Jetlag

Here is the review Daniel (of the now destroyed puroresu.tv) wrote for the 10/11/99 Hashimoto/Ogawa match That feud is criminally underrated. The 2000 match didn't even make the DVDVR best of japan project (but the tag with Iizuka did?). More reviews in the archived thread https://web.archive.org/web/20130521230205/http://www.puroresu.tv/forums/topic/338-daniels-list-of-great-puroresu-matches/page__st__20

The Sarjeant-Kidman comparison reminds me of this old "Is Johnny Saint the british RVD?" post from DVDVR. Every WoS guy has their reversals. And the point of the Kidman-problem is that wrestlers who would otherwise never try a powerbomb had this sudden urge to try one on him. A boston crab on the other hand is a pretty standard hold and was often used as a go-to finisher in WoS bouts by any worker. In some way the move is a way for Sarjeant to get his freak athlete gimmick over.

That is a great post indeed. However, some of these things stand out to me: Not to dismiss the observations, because there are some excellent points there, but I wonder if this stuff stands out to someone watching a ton of joshi in a short time, like Dylan apparently did. Especially the selling bit and the comparison to other workers. I remember first going through the joshi, Hotta was someone who sparked my interest. I was more interested in shootstyle and stiff wrestling, so Hotta seemed to fit the bill. Going through her stuff at the time she was very underwhelming and at best a fun crowbar. As a worker she is very far from the Daisuke Ikedas, or even the Katsumi Usudas or Koji Kanemotos of this world. From my experience, this is Hotta's typical modus operandi: 1) Recklessly kick opponent to a pulp 2) Sit in a half crab to kill time 3) Throw assorted modified powerbombs and cross-armed germans, often recklessly dropping opponent on their heads in the process 1) can be pretty fun against an opponent who is able to keep it interesting. 2) is necessary when she is up against a not so skillful worker and pretty much exposes her limitations. May be edited out by a good opponent. 3) can be fun to a degree, but after a while I find myself losing interest in the back and forth-bomb trading. As far as matches go, I guess me and Dylan have very different tastes when it comes to joshi. The Asuka - fake MMA match I find to be an atrocious mess. The Kansai match is cool because they kick eachother in the face, but there's fuck all transitions or rhyme or reason in it. Hokuto match is held together by Hokuto's selling and general Hokuto-ness, but I wasn't too hot on that match in total. The best match I've seen Hotta in is the Toyota match from 1995. And good god I'm not a fan of Toyota at all but that bout is a testament to her greatness. Going back to the Sabu comparison, I love Sabu but no way could I imagine Sabu performing like that. Hotta does her usual shit as described above. It makes for a pretty great match, but it's all in her opponent. Otherwise it would have just been the average Hotta match. As far as the selling goes, and her "willingness to illustrate..." I dunno if it really makes such a difference. I did some Hotta YouTube searches today, found a match vs. Aja (not the bloody hand match) where Aja trashes her leg for 15 minutes. Hotta is good selling the beating, but after her comeback she ignores it in order to do 1) and 3). Then found a match vs. Etsuko Mita. In that Mita gets put through 1), then tries to do some leg work, which Hotta ignores and does 2), then Mita locks in a Figure 4, which Hotta laughes off, then Mita locks in a shoot submission(?), emphasizing that she is applying maximum pressure to Hotta's leg, to which Hotta responds by lying on the mat for a while. Then Hotta does the "illustrating that a limb has been damaged" bit before proceeding right back to 1) and then 3). Kansai match also has this bit where Kansai does some piledrivers and a sleeper. Hotta then does this "dizzy head" sell with flailing arms for about 2 seconds between hitting moves. I'm not sure if this is really the sign of somebody who's a superior worker. On the more positive side, looking back at Hotta I've discovered that I think she has pretty good fire. Something I didn't notice the first time around. So there's that. I've dismissed Hotta, so I felt compelled to write this post. As far as crowbars go, I'd probably rank her below Masashi Aoyagi, Kazunari Murakami, Ryuji Walter and others. Just too undynamic. As far as 1993 AJW workers go, I'd probably have her below Bolshoi Kid.

Ryuki Ueyama Wataru Sakata Hiroyuki Ito Nikolai Zouev Osamu Kido Hiro Saito Victor Zangief Manabu Suruga Universo Dos Mil Angel Mortal Bearcat Wright Ayako Hamada Mimi Hagiwara Command Bolshoi Carlos Amano Lucy Kayama Itsuki Yamazaki Sumie Sakai Alan Kilby Sid Cooper Robby Baron Axel Dieter TJP Kengo Mashimo Preston Quinn Herodes Tony Salazar Ultraman to be continued...? It's also very surprising to me that Jorge "Skayde" Rivera wasn't nominated. EDIT: added Hiroyuki Ito. Great shootstyle worker.

