my personal top 25 greatest wrestlers of all time

[delfinrules]

25. Megumi Kudo
Megumi Kudo debuted in 1986. She wrestled for All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW) at that time. But she only lasted for a couple of years. At that time, the AJW promotion had so many good young wrestlers that it was hard to make a name for yourself as a young wrestler. Kudo wrestled for FMW from 1990 to 1997. She was definitely the best joshi wrestler FMW ever had. At first, she was mostly pushed because of her good looks. But over the years, she developed into a very good worker. She participated in the first ever women's death match in 1995. She was participating in bloody and disgusting death matches even though she was a very good worker and very good looking. She did it because it was in best interest for the promotion she worked for (the FMW promotion). She was never selfish. When FMW was in financial trouble, she did the crazy death matches and that was about the only reason FMW continued to exist as a promotion. Most of the time, she was working with bad workers. Because of that, she didn't have too many great matches. She wasn't a great worker (she couldn't develop into a great worker, because of the bad quality workers she had to work with, most of the time). But her in-ring work was very interesting and enjoyable, because she was working very hard (and very good).

24. Super Delfin

23. Devil Masami
Devil Masami has been wrestling since 1978. She is not the best when it comes to pure workrate. But she is a very smart worker. Over the years she has proven that she can carry many wrestlers to very good matches. But in the late 1990s, she started wrestling as ``Super Heel`` and she hasn't been all that good since then.

22. Kaoru Ito
Kaoru Ito debuted in 1989. She has been working very hard since her early years as a professional wrestler. During her matches from the early 1990s, she showed that she had the potential to become a star. During the mid 1990s, she was starting to get pushed a bit more. She had also become a very good worker. In 1997, she had some very memorable matches. Including a cage match, in which she did a diving footstomp off the top of the cage. She finally became the WWWA World Champion in 2000 and held the title for about 1½ years.

21. Mima Shimoda
Mima Shimoda made her debut for AJW in 1987. In her first couple of years, she wasn't very special. She improved a lot in 1992. And by 1993, she had become a good worker. Since then she is having really good matches and has become somewhat of a big name in joshi puroresu. She has been good at wrestling as a heel and wrestling in brawling type matches. She has been mostly known for her work in tag team matches. And overall, she is a very good worker.

20. Dynamite Kid

19. Great Sasuke

18. Toshiyo Yamada
Toshiyo Yamada made her debut in 1987. She had some very memorable matches throughout her career. For example her four matches against Manami Toyota in the early 1990s. That series made both women into stars. Overall, Toshiyo Yamada was a really good worker during the early and mid 1990s. But, her work has been a lot less impressive since 1996.

17. Chigusa Nagayo
Chigusa Nagayo debuted in 1980. During the mid and late 1980s, she was the most popular joshi wrestler. She also had some very good matches at that time. She retired in 1989. She returned to the ring in 1993. But she was no longer the top star in AJW. Her work from the mid 1990s was still good. But her work since the late 1990s has been a bit less impressive.

16. Kenta Kobashi

15. Shiro Koshinaka

14. Gran Hamada

13. Mayumi Ozaki
Mayumi Ozaki debuted in 1986. She participated in some great matches throughout her career. For example, three great matches with Dynamite Kansai against Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada. Ozaki was a really good worker during the 1990s. And she has remained very good since then. She has proven that she is very good at wrestling as a heel and a very good brawler. Officially, Ozaki is a freelance wrestler. But most of the time, she is wrestling for the GAEA promotion. Ozaki has been promoting her own Oz Academy shows a couple of times a year since 1998.

12. Kyoko Inoue
Kyoko Inoue debuted in 1988. She was already a very good worker in the early 1990s. During the mid 1990s she was one of the best workers in the world. And she participated in many excellent matches throughout her career. But since the late 1990s, she gained a lot of weight and her work has been less impressive.

11. Aja Kong
Aja Kong debuted in 1986. She won the WWWA World title in late 1992. She lost the title in August 1995. Aja has been very good at carrying wrestlers to very good matches. She has had many memorable matches throughout her career. And she has been a really good in-ring performer for many years. Her peak was probably during the mid 1990s.

