Greatest Match Ever Project

[Boss Rock]

One thing I really liked about this project is that nothing felt truly "sacred" in the sense that you could argue why you didn't like a match that's near universally-beloved and everyone would be willing to hear you out. I sort of worried that I didn't "get" wrestling if I didn't think Austin-Bret was a top 50 match or Flair-Steamboat II was the greatest match ever but that was certainly not the case as everyone had a very wide range of opinions and criticisms on pretty much every classic match.

[ohtani's jacket]

I started watching the matches I haven't seen or am unfamiliar with.

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96. Andrade Cien Almas vs. Johnny Gargano (NXT Heavyweight Championship - NXT - 01/27/18)

I thought this was too "on the nose" in terms of the commentary and the presentation. I can understand the desire to produce a modern class but stop referencing the fact and let the drama and the tension speak for itself. The match was good but it ran for too long, and as a one-off investment on my part I was disappointed that there wasn't a payoff to the storyline. It was probably a better match in context but it seems a bit early to hail it as a modern classic.

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90. Terry Funk & Dory Funk Jr vs Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (AJPW - 08/31/1983)

Great crowd heat and one hell of a promo afterward, but the match itself isn't much of a blip on the historical radar.

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84. Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (X Division Championship - TNA - 12/11/2005)

This was awesome whenever Samoa Joe was on offense. He was a beast. Styles, on the other hand, was pretty bad. I'm used to the New Japan Styles. This didn't feel like the same dude. Joe kept it interesting but the match didn't deliver the knockout punch needed to overcome my disconnect with Styles. I can't reiterate enough how beastly Joe was, though. 

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83. Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama (GHC Heavyweight Championship - NOAH - 7/10/2004)

Not bad. I was expecting this to be excessive and annoying but it was mostly a slow burner. It didn't really get out of hand until they started popping up from the finishers at the end, and by that stage, the bout was almost over. I can see why this has its fans. When you consider that this was a dome show, and that dome show main events aren't that easy to pull off, this deserves its place in the canon, so to speak. 

[Boss Rock]

14 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

This was awesome whenever Samoa Joe was on offense. He was a beast. Styles, on the other hand, was pretty bad. I'm used to the New Japan Styles. This didn't feel like the same dude. Joe kept it interesting but the match didn't deliver the knockout punch needed to overcome my disconnect with Styles.

I disagree and never really got that impression. I loved how he blitzed Joe at the beginning and I think he did a great job bumping and selling for Joe's strikes. I agree A.J.'s a bit of a different wrestler in this match than he was in NJPW and now in WWE, but I still thought he was terrific in this match.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't have much to compare it to, but to me, Styles didn't have the offense or the necessary toughness to take the fight to Joe. 

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81. Jun Akiyama vs. Kenta Kobashi (Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship - AJPW - 07/24/1998)

I'm not an Akiyama fan so watching him chase guys doesn't do a lot for me, but this was solid in an All Japan kind of way. Kobashi sold well and the pop-ups and no sells didn't get silly until the finish, and even then it wasn't too outrageous. It didn't really strike me as one of the great All Japan matches but I guess this match-up is popular because of their NOAH years.

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75. Brock Lesnar vs John Cena (Extreme Rules Match - WWE - 4/29/2012)

I loved the beginning of this where Lesnar mauled Cena. I thought it was a bit contrived after the ref bump but I can understand that they couldn't work a faux MMA match for the entire bout. I didn't like Cena winning but his promo was kind of clever. I liked the way they wrote him out of the show with the injury.

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74. Terry Funk vs Stan Hansen (AJPW – 4/14/1983)

Fun match, and in some ways the very definition of pro-wrestling, but both guys have had better matches with other people. Funk's selling was off the charts, though. I thought he was dead when he was being strangled in the ropes. Cheap finish marred this but it was 80s All Japan so what can you do.

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72. Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega (IWGP Heavyweight Championship - NJPW - 8/12/2017)

This was the first time in my life to see Kenny Omega. What the fuck did I just watch? Most of you won't know who I'm talking about, but he reminded me of the old World of Sport comedy wrestler, Billy Torontos. I didn't have a horse in this, and it was overloaded with moves, but like most modern New Japan matches I still found myself invested in the stretch run. So, it was a decent enough match from my standpoint, but I was kind of confused about what made it stand out from all the other modern New Japan matches. 

