Most glaring/surprising omissions on your list?

[Jingus]

So carrying rookies to great matches, salvaging what should've been a shitfest by carrying a tag match by himself, having one of the best matches in Nakamura's career, having amazing brawls etc. is considered mediocrity? Why? Because he doesn't springboard as much as he used to?

Which rookies and which tag match?

 

I haven't seen the Nakamura bout, I can only go by what's on Youtube; and sadly, there's shockingly little Otani on Youtube. And glancing at my old playlist for him, it seems like most of his recent work has been taken down, just to make things worse.

 

So I'll watch a new one, some match he had a few months ago with some kid I've never heard of named Mizuki Watase.

 

-Okay, this is gonna be a chore: Mizuki sucks. He's got the worst forearms I've ever seen from perhaps any Japanese wrestler ever. I mean, seriously, your average Divasearch contestant had better forearms than this, and that's not even a joke. Cheeseburger has more credible offense than this guy. And also he's got no charisma, and all the fire of an arctic snowstorm.

-The first five minutes repeat the same spot over and over again. Watase tries some incredibly weak offense; Otani doesn't sell it; Otani hits Watase really hard; Watase falls down and sells for a moment, Otani does that generic fist-pumping "Come on, now!" SvR Taunt #17 to the crowd. They literally run this exact sequence at least four or five times in a row, with no deviation. Aside from laying in the strikes, Otani's not even trying.

-Finally we get some running kicks into the corner to spice things up a bit, and... uh... Otani's kicks have, shall we say, lost a step or two. You know how when Rhino does the move, it all too often looks like he's kicking a solid twenty inches away from the guy's head? Same thing here, as Otani is gingerly caressing Watase's face with the side of his calf.

-Which then leaves me flabbergasted when Watase comes up with a bloody nose. How the hell did THAT happen?! It looked like his face and Otani's boot were in different zip codes. It's also worth noting, almost seven minutes into this match, that Otani hasn't taken a single clean bump; no, a waist-level snapmare and dropping down for his own kicks don't count.

-More running kicks to the corner, because God forbid we don't repeat any spot at least five fucking times in this match. Watase tries to "fire up" after a Kawada kick, but it sounds more like Marlon Brando moaning "Stellaaaaaaa!" than anything else.

-Otani decides to climb up top for some damn reason, but Watase keeps cutting him off... vvveeerrryyyy ssslllooowwwlllyyy... forcing Shinjiro to just sit there like a chump while waiting for this rookie to finally get there. C'mon, man, if it looks that terrible, call a goddamn audible and just change the spot. But no, they KEEP REPEATING the spot, with Otani knocking him down and Watase climbing back up again. Seven times in a row! SEVEN TIMES they do this horeshit! And Mizuki keeps landing in this cringe-inducing awkward manner on his ass, looking like he's trying to break his tailbone.

-Finally, Watase decides to hit what I guess is his one big move with a running dropkick, and Otani takes... well, I guess it's a "bump". He very deliberately steps off the turnbuckle, carefully grabs the ropes with both hands, and takes about a full second "falling" onto the apron. That was just sad, it's like watching latter-day Flair fuck up his corner flip.

-He doesn't sell for long, though, he's quickly back up and slapping Watase around again. He FINALLY takes a real bump off a fairly snappy vertical suplex, but he doesn't sell that much either and gets up faster than Watase does. He then acts like he's Andre fighting Hogan, where Watase hits eight (that's eight) running forearms in a row, while Otani weebles and wobbles like a goddamn giant before finally bumping on the last one.

-Watase makes me wince by climbing to the top rope; but Otani isn't helping, he stumbles up and then just stands there, like a jorts-wearing midcarder on an IWA-MS show who is just standing still and locking eyes with his opponent in the ring until they finally hit the dive. Which is exactly what happens. And then after a surprisingly decent missile dropkick (I guess Dropkick Class and Vertical Suplex Day were the only times that Mizuki bothered to show up for training), guess what, Otani barely even sells it and gets right the hell up, faster than the guy who just hit him.

-Watase charges into what's theoretically a knee to the gut, but Otani completely whiffs the aim and looks more like he just kicked the guy in the balls. Watase obliges with his own botch, taking a forward flip where he almost lands on his goddamn forehead and comes uncomfortably close to Misawa-ing himself right there.

-Otani hits a bunch of standard bodyslams in a row... and he's already hit at least three of 'em previously in the match, it's making him look like he only knows one move. Remember how Scott Steiner looked in those Triple H matches? Same deal here.

-Otani looks like he's trying to put the match out of its misery by locking on a Boston crab, but Mizuki sells this like a Kurt Anglelock and promptly crawls to the ropes. Well, I say "crawls", but it's more like "Otani spontaneously starts stumbling backwards for no reason, and a few seconds later Watase finally picks his hands up off the mat and starts making dog-paddling motions".

