Serious Greatest of All Time Candidates

[El-P]

I do somewhat agree on the "people who used to think Takada was the best are likely to still hold that opinion" point, but only to the extent that they haven't watched much new-to-them wrestling in recent years.

I admit this kinda my case, not in that I haven't watched anything new, but in that I haven't rewatched any Takada in like 10 years. So I'm speaking based from my memories alone. I've changed opinion and taste about many wrestlers in the last 10 years. If I ever get to rewatch Takada and finds him not holding up to the memories I had from him, I'll have no problem admiting I was wrong. I admit that would be a shocker to me, but I guess it's possible.

[Ditch]

I'm more referring to people exposing themselves to things they haven't seen before. For instance, other shoot-style promotions, since UWFi was the one that got by far the most attention at first. Or, watching more of the 'lesser' Takada bouts.

[jdw]

Don't think new-to-them is a factor.

 

Take Meltzer and Sayama. He watched everything in the 80s from New Japan, week after week after week of it. Got both of the original Sayama commercial sets, which would have included a few matches he might have missed in 1981... though I suspect he already was watching puroresu in 1981. Doubt there's much of anything of Sayama's that he didn't see back in the day, nor the juniors who followed him in the 80s.

 

It's highly unlikely that he would agree with current online opinion on Sayama.

 

Same goes for Dave still thinking Toyota was the best womans worker of the 90s. He watched Toyota from here debut. Zavisa and others would have sent him all the commercial tapes of AJPW, and all the interpromotional tapes. If there's anything "new" to him, it would have been the non-big stuff on commercial or cable TV after 1997. It's not a matter of failing to watch "new-to-him" stuff from the 90s that is the reason that Dave still thinks Toyota is the best joshi worker of the 90s.

 

It's because (i) that was the opinion he formed at the time, ii) he hasn't gone back to watch that stuff again, and (iii) even if he did it's unlikely he'd change him opinion. Toyota's style of work appeals to him.

 

Perhaps if someone sat next to him through 100+ hours of joshi and pointed out to him the flaws of Toyota and put over other workers, it might change his opinion. Doubt it. Far more likely that he would throw the person out after two hours.

 

Same thing with Takada. He saw all of Takada's stuff in New Japan before any of us were watching puroresu. He watched all the UWF 2.0 stuff before we did. He watched the available UWF 1.0 stuff before we did. He watched UWFi stuff before most of us did. There's a very small amount of Takada stuff that's come out retro that would be new to him, mostly UWF 1.0 stuff. As a percentage of Takada's work it amounts to what... 5%? 10%?

 

That's the case with any number of fans.

 

You're not going to convince the biggest Shawn hardcore mark and collector that Shawn wasn't a great worker form the 80s through the 90s based on stuff that's new-to-him. There's some new stuff that has trickled out of the WWF vaults with 24/7 and WWE.com and DVD. But the majority of stuff that wasn't the well known stuff (i.e. TV and PPV) actually was in circulation: house shows, CHV and non-US stuff. A hardcore Shawn fan who collected stuff would have tracked most of it down. Add that with the TV and PPV, and we're down to a small amount of new-to-them stuff.

 

That new Savage vs Steamer matches where Ricky is defending looks really interesting. But in the scheme of Savage or Steamboat in the WWF, it amounts to what? 0.5% of their available matches? 0.25%?

 

It's nice to have "finds" of new stuff. But for wrestlers who've been in the eye to a great degree, and whom people watched a ton of their stuff, it doesn't amount to a ton.

 

The reason you're not going to change the opinion of the majority of people is because they're set in their ways. They've watched what they watched long ago and are set in their ways.

 

We all know this.

