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2018 Wrestler of the Year


SmartMark15

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It's interesting to me how much my tastes seem to differ from others. In example, WALTER, ZSJ & Ospreay aren't even on my radar, let alone at the top of my list. In fact, I've never seen a ZSJ or WALTER match that I've liked. I actually stopped watching matches from them because after watching about five pimped matches I was like "...I don't get it." I literally at this point go out of my way to avoid their matches, much like The Young Bucks. So there's definitely a big disconnect there with me. There are wrestlers that came around like that often for me; highly praised online that I don't get a lot of enjoyment from. Used to be Prince Devitt & Kevin Steen. 

I do like Fenix & Pentagon but Fenix lives & dies by how many spots he blows (kind of like Sabu of old) and Pentagon is just going through the motions right now for me. 

That being said, the top wrestlers this year for me are Okada, Omega & Gargano. Probably with Gargano at number one.

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I see little connective tissue between Prince Devitt and WALTER and think that's an odd comparison.

WALTER is the front-runner and it will take a stellar December from Fuminori Abe, David Starr, or Timothy Thatcher to make up the gap. He has a formula but the formula flat out works. No matter the promotion, no matter the opponent, he slots them in and it is grand. David Starr continues to be the most versitile wrestler out there. He had a BritShoot match against ZSJ that was rad and has had deathmatches against Joey Janela. Plus every match of his seems to be him putting in a good effort which is nice to see. Thatcher is mostly WALTER's second but when he gets to go off on his own, it owns. He's the same grappler we've known but in settings that seem to care about him. 


If you are interested in submitting a list of your top wrestlers of 2018 though I will promote the http://wdkwrestling.freeforums.net/

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The guys this year I've felt compelled to go out of my way to see and consistently enjoyed are Hiroshi Tanahashi, Minoru Suzuki, WALTER, LA Park, and ZSJ, in roughly that order. Shayna Baszler is probably my favorite worker who has yet to have a truly great match. I'm kind of torn on Ronda. One the one hand, she's overdelivered every time she's been in the ring, and even if she practices her big matches beforehand, nothing she does feels choreographed or cooperative. On the other hand, she's barely into double digits in matches worked. I want to see how she does when she has to work week-in and week-out.

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Maybe I've got a weakness for mouth guard wearing wrestlers, but I've got Shayna Baszler and Pete Dunne battling for the top spot. Both have kept knocking out good match after good match all year, working a convincing level of stiffness without letting their matches go into overkill (we'll ignore Wargames for Pete). They're the two wrestlers I'll go out of my way to see.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/31/2018 at 1:16 AM, Microstatistics said:

WALTER and Ronda have been pretty good. The old folks like Jun Akiyama, Negro Casas and Aja Kong have also been impressive. 

I think I only saw two Casas matches this year but the old man has still got it. Thought Jun had a great year as well with the CC run and the Real World Tag League match with Sekimoto against Yoshiken.

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For the past few years, I've created my WOTY/Most Outstanding list w/ the matches I've rated ***1/2+ that year.

The top-10, with that in mind, ended up being this, for me, in 2018:

1) Zack Sabre Jr.
2) WALTER
3) Daniel Bryan
4) Timothy Thatcher
5) Minoru Suzuki
6) Tomohiro Ishii
7) David Starr
8) Hiroshi Tanahashi
9) Kenny Omega
10) AJ Styles

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