2026 Ideas

[elliott]

 

16 minutes ago, Grimmas said:

Akira Hokuto says hello.

Jaguar Yokota debuted June 1977 at age 15, was the best in the world by 20 and had already trained some of the greatest generation of wrestlers by 25. 

[Matt D]

Re: Jumbo,

I'm most of the way through watching every AJPW match we have from 89 now and I've done conscious sweeps backwards to give me the context I needed for it and Jumbo will certainly rank on my list. I say that without giving a real look to 90 and 91 as well. I don't know if he breaks into the top ten because of stylistic reasons. I do feel like I've fully cracked the narrative structure of 89 AJPW tags, to the point where I could make a flow chart that would cover and categorize almost all of them. So I get how they work. But it's not my preferred sort of pro wrestling storytelling and that'll probably hurt Jumbo for me.

For what it's worth, I absolutely loved 10/11/89, more so than 5/7/89.

[El-P]

I watched all that stuff almost 20 years ago. AJ TV from 89 is so much fun. 90, a little bit less so (NJPW TV in 90 was more fun, again, strictly from memory).

Jumbo is a guy I've watched so much that I have no idea if I want to revisit some of his stuff. I voted him n°1 last time. I won't vote for my n°1 from memory, no chance of this happening. So either I rewatch some Jumbo (which I may), either he'll probably drop (well, he can't go higher) a bit because I simply won't watch him this time around (shit happens).

[Quentin]

I didn’t do all the digging I could on Jumbo when I turned in a ballot last time (I only jumped in during the fall of 2015 for GWE), but in the 5 years since then, he’s skyrocketed for me from being a middle of the pack guy on my last ballot to being a top 10 lock. I know more contemporary guys will probably get more thought now and deeper looks than in 2016 ie the Danielson’s and Hero’s of the world, even a Tanahashi. But I hope that by 2026, Jumbo doesn’t fall even further, just because analyzing him isn’t cool anymore 20 years after finishing number 1 in 2006. But maybe such a thing is kind of unavoidable.

[El Dragon]

6 hours ago, El-P said:

One paradoxal thing that will play against most current workers (apart from the WWE guys because it's being watched by default by most) is that there is actually too much footage. For instance there are so many great, great Tomohiro Ishii matches in the last ten years that it makes it just daunting to ever get into this guy's case. Only watching the last 4 or 5 G1 Climax, this guy should be in everyone's Top 20 already or something. But since he doesn't belong into the old "canon" because he's a current talent and since there's "too much" stuff, all that will play against him in the end I believe. Whereas anyone can watch the handful of Lou Thesz matches available and go "Yeah, he was awesome".

I get your argument, but I think the main thing the footage actually hurts is that we have tons of evidence to point the soft spots around a worker. Ishii is guy who if you just add up “most 4 star matches” on some people’s scales would finish super highly: but that’s not how I evaluate wrestling, even if I did view most of those matches in the 4 star range (and I don’t). One of the main things that will always elevate a wrestler to me is versatility. And to be quite blunt, I don’t find him a versatile performer, and I know exactly what to expect from him in most of his matches tends to take away all the “specialness” others tend to get from his matches. Ishii probably has 20 times as many 4 star matches as Willian Regal, for instance, but in no way do I buy him as an actual better wrestler.

[Jmare007]

6 hours ago, El-P said:

One paradoxal thing that will play against most current workers (apart from the WWE guys because it's being watched by default by most) is that there is actually too much footage. For instance there are so many great, great Tomohiro Ishii matches in the last ten years that it makes it just daunting to ever get into this guy's case. Only watching the last 4 or 5 G1 Climax, this guy should be in everyone's Top 20 already or something. But since he doesn't belong into the old "canon" because he's a current talent and since there's "too much" stuff, all that will play against him in the end I believe. Whereas anyone can watch the handful of Lou Thesz matches available and go "Yeah, he was awesome".