 

John

[Ditch]

I don't think Toyota as best woman of the '90s is out of the question the way I think Takada (or Sayama) as best wrestler ever is. And certainly Meltzer touted both Takada and Sayama as great workers... but did he tout them as GOAT material? When I've seen people try to make the case for Takada, it invariably lacked the depth of analysis that such a claim would really need. The sort of depth one would expect from someone who really had 'seen it all'. And even then, yes, I'm sure Meltzer watched all those relevant Takada, Toyota and Sayama bouts. Was he getting every RINGS show? PWFG? Certainly he wasn't watching every Battlarts show. The case for Takada as the overwhelmingly best shoot-style wrestler, and a jaw-dropping junior, who thus was the best ever, always seemed predicated on ignorance. Either not having seen the numerous 'off' nights, or not having seen other shoot-style promotions to compare his best work with.

 

The 'set in their ways' thing is beyond dispute. I guess what I'm getting at is, among people who are still actively seeking new stuff to watch, who are even a little bit open-minded, the type of person that would participate in something like another go-around of the Smarkschoice poll... are very unlikely to put Takada in their top 5 of greatest wrestlers/workers ever.

 

To put it another way: when an opinion like that stops being propigated or defended, almost entirely, it's essentially dead in the water. If you visit enough corners of the IWC you'll find dozens upon dozens of wrestlers being discussed as, at the very least, top 5 all-time material. Takada as possibly the GOAT was in decline many years ago; with each passing year the case for it weakens and the case for others strengthens. Who's still carrying his torch, at least at that highest level of praise?

 

Bottom line: I think it's safe to leave him out of these sorts of discussions.

[Loss]

Don't know about Takada, but Dave has absolutely called Toyota a GOAT contender.

 

When HHH had a line on Raw saying Shawn was one of the three greatest wrestlers of all time back in '04, Dave said he obviously hadn't seen much Tsuruta, Kobashi or Toyota.

 

Also, Dave doesn't even agree with the concept of re-watching and changing opinions. He sees no value in it, as he has explained many times, because all that matters is what was considered good at the time, because wrestlers don't make matches for future audiences to watch.

 

My counter argument to that is regardless of styles changing all the time, what makes wrestling good or bad never really changes at all.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I'll admit that the excessiveness of the "Lawler Movement" irked me into holding more against him, or focusing on what I didn't see there rather than the good stuff I did.

 

Lawler was great (or thereabouts) and I love his stuff with Bill Dundee. I think he just became too much of a poster-child for the whole "anti-moves", "big-up for brawls", "punches and angles for hicks = wrestling" trends etc...

I'm intrigued here. What "Lawler movement"? I sorta get what you're talking about, as in recent years many people have seen a lot of Memphis and realized how fantastic Lawler is/was. But that's just an example of people being exposed to work by a guy who they had only known from his WWF work. (My theory re: Lawler hate being related to Bret Hart love is still relevant here )

[El-P]

I don't think Toyota as best woman of the '90s is out of the question the way I think Takada (or Sayama) as best wrestler ever is.

That's where you lose me. Toyota was never even the best woman in her own promotion, at any point of her career. And I like Toyota, always did. Bt when I think "best woman of the 90's", last time I checked, Toyota sure had no shot at it. In the top 10 of the 90's, maybe. I'm not sure but maybe. But the best ? Not a chance.

[El-P]

When HHH had a line on Raw saying Shawn was one of the three greatest wrestlers of all time back in '04, Dave said he obviously hadn't seen much Tsuruta, Kobashi or Toyota.

Well, Toyota does murders Michaels, but at this point Michaels just doesn't belong in any "greatest anything" discussion to me, except the "biggest non-jobbing unprofessionnal douchebag" category. But yeah, Dave should have dropped the names Hokuto, Jaguar, Chigusa, Devil, Ozaki, Aja, Bull here instead. But hey, he dropped Kobashi's names instead of Misawa and Kawada. It's not the sama hiatus, but still.

