We continue on from last week as we pick up the countdown of my Top 50 Favourite Wrestlers. I should reiterate here that this isn’t supposed to be an objective list on who I think the best wrestlers are but rather a subjective list of the wrestlers that I personally find entertaining for one reason or another.
For those of you who weren’t here last week, please check the archives to get yourself updated on the first 35 selections if you feel like doing so.
Number 15
Nigel McGuinness
The Match: Vs Bryan Danielson, ROH Unified (12th August 2006)
Nigel McGuinness’ career journey from his days in Heartland Wrestling to wrestling on national television for TNA Wrestling before health issues curtailed his in-ring career and he transitioned to being one of the best commentators in the business, is one of the more interesting ones you can find in the wrestling business. I haven’t seen a lot of Nigel’s HWA stuff and didn’t really become aware of him until he started working for ROH in the first half of the 00’s, but a lot of people have told me that Nige wasn’t the smoothest of performers in his early days. That doesn’t take away from my appreciation of his career though. In fact, I’d actually say it enhances it almost, especially as his dogged determination led to him improving and becoming legitimately one of the best wrestlers on the entire planet during his peak.
Being from merry old blighty like myself, Nigel McGuinness quickly became very popular with UK fans, because we like to see our own going over the States and showing off what they can do. My first impressions of McGuinness were that he was a smooth technician but he was missing that little extra spark and flavour to his work. That spark eventually surfaced as his ROH career developed, especially when he began feuding with Colt Cabana. Cabana was not only a fan of classic British Wrestling, and thus capable to hang on the mat with McGuiness in fun technical battles, but he also was the perfect guy to drag more of a personality out of his English foe due to his loud and bombastic character being a good contrast to Nigel’s more sly and cocky approach.
McGuinness and Cabana took part in some great technical wrestling bouts but they also engaged in more heated feud based battles as well, including the time Cabana challenged Nigel to ROH’s first (and to my knowledge last) Soccer Riot Match, which saw the two rivals go at it in a more brawl based setting. Following that feud, McGuinness would go on to claim ROH’s Pure Wrestling Title, at which point he really stamped his personality onto the division and became the highlight of some ROH shows. McGuinness’ combination of good wrestling, cocky character and ever improving microphone skills, helped shoot him up the pecking order in ROH and it wasn’t long before he was butting heads, quite literally in fact, with ROH World Champ Bryan Danielson.
McGuinness and Danielson would have one of ROH’s greatest feuds, as they faced each other numerous times in superlative matches. Perhaps the most famous of their battles saw them go at it in Nigel’s home country of England in a unification match, where the Pure and World belts would finally be unified, leading to the Pure belt falling by the wayside for many years before it was eventually reactivated. McGuinness and Danielson had yet another classic contest, with ROH going with the ultimate downer ending of having poor Nigel not only lose but get elbowed to smithereens by Danielson in the process until the referee had to stop the bout. One brutal spot that the match is well-known for is McGuinness getting pulled head first into the ring post numerous times, with each thud getting more sickening, leading to McGuinness being a bloody mess when the bout ends.
McGuinness was pretty much a babyface everywhere once the match with Danielson in England was finished, and he rode that momentum all the way to the ROH World Title when he defeated Takeshi Morishima in 2007. However, early into his reign McGuiness had to miss some matches due to injuries and the ROH fans resented him for it. This was of course very tasteless on their part, but ROH saw a way to make use of it and did so by having Nigel revert to being a Heel who was bitter of his treatment at the hands of the fans he had put his health on the line for. This was all capped off with an excellent interview segment Nigel did with Dave Prazak where he addressed a list of fan complaints one by one, such as him throwing too many Lariats, and shot each critique down in glorious fashion.
McGuinness’ run as ROH World Champ really hit into high gear following the Heel turn, as he tore the house down with a variety of opponents including the likes of Tyler Black, El Generico and (of course) Danielson. The McGuinness/Danielson rivalry worked just as well with their alignments switched, as the two continued to have fantastic chemistry with one another. McGuiness even had a fun quick little mini-feud with “Sugarfoot” Alex Payne, who McGuiness renamed “Sugartits” in hilarious fashion. McGuinness’ reign finally came to an end at the hands of Jerry Lynn and, after previous injury issues caused WWE to take a pass on him, he went to TNA where he promptly went straight into a feud with Kurt Angle.
Now named Desmond Wolfe, McGuiness made a big statement early on with some fantastic bouts with Angle, both on TV and pay per view. McGuinness brought the goods not just in the ring but on the mic as well, and he quickly became one of the highlights of the show. TNA fans even enjoyed his act so much that when they were given the choice to vote online for who should get a World Title shot they all chose McGuiness, even though the Desmond Wolfe character was clearly positioned as a Heel. Nigel ended up getting heat with TNA higher-ups because of this (because OF COURSE he did) and his eventual Title shot ended up being a quick nothing affair on TV. TNA being so reticent to push a guy that their own fans clearly loved was sadly typical nonsensical stuff from them, and Nigel began to flounder in the company after a hot start.
Nigel would have further health issues that caused him to step away from the ring for a bit and he would eventually get released from TNA. Realising that his dream to wrestle in WWE wasn’t going to happen and that his body wasn’t going to hold up working the ROH style anymore, Nigel decided to go on a retirement tour, during which he made an excellent film to document it all. Though McGuinness’ in-ring career had ended, he had a second life as a commentator, a role he still performs to this day for NXT-UK. McGuinness’ passion, personality and verbosity made him an excellent choice to sit at the commentary desk. I was really sold on McGuinness as a commentator when he lost his mind watching the WrestleMania weekend match between Davey Richards and Michael Elgin in 2012, as he took an already good match and pushed it over the top due to how excited he was getting as the action built. Sadly the behaviour and reputation of the two competitors in the match has hampered my enjoyment of it somewhat, but what can’t be denied is that Nigel is utterly superb on the call.
Nigel McGuiness really was a fantastic in-ring performer at his peak, with his mixture of technical wrestling, hard strikes and character work combining to make him an engrossing competitor to watch in the ring. On top of excellent wrestling ability, Nigel was also top notch on the microphone when he started getting comfortable in that area, and his eventual move to the commentary desk shouldn’t really have been much of a surprise. Nigel McGuinness had so much going for him and I commiserate with him that he didn’t get to live his dream of wrestling in WWE, but he can be more than proud of his body of work and he remains a presence behind the commentary desk to this day.
Number 14
Mick Foley
The Match: Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin, WWF Over The Edge (31st May 1998)
I’ll level with you all; I don’t read a lot of books. I’ve never really been a keen reader, be it reference or fiction, and the list of books I’ve read is depressingly small when you consider that I do so much writing. When I was younger it was like pulling teeth to get me to read anything, and yet despite this I read Mick Foley’s “Have A Nice Day: A Story of Blood and Sweat Socks” cover to cover more than once due to it being both exceedingly well-written on Mr. Foley’s part, and the fact I found it so interesting. I was already both a wrestling fan and a Foley fan, with his matches and skits always being something I looked forward to, but reading that book really pushed Foley over the edge from being a wrestler I liked to being one of my all-time favourites. In some ways I think that book played a part in me wanting to write about wrestling, and I actually first discovered the likes of Eddie Gilbert and Giant Baba as a result of them being mentioned in Foley’s noble tome.
In-ring Mick Foley was a brawler, an incredible bumper, and an enthralling story-teller who could make up for the lack of any particular athletic gifts by working hard and making the crowd care about the story he was telling. Indeed, with Foley his innate ability to make you care, whether it being visceral hatred or genuine love and devotion, contributed to making his in-ring career memorable. Foley not only tore it up in WCW with the likes of Sting, Vader and The Nasty Boys, but he did some of the best character work you’ll ever find in ECW when he went anti-Hardcore in the land of extreme, before reinventing himself once again when he went to the WWF to feud with The Undertaker in 1996.
