Discuss here.

On the edge for me, but he does have one of Lyger's best matches ever and he has the best match in NJ Juniors history with Ohtani on 1/21/96. He has some REALLY high peaks. In the end, I can see him making the bottom part of my list.

This is a guy who looked like his dives hurt more than they were pretty. He was an insane bump freak during the J-Crown run too. Loved the Liger and Ohtani matches.

 

I may have to re-visit him as I wasn't considering him, but I am a big fan.

Arguably Liger's best opponent. This definitely matters.

And Otani's. The 1/96 and 6/99 Samurai-Otani matches are as good as any juniors matches all decade long. Also had a really underappreciated match with Benoit in the BOSJ finals in 1993. Seriously, I implore everyone to watch the June 1999 match, since that's most likely the one the least people have seen.

And Otani's. The 1/96 and 6/99 Samurai-Otani matches are as good as any juniors matches all decade long. Also had a really underappreciated match with Benoit in the BOSJ finals in 1993. Seriously, I implore everyone to watch the June 1999 match, since that's most likely the one the least people have seen.

 

Is it online anywhere? I haven't been able to find it.

It's not, but it's on the Best of the Super Juniors 1999 commercial release.

I've liked what I've seen of him so far. The Liger match is awesome of course but I also love the '97 BOSJ final with Kanemoto. Proof he could be a great heel as well as a great babyface.

He gets DQ'd almost automatically for his rather bad post-prime performances from around about the mid 2000's onwards. Solid in his prime but I couldn't in good faith have him there when all of that is lingering underneath the surface.

 

Funny, as I'm currently going through quite a bit of 90's NJPW, I find this guy may absolutely have a place, as he's probably been the best Liger opponent, the (second) best Ohtani opponent, the best Kanemoto opponent, in some of the best matches of the decade in the genre. If anything, he's in the top 3 NJPW juniors of the decade, and that's alongside Liger and Ohtani, who are two of the greatest ever (Sano was a 80's guy okay ?). The one thing that kinda works against him is that really, when Liger wasn't the focus of the junior division (and he mostly was) it was just not an important part of the product (at one point Norio Honaga got the belt back in the mid 90's people) so Sammy ended up working in meaningless tag matches on the undercard quite often. But when called up, this guy has a pretty high ratio of classics. He was a mean mofo too, even when working as a babyface underdog against Kanemoto. Great bomb throwing junior, great aggro, and one of my favorite "awkward" (in that he had this unaesthetic way to carry himself) great worker (alongside Taue & Angle). Still figuring him out, but he certainly has a case.

A real hiding in plain sight nominee. When your direct peers (Liger, Ohtani, Kanemoto) have all had their best match against you, there is probably something to you. Top 50 contender just based on the peaks.