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Most Underrated Wrestlers Of All Time


JazeUSA

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Sammy was pimped pretty heavily back in the glory days of the NJ junior fandom. To me he's maybe the greatest awkward worker ever this side of Taue. There's a topic for you, great awkward looking workers : Samurai, Angle, Taue. As opposed to great elegant workers (which are less) : Misawa, Windham.

 

Totally agree about the pendulum effect on Kandori BTW. She was very underrated and she became quite overrated at one point. Since classic joshi is not very much talked about (although it's cool to see a younger generation discover it again now), the pages are probably blank now.

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Samurai feels underrated to me, but that might be a pendulum thing or a matter of circles. I feel like he isn't praised all that much anymore, but I love me some Sammy. He feels like a great underdog worker who can get the shit beat out of him and fire back about as well as anyone. A buddy of mine once said he was convinced that Zayn modeled some of his hope spots and comebacks after Samurai. Love him.

 

Speaking of pendulums.... i feel like Dynamite is sort of underrated now. He seems like a case of the hype getting out of hand and people going a bit too far in the opposite direction. I see people more or less dismiss him out of hand now and I still thoroughly enjoy his work from when he was in his prime.

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mind you im going on two things here

1 HOF or not

2 recogntion among casual fans

3 my personalview vs general views [ for this you have take into acoount how i rate]

 

The red Typhoons [ both as team and singles]

Inoue Kyoko

Hotta Yumiko

Bolshoi

Kakihara

Yatsu Yoshiaki

Funaki

Dick Togo

Tamura Kiyoshi

Tanaka Minoru

Yamazaki Kazuo

Chris Doleman

Nakaya Neilsen

 

Dynamite

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Some more underrated:

 

​Sid Cooper

Shiro Koshinaka

Masakatsu Funaki

Kaoru

Yumiko Hotta

Rey Hechicero

Tetsuya Naito

i fully agree with all these minus Naito hes well loved aming western Japanese fans in face book groups and alike

 

 

That's true but he doesn't get too much praise around here (relatively speaking atleast). I think he smokes Tanahashi and beats Okada on inputs.

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While I wouldn't say he's an all-time great, I would argue Jeff Hardy is a tad underrated. He almost reminds me of a poor man's Tenryu if that makes sense. Like, his offense is pretty sloppy and doesn't always look great, but he adds a certain level of excitement and has that intangible you can't quite put your finger on. Only difference is that Jeff's strikes look pretty ineffectual while Tenryu's looked vicious as hell. He's also a very good babyface.

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While I wouldn't say he's an all-time great, I would argue Jeff Hardy is a tad underrated. He almost reminds me of a poor man's Tenryu if that makes sense. Like, his offense is pretty sloppy and doesn't always look great, but he adds a certain level of excitement and has that intangible you can't quite put your finger on. Only difference is that Jeff's strikes look pretty ineffectual while Tenryu's looked vicious as hell. He's also a very good babyface.

soon you as you say sloppy i say not underrated

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It's more about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The reason I made the reference to Tenryu was that some of his offense (like the powerbomb and enziguiri) looked pretty bad but his psychology, intensity, and physical charisma were so great that it didn't matter if they looked bad because they still mattered in the course of the match. There are tons of wrestlers who have great execution but have no heat or psychology behind what they do.

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I never understood the Tenryu criticism that he was "sloppy" or had "bad looking moves". His enzuigiri always looked like a solid kick to the back of the brain and his powerbomb always get the job done, squishing his opponent and getting him into pin position. He also deserves credit for throwing blatantly worked punches that still make you wonder how real they are.

 

Hardy buried his own career with his escapades, but he does deserve credit for getting mad over. But the headlines of him being a dumpster fire overshadowed any discussion of his workrate.

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While I wouldn't say he's an all-time great, I would argue Jeff Hardy is a tad underrated. He almost reminds me of a poor man's Tenryu if that makes sense. Like, his offense is pretty sloppy and doesn't always look great, but he adds a certain level of excitement and has that intangible you can't quite put your finger on. Only difference is that Jeff's strikes look pretty ineffectual while Tenryu's looked vicious as hell. He's also a very good babyface.

I feel like he is overrated. I have never really been into him, never got it. To me his matches are actively uninteresting and he drags everything he is in down. But that might be just a matter of taste and not connecting. There are a few exceptions of course, but generally speaking I feel like all (or most of) the praise he gets is is overstated based on my take.

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im taking about fans in facebook fan groups by biggest exposure to fans before here

 

ashura Hara is very underrated yes while he has never the most iconic member of his team/stable i think he was still very good both tag and singles

Ogawa Yoshinari this i will never understand people like Yano's stooging but seem to dismiss rat boy

Animal Hamaguchi Japan greatest Native born heel

Most UWF/UWFi guys

Tamura Kiyoshi

all The Rings Russians

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I think via the lack of released footage the[ footage has been archived by the network] most of the Joint Promotions guys promotions are underrated. As are workers who made their name in the IWE the difference is lack of footage not because of network screwjob, It’is, because want/need footage, that has sadly been lost.

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Who would be your top 5 or so that you consider the most under rated workers of all time & why? When I thought about this I had these guys off the top of my head:

 

Rick Martel

Brad Armstrong

Bobby Eaton

Chris Adams

Terry Taylor

 

 

 

5. Marty Jannetty (HBK/Jannetty Raw May 93)

4. Martel

3. Matt Borne

2. Tatanka

1. Hogan

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I found myself watching some late nineties ECW the other day and found myself thinking that Spike Dudley doesn't get enough credit for being a great worker. Massively over in ECW as the ultimate underdog, fearless bump taker and could actually do some fast paced wrestling when it was called upon. Had a decent run in the WWF/E against all odds too when other more 'conventionally' talented wrestlers floundered.

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I found myself watching some late nineties ECW the other day and found myself thinking that Spike Dudley doesn't get enough credit for being a great worker. Massively over in ECW as the ultimate underdog, fearless bump taker and could actually do some fast paced wrestling when it was called upon. Had a decent run in the WWF/E against all odds too when other more 'conventionally' talented wrestlers floundered.

 

Gotta have a lot of love for LSD. He was great in ECW and WWE.

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Agreed about Spike Dudley and I think there's even a case for him as the top worker in ECW history. He's certainly the most well-rounded in terms of card placement. Main event, opener, mid-card tag. He can get tossed around by Taz or dive off balconies with New Jack. Put him in a three way dance with Tajiri and Crazy and he looks like a top junior. Ridiculous giant killer or gorilla-press crowd surfer? The list just goes on and on. At the very least he's a Top 5 ECW worker.

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