Posted May 13, 20214 yr comment_5951838 It seems a few of these candidates have been nominated, with names like Jim Londos and Megumi Fuji. Pro wrestlers who are clearly extremely talented, but cannot accurately be compared to wrestlers who have a lengthy career on tape either due to lack of footage or simply only wrestling a handful of times. Who are some guys who you consider to be great based on a small sample of performances? Obviously, the French and European footage has been ripe with these types: - Tony Oliver. Greatest two match wrestler ever? Just an incredible heel. - Le Big Chief. Menacing crowbar wrestler who I would like to see wrestle Hashimoto - Jaques Couderc. Another brilliant French technician. Only one match on tape. - Clayton Thomson. Only had a few matches air on TWC but has a legendary rep and looks like a great wrestler. - Naoyuki Taira. Only really wrestled for about 1 year, but he looked quite natural at shootstyle. - Marcel Parmentier. We didn't even get a full match of his, but is wily veteran brawler act looks awesome. - Tony Martino. Only appears in two tags and looks incredible doing both technical exchanges and heelwork. - Liano Pellacani. Only 3 matches. Another incredible heel. - Seichi Ikemoto. MMA guy who looked damn good in his U-Style appearances. - Mota dos Santos. Portuguese(?) grappler who could do straight catch and crazy spring matches. Has a nice German suplex. - Aquiles. Legendary brazilian brawler. An archive dropping a motherload of brazilian catch on us would be nice.
May 13, 20214 yr comment_5951849 Clay Thompson was the first person I though of. I think I was close to nominating him back in 2016 but the lack of available footage meant I never. I think we have like four matches of his before he came back as the masked Exorcist. The Majid Ackra, Reg Trood and Alan Sarjeant matches are all great, and while he has already been nominated, Sarjeant also fits into this category. As awesome as he looks, it would be tough to vote for him off the half-a-dozen matches we have.
May 13, 20214 yr comment_5951874 Alan Sarjeant, Billy Howes, Peter Szakacs, Albert Wall, Gwynn Davies, Adrian Street, Tony Charles and Abe Ginsburg are great wrestlers with limited WoS footage. From the States, Enrique Torres is the first name that springs to mind. Billy Goelz as well. Lord James Blears. Baron Michele Leone. Mariko Akagi for Joshi. I'd love to see some 60s and 70s German catch -- Horst Hoffman, Bock. For French catch, I really liked Rene Gerber, and Modesto Aledo left a strong impression.
June 27, 20214 yr comment_5956121 Danny Hodge is fucking amazing in the Brisco match. Jerry Brisco doesn't look half bad either, but Danny Hodge. Wow.
July 15, 20223 yr comment_5985918 It's perfect that Tony Oliver was the representative for this topic because he is the epitome of the wrestler who I would vote for based on just one performance (2/22/1957 vs. Bert Royal). I hope at least one more of his matches shows up and he becomes eligible for a nomination.
July 15, 20223 yr comment_5985921 Mick McManus and Tibor Szakacs come to mind. There's a fair bit of 70s footage but from all accounts they're past their prime. Based on the 1 match and 1 minute of prime 60s footage available, they're two I'd love to see more of. Also, Karl Gotch.
July 15, 20223 yr comment_5985928 I have a match of Tibor's from the late 60s. Its not that different from his 70s work. I would like to see something from the early 60s to see if he's significantly quicker. McManus is younger and fitter in the Pallo match, but there's something to be said for how generous he is putting guys over in the 70s. He wasn't the greatest wrestler, so I suspect there is less to be gained by watching a younger version, but I could be wrong. With British wrestling any new footage is welcome, even more stuff from the 70s.
July 15, 20223 yr comment_5985935 Interesting. My understanding is that Tibor was past his peak by the mid 60s. He certainly looks spry in that footage with Prince Philip. Who was the 60s match against? I thought McManus was a lot more physical in the Pallo match than in his 70s stuff where he relied more on character. Though I wonder how typical that performance was given how big a match it was.
July 15, 20223 yr comment_5985943 On 5/13/2021 at 4:08 PM, Jetlag said: - Aquiles. Legendary brazilian brawler. An archive dropping a motherload of brazilian catch on us would be nice. Just checked out his 87 match v Mister Argentina and his 88 cage match with Michel Serdan. This guy rules. Any other recommendations?
July 16, 20223 yr Author comment_5985960 10 hours ago, club said: Just checked out his 87 match v Mister Argentina and his 88 cage match with Michel Serdan. This guy rules. Any other recommendations? These are the main matches. I recall maybe 1-2 other matches worth watching, but I can't remember the names of the opponents. Just check out any footage of him you can find, I guess.
July 16, 20223 yr comment_5985964 19 hours ago, club said: Interesting. My understanding is that Tibor was past his peak by the mid 60s. He certainly looks spry in that footage with Prince Philip. Who was the 60s match against? I thought McManus was a lot more physical in the Pallo match than in his 70s stuff where he relied more on character. Though I wonder how typical that performance was given how big a match it was. The Tibor match is against Ivor Barrett, IIRC.
May 5, 20232 yr comment_6003978 On 7/15/2022 at 9:55 AM, club said: Mick McManus and Tibor Szakacs come to mind. There's a fair bit of 70s footage but from all accounts they're past their prime. Based on the 1 match and 1 minute of prime 60s footage available, they're two I'd love to see more of. Also, Karl Gotch. Karl Gotch had two famous matches on tape. vs Antonio Inoki 1972 vs Michiaki Yoshimura 1961 Do we have more Karl Gotch on tape?
