El-P

Ditto. Don't know if I'll find the motivation though.

Jim Cornette #63. Those wacky Anonymous.

Still trying to troll me in 2016 really shows who is "stuck in the 90's", actually. Whatever.

Now that I think of it (well, I shouldn't auto-spoil actually).

And she's the only one off my list at this point, too. Ok, five votes for Little Spike Dudley. I would have voted him about #484 too. Anonymous high vote ? I understand. That Zenk pic disturbs me even more than the fact he actually got two votes.

Seconded. Although I must say the pictures are killing me. The Abdullah Kobayashi one is unbeatable !

Me too. Big fan at one point. Tons of fun stuff. He was booked everywhere in the mid 00's, and then he killed his career with the stupid sexual harassement stuff. He apparently is going to retire later this year.

Thanks. And thanks.

Yeah, seems like from another life though. Interesting career arc this guy had.

If I had seen lot more 00's puroresu, Kaz Hayashi is probably one guy I could have voted for.

One down. I probably was the only one voting for Yumi in 2006 too. What kills her is that she had to retire so early because of injury (which also coincides with the time I stopped really caring about joshi, then current puroresu as a whole and dove in the past) . She was a terrific little worker who would have become great if time allowed.

Nice feeling the love. BTW, I totally forgot to vote for Harley Race and Jun Akiyama. I also didn't vote for DiBiase, but I didn't forget to.

I may have voted for Faraon back then for this reason. This time around, I didn't vote for workers I haven't seen more substantial body of work. So I didn't vote for Destroyer either this time.

I will post a list of nominees not getting votes today. Then start with the lowest ranked wrestlers moving forward to number 1. Expect the final 3 to come out the last day of April. Perfect. Thanks for the hard work already.

WWE : The trolling era. Ladder clusterfuck. Jobber winning IC title. BTW, US title in pre-show between two JTTS. Last year, Cena vs Rusev. Big match. Lana now poor wrestler. Superstar potential gone. AJ Styles had better match with Raven in 2003. New Day sucks again. Turned everything cool heels into shitty babyfaces. League of Nation = who cares. Alberto Del Rio, true star in LU. Rusev, whatever happened to your Poutine basking glory ? Steve Austin doing really meaningful shit in Texas. Stars of today ain't worth shit. Why did I rate Lesnar so high in GWE poll ? When Suplex City became gimmick, match turned into nothing. Raven & Sandman had better garbage matches in 2003. Three women saved the show. Cool belt. Thriple threat = cluster of sorts, still they made it good. Heel should win. Babyface win later. Sasha + Eddie pants + Snoop = BOSSY mofa. Undie vs ShanO. Dumb as fuck. Boring as fuck. Rocky cuts promo about fake number. Raven's worst promo in 2003 = better than Bray Wyatt. Stars of today ain't shit, the return. Slutty Stephy hot and shit. Match cold as fuck. HHH pass the steroid test ok ? Boring as fuck. Great thread. Shit show. Bye bye.

Great matches galore Asuka, Nakamura and Samoa Puroresu luv will find you in the end

Well, I'm kinda "retired" of the board at this point, but I feel I have to say a word about this one. As some people who knew me from way back know, I was always a big FMW fan, it was one promotion I really kept up with, even during the goofy yet underrated Fuyuki years. Hayabusa vs Gannosuke really was one of my favorite feud of any era/promotion. Of course I was mostly a Gannosuke mark, but Hayabusa was an important figure in my puroresu fandom growth. Terrific babyface, super innovative flyer in the 90's. Had the immense pressure of carrying FMW on his back after Onita left them dry, and although for a while, it was on Megumi Kudo's shoulders that the responsibility weighed the most, Hayabusa remained the face of the company as a male babyface ace from 1995 up to his tragic accident. It's yet another sad chapter on the demise of FMW, which really had been a greek tragedy of sorts. Iv'e got tons of great memories of getting FMW tapes to see Hayabusa's matches against Gannosuke, Onita, Kanemura, Fuyuki and plenty others. I loved his presentation and music theme, it had the mystic and dramatic flair FMW always carried. I'll fully admit that none of the recent deaths made me react at all. Yep, pretty much none of those huge stars going away had me left thinking and pondering for a minute (probably because none of them, and yes, I'm talking Piper of Dusty, played a huge part in my wrestling fandom, I was an early 1990's WWF guy). But this one sure does. Because it brings me back when my pro-wrestling fandom shifted, it brings me back to the joy of tape-buying (and waiting for weeks to get tapes from overseas, each match on those seemed so more precious then, even the bad ones) and to the days of one of my favorite promotion ever, FMW. After such a terrible accident, the fact that he fought to get on his feet again, to some extent, says a lot about the will this guy had. It's just so sad. (a little thought for BAHU too, who must be sad as hell) Thanks for the memories Eiji Ezaki.

Funny how in the last few years, I became appreciative of the work of the Devil.

