Who is the greatest wrestler of the year?

1. Kiyoshi Tamura

2. Kenta Kobashi

3. El Hijo del Santo

4. Koji Kanemoto

5. Mick Foley

This is maybe the strongest Kobashi year. Absolute blast.

Probably Kobashi. MOTY with Misawa and excellent title matches against Kawada, Jun, and Taue.

Tamura is still in his far & away the best wrestler on earth phase. The 30min draw with Kohsaka is as impressive a match as you'll ever see. 

Other notable wrestler - Wanted to throw a shout out to Shinobu Kandori who has the Hotta classic and one of my favorite Toyota matches ever. 

 

For my money, Foley had a MOTYC with all three of his gimmicks in 1998. Also had an incredibly fun team with Chainsaw Charlie for the first few months.

Genichiro Tenryu is also pretty fantastic this year, as is Shinya Hashimoto with one of the best G1 runs ever. Need to see more from Santo but if the Felino match is any indicator, he's also in the conversation.

Tamura had a great 1998 that goes under the radar. Classics against Ilyukhin, Kohsaka, and Yamamoto and carries a few others like Vrij and Sakata to good matches as well. I would say 1998 was his best year overall but 1999 and 1996 come close.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 11:34 PM, Control21 said:

Tamura had a great 1998 that goes under the radar. Classics against Ilyukhin, Kohsaka, and Yamamoto and carries a few others like Vrij and Sakata to good matches as well. I would say 1998 was his best year overall but 1999 and 1996 come close.

I recommended some of Tamura's matches from that year here: https://gweproject.freeforums.net/thread/2593/jmml-watches-wrestling?page=2 

In Mexico:
1. El Hijo del Santo
2. Felino
3. Maybe Zumbido

There is not a lot of 1998 lucha on Youtube, okay? There's not a lot of discussion over what the best 1998 matches from Mexico are, either. I don't know that I've ever heard anyone call 1998 a standout year for Hijo del Santo (oops, my mistake, Microstatistics did it several posts up), but you can basically follow the CMLL plotline by watching his matches until he finally turns in September. I also don't remember rudo Santo doing stuff like challenging up and comer Tony Rivera to a mat contest in 1997. Felino was probably the best CMLL technical wrestler at this point, or at least he was the one giving the best technical displays. Those two were the guys who stood out to me. For third, I dunno, I went with Zumbido. Maybe he wasn't the third best wrestler in the country in 1997, but I do think that he, at least briefly, surpassed Virus as the most exciting short guy with a mullet, quite an achievement in itself. On resume I probably should have gone with Karloff Lagarde Jr., a pasty gormless faced man who really tried hard to be a good technical worker.

As ever, pleading ignorance on Japan. Who was the best US worker, Benoit? I'd take 1998 Santo or Felino over him.

Ten of them:

Spoiler

1. Virus, Zumbido and Halcon Negro vs Olimpico, Super Kendo and Oriental
2. Shocker, Felino and Tony Rivera vs Hijo del Santo, Violencia and Karloff Lagarde Jr.
3. Felino vs El Hijo del Santo
4. Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero and Zumbido vs Pantera, Olimpico and Mr. Aguila
5. Mascara Magica vs Karloff Lagarde Jr.
6. Hijo del Santo, Blue Panther and Black Warrior vs Atlantis, Negro Casas and Mr. Niebla
7. Felino vs Karloff Lagarde Jr.
8. Cien Caras, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 vs Shocker, Brazo de Plata and Mr. Niebla
9. Hijo del Santo, Villano III and Fuerza Guerrera vs Atlantis, Negro Casas and Fiera
10. Hijo del Santo, Negro Casas and Felino vs Villano III, Villano V and Silver King

On 8/15/2023 at 8:18 AM, cad said:

In Mexico:
1. El Hijo del Santo
2. Felino
3. Maybe Zumbido

There is not a lot of 1998 lucha on Youtube, okay? There's not a lot of discussion over what the best 1998 matches from Mexico are, either. I don't know that I've ever heard anyone call 1998 a standout year for Hijo del Santo (oops, my mistake, Microstatistics did it several posts up), but you can basically follow the CMLL plotline by watching his matches until he finally turns in September. I also don't remember rudo Santo doing stuff like challenging up and comer Tony Rivera to a mat contest in 1997. Felino was probably the best CMLL technical wrestler at this point, or at least he was the one giving the best technical displays. Those two were the guys who stood out to me. For third, I dunno, I went with Zumbido. Maybe he wasn't the third best wrestler in the country in 1997, but I do think that he, at least briefly, surpassed Virus as the most exciting short guy with a mullet, quite an achievement in itself. On resume I probably should have gone with Karloff Lagarde Jr., a pasty gormless faced man who really tried hard to be a good technical worker.

As ever, pleading ignorance on Japan. Who was the best US worker, Benoit? I'd take 1998 Santo or Felino over him.

Ten of them:

  Hide contents

1. Virus, Zumbido and Halcon Negro vs Olimpico, Super Kendo and Oriental
2. Shocker, Felino and Tony Rivera vs Hijo del Santo, Violencia and Karloff Lagarde Jr.
3. Felino vs El Hijo del Santo
4. Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero and Zumbido vs Pantera, Olimpico and Mr. Aguila
5. Mascara Magica vs Karloff Lagarde Jr.
6. Hijo del Santo, Blue Panther and Black Warrior vs Atlantis, Negro Casas and Mr. Niebla
7. Felino vs Karloff Lagarde Jr.
8. Cien Caras, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 vs Shocker, Brazo de Plata and Mr. Niebla
9. Hijo del Santo, Villano III and Fuerza Guerrera vs Atlantis, Negro Casas and Fiera
10. Hijo del Santo, Negro Casas and Felino vs Villano III, Villano V and Silver King

 

Since I did my best of 1998 project when there was much less lucha libre online, this is very curious to me! I'll definitely be watching the rest of that Top 10. I thought Felino/Santo was by far the greatest match to happen in Mexico that year, so the fact that two matches finished above it is super interesting.

Benoit did have a pretty great 1998, with the Raven/DDP feuds, the best of 7 with Booker, matches with Finlay, but missed like 4-5 months in the second half of the year.

19 hours ago, Jetlag said:

Since I did my best of 1998 project when there was much less lucha libre online, this is very curious to me! I'll definitely be watching the rest of that Top 10. I thought Felino/Santo was by far the greatest match to happen in Mexico that year, so the fact that two matches finished above it is super interesting.

If you see Felino vs Santo as an alltime super classic, there's no way either of those matches will surpass it.

Number one is one of those matches where you get a little bit of everything, technical work, comedy, violence, dives, all built around the Halcon Negro vs Olimpico rivalry. I think it's been on Youtube for well over ten years at this point in terrible quality.

Number two is a pure technical match where Santo and Felino let some of the potential next generation workers eat at the table with them. That was a fairly recent Roy Lucier upload.

I hated the Santo/Felino Monterey match but everyone else loves it. I need to check that out again.