2014 Ongoing Match of the Year

42. Jun Akiyama v. Takao Omori AJPW 6/15

PAS: I love watching Jun Akiyama when he gets pissy. He is the closest thing to prime Tenryu as exists in wrestling these days. Omori has always bored me, but his role in this match is to take a nasty beating and get his arms ripped apart, and man does Akiyama tear up his arms. Omori is a lariat guy, and after Jun gets hit with one, he zeroes in and just obliterates both arms, lots of cool little touches in holds like compressing the wrist in weird and painful looking ways, along with some nasty throws into ringposts and knees into biceps. Finish run was pretty great with Omori just saying "fuck it" and throwing these dead arm lariats because that was the only arrow he had in the quiver. Would have liked to see what Akiyama could do with a more vibrant opponent, but this was a great performance.

ER: Akiyama looked so great in this! I thought Omori looked really good taking all of Akiyama's offense, but looked very not good when doing offense. But still if you're good at taking nasty offense and getting your limbs yanked on, Akiyama will gladly yank limbs and knee faces. I liked all the early risks Akiyama took that ended up paying off, especially his jumping knee from the apron right into Omori's arm. Akiyama is filling that Finlay kind of vibe in my heart, the guy that doesn't let an opponent rest on his laurels or ham it up too much. At one point Akiyama hits an Exploder and Omori is sitting forward, leaning up selling it. Instead of waiting for Omori's natural momentum to eventually cause him to lie down, Akiyama grabs him by his questionable hairstyle and jerks him to the mat. I love that kind of stuff. Taking too long to stand up? Akiyama will gladly kick you in the arm and face until you do. Omori gamely gets kicked in the arm and face, and man does he fly hard into the ring barrier. The spirit of Misawa lives on in him through those. All of Akiyama's arm stuff here is so great. He has all these great takedowns with the arm, really worked over the shoulder joint, wrist, everything. All the arm stuff looked so damn nasty. I like that Omori's big comeback came when the same risks that paid off for Akiyama earlier in the match came back to bite him. He goes up for a knee off the top and Omori levels him with his numbed up arm. loved his sliding Axe Bomber too (I'm a big fan of the sliding clothesline). I don't know current hierarchies of Japan, so I was surprised to see Omori go over (that was likely not surprising to every other viewer) but I like how strongly Akiyama was portrayed here. Dug this match.


2014 MASTER LIST