I totally fell into the current worker (negative) bias for the 2016 project. I'm curious if that's still gonna be the case. There's gonna be 10 more years of footage for a lot of people that I was on the fence on. Last time I think I put AJ, Bryan, Cena, Tanahashi and Sekimoto, can't even remember if a rated Okada.

Ishii has a great case to be top 50 at least in my book. He's one of my biggest regrets from my GWE top 100. He honestly could've been there just on the strength of his Wataru Inoue feud in 2009 but for some reason I just didn't put him there. And at this point his case is even stronger with too much incredible shit with too many different people not be there again.

[concrete1992]

Yuji Okabayashi top 50 wrestler ever. Don't know why his body hates him, a discussion with god I suppose.

[Clayton Jones]

Jumbo is top 5 on my rough draft, and I didn't vote last time. I expect the ballot I submit in 5 years to look very different, but yeah he's among 8 or so guys I think are legit GOAT candidates. Conversely I agree that modern wrestlers are almost handicapped by the amount of footage available (not that there's any lack of Jumbo) and I'm going to try to strike a balance between the way I judge wrestlers I wish we had more from and everyone I could never possibly watch even a quarter of the careers of. I'm going to strongly consider a guy like Ishii as well as younger yet like Gulak, Busick, Strickland. None are on my ballot currently but they're all on my "under consideration" list.

[Jmare007]

6 minutes ago, concrete1992 said:

Yuji Okabayashi top 50 wrestler ever. Don't know why his body hates him, a discussion with god I suppose.

Oh, no doubt. We only had 5 years worth of Yuji last time. Now we gonna have like 12 (not counting the injury years, of course). He's a lock in my new list unless my tastes change completely by 2026.

[Jmare007]

I'm more curious on were the hell I'm gonna rate Hashimoto. Last time I put him 9 and he may not even crack top 25 this time around. And I fucking love Hash.

[El-P]

50 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

 Ishii is guy who if you just add up “most 4 star matches” on some people’s scales would finish super highly: but that’s not how I evaluate wrestling, even if I did view most of those matches in the 4 star range (and I don’t). 

I don't care about star ratings. I don't do them, I couldn't care less about anyone else's star ratings. I can take last year's G1 matches only and consider this guy as one of the greatest pro-wrestler ever. Ishii is like you put Animal Hamaguchi, Kawada & Tenryu in a blender, and here comes Ishii. 

35 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

Ishii has a great case to be top 50 at least in my book. He's one of my biggest regrets from my GWE top 100. He honestly could've been there just on the strength of his Wataru Inoue feud in 2009 but for some reason I just didn't put him there. And at this point his case is even stronger with too much incredible shit with too many different people not be there again.

That too. That guy's career arc is legit insane.

I mean, my list is gonna have Okada, Tanahashi, Omega, Naito, Ishii end up pretty fucking high by the standards of today already. Not to mention Ibushi, White, Ospreay... That crew is gonna get their due.

Honestly I don't expect anything nor hope for anything as far as the end result goes, because that's exactly what would make this whole thing a headache. I'm not gonna try to influence anyone either, because it's just kinda annoying to try and force your tastes on others, which is also why I'll refrain to post anything negative about workers I don't care for. I mean, am I gonna waste my time *again* explaining why Jerry Lawler is overrated as fuck (really good though, but that won't get you near my list) ? Nope. Just gonna show love to my favorites and react positively to shared interests. 

[JerryvonKramer]

5 hours ago, Matt D said:

Re: Jumbo,

I'm most of the way through watching every AJPW match we have from 89 now and I've done conscious sweeps backwards to give me the context I needed for it and Jumbo will certainly rank on my list. I say that without giving a real look to 90 and 91 as well. I don't know if he breaks into the top ten because of stylistic reasons. I do feel like I've fully cracked the narrative structure of 89 AJPW tags, to the point where I could make a flow chart that would cover and categorize almost all of them. So I get how they work. But it's not my preferred sort of pro wrestling storytelling and that'll probably hurt Jumbo for me.

