El-P

No, that's Yumi Fukawa, from ARSION fame. Terrific worker from 98 to 01 when she had to retire because of a neck injury.

So there it is. Trish Stratus and Mima Shimoda ranked at the same level. Tells the poor state of joshi fandom and the overrepresentation of WWE, really, because it's like having Bobby Eaton and, I dunno, Buff Bagwell at the same level.

Fukawa is talked about in the Minoru Tanaka thread. They're married. Same thing. End of story.

Smash ?

Yea what's up with that one? Yeah, seriously now.

I was very conservative, all things considered. Although we're not talking about Takako here.

Shame ? I was the only one voting for Yumi Fukawa ! Fools ! Shoot-style underdog extraordinaire. That way I still keep a Roxy Music like avatar.

Damn ! Jinzaki at 400. He was my #100 in 2006. He got bumped ahead to #97 this time around, mostly because I wanted to add some people on the lower spots and I got rid of a few ones I couldn't vote for anymore. Smooth as a cat. His FMW stint remains one of my favourite.

Oh fuck you had to drop Rivette's name. It is totally unrelated, but you couldn't have picked a worse name today for me to read. Free jazz would be more shoot-style to him, no ? No story, no heel and face, no nearfall, no nothing ! Pro-wrestling noise ! Yeah. Tamura is freaking Ornette Coleman ! Pure joy.

Come on, we don't know who the mystery man is already ? Fine pic of Norton. Why the hell anyone vote for him, that's another mystery. Arisa Nakajima is one joshi worker I know nothing about. Blame my total lack of knowledge past 2002 or so. So, interesting to see her get some votes.

Is Lucha prog-rock, jazz-fusion ou exotica ? That's the real question.

PPV 27 Incredible, but the main event of Road Warriors & Jeff Jarrett & Dusty Rhodes vs XXX (and Vince Russo, but he was a complete non factor thankfully), was actually kinda... fun when you had XXX bumping for the old legends. They made Animal actually look good, giving the old guy a double suplex spot. Hawk, not so much, he looks rough as hell. Dusty does what Dusty does and Jarrett takes the load. Well, it would have been fun until the shit finish, although the ultimate useless swerve of Nikita Koloff under the mask was kinda funny in a ridiculous way. But not really. Russo shoot interview, Russo segment with Percy Pringle beatdown, complete with gross bladejob, Russo segment arguing with Dusty Rhodes (who himself cut quite the fun promo though). Yeah, we get it, Vince Russo is the main heel of this promotion and he talks ad libitum about writing pro-wrestling. Poor guy, still living off 18 months in the WWF and his complete failure in WCW (yeah, only Russo can make a career out of a failure stint). In other surprise appearance, we get Larry Zbyszko showing up after a decent AJ Style vs Ron Killings match. Larry also cuts a decent promo about tradition. No, this is not the nWo angle, not at all. Hey, I can live with the idea of Larry Z. stalling his way into a fun match with AJ Styles, who’s easily the best worker of the company. Jerry Lynn gets Mike Sanders who I liked quite a bit in WCW, but he doesn’t show much here and we get a shit finish with David Flair anyway. Well, sorry, infact the David Flair shit finish was the AJ Styles match, this is the Ron Harris/Dusty shit finish. Kid Kash and Sonny Siaki have a bad spots match for the X Division title, the big surprise being that Trinity, who’s in with Kash, doesn’t get to do a moonsault. She did one earlier on during the AMW title defense, so there is that. And then Siaki gets no heat and has no character at all, so Desire’s boobs and ass, which she has in spades, are the main attraction. She also tried to strip Athena off her pants earlier in the show, in a moment that reeked of unplanned punishement for the poor girl, as she was gripping to her belt with all her strenght. WTF is happening here ? Konnan is showing up to beat on X-division guys with a kendo stick. This is so WCW. Third PPV in a row without any good match. Please, debut Raven already, please.

That is from the time that Aja let her hair grow out a bit, '09 I think. It would always go all over the place during matches. I see. Well, I also thought Bison looked different. I don't want to think about a Bison Kimura match in 2009...

Ok, two down. Unsurprisingly, another japanese woman, although I'm glad I wasn't the only one voting for Shimoda. One of my favourite tag workers ever along with Arn and Eaton. And a great pic to boot. I haven't watched an LCO match in way too long now. Three way tie with Nash and a mystery name, though. She sure deserves to be way higher than this, when you pile up the number of very good to great matches on her resume.

