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Wrestlers who had a lot of great matches but aren't great


Grimmas

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When I was watching a bunch of Kobashi during the DVDVR Remedial Wrestling project I tended to find his matches would reach a natural peak and then keep going for a while afterwards. I think Bret had better pacing in that regard that even though he would got to pinning combinations for his endings, they seemed stylistically fitting for his character as the chess master. Kobashi to me seemed like he would throw things at the wall and if that moonsault worked this time, then yay! Oh it didn't? Lariat! Yay! I didn't appreciate his match construction as well as Bret's.

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Dont see the Burning Hammer as excessive at all when it has only been used a handful of times and been the finish each time.

not the only example of Kobashi being excessive.

 

 

It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling.

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Dont see the Burning Hammer as excessive at all when it has only been used a handful of times and been the finish each time.

not the only example of Kobashi being excessive.

 

 

It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling.

 

When I watch those matches, I get the feeling they continue on and on (...and on and on) long past any sensible point. In fact, I get the feeling that it's 3 or 4 matches crammed into one. It's like the Crash TV version of match building.

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Dont see the Burning Hammer as excessive at all when it has only been used a handful of times and been the finish each time.

not the only example of Kobashi being excessive.

 

 

It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling.

 

When I watch those matches, I get the feeling they continue on and on (...and on and on) long past any sensible point. In fact, I get the feeling that it's 3 or 4 matches crammed into one. It's like the Crash TV version of match building.

 

Am I the only one who doesn't mind Kobashi's ridiculousness? He seems like the absolute peak of a Movez wrestler. Every worker is flawed, but most of them are flawed in a way that is less fun not more fun.

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Even at his spot-fu MovezMovezMovez worst, I'll still take Kobashi over 99.9% of all other wrestlers. And I think his all-chops-all-night-long era is actually more fun than his most ridiculously headdroppy period from about 98-03 or thereabouts, even though being older and broken down meant that he couldn't deliver as many top singles performances in his latter days.

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Just imagine his upside if he obtained Canadian citizenship!

Yeah, because the same arguments are made for other Canadians as well. I didnt rank Jericho or Edge. I know you are joking, but it's interesting that people only say that about Bret and don't say it about others.

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Dont see the Burning Hammer as excessive at all when it has only been used a handful of times and been the finish each time.

not the only example of Kobashi being excessive.

 

 

It isn't, but I do feel too often the crutch against Kobashi boils down into "I liked him until he started throwing out Burning Hammers and chops." The chop era of Kobashi is probably my least favorite section from him but then he has the tag match with Taue vs. Tenryu and Akiyama where Kobashi plays a better apron role than Bret or almost any others in wrestling history. The GHC matches I have watched recently feel varied between the Akiyama Dome epic, the Takayama slugfest, and the craftiness of Ogawa trying to steal the title. Kobashi is able to adapt to each of those three opponents in captivating ways. Kobashi certainly was someone that had such a huge desire and drive that it was a necessary evil in a lot of ways for him to reach the physicial limits and emotional crescendo in the matches he performed in. Not everyone of those matches completely delivered as stuff like vs. Misawa from 6/99 shows, but when they do connect with him like 1/20/97, 7/98 vs. Jun, and 3/1/03, I am left at the end of the match staring into space for minutes of the time completely drained but coming to a realization that the match I just witnessed took me to a peak that I thought was unreachable from viewing wrestling.

 

When I watch those matches, I get the feeling they continue on and on (...and on and on) long past any sensible point. In fact, I get the feeling that it's 3 or 4 matches crammed into one. It's like the Crash TV version of match building.

 

Am I the only one who doesn't mind Kobashi's ridiculousness? He seems like the absolute peak of a Movez wrestler. Every worker is flawed, but most of them are flawed in a way that is less fun not more fun.

 

No, you aren't. I love Kobashi. He would be REALLY high on my list. I mean even people who are kind of low on him tend to have him among the best 50 wrestlers ever, so it is sort of parsing words to me, but I get your sentiment. I always feel like I am way higher on Kobashi than most for the exact same reason. I get the subtly and nuance of the guys he is always compared to, but there are very few wrestlers ever that I could confidently throw on a random match and know I am going to be entertained. Kobashi's 90s matches to me pack a lot of punch and I actually think are exceptionally well told and layered stories. They are just punctuated with a lot of exclamation points sometimes. Plus, I don't care how over the top of it is, Death Wish Kobashi as NOAH champion was one of my favorite things in wrestling history.

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Yea but no one is comparing Edge or Jericho to Kobashi. And I'm sure the ridicule would be far worse if they were.

because they suck. Bret wrestled the exact style I love and wrestles it better than anyone. He does all the little things I love better than anyone. He is exactly what I want out of wrestling, playing it up as a legit serious contest and putting really smart touches in every spot he can.

 

Sure being a national icon helps, but it's not like he's Inoki or anything. It takes him from maybe top 10 on my list to top 5, maybe? I wouldn't even go that far. Notice the top two on my list are Texans. I don't like Texas. 3rd is Mexican. 4th is from Memphis. I have no connection to any place on that list.

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I haven't read every post here, but for me it comes down to "Would I rather watch this guy wrestle as compared to someone else?" and a lot of that has to do with great matches, but also to do with mannerisms, style, charisma and angles.

