2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

19. Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro/Jack Swagger WWE Raw 3/24

PAS: Such a fun tag match. Real Americans went on quite a run in the waning days of their team. They developed a real good violent set of working over the face offense and Ambrose and Rollins were pretty remarkably good at standard babyface tag wrestling. We have an extended Ambrose face in peril, and damn is he great for I guy I had never seen work babyface before. His facial selling is great at conveying desperation and his Roddy Piper style hulk up when Cesaro was slapping him, and the Nigel lariat looked awesome here leading to the tag. Rollins hot tag was great, he comes in with such ferocity, flying all over the ring and to the floor, his dives never look set up he just flings himself recklessly. Really got me excited to see what the Shield does as a face act, they should never break them up.

ER: Another really fun match for these guys to put in their back pocket. It's really a testament to them as workers that no matter how many times all these WWE tag teams match up, all the match-ups still seem pretty fresh. That's not an easy thing to do when you're giving away long free matches on TV multiple times a week. Again, give any combo of these guys 12 minutes, sit back, mark out. Swagger has always seemed like the weak link in these matches, but you can tell the more they worked together in longer matches the more he figured out how to best integrate himself in the match. It's tough having a power wrestler gimmick when you're teaming with the guy with the most freakish power in the company. So Swagger has adapted with a cool stash of flapjacks and neat alley oops. I love the alley oop into Cesaro double stomp, sad we won't get that any longer. I loved how Cesaro and Swagger's team offense synced up and complemented the other. Cesaro does his epic flapjack uppercut, Swagger does his flapjack into an ankle lock. Rollins' hot tags have been making me rethink my "Goldust is best hot tag in the world" stance as he always kills it on the hot tags. Him adding in his double dive as a regular spot is great, as it's a regular spot but he only has done it when it actually fits organically into the match (i.e. two opponents don't just each roll out to opposite sides of the ring and wait for him to hit each dive). The way he does the dives always feels like him capializing on a situation. Hits a dive, sees the other guy outside, runs back in and nails him with a dive. The WWEDG tag team renaissance is so damn great.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST