2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

58. Kevin Steen v. Speedball Mike Bailey C*4 5/3

PAS: Really great match, one of my favorite Steen matches ever. Worked really similar to the NXT Owens v. Zayn match, with Steen as this violent threshing machine and Bailey trying to survive. Nasty chops, big powerbombs, throws into chairs, Bailey really took a pounding. Bailey unloads some really cool spin kicks here and they time them nicely to stun or slow down Steen, Bailey is one of the best guys at using fancy martial arts in a wrestling context, although his flying spots aren't as impressive here as his kicks. Built to a big set of near falls, and by the end the crowd was going bananas. Really good indy wrestling style match

ER: Man I loved Steen in this. Had almost a modern indy Finlay feel to him, as he would do some dangerous indy spots, but pepper in things like standing on Bailey's hands or raking his face with his boot eyelets (which will ALWAYS make me like a match that much more). Bailey is a cool little worker as his flying stuff can be impressive, breaking out loony things like shooting star kneedrops or shooting star sentons (like an inside version of Richochet's 630) but not always with the crispness or ease of some of the flyers regularly featured on say Lucha Underground. His main selling point are his cool strikes and he has a way of throwing big arching spin kicks and always making sure they land with precision. Steen is more than game for that kind of action as he leans way into Bailey's kicks. Steen was a real fun bully here, dishing out big chops, a great kneedrop, crotching Bailey on the post, splatting him with a few sentons, and the coup de grace: a devastating powerbomb on the apron that deserves Jim Ross freaking out and spitting more than most calls. My problems with the match were that powerbomb looked so brutal that it should have resulted in death, not been something that happened 2/3 of the way through; and Bailey doesn't seem to sell any more in this match than Steen does, which seems odd to me. It ended up being worked fairly even by the end which, if you've seen both men, doesn't quite add up for me. But I cannot deny how much fun I had watching it and I always enjoy two guys who complement each other this nicely.


2014 MASTER LIST