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Best Year by a Wrestler


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Personally I think comparing Japanese wrestling to US wrestling is only slightly less absurd than comparing Western drama to Kabuki theater but that's just me.

 

It really isn't. Pro wrestling is an American form of entertainment that spread to other countries, and many of the same people have been stars in both places.

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Savage's 1986 was his "national" best year.

 

Kobashi's 1993 as a hole was his best.

 

Split on Kawada's 1993 vs 1994. 1993 has a start and finish, along with a change in roles to bridge the two. 1994 had some classics, but not finish, and the high point of the TC win was in a matches that was much less than the Carny win over Doc. If you gave me a choice of everything from either year, I'd probably take 1993.

 

Misawa was probably at his best in 1995, but the start is slow and the finish is disappointing (vs Kobashi and then an largely uninteresting tag league). Lack of Doc took an opponent away. Hansen match was uninteresting. On the singles side it's Carny and the TC's against Kawada and Taue. He's strong in the Four Corners tags, at times flat out great. But it's really an odd year. On some level his 1993, 1994 and 1996 are more rounded and probably deeper in good matches. Even in 1996 when he's starting to get banged up again, those matches partnering with Jun give him a fresh role. Yeah... a really hard one to pick.

 

1995 was probably Taue's fullest year, though he was probably a better and more confident worker in 1996. It got botched a bit by having the belts go to Kobashi, but you could see in the Tag League just how confident and comfortable he was in his role.

 

Jumbo's 1976 was pretty interesting...

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Split on Kawada's 1993 vs 1994. 1993 has a start and finish, along with a change in roles to bridge the two. 1994 had some classics, but not finish, and the high point of the TC win was in a matches that was much less than the Carny win over Doc. If you gave me a choice of everything from either year, I'd probably take 1993.

 

 

Seconded. 1993 just inches ahead of 1994 where Kawada is concerned.

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One kind of "quietly" outstanding year - and I'm not even sure it's his best - is Hansen's 86. You have an extremely underrated and awesome run in the AWA, the beginning of the feud of the decade candidate with Colon, and some very stellar matches from AJPW. Very versatile here in terms of where he was working and the expectations on him. Certainly one of the more under the radar great years of all time if nothing else.

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I know it was said before in the thread but Danielson's run in 06 just really pops up in my head. He kind of gave off the vibe of the old NWA touring world champ when he defended the belt during 06. He was in control in most of the matches and was able to incorporate different finishers each match like winning with the cross face chickenwing, small packages, the elbow strikes, etc. It just built so well into his matches later in his title run where the crowd bough the false finishes.

 

I hope that if he goes heel down the road as the WWE Champ, he would be able to incorporate his 06 run move set when he does title defenses on the PPVs.

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As far as Danielson goes, I almost feel like his 07 was as good as his 06. Granted, he missed the first third of the year, but from his comeback in May until the end of the year, he had a hell of a run, and he actually changed up his style a bit from what he was doing in 06. His 04 was pretty great too, with his match against Joe in October being one of the most underdiscussed matches of the decade in my opinion.

 

I know Cena gets a lot of talk around here, but is there anyone else who contends for US worker of the 00s besides Danielson?

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Honestly it depended on who he was wrestling in 07. When he first came back in May he was definitely positioned as a heel but he wasn't heelish at all in his June match against McGuinness. He was definitely 100% babyface by the Morishima match in August.

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As far as Danielson goes, I almost feel like his 07 was as good as his 06. Granted, he missed the first third of the year, but from his comeback in May until the end of the year, he had a hell of a run, and he actually changed up his style a bit from what he was doing in 06. His 04 was pretty great too, with his match against Joe in October being one of the most underdiscussed matches of the decade in my opinion.

 

I know Cena gets a lot of talk around here, but is there anyone else who contends for US worker of the 00s besides Danielson?

