2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

27. Sheamus v. Cesaro WWE Night of Champions 9/21

PAS: That was as nasty as you would hope it would be. Really felt like a modern version of a Valentine v. Garvin match, with both guys just unloading with shots 1/3 harder then anyone else in this fed (except maybe Lesnar, we will see). Started out with some pretty gritty amateur wrestling and it kept building and building until it finished with the nastiest version of a New Japan slap finish, Okada and Tanahashi need to watch the end of this match on a loop.

ER: Opening standing and mat scrambles remind me of recent Thatcher/Gulak stuff, which is appropriate as those guys always remind me of Cesaro. Feels like Sheamus is a guy who should get pimped more as a top shelf guy. Maybe people are put off by his goofy promos? I think he's doing a fine job of replacing the Irish asskicker hole in my heart that Finlay's retirement left. Sheamus doing a drop toe hold, with Cesaro fighting it and Sheamus finally dragging him down by yanking on his arm was beautiful. These guys mesh so well together and neither has a problem laying in nasty shots. Both guys take turns seeing who can do a nastier kneedrop to the others' temple. I loved Sheamus getting flashy and "skinning the cat" to pull himself up to the top rope, but because of it not going smoothly it allowed Cesaro to immediately catch him with a big time uppercut. Phil made a WWEDG reference up above, made even more apt with Sheamus breaking out CIMA's Iconoclasm on Cesaro. SHIMUS? Finishing run of this is awesome, with both guys tossing each other around in cool feat of strength ways. Cesaro deadlifting a butterfly suplex and doing a weird fireman's carry slam made me rewind. God Cesaro has a great thrust kick and then follows that up with cool punches that he hardly ever uses. Sheamus pulling out the counter Brogue Kick was a fitting end as it was nowhere close to a decisive victory, so should hopefully lead to more of these two. Great match.

40. Big Ryck vs. Prince Puma Lucha Underground 9/27

PAS: I thought this was about as good an overbooked ECWish match as I have seen in quite a while. Ryck looked way better then he looked last week, everything was really stiff looking, and he was great at knowing when to bump and when to shrug off his smaller guy. All the little beats of this match were great, Ryck catching the kendo stick, deciding to chill on a chair while his boys did the work, leading to Puma dropkicking him, that brutal looking KO forearm, and then the crazy Parkour leap from the rafters for the save. The finish felt a little telegraphed, but otherwise this was way better then it had any right to be.

ER: I thought this was pretty great. It was a great example of run-ins and interference actually adding to a match. I was expecting having to see a bunch of the massive Ryck taking a bunch of flipping armdrags. Instead Ryck got to break out a bunch of brutal offense, and Puma's comebacks were handled in really smart ways like having Cortez and Cisco interfere to take all the cool moves, which would lead to Ryck being taken off guard. The progression of the match is just really smart, with Puma fighting this monster, and Ryck actually coming off like a monster. Every one of Ryck's shots looked brutal, loved him flexing over the ropes while choking Puma, loved him pulling him into a KO forearm tug-o-war style, loved his big kneelifts. The spot where Ryck pulls up a chair to watch his goons take apart Puma, only to have Puma take them apart and then blast Ryck with a dropkick is just smart, fun, and unique. Poor props to the camera work for the way they filmed Mundo dropping in from above. It really looked like he flew 20 feet into the ring. This was a really impressive match, with a super smart layout that made every person involved look great.

Ongoing Match of the Year List