Dave Meltzer’s Mercedes Moné Take Erases the Joshi God He Built
Dave Meltzer dropping a "Greatest of All Time" label on Mercedes Moné is vintage engagement bait, but the funniest part about the whole thing is that it completely exposes his own blind spot.
The man who spent decades proselytizing about the divinity of 1990s All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling somehow managed to look past the literal Mount Rushmore of the genre—and specifically, the undisputed ghost that haunts every single conversation about in-ring supremacy: Manami Toyota.
If there is anyone in wrestling history whose brain is hardwired to worship the altar of Joshi greatness, it’s Dave.
Meltzer spent the better part of thirty years treating AJW’s golden era like sacred scripture, awarding five-star ratings like they were communion wafers to women who were taking suplexes off the top rope through tables before most modern rosters even hit puberty.
So for him to turn around and crown Mercedes as the GOAT is peak irony.
You’re telling me the guy who watched Manami Toyota run through a gauntlet of death-defying, ***** classics against Aja Kong, Akira Hokuto, and Kyoko Inoue—wrestlers who were literally shortening their lifespans for Tokyo Dome crowds—suddenly developed collective amnesia?
It’s a hilarious weapon to use against him, because you can just throw his own historical database right back in his face.
If Meltzer-math dictates that workrate, match quality, and historical ceiling in Japan are the ultimate baseline for greatness, Toyota literally set a standard that no one—Mercedes included—has ever actually touched.
Toyota was out there having ***** matches on back-to-back nights while selling injuries that would put a modern athlete on the shelf for six months.
That’s why his take is such a masterclass in trolling. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
He gets to throw a modern American-television star into the fire to watch the internet burn itself to the ground, all while casually pretending the AJW tape library he built his entire analytical reputation on doesn't even exist.
Absolute genius level behavior—drop the bait, let everyone else fight over the scraps, and sit back laughing.
