21 replies to this topic

[Ditch]

Okay so he was Japan-only and treated like a native, he gets a pass. Not sure who else should that would really merit a topic.

As for how good Han was.... um... he was really good. If you're even a little bit of a shoot-style fan I can't see him below 20.

[fxnj]

Easy top 10 for me. He was basically the backbone of RINGS's product from his debut match on the first show up to it going full shoot. He was involved in numerous carry jobs of guys with no idea how to work a match right from the beginning of his career and almost never disappointed when he was in there with someone who could hang with him. The 1/22/97 Tamura match is probably the best non-AJ 90s match I've ever seen.

[ダニエル]

A Top 1/2/3/4/5 option would have been interesting. I voted Top 10. Though his body of work may be thin in numeracy, the average standard is almost unparalleled and has numerous sublime highs. The mentioned match with Tamura is pretty much my favourite match ever, and he hardly had so much as a mediocre outing, let alone a bad one. Beautiful style & technique - no worker flaws at all. Easily a 'best ever' contender. I'm happily a fan and on Volk's wagon... (sorry, terrible pun)

[gordi]

I could see going as low as top 20. You know, to pull some names out of a hat: Jumbo, Misawa, Tenryu, Kawada, Kobashi, Hokuto, Liger, Jaguar, Hash, Aja, Baba, Fujiwara... then Han. I could see something like that making a reasonable amount of sense. Even on a list of gaijin wrestlers in Japan, I could imagine Volk Han reasonably finishing out of someone's top 5. You know: Terry Funk, Stan Hansen, The Destroyer, Billy Robinson, Terry Gordy... then Han. I could see that. He's a guy who could finish top 5 for me on certain days, and on other days slip as low as maybe the late teens... but oh my goodness was he ever great at what he did. If we ever did a poll where the defined criteria was purely: Best Average Match Quality, I imagine Han would pretty much be a lock to finish number one of all time.

[Tim Cooke]

Put him in the top 20.

Misawa, Kawada, Jumbo, Baba would all rank ahead of him for my personal list without even thinking about it.

[MJH]

Han is sublime.

I'm trying to think at what point I would unquestionably call him 'great', but even something like the 4/93 Nagai match is like his 10th ever match. I mean, OK, we're talking about exceptional circumstances and such, but he 'got it' from the start and was at least 'good' in his debut.

I don't want to hold the low number of matches against him (~65) because Tamura, for instance, was probably the same, but it does make the ranking more difficult.

It's not just about the matwork either, even though that's obviously something he did as good as anyone. But he had a real natural sense of drama and character, too, how he quickly learned to down-play his striking ability, the stuff he got out of choads like Tariel based around his selling, the stomach weak spot... the first match with Tamura is really fucking well laid out as a vet/upstart match, and that spot where you think Tamura has him in trouble only for Han to snap a cross armbar out of nowhere and have Tamura trapped with his legs entwined too is genuinely one of the most perfect sequences/spots I've ever seen. As I said, just a great great wrestler.

[KillSteve]

Tim Cooke, on Feb 21 2012, 01:52 PM, said:

Put him in the top 20.

Misawa, Kawada, Jumbo, Baba would all rank ahead of him for my personal list without even thinking about it.

Han vs Baba is fairly debatable, but I agree with your sentiment. Also went Top 20, though it's probably just outside the Top 10 rather than the other end of that.

[Curt McGirt]

Everything I've seen him do is jaw-dropping. Top 20.

[Ditch]

I went top 20 as well. Remarkable consistency, very much ahead-of-the-curve in terms of what he was doing in '92-'93, superb at feeding opponents, and his charisma is underrated. All that said it was about a 6 year run, so I can't see him cracking the top ten when (at least for me) everyone in there had ten good years or more, and did so under the stress of touring for most of that time.

Oh and screw you to the 'below 100' people who AREN'T PARTICIPATING.

[ohtani's jacket]

Misawa's peak amounts to two years ('94 & '95) and X number of matches, so I don't see a problem with making a direct comparison.

[gordi]

Ditch, on Feb 23 2012, 07:10 AM, said:

Oh and screw you to the 'below 100' people who AREN'T PARTICIPATING.

Oh, come on David! That's SUCH creative and intelligent trolling. The guys who keep doing that are HILARIOUS.

How do they come up with this stuff? It's just a gift, I suppose.

[Ditch]

ohtani, on Feb 22 2012, 06:49 PM, said:

Misawa's peak amounts to two years ('94 & '95) and X number of matches, so I don't see a problem with making a direct comparison.

If all one is judging on is peak vs peak, that works. But I'm not.

[fxnj]

Misawa's best year was 1997 IMO.

[egyptian]

I voted top 30. He's technically brilliant of course. My only knock against him is that his passion and will to win doesn't come across for me the way it does for some of you.

[gordi]

[ddevil]

Since those are obviously from Facebook, I did some research.

There's a Volk Han fan page that only has one entry on its wall. There's a reply by the real Volk Han (I assume) that Google translates as:

Quote

Dear, if you Volk Han, then who am I? Immediately closed.

What a badass, even on Facebook.

https://www.facebook...100003220485869
Yeah, this rules.

[gordi]

So... how many of you are Facebook friends with Volk Han now?

[KJL]

Top 10. Understood working faster than maybe anyone. He took to working shoot-style even quicker than guys who had the advantage of working for years and managed to infuse matches with a sense of drama and urgency that was both exciting and credible.  Volk Han was basically what some people who remember the past through rose colored glasses reminisce about the greats of the old days as being -- someone who could make a match as believable as a shoot but more aesthetically pleasing than one; I don't think any pro wrestler ever came across as being as legit as Han.

[Curt McGirt]

I just watched the Han vs. Tamura tournament final again yesterday and despite everything I believed it could have been a shoot. THAT, my friends, is talent.

[FLIK]

K, i've watched 37 Volk Han matches over the course of the last 6 days and I don't get the hype at all.

Well, I do but I disagree.

Quote

Best Average Match Quality, I imagine Han would pretty much be a lock to finish number one of all time.

This is what holds him back for me.

At his best, working with someone equally or atleast almost as talented, doing the type of match he was best at full of flashy back & forth submission work he was an amazingly talented guy capable of great, exciting matches. I don't think he'd have worked out anywhear else under any other circumstances but for the time frame he was around, the promotion he was in and the fans he was in front of he was a perfect fit.

At his worst however, when he couldn't/wouldn't do his "Russian Spider Man" act and had to do matches based around more traditonal mat work or strikes or wasn't working with top lvl talent it equaled a lot of average at best matches and ocasionally some really boring ones. Tho I will admit that I found the matches whear he gets gut punched to death by giant foreign mountain men pretty hilarious & entertaining in an unintentional way. He also tended to gas really easily too making me glad they kept him under 15 mins 97% of the time.

I wasn't able to get a hold of a few of his more pimped matches, couldn't find anything vs Naruse, thought he had OK chemistry with Maeda but only saw 3 of their 9 matches, etc... but of the footage I watched, there's only really about 5 matches i've seen that i'd call great and maybe another 10 or 11 i'd lable really good.

And for a guy who's talked up the way he is and who only has a tiny amount of matches to begin with I was hoping he'd have a higher % of worthwhile stuff to be considered an all time great or HoF worthy guy.