[NintendoLogic]

It's not just the bell-to-bell in Omega/Okada, it's the way it progressed the rivalry while leaving the door open for another match between the two. It was Omega's first win over Okada after losing at Wrestle Kingdom and going to a time-limit draw at Dominion. And he did it in under 30 minutes after their previous two matches had gone 47 and then 60. But Okada came in with an injured neck, so the win had an asterisk next to it. And it marked only the second time Omega had hit Okada with the One Winged Angel (he hit it at Dominion, but Okada's foot was on the ropes), so the question of whether Okada could survive the move remained unanswered.

[ohtani's jacket]

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68. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi (Triple Crown Championship - AJPW - 6/12/1998)

Hadn't seen this in years. A good match -- a great match even - but it didn't have the emotional resonance for me that it may have for big time All Japan fans. I couldn't shake the fact that it was 1998, the promotion as a whole wasn't doing well, and here's Kobashi vs. Kawada for the gazillionth time with Kobashi going over in questionable fashion. Even if the match was good it felt like things were going wrong.

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64. Shinsuke Nakamura vs Kota Ibushi (IWGP IC Championship - NJPW - 1/4/2015)

This was very good. I don't think I'll ever get used to Nakamura's bizarre antics (and I'm someone who likes flamboyant showmen), but apart from his weird charisma, this was a well-orchestrated bout. I don't think there were any false notes in terms of it being overloaded or too move heavy. It was an interesting styles clash and an engrossing contest. 

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59. Tenryu & Hansen vs Jumbo & Yatsu (All Japan World Tag Team Championships - Real World Tag League - AJPW - 12/6/1989)

This was a great match. I have no idea why this isn't spoken about alongside the other great All Japan tag matches. I loved the ending stretch with Jumbo beating the crap out of Tenryu and Hansen beating the crap out of Yatsu. Quite possibly one of the most underrated matches of all-time. To me, it was a Hansen match more than anything else. Just red hot and relentless. But it reiterated how great Jumbo vs. Tenryu was. One of the best feuds ever in my mind and this was another chapter. 

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57. Katsuyori Shibata vs Kazuchika Okada (IWGP Heavyweight Championship - NJPW - 4/9/2017)

Great match. This may be blasphemous but I've enjoyed this modern day New Japan matches far more than the classic All Japan matches. Perhaps that's because the New Japan matches are fresher, I dunno. I thought this was dang near perfect. I mean, if you took Shibata and Okada before the bout and blocked out the best match they could possibly have given their respective talents, this was as close to the perfect match as you could possibly imagine. There were a few iffy parts (mostly involving strike exchanges) but nothing terribly upsetting. The question this raised for me was how good is Okada? I always thought he was a Rock level worker but he's been in an awfully high number of good matches. Is he a generational talent or not? 

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56. The Revival vs DIY (⅔ Falls - NXT Tag Team Championships - NXT - 11/19/2016)

Terrible promos at the start, shitty commentary, on-the-nose presentation, over-emoting, very good match. A bit cutesy during the finishing stretch but a very good match. 

[Pterois]

Why does everybody say All Japan wasn't doing well in late nineties ? Is it because of financial reasons ? As far as I'm concerned, I don't see a huge difference between an All Japan match from 91 and one from 99. A lot of people seem to think the matches went too long and that there were too many headdrops. I don't mind. I like long matches and dangerous moves. i don't care if moves are dangerous for the wrestlers. In fact, I find it exciting when a wrestler does something dangerous for him and his co-workers.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think it's fine if people like the matches. To me, the booking had begun to stagnate and the match-ups had become stale.

All Japan had found success with Misawa as the champion ace and Kawada and Kobashi as challengers but they didn't know where they should go next. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to have so many irons in the fire. As fans, we wanted to see the blowoff to the Misawa vs. Kawada rivalry but it doesn't seem as though Baba had much faith in Kawada as the ace of his promotion. It would have made more sense for Kobashi to emerge as Misawa's successor and then, later on, have Akiyama challenge Kobashi for that position. That's more or less what happened but it was messy and I think the 1998 booking reflects that.

The great thing about All Japan was that you got singles matches all the time. In other promotions, big singles matches are rare but in All Japan they were a regular fixture. Unfortunately,  no matter how good the workers are, it was difficult to keep those match-ups fresh. Since Baba didn't want to co-promote and cash in on dream matches (and I can't say I blame him given what happened to his competitor's business after the sheen came off interpromotional feuds), it was left to Misawa & Co. to figure out a way to make each match better than the one before. And I guess the natural thing to do is to make the matches longer and more dangerous. For a lot of us, the individual match-ups in 90s All Japan peak with a certain match (and the matches either side of that) and then they escalate to something beyond our interest.

