Ma Stump Puller

filtered

Yeah figured as such, those longer hour-long Specials aren't as publically available as the TV slots. You can still find them but it's somewhat of a struggle. Appreciated that you enjoyed the match itself ARSION is pretty good just as a solo watch, it's completely isolated from other promotions at the time so you don't need to know some sort of secondary "lore" to know what's going on. It's slow for the debut year but the late 90s are a joy to go through if you click with the house-style.

I can't say he was "cosplaying" (whatever that means) but he absolutely felt unfocused in a lot of the matches I seen of him, another kick/submission guy in a era where there were a LOT of those guys trying for the same style, only occasionally he'd do like a WoS spot but a bit slower and more clunky, or maybe even a dive or two. God forbid if he was a heel in the match too.

I think this reflects my views on Bryan a fair bit. I've watched a good bit of his best work, just never really seen the "GOAT" out of him. He seems like a guy who especially in his earlier days felt like someone trying to copy better wrestlers without really putting his own ideas into how to make them better/unique. Like Necro/Low-Ki had MUCH shorter peaks but they were so wildly unique in their presentation that you couldn't help but acknowledge them, even if you thought Necro "couldn't wrestle" or Low-Ki "just stiffed people" (I disagree with both of these ofc) you were pretty much forced to confront what they brought to the table. With Bryan, I see so many of him out there that I can just kinda phase him out. His actual matches around the time are still pretty bloody great, but they aren't GOAT-contender material. I'm not that wowed by them at the end of the day. With Bryan, I just kinda see that part of his career as a pseudo Minoru Tanaka where he's trying to do the "flashy Jr with kicks/submissions" style without actually drilling in what he wants to add on top of that. I feel like he got much better at realising his potential as a legendarily great babyface in his WWE/AEW material wherein he was forced to have shorter matches and so could not have the luxury of having 30+ Epics every time where he could just fill it as much as possible with stuff he wanted to throw in. This does start to creep into his AEW material again (especially with his hour long matches) but I think he handled it much better and I would say that by far that was his best balance. The other issue (and this is one I've talked with others about, including Joseph on this thread here!) is that I don't think Bryan cracked certain things that are required for a GOAT-status. He didn't really have stellar tag-team matches, for instance, only a short couple of showings in WWE where he was mostly using his incredible babyface energy for hot tags. One can't really find the carefully constructed masterpieces that the Pillars were involved in, or the incredible high intensity JWP-tags that defined those like Dynamite or Ozaki. They simply don't exist. I don't think he cracked being a heel either though that's a whole other bag of worms. Needless to say, I think he's still a pretty good performer, still say he was top 30/40, but the Platonic ideal that he represents just doesn't really click for me nor do I think was ever realised.

Consult the Evito Best of Joshi Puroresu series they did on Reddit, it's a helpful guide to Jag matches that might be worth searching/watching past her first retirement.

It really depends on how much you rate her (IIRC fantastic) 1980's work. As the years have gone by we've slowly trickled out more and more AJW material from that era and it basically confirms the legend of Jaguar being this all-round badass maestro ace, helped by some very helpful documentation by folks like @Kadaveri in regards to fully showcasing that factoid to a wider audience. After her 80's work I will admit that her material is somewhat shaky: not in terms of a "absolute stinker" level of quality, but she does feel a little infrequent, sometimes having these amazing classics and then the occasional eh match or so, mostly in promotions like Jd' where the experience of everyone around her would vary significantly. After the 90's she kinda falls off the radar because she either focuses on promotions with little to no coverage like Bolshoi's JWP (though some of her matches are, amazingly, still intact) or wrestles rookies/simply bad wrestlers. It's a strange trajectory for one of the greatest to go, but there you go. She feels like a heavy peak candidate; though if you are a fan of old vets doing occasionally really wild spots she's definitely got a bright side there to focus on as well, I mean ffs she still does reverse Frankensteiners regularly. Will definitely be in the top 100, probably top 20/30 thinking about it.

I appreciate the fact that you're on your way to becoming a Ogawa fan, he's definitely the type that absolutely rewards the viewer for paying attention to the match as attentively as this write-up does. You might be somewhat disappointed in that Ogawa never gets perhaps the crazy highs of the Kobashi match but he absolutely still excels on having great dickhead performances, would be happy to throw out recommendations if needed

Fun tag worker in her prime, pretty great longevity as well to boot considering she's still wrestling in Marvellous to this day having good to solid outings. Will not be in the top 100 as I think she never quite broke the mid-card ceiling she had over her head, her depth of work post-GAEA is a little lacking as well.

