El-P

Do you want to be my BFFL ? (creepy mode off) Yeah, Yoshida in 92 was terrific. I'd have her above Toyota then (well, she wouldn't be alone). Her injury really screwed her up because she missed the huge interpromotional era.

Nope. Yamazaki is stoïc. Best bland wrestler is something like Tim Horner or something. Wait, nobody nominated Tim Horner ?

Probably. Still, it says a lot about the current landscape that so much crappy guys are still to come while all the luchadors and strong joshi candidates and shoot-style guys are dropping like flies. It's like we were more open minded to different stuff in 2006, while people have got back to the good ol' US of A rassling this time around. Yep, not feeling that top 150 very much.

Of course the 17 who voted for her, at any rank, are absolved from my wrath. Mariko is my favourite wrestler ever.

Yoshida doesn't make the top 100 ? Fuck all of you people. Sincerely. Glad to be the high vote, but the drop since 2006 is ridiculous. Wait, Lex Luger, Scott Hall, Sting, HHH and co haven't dropped yet, but freaking Mariko Yoshida is down ? This list sucks already. Oh, BTW, I had her above Flair because she was much smarter than him, among other things. Oh, and why not Kazuo Yamazaki while we're at it. My #39. Way too many mediocre US workers haven't been sent to the woodpile yet.

Indeed. It doesn't matter one bit today in WWE though, thanks to the infamous Michael Cole "For the win/championship !" call, which has spread to NXT too BTW.

Well, that's pretty interesting, because of whom Watts reminds me of... PPV 34 A few good matches again and less Russo = winning formula. So, Konnan brings Super Crazy this week, so we get another really good match against Jerry Lynn, the familiarity plays into making it even better than the Juvy one. And again, Konnan is frustrated when Crazy doesn’t get the job done. Third week in a row Lynn doesn’t get the title shot he won with the gauntlet match. Well, at least, him going through luchadors is delivering good stuff. Wonder who the next one will be. Meanwhile, Kid Kash defends against Amazing Red, and it’s Kash’s best match in TNA. Amazing Red is really growing on me, he’s an excellent underdog but his offense gets better and crisper. Very good match again, and Trinity doesn’t get a moonsault but catch the Red bullet in a brave move. Good main event too, with Raven finally unveiling his Clockwork Orange House of Fun match, which sees a bunch of weapons suspended from chains above the ring and Kevin Sullivan as a special enforcer promoting violence, which is kinda cute. Raven vs Sandman in 2003, and it feels fresh to me, as they work a solid garbage match. Raven seems more motivated than he was in WCW and it shows. He bleeds buckets too and they work a pretty nice, not too contrived finish which has Sandman thrown from Raven’s Nest through a bunch of tables. The only thing it lacked was Joey Style, really. Raven cuts a very good whiny promo challenging Jarrett who comes down and proceeds to beat up the bloodied Raven with his belt and some weapons. What a great babyface. So, the whole Raven vs Jarrett vs AJ Styles is still going on. On the failure front, Eric Watts and his second generation croonies just don’t cut it. People chants « We don’t care » at his relatively solid promo. But really, Jarrett is already feuding with actual stars in Raven and AJ Styles, why should he be thrown in an angle with Eric Watts, who has been at best a JTTS at the highest point of his career ? This segment died so hard. And of course we get a beatdown at the end of the show, because every show has to have several beatdowns so none means anything. The rest ? Well, Russo is quitting he wrestling business (AH !), Sonny Siaki is acting like Stevie Ray managing nWo B-team, and Ron Killings is doing Sting’s Crow gimmick now (because Tenay has doubted his allegiance with NWA, this is soooo stupid and transparent). Enough good stuff on this show though with the X-division and the Raven stuff. 2003/03/05 Jerry Lynn vs Super Crazy 2003/03/05 Kid Kash vs Amazing Red 2003/03/05 Raven vs Sandman

Hayabusa was my #50, and the reason why I submitted a ballot. When he died, it brought me back days of being a puroresu super fan and how much fun I got out of it. I thought after taking part in so much discussions over the years, it wouldn't make sens to not do it, unless I was really done with pro-wrestling. Which, after all, is not the case yet.

It was just the style evolving into more and more excess. It was a bad thing, but it was purely stylistic. I don't think they were aiming at a "This is awesome" chant from the Budokan crowd. Of course they did it consciously, but it was more about escalation than anything else. You could argue that a self-conscious epic style was born in Japan with Noah as they had that heavy AJ heritage that they tried to built on and couldn't think of any other idea than make every match an absolute epic, which couldn't work once the workers were not the four pillars anymore. But I'm no expert on NOAH at all, although I've seen about every big title match until the mid 00's.