It's kinda funny. Over the last few years, the whole Takada thing almost became a running gag with me. Liking Takada after 2000 was "dated", because so many "great" workers were "discovered", like really contemporary guys no one ever talked about before like Jerry Lawler and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. All of a sudden, some old favourites from the pre-Benoit Workrate Guilt era became suspects. And Takada had to take a dive in the pantheon of great workers of the past, to let his place in the rankings to more adept guys like Mark Henry (who's indeed a decent big guy BTW). I never really cared to make a project of rewatching old Takada stuff I already knew about and the vast majority of the Takada stuff I hadn't seen before. Then, I happened to watch lots of UWF. And while I gained a new appreciation for guys like Maeda (whom I really only knew from his past his prime RING days and one or two big UWF vs NJ tag matches), Fujiwara (again, mostly seen his 90's headbutt-choke maestria) and Super Tiger (whom I really never was a big fan of and thought he was overrated, even before the DVDVR sets, would you believe such a thing could happen ?), I noticed Takada was actually already really good as a rookie. Then went on to other important business, like rewieving the dying days of WCW and watch the entire SMW library. Then after this new GWE poll started, I decided I was gonna watch some more UWF, because I like it. The second version. And I watched more Takada. And to my surprise, but not really, I found out he was arguably the best worker of the promotion next to Maeda, with Fuji a close third (although I'd say his best matches ever happened then). Then I watched some random NJ vs UWF-I stuff, to see if what I remembered held up. And yes, Mutoh did drag Takada down the crapper at this point, but Takada was terrific as this UWF-I ace challenging NJ on their own turf. Not a big deal for him, he was always a pro-style worker at heart. And then I watched the most famous 80's feuds, including NJ vs Ishin Gundan and UWF vs NJ. And Takada was fucking great there, easily the second or third best worker, again next to Maeda and Fuji. And I mean Fujinami. While I was at it, I rewatched stuff I loved back then, and yes, Takada was indeed a terrific junior champ, his series against Koshinaka is tremendous and he even got a watchable match out of the Cobra (not a small feat). When I put everything back together, I realized that Takada pretty much was good to great for most of his career, and in every role he was put into : young UWF lion, young NJ prodigy fighting against Ishin Gundan, UWF third guy punking out NJ tradition, IWGP junior champ, UWF up and coming big star challenging the old masters Maeda & Fujiwara, UWF-I ace fighting against the odds (in a Onita/Cena way and flair for big spectacle) and UWF-I ace coming back to NJ and taking away their title. The one thing Takada could be, was a bit lazy and not give that much of a fuck if his opponent wasn't motivated. The two Mutoh matches are the illustration of this, but who could blame him, really ? I really never tried to prove an old point by rewatching Takada matches. If I thought they actually weren't that good, I would have gladly said that I overrated this guy in the past. But as I went through it, the opposite occured. Takada was like 21 on my 2006 list. He would be 8 or 9# this time. Honestly, I enjoy watching Takada more than Liger, whose style like I said I haven't cared for more than a decade now. So maybe he would get the #8 slot. Maybe also because, since MMA matters and PRIDE was pro-wrestling after all, well, Takada's terrible fake shootstyle stuff jumpstarted the biggest company of the late 90's and basically MMA's peak in Japan. Damn, now I'm using Dan's arguments to praise good ol'Nobihuko. And really, who doesn't love General Takada in HUSTLE ? Fuck Yamada, he worked too much with Chris Benoit anyway. Takada is my #8. And that's it.

No idea how I would rank Aja at this point, but it would be pretty damn high, especially if she kept on being good in the last 15 years. And come on, the uraken + Judas Priest. All-time favourite.

I never got into MMA, like ever, but that particular RING show I bought the tape of just to see those two fights, and I wasn't disapointed in the end. Great stuff.

It's funny when people talk about Stevie being terrific, since Raven was the one putting all that shit together. But anyway. I'd have him as my #100.

Bockwinkel is everything I would want from an old-school american pro-wrestler. He's been a joy to watch to me in the last few years. #10.

A lot of this describes pretty accurately how I felt when I tried to watch lucha trios match. The arbitrary momentum shifting, the drab pacing, the rigid samey structure, the generic feel. The way the announcer speak never helped either. I always got a lot more out of single mathes whenever I tried lucha (for the last GWE poll for instance), maybe because it's worked in a way that is closer to US style, I dunno. But yeah, those trios matches, never got it. That will forever be the one part of pro-wrestling I never got into (european style I have no problem with).

He had his shortcomings. He didn't reach the peaks of Misawa and Kobashi. But there's one thing, he worked a style that never required you to get dropped on your head like Misbashi did after the late 90's. It was stiff as hell, but safer. Well, not always safer when he would botch that powerbomb, Onita style. But he's been part of so many great matches. And not so great ones, but which were always fun to see, be it against Muta (broken bottle !), Fujinami (broken nose), Onita (broken heart…). Great personnality. And a former maegashira. What's not to love. He's my # 6. Yes, above Misawa, for reasons discussed earlier. Don't die for pro-wrestling, it's not worth it (big up to CM Punk BTW).