43 replies to this topic

[Ryan]

Since this only allows 10 options instead of 12 I left off the two lowest on his poll which are Fujinami and Takada and left on the one guy that made no damn sense.

His results at the moment:

Quote

Who was Japan's best ever wrestler?
Kenta Kobashi
132   29.7%
Mitsuharu Misawa
105   23.6%
Keiji Muto
56   12.6%
Jushin Liger
51   11.5%
Jumbo Tsuruta
31   7%
Original Tiger Mask
26   5.8%
Toshiaki Kawada
16   3.6%
Kota Ibushi
9   2%
Genichiro Tenryu
7   1.6%
Tatsuki Fujinami
4   0.9%
Nobuhiko Takada
4   0.9%
Shinya Hashimoto
4   0.9%

Number of Voters :  445

[FLIK]

Meltzer's said a few times recently he thinks the best wrestlers in the world at the moment are in Japan but i'm a little surprised he picked Ibushi as the rep for this generation even though Meltzer does think really highly of him. Figured he'd go with Tanahashi or someone else in New Japan since more then anything that's his current fave.

[Ryan]

Could have been a board suggestion I suppose. I have no clue what his inspiration for some of his polls are.

[Ditch]

I voted "both" on #2 even though I dislike Takada, because at least Takada has a case.

[Ryan]

The fact that Tiger Mask gets that many votes in Dave's poll and Kawada gets basically no respect is annoying.

[ダニエル]

Who is the biggest Ibushi fan on here? Alan? Do even Ibushi's biggest fans think he's a serious and reasonable contender for Top 50 let alone top 12 or Top 1?

Kota Ibushi
6 1.9%
Genichiro Tenryu
4 1.3%
Shinya Hashimoto
4 1.3%

That absolutely hurts my soul. How could anyone who has seen those three guys work think Ibushi is better? FUCK.

[Irving]

Oh yeah.. Chigusa Nagayo... bitches

[NintendoLogic]

I'm pretty shocked that Dave didn't include Manami Toyota.

[odessasteps]

NintendoLogic, on Mar 23 2012, 09:14 PM, said:

I'm pretty shocked that Dave didn't include Manami Toyota.

my first thought too. Or if not Toyota, then Bull, Hokuto or Chigusa.

[Justin877]

No love for Tiger Mask?

I second the nods for Toyota, Hokuto, or at least Chigusa.

[J.H.]

Really stunned Toyota wasn't on this list, which makes me think Bryan may have picked he people in it and not Dave. Besides, if we're gonna rattle off Joshi Kong over Toyota...

James

[TimLivingston]

The list is kind of odd because it not only discounts joshi but Hash is basically on there as an afterthought. It all depends on how you like your wrestling. I've always preferred Kawada to Misawa, although I love me some Jumbo, as well, but I went Kawada just because I thought I enjoyed his wrestling the most.

The guy who stands out the most on the list is Lyger, because even as big as TM was in the 80's, Lyger WAS juniors wrestling in the 90s and nobody else was really close.

I picked Kawada, but Hash was the biggest draw, Jumbo was the most famous wrestler on the list and Misawa was the best Ace.

[Ryan]

TimLivingston, on Mar 23 2012, 09:13 PM, said:

The list is kind of odd because it not only discounts joshi but Hash is basically on there as an afterthought. It all depends on how you like your wrestling. I've always preferred Kawada to Misawa, although I love me some Jumbo, as well, but I went Kawada just because I thought I enjoyed his wrestling the most.

The guy who stands out the most on the list is Lyger, because even as big as TM was in the 80's, Lyger WAS juniors wrestling in the 90s and nobody else was really close.

I picked Kawada, but Hash was the biggest draw, Jumbo was the most famous wrestler on the list and Misawa was the best Ace.

Which of course makes the answer Kobashi.

[NintendoLogic]

Dave did say a while back that Kobashi was the closest thing to a wrestling version of Michael Jordan he had ever seen in terms of being able to do it all and doing it every night. And Kobashi is a much more defensible choice than Kota freaking Ibushi.