[ohtani's jacket]

I kind of get where Dave is coming from. From a historical point of view, the fact that Toyota's style is passé these days shouldn't really have an effect on her GOAT candidacy. You could actually argue that her style isn't dated at all, but that contrary to what Loss is saying, opinion on what makes a good worker/wrestling match has changed dramatically. Unless you want to argue that fundamentally she wasn't any good, which I think is unfair. I dislike Takada immensely, but there were stll things he was capable of. He just sucked on the mat.

[El-P]

From a historical point of view, the fact that Toyota's style is passé these days shouldn't really have an effect on her GOAT candidacy.

I admit I'll never understand how a wrestling style can be "passé" (en français dans le texte). I mean, I understand, but aren't all style dated anyway ?

 

You could actually argue that her style isn't dated at all, but that contrary to what Loss is saying, opinion on what makes a good worker/wrestling match has changed dramatically.

Whose opinion ? The majority in a subculture of a subculture of a subculture's opinion ? Im not being snarky, I just wonder what does "opinion has changed" mean. I know my opinion on some workers has changed. My tastes have evolved. But does that mean it has evolved the same way the majority of a sub of a sub of a sub's opinion has evolved ? I don't think so. So, I don't really get what that sentence means...

[ohtani's jacket]

My iphone gave passe a diacritical mark. I think a lot of the 90s workrate styles are passe amongst viewers in 2011. I suppose all styles are dated in a sense. Perhaps I should have used the term "not in favour" in some thing like that.

 

I think it's pretty clear which styles are out of favour with people at the moment. It doesn't mean they're out of favour with everyone or that there aren't people who think independently of whatever the subculture within a subculture within a subculture say, but things have definitely changed. If you look at the stuff that's no longer popular, whether it's 90s Joshi, AAA, Super J Cup, UWF-I or any other former boom, they all share a common element and that's that they were flashy styles. Wrestling fans tend to fall into two categories these days: hardcore fans who prefer substance over style and long time fans who don't have any qualms about pimping what they like. Hence why you're just as likely to get pimping of Demolition and New Generation WWF as you are IWRG or Fu-ten, to name drop a few of the better stuff around.

 

In the past, there was very much a workrate ideal when it came to wrestling. Not everybody was interested in only 4-5 star matches, but that culture was very strong. Interest in workrate styles thrived in that era, and I think what you're seeing now with guys preferring more minimalistic stuff is in some ways a backlash against that era. It's also a reaction to the current product, which, in trying to up the ante from the 90s workrate styles (or, in truth, find their own identity) became more ridiculous than even the most workrate driven stuff of the 90s.

 

As for who I'm talking about, I'm mainly referring to the type of person who will watch a large cross section of stuff based on recommendations or threads about matches. I'll call these people the "dabblers", since they'll dabble in mostly anything if it's interesting. I do not see a lot of positive things from these people about older workrate wrestling. M-Pro is probably the only workrate style they like, and to illustrate how fickle and meaningless all this is (but engaging because its the type of stuff that keeps many of us interested), I'd argue that M-Pro is only well received because it fell over the radar for a number of years and the time is right for a revival. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that in ten years time people will be "rediscovering" 90s Joshi, etc., but really my point is that if I think about what I thought was a good match 10-15 years ago, my tastes have changed significantly. Loss may have been talking about common elements of great wrestling throughout the decades and how the basics don't really change, but I think that's a little different to reception and the "text" that we turn wrestling matches into (for want of a better word.)

[Ditch]

-Toyota was in enough matches that can reasonably called 'consensus great', and has another large number that are Your Mileage May Vary, that a case for #1 wouldn't be at all out of the question for fans of her style. I mean, I think her '95 broadway with Kyoko was awful, but I'm sure plenty of people still consider it MOTY if not top 5. She was consistent as far as effort goes. I disagree, but I understand.

 

-I don't get "UWFi was flashy". In the sense that you'd get more traditional pro wrestling impact moves than, say, RINGS? Because to me RINGS is much more flashy as far as having a fast pace and innovation. I think UWFi getting notice ahead of other shoot-style has to do with two things: Vader and the NJ feud.

