World's Worst Man

There's probably not a whole lot of crap on the AJ TV. NJPW TV is so clipped that it probably doesn't even matter. The FMW/W*ING stuff will vary depending on whether or not you like garbage wrestling. That's probably where most of the crap will be on that set though. Outside of that, it's too hard to single out matches that will likely be lousy, as a lot of the stuff will usually include at least 1 good wrestler.

1 CM Punk vs. Samoe Joe (10/16/04, ****3/4) 3 CM Punk vs Samoa Joe (12/4/04, ****1/2) 5 Bryan Danielson vs Samoa Joe (10/2/04, ****1/4) 9 Low Ki & Bryan Danielson vs Samoa Joe & Jushin Thunder Liger (11/6/04, ****1/4) 10 Mark Briscoe vs Colt Cabana vs Austin Aries vs Homocide vs Bryan Danielson vs Samoa Joe (6/24/04, ****1/4) 13 Austin Aries vs Samoa Joa (12/26/04, ****) 15 Austin Aries vs Bryan Danielson (8/7/04, ****) 16 Jay and Mark Briscoe & Johnny Rave & John Walters vs Alex Shelley & Jack Evans & Austin Aries & Roderick Strong (5/22/04, ****) 18 CM Punk vs Samoa Joe (6/12/04, ***3/4) 21 Bryan Danielson vs Jushin Thunder Liger (11/5/04, ***3/4) 23 Low Ki vs Bryan Danielson (12/26/04, ***3/4) 4 Bryan Danielson vs. James Gibson (9/17/05, ****1/4) 5 AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe (12/11/05, ****1/4) 7 Kenta Kobashi vs. Samoa Joe (10/1/05, ****) 8 Kenta Kobashi & Homicide vs. Low Ki & Samoa Joe (10/2/05, ****) 11 James Gibson vs. Austin Aries (4/16/05, ****) 13 Chris Daniels vs. James Gibson vs. Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk (8/12/05, ****) 15 Chris Daniels vs. CM Punk (7/23/05, ****) 16 CM Punk & Spanky vs. Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal (3/12/05, ****) 22 Colt Cabana vs. Austin Aries (2/19/05, ***3/4) 23 Spanky vs. Bryan Danielson (4/2/05, ***3/4) 27 Low Ki & Homicide vs. Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal (8/13/05, ***3/4) 29 James Gibson vs. Homicide vs. Austin Aries vs. Samoa Joe (7/8/05, ***3/4) Dat's what I got. There was some good stuff on the ROH Reborn shows (April '04). I remember Homicide vs. Danielson and Punk/Cabana vs. Briscoes were real good. There was also another good Briscoes vs. Punk/Cabana match a month later. I don't know exactly how good any of that stuff is, as it's been 2 years since I've seen them and I don't have access to the matches now.

I would agree. Some people might treat that statement as heresy, but I believe JvP II was indeed better than anything Benoit's done. Of course, Benoit has a shit load more ****+ matches than Joe, so it's not like Joe is > Benoit just because his best is better than Benoit's best.

Looking forward to Danielson's reign. I love the guy, and he supposedly has improved even more during that time. 2005 is large because I pretty much followed a bunch of promotions really close. I have a lot of full NOAH/NJPW/ROH shows, and the odd AJPW shows. NOAH just produced a ton of high end (by today's standards) stuff. NJPW didn't produce any high end stuff, but they produced quite a few good-very good matches. ROH was pretty much putting out 2-3 ***+ matches per show, along with a few high end matches as well. And then there were a couple ****+ matches from unexpected sources, like WWE and TNA. It was really a good year for depth of quality wrestling. I also credit the larger lists for 2004/2005 because there's more complete wrestling accessible. In the 90's, AJPW was producing incredibly large amounts of mid-high end wrestling. But many of the matches were edited on their TV show, and weren't available anywhere else, so they didn't make my list. Whereas today, the 2 best promotions in the world air/release their shows pretty much unclipped. There's a larger pool to choose from these days. I haven't seen the most highly pimped 2002/2003 ROH stuff. Some stuff I have seen just failed to make the cut, although I probably could have added them to fill out those years. Ki-AmDrag (3/30/02), Ki-Joe (10/5/02), AmDrag-Styles (11/9/02) I all had at ***1/2. I originally had Daniels vs. Williams (3/22/03) rated quite high, but I didn't want to post it without seeing it again. Actually, fuck it. I added the first 3 matches I mentioned to the list. I haven't seen the Austin vs. Hart matches in ages (same reason the Steamboat-Flair matches aren't listed yet). I'll probably see their WM match fairly soon, because I have it via the Bret Hart DVD. I don't have access to their Survivor Series match though.

