Dylan's Mid-Year 100

[DylanWaco]

I would have posted this here had the board been up last week, so I figured I'd post it here now.  Jan 1-June 30th is the field of play

 

1. Antonio Cesaro
2. Negro Casas
3. Daniel Bryan
4. Virus 
5. Rush 
6. Vordell Walker 
7. LA Park 
8. William Regal 
9. The Big Show 
10. Kyle Matthews
11. Trauma II
12. Alberto Del Rio 
13. Jun Akiyama 
14. Dean Ambrose
15. Villano IV
16. Demus 3:16
17. Blue Panther 
18. Rampage Brown 
19. Robbie Dynamite 
20. Kazushi Sakuraba
21. Sheamus 
22. Dean Allmark 
23. KT Hammil 
24. Trauma I 
25. Shaun Tempers 
26. Timothy Thatcher
27. Necro Butcher 
28. Damien Wayne 
29. Kahagas 
30. Sami Callihan 
31. Seth Rollins 
32. James Mason 
33. Negro Navarro 
34. John Cena 
35. Tajiri 
36. Jack Gallagher 
37. Freelance 
38. Black Terry 
39. Alan Extreme
40. Casandro 
41. Yuki Ishikawa 
42. Roman Reigns 
43. Terrible 
44. Chris Masters 
45. Valiente 
46. Shockercito 
47. Ryota Hama 
48. Chico Che 
49. Jeff Cobb 
50. Andrew Everett Cross (Chiva Kid) 
51. Minoru Suzuki 
52. Dr. Wagner Jr. 
53. Ray Mendoza Jr. 
54. Jay Briscoe 
55. Cyrus The Destroyer 
56. Mark Briscoe 
57. Tracy Smothers 
58. Eddie Kingston 
59. Amazing Red 
60. Harry Smith 
61. Namajague 
62. Too Cold Scorpio 
63. Pierrothito
64. Astral
65. Shinsuke Nakamura 
66. Fuego 
67. Califan 
68. Cancerbero 
69. Sami Zayn (El Generico)
70. CM Punk 
71. Mark Henry 
72. Drew Haskins
73. Jeremiah Plunkett 
74. Angel Blanco Jr. 
75. Kassius Ohno 
76. Dolph Ziggler 
77. Tomohiro Ishii
78. Tank Norton 
79. Rich Swann 
80. Rey Hechicero 
81. Manabu Suruga 
82. Jack Swagger 
83. D.O.C. 
84. ACH 
85. Dinamic Black 
86. Austin Aries 
87. Jeremy Wyatt 
88. Derrick King 
89. Michael Tarver 
90. Akebono 
91. Gunner 
92. KAI
93. Keith Hammil 
94. Andrew Alexander 
95. Randy Orton 
96. Wade Barrett 
97. Kazunari Murakami 
98. Savio Vega 
99. Bully Ray
100. New Jack 

Last Five off: Jon Malus, JC Ice, Big E. Langston, Rob Conway, Raziel

[Matt D]

If you're interested in how he came to the WWE ones in here at least, the most recent Wrestling Culture Podcast is pretty interesting on the topic.

[The Man Known as Dan]

Cesaro over Bryan? I... have a very hard time buying that.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I don't see Shibata

[rzombie1988]

Cesaro over Bryan? I... have a very hard time buying that.

Cesaro was extremely good in the first half of the year. Cesaro is the ProWresBlog Wrestler of the Mid-Year and Daniel Bryan is the runner-up.There was a span where Cesaro had a match on my top matches list for around 8 weeks straight. What made him really good is that he had these good matches with a wide variety of wrestlers. He had good ones with Orton, Sheamus, Justin Gabriel, Kofi, The Great Khali, Kane, Sami Zayn and others. Believe me when I say that no one in the world had such a varied list of good matches.

 

The most impressive thing? He was out for 4-6 weeks in the beginning of the year, and still beat the pants off of everyone on quantity for good matches.

 

Daniel Bryan simply wasn't as good until around the end of May or so. He was mostly arguing with Kane until around Wrestlemania and started to come alive in May/June.

[DylanWaco]

What has Shibata done to merit inclusion?  I thought the Goto match was dogshit and while I liked Laughter7 it's not like he was doing the heavy lifting.  

 

I think having 15-25 minute very good-to-great matches with turds like the Miz and Kofi is more impressive than five or six minutes of highspot inclusion which is what a lot of Bryan's best stuff has been so far this year.  I recognize that for some Bryan is a default number one every year, but I Cesaro had equal or greater output, with far fewer advantages and against who's who of scrubs, lazy fucks, and guys new to the WWE style.  

[TerjeRUN]

New Jack, Dylan? The fudge!?

[DylanWaco]

New Jack might be to low.  The Necro brawl from PWS was awesome

[Robert]

Anyone who doesn't get the Rush/Negro Casas ratings just need to watch the last 3 weeks of CMLL TV. Holy shit. Best stuff going in the world right now.

[TerjeRUN]

New Jack might be to low.  The Necro brawl from PWS was awesome

 

I think an angel just lost its wings somewhere. Or was raped. Something bad has happened. 

[Big Rob]

I might have to track down the pro-shot version f that Necro/Jack match. Sounds like something that I'd enjoy, but I saw a fan can version that for me was borderline unwatchable.

Definitely agree with Cesaro as number 1, the Bo Dallas and Kofi Kingston matches just really showed him at his best, he's done so much with not a whole lot of opportunity (good match times on the b-shows aside).

[Daniel]

What has Shibata done to merit inclusion?  I thought the Goto match was dogshit and while I liked Laughter7 it's not like he was doing the heavy lifting.

