Who is a better in ring performer?

[Boss Rock]

I think if push really came to shove, I'd go with Kobashi over Misawa. 

[Jmare007]

1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

Consider this: the style Jumbo helped develop begat Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi. The style Bryan helped develop begat Davey Richards and Seth Rollins.

Consider it for what?

 

And Jumbo never develops the style that lead to Misawa and the other pillars without Choshu showing up in All Japan...

[Jmare007]

On 8/6/2019 at 7:46 PM, Boss Rock said:

I think if push really came to shove, I'd go with Kobashi over Misawa. 

I'm surprised that a lot of people in this thread are going this way or throwing out an equal.

Before GWE I would've bet that Kobashi was going to end up higher than Misawa but he ended up 4 spots and a lot of points behind him. I haven't really thought about people revisiting All Japan since the GWE project so I was expecting more people voting for Misawa (who I still put ahead of Kobashi by some margin).

 

 

[War is Raw]

Poor Parv- he specifically did a podcast mini-series outlining every aspect of Ric Flair's work yet some intelligent fans still think Hart was a better ring performer. IMHO the view that Hart > Flair (and it's not even close based on peak and longevity) originated with Hart himself. Many have attached themselves to his original arguments forth in his book...which he had since retracted many years later on Flair's podcast. 

I love Daniel Bryan as well, but feel there needs to be some "era adjustment" otherwise any modern wrestler who uses a hybrid style will automatically leapfrog over the old timers in terms of career value. For example, I could visualize Meltzer pushing Ospreay, Okada, or Omega is the GWE and it will  become a reality one day.

IMHO the historical perspective regarding Bryan's post-retirement WWE run will be a Wikipedia footnote shock to new fans 15 years from now. ("Oh, he came back?") I feel his matches with Brock and AJ have been disappointing. Carrying Big Cass does not make a fantastic match. At this point, his added legacy is that he was an eco-heel loved by smarks who put over Kofi (who is already on his way to a boring title reign.) He has been a solid hand since the comeback, which ought to have been in NJPW, where he would have shined more.

It is possible a future generation pushes back against the ROH classics, just as fans of today look down upon or are not interested in ECW. It is possible his looks don't hold up.

He could have been Bruno, Backlund, and Hart (long term top straight babyface WWF World Champ) but with more of a flair, to use a pun. But he got hurt- more than a couple of times. In baseball, it would be the equivalent of saying Sandy Koufax was the best pitcher ever, but his career was cut short and he benefited by the 1960s pitcher's era and ballpark. 

However, as I know he will win this poll, I am reminded how fans would rank Dynamite Kid, Tiger Mask, Rick Steamboat as fighting for #1 in the 1980s (Wrestling Eye/Observer/etc.) with the implication being they were the greatest of all time due to innovation and workrate. 

Has Bryan inspired today's style/workrate? I know that his peers cite Shawn Michaels, AJ Styles, Steve Regal, lucha, and Japan. But some say they were self-taught and took from TV or even video games, in The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega's cases, specifically. I imagine some NXT guys must like his stuff if they watched ROH (although I recall many ROH names being mentioned in the same breath as Danielson in the 2000s.) If Bryan stayed with the indys until now, would he be rated like Chris Hero? Because I don't see a "Hero is the GWE" campaign. Is it based on his WWE run also? Was it that better than Brock, Cena, or Punk's? Are both runs needed?

Best of the modern era? Maybe...Does not AJ Styles have the better body of work? Best of all time? Hmm...I'd feel that any Top 100 which ranks him #1 is showing an era bias, as all lists do. That's why I prefer multiple lists based on country, gender, decade or eras, i.e. apples vs apples, not apples vs oranges.

[Kadaveri]

Of course Bryan's WWE run is part of his GWE case. He's had some of his greatest ever matches there and became the most universally over babyface since Steve Austin with not even half the booking advantages. It's only fair to rank Bryan higher for succeeding/adapting where Hero stagnated.

[Boss Rock]

2 hours ago, Kadaveri said:

It's only fair to rank Bryan higher for succeeding/adapting where Hero stagnated.

This. Not to say I think Ohno has been bad, he's been very good at times. But he's come nowhere near to the run he had in 2016. Bryan already has a case for best in-ring worker in WWE history.

[Boss Rock]

22 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

I'm surprised that a lot of people in this thread are going this way or throwing out an equal.

Before GWE I would've bet that Kobashi was going to end up higher than Misawa but he ended up 4 spots and a lot of points behind him. I haven't really thought about people revisiting All Japan since the GWE project so I was expecting more people voting for Misawa (who I still put ahead of Kobashi by some margin).

 

 

https://mangadex.org/chapter/682843/1

It's tough because both are my all-time favorites and they both encapsulate so much of what I love in wrestling: action, drama, escalation, and ambition. Their series is probably my favorite in-ring feud ever. I just give Kobashi the slightest of edges in offense, not necessarily because his looked better than Misawa's, but his ability to utilize so many moves and know when to use them is pretty outstanding. And when doing the GME project, Kobashi had the most matches of anyone that made my list (Misawa was second). 

But I can absolutely see the argument for Misawa.

[Herodes]

Bret Hart vs Ric Flair

Gotta go with Slick Ric the Ruler although not for any BIGLAV reasons whatsoever

Kazuchika Okada vs Toshiaki Kawada

Kawada and it’s not even close, I am solidly anti any of these New Japan geeks hate and any modern wrestler whose whose surname begins with O

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi

Misawa because I prefer 90s All Japan wrestlers to be miserable

 Bryan Danielson vs Jumbo Tsuruta

Jumbo because Danielson has spent his career in promotions and an era I could happily never watch. 1996 rule in full effect

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Akira Taue

Taue and it’s not even close, Tanahashi represents everything I hate about modern wrestling