Whereas Foley was never able to poke his head past the glass ceiling in WCW, whilst ECW itself had a ceiling it would reach due to the financial might of its rivals, in the WWF Foley not only confounded the odds by becoming a genuine top level star but he also won the top belt in the company three times. The fact that the combined days of Foley’s three reigns barely hit a month was inconsequential. Someone like Foley, by that stage over a decade into a career that had seen him suffer unreal punishment, wasn’t going to be a long reigning Champion like a Hogan or a Bruno, especially during the car crash that was the Attitude Era. However, the fact Foley not only reached a stage where he could conceivably win the belt, but then went on to actually do it, was almost a fairy-tale come true.
Foley’s Title win was fully justified as well. By the time December 1998 rolled around Foley was arguably the second most popular babyface the WWF, with only Steve Austin realistically being bigger in popularity (The Rock was still a Heel at the time), and fans genuinely wanted to see him get his moment, so when he did they were overjoyed and the match scored well in the television ratings. Foley was already starting to break down physically by the time he won the belt and he would step away from full-time combat in the spring of 2000, coming back occasionally to have matches from 2004 onwards until he jumped ship to TNA for a bit in 2009 and won their World Title. Foley could still turn it on in a big match setting from his 2004 return onwards, with his weapons filled brawls with the likes of Randy Orton and Edge helping to keep their respective upward momentum going, especially as Foley was more than happy to look at the lights for his younger foes in an age where other stars of his stature perhaps wouldn’t.
Truth be told, though I enjoyed some of Foley’s comeback matches and runs, when I think of Foley I usually set my memory back to his run from the 80’s up to the spring of 2000 when he had his first/second retirement (he briefly came back for Mania 2000 after retiring at No Way Out 2000). I’m not going to say that the latter runs tarnished his legacy or anything like that, because the great memories will always be there and if someone staying past the peak of their career was a reason to jettison their golden years then a list like this would probably be impossible to make. What I appreciated the most about Foley was that he had the sort of success someone who wrestled and looked like he did shouldn’t have had, which I think is a testament to his talent.
When it comes to great and memorable matches with Mick Foley there are a lot of choices. For many the match they will always think of first will be the jaw-dropping bump-a-thon Foley had with The Undertaker at King of the Ring 1998, where Foley got thrown both off and through a cage, along with getting flung onto thumbtacks for good measure. As thrillingly terrifying as that bout is, I feel it perhaps would be unfair to have it as the defining bout of Foley’s career, especially as in many ways Foley was gone following the first fall off the cage and the match kind of came down to Foley surviving to the end as best he could whilst The Undertaker performed the, sometimes underappreciated, role of masterfully holding the bout together.
Foley had many tremendous bouts over the course of a storied career that are well worth checking out, such as his Falls Count Anywhere bouts with Sting and Paul Orndorff at WCW Beach Blast 1992 and SuperBrawl III respectively. Foley had a dramatic and violent feud with Vader, which saw them tussle in the Main Event of WCW’s Halloween Havoc 1993 event amongst other meetings. Foley also formed an entertaining team with Maxx Payne in WCW and together they battled The Nasty Boys during the year of 1994 at pay per view events Spring Stampede and Slamboree in superlative crazy brawls. Foley also had a great tag match in ECW at the November to Remember 1995 show where he teamed up with Raven to take on Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer, leading to Foley infuriating the ECW audience by wearing a shirt in support of Eric Bischoff, a man the ECW crowd saw as being on par with the anti-Christ.
As far as Foley’s WWF/E output goes, there are a number of great matches with The Undertaker such as their battles at King of the Ring 1996, SummerSlam 1996, In Your House: Buried Alive and In Your House: Revenge of the Taker. Foley also had a classic bout with Shawn Michaels at In Your House: Mind Games, which was probably a clean finish away from being one of the greatest WWF matches of all-time. Foley also tore it up with Triple H on numerous occasions, with their battles at In Your House: Canadian Stampede, a Madison Square Garden episode of Raw from the autumn of 1997, Royal Rumble 2000 and No Way Out 2000 all being great matches that have stood the test of time. The Backlash 2004 match with Randy Orton is superb also, as it the WrestleMania 22 fight with Edge.
