Best matches this year....

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Well I noticed the "best matches this year" thread in the WWF folder. They weren't very good.

What do you think are the best Puro matches so far this year????

I'd like to throw in anything involving Giant Singh vs. Giant Silva! Just joking.........but seriously.......

[Guest wolverine]

I haven't seen any MOTYC's (****1/2 or over) this year.  Meltzer has, but I feel that his recent ratings (about that last year or so) are very high.

 

I don't think this is going to be a good year in terms of high end matches.  The Super Junior Finals may be candidate, as it usually was in the past.

[Guest Tim Cooke]

Misawa/Kobashi v Nagata/Akiyama (2/16) was fun, if not sad to see Misawa looking so very old and knowing Kobashi is on his last leg (literally).  Not a MOTYC, but a solid ***1/2.  

 

Haven't seen anything else that really gets me going.  I rewatched the 6 man main event from the 2nd T2P show and it frustrated me even more than before.  All of the "dazzle" and "spectacular" mat work left me with lots to be desired...not so much from the fluidness or ability to do it well, but just from a common sense factor.

 

I guess I would rather have selling and good stories over flashy mat work that leads to neither of the above.

 

Tim

[Guest wolverine]

"knowing Kobashi is on his last leg (literally)."

 

Don't worry, he's going to come back.  And he'll continue to wrestle until he's in a wheelchair.  

 

May as well change his name to Dynamite Kobashi.  ???

[Guest]

Nay, that man will wrestle IN his wheelchair. That's how much he loves the sport.

[Guest wolverine]

"Nay, that man will wrestle IN his wheelchair. That's how much he loves the sport."

 

He'd probably be able to carry Mutoh to a watchable match in his wheelchair.

[Guest Vyce]

Nay, that man will wrestle IN his wheelchair. That's how much he loves the sport.

 

Is it wrong for me to want a Kobashi / Droz wheelchair match?

 

I'm not kidding, I would pay good money for any PPV showing such a contest.

[Guest Ace309]

If wanting to see Droz/Kobashi in a wheelchair match is wrong, then baby, I don't wanna be right.

 

But... um... could we find some way to involve Billington, too? And wait six years so we can include Jeff Hardy?

[Guest HopeSpot]

Ace is channeling Scotsman... I'd like to add Hayabusa he's completely paralyzed so maybe he can just sit their and yell at everyone in Japanese or something.

 

Oh yeah the best show this year was RoH (Ring of Honor). That's a sign of how pig fuckingly awful wrestling has been this year. 1999 has gotten nothing on 2002, I'd be suprised to see an MOTY this year.

[Guest wolverine]

"Oh yeah the best show this year was RoH (Ring of Honor)."

 

In the U.S., maybe....I'd say the Zenjo PPV myself.  I think this would be the perfect time for Dreamslam III actually.  That'll guarantee show of the year right there.

 

"I'd be suprised to see an MOTY this year."

 

Well, if you order the Japanese Hardcore PPV this Sunday, you'll see the 2000 MOTY.  But I guess that doesn't count

[Guest Jubuki]

Um.

 

The best match of the year automatically becomes "match of the year," guys.  You know, context clues, connotations, and all.

 

But the MOTY will probably come out of Lucha, with everything else being on a downswing.

[Guest wolverine]

The best match of the year automatically becomes "match of the year," guys.  

It's unfortunate that the best match of the year hardly ever wins the Observer poll.  This has been discussed at tOA, but I feel that those polls never seem to do a great job of picking the winner, with the biggest blunder being possibly 1995 (although 1994 and 1997 aren't good picks either, with Michaels/Ramon beating Misawa vs. Kawada 6/3/94 and Hart/Austin beating Misawa vs. Kobashi 1/20/97).

[Guest]

Well who you think reads the Observer, all puroresu fans?  By the by what MOTY is going to be on Steal-Per-View Sunday?

[Guest wolverine]

"By the by what MOTY is going to be on Steal-Per-View Sunday?"

 

Kaoru Ito/Momoe Nakanishi/Nanae Takahashi vs. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita/Kumiko Maekawa (Cage Match) from 11/23/00.

 

Meltzer has been pimping the PPV just for this match recently.

