|
Somehow when I last did this SANADA was in my top 10. God I've fallen off SANADA so hard in 15 months. 1. Hiromu Takahashi Throw a reckless self-disregard in with out-of-this world athleticism & absolutely bonkers levels of charisma & an oddball personality & the end result is Hiromu Takahashi. "Hi everybody, I'm back from a broken neck, let me show you I'm fine by throwing myself into the steel barricades just for the hell of it." Absolutely mad bastard. So incredibly likeable. Rad Suicidal Tendencies jacket. And an absolute force in the ring. He got a good match out of EVIL during his Hell-reign. Wrestle Kingdom return vs Ospreay is one of the best matches of the year despite it being his first match back from said broken neck. He lost nothing & added a propensity for loving stupid long chop battles which I adore. That one with Ryu Lee at New Beginning, jesus christ, Kobashi & Sasaki were wincing at the state of their chests after those 5 minutes. 2. Go Shiozaki Go Shiozaki took 2020 by the scruff of the neck from the 4th of January & never let go, just beating the poo poo out of it with with chops & lariats until the year's chest was bleeding. He did it all while carrying Pro Wrestling NOAH on his back with a title run that would make Kenta Kobashi proud. 15 months ago he was the 2nd guy in the best tag team in the world, a great wrestler who had still never quite reached the expectations had of him when he first came around. Today he's a couple days short of a year long run with the GHC Heavyweight Title made famous by Akiyama, Kobashi, Marufuji & Misawa, every single title match has been great and he's a guy who has 3 matches in my top 5 matches of the year list. "I am NOAH". drat right you are bruv. 3. Tomohiro Ishii A down year for Ishii, he's only got 12 matches in the top 100 of 2020 on Cagematch & 16 matches rated 8/10 or higher. Stone Pitbull is loving ferocious. Another impeccable G1 Climax. That amazing NEVER Openweight war with Shingo back in February. The New Japan Cup matches with Despy & Hiromu. And of course being a part of Yoshi-Hashi's first title win, a surprisingly great moment. 4. Shingo Takagi First person I've got in the same position I had them the last time we did this, it's The Dragon. Stellar G1, cool as hell, best move in wrestling, great NEVER title win over Suzuki. Obviously his 2020 wasn't on the level of 2019 but 2020 has been a weird year & also his 2019 had to have been one of the best years ever. 5. Katsuhiko Nakajima The other half of the best tag team in the world in 2019, then he backstabbed his boy Go & joined Kongo. Bastard. Just an utterly smug, vicious prick who kicks harder than Roberto Carlos/Sebastian Janikowski (delete as appropriate to your cultural reference point). Fortunately smug, vicious man who kicks hard is basically my ideal wrestler archetype & Nak does it perfectly. Very excited for his 2021 as he either takes over Kongo or forces it to split & feuds with Kenoh. Pretty sure all their recent singles matches ended in KO so more of that please. 6. Kento Miyahara It's clear that with All Japan putting Kento on the backburner after he lost the Triple Crown that he is an even bigger part of their show than I'd thought. Obviously an amazing talent, charisma out the wazoo, Shuji Ishikawa had no loving clue what to do with him. And All Japan sucked in the back half of 2020. One of the few highlights was the Champion Carnival Final, fittingly pitting Zeus against our boy Kento. Also feels appropriate to have him right next to his fellow Diamond Ring trainee Nakajima. 7. Yoshiko All baggage aside, there's no one in women's wrestling whose matches I look forward to watching more than Yoshiko. Seeing her back in Stardom in 2021 is going to be absolutely fascinating. 8. Minoru Suzuki He's still a vicious old bastard who I love, we got him back in the G1, but he's falling because I've gotten invested in a lot more stuff outside of New Japan this year. Still love my murder grandad though. 9. Konosuke Takeshita I needed someone from DDT on here. I wanted it to be someone from Eruption but gently caress, I can't do it. It's Takeshita. He's only 25, his D-Ou GP final with Jun Akiyama is an absolute must watch, & he had the greatest cinematic match in wrestling history with Yoshihiko in a Last Man Standing WAR at Peter Pain Night 1. Absolutely bonkers potential & already an amazing talent. 