2016 vs. 2006 at a glance

[JerryvonKramer]

I thought this might be a handy comparison chart for the top 25.

 

 

Key:

Blue:  Top 25 in 2006 and dropped out of it in 2016.

Gold: New entry into top 25 in 2016.

Yellow: Top 25 in both 2006 and 2016 but went UP in 2016.

Orange: Top 25 in both 2006 and 2016 but went DOWN in 2016.

 

One interesting question is if any of the blue names have a shot at re-entering in 2026. Or do any of the orange fallers have a shot at rising back up? I feel like Jumbo may have a shot at re-entering top 10 with the amount of AJPW footage that seems to be cropping back up. 

 

Another interesting question is who is the most vulnerable at dropping out of the top 25 this time. Of those names in yellow, it's hard to see any of them dropping out completely possibly with the exception of Vader. Apart from Bryan, I'd say *every* gold name is at risk, chiefly because I see reflected in those names particular pushes from prominent PWOers in 2016. Will pushed Lawler. Matt D pushed Bock. Ricky Jackson pushed Savage, etc. Quite easy to see Arn dropping back down to 30s if there are fewer 80s NWA fans, etc.

 

Also, just a fun bit of trivia: Taue finished at 26 in both 2006 and 2016.

[WingedEagle]

Thanks, fun to see this kind of movement and I'm certainly curious to see how it'll shake out in a few years.  Will be interesting to look at the next round of results and see what trends and footage drive rankings at that time.

[Jmare007]

From the 2016 poll I can see a lot of the 20-25 guys dropping from the top 25 with new names coming in (or coming back from 2006). My guesses would be Austin, Hashimoto,, Arn and Regal and even Barry could get dropped a few spots just of the strength of people watching other stuff.

I also think Joshi workers will be back strong after getting the shaft in 2016. Not sure why that happened? I remember not being much talk about them, their threads show that, but it would be interesting to know if it was a case of people from 2006 ranking them lower or just more people voting in 2016 and a majority of them not ranking them (at least to a point of not feeling confident on putting them in their ballots, I was one of those).

[Loss]

Given his body of work, Takada's drop was probably an overreaction, even if he was probably too high in 2006. I would like to see someone around here really make his case. A lot of the people who post about shoot style here don't really care for him.

[ohtani's jacket]

12 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

From the 2016 poll I can see a lot of the 20-25 guys dropping from the top 25 with new names coming in (or coming back from 2006). My guesses would be Austin, Hashimoto,, Arn and Regal and even Barry could get dropped a few spots just of the strength of people watching other stuff.

I also think Joshi workers will be back strong after getting the shaft in 2016. Not sure why that happened? I remember not being much talk about them, their threads show that, but it would be interesting to know if it was a case of people from 2006 ranking them lower or just more people voting in 2016 and a majority of them not ranking them (at least to a point of not feeling confident on putting them in their ballots, I was one of those).

Smarkschoice was very pro-Joshi. There was an entire forum devoted to Joshi and we wound up doing a separate list for women. I remember one poster working the forum by pretending to be Debbie Malenko. He told this great story about sneaking out of a birthday party to share a cigarette with Kyoko Inoue. Between '06 and '16, Joshi fandom became increasingly niche. The voters in 2016 weren't overly positive toward Joshi and there was no 80s set. It seems a lot of people are pro-women's wrestling these days. It looks like women in general will do better than in previous polls. 

[Kadaveri]

I think Joshi was better represented in 2006 partly because there were a lot of British voters and Joshi was bizarrely more accessable on UK TV in the mid-00s than WWE TV. The Wrestling Channel showed GAEA every week but Raw & Smackdown was on Sky Sports only and you have to pay specifically for those. People used to literally just stumble on it in a way that was near impossible in 2016.

2016 was probably the worst possible year for Joshi to run a poll as you're now 20 years after it was last in vogue in Western fandom, but right before Stardom started to get big and women got pushed as main-eventers in WWE (which has increased interest in women's wrestling in general).

[Alex]

4 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Smarkschoice was very pro-Joshi. There was an entire forum devoted to Joshi and we wound up doing a separate list for women. I remember one poster working the forum by pretending to be Debbie Malenko. He told this great story about sneaking out of a birthday party to share a cigarette with Kyoko Inoue. Between '06 and '16, Joshi fandom became increasingly niche. The voters in 2016 weren't overly positive toward Joshi and there was no 80s set. It seems a lot of people are pro-women's wrestling these days. It looks like women in general will do better than in previous polls. 

I miss the Joshi forum from Smarkschoice, I learned so much from that place.  That forum was a huge reason why I got into Joshi in the first place.  Sure there were the creepy posts once in a while, but it was overall super informative.  I know people make fun of Coey, but he was a big fan of joshi as well, and spider twist was a pretty good resource along with Lorefice.  It seems like Lorefice doesn't watch joshi as much as he used to, but still collects everything.

I wonder what has happened to wolverine, pantherwagner, Rob, and FLIK.  I know PUNQ is religiously watching every movie ever made.

Looking at that list, it surprises me that Yoshida wasn't in the top 25.  Seemed like everyone was a stan of hers.

Once AJW and GAEA closed up shop, Joshi got super niche super quick.  I never saw anyone post about Joshi on the regular boards except for the same 90's shit.  I kinda have to thank Ronda being such a huge star that the WWE wanted a piece of that action as well, and now the WWE has a real women's division that isn't used for bathroom breaks.  Stardom have done a good job of getting more westerners watching and keeping them after Shirai and Hojo have left.  

I sort of have 80s yearbooks in the works.  I have the footage, it's just extremely time consuming to put that stuff together.  I have no idea how Will did so many sets in such a small amount of time.  What a workhorse.

[Jetlag]

There has been quite a resurrgence of interest in joshi on social media, with wrestler like Satomura being signed to WWE and characters like Maki Ito attaining a decent following. Whether that increase in interest is due to the work being good or the idol factor is for the reader to decide.

[Makai Club #1]

It depends on the wrestler. Maki Itoh had the idol (anti idol, really) character to draw people in despite not being very good most of the time outside of a few carry jobs. But people like Mayu Iwatani, Miyu Yamashita and Takumi Iroha are genuinely good wrestlers. STARDOM to their credit has used foreign wrestlers, like Toni Storm, really well to draw in the western based fans who recognise the name and then keep and expand that audience with good wrestling even among the idol-y presentation.