 

The stills are here from WKmedia.net:

 

http://www.wkmedia.net/jhw2match4.htm

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Well the reason that an American Match won those years is because I'm pretty sure that the WWF Fans outweigh the Puro Heads on that. And then you have the Puro Heads who thought "Hey I liked this Ladder Match a lot." So it's no wonder that those matches won.

[Guest wolverine]

Well the reason that an American Match won those years is because I'm pretty sure that the WWF Fans outweigh the Puro Heads on that. And then you have the Puro Heads who thought "Hey I liked this Ladder Match a lot." So it's no wonder that those matches won.

I don't have the 1994 Observer Awards issue, but I do have 1997:

 

MATCH OF THE YEAR (First Place Votes in Parenthesis)

 

1.  BRET HART VS. STEVE AUSTIN 3/23 CHICAGO (125) 1,070 pts

2.  Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi 1/20 Osaka (133) 1,013 pts

 

Note that the Misawa-Kobashi match actually got more first place votes than the Hart-Austin match, which means more people voted that as MOTY than any other match, so your point doesn't hold up on that issue.

 

Also, in looking at the Top 10, three matches were American (the Hart-Austin, as well as Undertaker vs. Michaels and Guerrero vs. Misterio Jr.) but the other seven were either Japanese based or involved Japanese wrestlers (M-Pro ECW match).  So it seems like puroresu fans outweigh the American fans who voted.  It's just that the Hart-Austin got enough *second* and *third* place votes, which count for 3 and 2 points respectively, to win the award.

 

And to take this a little further, let's look at the biggest award--Wrestler of the Year:

 

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (First Place Votes in Parenthesis):

 

1.  MITSUHARU MISAWA (338) 2,288 pts.

2.  Bret Hart (72) 758 pts.

 

This route by Misawa only furthers the point I made in the first category.

[Guest MRFTW]

"but the other seven were either Japanese based or involved Japanese wresters"

 

What were the others, can you post the full top 10 match list?

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Oh my you have totally slain my argument that I made in 2 seconds off the top of my head. Wow....what will I ever do now?

Ok so it looks like the Puro-Marks outweigh the WWF-Marks. But the American matches still won MOTY. Which for some reason is so horrible to have an American match win. You know I like Puro as much as the next guy but sometimes this "You can't have a good match in America" stuff gets a little annoying.

[Guest wolverine]

What were the others, can you post the full top 10 match list?

1.  BRET HART vs. STEVE AUSTIN 3/23 CHICAGO (125) 1,070

2.  Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi 1/20 Osaka (133) 1,013

3.  Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels 10/5 St. Louis (99) 899

4.  Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 10/26 Las Vegas (57) 643

5.  Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 6/6 Tokyo (64) 560

6.  El Samurai vs. Koji Kanemoto 6/5 Tokyo (43) 446

7.  Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 12/6/96 Tokyo (37) 317 (Wolverine:  This is so stupid to look back on in hindsight)

8.  Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Masato Yakushiji vs. Mens Teioh & Dick Togo & Taka Michinoku 4/13 Philadelphia (5) 138

9.  Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi 10/21 Tokyo (20) 119

10.  Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Otani 2/9 Sapporo (10) 83

[Guest wolverine]

"Oh my you have totally slain my argument that I made in 2 seconds off the top of my head. Wow....what will I ever do now?"

 

I know.  Facts can do that sometimes.

 

"Ok so it looks like the Puro-Marks outweigh the WWF-Marks. But the American matches still won MOTY. Which for some reason is so horrible to have an American match win. You know I like Puro as much as the next guy but sometimes this "You can't have a good match in America" stuff gets a little annoying."

 

Hey, I'm not saying it's horrible.  But when the two greatest singles matches in history don't win a Match of the Year, then that's a problem.  I know hindsight is 20/20, but still, the All Japan matches were most certainly just as great back then as they are now.

 

BTW, before I started watching puroresu, those were two of my favorite matches.  It's just that the other two take wrestling to a whole new level.

 

Before you start arguing about this stuff, it's best if you've seen the two All Japan matches mentioned, because from your previous posts, you've indicated that you haven't seen any AJ.

[Guest Tim Cooke]

"Which for some reason is so horrible to have an American match win. You know I like Puro as much as the next guy but sometimes this "You can't have a good match in America" stuff gets a little annoying."

