Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY LIST

1. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
2. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
3. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
4. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
5. Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14
6. John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
7. Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
8. Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
9. Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
10. BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
11 Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
12. Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
13. Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16

8. Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13

This is a match where coming in I didn't like either guy. I am not sure going out I like either guy much more, but this was a pretty good match nonetheless. I really liked all of the legwork, the dragon screw over the top rope to the floor is a very cool looking big move, and I dug all of the different dragon screw variations Tanahashi had. Nagata also did a good job of selling here, and he kept a lid on the over the top facial expressions which always take me out of Nagata matches. Still outside of the legwork Tanahashi has some of the shittiest looking offense in wrestling. There is a point where he does a very cool legsweep counter to a Nagata high kick, and follows it up with an elbowdrop and senton combination that was so dainty it would make 2002 M Dogg 20 scoff. His big run of suplexes at the end of the match looked Momoe Nakanishi level bad, and I have no idea what the fuck the Slingblade is supposed to be. So this match was really hurt by the dramatic nearfalls all coming off such crappy looking stuff. Still Nagata looked as good as I have seen him in years and it was a dramatic exciting main event match.

11. Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio

This didn't have the deep story that your real high end NOAH tags have, but for big guys pounding on each other it was pretty class. They really did a lot of matching up, with Yone and Akiyama really pairing off, and the double Takeshis really going after each other. I always enjoy fat guys slapping each other and these were a pair of fat guys throwing slaps. Yone and Akiyama came off their awesome 4 minute match on the last big NOAH show by going after each other here. There were a couple of off parts, the big running spot in the crowd took to long to set up and didn't come off good, and there was a section where Rikio and Yone were brawling on the floor where both guys looked completely lost. Your big run was pretty great with the highlight being Rikio countering the doomsday device spinkick by crushing Morishima with a short arm lariat.