Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Best of Japan 2000-2009 vote


Ditch

Recommended Posts

DEADLINE: 11:59PM EST, December 31st, 2014

 

THE FILE: http://theditch.biz/BestOf2000s_Japan.xls (updated August 16th)

This has pretty much everything: matchlist, download/viewing links, voting instructions, etc. Feel free to share the link wherever. You input your ranks in the file and mail it back.

 

BACKGROUND: Over at DVDVR, there was a really good year-end vote to cover 2006. I ran it for 2007, then decided to cover the rest of the decade and try to find any hidden gems people had missed. There was so much footage because indies could afford to tape and Samurai TV offered tons of airtime, and I wanted to make sure nothing fell through the cracks. I'm confident that every legit MOTYC is on there.

 

THE MATCHES: There are 326 matches eligible. That is a lot to get through. I don't expect people to watch everything, which is why I've highlighted the top vote-getters from the annual votes. Realistically, nothing that isn't highlighted will place in the top 20 here. You can do a top 50 or a top 100 based on how much time you want to put in.

 

Every style and probably every relevant promotion is represented. All the famous matches are in there, plus a lot that YOU haven't seen but really should. I won't promise you'll enjoy everything; I certainly don't. But there will be something for anyone with even the remotest interest in puroresu.

 

I encourage people to ask questions about the matches (ie. background), offer their thoughts as they go through, etc, in the thread in order to keep it somewhat active through the next 365 days. Any minor suggestions about improving the excel file are also welcome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 257
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Not nearly as depressing as the last couple years have been, but it sure doesn't hold a candle to the '80s or '90s. I do think there are many great matches that aren't well-known, yet at the same time you could probably make a comparable or superior top 100 matches list from just 1993. As I delve into the '90s, I find plenty of hidden gems that would be MOTYCs in the 2000s but are deservedly also-rans in the year they happened.

 

Two really stark quality declines when comparing 2000 to 2001, and 2006 to 2007. In both cases I don't think the quality ever returned to the previous level. And even with 2000, you had a killer top ten but not much after that.

 

All that said I think it's well worth people's while to at least watch the top 100/150 highlights from the decade. Not much fat in there, and a broad selection of what Japan had to offer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Japan in 1992/93 is almost an unfair comparison to everything else because it was a time when it seemed like almost everything that was touched turned to gold.

 

Having said that by 2004 which was around when I tapped out on keeping up on things, the drop off had been pretty rough. Still, there were great matches now and again. I'm curious to revisit Kobashi/Honda from '03 and Kobashi/Takayama from I think early '04 pretty early and see how I feel about those now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't even begin to explain how useful this is for the Japan portion of my 2000's Decade project, much appreciated. With a year to vote and owing it to myself to watch these matches anyway for my project I think a ballot will be coming your way.

 

Quick question and it may be a stupid one as I am severely out of the loop as I started trailing off early 2002, but is there a reason that any of the Nakanishi v. Maekawa AJW matches didn't make this cut? I know Dave's "Next Flair v. Steamboat" was nutty, but I remember enjoying the 2/24/02 PPV match at least.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going through my own stuff... God, why did I stop keeping a complete catalog of everything I had once I started buying DVDs just because I was pretty much done tape trading then? Anyway, at the very least I can start by watching the majority of the AJPW, NOAH, and NJPW for the first three years as a starter. Once I figure out what disk is what. Oh fun.

 

Also... I have some GAEA. I seem to remember the Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong match on 12/15/01 being like 80 bajillion stars but I haven't rewatched that in a million years either. So it's possible it could now be like negative 3. You never know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick question and it may be a stupid one as I am severely out of the loop as I started trailing off early 2002, but is there a reason that any of the Nakanishi v. Maekawa AJW matches didn't make this cut? I know Dave's "Next Flair v. Steamboat" was nutty, but I remember enjoying the 2/24/02 PPV match at least.

Oh man do those matches not hold up. The same two suplexes from Momoe and the same three kicks from Maekawa and the Momoe hurricanrana... for half an hour. I liked them a bit at the time but it's so beyond repetitive to watch now. Joshi as a whole did badly, in part because the biggest joshi fans didn't participate much, and in part because joshi seemed to develop a lot of the problems of men's wrestling several years earlier. Momoe vs Maekawa would have been fine at ~15-18 minutes, but they were going 25+ pretty much every time. Ditto Toyota vs Ito; how many Boston crabs can we be expected to sit through? Compare to how wrestlers like Suwama, Sugiura and Shiozaki struggle to fill 25+ minute main events over the years. They can do 15-20, and they can do "hot 10 minute finishing run", but they can't hold your attention for the body of an 'epic'.

