dawho5

I don't have time at the moment, but there is a 2008 or 2009 Futen tag where Ikeda works mostly underneath against a guy who looks to be his protégé. It was an odd viewing in that Ikeda took on the role of Ishikawa for the match. After I get home this afternoon I will try to find an exact date.

I never got the need to rank things myself. I just watch the wrestling (or anything else, TV, movies) and decide if I love it, like it, am indifferent, disliked it or outright hated it. There are varying degrees between those, but the point for me is to find things that fall into the first few categories. Trying to actually rank things is always a bit of a challenge for me because I don't always look at things in comparison to something else. As to what Loss (Laser Loss?) is saying undermining the project I don't get it. Seems to me he wants to get it right and doesn't feel like he has the time to do so. That is something I can understand. Working on the 2000s thing I had to hold myself back from going through more than my top 15 again before submitting my ballot. But where is the cutoff point then? Do I get all the way to 100, reorder as necessary and start thinking, "Boy, I really need to take another look at top 20 to make sure I got it right"? But then, going back and watching a few that I hadn't put on my ballot I was really kicking myself for not doing it. So I absolutely understand where he's coming from as far as not wanting to submit a ballot that doesn't hold up to my own review.

This should cover your Ikuto Hidaka needs. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25965-masato-tanaka-ikuto-hidaka-vs-koji-kanemoto-ryusuke-taguchi-zero-one-030208/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25870-tatsuhito-takaiwa-naohiro-hoshikawa-vs-dick-togo-ikuto-hidaka-zero-one-122603/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25777-alexander-otsuka-tiger-mask-iv-vs-carl-malenko-ikuto-hidaka-battlarts-021301/?hl=%2Bikuto+%2Bhidaka There's more, but all you need is 3.

I tend to not worry about what you call a thing and more about if it's effective in doing the job it was meant to do. So call it whatever you like, but if somebody who has watched a lot of a certain wrestler wants to throw out match recommendations I'm perfectly happy to see them.

Of course Kawada/Taue had more great matches, they had a few more years to do so. I would guess that the two things working against Misawa/Kobashi is longevity and variety of opponents in their great matches. That being said, for being together for such a short time they really clicked as a tag team. Any time they wrestled Kawada/Taue it was a great match. I would call that a feather in the cap of both teams. I'm trying to think of any team with better double teams than Misawa/Kobashi, but not really coming up with many.

I'm a disc and a half through the 3 disc Best of SNME set. savage is by and large the MVP so far, with great matches against Jake and Bret. He gets a lot out of Honky Tonk Man and Andre as well as being a tremendous promo. I will say, both Hogan and Andre are better than I remember them. Hogan is great at working the crowd and getting them into a match even if he's not the most spectacular in-ring worker you'll ever watch. Andre has great facial expressions, knows when to give the other guy offense and is really good at making the face work to put him on his ass. Vince and Jesse on commentary (I'm still in 88, so no Gorilla yet) are phenomenal. They both are firmly in the camp of the face and heel sides respectively, but will give out grudging nods of respect when they are due.

Jaguar vs. Lioness was not to my tastes. The first 2/3 of the match was Yokota working over Lioness' leg and Lioness returning the favor, which was really good even without a lot of long-term selling. Then the finish was a bunch of big nearfalls with the legwork completely forgotten. The crowd loved it and a lot of the stuff thrown out was pretty amazing for 1985, but it had nothing to do with the 16 or so minutes that led up to it. Devil vs. Chigusa was great. Gritty throughout, everything was earned. By the end, both were dead on their feet trying to survive as much as put the other away. Finish was perfect for the way the match was worked. Amazing stuff.

I don't think he took any significant amount of time off from wrestling. He's a guy who you almost wish would have suffered a broken arm or leg or something and been forced to take time off (even if it was only 9 months or so). I mean, Kawada broke his orbital bone and he finished the damn match. And continued touring. If you don't think he's a little crazy after that I'm not sure what your criteria is.

But the feuds are what bring in the fans, Parv. Will is just looking to put asses in the seats.

Any parts of the match that were great were mostly Lassartesse, so I can see that. He's like the French Ric Flair or something the way he struts around the ring. Also, the few times he didn't were very telling. For what it's worth, I'm in no way unhappy that I watched the match. Just there are some inconsistencies and things I wasn't sure about, and I didn't know whether to chalk them up to mistakes made in the ring or idiosyncracies of the style.

