Best of 2000s Japan

[Tainted Eclipse]

So everyone's favorite wrestling fan Ditch is hosting a big best of 2000s Japan poll. Ballots aren't due until August 2014, and every eligible match is compiled with linkage in this Excel file: http://theditch.biz/BestOf2000s_Japan.xls

so maybe some of the puro chumps from Rajah can send in a ballot, especially some who may have kept tabs with Japan more real time than I did during the decade and have more of their list ready made. SO, watch some stuff and make some lists because making and comparing lists is like the coolest thing to do in the world.

I've been watching over the past couple months, recent finished a working top 50 I can be more or less satisfied with. I'll keep watching now and again until the deadline and hopefully find a gem or two I've overlooked, but I think I've watched all the matches I especially want to. My top 50:

1. Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda vs. Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 06/06/2003
2. Kenta Kobashi vs. Tamon Honda, NOAH 04/23/2003
3. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama, AJPW 02/27/2000
4. Yuki Ishikawa, Munenori Sawa & Alexander Otsuka vs. Daisuke Ikeda, Super Tiger II and Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 07/26/2008
5. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kensuke Sasaki, NJPW 10/28/2000
6. Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuichi, NJPW 12/14/2000
7. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Osamu Nishimura, MUGA 09/25/2006
8. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Shinya Hashimoto, AJPW 02/22/2004
9. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH 09/23/2002
10. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Naoya Ogawa, Zero-One 12/14/2003
11. Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa, FUTEN 04/24/2005
12. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Jun Akiyama, Wrestle-1 04/08/2005
13. Jun Akiyama vs. Masao Inoue, NOAH 04/23/2006
14. Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH 04/25/2004
15. Tamon Honda vs. Daisuke Ikeda, NOAH 09/01/2001
16. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Hiroyuki Ito, U-Style 08/18/2004
17. Fujita Hayato vs. Koji Kanemoto, NJPW 12/22/2009
18. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kazunari Murakami, BattlARTS 11/26/2000
19. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Genichiro Tenryu, AJPW 10/28/2000
20. Tiger Mask IV & Alexander Otsula vs. Carl Malenko & Ikuto Hidaka, BattlARTS 02/13/2001
21. Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshinari Ogawa, NOAH 11/01/2003
22. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco, BattlARTS 06/01/2008
23. Jushin Liger & Wataru Inoue vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, NOAH 02/17/2002
24. Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya vs. Taiyo Kea & Kiyoshi Miyamoto, AJPW 04/27/2002
25. Stan Hansen & Taiyo Kea v Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu, AJPW 07/23/2000
26. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH 03/15/2001
27. Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka, Zero-One 11/07/2003
28. Tamon Honda vs. Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 03/30/2003
29. Genichiro Tenryu & Jun Akiyama vs. Kenta Kobashi & Go Shiozaki, NOAH 04/24/2005
30. Jushin Liger & Takehiro Murahama vs. Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA, NOAH 7/16/2003
31. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Takeshi Morishima, NOAH 03/02/2008
32. Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka, Zero-One 03/02/2002
33. Kenta Kobashi vs. Kensuke Sasaki, NOAH 07/18/2005
34. Yuji Nagata vs. Akira Taue, NOAH 06/06/2003
35. Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura, GAEA 12/15/2001
36. Dick Togo vs. Tiger Mask IV, Michinoku Pro 08/25/2002
37. Shinya Hashimoto & Takashi IIzuka vs. Kazunari Murakami & Naoya Ogawa, NJPW 01/04/2000
38. Yuji Nagata vs. Kazunari Murakami, NJPW 12/12/2002
39. Akira Taue vs. Naomichi Marufuji, NOAH 03/05/2006
40. Jun Akiyama vs. Hiroshi Tenzan, NJPW 08/17/2003
41. Osamu Nishimura vs. Hiro Saito, MUGA 08/02/2006
42. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka, Big Mouth Loud 09/11/2005
43. Jun Akiyama, Akitoshi Saito & Juji Izumida vs. Takeshi Rikio, Takeshi Morishima & Daisuke Ikeda, NOAH 03/16/2003
44. Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Manabu Suruga & Takahiro Oba, FUTEN 04/09/2009
45. Jushin Liger & Minoru Tanaka vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, 04/07/2002
46. Shinya Hashimoto & Yuji Nagata v. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama, Zero-One 03/02/2001
47. Osamu Nishimura vs. Koji Kanemoto, NJPW 08/08/2004
48. Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue, NOAH 09/10/2004
49. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue, NOAH 09/10/2004
50. Yuji Nagata vs. Giant Bernard, NJPW 04/30/2006

[Cewsh]

Puro mark that I may be, I wouldn't even know where to begin constructing a list like this.

[Tainted Eclipse]

Been watching a bunch of this to get to a top 100. My main takeaway is that NOAH was awesome up up to 2005. Not a surprise but in general the first half of the decade was depressingly better than the second half for all of Japanese wrestling. And Jun Akiyama was the man during the 2000s.

Defrost, what do you reckon are the best KENTAfuji tags?

[Cewsh]

vs. Misawa and Ogawa
vs. Sugiura and Kanemaru
vs. Akiyama and Aoki

Basically all of them.

[Tainted Eclipse]

So far the Liger match is by far my favorite KENTAfuji tag. I'm sure there are others I'd still like a lot and I know there were some I watched years ago that I liked at the time. But I know there are so many I won't like and am not sure how to sift through.

[Tainted Eclipse]

Oh, and another general note: the Liger/Kikuchi tags are god damn incredible. One of my favorite feuds ever.

[Cewsh]

Well if you want to go by Meltzer ratings, the top 5 are, in order:

vs. Sugiura and Kanemaru (****3/4)
vs. Hidaka and Fujita (****3/4)
vs. Liger and Murihama (****1/2)
vs. Morishima and Rikio (****1/2)
vs. Suzuki and Marvin (****1/2)

Though be aware, I don't think any match they teamed in got less than 4 stars.