2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose
15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12
ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.
PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.
2016 MOTY MASTER LIST
Labels: 2016 MOTY, Best Wrestling of 2016, Briscoes, Cheeseburger, Jay Briscoe, Mark Briscoe, Moose, Raymond Rowe, Ring of Honor, ROH, Todd Hanson, War Machine
posted by EricR @ 8:00 AM
3 Comments:
Cheeseburger rules. His best use is as a prop wrestler, I don't disagree, but he's an exceptional human prop. He was wonderful in the ROH Christmas Surprise 10-man where you KNOW that it's choreographed and silly, but so are Midnight Express matches. Same with the New Year's Dash NJ match where he was tearing the roof off of Korakuen and fucking facing off with Fujiwara.
2016 A YEAR IN NOT REVIEWED BY YOU GUYS:
Hama-Okabayashi (BJW, 1/24): http://rutube.ru/video/bf5df99fbea233234831d4ff0c2f78e1/?ref=search
Yuji Okabayashi is a great talent, really. Strong style excess is what screws him up. Well, it's really hard to have an excessive match against Ryota Hama, who's a blast as the titanic ex-sumo that he is.
Ishii-Strong (ROH, 2/19):
http://rutube.ru/video/661217e2240ebe3c06152e37ac996e04/
Speak of the Strong Style Excess devil. Of course, that's after an absolutely great 2014 and a mostly disappointing 2015/early 2016 against terrible opponents (having to sell the worst phantom punches ever against Makabe, getting trapped into dick-measuring contests with Shibata because they bring out each other's worst instincts). What's Ishii's great skill? His selling. HE GETS TO SELL HERE! HE WORKS FROM UNDERNEATH! And Roddy is SUCH a great opponent for that. His chickenshitting is just lovely stuff.
Del Rio-Kalisto (WWE, 1/12)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3o6euo_kalisto-vs-alberto-del-rio-campeonato-estadounidense-smackdown-latino-%E1%B4%B4%E1%B4%B0_tech
Eric might have already stated his apathy for every match in the ADR-Kalisto series, but this is definitely the most concise version of their matches, and being on SD, the least visible. Felt like a very good openweight title match if nothing else.
Farley-Ramsey (NWA Smoky Mountain, 1/16):
https://youtu.be/BJhR7hHtuHc?t=40m
First time seeing either Toby Farley or Tristan Ramsey; they are both way awesome. Plus seedy local ads! Total blast that feels like it's basically exposing modern indie style as a fraud (NXT and WWE included); both of these guys are (undeserving) nobodies but how can you say that they're not putting on a better match than 90% of the guys with national exposure doing it?
Corino-Yehi (TWE, 2/13):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh5wTvg4NxY
Yeah, a fucking Colby Corino match. But at worst he's improved to the point of dropping Seth Rollins to the second best guy named "Colby" in wrestling. He's rapidly improving with his current skill set. But of course, YEHI. The man, myth, legend. His insane heckling of a fan? Great. Strikes? Great. Subs? Great. Being a dickhead veteran doling out an ass-beating when he's only 26, I think? Great. High on the list of most compelling guys in the world right now.
1. I love ex-sumos in wrestling, so it's silly that I don't go out of my way to watch more Hama, or Akebono. That needs to change.
2. I went out of my way to watched Strong/Ishii not long after it happened and was very disappointed. Ishii continues to be a guy who people I trust like, and just does very little for me. There was too much preposterous spot set up in this one, and for a guy I have really been liking the last couple years I thought this was a bad Strong performance.
3. I saw this ADR/Kalisto match and did not care for it. It was a fine TV match, but nothing noteworthy. I did, however, really like their 2/3 falls match on one of the PPV pre-shows. I don't believe Phil watched it though.
4. Have not heard of Farley or Ramsey, but I'm intrigued. I'll add this to the pile.
5. I love Yehi and have had this Colby match saved on my computer for a month +. I've been meaning to get to it soon since clearly all Yehi needs to be seen.
There's the two Navarros-Panteras matches. The first (1/10) is good but not an MOTYC sort of match to me but it's a valuable setup. The one the week after is supremely awesome though, and the best non-purolibre lucha match of the year. Check the esteemed Mr. Cubsfan, of course.
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