Allary vs. de Lassartesse was great. Allary is (if I'm right) the darker haired, shorter guy. Lassartesse is the strutting, tall, blond heel. And man is hre great at it. Even just walking around the ring he's got this "I'm so much better than you" strut going. He takes great shortcuts, rushing Allary off of rope breaks, pushing the ref out of the way after dropping a knee or stomping (it looks like the ref gives a count here after one attack to a grounded pponent, to give the a chance to get back up). Allary is pretty good at the fiery babyface comeback, but I wish he'd do more than uppercuts and elbows some of the time. The ref is god damn great when it comes to keeping Lassartesse in line. He gets physically involved a few times, at one point putting a submission hold on the big man to enforce the rules. Lassartesse starts working over the throat near the end and hits the diving knee drop he crashed and burned on earlier for the ten count. Some of the selling seems a bit off, but this is the first French match I've seen so I don't know if that's normal or not.

I think the lazy Misawa stuff came more as his body started to break down, at least in the sense that it was really obvious. He had different matches with Kobashi, Kawada and Taue throughout the 90s and worked a little differently for each of the big gaijin. But my feeling is that by the time he reached NOAH there were only a few matches he really got away from the Misawa formula. Don't know if the physical toll that had been taken on him was the deciding factor, but it certainly seemed to me that his willingness to deviate from his standard match was less frequent as time went on. Not that it produced terrible matches all the time.

Also Matt, don't forget the massive differences in the head shaving. The first one is Dump forcibly shaving Chigusa's head while Chigusa's friends can do nothing. But when Dump loses, she leaves, comes back of her own volition and has her friends shave her head. It's like some kind of twisted "even when you in, you lose" kind of deal.

Kawada had it in him to put on good to great matches at the time, but a lot of the traits that really define him hadn't come out in his wrestling yet. I don't think any of them are polished in 1990, but Kobashi's energy and spunk in that time period made him a great sympathetic babyface. Kawada just didn't have the same charisma Kobashi did, his was more that aura of violence that came later on. Young Kawada was pretty much a juniors style wrestler where Kobashi was more of an all-around guy with a weakness in his striking.

Early Kobashi is easily my favorite Kobashi. Up until 95 he's absolutely incredible in everything for me. Kawada takes a while longer to put it all together, but once 92-93 hits I'm more into him than Kobashi usually. That being said, 1993 Kenta Kobashi is probably a top 5 pick easy for me.

I also have a nomination. Tenryu/Fuchi vs. Kawada/Arai 6/30/01. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEA_2MfRMu4 Short, to the point, and it hits three guys in the project.

Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher 9/19/78 I could see arguments for Dory, Terry or the Sheik as MVP after watching. The Funks work a great babyface vengeance, with Dory really bringing a lot of fire late and post-match. The Sheik's early match stalling and heeling is excellent and sets the table for the rest of the match well. I still like the Viedor vs. Davies match better, but this was definitely a great watch. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Hiromi Yagi 3/3/96 There's parts of this I really like and parts I don't. Ozaki's selling of the ribs and Yagi's continued coming back to them is really good. The late transitions are too similar (burst of energy when the other goes up top) or too obvious (Yagi's 5th time off the ropes to kick Ozaki and guess what, she gets it caught) for me. Ozaki hitting big powerbombs during her early offense is a bit over the top. The dueling strategies of Ozaki (big bombs to wear down Yagi quickly) and Yagi (keep putting on holds and find a way to get to the ribs) was interesting even if I don't enjoy Ozaki's way of doing things. I thought the first arm submission Yagi put on should have been somebody's finisher at some point. Ozaki's arm was bending in a very unnatural way for a few moments there. Ozaki's spinny sleepers were interesting and pretty damn brutal. The whole is less than the parts when you put it all together though.

I thought Loss wanted a pony. How did that morph into lasers? Also, why is Loss the only one on the board with lasers? That's highly unfair right there.

90-95% of what Kobashi does is anywhere from good to absolutely brilliant to me. It's that 5-10% that works my last nerve and seems to wipe all the good stuff out when I'm watching. I've said it before privately, but Kobashi is a huge blind spot for me in something like this. Because there's stuff he does that I can't get past even if I know he's an incredible worker otherwise. So if I come across as overly negative on the guy, I apologize. It's just for whatever reason a lot of his negative qualities hit me just the right way where I forget the many more positives he brings to the table.

I think that part of the problem is that there are accusations being thrown around about the board when no actual opinions on wrestling or wrestlers are presented. Generally people who post here expect you to have your own opinion and be willing to express it, regardless of what they may think of it. Yes, maybe some of the people are dismissive about certain wrestlers or criticism of others. But they will be dismissive of you if you lack the confidence or commitment to your own opinions that is required to express them in a forum like this. So don't be afraid, just write what you think/feel about wrestling and all will work itself out. Also, keep PWO the same. It's great as is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acb3ZFdGF3I This. Misawa/Kawada are still teaming and young, which is certainly an interesting part of the watch. But this is Hansen's match all the way. The really great stuff starts when Hansen comes in and starts stomping on Kawada's head while Spivey has him in a Boston crab. He gets chased out by the ref, but Hansen decides that it's time to up the ante instead. What follows is some of the best character work Hansen ever does.