A decent (but quite awkward) Jr heavyweight, his 90s big match stuff while impressive can go overkill, especially in the late 90s where it's clear his motivation for doing crazy shit was starting to weigh on him. His best work ever was probably his early FMW catalogue, insane mileage out of extremely heated brawls + awesome Different Style material that had him work brilliant Fish out of Water sequences with boxers and martial artists. He does suffer from diminishing returns as the years go by; post-2000's Onita feels more and more like a parody of himself more than the real article; by the time you get to the Tiger Mask feud it's just kinda never-ending how dull his matches tend to get especially since he started abusing the fuck out of mist spots to the point where half the match is just him building up to it. Not withstanding today where he's so limited that all he can really do is his entrance and maybe a table piledriver if his knees feel up to it. It's hard to grade him because he's a guy that's most known for spectacle despite his best material generally not being all that spectacular lol. I feel like he'll still be on that top 100 but his consistency is a big knock to his case.

I found it on YT actually, there's the TV version that gives you 14 minutes of the original 20 As always I would also say to consult the AJPW 90s Omnibus since that tends to have the occasional deeper slice of matches (or things outright omitted otherwise)

Kinda a uber-GOAT in that she's had I think two very distinct but great careers (her workrate-heavy JWP stint, then her later work as a bloody invader). Somewhat hurt by a pretty all over the place 2000's run where I think she took way too much inspiration from Triple H but I think her later work into the 2020's is definitely really respectable given her limitations, especially the pair of matches she had with Mio Momono (who similarly will absolutely be on the top 100 with the greatest of ease). She's basically worked like a far better Onita the last decade and I'm all the more happy for that.

Ishikawa will 100% be on the top 100 list. He had a bit of a lull nearing the end of his second AJPW stint but the guy has had 15+ years of being a big crowbar fuck who just hits as hard as he can with whoever he's paired up with, taking insane punishment be it from ultra-violent bloodfests in BJW or doing some of the dumbest big-man bumps possible in more classical epics in their Strong division, also proven he can work as a more immobile giant in later years. His recent freelance resurgence as this wandering enforcer has really ruled as well and cemented his status as one of the best giants of his time and probably a bit beyond that to boot.

idk about White being a "minimalist" his best stint was in a company that infamously dragged the fuck out of every semi/main event by at least 10 minutes (something he happily got himself involved with) not to also mention that horrendous engorged tumour that was the WK15 Ibushi match. Jerry Lawler was a minimalist, Jay White's just more of a throwback-type to control heavy heels that don't heavily rely on flash. Jay White for GWE is a tricky one, sometimes he clicks and seems like the biggest bastard in the world (especially when it comes to the micro elements like fatigue-selling, emoting, fluidity etc) but he's someone who's whole style hinges greatly on his opponent complimenting what he brings to the table; he needs a strong babyface OR at least someone who's willing to respect his slower pace to truly get something great out of him. He's very defensive, more of someone who relies on a great hook (a super-athlete like late 2010's Ibushi or a face with a big legacy like Tanahashi) than making one himself. One could argue that's been exposed heavily in AEW where he doesn't have the benefit of perhaps having that structure always in front of him, especially with the varied opponents he gets. For him to be on a GWE2026 list you'd need to be heavily leaning it on NJPW work, for me personally I just don't click with that enough to consider him there.

i'd be fine handling the busywork with GWE threads if there's stuff to be covered

thanks! if you want more based late-Momota matches his 1999 Fan Appreciation Night match is really stellar

GOAT-tier at boiling the piss of smarks, good to great most of the time in matches. I kinda wish we got more of the pure shooty-side of him because the Severn Bloodsport-but-much-better- title match they had in 1998 was pretty solid and he definitely had the background chops to make it work beyond just Different Style shit if he was ever inclined. He definitely got a better idea of how to make his stature work in a post-PRIDE world than most, that's for sure.

