Rewatch Value

[GOTNW]

The "desert island matches" thread made me think of this and I believe it is something that should at least be brough up. Here's the thing-I have Daisuke Ikeda in my top 20. That's going to be weird to a decent chunk of people who haven't ever heard of him, but to the folks that have the biggest complaint I imagine would be both his work in NOAH that wasn't nearly as good as his Bat-Bat stuff, and also the amount of great matches he has. The first point I could simply counter with the oh so original-I don't care. It's not really any different to me than a wrestler slowing down in their post-peak or being unmotivated in a certain period of their career or whatever. Plus I was a fan of his before I saw any of the shoot stuff. Maybe I just like midcard NOAH 6 man tags from 2003 more than anyone else. Whatever. My second counter point would be that while it is a solid argument-his great work is spread out through a big enough period of time for that not to matter. But the third, and probably the most important one to me, is that my desert island matches would all include Ikeda stiffing the shit out of someone. I can't imagine anyone claiming Ikeda has more great matches than Bryan Danielson but I am much more likely to rewatch the short Ono match ten more times than I am to revisit random Bryan Danielson ROH title defences. And when someone's absolute peak is that high I'll come up with whatever convoluted explanation need be to justify my ranking.

[Microstatistics]

I might have you beat for the Ikeda high vote. Right now he is #12 on my list. Most people prefer Ishikawa which I get but Ikeda was consistently the star of all the Battlarts/Futen matches for me and I like his NOAH and pre-Battlarts stuff a ton.

[Jimmy Redman]

I can't get around Ikeda and Ishikawa, but I do agree with you about the value of rewatch value. There are matches I can watch a hundred times before they lose anything, and that goes a long way with me.