March 5, 20169 yr comment_5731075 Is Shuji Kondo nominated? That guy has cool strength spots at least. Anyway. Kaz Hayashi. Junior wrestler of the country of Japan. Being a modern puro fan meant I often had to watch pimped matches for they either included one wrestler I liked or just to keep in touch. Then I'd watch the match and it wouldn't be as good as I'd heard it was. Kaz Hayashi is the wrestler who would face a wrestler I'd like in a disappointing match. I'll give him props for taking stupid bumps in irrelevant Worldwide matches twenty years ago to amuse DEAN. And his match vs Shuji Kondo from 2006 is great. It has all the flaws of a modern junior match (limbwork that gets completely blown off, excess etc.) but somehow all of that didn't really matter to me. Eventually he turned into Marufuji except a much duller version of him, he lacked the creativy to come up with as much stuff as Maru did so he just hit his finishers more times to compensate. Mostly he is just another guy I'm glad not to watch anymore. There are parts of his career I'm not overly familiar with but I don't exactly feel like wasting my time on revisiting non-Fuchi 2003 All Japan juniors or whatever.
March 5, 20169 yr comment_5731079 My buddy and I used to love him showing up on random WCW shows back in the day, and that ladder match from Starrcade 2000 is a fun train wreck of a spotfest.. He also had some fun stuff in M-Pro, but he might've been the weakest guy in Kaientai DX. Actually, I'd probably say he was. I haven't watched a match with him in it since the Kondo match mentioned above. In 2006 I liked it. I re-watched it a few years ago and didn't.
March 5, 20169 yr comment_5731086 Man I really love Shiryu a LOT. His WCW stuff was fun. I doubt that is enough to get on there, but the Shiryu stuff is a hell of a peak.
March 6, 20169 yr comment_5731706 That Shuji Kondo match is great. And they blew off a top rope front flipping DDT, as a nearfall. A not even all that close to a 3 nearfall. And it's still great.That said...yeah. I like Kaz and his revival in the midway point of last decade was fun. I have nothing further to bolster his case. Your list is done already anyway, who cares
April 30, 20214 yr comment_5950347 Somehow, Hayashi ended up working the opening match of GLEAT's inaugural card (2020/10/15): GLEAT 2020.10.15 GLEAT Ver.0 全场-体育-高清完整正版视频在线观看-优酷 (youku.com) It's not a particularly great match - Hayashi going for a bearhug in the opening match of a UWF-style revival card, in particular, feels like a bad play - but it did make me wonder if anyone had caught any of his Wrestle-1 work or any of his cross-promotional matches with TNA since the last period. Anyone feel compelled to make a case for exploring him further?
April 30, 20214 yr comment_5950349 8 minutes ago, The Man in Blak said: Somehow, Hayashi ended up working the opening match of GLEAT's inaugural card (2020/10/15): GLEAT 2020.10.15 GLEAT Ver.0 全场-体育-高清完整正版视频在线观看-优酷 (youku.com) It's not a particularly great match - Hayashi going for a bearhug in the opening match of a UWF-style revival card, in particular, feels like a bad play - but it did make me wonder if anyone had caught any of his Wrestle-1 work or any of his cross-promotional matches with TNA since the last period. Anyone feel compelled to make a case for exploring him further? There is nothing that really stands out in his Wrestle-1 run but something that i feel could be explored is his 695 days run as AJPW Junior Heavyweight Champion. It's his biggest run on top, he was pushed so hard that Keiji Mutoh came down to the juniors to put him over in a title match. You can find all of his title run here: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fW411X7df
April 30, 20214 yr comment_5950380 Right before the pandemic Nakajima's title reign in Wrestle-1 was shaping up to be my favorite thing that happened in 2020. I did everything I could to stay spoiler free on the Kaz defense but the only version I saw them air was clipped and I think the attendance was ruined. That's a big What If...? match for me unfortunately.
May 1, 20214 yr comment_5950410 He's pretty good for pretty much his entire career. That's it though. Never once have I thought of him as a top tier wrestler in any era but I don't think you'd hate yourself if you watched more of him.
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