This feels like the kind of wrestling that Onita was always one of the best at; causing disruptions whenever he'd go, shaking things up and not being afraid to piss a ton of people off in the process. They do a good job making him seem like a legit complete outsider against the polished martial artist in Aoyagi, eating a quick and easy knockdown at the very start to set up his desperation to keep in the match by any means necessary via going right into dirty clinches, threatening to stomp the shit out of his opponent while he's trying to clean break, just all of the effective heel shit that a man like Onita would've learned from already a decade+ of refined wrestling wisdom. He knows how to push the buttons just enough to work Aoyagi's buddies at ringside (the crowd to boot) to get them more and more pissed off at this washed up retired jackass trying to get his fame back to the point where they're just ready to run in and cause chaos, something which at MULTIPLE occasions almost becomes reality and at some points overspills into actually happening. I can't say that the actual bulk of the action is especially amazing from a purely technical standpoint; the takedowns look real hokey, there's really no stand-up work asides from a lot of messy limb throwing/flailing (with maybe a couple of unpolished clinches) the few submissions that are applied as well don't look the greatest execution wise (though Onita applies a pretty good facelock in the first half). This is forgivable because the match isn't going for polish, it's going for the pure spectacle factor in its entirety. You aren't watching this for the epic knockdowns or the creative submissions, you're watching it because Onita's being a shithead and Aoyagi is the hometown hero ready to beat his ass for a good 20 minutes, a match built off the premise of violence rather than the parts of the whole. Granted said parts are still relatively good though. Crazy real brawl happens in the middle half when Onita smacks Aoyagi with a chair on the outside which ends up having the guy legit punched in the face by one of Aoyagi's buddies. There's a huge scuffle and it takes multiple agonisingly long minutes to break it up then to restore the match, creating legit confusion in the heated crowd as to what's going on. I absolutely loved the fact that as soon as the match actually restarted Onita scumbag as he is goes right into another dirty clinch to throw clearly illegal headbutts before choking the shit out of the Karate lad on his side of the ring lol. This gives them the chance to get Aoyagi blading for some classic Southern colour to really get the intensity up, helped by Onita's almost feral antics at this point as he just lays into his opponent with as many headbutts as he can muster. He eventually decides to go full crazy by assaulting the ref directly with punches (which while not uncommon here, was something Onita was prepared to do in more sneaky ways like indirectly pushing him over earlier on) out of pure frustration due to not being able to get that definitive big victory despite taking a painful beating, ultimately losing his patience with not just Aoyagi but the hostile crowd to boot by throwing out the entire thing. Post-match he very quickly scarpers out while his buddies throw hands, Aoyagi gets the symbolic victory post-match by being the only guy involved to be capable of staying inside the ring without getting chased down with fists; it's definitely built to be inconclusive given the feud to come, however, so one expects that this is for sure not a conclusive end. Is this absolutely clunky in execution? Sure, this is pretty dang messy on many occasions. The magic here is as I've said Onita is a perfect outsider heel: a Funk-lite contender that really communicates his mounting frustrations with the unstoppable brick wall that is Masashi Aoyagi though his escalating intensity and his selling, both forming a brilliant combo that serves to make the crowbar karateka seem like the coolest fucker to ever live with every explosive rush of strikes thrown: draining away at Onita's body but also his sanity to boot, he comes into this a polished competitor willing to sprawl and wrestle in a clash of styles and literally runs out looking like a desperate man looking for a equally desperate way-out. In a way, perhaps, it marks the end of the polished & clean AJPW Onita and the true beginning of his grimy roots as an supreme disrupter, giving him a out to his now conclusively failed past and a clear direction towards his future with no way for him to ever go back to being a generic Jr babyface with this lingering in the background. Onita running from the tradition of the ring and into the violent sprawling Korakuen crowd is the gesture needed to finally commit the exorcism required to make that part of him melt away completely, assisted by the beatings provided by a all-too eager opponent and audience. An absolute masterclass in how exploiting a hostile atmosphere and taking complete advantage of it can make or break a match; lesser men would've capitulated to the pressure, maybe even tried to do some shitty Curtain Call "sign of respect" post-match gesture to avoid the real risks involved like personal scrutiny (and to a lesser extent, getting punched in the face). Onita was thankfully never that man, and we're all the more better off for it.

I think asides from the occasional good promo this heel run has been a complete dud so far, which is a shame because Cena's RR and Chamber performances respectfully were quite enjoyable for what he was bringing to them. I think they just waited far too long to pull the trigger; Cena hasn't looked good in-ring since 2021 and hasn't looked great since maybe 2018, his body simply is too out of it to deliver on the promise of a proper heel stint (and no, not in the "muh workrate" kind of way)

