Tetsujin

I don't like Cena as a worker. His peak stuff (2006-08) is very fun, and his famous three-four big matches are undeniable (although not all of them are as good as most of the other contender's greatest hits), but I hate how dull his formula is when it comes to regular tv matches and house shows. I get WWE calendary has to do with that, but there were wrestlers working the same schedule with a higher floor than him. He's also part of some of the worst matches in recent WWE history due to booking (I'm thinking about the Laurinaitis match or stuff like that, and that's not Cena's fault, but for example you can have Austin working with Vince and make it fun, or Lawler with Andy Kaufman, etc) or the PWG run (which aged very poorly imo, the Reigns match and the SummerSlam AJ match being two of the worst big matches I've ever seen). And his very good big matches, while obviously amazing, seem like they worked because other wrestlers forced Cena to work their way and not his (Punk, Lesnar, Bryan, AJ, you can even add the Firefly Funhouse match, I LOVE that thing). Maaaaaybe there's room for him in the botton of my list, but I don't think he'll make it honestly. But ironically he would be my first pick of wrestlers I wanna hang out with!

Okada's peak is undeniable and his best stuff is some of the best pro wrestling I've ever seen (hell, right now he has literally my #1 match, against Shibata). But since 2019 he has become this dull, repetitive, automatic pilot version of himself and it has been seriously painful to watch. Consistency is definitely not an argument for him, and he's still only 32, so I don't think his career will improve that much considering he already wrestles like a guy in his sixties. He's a bizarre case.

The following is what I wrote about Naito as a top 10/ contender on the GWE Project forum. He's one of my favourite wrestlers ever. We all know his peak stuff (16-17) is absolutely incredible, as he was easily one of the best un the world and producing some of the best wrestling matches of the 10s, some of them arguably among the greatest ever (the Tanahashi 2017 trilogy, the first Omega match). In that period, and still today, he's one of the most consistent guys in current New Japan, having a lot of 'from very good to great' matches against very different opponents and kind of matches: vs Shingo, vs Taichi, vs Moxley, vs Ishii, vs White, vs Ibushi, more against Omega, vs Shibata, vs Styles, vs Jericho, the infamous WK 12 main event, vs Juice... As you can see, not all of those are top tier workers and, even though Naito always had his classic spots in mind everytime, he managed to insert them without feeling it unnatural despite how the match was going to be. But I gotta say, a peak from 2016 to 2017 is a two-year peak only, and there are a lot of workers with a larger and more diverse peak. I'm not saying Naito is on their league, at least not from a "peak" perspective. Some other things I love about him is how he always projects his persona, in a way that everything he does, it feels like the correct thing El Ingobernable Tetsuya Naito would do. He might be in that "larger than life" character tier with guys like Hokuto, Funk or Hansen, because of his fantastic character work and amazing charisma. And, I gotta, say, is pre-Ingobernable stuff is pretty great top, clearly underrated. In the first half of the 10s you have great and even amazing stuff with Ishii, Tanahashi, peak Okada, YUJIRO TAKAHASHI, the WK 9 Styles match... His character was kinda dull back then, but he was already at a high level of work, both on a regular basis and in top tier matches, but obviously he needed that Ingobernable transformation to became the best version of himself. Throughout his whole career, Naito became also one of my favourite offensive wrestlers on the modern era, not because he's stiff (he's not), or because he's spotty (he is sometimes), but because he uses every part of his offensive game with a purpose. He doesn't spam things, he always do the right stuff when it has sense for him to do it. For example, his beautiful flying forearm smash or his spinebuster are great counters to his rival's momentum. He have great neck-based offense, setting up his bigger moves. The Destino literally was born as the perfect counter for the Rainmaker. I appreciate a lot stuff like that. I think a case can be made about Naito being one of the best workers of the 10s, and to me it's early to consider him a top 100 ever contender, but his career looks great from today's perspective and I think he could be at the bottom of my GWE list in 2026 or 2036. We'll see. But I'm curious about what do you guys think.

Best wrestler ever when it comes to making the basics feel big (maybe tied with Hashimoto). The stiffest non-stiff worker ever. One of the longest peaks I've seen (92-97, those are six whole years working as one of the best wrestlers in the world, and in a moment where WWE was almost dead). If his Hart Foundation stuff is good enough, he could be top 15 for me.

The fact Akiyama is still building his legacy as a GOATC is amazing to me, considering he worked the same style as the Pillars. He's with guys like Rey, Fujiwara, Liger and Flair as kings of consistency and longevity. I might have him above guys like Kawada, Taue, Hashimoto, Fujinami, Jumbo and Tenryu... Hell, the only japanese heavyweight wrestlers I think would rank higher than him in my book would be Kobashi, Misawa and Tanahashi. He's that good, and has always been. Clear top 10 contender.