[TimLivingston]

Ryan, on Mar 23 2012, 07:16 PM, said:

TimLivingston, on Mar 23 2012, 09:13 PM, said:

The list is kind of odd because it not only discounts joshi but Hash is basically on there as an afterthought. It all depends on how you like your wrestling. I've always preferred Kawada to Misawa, although I love me some Jumbo, as well, but I went Kawada just because I thought I enjoyed his wrestling the most.

The guy who stands out the most on the list is Lyger, because even as big as TM was in the 80's, Lyger WAS juniors wrestling in the 90s and nobody else was really close.

I picked Kawada, but Hash was the biggest draw, Jumbo was the most famous wrestler on the list and Misawa was the best Ace.

Which of course makes the answer Kobashi.

I'm still laughing at this. Well done.

[assfax]

Ibushi is the yellow pants gymnast with the Final Fantasy hair right?

[Ryan]

That's Ishimori.

[gordi]

ダニエル, on Mar 24 2012, 09:49 AM, said:

Who is the biggest Ibushi fan on here? Alan? Do even Ibushi's biggest fans think he's a serious and reasonable contender for Top 50 let alone top 12 or Top 1?

Kota Ibushi
6 1.9%
Genichiro Tenryu
4 1.3%
Shinya Hashimoto
4 1.3%

That absolutely hurts my soul. How could anyone who has seen those three guys work think Ibushi is better? FUCK.

You get back to me when Tenryu or Hash does their first springboard twisting 760 degree flippitty doodle. As I keep saying, Daniel, you really need to learn what pro wrestling is really about.

That being said...

Is Ibushi the silver-and-blue short shorts guy with Final Fantasy hair? And... isn't that the guy who took that never-ending Canadian Destroyer from YOSHIHIKO? Because, if so... Doesn't that definitively prove that YOSHIHIKO is, in fact, a better pro wrestler than Ibushi? And, that being the case:

Where is the outrage over YOSHIHIKU being excluded from the list?

That being said... if Ibushi (or YOSHIHIKU) were to be the special guest on an Osaka Pro card, I'd go out of my way to see it. I'm not seriously arguing that he's one of the greatest ever, but he's really pretty damned good in a live context.

Here's what I wrote after the MATRIX Charity show on 9/11/11:

7. Kota Ibushi [W] & Atsushi Kotoge (450 Splash) Daisuke Harada & Shigehiro Irie [L]

Oh good heavens this match was fantastic as well. Maybe it was just the contrast to the crap sandwich that we had to gulp down before the break, but everything afterward just totally kicked ass. I was surprised by how tall and muscular Ibushi is in person. He doesn't look anything close to that big when I'm watching him as an .avi file! The guy seemed to be having a ball in there. He gave a TON to Harada and Irie and seemed well content to do his part to shine the spotlight on the local guys.

There was a pretty sweet sequence when Kotoge, then Irie, then Harada ripped off Ibushi's "Various rapid kicks leading into a standing moonsault" spot leading to an enraged Ibushi being all "Now I'll show you how it's REALLY done!" on Harada only for Harada to get his knees up. That got the biggest pop of the night. They even made it work as part of the flow of the match, since it was part of an "everyone keeps trying to one-up each other" sequence.

The best part of that one-upmanship sequence was when Irie and Kotoge got into a sick headbutt battle. You could hear the thunks clearly each time, and Irie even grew a grotesquely massive bump on his forehead... but they just kept going! They even did one more for good measure as part of the show of respect once the match was done.

I seem to remember that Ibushi was badly injured during that match. Is he back wrestling again?

[Ryan]

Yes, he's the one that faced the blow-up doll and got hurt on the show you saw him at last September. The Matrix one.

[jaedmc]

Ryan, on Mar 23 2012, 05:50 PM, said:

Tatsuki Fujinami
2   0.6%

Glad to see I'm not the only one misspelling names in polls. 2 votes makes me sad too. And the worst is that I think the two that voted probably just did it to fuck around, like the people who vote Misawa as an Outside the Top 100 in Ditch's polls.