More Deep stuff here Introduction This is a collected version of my notes regarding Mariko Yoshida's volume of work from her departure from ARSION/AtoZ (2004 to be exact) all the way to her retirement in 2017. This was something that I originally set out to doing about 2 years ago as I was fairly curious as to what existed beyond her strongly acclaimed 90s stint especially since there really was next to no real documentation on the matter, so you kinda had to go off vibes for the most part. This sets out to cover almost everything from that time period barring a very small couple of things that I either did not watch (the Yoshida/Fujiwara vs Ishikawa/Amano tag, for instance, which was so aberrant that I outright refused to give it the dignity of a full review at all) or are just too lacking in content that I decided otherwise (some 3 minute exhibitions she has in IBUKI during her mini retirement) Bolded are matches that I think are must-watch though if you're a completionist like me I doubt it'll matter that much lol. I also do dates in the Euro-style so it's day/month/year. 2004/2005 2006/2007 2008 Wilderness Years Conclusion All in all, I'd say every bolded match included here is absolutely worth watching one way or another. Does that mean everything not bolded isn't? I'd say no. There's definitely still plenty to be found with those and if you like them more than me, that's also cool as well. I think the main thing I got from watching all of these was that Yoshida was in the very rare position of being a tremendously gifted wrestler who was equally as generous to boot. As Jetlag said in the original thread this was thrown in at the time, she tends to play second fiddle to other wrestlers; this is on purpose mainly to show them off in a strange inversion of the usual hierarchy-based structure that is quite typical of promotions to follow from even to this day wherein the bigger stars get, well, the bigger spotlight. The issue is that she's STILL head and shoulders above pretty much all of said wrestlers, so it never really clicks in the way that you'd expect, even with the matches that are actually quite solid there's a sense of incoherence that follows from them that I don't think I ever shook off despite watching so many of them at once. If she had more of a ego, could've had led to her having bigger and better matches? I'd say so, and that's a pretty shocking conclusion considering how much of wrestling is dominated by unneeded egos. I think the other issue is that Yoshida was never really challenged in the same way she was in the ARSION work; you didn't have a Hiromi Yagi or a Megumi Fujii-tier talent to really get her grappling skills tested to the maximum meaning a lot of the matches feel like her more or less in second gear and thus not in her full element all things considered. Still solid, but it's a waste having someone who was clearly very talented on the mat not be able to experiment as much as those late 90's years. It's kinda like if Fujiwara didn't go on to create PWFG in the 90s and just stayed in the mid-card of NJPW having competent and occasionally good showings while never being able to truly get his best trait tested as much as it did there. Regardless she's still a pretty stellar GWE addition that can't really be argued against given her wealth of solid matches, tremendous match-carrying and incredible consistency across the board. I hope this has proven that the case and then some.

This match was sick as hell for what was essentially the closest thing to a "sprint" you could get from this era given the length. Jack Moore was a respected vet of the time who was much well past his best years at this point; this being to my knowledge his only actual documented match on tape. He looked good here as the outclassed but experienced vet, using his wits to deal with Don's imposing big-man heel work but ultimately coming up short in most of the exchanges. There's some good spots here where Don gets to showcase his creative cheating antics, throwing closed-fist punches in dirty clinches or yanking at the trunks to escape key-locks, even throwing in a bit of more 80s-style showboating by having Don Leo gloat to the crowd between holds or feigning innocence when the ref catches him out. There's some slightly rough bumps on Moore's end but this otherwise was a really effective heel beatdown, culminating in Don getting huge heat for using the middle rope as a springboard to drop his knee right on Moore's groin which got a lot of disgusted faces from the front row crowd. Don also does solid on the other end of the coin when it comes to working the heel comeuppance spots, getting huge heat for fly-sticking to the ropes whenever his opponent would actually start to land offence (including a pretty cool abdominal stretch transition into a toe-hold attempt by Moore that was shockingly agile from such a old geezer) and managing to survive long enough to get back into things. Finish was surprisingly nasty with Moore taking a couple of big back bumps into the turnbuckles before Don finished him off with a knee drop and a especially brutal looking rowboat-lite (announcer calls it a "Bow & Arrow" interestingly enough) submission where he essentially yanked the back and neck until he got the verbal victory. Super fun 8-minute affair that gets over Don Leo's villainous attitude over a respected vet, felt very much ahead of its time in regards to the more heat-based structure and less of a focus on grindy mat-work. Definitely a fascinating watch for the time period.

I think in many cases that the "bad" parts of a wrestler's career can still be drawn into a positive reflection of their overall work as a whole. People don't comment on Joe's WWE run with the most extravagant of praise but I'd firmly disagree on it being classified as worthless since it showcases how well he did with TV-format matches and how strong his floor was that he was having these sort of decent to good showings with a wide variety of opponents, some good and some awful. For me personally ranking is more down to consistency than peak, even though peak is obviously still extremely important. I will take someone who over 15 years was good to solid regardless of position or role over someone who was a top 10 talent for 2/3 years as a main eventer but was flimsy otherwise.

