Venegas

05-06 Roderick Strong is up there, easily. Bonus points for having a bunch of great matches built entirely around his chops, too.

I was one of the two who voted for Super Crazy. I'm kinda shocked he wasn't on more ballots. Longevity may not be in his favor but in 99/00 very few in the world were as fun to watch.

Finlay vs Sami Callihan I and II from EVOLVE 9 and 11 are arguably the two best indie matches of the decade.

Regal's match vs Hash from 95 was a legit all time great match and an all time great performance by him.

I think the whole 'not being a real heel' thing had more to with the ROH fans than Bryan's ability/inability to garner organic heat. Maybe Bryan did indeed have a 'wink wink' approach to his shtick, but so did the fans. The same fans who would boo him 5 minutes into the match would chant 'Best In The World' afterwards. It would've seemed ridiculous in 1980 Memphis, but for 2006 ROH that's the type of crowd they were playing to. These were the same fans who cheered CM Punk for manipulating them with the most brilliant heel turn in modern wrestling history.

I have Volk Han at #4, and Bryan Danielson at #2. I suspect I'm the highest voter for both. Kawada has a very good chance at finishing #1 once I watch more of him.

It's definitely an outside the box idea that can be seen as low risk, high reward. I say why not?

Timothy Thatcher vs Drew Gulak from FIP Everything Burns.

I'm working my way through the Buddy Rose comp made by Will. I'll write at length about Rose once I finish the set.

How do you take a guy like Volk Han, for example, who made tape around 50 times, and compare him to say, Bret Hart who has made tape thousands of times? I bring this up because in my opinion, Volk Han has about 5 matches that are better than any match Bret Hart has ever had. So, peak Volk Han vs peak Bret Hart is clearly in the favor of Volk Han. But, what about the hundreds of matches that Bret proved to be a great worker in compared to the 50 matches of Volk Han? It depends on how you measure quality over quantity. Bottom line, 'peak' performances/periods are usually tie-breakers of sorts when comparing workers, but you can't ignore everything else. However, how a performer was at his absolute best to me is probably the most important thing when looking at a worker historically.

Here's a link to Hero/Davey: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2bbnev_herovsrichards2_sport I really suggest going into this with an open mind. I enjoyed it a lot.

In 2010-2011, I discovered/fell in love with independent wrestling. ROH was all the rage in the circles I frequented on the Internet. The guy who I heard the most about, was Davey Richards. Everyone loved this guy. Some even thought he was the best in the world. I remember 14 year old me watching some matches and really liking him as well. In fact, the first live ROH iPPV I watched was Best In The World 2011, when he won the title. He was my favorite wrestler for a while afterwards. Now, more than three years later, a lot of my views on wrestling have done a complete 180. Honestly, I haven't even bothered to go back and watch Davey Richards in a long time. Here's one I actually haven't seen before: Davey Richards -vs- Chris Hero; ROH Only The Strong Survive. Charolette, NC. Okay, first things first, let's establish some context here. Davey suffered a concussion in his last match vs Roderick Strong. It was pretty crazy because people were legit worried if it was a work or a shoot. So, who does he face in his first match back? The most lethal striker in the company, of course. They start off with some sweeeet mat work. Real neat stuff. Davey probably falls into the Kurt Angle category as someone who does too much running around when they could be a freakin' awesome modern Volk Han on the mat if they watched a few RINGS tapes. Hero kills Davey with strikes and kicks in this. I'm talking elbows, kicks to the back of the head, jumping spinning kicks, anything. Davey did a reaaaaaaally good job at selling the concussion. Real cringeworthy stuff that at times made you feel like you wanted the match to end for the sake of his health. A lot of Davey's criticism comes from the fact that he may kick out of/do too many moves, but I didn't see it here. There were times where I about to throw the overkill flag but Davey would redeem it buy immediately shaking the cobwebs and selling his loopyness. He would always go back to selling his concussion after doing a big move or coming down from an adrenaline rush. The concussion was pretty much the basis of the match. Late into the match, Davey attacks the arm that his drilling his brain in with some nasty armbar variations, and kimuras. Hero busted out everything, in a good way. In a "I'm gonna have to unload shit I usually save for when need be" way. Springboard moonsaults, piledrivers, all sorts of shit. Davey wins with a shooting star press, a spot he only busts out in big matches. Excellent match. Loved it. I can't speak for Davey's other matches, but this right here was a gem. Hero was great here as well.

He had already been scheduled for Comicon. He appeared on Kimmel not too long after he won the belt. Hell... look at his regular appearances on Talking Dead. He has sung Take Me Out to the Ball Park at Wrigley. Whatever media appearances you would have Cena do; you have Punk do with "his own" film crew. He could have done Robot Chicken. Fuck man, the more I think about it... he could have been all over the place. I know you are the defender of all WWE booking but this was all about building up his return... not rushing it and it ended up meaning nothing. He also wanted to stand behind the glass of Good Morning America holding the title. Something like that would've generated a crazy amount of buzz, in the wrestling world at the very least.

Obviously on a much smaller scale, but Low Ki challenging Samoa Joe for the ROH World Title in late '04 would've been huge.

Okada beating Tanahashi in 2012 was pretty big. Aries beating Joe? I know some say that expected but watching show by show Aries didn't seem nearly as big of a threat as Punk, Danielson, or Homicide.