[Resident Evil]

When HHH had a line on Raw saying Shawn was one of the three greatest wrestlers of all time back in '04, Dave said he obviously hadn't seen much Tsuruta, Kobashi or Toyota.

Well, Toyota does murders Michaels, but at this point Michaels just doesn't belong in any "greatest anything" discussion to me, except the "biggest non-jobbing unprofessionnal douchebag" category. But yeah, Dave should have dropped the names Hokuto, Jaguar, Chigusa, Devil, Ozaki, Aja, Bull here instead. But hey, he dropped Kobashi's names instead of Misawa and Kawada. It's not the sama hiatus, but still.

 

 

It's intersting that a lot of poeple do think that Michaels is the best. I believe Jericho may have outright said that he was the best ever recently. Ross once said it was he and Flair who were the best ever and nobody else was even close. Lots of fans think he's the best too. Personally, I think he's underrated among the smarky smark crowd and is a great wrestler but I don't think he's quite the greatest ever.

 

 

Toyota is my pick for the best wrestler ever male or female. Her passion I look up to since she is one of the most driven people I have ever seen in my life. I haven't met any wrestler yet who can work my emotions and get me engrossed in a match like she can. I still remember the first time I ever saw her wrestle. I knew she was spectacular because PWI talked about her in those terms but wow, words just didn't do the eyes justice. My jaw was literally on the floor. Nobody ever blew me away like that after first seeing them. Nobody. I can still go back to this day and watch her matches and they still capture majic even moreso than all the other GOAT contenders. I don't talk about joshi puroresu much because as mentioned I worry about someone wrestling pregnant but Toyota is getting underrated here. Joshi puroresu at its best is I believe the pinnacle of wrestling especially within the context of time and Toyota was the best of the bunch. Even last year after all these years, she had my favourite moty in Chikara.

[Resident Evil]

I also really like Jumbo when at his peak. The famous Tenyru match is a fav of all time.

 

Benoit is one of my favs of course. I know it's hard for people to talk about him because it's fairly obvious that wrestling turned him from (perhaps) a nonmurder to a murderer and that is a scary thing to think about when you have a find seemingly focused on wanting to have a family but still before he went crazy his matches speak for themself. His WWE run is actually very underrated.

 

Kobashi I would definitely have up there which almost everyone agrees with.

[ohtani's jacket]

-I don't get "UWFi was flashy". In the sense that you'd get more traditional pro wrestling impact moves than, say, RINGS? Because to me RINGS is much more flashy as far as having a fast pace and innovation. I think UWFi getting notice ahead of other shoot-style has to do with two things: Vader and the NJ feud.

I don't think RINGS was a flashy promotion at all. Some of the matwork and exchanges may have been slick, but that has more to do with the workers' skills than the intent behind the promotion. UWF-I was far more manipulative with their points system, was more suplex and strike heavy, used pro-style gimmicks like tag matches, had Anjoh and Takada go around mouthing off and cutting promos on other companies, and was 100% style over substance. Nobuhiko Takada is the poster boy for style over substance. There weren't any 30 minute Tamura/Kosaka chess battles in UWF-I. The fact that they worked with New Japan and WAR says it all, but ideologically they had split from the founding ideas of UWF a long time before that. I don't really see much difference between UWF-I and Hustle in terms of motive.

[El-P]

Thanks for the clarification Dan. Makes sense now.

As far as UWF-I being flashy, I agree with Ditch, I don't see it at all. UWF-I was maybe flashy compared to the second UWF or PWFG, but it was still pretty straight forward shoot-style. I agree that Takada was flashy though, but was he flashier than Maeda ? I'm not sure about that. The fact that UWF-I was the biggest thing in Japan for a short time also played a part in the style being popular, it was pretty hard to ignore it. I don't think it was *that* popular though, people were way more in NJ juniors, AJ heavies, joshi and FMW and MPro as far as indies go. I don't remember that many talks of straight UWF-I matches or cards, most of it was the Vader matches and the feud with NJ.