 

Arn Anderson ranked relatively high on my list specifically because of the way he stooges around and makes everything look super impactful. Both Steiners are high on my list because I love watching them toss guys around and the aura they give off while doing so. Colt Cabana made the top half of my list because when I watch his matches, I'm impressed by the little intricacies he focuses on to get the crowd involved and I'm mesmerized by that as someone with a performance background.

 

I didn't rank Warrior, Graham or Hogan, but I can totally see why they connected with others while designing their lists. I wish I could watch ten Lizmark matches and think "This guy is obviously a man among men", but my fandom doesn't work that way. And I'd rather watch 5 Steiner squash matches than a 30 minute long Kobashi 5 star match.

 

I love this list so far. I love that it combines over 100 different tastes and types of fan. I love that there's someone who ranks Quackenbush in their top 10 and another who ranks Spanky up there. If anything, it's the list that going to get me to break more out of my comfort zone afterwards, not preparing for the list.

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Bingo. If someone thinks all of those HHH matches are great, they should rank him.

Not to return to a dead horse, but this is the whole point. It all depends on what we mean by "great matches" and according to who. I will say that HHH remains a fairly good case study on this to me though. My list of ****+ might be a little shorter than the one provided, but he wouldn't sniff my top 100. He wouldn't sniff my top 100 even if that were the list I acknowledged as his "great" matches. Some of those matches I have looked at pretty carefully since doing reviews and I think they are actively great in spite of HHH's best efforts. I would say there is only 1-3 I can think of that I think HHH was a fairly active contributor too in terms of making the match great. He also has quite a few matches that were in a position to be fantastic and came out some of my absolute least favorite matches of all time, and that is the kind of bad wrestling I am very willing to count against someone. It isn't like all the matches of his I hate come at the tail end of his career. They are sprinkled throughout and they are his brainchild. He wanted them to look like that because he thought it would be epic (more or less the whole HBK feud stands out here). He is - to me - the case of a guy who has been put in tremendous positions to excel. Of course some of those are going to hit. I don't think that makes him top 100, probably not even top 200. He is the perfect examples of how many elements can go into making a good match, to me at least.

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Maybe it's just me, but whenever people lavish praise on Kobashi he always comes across as sounding smarter than he truly was. When I think of Kobashi, I always think of a shy jock with a big heart not some kind of wrestling genius like Negro Casas.

Are you talking about the character or the wrestler? I am confused. I think the dude is probably a good bit smarter as a wrestler than he gets credit for sometimes (though I never really thought people thought he was dumb), but I think you nailed his character in the 90s.

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My favourite Kobashi period is from when he blew his knee in 2001 or so until 2006 because he could still do enough to construct a great match the way he knew how to but couldn't go overboard with doing stuff for the sake of just doing stuff. In that time period he also developed some tropes that are haunting japanese wrestling to this day but he had the charisma to pull them off.

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Maybe it's just me, but whenever people lavish praise on Kobashi he always comes across as sounding smarter than he truly was. When I think of Kobashi, I always think of a shy jock with a big heart not some kind of wrestling genius like Negro Casas.

Are you talking about the character or the wrestler? I am confused. I think the dude is probably a good bit smarter as a wrestler than he gets credit for sometimes (though I never really thought people thought he was dumb), but I think you nailed his character in the 90s.

 

 

I meant both. The All Japan guys didn't really play characters.

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Maybe it's just me, but whenever people lavish praise on Kobashi he always comes across as sounding smarter than he truly was. When I think of Kobashi, I always think of a shy jock with a big heart not some kind of wrestling genius like Negro Casas.

Are you talking about the character or the wrestler? I am confused. I think the dude is probably a good bit smarter as a wrestler than he gets credit for sometimes (though I never really thought people thought he was dumb), but I think you nailed his character in the 90s.

 

 

I meant both. The All Japan guys didn't really play characters.

 

yeah, but I never thought it was a 1 to 1 comparison. They all understood their strengths and played on those. Kobashi's was athleticism, strength and energy. I never assumed that reflected an actual lack of thoughtfulness about how he wrestled and put a match together.

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My post-GWE project will be binge watching a bunch of Mile Zrno stuff so I can rank him #5 for GWE2026.

 

Bingo. If someone thinks all of those HHH matches are great, they should rank him.

Obviously consistency is the big hurdle there. Can't believe I didn't think of that when you asked this:

 

- Who are some wrestlers who have a long list of great matches that aren't great?

as now a million names come to mind. Mutoh is probably the best example.

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At a certain point I think it comes down to what you value as a fan and how much time you're willing to put into a certain worker.

 

If you're taking a Matt D style holistic view at things consistency is going to matter more than if you're just watching a guys best-of set. Both "I love this guy because he has these great matches" and "I acknowledge the great matches, but can't rank him due to how inconsistent he is" are valid and no one is going to argue they aren't (obviously the quality of the matches can also be debated). What I really find perplexing is that someone who has done the week to week, holistic watching will decide to rank a wrestler just because of the great matches even if it is not something they are personally satisfied with. But hey-it's their list.

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Honestly Kobashi is a much smarter worker than he is given credit for in my opinion. I won't deny he could go way overboard with some movez and fighting spirit after 1997, but he had a keen eye for structuring matches, holding them together as well as for escalation. He also knew exactly how much to give lesser opponents and how to make them look very credible. He wasn't some big dummy who went around throwing moves while his opponents did the thinking which is sometimes the perception.

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