RIPPA Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 KOHEI SATO vs. KAZUKI HASHIMOTO http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2disd2_kohei-sato-vs-kazuki-hashimoto_sport Also - again - see Dean's Match of the Year threads (though that is all tag work) ZACK SABRE JR vs. KATSUHIKO NAKAJIMA http://youtu.be/fBbLmTzHHBk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DylanWaco Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Voted for Sabre, but I would have voted for Twin Towers as a unit over Sabre as a single Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Yeah, I don't have a clue what I'm looking at here. Sorry. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Zack Sabre is tremendous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brysynner Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Sabre's good. Dude needs to find some steroids and a gym though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Voted Sato. it is going to take a lot to get me to vote for a Japanese junior heavyweight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimo Necro Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Sabre is very very good and a very fluid wrestler, he has a unique style that I know is great but just ain't for me. But I'm voting for Sato because he has entertained me all year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Kohei is my favourite contemporary wrestler so I can't vote against him. Sabre is amazing and deserves to pass though he'll unfortunately be obliterated by AJ/Ricochet but as long as more people check out his work that's fine. He does wrestle as a junior but he works a completely different style than anyone else so you can't really fault him for the tropes of the style. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scraylo187 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Sabre made a packed PWG house turn quiet awe over an wristlock at BOLA. A guy sitting in front of us actually sighed and said 'it's just so crisp.' Zack Sabre Jr: Wrestling so good that it makes us emotionally vulnerable. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Voted for Sabre, but I would have voted for Twin Towers as a unit over Sabre as a single I'd vote the Twin Towers over a lot of dudes. Now, I will actually go and watch some footage of these dudes so I can vote on this match up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hail Sabin Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Voted for Sabre because of his matches at BOLA 2014. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scraylo187 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Voted for Sabre because of his matches at BOLA 2014. Seconded. Those matches made me feel funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 You know - if you are going to cite BOLA you could at least post the highlight video of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodear Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I mean I like what I see there but there is some really cutesy pooh stuff that he should be cutting out like the diving between the legs stuff, the head scissors spot with Cole and the cross arm escape thing from the six man. The leapfrog-single leg counter should be something he does all the time. Alllllll the time. Also all the cross armbreaker spots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Has anyone here ever done any grappling? Zack Sabre Jr.'s entire style makes seems inauthentic to me. If a black belt in jiu jitsu rolls with a newbie on his first day it looks more competitive than a Zack Sabre Jr. match. Why are his opponents letting him do three back rolls, a cart wheel, and then putting his arm on the ground in an unnatural position before stomping on it? These other dudes are professional wrestlers, they should have some sort of defense against his offense. The only matches I've seen of either of these two are the ones posted above, but Sato impressed me more so he gets my vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lamp, broken circa 1988 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 But the obligatory headlocking to call spots thing, that's totally fine. Like, I think Zack Sabre Jr. is a bad wrestler to watch in general, but if we're gonna start getting on people for having bad and unrealistic matwrestling you're basically starting in the 80s and moving forwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 But the obligatory headlocking to call spots thing, that's totally fine. Like, I think Zack Sabre Jr. is a bad wrestler to watch in general, but if we're gonna start getting on people for having bad and unrealistic matwrestling you're basically starting in the 80s and moving forwards. It isn't that it was bad and unrealistic, it was that it was overly complicated in a way that made it look worse than the usual bad and unrealistic mat wrestling. I know wrestling is a work, but I want people to work to make it look like it isn't complete bullshit. I get that these guys aren't actually grappling, but going from hold to hold with a 360 spin and a handspring just looks like dudes doing gymnastics while holding hands. These guys don't look like they're competing, they look like they're doing a choreographed routine. I wouldn't mind if he did a flippy escape or a flying armbar here and there, but to build your entire wrestling style around doing mat work that is 100% reliant on your opponent being helpless to watch you cartwheel around while holding his hand is not for me. Therefore he gets no votes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 That's British wrestling in a nutshell. Dudes doing cartwheels and shit to escape wristlocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiji Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Except he's turned the ostentatious shit to 11. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 That's British wrestling in a nutshell. Dudes doing cartwheels and shit to escape wristlocks. Except when dudes like William Regal do it he looks like he's killing his opponent. I don't mind mat wrestling, or even complicated escapes, but I want it to look like a competition not an exhibition. Zack Sabre Jr. is the Pro Bowl to William Regal's Super Bowl, sure they're both football, but one feels like it has consequences and the other feels like they're going through the motions. I watched Sabre do about 76 submissions and none of them looked particularly painful. None of them looked like his opponent didn't cooperate with him to be put in them. None of them looked like they were done in order to win a competition. They all looked like they were done for aesthetic not competitive reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Regal's an outlier, though. British wrestling in general is pretty exhibition-y. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Can I vote for Jim Breaks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRGoldman Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I understand disliking the Johnny Saint inspired stuff that Sabre is doing, but he does it better than basically anyone. Shoot, Daniel Bryan was doing a ton of these same spots a few years ago but they looked way, way worse. Sabre is on a short list of guys who have a legitimate claim as a master of a very specific style, it just happens that style is a bit more divisive than most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I understand disliking the Johnny Saint inspired stuff that Sabre is doing, but he does it better than basically anyone. Shoot, Daniel Bryan was doing a ton of these same spots a few years ago but they looked way, way worse. Sabre is on a short list of guys who have a legitimate claim as a master of a very specific style, it just happens that style is a bit more divisive than most. I'm not saying he isn't very good at what he does, I'm saying what he does is not getting any votes from me. Daniel Bryan was doing a ton of convoluted grappling, but unlike Sabre his offense looked like it hurt. People can disagree, which apparently they do based on the votes, but it won't change the fact that he wrestles a style that I find uninteresting. I don't think he's a bad worker, but he works in a way that is basically the exact opposite of what I like in wrestling. He works a submission based style except all of his submissions look about as painful as Cena's STF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Sato - 20 Sabre - 44 Zack Sabre Jr Advances Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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