As far as RINGS goes, well then I would agree with Dan, RINGS was the least flashy promotion you could get. I can't think of any promotion that was less flashy than RINGS.

[El-P]

-Toyota was in enough matches that can reasonably called 'consensus great', and has another large number that are Your Mileage May Vary, that a case for #1 wouldn't be at all out of the question for fans of her style.

Maybe, but last time I watched lot of joshi she's one whose stock dropped. Not that she became "bad" in my eyes, not at all, but certainly not as good as I thought she was. And I've never seen her in a great match in which she was the best of the two (or the four). Yamada's stock dropped a lot more. She's a girl I used to think was great, she dropped to "good". And Hotta dropped from "good" to "sucked donkey ass since day one". I know it's not relevant to the conversation, but I like to repeat how much Yumiko Hotta sucks.

Back to Toyota, I don't dislike her style, but Kyoko Inoue does it better. So. I wonder what I would think of the infamous 95 match you mention. I loved it when I fist saw it, but it's been like a decade ago.

[Dylan Waco]

Steering off topic for a moment, what do you all think of Rey as GOAT candidate? I suspect I know what Jerome thinks though I welcome his comments one way or the other. I ask because when this conversation came up with my little brothers the other night they mentioned his name and I found it incredibly difficult to trivialize it, dispute it or dismiss it away. I guess you could argue that he was never an effective heel but then I have always thought Rey was one of those guys who was such a great, transcendent babyface that the notion of him being heel was utterly absurd. I would not rate him quite at the level of the very best guys, but I don't think he is far off and if I was someone of my brothers' generation I could see how he might be "their Flair" from the perspective of having a very consistent almost 20 year run of high quality matches, with a workable formula that almost any scrub can be effectively plugged into.

 

Someone mentioned Fujinami being on my original list and maybe he shouldn't be on it. I don't consider him the GOAT, but I don't think he is a ludicrous candidate. Granted I have not seen much of his 90's work in years, but on the NJPW 80's set he was really incredible in multiple settings to the point where he shot up my personal list. Perhaps I'm overrating him based on that.

[Ditch]

I think there's a decent case for Mysterio. The number of promotions and opponents he had success with is a testament to his ability. I'm not sure he has much #1 support though. People who really like lucha tend to rate Blue Panther et al. higher. As a lucha/US crossover, Eddie gets more support. Mysterio is the type of person who would be top 25 no matter where you do a poll, but he'd struggle to hit top 5 anywhere. I'd compare him to Vader. The case is quite similar, both had lots and lots of good matches, both are loved by pretty much everyone, and yet neither gets significant GOAT hype.

 

Fujinami just dropped too much as a worker after his (back?) injury to be considered for #1, or even top 5 really. He had about 1 notably good match in the '00s, and hardly any MOTYCs by any standard in the '90s. Lots and lots of very forgettable matches. Even if one rates him #1 for the '80s, I think you'd want him to be at least top 50 for the '90s, which he simply wasn't.

[El-P]

I mentionned Fujinami. He was tremendous in the 80's, so if you've seen mostly that part of his career, lately, I understand you would put him that high, Fuji was as good as anyone then.

 

Rey, I guess I'll have to really dig deep into his WWE career to give an accurate opinion, and that's something I'm really not willing to do based on the scattered vision I had of some of his big matches there. The issue I have with Rey to begin with, is that rewatching his matches in ECW and lots of WCW, I find myself not that involved with Rey overall. Kinda like some of the NJ juniors, I think some of his work hasn't aged that well. Granted, he was better in AAA anyway, and that is something I would need to see more too, but outside of a few great matches in WCW, basically I'm not blown away by Rey Rey's work retrospectively. And since I've been less than enthousiastic about the big WWE matches in which he worked that toned down and quite frankly annoying style based around a goofy spot, I really would not consider Rey as one of the greatest wrestler ever. It's bizarre, it's like at the same time I wasn't sold at all on the "Rey is better in the WWE because he's a great storyteller" argument, I found myself not being blown away anymore by most of his earlier matches either. I still like Rey, I still think he had some great matches with Eddie and Juventud, but I would say he's a guy who's stock has dropped a bit in my book overall, and not all of it because of his WWE career which I just don't care for. So, yeah, my answer would be no, but not for the most obvious reason.