But that's perfectly natural. The same thing will happen with modern-day New Japan. It is hard to keep any kind of style or genre progressing. Styles die out and new movements take their place. It wasn't like All Japan was suddenly going to adopt shoot style or anything like that. The real issue is that they didn't have a lot of young talent coming through to carry the torch. If you look back on it now, it's clear that New Japan was still the best recruiter of young talent at the time even if no-one could foresee what their early 00s rookies would achieve in the future. 

A lot of people have written about this topic in much more depth than me, but there are also younger fans who maintained their interest in the All Japan workers through the NOAH years so nothing is ever cut and dry. If you like the matches that's a win for you. 

[ohtani's jacket]

48. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (WWE World Heavyweight Championship - WWE - 3/29/2015)

Okay, so Brock beats the shit out of Reigns for a good 15 minutes. I mean, he absolutely pummels him. Then Brock gets cut and he's hurt. Suddenly, the match is back on an even keel. Okay. A bit contrived but that's what happens when you work a match that's as lopsided as this. Then Rollins runs out and cashes in his briefcase. So, now you not only have no payoff to the Reigns comeback, you have the unstoppable monster Brock punked by Rollins and the worst Wrestlemania finish since Hogan challenged Yokozuna. Wasn't a fan of this.

44. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (⅔ Falls IWGP Heavyweight Championship - NJPW - 6/9/2018)

This was LOOOONG but it was very good. I wouldn't call it great since they paced it to be broader than broadway but they delivered on the gimmick and the match felt like a big deal. 

39. Aja Kong vs Yumiko Hotta (WWWA World Championship - AJW - 1/24/1994)

This was really high. It's a violent spectacle for sure. It might even be a great match from a certain standpoint, though to be honest, it's the last match I'd recommend to someone if they wanted to see everything that is good and great about Joshi Puroresu. It's a great mauling but much like the Brock matches I think it misses that element of two great competitors going all the way. I can see people voting for it as an all-time great beatdown, I'm just surprised by how high it finished and how well it did compared to other Joshi matches. 

[ohtani's jacket]

BTW, 

100. Sangre Chicana vs Perro Aguayo (“Hair vs Hair” – UWA – 2/28/1986)

This was an Arena Mexico bout so it fell under the EMLL banner. 

[elliott]

On 5/23/2019 at 7:11 AM, Pterois said:

Why does everybody say All Japan wasn't doing well in late nineties ? Is it because of financial reasons ? As far as I'm concerned, I don't see a huge difference between an All Japan match from 91 and one from 99. A lot of people seem to think the matches went too long and that there were too many headdrops. I don't mind. I like long matches and dangerous moves. i don't care if moves are dangerous for the wrestlers. In fact, I find it exciting when a wrestler does something dangerous for him and his co-workers.

 

Financial reasons is part of it. AJPW had a streak in Tokyo from like late 1990-1995 or 96 where they sold out every single show. By 1998 that wasn't happening and I'm pretty sure the non-Tokyo shows were down as well. They still did good business, but were not longer automatic sell-outs.

As OJ alluded to, I think the main thing people were referencing was staleness. You might not see a huge difference between 1991 AJPW and 1998 in terms of the main event matches. But check out the June Budokan cards from 1991 vs the June 1998 card.

June 1991:

Ismu Teranishi pinned Mitsuo Momota (9:50).
Mighty Inoue pinned Mike Golden (5:59).
Joel Deaton & Randy Rose beat Motoshi Okuma & Haruka Eigan (10:38).
Buddy Lee Parker & James Earl Weight beat Yoshinori Ogawa & Richard Slinger (12:23).
All-Asian Tag Champs Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas beat Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (20:58) when Kroffat pinned Kikuchi.
Giant Baba, Masa Fuchi, & Rusher Kimura beat Abdullah the Butcher & Giant Kimalas 1 # II (13:03) when Baba pinned Kimala II.
Steve Williams pinned Toshiaki Kawada (20:46).
Mitsu Misawa pinned Terry Gordy (21:18).
All Japan World Tag Champs Stan Hansen & Danny Spivey beat Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (15:40) when Spivey pinned Taue.