For what it's worth, I absolutely loved 10/11/89, more so than 5/7/89.

 

A part of Jumbo's case for me -- which seems overlooked in general -- is the fact he came in pretty much from his debut as Baba's #2 and has a metric ton of amazing matches in the 1970s working a completely different style  from the sped-up post-Choshu Texan slobber-knocker King's Road style for which he's generally known in that late 80s, early 90s period.

 

And yet WITHIN that 70s Japanese style with its 45-minute tag matches and extended mat sequences, Jumbo is still a very American-style worker from the off, and works many more suplex variations than the style generally allowed for at the time. I think he used all of the Funks' suplexes, all of Billy Robinson's, the back backdrop suplex I'm not sure if he innovated. And somehow did all this while never overshadowing the clear stars of the territory in that period Baba and the Funks.

 

I noticed Jumbo finished as number 1 in the 2006 GWE poll and I'm wondering if that is because there were a lot of voters back then who had deep-dived 70s AJPW? Anyone know?

 

To me, Jumbo's case has to rest on the fact that he somehow managed to remain awesome across three distinct periods, the Baba-led 70s promotion, the period where he was transitioned to being ace in the early 80s -- which is a bit more NWA-style in a way, for some reason -- and then the amazing late 80s into early 90s streak when he becomes the grumpy badass everyone loves. I feel like many might be tempted to discount the earlier stuff, but for my money AJPW was the premier wrestling promotion in the world from about 1973 to 1983 -- anyone who was anyone worked there, every style, every type of worker, and Jumbo worked them all right at their peaks. In many ways that era of AJPW could be seen as "the champion's league" of wrestling. 

 

I may also spend more time championing Baba, who should be the "ultimate Matt D worker" -- where did you rank him last time Matt? I can't seem to find my actual submission, and unless Grimmas still has it, we may have to consider it lost.

[ohtani's jacket]

9 hours ago, El-P said:

One paradoxal thing that will play against most current workers (apart from the WWE guys because it's being watched by default by most) is that there is actually too much footage. For instance there are so many great, great Tomohiro Ishii matches in the last ten years that it makes it just daunting to ever get into this guy's case. Only watching the last 4 or 5 G1 Climax, this guy should be in everyone's Top 20 already or something. But since he doesn't belong into the old "canon" because he's a current talent and since there's "too much" stuff, all that will play against him in the end I believe. Whereas anyone can watch the handful of Lou Thesz matches available and go "Yeah, he was awesome".

Well, every Thesz match that is uncovered is a big deal regardless of how good the match is because of the scarcity of footage whereas the impact of Ishii having so many 4 star matches is diluted by how many high rated matches New Japan has in general. Personally, I don't have a problem with someone pushing Ishii as a candidate. That's something I'd expect. But I think you really need to tell folks, "Here are his five best matches, go check them out" instead of raving about how much stuff he's done. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what the best Ishii match is. You need to lay it out for folks the way Jimmy did with Cena and Rey Mysterio Jr during the last poll. At the end of the day, people are still going to compare their impression of Ishii to their impression of Thesz. I'm not if volume of matches will sway folks one way or the other. I would actually kind of dig a list that Thesz and Ishii on it. That would be cool. 

I really hope Jumbo doesn't finish number one, or Flair, or Funk, or any of those boring choices. 

[Shrike02]

3 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, every Thesz match that is uncovered is a big deal regardless of how good the match is because of the scarcity of footage whereas the impact of Ishii having so many 4 star matches is diluted by how many high rated matches New Japan has in general. Personally, I don't have a problem with someone pushing Ishii as a candidate. That's something I'd expect. But I think you really need to tell folks, "Here are his five best matches, go check them out" instead of raving about how much stuff he's done. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what the best Ishii match is. You need to lay it out for folks the way Jimmy did with Cena and Rey Mysterio Jr during the last poll. At the end of the day, people are still going to compare their impression of Ishii to their impression of Thesz. I'm not if volume of matches will sway folks one way or the other. I would actually kind of dig a list that Thesz and Ishii on it. That would be cool. 