The trolling, attention whoring is annoying. Shit like "there are 100 better matches than..." where the subject is some ****3/4 match.

I've only watched up to and including the 10/1/05 show. I just have so much stuff to watch.

Well said. A couple other things. The build towards the powerbomb was absolutely incredible. The way it was fought for and avoided, when it was finally hit, it made for a great nearfall. The whole match seems to send the message that Misawa is having an off day, and Kawada is on, and should be the victor. Except Misawa pulls out his killer move, and escapes by the skin of his teeth because of it. It works fairly well I'd say.

That's correct. He publicly spoke and said AJPW needed to be doing more cross promotion stuff a la NJPW-UWFi. Baba punished him for it. Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing something like that. What a shame. It clearly means the feud wasn't any good and the matches were only "decent

I don't recall hearing anything about why things were booked the way they were. All I know is that their 1994 match was the perfect time for Kawada to get the win. But instead, Kawada got his win on the biggest stage in AJPW history, so it was somewhat of a consollation. You'd have to ask Johnny Ace about that one.

Pretty much all of their matches pre-97 were at least excellent. After that, things fell off a bit, but their matches were still usually at least good-very good, and a couple of them were excellent or better. There are comps around with all of their title matches. The rest of their singles matches would have taken place during the Champion Carnival tournaments in March/April of each year.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. Now, if you started making a bunch of irrelevant points while completely ignoring some important facts, then some people might take you to task

Cut the bullshit. "Kawada's never gotten that one major victory over Misawa." Own up to what you said or retract it. Kawada got a victory over Misawa on AJPW's biggest show in its history (to that point). Misawa had beaten Kawada in most of their matches before then. People knew that. So on the biggest show in the promotion's history, in the biggest match, Kawada got the victory after years of defeat. Oh, but that was meaningless! Yea! And regardless of what you want to believe, the FACT is that Misawa was the more popular of the two, and he was the bigger draw. It's common sense that he's the one that would come out on top of the rivalry. It wasn't some "passing the torch" feud like Jumbo vs. Misawa where the older guys is the one who needs to lose the feud. So really, this whole point of yours is completely irrelevant, and I will not address it any further. Oh, and I suppose that's why Misawa asked Kawada to unmask him (Which was a important event in Misawa's career, as it signalled that he was done playing second fiddle, and was going break through into the top position). Or the fact that they were friends earlier in their lives. Yea, they didn't care for each other. Stop trying to be a contrarian troll and cut the ignorant bullshit.

So much bullshit, where to begin? Firstly, their matches stand on their own. The incredibly high level of selling, building to moves, execution and timing in their matches needs no historical context to be understood. And most of their matches had these things in spades, and at quite a higher level than many other matches. The matches are great on their own, the added long-running story just makes them better. This is utterly ridiculous. You don't consider All Japan's first stand-alone Tokyo Dome show to be a big deal? That was their biggest show to that point in their history, and Kawada wins the main event, yet it didn't matter? How the fuck is that justified? Because he lost the title to Kobashi a month later? I fail to see how that matters in the context of the Misawa feud. If anything, it makes Misawa look worse for losing to a guy who lost the title a month later. Now I'm suspecting that you actually haven't seen or even read about the entire Kawada-Misawa feud, because their feud pretty much unravelled the same way that you describe the Misawa-Kobashi feud. I mean seriously, have you actually seen the whole feud, or what? My god, if you want to take such a contrarian position, at least make some good points. All you've really done is post factually incorrect information combined with irrelevant points that make me question whether you've actually seen or understood the whole feud.

Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagayo (8/22/85) Kyoko Inoue vs Akira Hokuto (1/4/92) Bull Nakano & Aja Kong vs. Akira Hokuto & Toshiyo Yamada (8/15/92) Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada (8/15/92) Kyoko Inoue vs Akira Hokuto (11/26/92) Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (11/26/92) Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki (4/2/93) Aja Kong & Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori & Eagle Sawai (4/11/93) Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (4/11/93) Bull Nakano vs Kyoko Inoue (1/24/94) Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda (1/24/94) Aja Kong vs Yumiko Hotta (1/24/94) Interestingly enough, the 1/24/94 show seems to be better than the Dreamslam shows.

I loved how they were watching a CFL game in the house right near the end of the episode. (I recognized the announcers voice)

This is getting to be circular, so I'll just sum up my thoughts. Hogan and Andre worked the right match for that crowd. But they didn't work the right match for me (and no doubt countless others). To the crowd and to people who believe if the masses believe something, it must be true, it was a good match. To me, it was not. It's not a fact, just like you saying it was good isn't a fact. The only facts in this scenario are that it was successful. If that means it was good to you, great. Success doesn't equal quality to me. The two are completely seperate. And you can't make any argument to change that, because "good" is a complete variable from person to person. This argument is about differing standards. That's it. And trying to get someone to change their mind isn't going to happen unless they want to change their mind. That's a fact of life with artforms and media. So that's it. You took exception to me saying it was horrible, you presented your reasons why. I agreed with some points, while others were irrelevant to me. And that's when it should end, because there's nothing more to discuss.

Your whole argument is based around a fallacy. A lot of people thinking something is good, doesn't make it so. And regardless of that, I'm talking about the quality of the wrestling, bell to bell. Why should I care if the audience liked it? Why should anyone care? People have their own ideas of what good wrestling is. Some people don't care about Kurt Angle's shitty selling and match structure. So what am I going to do, force them to think it's important? You say the wrestlers' standards are different. Well, their standard is to make money. If they could make money holding an armbar for 20 minutes of a 20 minute match, they'd do it. Is that good wrestling? It would be successful wrestling, yes. To me, quality doesn't equal success and vice-versa. And that's pretty much the end of it. My standards can apply to any sort of wrestling. Your movie analogy was just completely irrelevant. Looking at Schindler's List and not liking it because it wasn't funny would be akin to looking at Hogan-Andre and not liking it because it wasn't stiff and didn't have tons of nearfalls. Meaning someone is only a fan of a certain genre, and they don't think anything outside of it is good. Obviously, that isn't going on here. Two of the basic things I look for in a wrestling match (story/execution) are so general that any type of pro-wrestling can have them. A story in some king's road match is going to be different than a story in a 1980's WWF match. But they can both have a great story. So however you want to justify my dislike of the match, the fact is that my standards take into a account that not every wrestling match is going to be wrestled in the same way or in the same style. Having seen a bunch of 1980's WWF stuff, and knowing what the style was, I can say that Hogan vs. Andre wasn't even close to being good compared to the rest. So now it's clear that I'm comparing the match to its peers, rather than comparing it to some impossible to top match in a totally different style.

Maybe something like AmDrag vs. Low Ki from the 3/30/02 show. Daniels vs. Williams from 3/22/03. AmDrag vs. Joe from 10/2/04 AmDrag vs. Gibson from 9/17/05 Good somewhat standalone matches that might be good for introducing someone to ROH.

