Who Is Better?

[Childs]

Here's a question -- has there ever been a better Japanese pro-wrestler than Fujiwara?

Not many... Yoshiaki Fujiwara is one of the 10 greatest Japanese pro wrestlers ever, in my opinion. I can think of only 9 who have possibly been better... Jushin Liger, Akira Hokuto, Jaguar Yokota, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Jumbo Tsuruta, Hiroshi Hase, Genichiro Tenryu, and Kenta Kobashi.

 

Hase? Over Fujinami, Choshu, Maeda, Hashimoto? I just can't see ranking him with the rest of that group, so I'm curious why you like him so much. He was athletic, a strong tag worker and a willing blader, but he rarely added that extra special something to a big match.

 

Anyway, Fujiwara definitely belongs in the top group, though I can't definitively say he was the best. He was better than anyone at making midcard matches stand out through intensity, expressiveness and thoughtful strategic work. He had fewer opportunities to work on top than most of the others listed so that's where the comparison becomes tough.

 

Santo or Casas?

 

I'm no lucha expert, but Casas has always seemed more versatile and more adept at infusing his character into a match. Santo is the more beautiful wrestler. I guess I'd lean to Casas.

 

Windham or Arn?

 

Arn had a remarkable ability to switch from clown to badass in the same match. Not many guys match him in that capacity. Dick Murdoch and Andre the Giant come to mind. But I never cared as much about Arn as I did about Windham, who had me hanging on every moment of his babyface challenges to Flair in '87, then became totally believable as the surly big man in the Horsemen. Windham really had two peaks -- '86 to '89 and '91 to '93. As good as Arn was, does his peak add up to much more than that?

 

Jones or Dynamite?

 

Jones in a walk. I've enjoyed almost every Marty Jones match I've seen. Everything he did looked good. Dynamite was certainly more influential but also actively bad in a lot of matches. From indifferent matwork to nonsensical stringing of spots to rampant no-selling, his wrestling sins were many. Did his daring and athletic ability make up for it? Well, obviously so for fans in the early '80s. But his work (and I've watched a fuckload of it in the last year) hasn't worn well.

[Guest Kenta Batista]

One last thing about Steamboat and then I'll drop it :

 

 

If it had not been for Steamboat's booker/buddy/pal/friend George Scott, the Dragon would have been no more than a high spot mid carder. His interviews sucked and he "oversold" everything in the ring as if he was being tortured by Charlie Cong at the Hanoi Hilton. Scott took care of him and Saggy Boy Flair for many a year in the Carolinas. Scott moved to the WWF as the booker taking Steamboat and PiperNutz, another one of Scott's asshole buddies. Scott cleaned out the Carolina territory and brought the talent to the WWF to start the big run. Flair stayed behind to fill his ego of NWA Champion. He knew he could not be the WWF Champion and did not want to play second fiddle behind Hogan and a roster full of main event players. If Steamboat thinks he was superior to anyone he need look no further than his WCW days. Was the magic there? No. Why? There was no George Scott, just as there was no George Scott when Steamboat had to drop the IC belt to someone in WWF. I heard that in WCW Bischoff said, "This guy sucks," while referring to a Steamboat interview at a taping in Orlando. I know, Dragon, you had a bad back. That is why you could not cut it in WCW and had to go home again to snuggle up.

[Frankensteiner]

Steamboat was a very good face wrestler. Great at selling, good mat worker, and really crisp in executing moves. On the other hand, his strikes could look weak and "fired up" Steamboat often seemed more corny than intense. There's a number of guys I'd rather watch, but I can't deny Steamboat was a great wrestler with a larger body of great matches.

[ohtani's jacket]

Uh, Steamboat was constantly one of the top workers in WCW.