Foley also had many famous bouts with The Rock, although I’d argue that they never really had that special in-ring chemistry that Foley had with the likes of Undertaker, Triple H and Steve Austin. Royal Rumble 1999 is a very good brawl until things get very uncomfortable when Rock starts raining down chair shots on a handcuffed Foley, whilst their In Your House: St. Valentines Massacre battle is also a lot of fun. I also get a kick out of their Super Bowl half-time fight in 1999, although I can understand why some might think that match is a bit silly due to it taking place in an empty arena and featuring some wacky camera work. I personally get a big kick out it though, especially when Rock throws salsa in Foley’s face and chastises him for being a wimp when he sells it because it’s only mild!
The match I ended up going with is Foley’s gimmick filled, yet thoroughly entertaining, clash with Stone Cold Steve Austin at In Your House: Over The Edge 1998, where Austin has to battle both Foley (as Dude Love) and evil referee Vince McMahon in a match so good that countless wrestling companies have tried to copy it since (including WWE in fact). Not only does the match have exciting action, such as both men fighting on the cars in the entrance way, but it also tells a gripping story of McMahon trying every trick in the book in an effort to ensure Austin loses, only for Austin to eventually find a way to prevail. It’s one of the best matches the WWF had all year in 1998 and a great example of Foley’s abilities both as a worker and a storyteller. If you want an example of what made Foley one of my favourites of all-time, then this match is a great place to start.
Number 13
Bryan Danielson
The Match: Vs Roderick Strong, ROH Supercard (31st March 2006)
It’s almost apropos that Bryan Danielson should follow Mick Foley in this list as their success atop of the card in WWE was almost equally unlikely and equally as deserved. Both of them had non-traditional WWE looks and physiques, but they were both so talented and so popular with the crowds that eventually they got to have their moment in the sun. Danielson worked for years on the independent scene and in places like New Japan and NOAH, honing his craft until he was legitimately one of the very best in the entire industry. Danielson’s technical skills are some of the best you can find, but he is by no means a one trick pony, as he is a multi-faceted performer who can brawl and work the Sports Entertainment style just as well as he can tie people in knots on the mat.
Danielson first hit my radar during his time in ROH, as he was a big part of the early days of the promotion wrestling against the likes of Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, Paul London, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Danielson was part of the very first ROH Main Event in fact, as he took on Ki and Daniels in a fantastic triple threat match that laid down a marker for what ROH wanted to be right out of the gate and became the first of many Match of the Year candidates that Danielson would compete in. Danielson was also wrestling in New Japan at the time and would make forays over to the UK to wrestle for companies such as All Star Wrestling and the FWA. Danielson would wrestle under a mask sometimes in the UK as American Dragon, and it was on one of these occasions that he took on Doug Williams in Broxbourne for the FWA and the two had a fantastic two out of three falls technical contest for the FWA Title that aped back to the days when wrestling would appear on ITV’s World of Sport program.
Danielson would also have some good matches in New Japan, with a notable bout being when he teamed up with Curry Man (Christopher Daniels under a mask) in order to defeat Gedo and Jado in order to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles. Danielson would also visit all of the top indie promotions such as PWG, IWA Mid-South, APW, JAPW, CHIKARA and even CZW when they had a feud going on with ROH for a bit. Danielson really was The MAN on the indie scene from 2002 up until 2009 when he decided to give WWE a try, with the highlight of that period probably being his 462 day reign as ROH World Champion. Danielson really was superb in the role of ROH World Champion, as he quickly developed a cocky Heel persona and took on all comers in great match after great match.