Don Leo Jonathan Kinda shocking that he wasn't a official nomination earlier. Don Leo has been held in great regard for decades as one of the best giants of his time, his terrific atheticism, and capability to play a strong babyface but a especially strong gift for being a heel, being probably one of the greatest big-man bumpers ever. Was also gifted enough technically that he could wrestle 30/40 minute matches without it ever seeming boring or out of touch, especially impressive since this was a guy wrestling in a time when dropkicks were considered a novelty. 50s discoveries have also further established his case since they show him in his prime having incredible showings with some of the best to do it, so we have even more reason to consider his case beyond some AJPW tours. vs "Tiger" Jack Moore (10/22/1954) vs Roy McClarity (01/24/1955) vs Verne Gagne (04/15/1955) w/ Hans Schnabel vs Argentina Rocca & Roy McClarity (06/10/1955) vs Lou Thesz (10/28/1955) vs Strong Kobayashi (05/02/1972) vs Mr. Wrestling (12/09/1975) vs Dory Funk Jr. (12/17/1975) vs Otto Wanz (07/12/1980)

Taue absolutely had natural talent in regards to being his size while also doing topes and top rope spots, not to also mention the fact that he barely if ever actually seriously trained as he himself has recounted. He didn't take to wrestling perhaps as easily as the other Pillars (nor had their tremendous peaks) but made up for it by his physicality and wide range.

Don't diss Izumida!!!! For real through how does Taue have less chemistry with him than Giant Kimala lol

shameless shilling for the Amano Complete & Accurate The first few minutes of this had the two do some fairly nothing grappling; Asuka's background means that she more or less controls these until Amano starts to take a small lead via negotiating into an Achilles Tendon attempt. Rather than humouring this, Asuka immediately goes into super disrespect mode by backhanding the shit out of her and throwing out big stiff PK's whenever possible to really hammer in the frustration at almost getting out-grappled by a pipsqueak. Asuka was never really known for her particularly striking grappling capabilities (at least in terms of match entertainment, anyway!) but her trying out for legit tight facelocks like she's in MUGA was pretty cool. Amano works especially well with these kind of David/Goliath matches where she needs to grind out advantage by being vicious or smart (sometimes just both! ) seeing her force an extended cross armbar by resorting down to biting Asuka's clamped hand or trying to escape being driven into a Fujiwara armbar shoulder first with Nishimura-style handstands to reverse the leverage are two VERY different counters stylistically, but only really make sense paired together by her alone without seeming bizarre. The grappling definitely got much better despite Asuka's limitations when they started pushing the pace, helped by Amano's eccentric antics in places as mentioned above before they hurled themselves into a short Korakuen brawl which had a couple of outside submissions applied and Asuka giving Amano's head a tour of the signs there, always worth following tradition ig. The striking exchanges they engage in afterwards were super fun, with Amano's high-energy stiff forearms and headbutts paired with Asuka's no-nonsense and equally as stiff heavyweight style making for a striking juxtaposition that got the crowd super behind the underdog Amano here as she had to get bolder and bolder to stand a chance here. They bring out the usual late-Asuka trash table antics however it thankfully is only used for I'd say one real spot (the top rope stomp) before they wisely go back to the meat and bones of the match with bombs and whatnot. Counters here for the record rocked, there's one near the end especially where Amano manoeuvres out of a Tower Hacker into a armbar submission that despite some sudden awkwardness setting it up looked killer when it actually happened, truly a epic moment at least on comparison with some of Kendo Kashin's wackiest transitions. My only real issue is that I think they spend a little too much time sitting in the actual armbar holds themselves (which was always a flaw specific to Asuka, Chig usually sold them much better since she added in more franticness that made it seem like she was legitimately going to have her arm broke) that it kinda negates the tension from them and makes it a bit too obvious that she wasn't going to tap. It builds up nicely though to Asuka relying on her brute strength to power out of another attempt into a Tower Hacker near fall alongside a couple of sharp heel kicks + the LSD to finally get the pinfall. This is a match that's REALLY helped by the fact a non-clipped version exists; without knowing of the first half's existence in regards to the more measured pace between the two and how that explodes into the brawling we see later you'd just think this was a sloppy late-Asuka brawl that only gets truly great at the end without those gimmicks in play. With that added, we have not only solid grappling bits between the two that translate to getting over Asuka's disrespect of the upstart opponent (and then her comeuppance when she almost loses numerous times) but also establish the counter-heavy dynamic behind Amano's success here as she found multiple ways to get back into the match despite the hierarchy difference between the two. I thought as a whole this was a pretty well constructed match; probably one of Asuka's last truly great performances in-ring despite her clear physical limitations being quite apparent here as she mostly kept to the greatest hits and didn't take too many crazy bumps. Amano really could not have a properly bad match for the 2000's, it seems.