BTW, it really should have been Jeff Jarrett introducing Jackie.

Aja looks odd in that Kimura pic. When is that from ? Anyway, cool that Bison got some votes, underrated brawler. Although... that's the first time I noticed it, but her name as it's spelled on her tights actually would read "Let's fuck" in French, with a slight spelling mistake (a missing "s" at the end).

Come on, that pic of Sandman ! Show a little respect for Hak. And I kinda regret not voting for him now. I didn't expect him to get any love at all.

Ok, who voted for Koki Kitahara ? And it's not even Dean ! Anyway, be thanked. I take credit for being the only one pimping the guy. Hell, the only one posting in his thread. Wait, and I didn't even vote for him.

She looks like a jolly cook. Which is what she became I guess.

I had no idea who Pat Roach was before today, and now I'm learning that Indiana Jones beat up a pro-wrestler, three times. That Combat Toyoda picture is the least intimidating picture we'll get I believe. I'm kinda amazed she got two votes actually. FMW represents.

Nobody wanted it. That's why I'm delivering it to you, as long as my mental health sustains it. The anguish began here BTW : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/14057-nwa-tna-2002-revisited/?p=5670930 PPV 26 The Vince Russo show is back. Long boring awkward promo with shooty-shooty elements, bad gimmick matches and shit finish all over the card. The only salvageable part of this particular PPV was AMW vs Slash & Brian Lee in what was a decent little title match, although they clearly went overboard with nearfalls at the end, which would be a stamp of TNA and, I guess indy wrestling as a whole, then WWE style too eventually. When Brian Lee is part of the best match of the show, good luck. Slash is pretty good though and the AMW is at least a fresh established tag team, sot them getting the belt back made for a feel-good moment in that wretch of a PPV The main event was Jeff Jarrett running the XXX gauntlet, so he’s selling for a while then wins with his shitty finisher from nowhere, Randy Savage-circa 96-style. And Dusty Rhodes shows up at the end to save the day. Tradition and all. Because this isn't a shitty rehash of WCW vs nWo. Not at all. EZ Money & Kid Kash vs Tony Mamaluke & David Young wasn’t exactly a hot opener and I haven’t been quite impressed by EZ Money yet like I’ve been in ECW and WCW. Kid Kash just seems like a lost cause at this point. Mamaluke misses Little Guido and David Young looks like a junior version of Mike Enos, which is cool enough I guess. But they didn’t mix well although they tried to actually work a tag match with some dynamic instead of doing just spots. On the other hand, Sonny Siaki vs Jason Cross was just bad indy spotfest. Some other bad matches involving BJ James & Don Harris who can even manage to ruin Jerry Lynn, with the run-in of Mike Sanders of all people (I kinda liked him in WCW, so why not), and most of all the horror of a dying-on-his-feet Curt Hennig vs David Flair in an actual wrestling gear in an whatever-on-a-pole match. Brutal stuff. Flair looks like he hasn’t improved one bit and without the insane gimmick looks even more exposed. That would be Hennig's last TV match (last match ever too ?). What a sad way to go. Oh, and as far as horrible goes, Percy Pringle was grotesque at this point. Sad to see. Sad interview too, half shoot / half kayfabe, in a typical Russo WTF style. Why I am watching this shit again ? Oh yeah. Depression, that's right. Makes sense.

HTM voted 49th best wrestler ever is a sign we should have made this a PWO exclusive. Tommy Dreamer's pic is wonderful. Nice odd indie sleaze series with Kid Kash, Jun Kasai, Tommy Dreamer, Ian Rotten and Gedo back to back. When you think about it, Kid Kash and Ian Rotten as 64th best wrestlers ever is also quite the mindfuck. James Storm is sexy as hell in that picture. If I were a girl, I'd do him.

Takako not going for a WWE contract when she could have was the best thing ever for an old fan like me. These days, things would be different though (I'm not assuming Takako is still as good in the ring as she was, of course).

Moolah, by all account, was a piece of shit of a human being. The revisionist WWE history about her is nauseating. Remember Luna Vachon talking about those mistreatments with great emotion in her shoot interview. Then you get some horror stories in Japan too, from the dojo mentality (which is running rampant in other place than pro-wrestling of course) to the sexual abuse stories in FMW by some of the seniors. Since those are only rumours, I won't give out names, but these are out there for sure.

Cool pic of Nagashima. I voted for her in 2006 I believe. Not rewatching joshi made it tough to do it again but she certainly deserves a much higher spot.