Joe vs. Kobashi had a bit of psychology, mostly based around a story of "2 of the most powerful wrestlers in the world collide". There wasn't a lot of story, but there was enough to where it wasn't a huge, huge problem. I don't recall too many selling problems either. And I wouldn't call it a spot fest either, as the big moves were built to with smaller stuff. But in general, I would agree that it was something of a spectacle match. The selling/build/execution was just really strong, and it had a wee bit of story to it, so I don't think it could be viewed as a "spectacle and nothing else".

Rudo, you need to understand that some people don't enjoy wrestling the same way you do. I'm not going to argue whether or not the match got over. The fans were going crazy, it drew a huge PPV and live audience. The match clearly got over, it clearly "worked". And I couldn't care less. I don't care if other people enjoyed it. That doesn't prove it was a good match. It doesn't. In fact, that's a fallacious argument all together. But I have an idea of what good wrestling is to me. It's a fairly general idea that applies to all sorts of wrestling. Hogan vs. Andre was not a good match under that criteria. I could see a problem if I was making stuff up about the match. Or if I bashed that match for something that I praised in another. But that's not really happening. What consitutes good wrestling to me, what "works" for me, was not abundant in that match. Are you going to say I'm wrong? You'd have a rather hard time factually proving that my idea of good wrestling is wrong. Good wrestling isn't a round earth. It's not 1+1. There's no absolute answer. To me, the match sucked. And I'll glady admit it was a huge success. But I won't ever say the quality of wrestling was good. Also, while you make a few good points in the review that I didn't give the match credit for (mainly about the comebacks, I'll have to watch the match again) a lot of the PBP was just such dime-a-dozen stuff. For example "Boot to send Hogan down (which looks great given both guys’ faces and Hogan does a nice job concealing the look-back). Andre clubbing Hogan three times. What I like about this is that all three clubs were different – one was when Andre had Hogans bent/head tucked under his arm, another was when Hogan was standing, and another had Andre holding Hogans hair. It doesn’t seem repetitive because he changes it up each time. Hogans selling of all of these were like he got shot. And in between clubs Andre was looking out into the crowd, taunting Hogan and telling him to get up." I really have a hard time buying something like this as justification for the match being good. You see common stuff like this in almost every single wrestling match. It seems like this is just making a big deal out of something completely normal. If someone wanted to, they could talk up ANY match this way, by making it seem like every standard piece of offense had some great meaning. Again, maybe you dig it, that's cool. But I don't really consider that to be anything special.

Hogan vs. Andre was absolutely atrocious from a purely physical point of view. The offense was terrible, the pace was terrible, and Andre could hardly do anything. It was alright from a story sense, as they built to the bodyslam rather well, but the rest was typical Hogan bullshit. It certainly wasn't -**** bad (that's what Meltzer apparently gave it, I only go to DUD though), but I definitely wouldn't give it more than *.

I think a lot of it is the spectacle too. Certain mediocre (to me) Tokyo Dome main events get tons of praise too, along with horrible wrestling matches like Hogan vs. Andre. The crowd heat, the setting, the angles preceding the match I guess. What that has to do with the quality of the match itself, I do not know.

***** doesn't mean perfect. It just means that the match is one of the absolute best compared to all others. That's all star ratings are, a way to compare matches on a more pin-point level rather than just using words like "good" or "great". Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (4/2/93) Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi (7/29/93) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (6/3/94) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (6/9/95) Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (12/6/96) Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (1/20/97) Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (10/21/97) My criteria are on my blog. It's a fairly traditional critical approach.

There is a faction of critics that trumpets that match as being great, and even Austin circa 2001 as being a great in-ring wrestler. All I can say about that view point is that it doesn't seem take the physical side of wrestling into account at all. I believe that ideology came about from the earlier days of wrestling analysis, when "workrate" was cherished above all else, with little regard to story and character of a match. So now, there are some who maybe saw that and disagreed with it, and now take the opposite approach, where workrate or execution is completely meaningless and story and character is everything. I personally think both extremes are disagreeable, but I suppose I have no problem with it as long as the those holding those view points are consistent with them.

I think it had something to do with a copyright issue after he stopped wrestling for Osaka Pro.