Eric's Working 2009 MOTY List!!

Eric's 2009 MOTY List!!

Yeah, my list is paltry and I have awful taste in wrestling, but give it some time. Heck, in a couple weeks it might have EIGHT matches! I mean, it's already quintupled in size since the last list, so get on the bus!

1. Mitsuharu Misawa/Takashi Suguira vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Hirooki Goto (NJPW, 1/4/09)
2. Averno/Ephesto/Mephisto vs. Volador Jr./Mistico/La Sombra (CMLL, 1/9/09)
3. Osamu Nishimura/Masa Fuchi vs. Minoru Suzuki/NOSAWA (AJPW, 1/3/09)
4. Undertaker vs. Shelton Benjamin (WWE Smackdown, 1/9/09)
5. Necro Butcher vs. Bill the Butcher (IWA-MS, 1/3/09)


1. Mitsuharu Misawa/Takashi Suguira vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Hirooki Goto (NJPW, 1/4/09)

A lot has already been written about this match, so I won't bore you with the gory details, but this is some must-see viewing right here, as it may be the last great Misawa match. Despite Meltzer writing that they had to load up the match with "good" workers to carry the match for Misawa (you see, because he's fatter/slower/older than he used to be, he's no good by this point), nobody could actually believe that's true, right? This match is the Misawa show right here, just obliterating guys with elbows and working maybe the best facials in all of wrestling. Goto looked kinda lousy to start, but even he picked it up and had some fun exchanges with Suguira. This built really nicely and the heat was pretty huge by the end.

2. Averno/Ephesto/Mephisto vs. Volador Jr./Mistico/La Sombra (CMLL, 1/9/09)

Guys like Mistico don't really get talked up much on this site. Phil actually hits me whenever I talk about Mistico. Not hard, but like, hard enough. We live across the country from each other, but he tallies them up, then whenever he makes his way out west, hits me in the arm for each mention. This is me being the brave abused housewife on Segunda Caida, boldly standing up for what I believe in the face of more physical abuse. Some day it may be a made for TV movie titled "A Cry for Help: The Eric Ritz Story" or "Shattered Dreams" or "Lies of the Heart" or "Men Don't Tell", and Phil might be played by Treat Williams.

This was a really fun match, with all the tecnicos hitting some spectacular spots, and Los Hijos del Averno making them look like the smoothest babyfaces in the world. Volador looks really great in this and hits some big spots, and Mistico gets his standard gigantic height on backdrops and offense. This was Mistico's big Arena Mexico return from Japan and the crowd is super hot for him.

But it's the rudos that make this, and each one of them looks like a star. Averno might be one of the more under-appreciated guys in wrestling as he has looked awesome in everything I've seen of his this year. His base work is incredible, as he makes catching Mistico and Volador look too damn easy, and both of those guys always fly at him from crazy heights. Averno looked like a giant star in the NJPW 1/4/09 6 man, taking something like three of four crazy Mistico spots from the ring onto the rampway. Here he looks just as great. Ephesto is always a good hand, also underappreciated, and Mephisto -- who usually looks like the easy 3rd runner up in trios -- hangs with everybody here and at times stands out huge. It's really hard to pick a favorite in this match.

4. Undertaker vs. Shelton Benjamin (WWE Smackdown, 1/9/09)

What the hell happened here? Shelton Benjamin has been firmly rooted in my "Guys I Don't Need to Watch" list for the last few years, and then *BOOM* he goes and looks THIS good in a match. Suddenly he had great punches and his leg work was really cool and I was like "Fuck, am I going to have to start watching a bunch of Shelton Benjamin matches now? Great." Thankfully, Shelton only had one other good match this year (against the Undertaker), so he took it easy on me. He really worked the speed vs. power angle well, rattling off a few punches while dodging Taker's big shots. Taker sold the leg well, even his little tea for two soft shoe sell on the outside was amusing. Taker is really good at selling now, which is strikingly different than a few years ago (I remember an amusing spot where he sold his leg by kicking it with his other leg, as if his leg had fallen asleep), now due to his injuries and improved selling he looks way more legit when he hobbles into offense. My friend Sean pointed out that guys seem to step it up when they're in the ring with Undertaker, the same way guys tighten up when they work with Finlay, and it's true. Is that the reason for Shelton's one match coming out party? Did the newest SmackDown vs. Raw game focus on having good punches, and Benjamin subconsciously absorb it or something? I am baffled by what I saw here, but in a good way.

5. Necro Butcher vs. Bill the Butcher (IWA-MS, 1/3/09)

The battle of the butchers! This was just about exactly what I was hoping for: Two guys with wild hair and bad bodies punching each other in the face. Both arms swinging, no defense, just swinging. I really like punch exchanges where half the punches don't land, not these picture perfect your punch-my punch kinda exchanges. Necro gets the early lead from face punching, but Bill comes back, misses what would have been the nastiest Wanderlei punt ever, throws some nasty headbutts, but in the end Necro is still too much. I really love missed strikes. Punches, kicks, clotheslines. You can really separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to how great a guy misses a strike. Some guys really aim for the fences with their missed strikes, which look awesome. Finlay aiming for throat and forcing the guy to duck as opposed to Edge throwing a missed clothesline like he's throwing a fastball with a high arm slot. Butcher's kick would've sent the tip of Necro's nose to his far cheek, and was just one of the reasons this short but explosive match worked well.

