ohtani's jacket

Fujiwara's dazed no-selling in the corner makes Takada's leglock the equivalent of A Love Supreme. (I totally feel like I'm in the insult contest of Monkey Island now. ) Why are we comparing Fujiwara's poetry to the most useless invention known to man? The Takada leglock, it's like a pair of splintered chopsticks

Fujiwara's headbutt is the Sistine Chapel compared to Takada's leglock. Takada's leglock is the Rick Rude resthold of signature holds.

Rey's 619 isn't half as bad as Takada's leglock. At least it's over in a few seconds.

I would put Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi comfortably ahead of Hansen. Tenryu, Hansen and Taue would be on the next level then Robinson, the Funks, The Destroyer, Baba, Steve Williams and Akiyama. I don't think Hansen's work in the 80s is good enough for him to be the number one pick. Lots of mediocre tag work and disappointing matches with Jumbo and Tenryu.

I agree with you, but different workers are at different stages. Looking at the list right now, I bet more people can point out the shortcomings in Curt Hennig than Jim Breaks and that's basically because people have been taking about Hennig for longer than they have Breaks. Reading the arguments that folks have, and taking a side, is kind of an unspoken aspect of smarkdom, but it plays a huge role in how workers are perceived. In the case of Breaks, nobody is arguing about him.

People have a hard time scrutinizing the workers they like. The only reason that Flair gets more scrutiny than others is because people have gone off him. It's easier to scrutinize something you don't really like or you're tired of. With a worker like Satanico most people are still discovering him. People haven't gotten tired of him because there's still a lot to see. A handful of people mentioned that they had a hard time getting into him as opposed to other lucha rudos, but they didn't really elaborate on why, perhaps in fear of a full blown argument. Really, unless you find a Devil's Advocate for each of these guys it's difficult to have a discourse that even approaches the discussions people had about Flair.

Man, after giving Owen, Dundee and Breaks some thought it's hard to get excited about this top 10.

I was surprised Joe finished this high given the wasteland that is TNA. I guess people really like Samoa Joe. That inspires me to put him on my playlist going forward. A childhood favourite of mine. The number of times my buddies and I imitated Owen was insane. Lines from his promos or television commentary would creep into daily conversation and anything remotely heelish would get the full Owen treatment. This was in the days before memes, but it was basically the same thing. And I think that's a testament to the fun, twisted, but incredibly consistent logic that Owen brought to his heel turn. It was a heel turn that lasted for years not weeks or months, and like all good villains, Owen believed that he was the hero. Even when he reunited with Bret, he still believed he'd been right all long. For my money one of the great wrestling characters. I actually credit him with getting me back into wrestling after a long lay-off between 1991 and 1995. It was the Bret/Owen feud that really sparked my interest in wrestling again and I never looked back after that. If Owen hadn't captured my imagination I probably wouldn't be here today (blame Owen folks.) The line on Owen used to be that he was better before the knee injury, or whatever it was, that robbed him of his athleticism, but I don't like his early stuff at all. I don't know if it's directly attributable to Owen or not, but I once read an interview where he talked about not liking the "Mexican style" because of how flippy it is and shit (and I think Bret has said similar things.) If you watch Owen's early stuff it's the flippiest shit out. It's some of the most dated late 80s-early 90s stuff around. But as soon as he becomes the Rocket, gold. With this guy I don't even care about the matches. The matches are just gravy. I could watch Bill Dundee do nothing but talk all day long. Promos, vignettes, interrupting other people's matches, you name it. Another of the great wrestling characters. He's one of those guys where it's hard to draw a line between where the real Bill Dundee ends and the character begins. An incredibly energetic guy. Tireless self-promoter. Complete motormouth who could talk a guy's ear off and fire off comeback after comeback. Oh, and he wrestled too. Love Bill Dundee. Holy shit, Owen, Bill Dundee and Jim Breaks all in a row? Like brothers in arms. Could you imagine the arguments those three could get into? Or how much fun it would be to watch them all pile on Lance Russell or Kent Walton? 56 was an okay finish for Breaks. During the voting period it dawned on me that it's still early days when it comes to Breaks. A lot of people have seen his stuff on YouTube, but we're not at the stage yet where people can compare his early, more athletic work to his older, more heavily shtick based stuff. I'm not sure whether people could say with much certainty which Breaks they prefer, his work against other top lightweights or his carry jobs of teenagers. Whether they prefer slightly serious Breaks or full on comedy; technical bouts or playing to the gallery. You don't see any discussions about which of the Young David trilogy is the best, or any sort of analysis of post-prime Breaks. None of the stuff you see with the serious candidates. Not that many people wade into the Breaks vs. Grey argument either. Breaks remains that funny little British guy in the bumblebee tights who whines a lot and hates being called crybaby. I remember Ditch once saying if you've seen one Breaks match, you've seen them all. I've seen them all and can comfortably say folks haven't scratched the surface of what Jim Breaks is all about and until that happens 56 is about as far as he can go.

