Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY List

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29
2. Nigel McGuinness v. Bryan Danielson ROH 6/23
3. Nigel McGuinness v. Samoa Joe ROH 3/3
4. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
5. Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero IWA-MS 9/29
6. Bryan Danielson v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 8/25
7. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14
8. Chris Harris v. James Storm TNA 5/13
9. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/4
10. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16
11. Matt Hardy v. Finlay WWE 6/19
12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21
13. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23
14. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/31
15. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
16. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
17. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
18. Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima v. KENTA/Nigel McGuiness ROH 5/12
19. John Cena v. Great Khali 5/20
20. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Bison Smith NOAH 6/3
21. John Cena v. King Booker v. Bobby Lashley v. Mick Foley v. Randy Orton WWE 6/24
22. Necro Butcher v. Jay Briscoe ROH 10/5
23. Briscoes v. Murder City Machine Guns ROH 4/28
24. Finlay v. Undertaker WWE 3/6
25. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14

Previously on the list

Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16
Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24
Nigel McGuiness v. Jimmy Rave ROH 3/4
Matt Sydal v. The Man Gravity Forgot PAC ROH 3/4
Matt Hardy v. Ken Kennedy WWE 3/13
Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14
Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17
Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
Chris Benoit v. MVP 4/10
Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14
Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takuma Sano NOAH 4/28
John Cena v. Great Khali v. Umaga WWE 6/4

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29

No arguing with Nigel anymore, in 2007 he had four of my top ten matches, with four different opponents. This match is sitting at the top spot. Aries is a hell of an athlete, and put in a match with good pace, can be spectacular. Here he was amazing, taking enormous bumps, moving with tremendous speed, and hitting with real impact. This was Nigel's show though, as he has become really good at working a big main event style match. One of the things Nigel does during his big matches, is little restarts. Here Aries hits him with a tope to the back driving his head into the guardrail, and Nigel spend the next couple of minutes backpedaling avoiding Aries offense, it is a set of very cool counters and nice slowing down on a show which is all moving forward. Finish run is pretty great too, as there are just the right number of two counts, and it never gets into ROH overkill territory even with the huge moves. Just great wrestling.

12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21

This is about as good a garbage wrestling match as I have seen in a while. They built the match around 5 or 6 crazy spots, and they were all nuts and executed nicely. Pondo going headfirst into the garbage can of lightbulb tubes was especially crazy, as was Necro getting DVD through a table on the floor. There are two major flaws in most death matches, one flaw is that the in between stuff often looks bad, you sometimes get the sense that they are moving from spot to spot and everything else is just killing time, and the other problem is finish overkill, where the final spot doesn’t seem final, like the match could have ended at any point. This match avoided both of those, the regular brawling here was darn good (which is one of the reasons Necro is a class above other people working this style) and the crazy Mark Briscoe U-Haul dive felt like a finish to a match.