Kandori is quickly becoming my favourite female wrestler (not yet, but she's growing on me faster than Aja and Hokuto back then). I hope she finishes, at least, at the top 50 for 2026. To me, she's like top 30-25 contender right now (and I still haven't watched the Devil Masami match).

GWE 2016 was what made me get outside of my WWE-current NJPW-90s AJPW bubble, so I would be very happy if it comes back by 2026. Ringwork based on footage should be the main criteria, yes (however, if for example you have a tie between, let's say, Randy Savage and Bret Hart, and you can't find something to break that tie, I wouldn't be mad if you use promos to finally choose between them, because both are US wrestlers and specially big WWE workers; it's not the same as putting, idk, Funk above of Kobashi based on Terry's mic work). I'm also happy with the "have to participate in the process to make a list" rule, even if it means people like myself (very busy because of work and not a fluent english speaker) not being able to participate as much as I want to and therefore not being able to present a top 100. The "book club" with YouTube stuff mentioned by Eliott, Grimmas and others sounds like a wonderful idea too, as it could be something that makes the project easier to follow for not-as-involved people (I'm not a podcast guy personally, no disrespect to anyone, I participated in a kinda famous spanish wrestling podcast a few years ago, but I need some visual reinforcement of what I'm trying to pay attention to, and not just hearing people talking. But that's just me, though). I would add that the discussion phase have to start sooner, iirc 2016's started two years before, that seems like not a lot of time considering how much wrestling is there to cover and argue about. If 2021 is gonna be the year of debating and preparing everything, 2022 can be the start of the discussion process, why should we wait more? Also, with the "crowd reaction not meaning that much because already stablished big stars will always have crowd support whatever they do in the actual match", I definitely see that, but then we come to the reasoning of: "wait, maybe it's the other way around, maybe it was their ringwork what made them huge stars to begin with and that gave them fired up crowds as a garantee once they were stablished". I can think of examples of both cases (Hogan and Bryan). And I believe that if the project is called "greatest wrestler EVER", that has to imply the hability of trascending time. You can totally argue Hogan is a top 100 wrestler ever considering how is ringwork worked back then, fine, but did it aged well? Context is very important, but, in the end, the people making the list are doing it in 2021-26. I think balance between context and hability to trascend time is the key when searching the best wrestlers ever.

I consider this one of the most overrated matches of all time. Nothing close to a classic match, at least from a ringwork perspective. I've been watching it a couple of times for the last five years or so, and, while I used to think it was bad and now I kinda like it, I still consider it overrated af. Baba was totally annoying here: his strikes were soft, his selling was non-existent, he moved very slow... he was at a point where his limitations began to show, I guess. I liked how he tried to use his size to his advantage while grappling (as he always does), and using his Jumping Neckbreaker Drop as a last ditch effort to secure the win was a cool spot, but that's kinda it. Robinson, on the other hand, gave a great performance and one of the best carryjobs I can remember. The way he puts Baba's size over, how he carefully targets one of his legs, his amazing selling and bumping, the facial expressions, those vicious forearms... He does everything he can to keep the flow of the match and he fucking succeeds, because I was never bored while watching it, and considering how bad Baba's performance was, that's trully something. I also love the clean finish. In this time and place, a no contest result was the bread n' butter of bookers in an international title match, and the couple of times on the third fall they battle at ringside had this feeling of "aw shit it's going to finish now, isn't it?". I enjoyed how they played the audience with that and how it paid off with a clean, decisive, finish. Nothing I would consider for a GME project, and I don't even think it's one of the best matches of their careers and/or the 70s, but still a match that proofs how amazing and intelligent Billy Robinson was. So yeah, despite its flaws, I always kinda enjoy it.

The Fun House match is a masterpiece. Comedy gold, yet still deep and meaningful. Credit to Bray for creating all this, and so much respect for Cena because no other ace in WWE's history would have exposed his whole career like this for the sake of entertaining and putting another guy over.

Shota Umino, Takuya Nomura, Bianca Bellair, Darby Allin, Utami Hayashishita...

I love Bryan and this is a great performance by him, but I gotta give credit to Wyatt for portraying his character perfectly. Extremely dangerous, but not invincible. Hurts a lot, but even he can be hurt. Taking away the stupid four corners gimmick saved this match, and these two gave as a semi-PG dog collar fight very memorable.

I fucking cried. I've only cried with one match before and that's Misawa/Kobashi from 2003. So yeah, one of the greatest moments of my wrestling fandom life.