I really hope Jumbo doesn't finish number one, or Flair, or Funk, or any of those boring choices. 

I'm with you all the way until this last sentence. It's out on an island and disconnected to the paragraph above it. (And yes, whilst I would presumably have Jumbo at 1 and Funk in my top 5, that's beside the point I am trying to make.)

[El-P]

Jumbo in 2006 was a done deal. The awesome stuff over three decades with so many different kind of opponents from the old NWA US style (the Funks) to the more modern Race/Flair/Steamboat generation, to having his ass kicked by Choshu & Yatsu and having to adapt, then kickstarting the next evolution with Tenryu who had adapted quickly to the faster pace to Grumpy Jumbo mentoring the Four Pillars and making Misawa. The case was closed by the mid 00's, Jumbo was *our* guy at Smarckchoice. 

12 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, every Thesz match that is uncovered is a big deal regardless of how good the match is because of the scarcity of footage whereas the impact of Ishii having so many 4 star matches is diluted by how many high rated matches New Japan has in general.

That's pretty much what I said about how having less footage can actually be an advantage over having too much footage.  

12 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

But I think you really need to tell folks, "Here are his five best matches, go check them out" instead of raving about how much stuff he's done. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what the best Ishii match is.

Me neither. But of course, when times come, I surely will do that if I'm not too lazy and just post +1 under whomever puts the work in.  But like you said, it's much easier when there aren't that much great stuff, although at some point having "that much great stuff" has to constitute a de facto argument (for whomever agrees that the output is actually great).

12 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I really hope Jumbo doesn't finish number one, or Flair, or Funk, or any of those boring choices. 

Daniel Bryan is gonna win in 2026. You heard it here first. You can quote me.

(and my list will most probably have Thesz and Ishii on it)

[ohtani's jacket]

17 minutes ago, JerryvonKramer said:

I noticed Jumbo finished as number 1 in the 2006 GWE poll and I'm wondering if that is because there were a lot of voters back then who had deep-dived 70s AJPW? Anyone know?

I can't speak for anyone else, but the way I remember it was that after Jumbo died there was a renewed interest in his work, particularly among my generation who had come to All Japan late (around '99 or so.) I don't remember the timeline precisely but there were some Memorial tapes released and people began sharing the Classics footage. I remember Dean reviewing Jumbo vs. Harley in DVDVR, for sure. jdw had written his pimping post and there were people going through the TV based on his advice. Jewett had also made a Tenryu vs. Jumbo comp covering their '88-90 matches. So basically there were people watching Jumbo matches from all eras and a lot of us discovering his work for the first time. My recollection is that it leaned strongly towards his 70s and 90s work, but I could be wrong. In any event, people were watching Jumbo. 

[ohtani's jacket]

13 minutes ago, El-P said:

Daniel Bryan is gonna win in 2026. You heard it here first. You can quote me.

There should be a rule where you vote in reverse, so Bryan is your #100 and Porkchop Cash is your #1. I would freaking love that. 

[elliott]

El-P is right. Bryan will win this year. Probably 2036 as well. 

OJ, who are some of the people you're considering for #1?

[El-P]

11 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Jewett had also made a Tenryu vs. Jumbo comp covering their '88-90 matches. So basically there were people watching Jumbo matches from all eras and a lot of us discovering his work for the first time. My recollection is that it leaned strongly towards his 70s and 90s work, but I could be wrong. In any event, people were watching Jumbo. 

Yeah that Jewett tape with the Tenryu matches was all over, a best seller. One of the first tapes I got in the late 90's.