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BattlArts 7/26/09

BISON TAGAI v. Super Tiger II

PAS: Tagai is pretty terrible, and Tiger is very hit and miss. There is two or three kind of cool things in this match. I liked how TAGAI tauntingly went for a Tiger suplex and got met with a nasty mule kick, but still this was four minutes and it didn’t feel like he had four minutes in him.

TKG: TAGAI just kicks the shit out of Tiger’s shin early in the match, and Tiger hits a nice mule kick but lots of this was just sloppy. Huge parts were entertaining stiff trainwreck sloppy. Unfortunately those parts were broken up with really dull standing sloppy punch exchanges. And then there were Super Tiger’s embarrassing senton-leg drops. This was the worst Super Tiger II has looked,

Keita Yano v. Ryuji Walter

TKG: I didn’t expect Walters to sell this much. But Yano exposes Walters’ ankle and Walters spends whole match struggling with it. Walters beats the fuck out of Yano and I think as a result Yano is forced to throw better than usual uppercuts. Either Yano does a spectacular job selling guy knocked the fuck out or Walters legit knocked him into laying fetal and instinctively cupping what was left of his own manhood.

PAS: This match may have redeemed Yano a bit for me. I was just hoping for Walters to beat him hideously, and we certainly got that, but there was more to the match. Yano cut down on his fake PWG offense and focused on working over Walters leg, including some pretty good looking submissions. When it was Walters turn to fire back, he fucking fired back throwing some jaw jackers, Yano looked like Jermain Taylor at the finish.

Katsumi Usuda v. Yujiro Yamamoto

PAS: Really great match. Really had sort of unique feel. Both guys fought kind of tentatively, with neither guy wanting to make a mistake. There was also a chippyness with both guys kind of throwing shots on the break and waiting a beat to release submissions. They were also both kind of throwing these Nick Diaz style punches, a couple of range finder weak shots and then a hard shot. It felt like it was building to a more epic finish then it had, but I really enjoyed it.

TKG: I’m used to seeing Yammamoto work underdog v veteran. Here instead when they weren’t working even they seemed to be working sections of Yammamoto as athletic youngster v cagey less athletic veteran. Usuda went for a bunch of short cut chokes , hair pulls etc. and worked lots of guy overwhelmed by opponents athleticism stuff. Usuda as guy outgunned working to slip something in was neat and I’m not a guy who needs a 2.9 finisher run but like Phil said this felt to me like it needed a couple more minutes.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Tiger Shark

PAS: This was a Fujiwara student and a Sayama student doing a really great version of Fujiwara vs. Sayama. Much like those matches you have the crafty veteran maestro trying to catch and stretch the freak athlete kickboxer. It was a great match in 1985 and it is pretty great 25 years later. Ishikawa is awesome here, he carries the match, leaning into Sharks kick, throwing lots of little cheap shots and smirks. The armlock he finishes him with is awesome, you can see him shift, set it up, twist and crank. Beautiful stuff and my working BattlArts match of the year.

TKG: BattlArts match of year? It didn’t have the epic feel to it that parts of Ryuji Walters v Ishikawa achieved. And I don’t know if I ever fully bought the danger of the freak athlete kickboxer. I mean I dug Tiger Shark a bunch here and he is clearly the better of the Sayama trained Tigers. But I never bought him as being so nasty and dangerous that Ishikawa needed his cunning to defeat him. It wasn’t Fujiwara v Sayama. Still this was really good and this is two really high end matches in a row with one pretty fun match before those---and this has become the best BattArts show of 2009.

PAS: I agree that Shark doesn’t deliver the kind of horrific beating Sayama laid in (or Watlers did in the Ishikawa v. Walter match), but he certainly dominated the stand up, knocking Ishikawa down multiple times with some cool looking kicks. Outside of some tricky shots, Ishikawa really has no answer on his feet. This really is one of the most Fujiwaraish Ishikawa performances ever, which may be why I dug it so much. There is moment where Ishikawa gets smacked with a spin kick, which he sells like death, he gets up at seven, and does this really great waving off of the ref, like he was saying “Fuck it I can take this punk”

TKG: Yes I probably was underselling this match to combat Phil overselling it. And this is a pretty great Ishikawa performance as he does sell the fuck out of Tiger Shark's stuff and there are a bunch of neat exchanges and spots. Still I think this match felt more like the story of a great dramatic Sirus v Adam challenge then a Fujiwara v Sayama matchup.

Kyosuke Sasaki/Alexander Otsuka v. Yuta Yoshikawa/Muenori Sawa

TKG: This was odd. Kind of really middling match. I remember liking the Sasaki/Usuda ass kicking tag team. Sasaki/Otsuka work very differently together. They kind of work like Hamada/ Shinsaki v Kaeintai. As Otsuka works guy being disrespected and kicked in the balls a bunch while Sasaki works charismatic guy with over spots. Their was lots of comedy spots and the fast elaborate hand speed exchanges between Sasaki and Sawa might have been more entertaining on a regular indy show but felt really weak and b.s. in the context of this show.

PAS: Yeah this felt like a DDT tag rather then a BattlArts tag. Otsuka has been kind of AWOL in 2009 and I was really looking forward to seeing him, but he doesn’t do much. No real violence, some lame comedy spots. Not what I want to see.

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