Danielson crossed paths with all of ROH’s top guys during that World Title run, taking on the likes of Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Colt Cabana, Nigel McGuinness, Samoa Joe, Homicide and others. The match with Strong in particular at the first ever Supercard of Honour show is absolutely fantastic, as both men wrestled for nearly an hour in a gruelling hard-hitting contest that saw them push the other to their limits. Danielson wasn’t just having good matches with the heavy hitters though, as he could also defend the Title against talented guys who weren’t Main Eventers at the time such as Delirious, Rocky Romero and SUWA, and still have enjoyable matches that elevated those wrestlers. Danielson even had fun bout with Kamala (yes, THAT Kamala) for the ROH World Title on an indie show outside of ROH that I think can still be found online. There’s being on a role and there’s being on THAT kind of a role!
Danielson eventually entered WWE in 2010 after finishing up his indie dates in 2009. He debuted as part of the original series of NXT, which rather than being the development brand was more a kind of bizarre wrestling gameshow where he and other “rookies” would try to earn the votes of the viewers as well as the pro’s that were tutoring them in order to remain part of the process and become a big WWE star. Danielson started as he meant to go on by having a good wrestling match, this one being with with Chris Jericho, and he was part of some fun matches and segments on the show, even though he was given an odd losing streak gimmick. Danielson spent most of the inaugural NXT series feuding with The Miz, who was his assigned pro, with the idea being that Danielson was a better wrestler than his supposed mentor but Miz was a better WWE Sports Entertainer, thus leading to natural conflict.
Both Danielson and Miz did well in their respective roles and their storyline was one of the most intriguing aspects of that particular series. Once the series was over the NXT rookies were all put into a Heel faction together and were given a big push, but sadly for Danielson he would get fired during the initial angle where the group was formed as he choked out the ring announcer with a tie and then also spat on John Cena before kicking him. Danielson had brought a little too much Pro Wrestling to the Sports Entertainment show clearly and was booted accordingly. This actually made him a sympathetic figure to chunks of WWE’s audience though as he really didn’t deserve to get fired and after a brief stint on the indies he was brought back in time for SummerSlam 2010 where he returned as a member of Team WWE against his former NXT stablemates.
Now part of WWE again, Danielson finally got to do his feud with The Miz and the two had some solid matches, with Danielson even winning the US Title from his former mentor. Danielson would go on to tear it up with the likes of Dolph Ziggler and Ted Dibiase Jr in entertaining matches, with him quickly establishing himself as one of the best wrestlers on the roster along the way. After losing his US Title to Sheamus though Danielson kind of drifted for a bit until he unexpectedly won the Money in the Bank briefcase in 2011. Danielson was booked like most MITB winners following that, in that he was made to do a tonne of jobs because WWE thinks they can always just re-heat the case holder by having them cash in so they don’t have to worry about burying them in the meantime.
Upon cashing in the case on fellow babyface The Big Show though Danielson began a slow-burn Heel turn, where he would become increasingly more arrogant and deluded with every successful Title defence, with Danielson eventually adopting the quirk of yelling “YES” upon his victories after seeing Diego Sanchez do similar in UFC. Danielson was supremely entertaining in the role and he generally delivered in the ring as well, even managing to make Santino Marella briefly look like a credible contender at one stage before putting him away. AJ Lee as Danielson’s beleaguered girlfriend was an excellent addition to act as well, as it amplified Danielson’s disagreeableness and also gave him someone to blame when he finally got booted to heck and back by Sheamus at WrestleMania 28.
Danielson lost that Mania match in a mere 18 seconds, which had the unexpected effect of getting him even more over as fans felt cheated that his reign had ended in such a manner, thus leading to more and more “YES” chants from the crowd. It got to the point that WWE tried to actively fight against it by having Danielson start yelling “NO” at the fans instead, but by that stage the YES chant was over and it wasn’t going anywhere, with Danielson eventually embracing it again and riding the momentum from it all the way to the Main Event scene following a humorous odd-couple pairing with Kane that saw the two wrestlers claim the Tag Titles and feud with The Shield, a feud which included a wild TLC match in December 2012.