And yes, I remember the same way about the pimping being focused on the 70 & 90's (Tenryu being clearly considered as 90's work here).

[elliott]

6 minutes ago, El-P said:

Yeah that Jewett tape with the Tenryu matches was all over, a best seller. One of the first tapes I got in the late 90's.

And yes, I remember the same way about the pimping being focused on the 70 & 90's (Tenryu being clearly considered as 90's work here).

 

Hahaha same.

[ohtani's jacket]

15 minutes ago, elliott said:

El-P is right. Bryan will win this year. Probably 2036 as well. 

OJ, who are some of the people you're considering for #1?

In 2006, I voted for Jaguar Yokota. I abstained last time round but it probably would have come down to Satanico, Fujiwara or Jim Breaks. If you asked me today, I would lean towards a more historical candidate like Thesz or Londos. When the results came out last time, I realized I had seen very little older footage so I devoted a lot of time to watching 30s-50s footage. But to move a bunch of those guys onto the list, I'd have to take a bunch of guys off. I like the idea of a list that grows and changes depending on viewing habits. I see it more as a personal statement than a carefully considered, well-reasoned ballot. 

[Matt D]

3 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

In 2006, I voted for Jaguar Yokota. I abstained last time round but it probably would have come down to Satanico, Fujiwara or Jim Breaks. If you asked me today, I would lean towards a more historical candidate like Thesz or Londos. When the results came out last time, I realized I had seen very little older footage so I devoted a lot of time to watching 30s-50s footage. But to move a bunch of those guys onto the list, I'd have to take a bunch of guys off. I like the idea of a list that grows and changes depending on viewing habits. I see it more as a personal statement than a carefully considered, well-reasoned ballot. 

Did anyone see the good performance Satanico supposedly had this week in his 70s?

1 hour ago, JerryvonKramer said:

I may also spend more time championing Baba, who should be the "ultimate Matt D worker" -- where did you rank him last time Matt?

I didn't feel qualified to vote for Japanese candidates in 2016. As it is, if I add in joshi, French Catch, shootstyle, 70s-90s AJPW and NJPW, and whatever else I can make work in 5 years, I am going to have to kill so many darlings off my 2016 list through no fault of their own.

[elliott]

3 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

In 2006, I voted for Jaguar Yokota. I abstained last time round but it probably would have come down to Satanico, Fujiwara or Jim Breaks. If you asked me today, I would lean towards a more historical candidate like Thesz or Londos. When the results came out last time, I realized I had seen very little older footage so I devoted a lot of time to watching 30s-50s footage. But to move a bunch of those guys onto the list, I'd have to take a bunch of guys off. I like the idea of a list that grows and changes depending on viewing habits. I see it more as a personal statement than a carefully considered, well-reasoned ballot. 

I agree. 

And...

OOoooh there's enough Londos????? Please walk through the Londos case at some point during the project! No need to get into details now, we have time. I've always been really interested when reading about him as a historical figure. I really love the Bronko match. So that is an exciting name to see! 

Jaguar is someone who will be in my top 10 still. Its funny with the Jumbo talk happening. When I watch Jaguar Yokota is really blows up the idea that Jumbo was a best in the world contender until later in his career.  Watch Jaguar and Jumbo side by side and its clear who's operating at a completely different level. 

[Shrike02]

7 minutes ago, elliott said:

Jaguar is someone who will be in my top 10 still. Its funny with the Jumbo talk happening. When I watch Jaguar Yokota is really blows up the idea that Jumbo was a best in the world contender until later in his career.  Watch Jaguar and Jumbo side by side and its clear who's operating at a completely different level. 

I would never pretend to have much knowledge of joshi but this dismissive take on Jumbo is pretty absurd in my view. I'd say Jumbo was great from when he started all the way to 1992. Not many wrestlers have a comparable career with both peak and longevity.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm glad Satanico is still active. I was kind of bummed to find out about Tenryu's health problems.