I think Rey was the best worker in the US for that decade

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As far as Danielson goes, I almost feel like his 07 was as good as his 06. Granted, he missed the first third of the year, but from his comeback in May until the end of the year, he had a hell of a run, and he actually changed up his style a bit from what he was doing in 06. His 04 was pretty great too, with his match against Joe in October being one of the most underdiscussed matches of the decade in my opinion.

 

I know Cena gets a lot of talk around here, but is there anyone else who contends for US worker of the 00s besides Danielson?

I think Rey was the best worker in the US for that decade

 

 

You'd probably put Danielson No. 2 right? Those strike me as the only two who were consistently near the top for most of the decade.

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Some other Japan ones that came to mind: Jumbo in '91, Tenryu in '89 and '93, when he carried the WAR/NJ feud that's among my favorite things in wrestling history, Doc in '94.

 

The '80s lucha set makes a damn good case for Satanico in '84.

 

I wanted to pick a Fujinami or Choshu year but couldn't isolate one for either guy.

 

My favorite Flair year is probably '87, because I grew up on the Windham and Garvin feuds. But it lacked the territorial defenses that made his earlier years so chunky.

 

Eddy in '04 stands right near the top of best years from the '00s.

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For Fujinami, having not dived into the rest of the decade too much yet, I'd call his 1980 pretty amazing. If he has other years not just where he maintains the match quality, but does so continuing with that much matwork, that's quite the accomplishment. I'm guessing he shifts his style to work more theatrical with Choshu when their feud kicks off. I love that style too, but the early 80s Fujinami is the type of great wrestling that's harder to find.

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Fujinami and Choshu actually worked the mat quite a bit in their remarkable '83 series -- not intricate matwork but intense battles for position and leverage that set the tone for their matches.

 

I agree about 1980, which was cool because of the way he worked as a jr. heavyweight ace against a succession of very different opponents.

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Bryan Danielson's ROH title run, particularly throughout 2006 was pretty tremendous. Had terrific matches with all the big name indy guys he faced and carried a bunch of the less impressive indy guys to fun matches. He had something like 50+ title defenses (starting in late 2005) and he was able to work a lot of different styles depending on his opponent and the context.

 

It's hard to sell and indy guy's best year as being more substantial than a big name like Austin's best year, but from a pure ring work standpoint that was a terrific year for Bryan.

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One kind of "quietly" outstanding year - and I'm not even sure it's his best - is Hansen's 86. You have an extremely underrated and awesome run in the AWA, the beginning of the feud of the decade candidate with Colon, and some very stellar matches from AJPW. Very versatile here in terms of where he was working and the expectations on him. Certainly one of the more under the radar great years of all time if nothing else.

 

Hansen's a guy I'd have a completely awful time picking a best year for, but the whole is just something else.

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One kind of "quietly" outstanding year - and I'm not even sure it's his best - is Hansen's 86. You have an extremely underrated and awesome run in the AWA, the beginning of the feud of the decade candidate with Colon, and some very stellar matches from AJPW. Very versatile here in terms of where he was working and the expectations on him. Certainly one of the more under the radar great years of all time if nothing else.

 

It's fun for variety. His matches with Jumbo that year might be the more interesting ones of their long rivalry, and he has the bloodbath with Gordy that is really bloody.

 

On the flip side, the stuff with Choshu is pretty so-so, and I'm drawing a blank on a tag with Ted that really grabbed me. Hmm... looking at the DVDVR 80s results:

 

#114 Stan Hansen vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (4/19/86)

#119 Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen (7/26/86)

#115 Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Stan Hansen (7/31/86)

#18 Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Stan Hansen (10/21/86)

#59 Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Stan Hansen & Ted Dibiase (12/12/86)

 

Not a lot of matches that year, very Jumbo-centric, zippo with Choshu, the Gordy bloodbath didn't even make the extra. Only one match strongly liked. Not one of Stan's better years in Japan.

 

He had a lot of variety in the year with the AWA, PR and AJPW.

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