I'm sure if we apply auteur theory to Strongbow vs. Fuji everything will come up roses.

Maybe the Ass Splitters, but that may require me to crawl back underground. I'm sorry, but Taue you're old hat. If somebody can pull a revisionist twist on Chief Jay Stringbow you'll step up and get my attention.

Taue revisionism predates this board by a fair number of years. There may be posters here who came to Taue late and thought they'd split the atom, but there's nothing folks can possibly say about Taue that hasn't been said before. If someone had had a new idea about Taue during this project I would have spat on my drink and fallen ass over backward.

Finally I watched the right Kansai vs. Kong match, and I'm not talking about their 1995 bout. The 5/94 match is the closest thing I've seen to a perfect Kong vs. Kansai bout thus far. Even I'm rolling my eyes as I type this like "sure, the match everybody forgets they had is their best, Daniel," but bear with me. The first 15 minutes sees Kong dominate Kansai and cut off every single comeback she makes. There's some typical Joshi resthold work, but Kong tries to keep it short and pick things up again. Kansai digs a little deeper and starts making her run, and the finishing stretch is full of shit I'd long forgotten about and got a legit reaction out of me. I love biting on near falls. Being the cynical jackass I am it doesn't happen that often, but man was I into this. The finishing stretch went back and forth the way all dramatic bouts should, and even though in the back of mind I knew who won this a combination of not remembering how it panned out and half thinking it was 1994 all over again and happening in real time had me hooked. Fun bout.

The shoot style master. If shoot style were a wuxia film then Tamura would be like the main protagonist: young, bold, impetuous, full of passion, fire and emotion. Volk would be the wise old master. The one who's more at peace with himself and has a deeper understanding of his art. And the one who conceals it behind a trickster's guise and adds comic value to the piece. But above all, the one who can really kick some fucking ass when the situation absolutely calls for it. I don't think anybody worked shoot style finishes better than Volk. I still get a shiver done the spine thinking of that finish to the '95 Yamamoto fight and wanna go blast his theme music every time I do. But the best thing about Volk Han is that there's only ever been one Volk Han and only ever will be. What a legend.

Inoki vs. Superstar Billy Graham was pretty awful, but it was amusing how the more Graham sucked, the harder Inoki worked to make him seem like a threat. Worked harder than against Dusty, Patera and Masked Superstar combined. Also, you never really hear much about it, but the angle where the IWE guys were jumping Inoki and cutting his hair is a strange bit of booking. Apparently, it led to a Rusher Kimura vs. Inoki hair match, which seems surreal to me.

Well, the Big Egg match pretty much sucked. Dome Show matches usually do, but this was Kansai and Kong going through their shit in the least imaginable way possible. It took forever tor them to start throwing bombs, and when they finally did, they threw too many. The only cool bits involved Aja's uraken and Kansai's kicks. They should have built a match around strikes and selling instead of trying to condense an entire 25 minute match into half that time. Kansai sold fairly well but in terms of the total package of putting a match together this was pretty much her at her worst, and Kong was overrated as usual.

Tap out early like I did because the exact same thing is gonna happen in 2026.