From what I've seen, Hotta is really good at punting opponents into a coma, and not at all good at anything else. Didn't think those Kansai and Hokuto matches were that great, to be honest. And I like japanese wrestlers killing each other as much as the next guy. Will be interesting to read a defense of Hotta as she strikes me as a wrestler with glaring flaws. I'm also interested in that post on Devil Masami. I'm a fan of her, but couldn't find anything truely great from her 80s stuff, Chigusa match aside, and everything I've seen from her in the 90s has been straight up bad. I want to throw Mariko Yoshida into the mix aswell. I've been watching some of her post prime stuff, and she still looks pretty much like herself in it. Too bad the IBUKI stuff is so clipped up. 2003 match vs. Megumi Fuji is a borderline classic and they did some really fun stuff in IBUKI too. I also give Yoshida some credit for knowing how to switch up her signature spots and keeping her matches interesting. Shoutout goes to Azumi Hyuga too. I watched a match vs. Ran Yu Yu the other day where she just blew me away with her matwork. Her matwork of all things! She may be a discovery.

WOW! This was a really fun grapple-heavy junior bout. It was worked almost in a "maestra"'s style which is really something that more of the japanese girl's shouldve gotten hip to. Plenty of tricked out sequences and counters. Yabushita uses her judo and is pretty great with unpredictable transitions into armbars, Bolshoi goes for the leg and busts out a Lucha-meets-Honda rolling cradle submission that had Rey Hechicero eating his heart out. Bolshoi really has an awesome moveset (dig that carne seated chokehold) and is just such a fabulous military clown grappler luchadora veteran wrestler. You'd think Lucha would have an awesome weird clown technician but instead Bolshoi's that girl.

Wait people hate long NWA style matches now? When did that happen? Bock vs. Jumbo from Hawaii was like that and it's my favourite Bock match by a mile.

That Toyota match really is something. Kandori is very interesting in how she applys her submission expert gimmick. She's closer to Memphis than shootstyle because of all the mugging and taunting she does. Her swagger is really outstanding and it really makes for compelling interpromotional showdowns. She gets so much fire and unusual grit out of otherwise bland opponents. She's like a female Tenryu with added flash submissions, weird as that comparison may seem. I also really like how she isn't afraid to look vulnerable despite her status as a killer. She seems vulnerable to rollups and other wrestling moves and can get overwhelmed even by opponents much lower in the rank. So in conclussion, going into her matches expecting killer matwork is the wrong approach. She has the great submissions, but these are generally an insta-kill. So her matches are about heat and character work and a little violence to top it off. But bah gawd she is a spark plug of a wrestler. Admittedly I haven't been able to find any LLPW stuff online, but it'll absolutely be on my shopping list now (only 3 weeks till ballot time so the snail mail better hurry up...). Even without it she could crack my list.

This may seem very weird, but I'm really dreading watching Ricky Morton. Particularily because he's so synonymous with a certain match layout. Call it the Seinfeld effect. As for Jumbo, I find the guy overrated, but I have no problem with Jumbo himself. He'll crack my Top 100 just fine. Generally I'd say it's wrong to place someone because of perceived outside pressure and not perceived greatness. It's that simple. If you really can't decide flip a coin.

I'd say Dean Malenko during his time was a far above average TV worker. I've yet to find a better Benoit TV match from WCW than Malenko/Smiley or Malenko/Parka. People dismissing him so hard irks me a little because the guy really was good against a variety of opponents. Just look at those names: Ultimo Dragon, La Parka, Norman Smiley, fucking Scotty 2 Hotty. I'm almost tempted to get some of the matches he had in austria just to prove he could please a european crowd too. The line about Malenko/Guerrero style exchanges has been used a lot in negative reviews over the years but I really dug their 2/3 falls match from ECW, cliche as it is it's not more in your face as a "self conscious technical masterpiece" than your typical maestro matches from Mexico. People give him shit about being robotic. Don't really care about it. 90s Benoit is far worse, acting like a computer simulation. To me Dean gives the vibe of a silent killer and that fits his style. He even facially looks like a psycho during his big babyface reveal as Ciclope. Malenko also benefits from the fact that in WCW he'd wrestle matches where the announcers actually put his style over as in "the guy has hands like pliers!!!" and there was an air of genuine excitement about cruiserweight matches. All that and I'm not likely to vote for the guy at all. I imagine if he had a slightly bigger run of TV matches in the 2000s, maybe a short stint in a Tajiri booked promotion he'd probably be in. The guy deserves some credit.

Here you go: https://youtu.be/WO1r5gcTNPw

Wahoo hasn't been discussed much, so I will bump this. With the NWA Classics service making some of his matches easily available, and a plethora of footage on YouTube, I think there's no way around Wahoo. The tough, ex-football player who throws the hardest chop in the world is a great character of course, but Wahoo has something beyond that. Sure there's lots of guys who hit really hard, and then there's also some guys who can bleed, but few of them feel like a force of nature the way Wahoo does. The man is able to turn simple moments, such as getting tossed out of the ring or hitting a guy on the apron into epic visuals. His body language is amazing. The Spoiler match is a textbook class on how to build an epic match around simple strike based offense and timing. The Flair match at Battle of the Belts is a classic long title match with that extra bit of violence and grit Wahoo adds. The guy shows up in so many places, even Puerto Rico and japanese garbage indies, washed up 70s tapes and studio fights, and never stops looking like fucking Wahoo. The Hashimoto comparison hits the nail on the head.

Giving Usuda a polite bump because I just found this weird as hell Usuda vs. Tomoaki Honma matchup from Big Japan: https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiLp9ysl6zLAhVFbRQKHfTfBUsQFgggMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymotion.com%2Fvideo%2Fx3djq2e&usg=AFQjCNEY9bTZXsHE_d2Of6kutB9yceysyw&sig2=EtJcd4TUFn9fFBHmaPxdNQ Going back through Usuda's stuff I'm starting to think the guy is undersold. Now you really have to be a completist to be familiar with this guy enough to see his case, but let me explain. For example, did you know Katsumi Usuda and Ikuto Hidaka have all-time great chemistry together and all their meetings are outright spectacular? Did you know Usuda has a history of getting damn great matches out of indy lowcarders, including such names as junji.com, Naoyuki Taira, Yuta Yoshikawa and (the absolutely terrible) Keita Yano? Did you know Usuda was pretty good right away in PWFG and then became a pretty great tag worker in BattlARTS? Did you know Katsumi Usuda may have been in fact be one of the best undercard workers in his country in the second half of the 2000s? I don't expect any of this stuff to be on people's radars but I want to emphasize Katsumi Usuda's career is worth studying. I also want to say while he is clearly a "BattlARTS" guy and part of his case rests on those brutal fights he had with his buddies throughout the 90s, he also developed into quite a remarkable junior worker who could match up really well with anyone. I want to point to his J-Cup match vs. Men's Teioh here (weird and awesome match), but the above BJW match is also a good example of this. He holds the match together with his selling, keeps things interesting through Fujiwaraish counters and blasts his opponent in the face. In conclusion, I'd characterize Usuda as almost a japanese Bobby Eaton. Not exactly a charisma bomb, but great mechanics, lots of high end tags under his belt (including a very unheralded tag from december 2010 in FUTE'N where Usuda gives a really masterful performance) and shows the flashes of brilliance you want from a wrestling master.

Schumann is very interesting. He is very much a 90s guy and different from the other euro workers nominated. Really good worker as long as you don't expect WoS style high end grappling from him. I imagine if you are into Brian Pillman you'll be really into Schumann aswell. He also has a lot of matches on tape against a variety of opponents. Really consistent guy, and best of all he didn't lazy his way through face vs. face matches doing comedy like other guys would. If you want to nominate him, here's 3 reviews: Schumann vs. Chris Benoit, Vienna 1991 If you liked Schumann vs. Liger, here's him vs. another 90s star. This is a really compelling match. Benoit isn't a heel, but Schumann is the hometown favourite. Benoit can beat Schumann and they do some really good head to head to wrestling throughout the match, leading to a really hot last two rounds. Schumann sells like he is on the edge of defeat. It leads to a particularily great near KO in the last round. This is a qualifying match of some sort, so they do the scoring thing in the last round where each knockdown scores a point. No big dives or bumps, but a super effective match. Schumann vs. Finlay, Reslo 1992 I think OJ panned their matches. This pains me because in my eyes Finlay is as awesome as ever in these and Schumann goes toe to toe with him. Schumann always takes a full on assbeating from Finlay and gives back as good as he can. By the end of this match the arena is considerably dismantled, both guys swinging pieces of the barricades around while all the little kids and their granddads in the audience are freaking out. Schumann hits a fucking plancha on Finlay with no regards for the safety of anyone. Finlay does some really great bumping including a monkey flip into the ring which I've never seen before. I still think Finlay sucking during this period is a myth and in fact mullet Finlay is underrated. Schumann vs. Barry Horowitz 6/26/94 Ever wondered what a long Horowitz match would be like? Well here you are. Horowitz is really fantastic in this, doing lots of nifty tricks and punching Tony St. Clair in the face. The austrian crowd is really rowdy in this and the two work a rocking match until halfway into the bout Schumann starts doing a really compelling job of selling an injury. This is a classic heel foreigner vs. european babyface match and the type of bout Franz could do in his sleep.

Could you give a link for that 2003 Kakihara match? Only see one from 2006. EDIT: Nvm its this right?

I like the french style, but Cesca has like 7 matches on video and he doesn't always look outstanding in them. In fact he sometimes looks like the lesser guy next to Catanzarro, Anton Tejero etc. I enjoyed him vs. Ben Chemoul but Chemoul is the better guy aswell. The french guys are suffering from current lack of footage, plain and simple. Maybe we should do an extra list for guys with very limited footage available.

I'll probably have him as my #1. The guy couples a tremendous variety of excellent matches over a nearly 30 year time period with a legendary aura. He has a formula, yes, but it's a winning formula in my eyes. The great performances in random high school gyms and british church halls make up for the holes in his career.

I love Arkangel as guy holding CMLL undercard tags together. Currently I'm not familiar enough with his history to see a case for him (as he only gets showcase matches once in a blue moon), so I would like to know when exactly he got really good.

Trauma I had two really great years in 2010 and 2011. His advantage over his brother is that he has a handful of go to single matches, not all of which were easy tasks (the Angelico match comes to mind). If that period had kept up he really could have been one of the better workers of the 2010s, but unfortunately an injury happened and Trauma I wasn't the same anymore. Right now he doesn't touch his brother, as he kind of he lost the super menacing, stiff brawler aura that made him stand out in the beginning and as a mat worker was never top shelf (later on even regressing). He seems to have some kind of resurgence going with lots matches against prominent opponents, haven't gotten to check it out to be honest, but currently I don't see a case for this list at all and it pains me because at his best the guy is a killer.

I really, really liked her match vs. Amano from 1999. Really out of left field great performance. However, her other, more praised stuff that I've seen isn't on the level. Maybe she would benefit from someone doing a mass uploading spree because there's still a lot I like about her and the online footage from her is limited. I recall her matches vs. Haruyama are some of the best 2000s joshi bouts simply for being psychotically fast paced, violent deathfests.

Good as a rookie with a good cool-stuff-per-minute ratio (which is what you want from a young overactive japanese girl worker), but her post-injury, pushed as company ace current run I don't like at all. It represents all the bad aspects of the style for me - excess combined with bad execution. Didn't even like her matches against Kana who had developed into a near superworker at that point.

This starts slow and builds to quite the epic 3rd fall. Lewin's chops and nerve holds were unusual and nasty looking. I dig the chop to the throat as a finisher and him attacking Terry's face in the 3rd was nasty. This was the Terry Funk show through and through. He does all his awesome signature punches and bumping and throws in a bunch of amazing ankle picks. It felt like something a high end UWF wrestler would bust out. The best being in the 3rd where he does this awesome amateur switching and sliding to weasel into the toe hold. His staggering selling alone comfortably pushes this into the EPIC territory. Nuclear reactions in the 3rd are a testament to the greatness here.

Kawada being a bad 70s wannabe may be the most alien thing I've ever heard. Sure you are talking about the guy who spin kicks, stomps people on the back of their heads when doing a leg crab and doesn't do worked punches at all? Or is "doing holds and going long" something that belongs in the 70s in general? I don't recall him doing any Destroyer-style teases of the Stretch Plum. Atleast now I have a motivation to watch those 60 minute matches again....

Good example of a shootstylist who was really great right out of the gate. For 3 years this guy produced a string of high quality undercard matches with some incredible carry jobs under his belt. Great on the mat, great at structuring matches, great at telling a story through subtle selling and mannerisms, and a really great moveset to top it off. And then BattlARTS closes and his career kind of ends. I was excited to see him popping up in HARD HIT again but he hasn't done anything worthwhile there. It would have been interesting to see what he would have done in NJPW had he been accepted into their dojo.

No comments on Sawa, so I'll leave something here. I don't see him as a contender at all, ESPECIALLY not with the hardcore BattlARTS fans. To his credit: able to work both as a spunky underdog and as a stiff bully. To his detriment: often obnoxious and goofy with his mannerisms to a degree that he would drag down matches. Not great at his style. He has a handful of surprisingly good outings (his match with Super Tiger II borders on a miracle), but for the most part he is fodder to the argument that Yuki Ishikawa is the best ever.