[El-P]

Fujinami just dropped too much as a worker after his (back?) injury to be considered for #1

Yep, he fucked up his back in late 89 I believe. He was never the same afterward.

[Tim Cooke]

I easily see Rey as a GOAT contender. Forget his AAA work and just look at this:

 

1996 WCW - the cruiserweight division would have still happened without him, but it stuck around and got over because of his work. Regular US fans had never seen this stuff before. I imagine it is similiar to the hardcore fans who found AJW in the mid 80's and were dumbfounded by what they were seeing.

 

1997 WCW - final 3 months make up for an injury prone year. Week to week during the last 4 months of the year, he was producing some of the best TV matches of the year

 

1998 WCW - Despite WCW falling apart, still pulling out new tricks and is still over.

 

1999 WCW - see 1998, take away his mask, put him in overalls, and he still gets Match of the Night most nights.

 

2000 WCW - sucked

 

2001 WCW - Superbrawl to 3/26/01, he was back to early 1999 form.

 

Besides Eddy and Benoit, who comes close to being that consistent in an era of TV matches getting shorter and rosters being so big that many talented guys don't get on TV.

 

His 2005 WWE work against Eddy speaks for itself as well.

[El-P]

1998 WCW - Despite WCW falling apart, still pulling out new tricks and is still over.

Wasn't around for half a year though in 98.

[Ditch]

I'm not sure "was having very good matches relative to late '90s US TV" is all that ringing of an endorsement for GOAT...

[jdw]

-I don't get "UWFi was flashy". In the sense that you'd get more traditional pro wrestling impact moves than, say, RINGS? Because to me RINGS is much more flashy as far as having a fast pace and innovation. I think UWFi getting notice ahead of other shoot-style has to do with two things: Vader and the NJ feud.

UWFi got noticed before Vader showed up.

 

After the split and in the US with hardcore fans:

 

* Rings didn't take off

 

It really didn't hit on the radar until Tamura got there. People like Yohe were talking to the wall in putting over Volk Han. The hardcore bloom was off Maeda before he even left UWF 2.0, and there was very little love for his Rings work.

 

* PWFG was largely stillborn

 

Hardcores that followed UWF-style loved Funaki in UWF 2.0, were interested initially in PWFG but it didn't thrill folks. There was next to zero love for Fujiwara back in the day. They got attention for going on SWS dome shows, and their own Dome show... and not in very glowing fashion.

 

* UWFi took off here no later than the first Takada-Gary match

 

Prior to that, the two Backlund matches got some attention based on the prior one and also the goofiness of the first rematch. The Takada-Berbick got attention before 1991 was out: Dave was a mark for Wrestler-Boxer history back then, and it was a goofy match as well. Takada-Gary I was May 1992. The rematch for the Thesz Belt was in September. Kitao the next month for another goofy match that drew attention.

 

To hardcores in the US, UWFi was ahead before the first year after the break up was done, then ran away in 1992. When did Vader show up? May of 1993? It was already over by then, and Vader was icing.

 

By 1992, UWFi was the king of the three spawn of UWF, Rings was considered a disappointing promotion to everyone but Yohe, and PWFG was thought of as largely a joke and people wondering why Funaki and Suzuki were hanging around that bumb Fujiwara. The two ended up getting much more attention when they left, and creating something different.

 

I'm not justifying those as "correct" views that people took at the time. Just stating that those *were* the views at the time.

 

John