I had him in my top 20 as recent as just a few months ago but that seems too high now. Still, he's still very good to this day so that's close to 30 years of being good. So maybe not top 20, but I think I'm confident with him as top 50.

Yeah, my big takeaway in considering Ohtani five years ago was that he consistently looked good as a heavyweight, which made him more than just a high-peak candidate. He's added more good matches in the time since, so I'm confident he'll find his way to the middle of my ballot. I'm not sure he's a guy I need to spend a lot of time revisiting, unless some particularly interesting strain of debate arises. 

I'm going to do a proper deep dive on Ohtani this time around. Probably not so much the 90s stuff as I feel like I've seen all I need to see there, but I never really gave Zero-1 and beyond Ohtani a fair shake last time and even still he was on the fringes of my list. Honestly, I can take or leave most of the New Japan run at this point, but he has some really fun stuff as a heavyweight over the last 20 years or so and I should dig a bit deeper into that. 

Ohtani is going to be a priority for me as well. I did rank him in 2016 but far too low (bottom 20) and almost entirely on his 1996 work. Just based on his 1997-1998 run (which includes underrated stuff vs. Tajiri, Yasuraoka and strong performances in tags) and a couple of 2000s matches, I suspect he should be easy Top 50. He has promising stuff pre-1996 too. With a more complete evaluation, he might even be Top 30. 

 

Going to immediately recommend this match as far as super-recent old-man-Otani goes. It got its fair share of praise when it happened but I honestly don't think it was anywhere close to enough. Real last-stand stuff, incredible performance.

Easy top 50, maybe top 30. A similar candidate to Akiyama in a lot of ways as he has basically been good non-stop his entire career but never truly succeeded as a promotional ace. Still, he's great as a fiery underdog junior, a prick heel during early Zero-1 interpromotional matches and now an elder statesmen who just had a really solid run in the Champion Carnival cut short by an injury.

Man, that Ohtani/Orihara match is every bit as good as advertised. What a brutal, spite-filled bout with two young guys too dumb enough to know that the victory wasn't worth getting hurt over.