Carl Greco vs. Kazuchika Okada

[DylanZero]

I mainly just made this thread to give Carl Greco a thread against someone pretty random, and lo and behold it turned out to be Okada. But actually think this could be fun as it's someone who is nearly the antithesis of him and what made him great and yet also is objectively far more popular. What say you, my friends?

[Childs]

For me, it's Greco, who's Volk Han-like in his hit percentage when you look at his whole career. He was a great athlete who actually used his athleticism to do interesting stuff every time he was in there. Meanwhile, I find Okada uninteresting even in a lot of his "great" matches. You can certainly make a volume case for him, and it's hard to deny his talent for laying out elaborate finishes that pop the crowd. But there's no question which guy I'd rather watch, even if it's an esoteric preference. 

[elliott]

I'm with Childs. I'd love to read an in-depth take by someone who is a big fan of both of them. I couldn't possibly make it. 

[Rah]

The issue with Okada is that he bookends his longer matches with cool stuff but the middle ground is so overwhelmingly boring. It's NJPW house-style and he probably learnt that from facing Tanahashi but, my god, I don't want to ever see another match go past 15 minutes. He's basically the Taco Bell of wrestlers - wildly popular but what you get is the drizzling shits.

[DylanZero]

1 hour ago, Rah said:

The issue with Okada is that he bookends his longer matches with cool stuff but the middle ground is so overwhelmingly boring. It's NJPW house-style and he probably learnt that from facing Tanahashi but, my god, I don't want to ever see another match go past 15 minutes. He's basically the Taco Bell of wrestlers - wildly popular but what you get is the drizzling shits.

I don't even think he bookends stuff, well. His opening match segments are completely worthless. His entire value is in essentially the last 10% of his matches and even then there's so much he does shitty. Just look at literally any of his submission work throughout his career or this recent rollup he's trying to implement which looks slow and sloppy and bad.

 

BUSHIROAD has put a crap ton of marketing behind him and pushed him for upwards of a decade but his hype has been exceeded over and over to the fans, even at his peak. Whether Tana, Omega, Naito, and just look at the reaction to Shingo winning the title a couple of weeks ago. He's more like McDonald's to me. Always positioned at the top and successful at what he does no doubt, but would anyone call McD's their absolute favorite place to eat?

 

Greco is an amazing worker and hopefully even people who don't know him give him a chance. 

[ohtani's jacket]

This is kind of a strange match-up for Greco, so it's against a main eventer and heavyweight champion, but Greco is one of my all-time favorite workers so I'm happy if it draws more attention to his name. 

[Rah]

1 hour ago, DylanZero said:

I don't even think he bookends stuff, well. His opening match segments are completely worthless. His entire value is in essentially the last 10% of his matches and even then there's so much he does shitty. Just look at literally any of his submission work throughout his career or this recent rollup he's trying to implement which looks slow and sloppy and bad.

I totally get you and agree with you on that point. I was a massive Okada apologist in the early stages of his push but I've soured quite quickly on him. I'm guessing a lot of that was more picking a camp because the general consensus on the forum I was on was that Okada couldn't lace Tanahashi's boots and it drove me insane. I still think that's insane, btw.

His execution is whatever, though it is strange that those who champion him have the same disdain for Cena's STF. I think he's one of the best at his particular style and goes a long way in making you forget the 30 minutes of drivel before the last 5 minutes of flash which is fascinating in and of itself. It's not a style I have any time for, though, and I can't bring myself to watching his epics with Omega for that reason. So I get Okada's case even if I wouldn't have him near a top 100.

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Greco is an amazing worker and hopefully even people who don't know him give him a chance. 

I wonder if he would have more online fans if he went by his real name, Carl Malenko. People have a deep fascination with Dean Malenko as the crème de la crème submission workrate guy of the 90s but he's so vastly inferior to brother Carl it's maddening.

[elliott]

23 minutes ago, Rah said:

I wonder if he would have more online fans if he went by his real name, Carl Malenko. People have a deep fascination with Dean Malenko as the crème de la crème submission workrate guy of the 90s but he's so vastly inferior to brother Carl it's maddening.

 

His real name is Carl Ognibene. He was trained by the Malenkos. Not related and much better than Dean or Joe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Malenko

[Makai Club #1]

It's an interesting comparison, I'll say that. Both have their strong points. I'm not sure I'll vote for Greco but just comparing him to Okada highlights his strengths. He's an animal when it comes to strikes and submission wrestling. If I'm watching Battlarts, he's more than likely to be in that match. And compared to Okada, offensively, he he way more convincing. Okada has iffy offence when he comes to strikes and submissions. Okada has a more predictable style, thanks to the New Japan in-house style. So if you like not knowing when the match will end, Greco is the better guy to go with.

But despite all of the that, Okada is the better of the two for me. For someone like myself who can be rather cynical when it come to certain wrestling tropes like kick outs, Okada is some one who can have me living and dying off the drama of his matches despite their similarities to many other matches of his. I've already mentioned his strikes as as a negative but that can be turned into a positive if you look at how he uses them. In matches against people like Katsuyori Shibata and Minoru Suzuki, that comes out tenfold despite the obvious gap in stiffness. Okada uses it as a way for his opponents to get the clear advantage while he stubbornly tries to prove his toughness. It's a compelling mini story that Okada has pretty much perfected (Both on TV and in a live crowd setting). I compare it to Suzuki vs Nagata, for example, doing the same elbow exchanges and almost always killing my interest despite their strikes being superior to Okada's. I don't think many people in this thread would agree with that though, as it's more of a personal feeling. 

At the end of the day, Okada through his wrestling makes me and plenty of people care about the match result. And you can maybe pick his matches apart, saying there can be a lot of dead spots, and you'll be right, but it doesn't bother me a whole lot ultimately. Each person has their own criteria.