May 24, 20232 yr comment_6004795 On 5/5/2023 at 7:24 PM, Mr JMML said: Do we have more Karl Gotch on tape? We've got this tag match teaming w/Thesz against Inoki & Sakaguchi
June 17, 20232 yr comment_6005766 Some names that I would have in my top 100: Nikolai Zouev Mikhail Ilyukhin Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (Top 10 for me) Andrei Kopylov Grom Zaza Carl Greco Yoshihisa Yamamoto They probably won't make my top 100, but Bas Rutten and Caol Uno probably deserve a shout too. Uno's match against Kohsaka on the last RINGS show was some really tasty stuff. Frank Shamrock and Daisuke Nakamura had a great match on U-Style's last show. Nakamura has had a few more matches since then. If you throw in Frank Shamrock's shoots against Kohsaka and Tamura from RINGS, his case gets even stronger. I want to say Valentijn Overeem as well, just for his match against Tamura in 1999 that was a work, but very well done. Other names that come to mind: Aleksander Karelin (had a worked match with Maeda on a RINGS show, he carried a presence in that match that made it feel quite special) and Hideo Tokoro (who showed how promising he could have been as a pro-wrestler in the worked grappling tag he had on a RIZIN show with Sakuraba vs Tamura and Wanderlei Silva).
June 17, 20232 yr comment_6005782 Dokonjonosuke Mishima is another name that comes to mind. Only had a few matches in U-Style but he was incredibly good. Might deserve a Megumi Fujii-esque nomination.
June 18, 20232 yr comment_6005819 On 6/17/2023 at 3:16 AM, Control21 said: They probably won't make my top 100, but Bas Rutten and Caol Uno probably deserve a shout too Bas would definitely be on a top 100 for me. Every one of his matches is a must-watch, even the dumb 2000 Inoki/Sano/Otsuka mess. Guy had IT when it came to wrestling; if only he'd have started a few years earlier, he might've not been as bashed up as he was. Some additional suggestions Don Nakaya Nielsen Johnny Barrett Greco (as mentioned) That one random UWFI guy who had five matches with Kanehara on repeat in 1992 and then disappeared (???) Kamen Shooter Super Rider (pre RJPW)
June 18, 20232 yr comment_6005825 Some of these shoot style guys have enough matches to rank them, IMO. Granted, I don't need a huge sample size to decide whether I think someone is a great worker or not, but I would be dumbstruck if people thought we didn't have enough footage to rank a guy like Carl Greco, for example.
June 18, 20232 yr comment_6005836 Carl Greco had a lot of matches in PWFG and Battlarts, enough for a GWE case I think.
June 18, 20232 yr comment_6005841 Yeah, some of the guys I listed have way more matches than some of the others OP mentioned but still, guys like Kohsaka only have about ~20 matches and I foresee a lot of people using the "but he only has 20 matches" argument by 2026.
June 18, 20232 yr comment_6005842 10 hours ago, Ma Stump Puller said: Bas would definitely be on a top 100 for me. Every one of his matches is a must-watch, even the dumb 2000 Inoki/Sano/Otsuka mess. Guy had IT when it came to wrestling; if only he'd have started a few years earlier, he might've not been as bashed up as he was. Some additional suggestions Don Nakaya Nielsen Johnny Barrett Greco (as mentioned) That one random UWFI guy who had five matches with Kanehara on repeat in 1992 and then disappeared (???) Kamen Shooter Super Rider (pre RJPW) Masakazu Maeda! I was thinking about him too actually. It's incredible how good he was. Apparently, he felt wrestling wasn't for him and left the business altogether.
June 18, 20232 yr Author comment_6005846 After recently discovering the epicness of the Robby Lance vs. Damon Scythe 30 minute ironman match from 2002, I think both of them deserve a mention. It seems neither of them has more than a handful of taped appearances besides maybe some shindy VHS stuff that nobody ever bought and is lost footage/stored away in someones garage right now. Lance doesn't even have a profile on the usual wrestling data sites, though he won the world title of a small Portland indy in 2012.
July 6, 20232 yr comment_6006805 The Fischer Brothers had a match against Roger Delaporte and Guy Robin in 1957, they were an amazing heel team in that one. I want to know if there's more available.
July 27, 20232 yr comment_6007979 On 6/18/2023 at 6:49 PM, Jetlag said: After recently discovering the epicness of the Robby Lance vs. Damon Scythe 30 minute ironman match from 2002, I think both of them deserve a mention. It seems neither of them has more than a handful of taped appearances besides maybe some shindy VHS stuff that nobody ever bought and is lost footage/stored away in someones garage right now. Lance doesn't even have a profile on the usual wrestling data sites, though he won the world title of a small Portland indy in 2012. Damon Scythe just off a basic YT search has like a dozen+ matches (including having Brett Sawyer's last match in the middle of god knows where?? Not even Cagematch can be arsed making that official) he might not count for this tbh, even if these barely count
August 17Aug 17 comment_6033579 On 5/13/2021 at 8:08 AM, Jetlag said: Aquiles. Legendary brazilian brawler. An archive dropping a motherload of brazilian catch on us would be nice. Made an Aquiles playlist recently! Let me know if I missed any thing. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7K3Vop0Eb1Rvd5G6epz6mmSO48QY99GF
Create an account or sign in to comment