WWE fought against their fans constantly when it came to Danielson, with them refusing to let him be the top guy due to his size and wrestling style, even though the fans were desperate to see Danielson atop the mountain and would regularly give him superstar reactions. WWE would finally relent and allow Danielson to win the top belt at WrestleMania XXX, with Danielson first defeating Triple H in an all-time classic in the opener before coming out later to defeat both Randy Orton and Batista in another great match. Sadly Danielson wouldn’t get to have a long reign with the belt as he soon had to forfeit it due to injury, and when he returned in 2015 and won the Intercontinental Title he suffered yet another injury and it looked like this time his career would be over.
However, Danielson kept fighting to get medically cleared and finally WWE relented in 2018 by allowing him to return to the ring, leading to Danielson winning another World Title by defeating AJ Styles, leading to another well-executed Heel character from Danielson where he played an overbearing environmentalist who just happened to also be WWE Champion, with the ultimate Heel heat move being for Danielson to create his own environmentally friendly belt to wear to the ring. This all led to Danielson playing a key role in Kofi Kingston’s path to the Title, in a quest that mirrored Danielson’s own except this time it was Danielson who was trying to prevent the popular and under pushed worker from achieving his dream. Danielson would eventually end up dropping the belt to Kingston at WrestleMania 35 in a fantastic match and moment, which almost felt like Danielson himself had come full circle as now he got to bestow a moment he had enjoyed five years earlier to someone else who was deserving of one.
Following the end of his WWE run in 2021, Danielson decided he would like to move on and challenge himself elsewhere, thus leading to him making the jump to All Elite Wrestling where he quickly hit the ground running by having great matches with the likes of Kenny Omega and Hangman Page. Danielson remains one of the very best in the business, with an ability to bring both excitement and legitimacy to his matches in a way few can. Danielson remains one of the most popular and celebrated wrestlers in the industry and I personally always look forward to his matches. Whether it was in ROH, New Japan, FWA, WWE or now in AEW, Bryan Danielson is someone you can rely on to bring the goods both inside and outside of the ring.
Number 12
Hangman Page
The Match: Vs Kenny Omega, AEW Full Gear (13th November 2021)
Sometimes when you get really invested in a show/sports team/franchise one member of the roster/cast becomes “your” guy, in that they are the person you always hope will succeed and you will back them vociferously. For years I backed Dominic Calvert-Lewin, even though many of my fellow Evertonians had written him off, because he became my guy, and I was so happy when he eventually started slotting goals for fun when Carlo Ancelotti came in. In wrestling there is no doubt that my guy in recent years has been Hangman Page in AEW, with his path to the AEW World Title being one of the most engrossing and nail-biting quests I can remember in recent memory. I think what has Hangman so high on this list is that he managed to make me engaged in a wrestler and a storyline in a way I hadn’t been invested for years. Every week I’d be willing Hangman to go that one step closer to the World Title. I was invested, and I so rarely get truly invested anymore because I’m older, more cynical and have just been burned by this business so many times that the level of pure enthusiasm I used to be able to feel has long since died out.
Hangman Page managed to restore that spark for me though, and I’d like to think he did it for others as well. Some of the crowd reactions Hangman was getting at the peak of that run were incredible, enough to sometimes make me feel chills. It was great that the Hangman character had to go on a journey as well. When AEW first started the company was clearly positioning Hangman as one of the top guys and a World Title contender, but it wasn’t really working with the majority of fans. Thus Hangman dropped out of the World Title picture and became an angst-ridden “Millennial Cowboy” who drowned his sorrows and struggled to come to terms with his failures. Along the way his friendships with The Elite crumbled and his successful tag team with Kenny Omega dropped their AEW Tag Titles after FTR played Hangman like a fiddle.
At rock bottom, Hangman pulled himself back up, forming an unlikely friendship with The Dark Order and getting progressively more over with every step he took towards the Title, where he would eventually have to do battle with the now Heel turned Omega. It was excellent storytelling and AEW were smart to let it breathe so that fans organically began to call for a Hangman challenge. It was completely different from how Hangman was presented at the company’s inception, and yet the end result of Hangman being a top babyface star in the company was achieved. It helped that Hangman was delivering in the ring. I know some on this Blog aren’t especially big fans of Hangman’s work, but I’ve enjoyed his stuff ever since I started seeing him pop up in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Hangman gets the mix right between modern and old school wrestling, with high-flying and technical wrestling mixed in with brawling and storytelling, which all combines to make him a balanced and solid worker. Hangman can also cut loose and nail a promo, and he does a fantastic job of being both cool but also fallibility. That is what I think makes Hangman such an engaging character. He does have weaknesses and doubt, but he’s also a cowboy who can bleed, kick butt and ride a horse. What Hangman Page is above all else is a fully three dimensional character. You can believe that he exists, you probably know people like him in some way. He comes across as both a star and a real person at the same time, which is a really difficult mixture to achieve but he’s talented enough to pull it off.
For the match here I’ve gone with Hangman’s final step to the World Title at Full Gear 2021, where AEW finally heeded my advice and BELTED THE HANGMAN! It’s a fantastic match that not only has great wrestling but also tells an engaging story throughout, with Hangman finally doing what he has been trying to do for years. Hangman’s quest for the Title is genuinely one of my favourite storyline arcs in recent memory, be it in wrestling or anywhere else. Hangman is still young as well and could have many more years ahead of him at the top level. If so, I look forward to more great matches and segments from The Hanger. He really is my guy, and I’m guessing he might be some of yours’ as well.
Number 11
Hiroshi Tanahashi
The Match: Vs Minoru Suzuki, NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling (8th October 2012)
Even in his Young Lion days Hiroshi Tanahashi looked like he had real potential to succeed in Pro Wrestling, although most probably didn’t predict that he would go on to be The Ace and saviour of New Japan Pro Wrestling. However, when New Japan sunk into its darkest days and things were looking bleak, Tanahashi remained one positive constant throughout. Whether it was his team and then feud with Shinsuke Nakamura, his wars with Yuji Nagata, his inter-generational rivalry with Satoshi Kojima, or his long-term rivalry and eventual alliance with Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi’s name is indelibly printed on the very soul of today’s New Japan.
Truth be told, if you put me on the spot and asked me to try and make an objective list of the best wrestlers ever, I’d argue strenuously to have Tanahashi near the top. Not only does he have superstar looks, but he also has incredible charisma and is a fantastic worker to boot. Obviously his best days are now behind him after over two decades of having his body thrashed in one of the most physical promotions in all the world, but he can still go out there and work a fun match to this day, even if his days of constantly busting out classic contests might be behind him. What has always made Tanahashi so entertaining to me personally is not just his smooth offence and genuine star aura, but also his ability as an in-ring storyteller.
Through the use of selling, psychology and timing of comebacks, Tanahashi has been able to have some truly great matches, even after the end of his physical peak. It really is remarkable when you consider how long Tanahashi has been wrestling that he’s still capable of tearing it up in the right situation, although we will likely see less and less of that as the years roll on. You need only see how hard it is for Tanahashi just to walk down to the ring sometimes that he’s clearly beat-up and hurting. In some ways it’s sad that someone who did so much to carry the torch for New Japan in the 00’s and 10’s is still having to go out there and wreck his body so often, but he wouldn’t be the first wrestler that this has happened to, especially in Japan. If you want to be glass-half-full about it you could focus on just how darn impressive it is that he can even do it anymore, especially as some guys who worked far less intensive schedules with easier wrestling styles had nowhere near the same type of longevity at the highest level.
Tanahashi had some sizable pressure lumped on his shoulders early on when he, Nakamura and Katsuyori Shibata were compared to the famous “Three Musketeers” of Keiji Muto, Masahiro Chono and Shinya Hashimoto, especially as it signified that all three were expected to carry the torch for the company into the future. As it turned out, all three ended up becoming great wrestlers in their own right, but the idea of them being the three stars to anchor New Japan as it ventured to greatness never really came to pass, with Shibata leaving in the mid-00’s to work freelance before returning whilst Nakamura left for WWE in the 10’s. Tanahashi remained a constant though, which was almost ironic when one considers that he regularly found himself on the losing end when battling the two in the early years.