[Loss]

One last thing about Steamboat and then I'll drop it :

 

 

If it had not been for Steamboat's booker/buddy/pal/friend George Scott, the Dragon would have been no more than a high spot mid carder. His interviews sucked and he "oversold" everything in the ring as if he was being tortured by Charlie Cong at the Hanoi Hilton. Scott took care of him and Saggy Boy Flair for many a year in the Carolinas. Scott moved to the WWF as the booker taking Steamboat and PiperNutz, another one of Scott's asshole buddies. Scott cleaned out the Carolina territory and brought the talent to the WWF to start the big run. Flair stayed behind to fill his ego of NWA Champion. He knew he could not be the WWF Champion and did not want to play second fiddle behind Hogan and a roster full of main event players. If Steamboat thinks he was superior to anyone he need look no further than his WCW days. Was the magic there? No. Why? There was no George Scott, just as there was no George Scott when Steamboat had to drop the IC belt to someone in WWF. I heard that in WCW Bischoff said, "This guy sucks," while referring to a Steamboat interview at a taping in Orlando. I know, Dragon, you had a bad back. That is why you could not cut it in WCW and had to go home again to snuggle up.

 

In the future, when you quote the Honky Tonk Man, make sure you cite him.

[ohtani's jacket]

Did The Honky Tonk Man actually say that?

[Loss]

Yes. It was a commentary from his website a few years ago.

[El-P]

That's right. Remember what happened to TAKA Michinoku when he went to WWF? He learned that hard and good in-ring work is not necessary. He was never the same after that.

What a tragedy that was. TAKA was one of the 10 best wrestlers in the world in 96. The WWF killed his work ethics and will to have great matches. The WWF killed the work ethics and ability out of a whole lot of workers. It's been apparent in every era of the promotion.

[stunning_grover]

Here's a question -- has there ever been a better Japanese pro-wrestler than Fujiwara?

Not many... Yoshiaki Fujiwara is one of the 10 greatest Japanese pro wrestlers ever, in my opinion. I can think of only 9 who have possibly been better... Jushin Liger, Akira Hokuto, Jaguar Yokota, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Jumbo Tsuruta, Hiroshi Hase, Genichiro Tenryu, and Kenta Kobashi.

 

Hase? Over Fujinami, Choshu, Maeda, Hashimoto? I just can't see ranking him with the rest of that group, so I'm curious why you like him so much. He was athletic, a strong tag worker and a willing blader, but he rarely added that extra special something to a big match.

I'm especially a fan of his late 1980s work in the New Japan junior heavyweight division. And when he moved to the New Japan heavyweight division, he was also showing great work. But maybe I'm overrating Hase and maybe you're right about that he shouldn't be in a top 10 greatest Japanese wrestlers ever list.

 

That makes me start to wonder the following...

 

Hiroshi Hase or Riki Choshu... who was better?

[tomk]

Choshu

[Resident Evil]

Hase

[Childs]

I currently lack objectivity about Choshu, who is my favorite NJ wrestler from the '80s. I don't think he was the best. Fujinami was more versatile. Fujiwara was a better seller and grappler. But Choshu was a STAR. He just had a way of elevating matches, whether with gestures or well-timed explosions of offense. He didn't waste time with a lot of bullshit. Everything he did made sense and looked good. He was there to fight every moment he was in the ring. His style connected so well with the audience that he changed main event wrestling in Japan.

 

I like Hase, who had some really nifty offense and allowed guys like Vader and Hash to maul him if that's what the match needed. But he didn't have that kind of consistent impact on matches. He was in plenty of stuff that left me cold.

[goodhelmet]

Yeah, Choshu is one of those guys, after watching a ton of 80s New Japan and All Japan, who people will talk about as one of the best when those sets are finished.

[Phil Schneider]

Let me third the comments by NJ 80's set brethren. I haven't watched 90's Choshu or Hase in a while, but in the 80's it isn't even close. Choshu is a huge star in epic, amazing matches, Hase is the fourth best junior in the late 80s. It would be like comparing Ric Flair to Chris Champion.

[El-P]

Ok folks,

 

Hulk Hogan or Dusty Rhodes ?

 

Steven Regal or Fit Finlay ?

 

Marty Jannetty or Davey Boy Smith ?