I thought Shibata looked very good in the tag against Goto/Nagata. Aside from that he hasn't been especially impressive, but that's down to working with Goto so I'd still think he's easily Top 100 in the world. Obviously I'm stylistically biased though.

 

The only strange thing that stuck out to me was having Hama (and Tajiri and Ishikawa) above Suzuki (Okada carry jobs x2, I always enjoy watching him), Nakamura (Dome spectacular + mixed bag) and Suruga (was the clear standout at Ishikawa produce). KAI's stuff with Akiyama was pretty good too, and it certainly wasn't all Jun - so pleased to see him sneak on there along with Murakami!

[DylanWaco]

I loved, loved, loved Hama in the Carny this year.  No really great performance, but I thought he looked good in every match and was the only guy who exceeded expectations.  I liked Suzuki v. Okada, but wasn't blown away by it, though that may be down to Okada's weaknesses.  Nak is the Japanese Randy Orton.  Suruga may have been low.  

 

Tajiri's carry job is the best one sided thing I"ve seen all year

[bucky]

I think an angel just lost its wings somewhere. Or was raped. Something bad has happened. 

 

Haha, this is dumb. You are dumb

[Daniel]

Nak is the Japanese Randy Orton.  Suruga may have been low. Tajiri's carry job is the best one sided thing I"ve seen all year

Yeh I think those are fair calls - and I need to rewatch that Tajiri match - though I can't say I watched any Hama and thought anything other than 'poor dude'. We obviously want fairly different things from wrestling, but I'd still petition for Suzuki because both Okada matches were half-excellent, half-terrible; and Suzuki was entirely the former half and only rarely the latter half. I also noticed Timothy Thatcher in your list. I watched one match (with former Olympic, Cobb) of his pimped to me as a good catch wrestling demo, but it was littered with fanciful bullshit and thigh slapping, so left me with a real bad taste (otherwise, it was probably a pretty decent WoS tribute). Is there another match of his out there that might be up my alley? #26 is a pretty high ranking!

[DylanWaco]

I thought the Cobb match was outstanding and his best match of the year so if you were not in love with that, I doubt you'd be in love with anything else he's got from this year.  I enjoyed the simplicity of his APW match with Oliver John and he also had a good performance in an APW tag.  I thought he carried TJP and Willie Mack to good matches too.

[Greggulator]

I have no idea what they've done or where they've wrestled but I love Amazing Red and Too Cold's inclusion.Just wondering why Punk is in the 70s? I know he was out for a while but he's had a lot of awesome. The Cena Raw match was one of the best Raw matches ever and a great end to an epic feud. I didn't see WM but a lot of people raved about the UT match. His stuff with Jericho was also very good.Who would have predicted Roman Reigns as one of the Top 10 WWE workers at his start? I love that dude. He's been great as The Shield's equalizer.No Usos?

[jaedmc]

Del Rio at 12 is maybe my favorite rating.

 

Any Briscoe ahead of Dolph Ziggler is one Briscoe too many. Some one recommend me their best match this year so I can watch it see if I still hate them.

[cubbymark]

I don't like the Briscoes much but I did see them lose the tag titles to reDragon and it was a good match.

Rush embracing being a rudo has been outstanding in CMLL.

[DylanWaco]

I think Dolph has been pretty "eh" for big chunks of this year and going face isn't doing him any favors.  

 

On Punk - I actually think he's been pretty BAD for big chunks of the year.  I did really like the Cena video game match which is why he made the top 100.  If not for the match, no way I rate him.  

 

I like the Usos, but I watch a lot of wrestling.  Making the top 100 isn't easy.  

[zev]

Dylan, is there a single Virus match from this year on youtube that you'd recommend over anything else available?

Or Trauma 1 and 2, for that matter?

[DylanWaco]

Virus v. Blue Panther from May 12 is a great Lightning Match and an excellent look at what Virus can do on the mat with another elite guy, but because of the nature of the match it feels more like an appetizer than something next level.  The best non-Lightning Match he's been a part of is probably Casas/Valiente/Stuka Jr. v. Virus/Vangellys/Fuego from 6/14.  Having said that, I think his individual performance may have been better in the 4/30 trios teaming with Puma and Namajague v. Valiente/Angel del Oro/Diamante.  Of course Virus is awesome in everything so you can't really go wrong.  

 

With the Traumas, I think II has been way more impressive this year.  T I's best performance was probably in the Traumas vs. Virus & Valiente - Chilanga Mask 5/19, which was JIP, but his section with Valiente was outstanding.   T II is tougher to nail down.  I thought he looked incredible in this match, but it's heavily clipped http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAe8TlEeDBA

 

Beyond that I he had a match in Feb v. Angel and Oficial 911 that is one of the best triple threat matches I've ever seen and a total war of a match.  I also really liked him in Negro Navarro/Trauma I/Trauma II vs. Danny Casas/Heavy Metal/Veneno, IWRG 4/21, where his mat section with Veneno was shockingly great and that's certainly not something due to the genius of fucking Veneno.  

 

Also I fucking loathe how when you c/p something on this board it defaults to this light color even on things you didn't C/P.  

[Greggulator]

BTW, where the hell is Michael Tarver wrestling these days? I thought he had a lot of potential before he flaked out.

[tlk23]

8. William Regal

Reason? He has had nine matches this year.

[DylanWaco]

Tarver wrestles on a lot of Florida indies, namely NWA Florida Underground.  He has also popped in TCW lately (they have a show available on youtube, that I would recommend if you are looking for an indie show with good production values).  

 

On Regal, he was the easily the best guy in the match that I think is easily the best match of the year.  I have enjoyed him in the other flurries we have gotten, but that is the primary reason he is top ten.