2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Yehi v. Cage

27. Fred Yehi v. Brian Cage FIP 2/11

PAS: Really fun compact cat v. mouse match. Whole thing was built around Yehi using his odd angles and off kilter offense to avoid Cage, and Cage catching him and smashing him. Loved how Yehi used all of his stomps and foot smashes to pester Cage and put him off his game. I didn't buy Yehi german suplexing him, but all of the other offense made total sense. The run of Brian Cage offense was expectedly brutal, that powerbomb on the knee was really gross, and I totally bought Yehi taking advantage of the relaxed FIP rules and getting Cage tied up in the ropes with the Koji Clutch for the win. Also 12 minutes is the perfect amount of time for this match, if it had went much longer it wouldn't be plausible for Yehi to take that many big shots.

ER: This was exactly the kind of match I was hoping they would work, Yehi surprising Cage with some of his weird strikes and off balance offense, and Cage catching him with some massive slams. Things weren't worked quite as tight or mean as I've seen these two get, but that's a silly quibble ("these guys didn't put themselves in enough danger!"). Cage overpowers him through much of this, but Yehi would always come back with his stomps, or his weird way of always landing on his feet or avoiding offense (like getting knocked into the ropes, and catching the ropes, then smoothly moving to the apron in time to jam a shoulder into Cage's stomach). But once Cage starts catching him with stuff, things get nasty. Cage hits his 360 clothesline that always looks great, crushes him with a swinging uranage, then drops a couple devastating powerbombs (including one on his knee that dumped Yehi on his head). Yehi manages to tie him up in the ropes with the Koji clutch, and while I thought Yehi took a bit too much damage to pull things out, but I can buy Yehi as a guy who can lock the clutch on using muscle memory while totally brained.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST