dawho5

I only started covering the in-between stuff around 94. I think I actually missed a few of the good 6-mans they aren't covering my first go round. Not that I won't make up for that in spades in the coming months, but still something I am missing myself.

Yeah I can point you at a match where Kawada gets Misawa riled up. Spoiler: it does not in any way go well for Kawada.

The 3rd was Jon Cortez. Also a really great wrestling match. Looking forward to Breaks wrestling Vic Faulkner also. Faulkner got scrappy against Woods, I would guess Breaks gets the same reaction. And Faulkner's cheeky comedy can't possibly help Jim Breaks' mood.

I'm waiting for the novel Parv writes about a hard-boiled detective who doesn't carry a gun but kicks people in the face really hard when they piss him off after a long night of drinking.

I actually had the Kobashi match from 03 slightly better than the Takayama match. Kobashi gets royally pissed at Ogawa for being such a little shit and the results are incredible. And surprising.

I always look at him as more with less due to who his peers were. Regardless of his prior qualifications, he was consistently on the level of Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi for over a decade. For a guy with the limitations that he did have, Taue did a pretty incredible job.

So I've seen 3 Breaks matches so far and I have to say that he's fast becoming a favorite. Jim Breaks working over an arm is glorious. Steve Grey trying over and over again to turn the Breaks special around on him is almost as good. I still favor the Street match for the great escalation throughout, but I have yet to watch the rematch with Grey.

I have one thing to say about all this talk of getting more out of less. Akira Taue will do very well on my list. Probably better than he does on most people's lists. So I would count myself among those who think that way. As far as people who may not make my list, depending on how much stuff I find that I really like going forward, I can see not having Samurai or Ohtani on my list despite how much I do love both of them. That's in no way a lock though.

I think I'll make some room for him though. He'll be on the low side, but I can't imagine he'll be missing.

I would argue that the recommendations are a boon more than anything. I've had far more positive experiences with stuff from the WoS or joshi threads than negative. Looking forward to looking at the multiple lucha threads on the site to find stuff on youtube. Not everything is going to be up my alley, even if it is high end stuff from whatever style.

Tanahashi very likely for me. I tend to like him in the setting of the 2000s wrestling, but when comparing him to other eras I'm not really that high on him. And it's not entirely on Tanahashi, but that's not really the point. I'd have a hard time putting somebody who may not be as impactful or quite as good within their particular style of wrestling as Tanahashi is behind Tanahashi if I really like said wrestling style. At a certain point objectiveness has to take a back seat to my own personal preference.

That's the thing for me. Time is an element of this and if three or four recommended matches for somebody make me want to not watch them again I have to start looking elsewhere. Especially if you look at a low end of something like 20 minutes on a match. For 7 matches that's over 2 hours. Time I could be spending on something like World of Sport (which I love) , lucha (which I haven't seen much of but I have liked the small sampling I have), 70s/80s territories stuff, 80s/early 90s NJPW heavies, etc. There's a lot of ground to cover and I don't watch hours of wrestling daily. I won't say Yokota has no redeeming qualities, but her style just turns me off so far. Nakano I haven't written off yet, she's got some things she did in that match I did watch that I really liked to go along with the stuff I didn't.

Oh how I wish there was a better way to put tone into messages on a board. I'll probably not be the low vote on Kobashi, as he'll very likely make my top 50 pretty easily. I was just having a bit of fun with the fact that somebody made the Kobashi comment before I got to it. As far as this topic goes, Michaels, RVD, Sabu, Dreamer and Angle will be somewhere on my 3-400 or 4-500 lists if I ever get around to making them. But that's not going to be a real outlier as far as most of the board regulars are concerned. Jaguar Yokota will definitely not be on my list after watching three matches. Bull Nakano is threatening to be the same way after one. I think a lot of joshi stuff is going to be hit or miss with me, so that may be an area where I don't include a lot of the big names.

That's a little bit of a different deal as far as Harley's repetitiveness, Parv. He almost had to be formulaic, much like Flair did before the advent of weekly wrestling on TV. He went to a territory for a little while, challenged the top contender in all of the towns and left for the next territory. The fans in those territories paid to see Harley Race do Harley Race spots. They paid to see him use those methods of showing ass to get their guy over while Harley hung onto the title. You have to look at the difference in the audience demands and the expectations of wrestlers as times have changed. Back then, you saw the NWA champ once or twice a year, so you wanted to see all the signature stuff. Now you see wrestlers weekly (or more often) so they have to come up with different ways of working to the same moves or it gets stale fast.

Bah, I can't imagine I won't be the low voter on Kobashi. I have such a hatred of his later career work (that I know is at least somewhat irrational). Get your own irrational hatreds that mar your judgement, damn you!

That 1991 6-man had the female fans in the audience looking very, very dismayed for Kobashi. You really didn't see the kind of visceral reactions Kobashi got from most Japanese crowds at the time. Kitchen sink was used a lot in WCW. I believe it came from the idea of "throwing everything at them except the kitchen sink." Taue was being a complete dick to Kawada in that 1991 match, but not so much to the other two. Great stuff so far, keep up the good work guys! Kikuchi was the "little guy" partner for Kobashi. Kobashi always played the big brother who saved Kikuchi from the bullies. He basically plays Kobashi for Kobashi in tag matches. Also, here's a link to a 1991 Hansen match for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acb3ZFdGF3I You get to see some very awesome character work from Hansen and a pissed off Misawa all in one.

Shibata is great, but he does have a lot of stuff that seems to creep up in every match that bothers me. It seems like he wrestles one out of two matches. Either he's up against a guy who is willing to bang and that's the match or he goes with the matwork on the less strike-oriented guys, then works into his big strikes.

Fujita vs. Tanahashi 6/5/04 Probably my favorite Tanahashi match as he plays a wonderful underdog against the big amateur wrestler/shootstyle Fujita. Tanahashi gets stomped, but shows a great ability to time hope spots and get the crowd behind him. Tanahashi vs. Nakamura 1/4/05 A chance to watch an early version of what would become a staple rivalry. Tanahashi vs. Nakamura 12/10/06 Improvement over the previous year's match. I had some quibbles with it, but it's still really good. Tanahashi vs. Kanemoto 2/18/07 Oddball match with Kanemoto somehow being equal or on top for most of it. Tanahashi vs. Nagata 4/13/07 This is where you really start to see Tanahashi start to develop into what he would. Nagata massacres him and he has to try and weather the storm and come up with a way to defeat an opponent with more weapons than he has (sounds vaguely familiar to most big Tanahashi matches). Tanahashi vs. Nagata 10/8/07 They tack on the standard nearfall-filled ending to a match that didn't support it here. Would have been an improvement with the right finish over the April bout if you ask me. Instead it's a what-if match, but worth watching for the first part. Tanahashi vs. Suwama 4/9/08 I really liked this match. Great matchup between rising stars in their respective promotions. Tanahashi vs. Nakamura 2/15/09 Nakamura's continued no-selling of the leg bothers me. The rest is pretty damn good. Tanahashi vs. Nakanishi 5/6/09 Nakanishi no-sells the leg also. That aside, surprisingly good match. Tanahashi vs. Nakanishi 6/20/09 Tanahashi is better in a worse match. Tanahashi vs. Masato Tanaka 8/15/09 Worst match on this list by far. Fuck Masato Tanaka. That's all from the Best of 2000s stuff I went through earlier this year. I thought Tanahashi was really well represented from early uber-underdog in 04 all the way to being ace in 09. His work with Nagata during the transition was a lot of fun. He even carries a stiff like Nakanishi to a watchable match in 2009, so that says something.

Their match vs. the Malenko brothers in 1989 All Japan was really fun. Great technical showcase, but avoid it if you're looking for really meaningful work.

Taue is an interesting case 04 and beyond as well. He really does some great work, carrying Rikio, Morishima and (surprise of surprises) Marufuji to career matches. And he has a great match in 04 with Kobashi that I think has one of the best finishing runs of the decade. Basically, if Taue is in a big match in the 2000s, he hits a home run. Not taking anything away from Akiyama here, just saying that Taue in his twilight years really adds to his case in a big way.

Early 90s Kobashi is, to me, the best Kobashi. I have 1993 pegged as his best year for being polished and not going overboard with his more annoying tendencies. In 94 and 95 he bad tendencies start getting stronger but he's still really fun to watch. Post 1997, he becomes hit and miss for me. When he's on I absolutely love him, but there are a lot of matches where a few things he does completely take me out of the match. That's not to say I wouldn't have him in my top 30 based on the sheer amount of great things he did in the ring. One thing you'll notice going forward after that 93 RWTL match is when Kobashi and Kawada go at it, somebody is always working a leg. Kobashi attacking Kawada's injured knee in that tag left a lasting impression on Kawada it seems. Kawada was Kobashi's second best opponent (Hansen has to be number 1), and I think one of the best parts of the matchup was the really gritty way they both approached the simple All Japan style matwork in the early parts of the match. That and how neither of them was ever willing to give up an inch that wasn't earned. It seems pretty simple when you think about it. Take Kobashi, easily the best of the AJPW guys at garnering sympathy and making fired-up comebacks and put him against either of the two most uber-violent pricks of the 90s (Kawada and Hansen) and you usually get a really good to amazing match.

For all the larger than life characters I've seen do promos, Sammartino's promos blow most of them out of the water. He comes across as such a working class guy who is really passionate about what he does. Not saying something like Terry Funk freaking out and hitting himself with a chair isn't also great, but I really like the way Bruno goes about it. I especially like how you can see him getting angrier and more fired up the more he talks. Great, great stuff.

Sasaki did great things in this match. Everything he did made Morishima seem like an absolute monster. Morishima's early offense did not always suggest the same, but he came around for the big finish. Sasaki was really, really incredible in this match. I'd say he's one of the bigger surprises of the 2000s as far as how smart he could work and the different stuff (this, Florida Brothers, Kawada AJPW vs. NJPW match, his two matches with Takayama) he put out while still being entertaining. His work in the NOAH 6-man tribute to Misawa was pretty good too. I've really gained a lot of respect for Sasaki over the course of this project.

There was a full 60 minute AJ match with the 4 Pillars, Akiyama and Hase. It was actually really entertaining.

Two words for this thread. Lead Balloon