10. Daniel Bryan Sigh. Look, he's my all-time #1 fave. He's technically still active so I gotta include him in my top 10. But gently caress me do I not care about what he's doing at present. He's stuck treading water in a poo poo company that is unwatchable. It sucks & would have been as well him never coming back from his retirement with how little they've taken advantage of his talent. I'm editing in some Honourable Mentions because god I feel bad at not naming some people. Kenoh, my 2nd favourite angry prick kickboy, though he has less arrogance than Nakajima & more of a permanent chip on his shoulder the size of Montana. Susumu Yokosuka, one of the most consistently good wrestler in the world. His AJPW Jr run last year was so solid. He's rarely flashy, he's just good & elevates whoever he's working against, be it Hokuto Omori & Akira Francesco in All Japan or guys like SB Kento & Jason Lee in Dragon Gate. Plus watching him resent the prematch Natural Vibes dance as he awkwardly does it is just the best. Masaaki Mochizuki has been wrestling since before Hulk Hogan turned up in WCW, he turns 51 later this month & dude rocks. Not a huge player for Dragongate in 2020 as he was left out of the generation war stuff, but had a very good Twin Gate challenge in December & should get ramped back up for 2021. Also spent a lot of time in NOAH where he had a fantastic match with Go & a very good one with Kiyomiya, & a good run as GHC HW Tag champs with Marufuji. KENTA, oh look, it's another guy who kicks hard. loving hell I've got a type. KENTA has been an amazing promo & just oodles of fun, he's not what he once was but has adapted really well I think & I still love him. Ayato Yoshida is a guy I first fell for seeing him on New Japan's Lions Gate shows, things stepped up for him in 2018 as he started appearing as a Young Lion, often teaming with or fighting Shota Umino in one of the highlights of that years NJPW undercards. Then TAKA did whatever it was he did and NJPW cut ties with him (officially at least) & K-DOJO closed down, becoming 2AW. I checked in on them a little in 2019 but at the start of last year he started appearing on AJPW shows & joined JIN where he fit in well with Nomura & Lee & Iwamoto. Then the pandemic hit & I made more time fore 2AW & saw him win their top belt & defend it multiple times, each defence being very good. Kazusada Higuchi of DDT was involved in some of the best tag matches of last year with Eruption but I tended to focus more on his partners Sakaguchi & Akai. It was only during the D-Ou GP in December that I really started to appreciate him as a consistent performer. Takashi Sugiura. Probably the most under-rated wrestler of the 21st century. He was 30 when he debuted, he's now 50, he still puts on MOTYC performances, & his merch with his little doggy on it is the best. Lulupencil brings joy. Not the best, but among the most fun. Daisuke Harada is another junior like Susumu, just consistency defined without being the flashiest. Samoa Joe is like Bryan, another dude on here entirely for his work on the US indies. Last decade has been a total waste but that can't take away how amazing he once was. Satoshi Kojima. I think I like 3 types of wrestlers the most. Guys who kick or chop very hard. Extremely consistent wrestler who almost never lay an egg & veterans who have been great for decades & have barely slowed down. The leader of Bread Club is basically all 3 of those. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jan 2, 2021 |
#
¿
Jan 1, 2021 12:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:46 |
|
|
Jerusalem posted:
I just have to point out that Mochizuki had a slightly more successful year than that. He won the GHC HW Tag belts with Marufuji, and he was also great in the N1. Just have to give him his due
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2021 09:28
|
|
|
Cerebral Bore posted:I'm here for the Four Pillars of AEW. Steady on. I'm looking forward to when the forum "never any good"s AEW so I can feel mildly less alienated
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2021 13:07
|
|
|
Cerebral Bore posted:You could also start watching the good promotion that makes the good shows instead. I already watch NOAH? Nah, kidding aside, where I'm at right now American TV wrestling with loads of talking is just not what I want. If the shows were shorter I might go for it, but the simple fact is that I just bounce off it. I'll sit through a 3 hour DDT show & find it impossible to make it through a 2 hour episode of Dynamite. I just find myself with the same problem as WWE a lot: I look at the roster & go "god, wish they were anywhere else". If AEW came into existence 3 or 4 years earlier I'd probably be mad into it, but at some point I became the guy I laughed at, who desperately waits for someone to upload the SamuraiTV broadcast of a loving 2AW show or is buying iPPVs from joshi promotions I'd never heard of 2 years ago.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2021 13:17
|
|
|
If we did it now most of my top 10 would stay the same, but Bryan would be out and Yoshiko too probably because she's been out hurt most of the year. Suzu Suzuki would definitely be up there, and the last place would be a battle between Fuminori Abe, Kenoh, Kaito Ishida, Shun Skywalker, Rina Yamashita, Takanori Ito, Arisa Nakajima & I dunno who else. Oh yeah, Takayuki Ueki. 10 isn't enough.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2021 11:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:46 |
|
|
GEORGE W BUSHI posted:1. Maki Ito I would be thrilled to see Carbell Ito getting the respect he deserves
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2021 15:47
|
|