2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

15. Tomoaki Honma v. Katsuyori Shibata NJPW 8/3

PAS: Really awesome balls to the wall sprint. Probably the best short Puro slugfest since Ikeda v. Ono. Honma is a dude I dug back in the BJPW Yamakawa days, and is great in NJPW as a Kikuchish underdog who absorbs a whomping and keeps going. Shibabta is a bit dry, but he works great as an asskicker who is looking to put this little punk down. I loved him cornering Honma in the corner and just pounding him with one-two elbows, meanwhile Honma was great at finding moments to get in his own shots, his Chico Che style in ring tope was fucking awesome, as was his running clothesline. Finish was great as Honma was starting to elbow out of the fireman's carry, before Shibata just mushed him with a back fist and then Go-To-Sleeped his head off. Really enjoyed this, this kind of thing might get me back into Puro

ER: What a bizarre and mostly unheralded career Honma has had. Everybody first heard of him 15 (!) years ago when he was the wild young stupid death match worker, and then he basically spent all of the 2000s doing opening match jobber duty in AJPW and having his matches either clipped down or edited off entirely from AJ shows. Now he's kind of weathered that and somehow come out the other side as a never say die veteran who has to be nearing 40 and takes mean beatings before eventually going down. I really dug him here, with a cool deadlift brainbuster and that neat torpedo headbutt Phil mentioned (I loved when Spike Dudley did it and Chico Che's is even better, wonder why more guys don't do it). Shibata is more of a cold mechanical ruthless killer, and his elbows are some of the nastiest things I've seen. Give Honma tons of credit for hanging in with those, but damn did those look rough. Shibata was throwing them one after another right to Honma's neck. I get a crick in my neck if I hold my phone to one side of my head too long. I loved all of Honma's little comebacks, with a nice corner charge clothesline, the torpedo, catching Shibata's leg on a kick. Shibata's attacks were incessant so Honma had to make his moments, and finally Shibata squashes this little pesky gnat with a G2S followed by a punt for good measure.


2014 MASTER LIST