Microstatistics

I agree with OJ in that he is a much better worker than people say. All in all, I would say he had a respectable career with an impressive resume of strong matches. I feel people here are overly and sometimes unfairly critical of him. Yes, there was the 2002-03 reign of terror, that awful Booker T finish, curbing Orton's first title reign, the pointless Brock feud, the overdrawn promos and self-centered tendencies etc. But on the flip side, he made Batista in 2005, and put over the Shield (thrice), Benoit, Shelton Benjamin, Cena (WM22), Seth Rollins, Bryan, Reigns. He has actually lost a lot of his high-profile matches, especially against younger, up-and-coming talent in an effort to help them get over. Who cares that he beat a 50-year-old Sting?

Man, WM31 really has lightning in a bottle, wasn't it? These two have followed up one of the all-time heavyweight bouts with nothing but poor to mediocre efforts. This was somehow far worse than WM34. Notwithstanding all those ridiculous F-5 kickouts in that match, at least it had a few cool moments, violence, and some resemblance of a structure and story. This was just boring. Nothing but suplex and finisher spamming and a lame, anti-climactic finish. Awful match. *3/4

This was a hoot and a great example of sports entertainment done right. Thanks to Knoxville's documented toughness, the kick-outs made sense without hurting Sami's credibility. On offense, Johnny was of course more limited (though that tornado DDT was cool) and that's where the gimmicky attacks and assistance from his crew came into play. Zayn sold the absurdity of the events well. It wasn't all smokes and mirrors as both took some big bumps too. An impressive achievement. ***1/2

This was a mess. A complete lack of structure coupled with weak, meandering action. Both wrestlers just seemed to be going through the motions. Just when they teased something interesting, for instance Ronda breaking up the Figure 8 by targeting Charlotte's susceptible ankle, they went back into autopilot mode. And all this was before that nonsensical finish. You know things are bad when the referee takes the most memorable bump of the match. **1/4

Great start as they effectively teased the Summerslam 2021 finish. Lynch's initial frustration at being unable to put Belair away immediately was well done. I liked the story of Becky settling into a groove and seemingly having Bianca's number at every turn until Belair fought her way back, leading to a more back and forth finishing stretch. Though, I wish Bianca had shown more urgency during the momentum shift. There were a few rough moments here and there but actually blended well into the hard-fought nature of the match. The match wasn't paced/structured quite as well as Belair's WM match the year prior (but that's a testament to Sasha Banks more than anything), even if the wrestling quality was comparable. Really good stuff overall. ***1/2

Meh, this doesn't hold a candle to 10/10/1985 when it comes to storytelling. Not to mention chaos and psychology. Still good though, even as I recant my exorbitant praise. ***1/4

Ok, they make some sense. The opening ambush and initial violence were decent, but I've come around to the side that considers this to largely be an empty spotfest. And Hokuto was just as guilty as Toyota, if not more. Forgettable performances from both wrestlers. **1/2

I sort of hated this upon rewatch. It started off alright but degraded into the typical John Cena back-and-forth kickout fest with minimal selling and boring transitions. I have no idea why they decided to abandon the neck psychology, especially after that killer DDT. What a letdown. **1/4

Such lies. The Benoit match is clearly better despite not being great. Also, I feel Eddie Guerrero was the best Kurt Angle opponent. This is still good stuff though. ***1/4

This didn't quite hold up for me. Honestly, I can't really disagree with a lot of what I said here but this felt more like a collection of cool moments and neat touches than a cohesively great match. It just lacked that connective tissue and flow necessary to reach the highest level. ***3/4

Yeah, this is a difficult year to gauge. Putting heavy emphasis on high-end performances, my Top 3 would be as follows. 1. Jushin Liger 2. Vader 3. Ricky Steamboat Volk Han, Bret Hart, Kenta Kobashi, Scott Steiner (as a tag wrestler), Mayumi Ozaki had a strong year as well.

El Hijo del Santo and Naoki Sano would be my Top 2.

