El McKell

I don't know that he is, by the time we're going to be voting he'll be 36 years old, I don't see what he could add to his case after that if he doesn't straight up leave New Japan and do something interesting elsewhere. I think it's far more likely he's made the vast majority of his case already rather than he's someone that'll add significantly to his case going forward.

I hate that the finish has Onita getting pinned while his partners double team a man already handcuffed to a cage. Then they turn on him for losing in the post match, like it's your own fault you morons.

Thanks for that

I've been posting in the threads of people who I've looked into with no posts since 2021 because apparently they need to have a post since then to be eligible nominees for 2026. But I totally forgot about Kuroda, I watched 5 Kuroda matches months ago, gave up on him at that point, forgot to post and Kuroda left such a non-impression that I have nothing to say. I remember that his match w/Masato Tanaka vs Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki from 1999-03-19 was like a 90s AJPW style tag that felt like the guys weren't quite able to meet the standards the style demands.

He offers nothing but cool entrance gear, very boring once the bell rings, if he's gonna do a whole routine of stalling and then a babyface gets their hands on them he should at least sell getting beaten down like it's the end of the world for him but he doesn't, and he's even worse to watch when he has the upper hand.

I think Pat O'Connor is good but not great in the Chicago Film Archives stuff, he's outshone by Thesz and Gagne for sure and probably Buddy Rogers too (despite the small number of Nature Boy matches). I wish we had more of his matches from the 1975 AJPW Open League because the two that we have (vs Murdoch and vs Inoue) are very good for very different reasons.

I voted for him last time around, I think that may have been a mistake. His ROH run is very good though, I think him and Jimmy Jacobs make for a great tag team that cover for eachothers shortcomings well. The Shield are great and he was the best one of them during that run. He'd make a top 200 for me comfortably.

in the very beginning of NJPW world it used to call Bad Luck Fale, Bad Rack Ware, I thought that was pretty funny

When you look at the view counts compared to post counts in all these threads it's clear there's plenty of people lurking so even if there's no real discussion it might lead to a 1 or 2 people checking out the matches you recommend for the nomination. And if you think he's someone who seriously could be in your top 100 in 2026 then you should nominate him just for yourself no? So you can put in the ballot you really want to.

Bumping this again to share that there's eight non-nominated wrestlers who have at one point or another received votes in the wrestling observer newsletter year end poll for 'most outstanding wrestler'. There are people who thought each of these were all top 3 wrestlers in the world in at least one year. Are any of them worth nominating? 1. Billy Kidman 2. Tiger Mask IV 3. Averno 4. Dragon Lee 5. Volador Jr 6. Shuji Ishikawa 7. Matt Riddle 8. Utami Hayashishita

I had never seen this until just now and the first half of it might be the best first half of a match I've ever seen in my life. This is an incredible performance from Dragon, I love all the limbwork, I love him doing an atomic drop after a fan calls him Bob Backlund, I love how much of a vicious prick he comes off as. I think with a babyface on the other side showing more fire and a crowd that wasn't exhausted from seeing a show that had already gone over 4 hours and included that Dragon Gate trios match this could easily have been a 5 star match. ****3/4

FIFY. In all seriousness though, this will hopefully lead to some really good matches. I'm sure Claudio will be in it too anyway. I have no idea what they're going to do with this "triple crown" belt and if it means ROH won't have a champion anymore? Interference will not be tolerated is pretty funny because it implies it's allowed in the other matches on the show.

Because TV stations in places that have their own local wrestling probably aren't going to be very interested in airing wrestling from overseas, local wrestling in the US or Japan is going to have a much stronger audience than British wrestling so a TV station won't want to pay for it. If you're going to charge for it, I think only TV stations in places without wrestling scenes of their own will buy it

The simple fact is the people who say that are people who like Ishii matches much more than they like matches from any of those people.

Casas celebrating winning the second fall by climbing up to the second turnbuckle, playing an imaginary harmonica and throwing it into the crowd was weird as hell

Wouldn't Giant Baba be on the same level as the Beauty Pair for that? Anyway they should be in, it's very weird that Jackie Sato went in with the initial class without Maki to me.

I'd rank Kerry significantly better than Magnum, I can see the similarities in their cases though obvvously. Neither of them are exactly the kind of wrestler I'd be voting for, but I think Kerry has a lot more meat on the bone than Magnum not just in terms of volume of good matches but also in doing things that feel more varied to me, every good Magnum match feels like he's doing pretty similar stuff in them.

I kind of hate ladder matches at this point so maybe I'm off base here, but I just watched the Ladder War against the Briscoes and thought it was full of some of my least favourite ladder match tropes and definitely worse than than the 2/3 falls match and the Boston Street Fight the two teams had had in the preceding month. Kevin Steen is obviously excellent though he brings so much personality to his indie work, I love the character. I think he may spend too much time in brawls setting up complicated plunder and not enough beating the shit out of people sometimes, but overall he's great. The mask vs career match against Generico from Final Battle 2010 is legit a top 25 match all time for me. And he's definitely been good in WWE for the majority of his time there.

A match that truly abandons all logic and having a narrative and only focuses on being exciting ***3/4

I love the absolute chaos factor of this, it's Muta Muta-ing to the true best of his ability when it comes to making the thing feel violent and unique. But also fuck Muta for just casually getting up and walking off like nothing happened and he's fine after getting pinned

Hansen completely fucks up here and they can all just improvise perfectly and nobody misses a beat at all, I really appreciate that a lot.

A take that aged like a fine milk

This is absolutely how I've felt every single time I saw him live, there's something special about seeing him do this crazy stuff both so gracefully & impactfully that I don't think other wrestlers I've seen in person match.

Excluding the 2 pre-NJPW matches Control gave when they nominated him I could give you: w/KENTA vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Ricky Marvin 27/09/08 w/Jun Akiyama vs Kensuke Sasaki & Kota Ibushi 11/02/09 vs Kotaro Suzuki 21/03/11 vs Daisuke Harada 08/03/14 vs Hajime Ohara 07/01/17

A rare instance of someone who I think has made his case worse since 2016. The cool babyface new japan junior stuff is so long since faded in my memory replaced with complete mediocrity in WWE despite being given so much opportunity while there to stand out and be something.