 

Atsushi Onita or Mick Foley ?

 

Mima Shimoda or Takako Inoue ?

[Dylan Waco]

Hulk Hogan or Dusty Rhodes ?

 

This is a lot closer than it looks at first glance. I've grown to really appreciate Hogan over the last couple of years even if he doesn't have a ton of great matches. What Hogan does have is lots of memorable matches, "better than it should have been" matches, and really fun matches. Hogan has a rep of having a lot of stink bombs, but to be honest I don't know where they are. He was never going to carry a slug to anything special, but if you give him some one who is willing to bump for him, he's smart enough to work a compelling match with the tools he has. For a guy that has a rep of "sucking" he has a remarkably broad range of good matches going back to his bouts v. Dibase and Backlund in 79/80, through the AWA stuff with Bock, into the initial Hulkomania run v. Funk, Race, Piper, et. and even through to the NWO era and beyond. I'm also a mark for Hulk's occasional matwork schtick which always looks good and suggests that he is fundamentally sound in ways he doesn't get credit for often.

 

Dusty on the other hand has a very impressive ability to make otherwise unimpressive bouts look incredible by virtue of his natural charisma. Hogan had boatload of charisma, but I don't think that this ever really helped make any of his matches feel like transcedent epics, with the exception of his bouts with Warrior and The Rock at Mania. Dusty had that quality and it was on display all the time. Even WAY past his prime Dusty was able to do this in the Studd Stable feud in 94 and to a lesser extent in his feud with Corino in ECW. I'm not saying these matches are great (well the Studd Stable matches are) but they FEEL great at times in spite of their flaws. Dusty was also a tremendous natural athlete for such a slobbish guy. Not Buddy Rose level there, but Dusty working in his dropkicks and rope running spots thirty minutes into matches with Flair is something that never ceases to amaze. Another plus is him having the only decent Billy Graham matches I've ever seen, though that could be Dusty's "it factor" fooling me again.

 

All in all I think I like Dusty a hair better, because his matches feel like struggles and not fun one sided beatdowns. Still Hogan is better than people give him credit for.

 

Steven Regal or Fit Finlay ?

 

I *think* Finlay is better.

 

Regal has some very strong, forgotten matches and is fundamentally tremendous. Finlay is very similar in that regard obviously, but I think he's a guy that is really capable of making terrible people look good. I'm not saying Regal can't do that, but I really don't see Regal as a guy that could convince me Bobby Lashley might have an upside. Still both guys are pretty great no matter where you plug them in on the roster. Actually now that I think about it, I think Finlay is a better tag worker too, though when I saw them work each other here a while back, Regal was tremendous stalling and jawjacking with the crowd.

 

So close, and I really wouldn't argue the point much, but again Finlay by a hair.

 

Marty Jannetty or Davey Boy Smith ?

 

Damn this is another really close one in theory as if you look at raw production on paper I think they are pretty even. Still if you adjust for booking advantages, who had the chances and consistency, I think you have to go with Jannetty.

 

DBS has a rep of being the best suitcase around, in the sense that a good worker could almost always carry him and get the most out of his skills, but I think DBS held up his own end more often than not. The Bret SS 92 match is the exception really. I think the best thing about Davey was that he was a very versatile guy. You could buy him working mat exchanges with Owen (underrated match) or Regal (overrated match), you could buy him working as a powerhouse jock, you could buy him as something of a junioresque guy against the right opponents and you could buy him as a meathead brawler on occasion. This allowed him to be the ultimate "plug in" guy which is part of the reason I think he has the rep he has. His best single matches are better than Jannetty's best single matches and DBS performance in them was always good with that notable exception.