June 1998:

Takeshi Morishima & Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Makato Hashi & Kentaro Shiga (9:46).
PWF Junior Heavyweight Champ Maunukea Mossman pinned Satoru Asako (10:12).
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinori Ogawa beat Gedo & Jado (10:28).
Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura, & Mitsuo Momota beat Jun Izumida, Haruka Eigan, & Masa Fuchi (9:35).
Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield beat Masao Inoue & Takao Omori (14:13) when Williams pinned Inoue.
Johnny Smith & Johnny Ace beat Giant Kimala II & David Heath (8:18).
Akira Taue beat Bobby Duncum, Jr.
Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama beat Tamon Honda & Jun Akiyama (7:15) when Albright pinned Honda.
Kenta Kobashi beat Toshiaki Kawada (33:49) to win the All Japan Triple Crown.

 

The 1991 card is much deeper with 4 legitimately interesting looking matches. The 1998 card is a terrible show outside of the main event. We can agree or disagree on the quality of the Kawada vs Kobashi match, but the truth is that match had been run for 5 years by that point so it makes sense that folks would complain of staleness. I wouldn't "blame" the pillars & Akiyama for the staleness of the promotion at all to be frank. It was all about booking. The main event guys did the best they could to keep things interesting.

I agree and disagree with OJ about whether or not Baba should have worked with other companies in the late 90s. I would have liked to have seen it as a fan and knowing what we know now about Japan back then (the AJPW split and everyone co-promoting with everyone) they really should have done it. It probably would have helped the key guys stay healthier because instead of Misawa & Kobashi pushing each other further and further in matches to keep things interesting, you'd get Misawa vs Takada or Tenryu vs Kobashi sort of matches where they don't have this history of having 30+ minute matches. But I get the point about business dipping post interpromotional feuds.

[Cap]

Sorry to bump this, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up on a few notes for the project.

1) Come by and visit the board if you took some time off or if you haven't yet. We did some remodeling and I THINK the board is much easier to navigate now and has some more spaces for conversation for those interested in the project and great matches generally.  Matches are organized by year, the index is completely updated, and we have accomplished something resembling consistency on nominated threads. We have a solid community - made up of mostly folks from here, so you know its good - and we are even working on a few little low stress side projects to occupy  the dork brain.

2) We are moving ballot due dates to SummerSlam. Obviously, not this year's SS, but next year we will tabulate the second annual GME ballot. Mania is just far too busy for people generally, including those of us moderating over there and the wrestling world is over-saturated with projects and content at the time. So this weekend, marks one year from the next ballot.

3) If you have any suggestions or see any major errors please let myself or one of the other mods know. I am going to try to make a little time each week to work on updates and fix stuff and I know our other mods are too. 

 

Thanks to those who have participated and contributed in the past and thanks to those who will again. Thanks to this board for being an awesome space to spin off of a bit. Finally, thanks to my fellow mods who have helped work on the board and make it an additionally cool space to chat about wrestling with this niche focus.

[Boss Rock]

2 hours ago, CapitalTTruth said:

Thanks to this board for being an awesome space to spin off of a bit. Finally, those to my fellow mods who have helped work on the board and make it an additionally cool space to chat about wrestling with this niche focus.

Thank YOU Cap.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Thank you Cap! Thank you Cap! Thank you Cap!

 

Love the Summerslam move! Still have not rewatched All Japan 90s yet. Starting to get back into a regular routine. Hope to finish WWE 2005-2014 soon. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I never finished going through this.

30. Kenta Kobashi vs Yoshihiro Takayama (GHC Heavyweight Championship - NOAH - 4/25/2004)

Great match. Takayama was huge here. He looked like a Japanese Andre. Talk about a guy who knew the best way for him to wrestle with the shape he was in. Kobashi's knees were shot, but thanks to his theatrics and his rapport with the crowd, he was able to make this work. I actually think the pair of them hobbling about and working slower added to the drama and let the big moments sink in. I really liked the match these guys had in 2000 with the amazing selling of the arm. This was a different sort of match but equally good. I'm glad we have a pair of great matches between the two.

13. Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (Triple Crown Championship - AJPW - 10/31/1998)

I didn't realize this match had such a big rep. I thought this was one of their bouts where they sank into excess. This bout must have improved its reputation over the years because I swear people used to say that 6/98 Kawada/Kobashi was the last great All Japan match. Then again, this did win the WON MOTY and Tokyo Sports MOTY, so I guess those folks were right all along. Anyway, this was a great match. I don't get excited about All Japan often, but this was fucking great. I'm not even sure I'd call it excessive. Did we have any idea what excess was back then? Personally, the Tiger Driver off the apron got a "holy shit" from me, and I thought the Tiger Driver '91 was crazy as well. It seems some folks think Kobashi should have gone over here, and others think the match should have ended after the Tiger Driver '91. I didn't have an issue with how it played out. I even liked the double elbow finish, though the crowd weren't really in sync with it. What a match. I have another Misawa vs. Kobashi match to get through, but I think I'll save it for another night. 

