Mitsuo Momota

[7.0] "Grossly underrated, partly because people haven't seen enough of his '80s singles work, and partly because po-faced types hate his later comedy work. He's a great mat guy, has this fantastic hangdog look which (combined with his ancestry) really builds babyface heat for him when working from underneath, has real ring presence, and can do some surprisingly explosive flying moves well into his 40s. In the '80s and early '90s, seek out especially his matches vs Fuchi and Malenko, but also any rookie matches you can get - the fancam matches against Kikuchi, or the TV bout vs Kakihara. For later serious work, the match against Liger is the centrepiece. Watch more or less any AJPW six-man with him with an open mind and see what you think. He has a good TV singles match vs Eigen in NOAH, which has some very nice spots and is also funny, and he has a semi-comedy/semi-serious match against SUWA too which works really, really well."

[7.0] "Momota definitely doesn't deserve to be THIS low down. While yes, he was a major disappointment in the eyes of the general audience given his roots to wrestling loyalty, and he was never really a sensational wrestler in his prime (from what little actually remains of it) what Momota becomes is instead a very well-loved vet who mostly focused on comedy low-card bouts, mastering the format while occasionally being allowed to let his hair down. Don't let his age fool you, the guy has some AMAZING matches for his age, and the dude can most definitely go alongside someone who can pull their weight: just watch some of his solo outings for examples of that. He was never great in the ring, but he made his fairly limited work go miles. Check out his work against Liger, SUWA, his NOAH Jr tag title shot, as well as numerous instances of him playing surprisingly good bit parts in tags. Even as old as he is now, there's some surprisingly good matches alongside random as shit outings for the likes of FREEDOMS and whatnot. Go beyond the comedy stuff and you find a remarkably good worker who managed to get around the fact that he was never going to be as big as his father, as well as generally not having the athleticism to be a big star and turned it into a long, successful career with plenty of highlights under his belt."

[7.0] "yeah he could never outshine or be more famous than his father but there is no way he is that awful yeah he has wrestled sporadically in the few years but i never saw him as a bad wrestler even when he was in his prime in the late 70's and 80's."

[5.0] "Momota is probably an example of how your family name is a double edged sword in pro wrestling. Either you surpass your father and become just as, if not, more well known than him. Or you aren't as good and get stuck. As the son of the legendary Rikidozan, the man who effectively was responsible for the popularity of wrestling in Japan, Momota didn't ever surpass him, and it would have been too steep a mountain to begin with. However, this doesn't take away from the fact that Momota is actually a good wrestler, even into middle age. He doesn't have the style, the flair or the physicality to make it as a top performer, but he still has some great technical wrestling matches under his belt. His match against Jushin Thunder Lyger for the GHC title is well worth a look, as it not only showed off Momota's skill, but demonstrated how good Lyger is/was at elevating seemingly anybody he gets in the ring with."