 

But Jannetty got fewer chances, and yet he ALWAYS looked good. I thought The Rockers smoked the Bulldogs as a tag team and if Jannetty was the lesser worker a la Bulldog (and I don't think Jannetty was) he was a considerably better "weak link" in that setting. Just a very good, hot babyface, great at taking bumps and illiciting sympathy and tremendous at timing offensive comebacks and making creative double team offense look effective and not hokey. I've always thought one of the reasons Jannetty always gets brought back is because you can throw him in there with anyone and have a good match. I really can't recall a bad Jannetty match. His makeshift tandems in later years were almost as good as The Rockers and a lot of that had to do with Marty (he was also a GREAT apron working tag partner). Though he isn't known as a singles guy it's notable that he had one of the last good Angle matches in the WWE and he got a miracle match out of the overrated Al Snow in SMW. If Jannetty hadn't been such an addict he could have been Ricky Morton 2.0.

 

Atsushi Onita or Mick Foley ?

 

Foley.

 

I like Onita a great deal and regard him as similar to Dusty in his ability to make less than great things seem tremendous because of his raw charisma. But Foley was a workhorse and up until very recently a remarkably talented worker. I'm not going to try and sell Foley as the be all and end all, but after watching tons of WCW he was a guy that was always working hard to make matches entertaining even back then. Sort of Flair like in that he had a standard match, standard bumps that he was going to get to, and not a whole lot of offense, but what he did he did well and he mixed things up far more than he is given credit for. His work against guys like Van Hammer, Nasty Boys, Paul Orndorff, Sting, Dustin Rhodes and Vader was very similar on the surface, but when you dig deeper every match has a different emphasis and theme and Foley is almost always the better guy in those matches. Even as late as his 04/06 appearances he was still adding more than he was taking away to the matches he was involved with, which is more than most post-"retirement" wrestlers can say.

 

Mima Shimoda or Takako Inoue ?

 

Aside from Nakano v. Kong in the Cage and Thunderqueen I haven't watched any Joshi in a long, long time, though I'm inclined to favor Shimoda without thinking to deeply about it.

[Jingus]

Hogan has a rep of having a lot of stink bombs, but to be honest I don't know where they are.

I would dispute this. Hogan had plenty of fucking terrible matches, especially in his WCW run. Were you the guy who claimed that the Rodman/Malone debacle was actually a great match?

 

I'm also a mark for Hulk's occasional matwork schtick which always looks good and suggests that he is fundamentally sound in ways he doesn't get credit for often.

Hogan's surprise matwork impressed me... the first time I saw it. When he busted out the chain wrestling in his match with Muta, I was shocked and marked out. But then he did the exact same sequence in damn near every big match he had in Japan from the 90s onward. When he does the same thing every time, it suggests less that he's technically sound and more that it's the only trick he can remember.

[Dylan Waco]

Almost all wrestlers have routines, special spots, formulas, tricks they pull out of their bag that are by their nature repetitious. Most of what we call ring psychology is based on established routines and formulas. I don't see how that is a knock. Innovation is probably the most overrated thing in wrestling actually. Mixing it up is important of course and that's what Hogan's "matwork spot" is. But being "unpredictable" in the ring is often a recipe for suck.

 

Not saying Hogan's never had an awful match. My point is that Hogan's rep for having a boatload of terrible matches is mythological. Even broken down WCW Hogan had good matches with someone as worthless as Piper. I'm not "the guy" you refer to on the Malone/Rodman match - it was merely good, not great.

[Jingus]

Almost all wrestlers have routines, special spots, formulas, tricks they pull out of their bag that are by their nature repetitious. Most of what we call ring psychology is based on established routines and formulas. I don't see how that is a knock.

It wasn't just a routine, it was the exact same spot every time. Initial lock up, drop toe hold and a floatover into the front facelock. Shocked the hell out of me the first time I saw it, but with repeated exposure watching him do the exact same thing with the very first spot in all these matches got old quick.

 

Innovation is probably the most overrated thing in wrestling actually. Mixing it up is important of course and that's what Hogan's "matwork spot" is. But being "unpredictable" in the ring is often a recipe for suck.

I feel like you're speaking a foreign language here, man. Innovation is bad? Are you saying, conversely, that everyone should always do the exact same thing forever? You don't think there's a reason why Hogan got more and more heavily booed as the 90s went on, before his heel turn?