10. Bull Nakano
Bull Nakano became the WWWA World Champion in 1990. She successfully defended the title six times before losing it in late 1992. After that she slowly started to fade away. She didn’t participate in many main events anymore. But she was still very good, although not as good as she was in the early 90’s. One of her best matches was a cage match against Aja Kong on 11/14/1990. She even hit a guillotine leg drop off the top of the cage in that match. Bull Nakano could do some surprising moves, considering her size. She was a really good worker. She was good at carrying matches. And she had many memorable matches throughout her career.

9. Genichiro Tenryu

8. Jumbo Tsuruta

7. Mitsuharu Misawa

6. Toshiaki Kawada

5. Jaguar Yokota
During the early and mid 1980s, Jaguar Yokota was one of the best workers in the world. And she was having some really good matches. After she retired in 1986, she became a trainer for All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling. And she trained many women who became great wrestlers (for example Manami Toyota, Kyoko Inoue and Toshiyo Yamada). Yokota returned to the ring in 1994. During the mid and late 1990s she was still a very good worker until she retired in 1998.

4. Lioness Asuka
Lioness Asuka debuted in 1980. From 1984 to 1989 she, along with Chigusa Nagayo, was part of the most popular joshi puroresu tag team ever, the Crush Girls. Nagayo was the more popular of the team, but Asuka was the better worker. Asuka had some very memorable matches throughout the 1980s. In 1989 she retired. But she returned in 1994. And she still has been really good since then. Throughout her career, she has been known for having very good psychology and being very good at carrying matches.

3. Manami Toyota
Manami Toyota Toyota lacks somewhat in psychology. But she makes more than up for it with her pure work rate. She has had many great matches throughout her career. One of her most memorable singles matches was the famous 60-minute match against Kyoko Inoue in 1995. Toyota was one of the best workers in the world during the mid 1990s. By the late 1990s, she hadn't adapt her style even though she had gotten older. But her matches have still been very good since then.

2. Akira Hokuto
Hisako Uno debuted in 1985. Unfortunately, she broke her neck in 1987. But she returned from that injury, and she became known as Akira Hokuto and had a very successful career. She participated in many great matches throughout her career. Her in-ring performances were just awesome. She carried many wrestlers to excellent matches. She was mostly known for her athletic ability and her hard work during the earlier stages of her career. She was arguably the best wrestler in the world during the early and mid 90’s. By that time, she also had great psychology. And she had the ability to make her matches very dramatic. But her peak didn't last more than five years due to injuries caused by the high-risk maneuvers she used to do. By the late 90’s she was considered to be past her prime. But she could still give a good performance in the ring. She had her retirement match on 04/07/2002.

1. Jushin Liger
Keiichi Yamada was a very good worker during the late 1980s. He was already having some memorable matches at a young age. For example, his matches against Owen Hart were excellent. In 1989, Yamada started to wrestle with a mask and became known as Jushin Liger. During the 1990s, Liger had many excellent matches with many different opponents. And he won the IWGP junior heavyweight title many times. Liger is not only a famous in-ring worker, but he is also an excellent booker. He booked the famous Super J Cup 1994. Which is probably the best men's professional wrestling show ever. As a booker, Liger is not egotistical at all. For example, he didn't book himself into the finals of the Super J Cup 1994 as he did the job to the Great Sasuke in the semi-final (and in the process, making Sasuke into a star). And during the annual Top of the Super Juniors tournament he did the job to guys that he shouldn't have to lose to (for example, Doc Dean in 1997). As an in-ring performer, his style changed over the years. During the late 1980s, Keiichi Yamada was really good for pure workrate and he continued to be as Jushin Liger in the early 1990s. He was doing a lot of high flying maneuvers during his matches at that time. But by the late 1990s he had adapted his style. He started to work a lot smarter. Thus creating matches with better psychology and making sure that there was lesser chance of him getting injured (as he didn't do many high-risk maneuvers anymore). Longevity is also a factor in Liger's success. For more than ten years, he has belonged to the best in the world.