Since I basically coined the term "self-conscious epic", let's me just say that you can't apply it to All Japan in the 90's, because pro-wrestling became totally self-conscious when the indies tried to emulate puroresu for all the wrong reasons as a reaction to the mainstream US promotions (much like ECW emulated Puerto Rico and FMW a few years before, with different effects). The indies like ROH are the product of tape-trading "smart mark" wanting ***** matches, which to them was symbolized by All Japan style which hat this point had already derailed into head-dropping galore. But it was just an organic stylistic evolution over there. A bad one, but I doubt there was much thought about "Ok, Dave Meltzer gave us ****3/4 in last months Observer, how can we top that ?". Self-conscious epic is different from "let's try to have the best match possible". Self-conscious epic comes from a "let's get the snowflake" mentality which goes along the "this is awesome" chant, by that I mean, not try to have the *best match you can have together* but try to have the *best match the smart marks audience wants to see*. The whole nearfalls galore which had a meaning in All Japan became just another gimmick in the indies because it was totally self-conscious. That mentality, I'm not sure how, got up to the big leagues, and WWE made it its own with the infamous formula of : kicking out of finishers, using the opponent's finisher and kicking out of it etc... which in the eyes of Meltzer and smark marks raised on the indie mentality was "the way to get snowflakes". Then you get Shawn Michaels and Taker not simply working the *best match possible* and steal the show like they would in 97, which of course was done in pure consciousness, but they work a match that is using the formula of "self-conscious epic" with the notion that exchanging finishers and kicking out of it until the audience either vomits or loses their shit is the only right way to go (and make a Mania Moment tm). I have honestly no idea how things evolved in Japan since I really didn't follow it as it went, but it seems like it was more organic into excess since it evolved that way since the mid-90's. I might say that the US indies probably had a bad influence on Japan too when they got to work over there, as showed by the ridiculness of the junior matches involving guys like the Young Bucks, or the pure cosplay match that Samoa Joe worked with Kobashi. So in a way, I think the boomerang got back to Japan too, sadly. But talking about "self-conscious epic" like I envision it about All Japan 90's is like applying a 20th century concept and applying it to the 19th century, with no regard for historical context. Self-conscious (and meta) pro-wrestling is a product of the smark mark culture and really was born in the late 90's.

She was better than Onita in every aspect. And I'm an old Onita fan. Kudo had the best Onita deathmatches ever with Toyoda & Ozaki and some amazing carry job with Shark, who was much worse than most Onita big deathmatches opponents (ok, she was better than Tiger Jeet, but everyone is). I'm glad Onita has not showed up yet since for the longest time he was looked down upon, but there's no way Kudo should be lower.

Maybe so, since he had so many opportunities. The point I may not agree with is about the matches being actually great or not. But it's not like I'm gonna watch any Randy Orton match on purpose at this point.

You sure delivered. Randy Orton ? WTF people. The synthesis of everything I hate about what WWE work and presentation has evolved into the 00's. The black hole. The only thing " cool" about him he stole from DDP (let's be honest, he does the entire Diamond Cutter from nowhere gimmick). Fakest wrestler I've ever seen. Talk about wrestling like a robot, here we are. The Viper routine is the apex of robotic WWE manufactured bullshit. But his third generation, so he's great. Kudo didn't drop that much, all things considered, which is surprising in a way, FMW being a niche (consider how poorly Gannosuke did compared to his actual talent).

Here too. Who are the CIMA fans around here ? I remember him from early 00's MPro TV shows. Was really good back then.

Because bitching and moaning is half the fun. And again, I believe we were brutal about it in 2006. What is weird NJPW bias compared to weird Memphis bias or weird WWE bias ?

Grim, I love your dry humour. Sorry, but as I'm going through 2003 TNA, Daniels is the exact opposite of the cliché criticisms I heard for years. Good on the mic, excellent heel, great bumping and maneurisms, super crisp execution (and no, there's nothing as too crisp), shows more character than any other indy-bred guy apart from Styles. Just a joy to watch.

That Chris Daniels pic is glorious. And I'm probably sure that if I had watched TNA all these years, I would have voted for him without a blink. Big Show on the other hand... What to say ? The most recent stuff I watched from him is the WWECW stint, and he was godawful there. Not bad. Godawful. Huge underachiever to me considering his potential. Probably a great guy though.

Blame me. I voted for Sammy in 2006 I believe, although I was a bit down on NJ juniors already. Haven't rewatch anything from him and I had too many other "old candidates" that I wanted to put in. But yeah, seems he's a forgotten worker now. Cool, he'll be a "discovery" in 2021 or so. (and yeah, thinking guys like Hall, Luger, both of them whom I like more than most, haven't showed up yet while Sammy or Tommy Rogers are there... well, the comeback of mainstream US wrestling I guess) And our second (or third, depending) murderer has dropped. I wonder how high the most famous one will get. PR remains one of my black hole that I always wanted to explore.