 

Not saying Hogan's never had an awful match. My point is that Hogan's rep for having a boatload of terrible matches is mythological. Even broken down WCW Hogan had good matches with someone as worthless as Piper. I'm not "the guy" you refer to on the Malone/Rodman match - it was merely good, not great.

He absolutely has had a boatload of terrible matches, and I can't imagine any possible argument for the Malone/Rodman match not being not only an actively bad match from a workrate standpoint but also detrimental to WCW's business.

[Dylan Waco]

Again, wrestlers do the same spots ALL THE TIME. Even more ridiculous, wrestlers do the same bumps ALL THE TIME. A large number of said wrestlers are considered great wrestlers. Criticizing Hogan for only doing one "matwork" spot would be like criticizing Kawada for not doing moonsaults.

 

Again, mixing things up is not a problem. Trying new things is not the problem. *Occasional* innovation is not the problem. But when someone says to me "that wrestler is innovative!" I almost immediately know it's going to be some shitty indy spot monkey that starts all of his matches with an obligatory matwork section far more contrived then what we get from one trick pony Hulk before "building" to a sequence of shitty head dropping moves that are no sold in order to set up silly looking dive spots.

 

Innovation being elevated to some sort of really important quality in wrestling is ridiculous. Southern tag wrestling is anti-innovative. Traditional wrestling roles are anti-innovative. Hell even a lot of wrestlers that were innovative in one way or another were extremely predictable wrestlers that settled into effective routines (i.e. 96 Rey Jr.).

 

Point is not that all innovation is terrible, but that innovation is overrated as a "quality" in wrestling.

 

As for Rodman/Malone it's pointless arguing about it because I haven't watched it recently and I"m certain you haven't either. If I have a second I'll watch it again soon. I anxiously await your "boatload" of terrible Hogan matches, much like I await your explanation for the bizarre "Taker v. Michaels at Mania was better than any Rockers match!" comment. I expect neither.

[Jingus]

Again, wrestlers do the same spots ALL THE TIME. Even more ridiculous, wrestlers do the same bumps ALL THE TIME. A large number of said wrestlers are considered great wrestlers.

But is it so exactly the same as "lock up, drop toe hold, front facelock", the exact same sequence of events at the very beginning of every single major Japanese singles match he had in the past two decades? Sure, wrestlers do the same spots. When it's portrayed as "this is how the wrestler wins their matches", like Bret's five moves of doom or Flair's attacking the knee, I don't have a problem with it. When it's "well, this is what the people expect" like Flair getting tossed off the top or Hogan running through identical chain wrestling spots, I find it contrived in a negative way. It's not the worst thing in the world, in fact it's rather a silly thing to even have this big an argument over, but it is something that annoys me. And I don't see how you can possibly prove that I'm objectively wrong by being annoyed in that manner.

 

Criticizing Hogan for only doing one "matwork" spot would be like criticizing Kawada for not doing moonsaults.

For a guy who condescendingly refers to my statements as "bizarre" or "ridiculous", you sure aren't afraid to throw out some that I would categorize with the same adjectives.

 

But when someone says to me "that wrestler is innovative!" I almost immediately know it's going to be some shitty indy spot monkey that starts all of his matches with an obligatory matwork section far more contrived then what we get from one trick pony Hulk before "building" to a sequence of shitty head dropping moves that are no sold in order to set up silly looking dive spots.

Okay, so you hate Nova, and all those who do the same rip-off puroresu wannabe style, and all the fanboys who eat it up. Fine. But that's not real innovation. That's the fans wrongly using the word "innovative" in a bastardized form. Don't get stuck on semantics here. Without innovation, without replacing some of the old with the new, without change, anything will stagnate and die.

 

Also, how is anything on earth more contrived than Hogan's standard Hulking Up series? You can argue that it gets massive pops and is incredibly over, but I don't see how it's more realistic than anything else in wrestling. You have to go to Ryuma Go matches to find anything which is further removed from logic. "Contrived" isn't necessarily an invective all by itself, not in a fake sport where you can grab a guy's wrist and gently push him and not only does he go sprinting into the ropes, but he bounces off them and comes back towards you in a straight line.

