All Stars Decline

[darthvaderlim]

As competitors decline due to age and lack of stamina combined with the course being difficult, the All-Stars are not exempt to this. Which All-Stars do you think had the worst career decline?

[zoran]

Easily would be Yamada, went from the dominant/best competitor of 1-10 to likely having the record for most consecutive stage 1 fails. I'd say 19 was probably the biggest show of his career decline, while he didn't do too well in 14-18, his fails could be explained as bad luck and in 18's case relatively pretty good, in 19 while the Jumping Spider was brutally hard, almost timing out on the 4th obstacle on a 100+ second time limit is joke competitor tier.

[dakohosu]

This is going to be a fairly hot take but I'd say pretty much all of their declines, bar maybe Shingo depending on how you look at it, were pretty sudden.

Akiyama - goes from a Kanzen to five consecutive Stage 1 fails including his infamous Godantobi one in 9, then further early fails after a brief bounceback in 11 and 12. I wouldn't say this was a sudden decline in his skill or potential, merely the course renewal after his win targeted weaknesses that weren't exposed during the original era, such as stamina in the lower body and trampoline obstacles. But after Nagano's win it was very evident that he was a fraction of what he was previously in terms of fitness and speed, often either going too slow throughout the course or being stopped by the wall.

Nagano - almost wins for a second time in 23; has a faux pas in 24 on Stage 1 but then experiences another 2 Stage 1 fails. So a near-Kanzen straight into his first ever back-to-back set of Stage 1 fails since his debut and the first three-in-a-row in his career. Has a brief bounceback in 27, possibly due to the easier Stage 1, and then experiences further decline from the start of the Inui era, especially when it came to stamina-based obstacles like the wall as he was over 40 by this point and his interest was clearly waning so he wasn't training as much. He even said around 31-32 time that his upper body was still as good as ever but his legs and general fitness were just shot. 

Yamada - zoran explained this above; one thing I would add is that post-19 seemed to be the point at which Yamada entered his somewhat inescapable pattern of either 1) going fast and making an early mistake or gassing himself out too much and failing the wall, or 2) going too slow, making fewer mistakes, but not being able to clear in time, and still likely failing the wall. Compare this to his prime where, while he was never the fastest competitor, he still displayed the athletic prowess to go through the course at a fast enough speed without making fatal errors, like he did in, say, 15, 20, or 22. 

Takeda - was one of the most resilient of the group in the Shin-Sasuke era. He wasn't as consistent as in the Golden Era but the course was much harder, yet he still had three deep Stage 3 runs to show for himself. Then takes a two-tournament hiatus, and despite his previous track record, delivers some of his worst ever performances upon his return, with a 1.2-1.3-2.2-1.1 from 28-31. Sure, he had a couple of Stage 2 runs after then, but the stark difference between pre- and post-hiatus is pretty significant. From 13 Stage 3s in 21 tournaments, to 3 Salmon Ladder fails and the remaining being mostly underwhelming Stage 1 fails in his last 10 tournaments. It's a shame though because we did see an almost unprecedented return to form in 38, and then you know the rest.....

Bunpei - I'd class this one as more sudden from a general fitness perspective than performance. During the Golden Era he was the firm Number 2 behind Nagano and showed no signs of slowing down or ageing. Even his 18 fail you could chalk down to a freak accident. Then 19 comes around and while the course was far more difficult, you could tell he was getting exhausted considerably quicker than normally, he takes 20 off due to injuries, then returns in 21 and while he clears also looked absolutely spent and obviously had his unexpected faux pas on Stage 2. Then sustains more injuries and retires. Pretty rapid decline from someone as consistent and athletic as he was to being riddled by injuries and suffering from poor stamina.

Shingo - this one is probably the hardest to define because his Stage 3 potential declined fairly gradually over the course of the late Golden Era; then he obviously has his five consecutive Stage 1 fails but regains some consistency in the next few tournaments, clearing four times from 23-30. His position as a top competitor probably ended after 17 given that he went from consistently reaching Stage 3 to mostly Stage 1/2 fails, but I'd say his biggest decline was after 30, with 9 consecutive Stage 1 fails. Unlike a lot of the others his athleticism is still there, but the mental choking seems to have taken a front seat in the last decade. That said, his recent clear in 40 shows that he's still got it. The difference is definitely less stark comparing pre- and post-Monster 9 than Takeda, because he has at least had a few fairly deep Stage 2 runs, compared to Takeda who's hard limit seemed to be the Salmon Ladder. Not to mention that I'm still impressed to this day that he beat the Roulette Cylinder and Doorknob Grasper on USA vs Japan at 40 years old.

[subtleagent]

I'd probably go with Bunpei, he just straight up fell off a cliff after 16-17 and just never really bounced back. Every other All-Star including Yamada had a brief stint of improvement before their cemented declines. Bunpei had 11-17, but that's it. Mind you he was a beast in the golden era, but after that despite an admittedly impressive Stage 1 clear in 21 he fell off. Even his "comeback" in 30 hurt to watch.