Randy Savage vs Riki Choshu

[Loss]

Felt like a good comparison. Larger-than-life explosive wrestlers of the 80s who evolved into more establishment figures in the 90s.

[elliott]

I think this is a great comp. I went with Savage because I think he's more versatile. Savage has the ability to come across like the most dangerous person in the building, but he can also pull off bumping stooging heel really well. Choshu is amazing at being Riki Choshu, but I think Savage's more fluid character lends itself to more variety within the matches of his peak run. Choshu is pretty much always Choshu (which is a good & awesome thing hahaha).  

Another thing, I think I'd trust Savage more in a 20+ minute singles match where I think an ideal Choshu singles match needs to be around 15minutes. However, Savage has way more booking tools and leeway with what he can do in his matches that go 20+ minutes than Choshu would have just based on the style. I do think they're both probably at their best working 10-18 minute matches. 

Choshu smokes Savage as a tag wrestler. I love Savage in tag matches. He's an AWESOME apron worker. But Choshu...Choshu's one of the great tag workers of his generation in my opinion. But its really Savage's variety that pushes him ahead. 

If we were just doing "favorites" these two are absolutely up there for me. 

[Boss Rock]

Savage has him beat in versatility and elevating lesser workers, but I think Choshu's peaks and volume are greater. Also a better tag worker as stated above. Gimme Choshu.

[elliott]

I love that these guys are tied after 10 votes. Feels right. 

[DylanZero]

At first look I kind of seemed like it would be an easy vote for Choshu but there's A LOT of quality work with Savage in a much greater variety of situations. What Elliott said about him having more in his back pocket of booking tools can be a blessing or sometimes a curse, particularly in the context of a who is the better in-ring performer contest like this, and he almost always made it a blessing.

 

That said, I think the tag work for Choshu puts it over the top, he just had too many great matches and not to mention how great he was jumping from NJPW to AJPW and bringing the hotness from a promotion that wasn't at it's peak. I went with him.

 

This was a good matchup though, both of these guys are just fun and awesome. 

[Tetsujin]

This one is hella interesting to me, for two things. First, I've never realized how similar aura they both have, totally feel like megastars when making their entrances to the ring, and both have great attitudes while wrestling that retains that aura. Second, I'm not near as high as everybody with these two. I'll vote for them, sure, but they're near the bottom of my list right now. To me, they're both lacking from volume, at least compared to other contenders, and their average match use to be fun, but not necessarily very good.

I'll go with Choshu because he definitely has a higher cieling than Savage: some of the Fujinami matches, some of the Gauntlets and Elimination tags, the 84 Inoki match, the 85 Tenryu match, the 1/28/86 tag,  the 87 Fujiwara match, the Hashimoto series... The only true MOTYC I can think from Savage is the GAB 95 Flair brawl. I don't like the Steamboat match, and the Warrior carryjob is great but not a damn all-timer like some would say, and other famous matches (more with Steamboat, the Tito Santana matches, SNME with Bret, WM VIII with Flair, etc) rank from good to very good for me, but not great or elite stuff, sorry.

[GOTNW]

To make this fair we need to bring about 50 japanese salarymen whose favourite wrestler growing up was Choshu to the board

Savage has to be the most "I don't get it" US wrestler to me. Meaning, for example I'm not gonna sing swan songs about Flair, but it's clear the man has a very strong GOAT case if you like the style he does. Reading through Savage's thread, most of the focus there is on the emotional connection, charisma, favouritism etc. I feel like out of famous North American wrestlers I have the worst sense of what his "case" is, whereas I have a pretty good feel of what they are for Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Lawler, Austin, Hogan, Terry Funk, Golden Age workers, whomever. I know I've seen some of his pimped WWF matches, but that had to have been about 10 years ago, and I am not *that* old...yet. I remember enjoying his matches vs Warrior and Steamboat. Would anyone care to make an argument for him that wasn't so much character based? Is there even a point? If he was a Wahoo McDaniel/Johnny Valentine type I'd probably feel a catharsis and just agree with the praise of his aura, but I don't really care for his gimmick.