My favourite match this year is Juice Robinson vs Job Moxley for the US Title. It was a hell of a rebirth for Moxley's ringwork, and one of the best brawls in modern puro (specially in NJPW). Both guys were on fire at every moment.

Yeah, it's a shame the finish was so anticlimatic with Brock not giving a single fuck about the 2 on 1 handicap that almost cost him the title a couple of seconds ago, but hey. Very fun stuff.

I really liked this, it was worked in a different way from previous wargames and the crowd was really hot for everything. Kai's turn and Baszler being the cockiest person ever for it was clearly the peak of the match, but I really wanted the 4 on 2 handicap to play a bigger role in the match. It would have been awesome if an injured Nox came back and distract Team Shayna creating an opening for Candice and Rhea or whatever. Loved the ending spot too.

This was the most well paced, balanced, consistent Dynamite show yet. Everything was at least fun, Luchasaurus return was great, and the Moxley/Allin, Jericho-MJF-Cody and Bucks-PnP segments were so well done. Also, Scorpion Sky being the first one to pin Y2J in AEW felt huge, as it should be. Oh, my favourite thing was the third Page vs PAC match. This series is really making me a Hangman fan, and feeling that "building slowly but correctly a new top star" process is amazing. This rivalry rocks.

I can't believe this didn't had a topic. An amazing shoot style with big moves hybrid match, with super stiff action and great selling. Ikeda being a dick and Otsuka making him pay for his excess of confidence was a great story. Loved the transitions here: Otsuka being able to block one of Ikeda's very dangerous kicks and giving him a dragonscrew, the desperate russian leg sweep, the lariat countered into a Fujiwara armbar... Everything was put together in a very smart way.

BUSHI with an awesome performance, outsmarting Ospreay almost everytime. Will did pretty well as well (try to say that as quick as posible), using his incredible athleticism to overcome his foe when it was needed, and not just spamming flips. The bad, bad Osaka crowd actually were huge for the MX nearfall (and so was I, VERY good false finish). I'm so glad BUSHI proved why he deserves to be one of the top stars of the Jr division, I hope so. The post match with Hiromu's comeback might be the greatest return of the year and one of the greatest moments of modern NJPW. Hiromu is a complete superstar at this point.

Just watched the first two shows. This is awesome.

To me, this was the worst of the three Dynamite shows yet. I only cared about the last tag match, which was worked wonderfully, and the last minutes of the main event because Darby is such a great underdog. But AEW has two big problems they have to work on: 1) Too much matches for a weekly tv show. They need more promos, segments and characters exhibitions in general, otherwise the fans will eventualy be burned out in the middle of the show. Last week they made a really good show, and the highlight was the Inner Circle promo. Do more stuff like that, or have Schiavone interview more people after matches, whatever. 2) The womens division. Idk if this is unpopular opinion or what, but Riho is so, so bad. Like, first Eva Marie run levels of bad. People are with her now because they're excited about everything AEW, the new big thing, has to offer, but if she doesn't learn how to wrestle is a matter of time fans turn on her. Also, Baker, Priestley, Rose... They have potential but they're not ready yet. Imo AEW needs for their womens division somebody they can rely on while building new stars slowly (like Jericho os doing with Page and Darby). But seriously though, go watch Omega/Page vs Mox/PAC. Great tv match with great action, character moments, stories moving forward, and Hangman starting to look like the star they are building.

Yeah pretty happy with an Archer title run. Although I dunno what are they gonna do with Mox and Juice, because clearly they have that one match left at WK, but it being a non-title bout? Not sure about it. Maybe a triple threat with Archer? Also, #NaitoTwoBelts seems closer than ever. Okada just said he will defend the world title both nights, and both Ibushi and White want to be double champions. Naito just needs to beat Taichi at PS and then challenging White at WK. Oh, and Liger will have two retirement matches. That's something.

Moxley didn't make it to Japan because of the Typhoon, so he vacated the US title and Juice is gonna fight Archer for it today. That sucks.

Man this stupid company sucks so much. Kofi was world champion a week ago and now he doesn't even care about it. Draft picks in the fucking same order they posted before. No world title for the Fiend when he's over. Charlotte with another meaningless title run. The new videogame sucks. NXT has become an Ode to HHH and Meltzer. The Saudi stuff. SHORTY Gable. Destroying the UK indie scene. Nothing new, but that doesn't change how bullshit it all is. There could be good stuff, but nothing that makes me feel like I should be a "WWE fan". I HATE their product.

If I were AEW I would hire Meiko Satomura no matter what.

They did the exact same thing with Reigns after the 2015 Rumble, it's hilarious. They just don't know what to do with babyfaces.