Thirded.

Pierroth Jr vs. Mogur (1/12/90) Really good match. Pierroth's cheating can't win him the first fall, as Mogur really ups the ante with a big powerbomb for the 3. Pierroth heels it up by continuously rolling into and out of the ring to buy himself time. Mogur is working the back of the head/neck, which Pierroth is selling so well. Pierroth catches Mogur with a backwards headbutt to the groin while trapped in a neck figure 4. That leads to the inevitable win for Pierroth in fall 2 and now it's Mogur's turn to take a powder. But he's back in after just one time to the floor and the ending is a nice sequence of counters, some of them really gritty elbows and knees to break up submission holds. Liked this match a lot. Steve Veidor vs. Gwyn Davies (5/26/76) This is absolutely incredible. Davies as the heel is tremendous, picking his spots perfectly to sneak in the cheating and piss off the crowd. Viedor is perfectly good in his role, but it's Davies who makes this match great. I love how he gets increasingly pissed off when Viedor makes his comebacks and finds ways to get nastier. This is the kind of wrestling that is right up my alley. Bull Nakano vs. Devil Masami (04-18-1993) Early is pretty good back and forth. Masami getting a bunch of big-seeming nearfalls right after the floor brawling seemed wrong. Nakano working over Masami on the comeback was the best part of the match. Nearfalls at the end were really excessive and overdone. Least favorite match of the 3.

I've organized my thoughts on this a bit more, so here goes. You see a definite difference in matches where Kobashi is working against Taue/Kawada and matches involving anyone else. In fact, you see a big difference between Kawada/Taue matches and Kobashi/Misawa/Akiyama matches as the 90s go on. In the continuing effort to top themselves, they chose distinct directions. Yes, there is variance within the two methods for sure. Kawada and Taue certainly had some different ways of going about things. As did Kobashi, Misawa and Akiyama. But the big split for me is the frequency of the big bombs and how they were used. Kawada/Taue had an approach that involved a lot of emphasis on the work between the big nearfalls and making those nearfalls count as much as they possibly could. Misawa/Akiyama/Kobashi placed more emphasis on the bombs themselves (very often to keep the crowd popping) and I think this applies especially to Kobashi. He fell in love with the response that all the big moves and nearfalls got. There is one match I highlighted where this becomes very clear. He hits some kind of neckbreaker variation, gets no pop at all on the nearfall and immediately does the same thing again so the crowd does pop. And I think this tendency of Kobashi's is curbed by Taue and Kawada, but his buddies Akiyama and Misawa choose to go along with it. And it produces those wonderful finishing runs where you see big suplex -> nearfall -> laying around to sell accumulated damage over and over again, which gets worse as they get to NOAH. And the reason that I hold this against Kobashi so much is because there is so much that he does that I absolutely love. Kobashi working over a guy's ribs is a tremendous thing. Kobashi working as face-in-peril is so very incredible. Kobashi working 40 minutes of intense, gritty mat-based stuff with Kawada in the 1/19/95 match is absolutely amazing. When Kobashi decides to work a headlock, surfboard or knucklelock sequence it's always gold. But he very often reverts to "look at all the cool shit I can do" mode to get pops from the crowd and it really pisses me off when I think of all the other things he could be doing.

Hansen's range is incredibly underrated. His series vs. Kobashi is great for how much he is willing to give Kobashi (think 7/29/93 and the 94 CC match) for large portions of the match. Speaking of the 94 Champion Carnival, watch the Kobashi, Taue and Williams matches in order to see a guy who is usually working monster gaijin do this incredible job of working from underneath because of the injured ribs. His 2/28/93 match with Kawada was possibly the best back and forth pure brawl I've ever seen not involving some kind of hate-filled feud. And during this match Hansen does the best sell of the stretch plum EVER. The Misawa matches are great for a few reasons. For one, in the 93 match, Hansen does this incredible reversal and works on the injured arm of Misawa (which also plays well off of being KOed by an elbow in a previous match) only to lose to a rolling elbow. It's like this complete turnaround of the way the natives used to work over Hansen's arm in the late 80s and Hansen would lariat them for the win anyway. The elbow almost-KO shot nearfall was a nice touch too. I think Hansen cemented Misawa as the ace just as much as Jumbo did in 92-93. The 99 RWTL is Hansen as one of the most over sympathetic babyfaces ever. It was meant to be his last run and the Taue/Hansen team is faced with Burning in the finals. Really incredible heat for this match and another completely different performance from Hansen. Hansen is one of the guys who is responsible for putting over the major players of 90s AJPW. What was really great for me is he treated each of them differently as far as how he wrestled them and what he gave them. I forget which matches, but there are a few where he has Misawa-style long comebacks with short bursts of brawling offense to stay in it while weathering the storm as well.