GWE 2026 Legwork: MS-1

The 2026 Greatest Wrestler Ever project is a mere five months away, so the true supernerds among us are already thinking about our top 100 list. There are a handful of people I either want to deep dive before ballots are due, or revisit for the first time in a while as a refresher. MS-1 is one of those people. He's a guy who barely missed out on my list in 2016 despite being involved in one of the five greatest matches there's ever been (the Chicana match, obviously), then when I went back and rejigged my list in 2021 I felt like a fool for leaving him off. Now it's a case of seeing how high I can put him rather than whether he'll be there or not. 

Los Infernales v Atlantis, Lizmark & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. (CMLL, 5/15/92)

What a tremendous Infernales show. They were rocking the SWANK purple tights so you knew this was going to be special and sure enough their rudo mugging in the primera caida was an absolute clinic in such things. They didn't mess about for a second and one of the referees almost got caught in the crossfire, squashed as he was between Rayo and the turnbuckles while our boy MS-1 tried to choke the life from him. MS-1 has an awesome choke, getting extra nasty with it by simultaneously driving his knee dangerously low while Rayo is prone in the corner. I'm not sure if it was MS-1 or Satanico who started this, but one of them decided to pull Rayo's fingers apart and ram his hand repeatedly into the top rope. It looked nasty as fuck and whoever did it first is irrelevant because they both did it and reveled in Rayo's misery. The Infernale triple teams to close out the fall were all top drawer and even the celebrations were perfect, Satanico atop Pirata Morgan's shoulders as the latter pins Atlantis, MS-1 flexing the biceps as the ref' counts three. MS-1's top rope splash was a thing of beauty too. It's been a minute since I've watched an Infernales trios match and man was the Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan version of that team sensational. I initially thought the tecnico comeback to start the segunda was a wee bit abrupt, mostly because I was hoping that the rudos would drag it out a bit longer so the eventual comeuppance would land even sweeter. But honestly you forget about that pretty much immediately as this was a great tecnico comeback and the crowd were scorching for all of it. They ran through a thousand sequences and the Infernales were every bit as amazing getting run ragged in this fall as they were running the tecnicos ragged in the previous one. Pirata Morgan took about four ludicrous bumps and got himself hip tossed fifty feet out the ring to the floor. MS-1 flies across the ring with a picture perfect monkey flip bump then frantically points to his winky as if he was fouled. The decisions come in quick succession to end the fall and Atlantis' moonsault/cradle cherry on top was gorgeous. The Infernales weren't about to let the tercera get away from them in the same way and I love how they immediately tried to rip the mask off of Rayo, almost succeeding if not for a stern referee intervention. Rayo getting his revenge by scoring the fall at the end is just good pro wrestling, as your granny would say. Pirata Morgan selling his eye socked after Atlantis kneedrops him in the forehead is also good pro wrestling and why he will be top 40 come voting. 

Hashimoto v Fujiwara!

Shinya Hashimoto v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (New Japan, 6/1/94)

This was Fujiwara, four or five years past his prime, challenging for the IWGP title for the first and only time in his career. In contrast, Hashimoto was bang in the middle of his own prime and a thresher if there ever was one, so Fujiwara had to use all of his considerable guile and aggression, his limitless smarts and dig deep into his bag of tricks. He even had a bum leg, judging by the brace on it. In that situation it makes sense to go for your main weapon as early as possible and if Hashimoto thought he was in a fight with a guy past his sell-by date he probably reconsidered as soon as Fujiwara grabbed the armbar. When Hashimoto opted to kick Fujiwara in the lungs rather than give him a clean break a minute later, you knew the old master had gotten under his skin. The crowd got on Hashimoto's case after that and it's sort of amazing how Fujiwara managed to be a sympathetic figure while simultaneously choking Hashimoto with both hands around his throat. The pacing of this was such that every moment felt big, and these are guys who know how to milk every exchange, every glance, every gesture. When Hashimoto wraps Fujiwara's bandaged up knee around the rope and yanks at it - to another chorus of boos - Fujiwara rasps in clear pain while Hashimoto points to his own shoulder like "we can both be pricks if you want to play it that way." Nobody eats a barrage of roundhouse kicks like Fujiwara and nobody throws a barrage of roundhouse kicks like Hashimoto so the latter trying to kick the former in the lungs was amazing, Fujiwara trying and more or less failing to catch those shots, the majority of them getting through what used to be a world class defence. Although in fairness, maybe not even Maeda could swing like Hashimoto. He sure couldn't drop someone with a DDT like Hashimoto and that first one was absolutely putrid. Fujiwara half kicking out of the second was instinctual but for all intents and purposes he was dead in the water. I guess the ref' agreed.