2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

8. Daniel Bryan vs. Antonio Cesaro WWE 2/18

ER: I have seen a Cesaro/Bryan work-a-body-part match live before (we were there for the infamous PWG headlock match some 8 years ago). The headlock match felt the whole time like a gimmick, like they set out to do something like The 5 Obstructions but within a pro wrestling ring and unsuspecting crowd instead of within experimental Danish cinema. This match is far more gripping than that match, with Cesaro taking advantage of Bryan's injured shoulder/arm, and the fact Bryan had just wrestled Swagger. Cesaro had a bunch of amazing arm stuff, just yanking on it, kicking it into the ringpost, slamming it onto the mat, double stomping it, even doing a Cattle Branding onto it! God that looked great. The Giant Swing looked epic on Bryan since he's one of the only guys in the company with long hair and the long air flying wild looks awesome while he's getting swung around. Bryan gets insane height off the flapjack uppercut. Cesaro's punches and uppercuts are so perfect during all of this. He charges at Bryan with a running uppercut and then dishes great body blows. His charging uppercut may be my absolute favorite strike of his. It really looks like he's throwing his whole body into that swing. Bryan gets an awesome comeback when he charges out with a flash flying knee, which was a nice callback to the Swagger match that had just happened (and won Bryan the match). As the match goes on I start realizing that the match can't really end clean, considering both participants, so of course Kane runs in for the DQ. Even though the DQ was logical in story, it was still a bummer as this was shaping up to be my favorite match of the year. But this was still 10 minutes of great ass beating by Cesaro, with Bryan selling the shoulder and making me believe the whole time. Awesome stuff that would have vaulted way higher with even a decent finish.

PAS; Yeah this was almost a completely awesome match, but only almost. I am not as in love with work the body part matches, as some of my peers. It is a cool way to tell a story, but sometimes almost feels reductive. Like the only thing that matters is working a knee and selling a knee (or a shoulder in this case), still these are a pair of guys who can work a reductive match really well. We have only gotten teased of these guys in the WWE but man alive when it gets to be a RAW main event or a PPV match it is going to blow the roof off. This was a tease of that, like a lightning match in CMLL and the ending was really deflating, but everything in the body was A+


2014 MASTER LIST