2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

37. Usos v. Brotherhood v. Wyatt Family WWE House Show 6/13

PAS: One pretty cool thing about the 2014 wrestling landscape is since everyone has cell phone cameras it is becoming easier to get your hands on WWE house show matches (although for some reason lots of people just record entrances.)  This is a very fun 3-way tag between three great teams who have really good chemistry with each other. We get a long Goldust face in peril section, where he gets beaten on by the Wyatts. Goldust is one of the greatest Face in Peril's ever, and the Wyatts are really great clubbers. After he makes the hot tag, we get an extended WWEDG finish run, with a bunch of dives for a house show. I really liked how they kept using surprise roll ups as near falls, that really sold the roll up finish when it happened. Roll ups make a lot of sense in a match like this, when you have a bunch of different guys to keep track of, it would be easy to get confused and loose sight of someone

ER: Man I loved this. This is also maybe the most cell phone-y thing I've ever watched. This was one step away from being that pulsing neon blob that your buddy says is video from the Daft Punk show he was at. This may be tough if it was a young lions black trunk match, but I know all the shapes and colors of these guys, and I don't know which Uso is which when watching in HD anyway. This was arguably my favorite WWE tag match of the year, which means it was arguably my favorite tag match of the year, which means who knows how many of these awesome stretched out house show matches are taking place every year that still aren't being documented in any way. WWE, you have a WHOLE NETWORK now. Do a single hard cam and record this shit NOW. So I think it can be stated at this point that house show Goldust is just the best. This was the Goldust show here. When I saw him a few years ago on a house show against Ziggler he knew how to milk the crowd for every single desired reaction. Here he breaks out all the awesome moves in his arsenal including his implausibly great rana off the top (though gets cut off in a smart save spot before he can hit his rolling senton off the apron) and then builds all the way up for Cody's hot tag which is really great with him hitting his rope walk spin kick in an awesome spot amongst other scrambly squirrely offense. WWE has conditioned me well as they did so many roll up finishes during the 2000s that I have a Pavlovian response to them now and they always work as a false finish for me. Harper seems like another guy made for house shows as everything he does really resonates, and thanks to him and Goldust's timing I think this match actually worked better as a 3 way than if it had been a tag between any combo of the teams. And that is not something I will often say. The timing in this was great and guys regularly found logical ways to not be in the ring and it all led to awesome saves and nearfalls. Seriously this was great. Go watch these colored blurry blobs and soak it in.


2014 MASTER LIST