Clearly one of the best talents of the 90s. I'm not as high on his early work as elliot and others are but that's mainly due to the promotion he worked for. And I still maintain that the turning point in his career came when Tamura and Sakuraba put together a series of matches that was closer in look and feel to what was happening in Japanese MMA than the sports entertainment version of shoot style his promotion peddled. From all accounts, the pro-wrestling world came pretty close to losing him to MMA but fortunately he went to RINGS and eventually produced some of the most exquisite worked shoots known to man. For all that, he was never better than Volk Han. That would be like arguing that Funaki was better than Fujiwara because he was more athletic and had a better body. No. There's been two geniuses in shoot style. One of them was Yoshiaki Fujiwara and the other was Volk Han. Still an exemplary worker, though. I was surprised she did this well. I guess people remember her for her look, but she was a versatile worker who was good for pretty much her entire career. She was good as a rookie, good as a midcard heel and good as the girl on top who took over during the most difficult transitional period in the company's history. She carried the young 90s stars when they were still greener than green tea then stepped aside and let Kong take the spotlight during the biggest boom period of her prime. And that was in spite of being the senior talent and in many ways the spiritual leader of the promotion. But she travelled and took the opportunity to do things she'd wanted to. And when it came time to retire she did so without fanfare or a send off of any kind. Really a girl who rocked to the beat of her own drum.

I think I tolerated the feeling out process in the Kong/Kansai 8/93 match more than I would have in the past. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I was able to step outside of that and see what they were aiming for. It helps that I was eating, drinking and listening to a Feelies album at the same time, and if I'm honest with myself my priorities at the time were probably eating, drinking, listening to the album and then watching the match, but the match was all right. Aja is never going to be a worker who appeals to me, but I like her in big match settings. This was their first singles match together and it showed with some moments of awkwardness, but it half delivered on what you'd want from Aja vs. Kansai and was pretty good for a first try.

I think I tolerated the feeling out process in the Kong/Kansai 8/93 match more than I would have in the past. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I was able to step outside of that and see what they were aiming for. It helps that I was eating, drinking and listening to a Feelies album at the same time, and if I'm honest with myself my priorities at the time were probably eating, drinking, listening to the album and then watching the match, but the match was all right. Aja is never going to be a worker who appeals to me, but I like her in big match settings. This was their first singles match together and it showed with some moments of awkwardness, but it half delivered on what you'd want from Aja vs. Kansai and was pretty good for a first try.

I'm not entirely convinced that Baba was better than Inoki. I need to watch more of Baba's JWA stuff before I make any grand statements about that, but I think if we're being honest that it helps that Baba founded that wee thing called All Japan that some people like. Just a few. I also think it helps that he was a goofy looking bastard and people are kind of mesmerised by how strange looking he is and how he moves around the ring like some kind of puppet. The older he gets the less human looking he becomes until it's like Stan Hansen vs. an alien. That's a unique brand of charisma. If you've never seen him in the mid-60s when he was bulked up and had muscles then that's a sight to behold. Forgetting about how he looked, I dunno if I buy the master psychologist chess master stuff that gets thrown out about him, but he had some great matches against The Destroyer, Billy Robinson and likely more, and then some fun old man performances that are a bit overrated in terms of how much credit Baba gets for them. We live in an age where maestro performances get credited more than ever before and Baba's old man stuff isn't on that level, IMO. .