[Rex Idol]

nice list, although I admit I'm quite ignorant when it comes to joshi, so as far as the men go, I think Gran Hamada is ranked a bit high. No disrespect meant, his longevity is amazing, but I have Dynamite Kid in my personal top ten - who you rated six spots lower.

[NineSpiral]

interesting list, and great to see some Joshi in there... but just one, simple question...no Tiger Mask? wow, that takes guts.

Jason

[delfinrules]

>no Tiger Mask?

Yeah. Sayama had a short prime. And he wasn't as good as Dynamite Kid, for example (Kid and Sayama had some classic matches together where Kid was the better of the two for overall in-ring work). And my list was mostly based for in-ring work. And not so much on historical significance. If this was a list for most important wrestlers of all time, Sayama would be in there for sure.

[NineSpiral]

wow, he completely makes my list for ring work...

just for fun, I'll put my own personal top 25...there will be some differences, though - it'll be totally Japanese, and it won't be inclusive of Joshi...I like Joshi puroresu a lot, I just don't know where/how to fit it in my list...also, this list is based, like yours, not on historical significance so much as ring work - but more just my personal taste - workrate factors into my taste of course, but it's not the only factor - at least somewhat, this is also a list of who i simply mark out for most (I happen to agree with Lance Storm in that ranking your fave wrestlers is all well and good, but ranking them as workers is kinda silly)

25) Hiroshi Hase
24) Tiger Mask IV
23) Takao Omori
22) Dick Togo
21) Super Delphin
20) Satoshi Kojima
19) Akira Taue
18) Mr. Gannosuke
17) Hiroyoshi Tenzan
16) TAKA Michinoku
15) Hayabusa
14) Shin'ya Hashimoto
13) Atsushi Onita
12) Jun Akiyama
11) Yuji Nagata
10) Keiji Muto
9) The Great Sasuke
8) Gen'ichiro Tenryu
7) Mitsuharu Misawa
6) Tiger Mask
5) Shinjiro Ohtani
4) Toshiaki Kawada
3) Jumbo Tsuruta
2) Jushin Liger
1) Kenta Kobashi

lemme know what you think!

Jason

[delfinrules]

>wow, he completely makes my list for ring work...

Longevity was also an important factor for my top 25. That's another reason why Tiger Mask didn't make it to my list.

>ranking your fave wrestlers is all well and good, but ranking them as workers is kinda silly

In the end, it's all a subjective matter. But in my opinion, that's the fun part. Because it allows interesting discussions between wrestling fans to take place.

>lemme know what you think!

Interesting list. Good to see Delfin on there.
Just curious, do you like Keiji Muto only as Keiji Muto or do you also like him as Great Muta? Personally, I like him much better as Muto than as Muta.

[EnigmaDragon]

As far as nine spirals list goes i would put Hayabusa ahead of Onita, i dont know much about them but i heard from Arai's book on somesite that Onita was a complete a$$!

Why is it 25 not any lower like 20? Ahh well doesnt matter

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

EnigmaDragon,

Review the forum rules.

[Yoshimitsu]

1. Hulk Hogan
He like, won everything.
2. The Ultimate Warrior
He could like, defeat anyone! And was really musclely!
3. Goldberg
I dont care what anyone says, he could knock the salami out of Steve Austin!
4. Hollywood Hogan
I know it's the same guy, but he looked cooler this way!
5. Yokozuna
He was like, really really big and stuff!

But enough about the worst wrestlers of all time, let's focus on the greatest!
I have to say there is a lot of surprise in your list. Jushin Liger was a great worker, and still is, but is he worthy of the top spot? Surely the greats of Jumbo Tsuruta and Riki Choshu should have been higher.

[delfinrules]

>Jushin Liger was a great worker, and still is, but is he worthy of the top spot?

In my opinion, he is #1. He has been one of the best in-ring performers in the world for so many years (since the late 1980's). I don't know anybody else who has been a great in-ring performer for that long. Liger has had so many great matches in his career. And because of the fact that he has changed his in-ring style, he is still one of the best in the world today.

>Surely the greats of Jumbo Tsuruta and Riki Choshu should have been higher.

Maybe I should have ranked Jumbo Tsuruta higher. But I'm more familiar with Kawada and Misawa. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me that Jumbo should be higher than Kawada and Misawa though.

