Boss Rock

Savage is an interesting one for me. He has obvious positives in his ability to be convincing as both a heel and face (the European tour matches with Shawn are great) and for his ability to get excellent matches out of the Ultimate Warrior of all people. But there's so much of his 80's work I've seen where he's stalling and doing hide the weapon for 2/3 of the match. No matter how charismatic he is, those types of things are my least favorite tropes in wrestling. I'm not saying wrestling has to just be action, action, action all the time (although admittedly I love action-heavy matches), but after 10 minutes of jawing at the ref and refusing to do anything I'm asking myself how much longer is this match? That being said, I think he was just too versatile and too intelligent to not make my ballot. But not sure he'll crack the top 50 just yet.

Just more of a personal preference really. Mat-heavy matches aren't always my cup of tea and 90's Fujinami seemed more likely to trade strikes or have grittier fights against guys like Tenryu or Hash. That being said, the '86 Maeda match is still my favorite.

Honestly, most of my favorite Fujinami matches are from the 90's. No doubt he was a great technician in the 70's and 80's, but I prefer his 90's work.

The aforementioned Grave Consequences match is a great example of Fenix in storytelling mode.

Thanks!

I will say another annoyance is, like mentioned above, comebacks coming too easy. But his offense is so exciting it's hard for him to fall outside of "pretty good" territory.

Really interested in how his post-WWE run goes. His initial NXT run was a bit of a disaster but as soon as he turned heel it all clicked. Part of perhaps the greatest NXT world title matches and his MR feud with Rey was a lot of fun until the book was yanked from Heyman. The little bit I've seen from him as La Sombra is good but it seems like his best work was as NXT champ.

Very strong top 10 candidate right now.

I love 90's Fujinami. The aforementioned Hashimoto series of course, but also the G1 final against Hase and the nose break Dome match against Tenryu.

Not sure where I stand on Christian yet, but I thought his recent match with Kazarian was really good.

Thanks!

I'm begging them to put him in BOSJ, just to show how good he still can be.

Thanks!

Morton's another one I'd like to see a case made for. The Flair cage match is terrific and there some perfectly good Rn'R-MX tags I've seen, but apart from that I don't really know where to start. It also doesn't help that, like I said in the Eaton thread, the Rn'R-MX series has never really knocked my socks off.

A master of versatility who can adapt to almost any situation. You can look up any random indie Dick Togo match on Youtbe and find something that's at least pretty fun. Take this match for example. No ropes, just a mat against a guy who's only been wrestling for 5 months. And his peak stuff is pretty terrific. Obviously the Michinoku Pro tags with Kaientai DX and against Honda, but he has loads of awesome DDT matches against Ibushi, HARASHIMA, Gedo, and even Sanshiro Takagi. Tons of really good U.S. and Japan indie matches as well. A very strong top 30 contender.

Thanks, will do!

On the strength of his tag work alone Taue is a top 10 contender to me. It's his singles work I need to revisit as he never quite had the resume the other Pillars did. But I think that '06 match with Marufuji shows just how much he ruled.

Barely made the cut at 100 in 2016 which means he could be in trouble of falling off. But all of the shoot-styled wrestlers I've seen, Ikeda is my favorite. Wonderfully violent and physically-intense wrestler. The Ishikawa series probably represents the bulk of his peaks, but I love the Ono and Morishima matches and the Futen tag against Sato and Mashimo.

Yeah those 80's tags are all awesome. I even really enjoy the '84 tag league final with Brody against the Funks. Also cosign on Hansen's sense of chaos being a huge mark in his favor.

I agree with all of those. Even as he got de-emphasized, he was still really good and even better than a decent amount of the roster. One of the rare examples of someone retiring when they still had plenty of gas left in the tank. Top 10 candidate easy.

The glass and exposed ring match with Masahi Takeda in 2018 is terrific.

Another terrific utility player with a good amount of longevity. His BOSJ runs were always solid and his 2017 tag match with Ibushi against Okada and Gedo is great. Someone I'm definitely considering.

Yeah Kawada was always the angry one.

Kawada is currently a top 2-3 contender for me. He was arguably the best of the pillars '90-'92 with his rivalry with Taue really being the driving point of those amazing trios matches.And even if Kobashi and Misawa surpassed him later on, he was still right there in the conversation for best in the world. He was also the one most likely to try different things, mainly due to his desire to work more submission and shoot-based stuff in matches which butted heads with Baba. That's why I love his post-pillars run so much. He would have awesome pseudo-BattlArts matches with guys like Naoya Ogawa and Nagai while also having terrific Kings Road-esque bouts with Kojima, Tenzan, Tenryu, Sasaki, and Omori. The Holy Demon Army is also one of the greatest tag teams of all time. Sure, most of their best matches were against Kobashi, Jun, and Misawa, but those are still arguably the greatest tag matches ever. Not to mention he and Taue would also put on bangers against teams like Shinzaki and Hayabusa. My only main criticism of Kawada would be that his leg selling, which he was once very good at, pretty much fell by the wayside later on in his career (*stares at the Mutoh matches). The Misawa matches also lost a bit of their luster in the late 90's, but most of them were still very good.

Rey Fenix The most spectacular high-flier of his generation. What he's able to do in the ring feels akin to what Rey was doing in the mid-90's. An excellent babyface but has also played a decent heel when called upon, primarily with Death Triangle. Just an all around awesome singles, tag, and spotfest worker. Fenix vs. Mil Muertes (Lucha Underground Grave Consequences 3/29/2015) Rey Fenix vs. WALTER (wXw 3/9/2019) Rey Fenix vs. Kenny Omega (AEW Dynamite 1/6/2021)