1. Samoa Joe 2. AJ Styles 3. Kenta Kobashi 4. Edge maybe? (The Matt Hardy cage match is great; he also had a really good TV street fight vs. HBK)

Great thread cactus. Whose bright idea was it to inject an over the hill Chono into a Lesnar vs. Fujita dream clash? Surely, there was some other way to ensure the title change while protecting Fujita?

Danielson probably takes it but Nagata provides some stiff competition. The Makabe bloodbath (my MOTY), strong bouts vs. Tanahashi, Suzuki etc. I'll go with Randy Orton as the dark-horse pick. Multiple great heel performances in a solid number of really good-great matches (e.g., NYR tag, Cena Summerslam, HBK Survivor Series etc.)

Majority will probably go Flair and that's a fair enough pick but this was an intensely competitive year. Fujiwara, Satanico, Tenryu had top-tier years as well.

Yep, Steve Austin easily. El Satanico had a strong year too.

One of the most competitive years in wrestling history. The top 4 had all-time great individual years. 1. Eddie Guerrero 2. Kenta Kobashi 3. Samoa Joe 4. Kiyoshi Tamura 5. Kazuyuki Fujita? (struggling for names here)

1. Kiyoshi Tamura 2. Kenta Kobashi 3. El Hijo del Santo 4. Koji Kanemoto 5. Mick Foley

1. Volk Han 2. Shinya Hashimoto 3. Genichiro Tenryu 4. Shinjiro Ohtani 5. Shawn Michaels 6. Eddie Guerrero 7. El Hijo del Santo 8. Nobuhiko Takada 9. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 10. Mick Foley

From the top contenders: El Satanico, Eddie Guerrero, Shawn Michaels, Terry Funk, Bryan Danielson, Tetsuya Naito, AJ Styles, Jushin Liger, Steve Austin, Daisuke Ikeda, Ric Flair, The Destroyer From the middle contenders: Koji Kanemoto, Hiroshi Hase, Sgt. Slaughter, Buddy Rose From the lower-end contenders: Kurt Angle, Yumiko Hotta, El Samurai

Other contenders not mentioned yet (in no particular order). I would probably go with Tamura as WOTY at this stage though. Kiyoshi Tamura, Jushin Liger, Megumi Kudo, Jaguar Yokota, Eddy Guerrero, Shawn Michaels, Daisuke Ikeda, Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Volk Han, Shinjiro Ohtani

A well done, aggressive sprint with the ferocious striking prowess of Murakami vs. the pro wrestling smarts and skill of Ohtani. Ohtani momentarily deviating from his pro-style game plan near the end cost him dearly as it opened the door for the KO. ***1/2

Is this the correct date? It's listed as 12/21/1996 on Tabe's Tamura set. Anyway, this might be the most gruesome shoot-style match I've seen. The reviewers above bring up an interesting narrative regarding Yamamoto's frustration at his lackluster transition to be the top native talent in RINGS and his anger at a seemingly new golden boy in Kiyoshi Tamura. The standup had an aura of reckless violence and while the matwork was a little stagnant, it was quite ferocious and led to Tamura pouring hardway blood and almost getting his face rearranged. He nearly spiked himself setting up the finish too. ***3/4

I think this is easily the best match of its kind from this era. A few narrative points I picked up on that I feel are enough to label this as more than just a mindless stuntfest. - The Dudleyz were too fixated on their beloved tables, which caused them to waste time and lose the initiative (Jerry Lawler made a similar point on commentary) - The Hardyz (in particular Jeff) were needlessly enamored with daredevil maneuvers and so when one didn't pan out, they would crash and burn badly - Edge & Christian, on the other hand, were the most pragmatic and cunning. soup23 mentioned Edge taking the weakest bumps but I think that's a positive in the context of the story. These two did only what they needed to do to win and that seems to be the recipe for success since they had this match won twice (once prior to Lita's interference) and why they won WM2000 and TLC II as well. Anyway, the biggest strengths of this match are the non-stop action (with reasonable selling and transitions), the violent bumps, and the escalation. D-Von's bump near the end is particularly underrated and always makes me wince. ****1/4