Another strong run from a cult favourite. Maybe he could have finished a little higher but that would require a perfect world where people stop bitching about WWE booking and watch BattlARTS. From his Inoki worship to being a student of Fujiwara, there's a lot to love about Ishikawa. He kept shoot style going for as long as he possibly could even after MMA was dead and is still teaching real pro-wrestling in Canada. He's a guy who, along with the likes of Minoru Suzuki and Osamu Nishimura, really feels like the last of his generation. I don't think we'll see their type of worker again. But he's also versatile enough that he could have been a pretty good junior if he'd only done pro-style. Really good worker. I liked what Matt said about people voting in 2006 for an idealised version of Blue Panther that didn't really exist. I just don't agree about the real Panther being better. Let me clear something up straight away -- Panther is a GREAT mat worker -- he just doesn't work the mat enough. The old line that you'd get two to three minutes of great matwork in any Panther match was a myth and so whenever you see a Panther match where he hits the mat and it's not that good then naturally it's going to be disappointing. But when you see good Panther it's everything you hoped it would be and more. The problem is that there's so much lucha footage that's never been watched and never been discussed that searching for good Blue Panther is a bit like heading down a rabbit hole. I've talked before about how he's an overrated singles worker and not that great at trios and I'm pleased to see a bit more criticism filtering through to the lucha candidates as it's a sign that people are taking them more seriously as workers in my eyes. I like Kurt Angle in the same way that I wanna finish a box of chocolates if my wife opens them or a packet of biscuits. I wouldn't ordinarily eat that kind of food but if it's open I'll scoff it down until it's finished. I like a lot of his WWE stuff even if it falls off the rails. If I'm gonna watch a spotty guy with selling and pacing issues I'd rather watch one with an amateur background than a discipline of Shawn Michaels. Never seen one of his TNA matches. Seems like it would be worse for you than choccies or a bickie. Funny seeing Brisco drop straight after Angle since there was a time when people were hoping Angle would be a throwback to Brisco or his spiritual heir or some shit. One of them was the consummate wrestler and the other is like pro-wrestling junk food. I'll let you guess which is which. One thing I'll say about the Brisco footage we have is that as good as he looks in the first part of the 70s he looks just as washed up in the latter half. And I personally haven't seen a ton of merit in his 80s footage. A while back I opined that you can condition yourself to just about any worker if you watch enough of them. I also believe you can find redeeming qualities in the most maligned of workers if you try hard enough. I'm struggling to think of any for Mutoh I'm shocked that Ohtani remained in the top 100. I thought nobody watched his juniors stuff anymore. Weird how so many Joshi workers can fall out of the top 100 but Ohtani is still there. Maybe some of the younger voters were more familiar with his 00s work. I wrote this about him recently in response to Parv: The thing I appreciate about Slaughter the most is his sheer commitment to his gimmick. It's a gimmick that should have been cartoony as shit but he lived and breathed it. Was there anybody who didn't believe that Sgt. Slaughter was real and that Bob Remus wasn't an actual drill sergeant? And no, you can't say the same thing about Hillbilly Jim or any of his friends. Slaughter was real dammit. He was even in GI Joe.

Yes, it would be feasible to watch everything that's out there. OJ has pretty well done that in fact. I started doing that in 2009 and still haven't watched everything. If you only watched the stuff that aired on The Wrestling Channel it would be shorter but you'd miss a lot.

The main picture of Breaks isn't a picture of Breaks. Well, it's a picture of him in a headlock with his butt sticking out, but you get what I mean.

Great little run from Dick Togo. I haven't really dived into the stuff that was pimped by Dylan, Segunda Caida and WKO during his traveling years, and I don't wanna That 90s Guy who talks about how his Michinoku Pro stuff still holds up (though it really does), so instead I'll simply say that since the fall of the Japanese wrestling system he's been one of the pioneers in taking his talent on the road and using his wrestling skill as a passport to see the world. Japan is a really small island (or group of islands, I should say) that happens to have a heck of a lot of people on it. But even in a city the size of Tokyo, the pro-wrestling world is really only a scene and boils down to the handful of neighbourhoods where it's concentrated. There are so many people who never ever leave Japan and so much talk within Japan about the need to be "global" that for Togo to embark on the wrestling world tour that he did is, I think, the best thing about him. Other guys have done it too like Taijiri and now Ishikawa up in Canada and it's a great alternative to the choice most wrestlers face in the current Japanese wrestling climate where you either open some bar or tiny restaurant or bust your ass trying to produce wrestling shows and hold some tiny promotion together. And from a fan's perspective it adds to the worker's resume and gives it a depth and variety that wouldn't be possible if they only stayed in that small Japanese scene.

My first reaction to this was Pillman was a 115 guy max. I thought maybe if I liked his Hollywood Blondes stuff more or his Loose Canon stuff, I could justify him in the top 100. Then I started to remember just hoe much Pillman I like. There's the Luger stuff, the Flair matches, the War Games '91 performance, the feud with Windham, the Liger stuff, the match with Rude and the tag team with Windham. That's an incredible amount of stuff to cram into four years from 1989-92 and doesn't even include the legendary Rip Rogers stuff. I feel a bit like Jimmy Redman pimping weekly WWE television workers, but perhaps now I feel more affinity with her than ever before.