[NintendoLogic]

9 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I didn't realize this match had such a big rep. I thought this was one of their bouts where they sank into excess. This bout must have improved its reputation over the years because I swear people used to say that 6/98 Kawada/Kobashi was the last great All Japan match.

I'm pretty sure the only people who ever said that were jdw, Ditch, and maybe a handful of folks who mindlessly parroted them. Personally, I don't know that Kawada and Kobashi ever produced a truly great match. It's probably my least favorite singles pairing out of the Pillars.

[Kadaveri]

Yeah I don't think the 1998 match was harmed by excess either, it's a match where they do approach that line but do a great job of never quite crossing it. It's their 1999 match where they started to go off the rails a bit, although it's still very good.

[Superstar Sleeze]

6 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

I'm pretty sure the only people who ever said that were jdw, Ditch, and maybe a handful of folks who mindlessly parroted them. Personally, I don't know that Kawada and Kobashi ever produced a truly great match. It's probably my least favorite singles pairing out of the Pillars.

I'll echo this. I just wanted their 1996 hour draw and it was good, but there were so many bad transitions and it was just workrate for the sake of workrate. These two worked much better against everyone else than each other. I think they were two workrate guys of the Pillars so when they lost a glue guy like Misawa or Taue they fed into each other's worst excesses. I need to watch Kawada vs Kobashi '98 again because that is supposedly their big match. I gave it ****1/2 which is on the low end of that match and I think at the time I was not confident in my critical abilities to go lower on such an acclaimed match. I am curious what I would think of it now.

OJ, I am glad you like the '98 Misawa vs Kobashi match that one blew me away when I watched it. It is only smidge behind 1/20/97 for me. jdw & Ditch were so powerful in crafting the All Japan canon that it is not surprising to hear that if they bagged the '98 Misawa vs Kobashi that explains why it got lost in the shuffle for a while and why for a long time we believed canon ended with Kobashi vs Kawada. Im not trying to knock those guys. I am forever indebted to Ditch and jdw is such a valuable resource. I am just saying when the concentration of power in a few hands, it can skew perception. Which is not true because there is also Kobashi vs Akiyama '98, Misawa vs Akiyama '00 and Kobashi vs Takayama '00 all worthy of Top 100 Greatest Match Ever consideration.

[Tim Cooke]

"Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi ­ 26th Anniversary Show (Triple Crown - 10/31/98)

Great match. But little things like half nelson suplexes on the floor that lead to nothing are auto deductions in my book. Not at the level of the 6/98 Kawada vs. Kobashi... and far behind the Misawa vs. Kobashi from 1997. Off my Top 20."

 

So I assume this would have landed in his top 30-35.

[Boss Rock]

The finish is probably the only reason I have the '97 Kobashi-Misawa match over the '98 one. '97 just has a much more definitive ending while the '98 match feels just a smidgen too abrupt. Both are in my top 3 though. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Last one.

11. Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (GHC Heavyweight Championship - NOAH - 3/1/2003)

This was a good match, but I thought it was several notches below their best matches. It was dramatic and the crowd were into it, and I can understand the appeal it has as the culmination to their rivalry. There's not too many other wrestlers who've had a post-prime match this good, though I suppose you could argue that they weren't being positioned as post prime. I'm not sure if I'd call this match excessive, however I did think they moved on too quickly from the big spot sequences like the Tiger Suplex off the ramp. Personally, I didn't find the finishing stretch as exciting as the '98 match or even the Takayama match. I don't know if they transitioned from Misawa's last nearfall to Kobashi's finishing sequence as well as they could have. You kind of want to give them a pass because they're older, but 11 is a really high placing for this match, IMO. 

[Kadaveri]

Can't wait to see your ballot OJ

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm not involved in this project, but I'm looking forward to the results. 

[Cap]

I wanna bump this for anyone considering submitting a ballot.  The deadline is the end of SummerSlamm in just 10 days.  Ballot is open now.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I’ll be voting. Just two more matches I need to watch then I’ll be ready to go!