 

Sure you can have good matches in the US.  But just because it is a good match in the US does not qualify it for world class status.

 

Look at the MPro ECW matches.  Great matches, very fun.  Yet they are no where near the level of the best MPro Japanese stuff.  But people love to call them the best because they happened over here.  

 

Bret/Austin will always be a match steamed with controversary regarding its placement in the Best of 1997 list.  Even at the time, there was that flaw with Austin not going for the Million Dollar Dream spot that worked so well in the Survivor Series match.  Looking back in hindsight, the weak brawling section and Bret's larthegic punches dip those down a notch.  

 

1997 is a tough year to stand out world wide based on "well known" matches.  I would take 12/96 Misawa/Akiyama v Kawada/Taue, 1/97 Misawa v Kobashi, 2/97 Liger v Otani, and 10/97 Rey Jr v Eddy Guerrero over the Austin v Bret match.  Also, the 4/97 Cibernito would be in that list.  I haven't seen the 10/97 Misawa v Kobashi and I think the Michaels v Undertaker match is a waste of time.

 

But to answer the question raised above, a US home grown match of Rey Jr v Eddy ranks very well against 12/96, 1/97, 2/97, though it is def a notch below.  

 

Tim

[Guest Brian]

I can, in a way, understand why he didn't use the spot because it cost him a match, but in that same thought, Austin should have known the counter and been able to use it more effectively.

 

The cibernetico match was very good. Very, very good. Those matches are a ton of fun to watch, and if anyone knows where I can get excellent quality copies besides Lynch (because I'm on the Schneider Comp standard), tell me.

 

Wasn't there an M-Pro tag at like 12/10/96? I'm surprised not to have seen that, because by the time they did the voting it should have gotten a decent amount of exposure, especially following their arrival in ECW.

[Guest MrDanger]

I absolutely love Kobashi/Misawa 1/20 but looking back now I'd have to rate Austin/Bret ahead of it simply because of the huge impact it had on the American wrestling business. So many elements of the match are historically significant. You've got the ending of the match with the defining moment where the heels officialy became the babyfaces in the US, you've got Austin laying the foundations for his mega face run that would take the WWF to unseen heights and finally you have Austin/Bret shaping the prototype for what WWF main events would become in the following years (Although they never reached the same standard again)

 

For all it's greatness, how much did Kobashi/Misawa really change the Japanese wrestling business?

[Guest wolverine]

"For all it's greatness, how much did Kobashi/Misawa really change the Japanese wrestling business?"

 

It solidified Misawa as Wrestler of the Decade and was the beginning of his greatest run as champ.  But was it as historically significant as Misawa vs. Jumbo 6/8/90?  No way.  But in the ring it was a better match and in the ring, it's better than Hart vs. Austin.  It just depends how you look at it and where your priorities lie in rating matches.  I'll take work over story most days, except when Misawa vs. Kawada 6/3/94 hits the VCR.

 

[Guest MrDanger]

It solidified Misawa as Wrestler of the Decade and was the beginning of his greatest run as champ.  

Of course you could say that fact was actually pretty much established before 1/20

[Guest Jubuki]

I don't know about that.  Liger did an admirable job of keeping up for many years; he didn't have the same number of high-end matches, but he carried more workers, and lesser workers, in ways Misawa didn't.  Misawa never worked worldwide and didn't have new talent constantly pouring in at his level to work with.  The All Japan idea of "new guys" was Vader and Hase, who were no slouches themselves (well, maybe Vader in 99...). And I've always felt Kawada was better than Misawa after 92...so I wouldn't say it's so clear-cut.

 

As for it being Misawa's "greatest" run - that's a matter of opinion more than fact.  His run from 92-94 was longer, and I'd say the overall match quality is close enough that the amount of time he held on factors in.  He was also just establishing himself as the Man, so that has a part to play.  Then again, I don't consider either Misawa/Kobashi from '97 to be one of the top handful of men's matches I've seen, so that may have something to do with my lack of amazement with that reign.

[Guest wolverine]

"Then again, I don't consider either Misawa/Kobashi from '97 to be one of the top handful of men's matches I've seen, so that may have something to do with my lack of amazement with that reign."

