPW early years are mostly unremarkable as he's overshadowed by Marufuji/Kanehara in terms of lanky Jr acts, even if he had the whole headbutt shtick done to a tee remarkably early. 

For me, I feel like a lot of his work is dominated by "what ifs" as he never quite anywhere got to the levels that his peers at the time did: Sort of like a modern day version of Satoru Asako in that he was clearly quite talented, had a lot of potential, but bad timing and injury meant he never got to show it off proper. 

 

 

 

[Jetlag]

I can't think of any of Hashis peers that are clearly better than him. Hashi in NOAH is insanely consistent, and when looking at his biggest matches I'd say he's easily better than the likes of Marufuji or KENTA. There's plenty of random midcard stuff where Hashi is bringing it hard. I remember a completely random opening match against Takeshio Rikioh that would be like, the 5th best match to happen in 2022. I can't think of many wrestlers in NOAH clearly better than Hashi aside from the big name guys who got to work epic main event matches much more often. Kikuchi? Honda? There's Saito, and I am hesitant to say Saito > Hashi because Saito's had a lot of solid but forgettable matches. Going back through under the radar NOAH matches, Hashi may easily be the best guy to watch. And I haven't dived nearly as deep into it as I intend to. I wouldn't be shocked if Hashi makes my list next time.