I haven't seen too much of Riki Choshu. But I know that he was very good when he was in his prime (probably the mid 1980's). But I didn't rank Choshu in my top 25 because I haven't seen enough of his prime. And also because his prime is unfortunately not the biggest part of his career. I feel that his work from the 1990s was quite unimpressive and that puts him way down on my list.

[Yoshimitsu]

I think Chris Benoit is proberbly the most consistent worker of the nineties.

[delfinrules]

>I think Chris Benoit is proberbly the most consistent worker of the nineties.

I really liked Benoit's work from the early and mid 1990s. But I wouldn't consider Benoit to be a more consistent worker than Liger during the 1990s.

During the early 1990s, Liger was already great and Benoit just started to become one of the best workers in the world.
During in the mid 1990s, Benoit's work in Japan was great. But he still wasn't as impressive as Liger. Liger had more great matches.
And during the late 1990s Liger had a even clearer egde over Benoit. Because Liger was still great during the late 1990s as he adapted his style. And Benoit wasn't working on the level he used to work at. Benoit's moveset really became much smaller than it used to be. And he didn't really have any great matches anymore.

Benoit might have been the most consistent worker of the 1990s in North America (along with Eddy Guerrero and Bret Hart), but not in the entire world. You're overrating him if you're saying that.

[The Great Gouki]

ahhh Megumi Kudo...*sigh* Hido is a lucky man lol




hmm....my top 10 (people I've watched, and I don't know much about joshi, so don't think I forgot about the ladies )


10.Masato Tanaka
9.Jushin Lyger
8.Jimmy Yang (dunno if he counts since he's from the ATL)
7.TAKA Michonoku
6.Mr. Ganosuke
5.Yugi Nagata
4.Dick Togo
3.Great Sasuke
2.Hayabusa
1.The Great Muta

Honorable mentions: Atsushi Onita,Masa Chono, Men's Teioh, Hakushi (I love this gimmick!), and Kintaro Kanemura

[NineSpiral]

As far as Jumbo is concerned, I think he's a good candidate for the best AJPW has ever had (IMO, while he was still healthy and in top form, he was a lot better than Misawa, Kawada or Kobashi ever became)

i guess the reason I put Kobashi at the top of my list is just because I am a HUGE mark for the guy and he has been in so many of my favorite matches But Jumbo rules it - maybe best japanese wrestler of all time...and I'm a big, big mark for him too... (my favorite match of all time is Jumbo/Misawa 6/8/90)

As for Onita and why i put him where I did? Everybody thinks he's all cool and stuff, and likes how he's so crazy for doing deathmatches all the time - but the truth is, the guy is a heck of a worker, and although his moveset is rather repetitive at times, he knows exactly how and when to do his moves, make his comebacks, get electrocuted, etc etc...he's *exceptional* at making his matches really dramatic - nobody that i have ever seen has even come close to him in that respect...when it comes to deathmatches that is.

As for the Chris Benoit comments, he would get my vote as the 'most versatile' wrestler out there...he's not the best in any one category, but is there anyone who can excel in so many different styles (technical mat wrestling, high flying, power wrestling, brawling, submission) as him? I can't really think of any,except maybe Eddie Guererro...who also excels at the lucha style...

Bret Hart is possibly a better brawler than Benoit, and maybe his equal in most of the other categories, but Bret a) can't fly NEARLY as well as Benoit and b) had to carry much more limited opponents during the peak of his career than Benoit did....if Bret had instead wrestled in AJPW or even NJPW during his peak, i shudder to think of how good he might have become...

Jason

[hokutorules]

>Bret Hart is possibly a better brawler than Benoit

Benoit is a stiffer brawler.

>and maybe his equal in most of the other categories

Benoit is a better pure worker and has a bigger moveset.

>but Bret a) can't fly NEARLY as well as Benoit

Yeah, that's definitely true.

>and b) had to carry much more limited opponents during the peak of his career than Benoit did....if Bret had instead wrestled in AJPW or even NJPW during his peak, i shudder to think of how good he might have become...

I don't think Bret would have fit in AJPW or NJPW.