-Otani's covered in sweat and completely blown up. He drags Watase into a... uh... a camel half-clutch? The left half of his body is doing a camel clutch, but he's got his right leg held back as if that side's doing a rear chinlock. Then he mysteriously moves himself to the rope again, while Watase feebly pretends that he's causing the momentum in the most lackadaisical fashion imaginable.

-The small crowd, by the way, actually LIKES this stuff and is popping pretty big for the rope breaks. I have no idea why, unless the rest of this show was so unfathomably horrible that this is like a Prince Iaukea vs Disco Inferno match on a card which is otherwise entirely peopled with untrained deathmatch backyarders.

-We FINALLY receive a modicum of mercy as Otani pretzels Watase with a half-crab for the submission victory... the second time he puts it on. The first time, Watase just "drags himself to the ropes" in the same telekinetic fashion that he's been doing, but the second time I guess it just hurts too dag-gumb much and he taps out.

 

Okay, I'm not sure if Terry Funk on his best night could've carried fucking Watase to anything truly watchable (he KEPT doing those abysmally awful forearms), but Otani was hardly even trying. Barely selling, taking the vast majority of the offense, in a match which went on for way too damn long. And with WAY too many spots repeated over and over and over and over again, a mind-boggling number of times. This was like the world's worst "surly old Akiyama beats the crap out of a young boy" match ever. If this is a good indicator of Otani's typical performance level these days, then I've seen enough. The poor bastard would still make my ballot, but it would be in spite of work like this.

[GOTNW]

That's fair I guess, though so far removed from how I viewed the match that I really see no point in even debating its merit, especially since it's a gigantic PBP.

[El McKell]

I thought I'd be on a bit of an island in not including Harley Race but looks like there's a few people on my side there.

​There's probably less people on my side when it comes to Shinya Hashimoto and Buddy Rose though.

[ohtani's jacket]

I get the feeling my list would be made up of nothing but glaring/surprising omissions and inclusions.

[North South]

I'm very sure about the following not making my list, having re-watched all of them over the time of this project:

 

 

The Great Sasuke:

Having watched all of his work from the 90's and so on I've been left feeling nothing. I was left thinking Sataru Sayama was a much more well rounded wrestler than Sasuke ever was. And that's also taking in that Tiger Mask is on the edge of falling off my list. I find Sasuke to be lacking in many areas in the ring. Just seemed to have no good understanding of structure, being the man of a match or how to make a match feel memorable.

 

Tully Blanchard:

I think the Magnum I Quit cage match is a classic. I also think he might have had a better series of matches with Dusty than Flair. But it's not enough. I found him to be very underwhelming in everything else i seen him in. He has good smarts, but not the smarts of a guy who is top 100 in terms of what he did in the ring

 

Chris Jericho:

Always found him to be overrated. Real sloppy performer who as someone on here pointed out never *got it* as a worker. Basically a guy with the tools but not the mind.

 

Sting:

Not worth the time for me. Vader series was excellent. Nothing else i cared about.

 

AJ Styles:

Never been a fan. Think i'm the only one as it's seems even his biggest critics have thrown him a bone here and there. Don't enjoy the offense, don't enjoy the structure, don't enjoy anything about him. If i was ever gonna like him i would have by now. Just don't get anything out of watching AJ Styles.

 

Giant Baba:

Good mat worker, but nothing that special. I understand he is what he is, but I just can't see there not being 100 other wrestlers not being better. Love the Destroyer match, and i liked his stuff with Harley but that's pretty much it.

 

Dory Funk Jr:

Has an all time classic for me with Inoki from 12/2/69 (JWA), haven't enjoyed a single performance after that. Find him incredibly hard to watch 99% of the time.

 

 

 

More to follow......

[North South]

*edit*

[North South]

*edit*

[JerryvonKramer]

Tully is an interesting one to leave out. Makes me wonder what you found disappointing about his match with Steamboat, the tag with Arn vs. Luger / Windham, etc. etc. I've never really seen anyone be down on those matches.

[DR Ackermann]

If we are talking about the Starrcade '84 match with Steamboat, I think there are a lot of people who find that match disappointing.

[Childs]

If we are talking about the Starrcade '84 match with Steamboat, I think there are a lot of people who find that match disappointing.

 

Really? I've mostly heard people talk it up as one of the best matches in Starcade history and by far the best reason to watch the '84 show.

[North South]

To JvK.....

 

I enjoyed both of those matches a fair bit, but it wasn't Tully's performance in either of them that did it for me.

 

The Starrcade match I felt was a killer showing from Steamboat, and an okay one from Tully. As for the Clash tag, I liked Tully's performance in that more than Luger's, and less than Barry's or Arn's.

 

 

Once again, I think Tully is a sound wrestler, just not one who blew me away with what he himself did in the ring pretty much all the time.