 

Didn't you rate the 1/20 match #1 for All Japan and ***** on your old "peerless" tape site?

[Guest Jubuki]

That you've even SEEN that site is mind-boggling...but it's a good six months old.  Plus, at the time, I was basing that rating on 1 viewing - I tend to watch something and not dig it out again for a year, no matter how much I like a match - without having seen the Hansen/Kobashi matches, or very much Joshi/Lucha/worked shoots at that point (I think I watched 1/97 around 12/00, started watching Joshi a couple of months after, Lucha and shoot in abundance later than that).  I gave myself a bunch of pet projects and didn't really have the time or patience to sit through 40+ minute AJ matches for a while.

 

But when I suddenly had three or four new avenues of "great" to deal with, I found myself wondering not too long ago if Misawa/Kobashi really was the best men's match I'd seen, as at that point it was contending more with Tamura/Kohsaka than it was Misawa/Kawada.  So I watched the 2 AJPW matches and watched the 98/99 meetings for the same pairings; I discovered Misawa/Kawada all over again...but found 1/97 to be much closer to their 10/98 & 6/99 matches than I cared for it to be.  

 

Granted, the selling was damned great, and they didn't go totally overboard with the head-dropping as they would, but there were things in the match I could have done without -- namely attacking Misawa's elbow.  I thought it was much more intriguing to see Misawa attacking Kobashi's arm - as it suggested Misawa was afraid the lariat, which hadn't been put over big yet, would beat him - than it was to see Kobashi go after Misawa's and have Misawa end up saying through his work, "Well, I'm too 'tough' to tap out, so let's use the elbow anyway if he can't hurt me anymore."  And I'd have to agree with the "don't kick out of the TD 91" sentiment that has been brought up elsewhere, but that reflects back to flaws in their 10/95 match as much as it does this one.  So, I'd end up with it closer to ****3/4, with something of a downward lean on that - it's clearly better, to me, than what they did on 3/96, 4/97, and 10/97, but it's also clearly worse than Misawa/Kawada, Hansen/Kobashi, and Tamura/Kohsaka, and I'd say it's closer to the other meetings they had than the best singles matches I've ever seen.

 

Some have said it's a match that was the pinnacle of the 'progressive' main event style.  The last time I watched it, I was so frustrated with it I couldn't finish it, and it dawned on me it wasn't a pinnacle, so much as it was as far as those two wanted to take the style.

[Guest wolverine]

"But to answer the question raised above, a US home grown match of Rey Jr v Eddy ranks very well against 12/96, 1/97, 2/97, though it is def a notch below."

 

Speaking of Rey vs. Eddy, I rewatched it last night and it fucking owns.  It's pretty clear from watching '97 Eddy that '02 Eddy is almost all the way back and I'm really happy to see it.  That match just may be my favorite US match ever--just awesome, crisp work, with tremendous psych.  If I was ever going to give a 13 minute match *****, this would be it.  It's definitely the best under 15 minute match ever anyhow.

[Guest Tim Cooke]

Eddy/Rey is a superb match.  I would point to that match and the 4/99 Benoit/Malenko v Raven/Saturn tag match as the definition of what WCW was and could have been from 1997 on.  

 

The match had great heat, which for any WCW crowd is a feat in itself, especially one in Las Vegas for Cruiserweights.  I love the basic yet easy to understand psych of Rey's mask being on the line against the biggest prick in the world at that time, Eddy.  

 

The moves and drama were also top notch.  I question it when this match is called a spotfest because I don't see any spotfest qualities at all.  Toryumon sprints are spot fests...those loads of garbage TLC matches are spotfests.  This match built from the start and never stopped.  Just a beautiful match.  Maybe not as pure of a match as the 3/16/96 Rey v Juve, 8/4/96 Dragon v Otani, 11/96 Rey v Dragon, or 12/96 Dragon v Malenko, but def my favorite late 90's WCW match.

 

As for Eddy being back to his 1997 self, I don't see it.  After that 12/98 accident, everything he does seems to always be a step off.  Now don't get me wrong, a "step off" Eddy is still a top flight worker, but in late 1997, he was without a doubt the best worker in North America and possibly the world IMO.

 

Tim