2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Ultimate X, Still a Thing

6. Low-Ki vs. Trevor Lee vs. Andrew Everett Impact Wrestling 4/23/17 (Aired 5/18/17)

ER: It's 2017 and one of the stupider match gimmicks is still being done by the stupidest wrestling company. But goddamn was Low-Ki so freaking good in this match that I got sucked right in to enjoying this pile of stupid. Low-Ki making a ropes course interesting is tantamount to Bill Dundee adding more drama to a scaffold match than anyone in history. Swinging and climbing for the belt is dumb, but these guys are all nutty, and their chaos saves the stip. Ki pulls everything off with such snap, his body movements don't always seem human. He's able to do crazy fast offense and crazy fast bumps while seeming totally in control. Watch him crash into the guardrail from the apron, take a couple bumps off the ropes to the apron to the floor to perfectly set up Lee's punt, hangs off of scaffolding in great ways, just owned that whole silly American Gladiators set. In fact, it made me pissed that I never got to see Ki competing on American Gladiators. I want to see him running for cover while Blaze or Lazer shoot dodgeballs at him. All three guys get moments in this (watch Ki punch a fucking CHAIR seemingly as hard as he can, and props to Pope for talking about how that would affect his climbing ability), even Helms comes in to help Lee and shows he can still bump big. The finish was pretty inspired for this convoluted concept, with all 3 men arriving at the belt at the same time, with Ki scrambling up all of the scaffolding and dropping down onto them from above, stomping them of the team building exercise to their doom. Much better than it could have and probably should have been.

PAS: Ki does feel like the master of this kind of match, like Rey in the Elimination Chamber. He takes a bunch of crazy bumps using the scaffolding, including hanging off the metal with his feet, really made the whole dumb gimmick plausible and cool. This really made me want to see Ki work non gimmicked singles with either Everett or Lee. Loved the missed Ki double stomp into Lee's own version of the move, kind of the student outdoing the master. It is also nice to be reminded of what a nut Everett is, his signature bump into the turnbuckles is crazy and that top rope springboard shooting star press is really breathtaking. I loved the finish with Ki having the damaged hand, so he couldn't scale the rope, so he climbs the scaffold and drops on both Tar Heels from above, really cool creative use of the gimmick, and an awesome Ki performance, really makes we want to track down all of his Ultimate X matches.

Complete and Accurate Low-Ki

2017 MOTY MASTER LIST