What first really started getting Tanahashi some sustained traction in the singles ranks was when he won the IWGP U-30 Title, which was a belt that only wrestlers under the age of 30 could challenge for, with the idea being that it would help elevate the younger wrestlers. Tanahashi did an excellent job as Champion, defending the belt against the likes of Toru Yano, Bryan Danielson, Hirooki Goto and even Naomichi Marufuji at one stage. Tanahashi regularly delivered good matches and the belt began to establish him as a credible star and future Champion, with him even getting to work some gimmick matches during the reign such as when he took on Kazunari Murakami in a bloody cage match. It was as U-30 Champion that Tanahashi first Main Evented the Tokyo Dome in a singles bout, as he lost the belt to Shinsuka Nakamura in an excellent encounter. Sadly Nakamura then immediately vacated the belt and pretty much killed it’s prestige in the process. Tanahashi won the belt for a second time in a tournament, but he now felt like a lame duck and the belt itself was discontinued during Tanahashi’s second reign.
However, the U-30 belt had achieved its aim of showing that Tanahashi could have good matches with a variety of opponents and was a viable choice as a singles Champion, and in 2006 Tanahashi would get his chance at wearing the top belt when Brock Lesnar decided to skip town (he does that sometimes) and the belt was put up for grabs in a tournament. Tanahashi’s victory placed the company onto his shoulders and he shined, having great matches with everyone and batting for the belt with the likes of Yuji Nagata and Satoshi Kojima. Tanahashi was given an interesting arc throughout 2008/09, as he lost the Title to Nakamura in yet another great Tokyo Dome Main Event and then had to get himself back into contention.
By the time Tanahashi had done this the following year, it was the legendary Keiji Muto waiting for him after Muto had defeated Nakamura. Tanahashi had grown up idolising Muto, so to face him in a Tokyo Dome Main Event was a big deal for him and the resulting match remains one of my favourite bouts of all-time, as Tanahashi proved his mettle by defeating the legend and reclaiming his IWGP Title. This particular match and moment more than anything else crystallised him as The Guy to me, and I was pretty much a fan for life from that point on. Through every trial and tribulation that Tanahashi faced I was in his corner, and the match quality just continued to get better when he took on the likes of Okada, Minoru Suzuki and AJ Styles.
I went with Tanahashi’s battle with Suzuki from 2012 as the match choice here, but there might possibly be hundreds of classic Tanahashi matches that are worth going out of your way to track down. The reason I selected this match is because it not only features excellent wrestling but it also tells a great story, as Tanahashi takes on the grizzled former MMA fighter and proves that he isn’t just a pretty boy Pro Wrestler but an actual tough competitor. The derision and disgust with which Suzuki treats Tanahashi in this one is fantastic, as he dishes out punishment with unfettered glee, whilst Tanahashi shows tremendous defiance and a hardened edge to fight back and ultimately put the vicious veteran on the back foot. It’s a marvellous bout that once again highlights Tanahashi’s versatility, something that made him one of the best in history.
This is another wrestler where I could spend paragraph after paragraph talking about his famous feuds and great matches, because quite frankly I think Hiroshi Tanahashi is one of the best to ever do this. I know some will disagree (likely the “if it happens in Japan then it doesn’t could” brigade that have been spending the past 30 years ruining wrestling discourse online) but at the end of the day this isn’t supposed to be an objective list, even though I personally think Tanahashi could make such a list if I or someone else ever tried to make one. Hiroshi Tanahashi played a big part in getting me back into New Japan when I’d been almost exclusively a NOAH guy for a long time and I’ve gone on to become a huge fan of his work. The phrase “Total Package” was used to describe a certain American wrestler, but to me Tanahashi embodies that phrase better than most. He can wrestle, he looks great, he’s drawn money and he has buckets of charisma. He’s The Ace!