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Reactions to the List: 50-26


Grimmas

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Honestly surprised to be half the high vote for Jun Akiyama at #3, seems like he has gotten way more traction over the years and thought someone would give him their #1 or #2 spot just based on how great he's been for so long now, dude has had a hell of a career and even continues to kill it now.

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I don't have any real problem with Akiyama ranking below the other All Japan guys in the sense that I can see arguments for pretty much any order you can come up with, but it would've been nice to see some recognition for his ridiculous longevity compared to the others.

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I see it as a matter of the value of modern puro that isn't hip and the nature of the way we watch wrestling as well. I've seen all the pimped Akiyama matches that have been lost to time and GAORA TV copyright strikes. He also has about 20 years of his career well preserved, but even then a lot of stuff from the final years of that run has been lost as well. I imagine there's a significant amount of people that didn't pay much attention to his (still ongoing) All Japan 2010s run. I do think more comparison threads should have been done to let some cases sink in.

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One thought I had about Akiyama just the other day (while watching a random 10 minute 2016 AJPW house show 6 man) is that he might be the greatest non-Mexican 6/8 man tag worker ever. Just a great 'directing traffic' guy that lifts everything he's involved in.

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Fucking mainstream Japanese bias moved him up 23 spots from 2006.

Mainstream japanese bias is preventing Akiyama from being higher. People remember him as the sixth best guy from All Japan when he was three years into his career and rank him based on that when the bulk of his case is working on NOAH house shows and now in front of 100 people that Meltzer and the hip kids don't pay much attention to.
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I don't really see an argument for Taue over Akiyama for people that know both their careers well and *get* them.

If you value peak over duration of quality, you could argue Taue peaked higher and had more all time classic level matches.

 

I had Taue at 20 and Jun at 9, while top quarter finish would have been ideal, I am glad they ended up relatively high.

 

Also, Regal in Top 25 is a pleasant surprise

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I don't really see an argument for Taue over Akiyama for people that know both their careers well and *get* them.

 

That's an odd statement. They're very different wrestlers, and it seems entirely reasonable for someone to prefer one guy's aesthetic over the other. Taue was part of arguably the greatest tag team of all time. He was in a top five All Japan singles match of the '90s and a key part of the greatest tag matches in the history of that or any other promotion. He was still awesome as late as 2006. I can see an argument for Akiyama on duration of quality and ability to hop roles, but to suggest there's no argument for Taue is just bizarre.

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I had Taue at 25 so yay there. Akiyama is a guy I love but havent seen a lot of his ladder 2000s work. Even based on all the 90s stuff and early 2000s I had him 34. I think he has one of the biggest chances to rocket up my list outside of guys in styles that Im still discovering.

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With Santo falling at 29, I'm not sure Casas will make top 15, which I would have expected a few days ago.

 

If we take the "styles" considered for the poll as fact, 76% of the voters considered Lucha, that's 115 ballots tops. I still think Casas makes it to the top 10 but he's gonna need a really high average vote and top 3 votes

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I mean I can *see* an argument for Taue, I just obviously don't agree with it. And I see that argument as being heavily skewed to highlight the things he excelled that. If you do the same in Akiyama's favour it's a no contest.

 

Sure, you could argue Kawada-Taue was the greatest tag ever. And the reasoning for that is that 90s All Japan had the best tag team wrestking ever and they were together for the longest. I don't even think that's a very important point here, as the discussion is about Taue specifically and not Holy Demon Army.

 

I could point to at least three different tag teams with Akiyama in them I thought were legitimately great tag teams where he was often the best performer. I don't really buy Taue being a.better tag team wrestler than Akiyama. Again you would have to ignore consistency and heavily favour peak and even then I'm not so sure I'd agree with it. Taue peaked at a time when better wrestlers than the one Akiyama worked alongside in his prime peaked. And EVEN THEN I'm not convinced. Akiyama is in the tag picture from 1996 onwards. Taue is good from 1990 but achieves greatness in 1995. Taue still has great stuff in 2006-true-but it is more sporadic and can't even begin to compare to what Akiyama was doing at the same time. For Taue the window of good wrestling can be 1990-2006 but in that you have both the question of how good he was before 1995 and how consistent his output was in NOAH. Akiyama's window of good wrestling is 1992-now. He has a small slump around 2008-2009 or so but compared to Taue I'm not sure it's even worth mentioning. You could argue Akiyama was in a top 5 All Japan 90s match as well. I know Akiyama-Kobashi 98 is my #1 and Akiyama-Misawa 2/27 would be a strong contender as well (pre-split counts). I mean you can always make a case for wrestler x over wrestler y but for people that truly dive into the stuff and appreciate them both (hint-I do) I don't think it's close.

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