Chris Adams was my favourite WCW Thunder worker. His stuff in Texas, well... He sure was holding on things together in a rather mediocre territory, worked well as a babyface and a heel, but I never felt he was better than *good*. Of course he didn't had the best opposition in the world but still. A better version of Brad Armstrong. Kind of a Ted DiBiase guy to me. The only thing I really didn't see that I wanted to was the USWA Austin feud, which may be his best stuff.

91 is too early. Tommy Rogers was my #63. I'm a bit baffled by the drop he took honestly.

I never thought she was sloppy at all. When she got fat after 96, yeah, but before that she was amazing on all fronts.

And that SUCKS. Kyoko was #52 to me. GREAT fucking worker at her peak, way above Toyota. She's head and shoulder about a good half of the people that will show up next. First instance of a huge disappointment, although not surprising. Shit, and we're talking about the fact Lex Luger, Sting & HHH have not showed up yet. Booo people ! Booo !

PPV 33 Two more good matches to the credit of that stupid promotion : Jerry Lynn vs Juventud Guerrera. It’s easy to forget how good Juvy can be, but this match showed how ahead of the pack of those indie guys Juvy is in term of working a Nitro spotfest. Annoying Eddielenko sequence aside (Jerry Lynn is just as bad as Malenko as far as kicking out of his own « pinfall attempts »), this was very good. Juvy doesn’t seem to get along with Konnan that much though, showing too much respect to Lynn. Best X-division match in a long while. AJ Styles showed his versatility by having a very good match with Sandman. Seriously, less than one year into TNA and Styles looks like one of the best worker in the world, and certainly one of the most interesting to watch too. Give him Jerry Lynn, Jeff Jarrett or the Sandman and he’s gonna get the best out of them. Sandman also looks quite motivated since he debuted, so this was a lot of fun. And Sandman got some action with Lollipop ! That guy gets all the ass he wants to apparently. Maybe the cigarette/beer breath. Or the long cane. Dunno. They gave him a good ripoff music too, like they did Raven. The undercard also had a pretty good AMW vs Hot Shots match, already a taste of « old-school » TNA, by that I mean before Russo showed up. No idea what happened with the « tag tournament » since apparently AMW already have a shot at XXX. I guess it was a four team tournament, but we never saw any brackets… Jason Cross vs Kid Kash was notable for a pretty good performance by Kash this time around and by that I mean his execution was on. I’d be tempted to say it was less contrived than the London match. Trinity didn’t do a moonsault. No idea what happened with Jerry Lynn’s title shot he won by winning the gauntlet match two weeks before, since every jabroni gets a title match before him. Slash & Brian Lee had a mediocre match with Simon Diamond & Swinger. Yay ! More ECW alumni, although Swinger I couldn’t care less about. Simon is « that guy who seemed like he had potential in 2000 ». Nothing bad, nothing good. The Church are babyfaces and the crowd chants « Let’s go evil ! ». Funny, in a way. James Mitchell is really not allowed to demonstrate his character much, because we gotta have time for Disco & Sanders interview about, ya know, how great Vince Russo is (and you know that this part of the show is actually Russo getting fellated by two friends). In a completely stupid booking decision, Raven, who said to AJ Styles he could beat any « X-division midget », got booked again… Julio Dinero. Who has never appeared in TNA yet and is bigger than Raven. Clap clap clap. Heatless mediocre match. Hey, it reminds me that EZ Money seems to be gone. And then, awful main event of The Harris KKK vs Dusty & Vader. Ok, Vader throwing around one Harris is nice, but then Dusty selling in 2003 for these two oafs is as bad as you can imagine. Desire who’s outside with Siaki is wearing a miniskirt for the first time because she’s getting a leather strap spanking. Yep. Russo’s booking. And then, more stupid Russo angle, with Russo’s kids filmed by Jarrett to tell how their father wasn’t there for them blabloubli, who cares, I ffed anyway. Big angle is Jarrett getting beatdown by, gasp, David Flair, Brian Lawler (oh no, not again !) and… Erik Watts. Ok. I feel this feud will be rotten. 2003/02/26 Jerry Lynn vs Juventud Guerrera 2003/02/26 AJ Styles vs Sandman

And that people watching those were high too. (BTW, my RVD joke went over the head of everyone) Duggan has a handful of really good matches in his career and was already goofy as fuck by the time Mid-South became UWF. It's not like WWF made him that way. I really enjoy his feud with Buzz Sawyer, who hasn't appeared yet. I really enjoy the Vader match in WCW. I always hated the jingoist gimmick. The pic is awesome. He's officially overrated as all hell.

Excellent worker for a short period of time. And of all three, he's the one who was never quite the Man like Hash and Muto were. He really found his niche already past his physical prime when he turned heel and was the coolest motho on the planet.