 

I gave 2000s joshi a chance and so did a lot of people. Those matches just weren't going to do well in the decade vote. Even something like Kong vs Satomura couldn't crack the top 10 in a weak year (2001).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am starting to get sick of 80s WWF even though Greg Valentine is fuckin awesome. This seems like a fun project to come in and out of. I have watched a good chunk of the NOAH stuff, but almost none of the rest. I had been using your DVDR Polls to guide my watching of NOAH, so I meant to thank you for that, anyways. I am not wicked obsessed with chronology so I will be jumping all over the place. I will be posting my thoughts in the Microscope. Thanks a million, Ditch for putting this together!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have the version of the excel file that says "links updated 8/17", but I still have the following problems:

 

When downloading all of the year 2000 stuff:

 

1. Misawa v. Kawada 3/31/00 - The link is mistyped as MisawaKawadaCC2000, link on .biz site is correct one.

2. Kobashi v. Misawa 4/11/00 - Link says invalid file.

3. Kobashi v. Kawada 1/12/00 - This is actually 1/17 and the link is labeled 1/12 and is invalid. Was able to get it from .biz site

4. Kobashi v. Akiyama 8/6/00 - This still links to the 12/23 match as does the link listed for 12/23. On sheet twice.

 

I was able to grab everything else.

 

I notice 5/26/00 Kobashi v. Akiyama was noted, but was that for dead link or wrong match because I think I got the version of the sheet that corrected it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been meaning to ask about this match for months, and this thread seems like a good place to find an answer. I ran across this comment in the WON back in 2002:

 

"Jun Akiyama/Makoto Hashi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Saito v. Kenta Kobashi/KENTA/Kentaro Shiga/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (NOAH, 9/5/02 [9/15/02 TV], Tokyo) "Match of the Year Candidate" aired 15:00 of 50:11"

 

Did this ever get released as complete anywhere? If so, is MOTY accurate or is it just Meltzer hyperbole?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Jun Akiyama/Makoto Hashi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Saito v. Kenta Kobashi/KENTA/Kentaro Shiga/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (NOAH, 9/5/02 [9/15/02 TV], Tokyo) "Match of the Year Candidate" aired 15:00 of 50:11"

 

Did this ever get released as complete anywhere? If so, is MOTY accurate or is it just Meltzer hyperbole?

Most complete version is 25 minutes, which is enough for me to say that it looks very good, isn't MOTY, but I can't say where it falls between "very good" and "MOTYC".

 

Interesting viewing project for myself as I'm backed up as it is but a year to watch this many matches? Plus I haven't seen that much of Japan from 2000's so would be interesting to see.

That's why I highlighted matches that did best in the year-by-year votes, so you can narrow it down to 100/150 matches and still get the vast majority of what would likely be on your ballot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every week I will be highlighting a match that I think deserves love and might not get enough eyeballs as people select what to watch, which means not many Kobashi or KENTA write-ups because they don't need any hype. Not much 2000/2001 so it will skip ahead of y'all for a few months.

 

 

Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka vs Liger & Makabe, IWGP junior tag team titles, New Japan September 12th 2000

 

Background: Makabe was a somewhat plus-sized junior heavyweight at this point in his career, and his simplistic moveset was balanced by the power advantage he had over other juniors.

 

Why I think it's underrated: This aired on New Japan's somewhat obscure SXW program, which meant it was hard to come by initially. I only found it because of a positive review by Stuart of puroresufan.com. The match relies on Japan's standard "young lion underdog tries to make good" story, with Makabe holding his own against the much more skilled champions. This isn't an earth-shatteringly great match, but it's very solid and builds to a few excellent nearfalls off of relatively small moves.

 

What it deserves: Top 100 consideration / on the bubble.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm actually going to try to watch a big chunk of this over the next year. Do you think it would be possible to get a sub-forum going to discuss some of the matches?

I'm willing to set one up -- similar to the yearbook forums -- if there's interest from a lot of people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...