 

As for Rodman/Malone it's pointless arguing about it because I haven't watched it recently and I"m certain you haven't either. If I have a second I'll watch it again soon. I anxiously await your "boatload" of terrible Hogan matches, much like I await your explanation for the bizarre "Taker v. Michaels at Mania was better than any Rockers match!" comment. I expect neither.

I haven't watched Rodman/Malone recently, no. For the very good reason that I generally try to avoid re-watching matches that I fucking hated on previous viewings. I've seen that one at least two or three times, and it always sucked. It was plodding, slowly paced even by Hogan's WCW standards, went far too long, was in the wrong spot on the card, the wrong team went over, and oh yeah Rodman was so stumbling drunk that he could barely do anything.

 

What of Hogan's WCW matches were not bad? That would be the shorter list. As for the awful ones: well, the one with Warrior is the obvious standout. There's also at least half of the Flair matches. And most of the Piper matches. Most of the Savage matches. Most of the Giant matches. Most of the Sting matches. All of the Beefcake matches. All of the Dungeon of Doom matches. Anything he ever did in the same ring with Kevin Nash. And all of the non-pinfall matches which regardless ended with someone getting pinned, which happened at least three different times that I can think of. I'd love a specific argument as to how they didn't suck. And I'm not even kidding. If you somehow saw something in those bouts that I didn't, I'd legitimately appreciate an understanding of a different POV which didn't think they were crap. I'd like to know how you came to those conclusions.

 

As for the Shawn comment: firstly, I didn't say "it was better". I said "I liked it better". I usually attempt to avoid phrasing my subjective opinions as if they were objective fact. Secondly, the main reason I said anything was because of your use of the phrase "if we're being honest", which struck me as an odd and somewhat pretentious thing to say. How many people on this board do you think are deceitfully arguing their dishonest opinion?

[Dylan Waco]

I don't believe people are being deceitful. It's a figure of speech.

 

I really don't see the point in carrying on with this at this point because when you start talking about how people can't "objectively" prove things you know you've hit a while where it's just going to be "my opinion differs from yours" from here on out. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm not going to write tl;dr rants that are going to be answered with stating obvious things like "wrestling opinions are opinions."

 

On the specifics of Hogan, there are some matches in there I might think are medicore or even bad, but very few that are terrible. My issue with critics of Hogan has always been the same - there is a segment of fans that claims Hogan is an awful worker in spite of the fact that he has a large number of good matches and as shown himself to have an effective routine that goes beyond the "Hulk Up" schtick. I'm not a fan of the "Hulk Up" at all, I'm not an advocate of Hogan as a top worker, and I didn't even rate him above Dusty in this thread. I just think he's a guy that deserves more credit than he gets (and fwiw I actually liked at least one of his WCW matches with Savage, don't recall a multitude of Hogan v. Sting matches, never saw Beefcake have a good singles match with anyone, and don't remember seeing a single Flair v. Hogan match that wasn't at minimum entertaining.)

[Jingus]

You know the weirdest thing here? I would rate Hogan over Dusty. You apparently like him less and I apparently like him more. Why the hell are we even having this argument?

[Dylan Waco]

You know the weirdest thing here? I would rate Hogan over Dusty. You apparently like him less and I apparently like him more. Why the hell are we even having this argument?

\Boredom?

[Jingus]

Most likely. You have no idea how much of a life I don't have.

 

Dragging things back on track: I'd take Regal over Finlay. Fit is a better carrier of green kids, yes. But I think Regal had higher highs (HE DID DRUGS LOL) in terms of his best matches. While Finlay's had plenty of really fun stuff in his middle age during his best days as a heel on Smackdown, I don't think I liked that better than Regal's top matches during his WCW run, especially his TV title days. Also Regal was way, way better in terms of mic skills, facial expressions, and other non-workrate intangibles.