2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki v. Abyss

21. Low-Ki v. Abyss AAW 6/17

PAS: This is about as good an Abyss match as you are going to have. Ki bumps huge for all of Abyss's spots, kicks the big guy pretty hard and they have a bunch of amusing horseshit, plus where are in and out in under 7 minutes. Abyss is the hired gun of the Killer Cult faction in AAW and cost Ki the AAW title in our reigning match of the year. Here the story of the match is the manager paying for his sins. First Ki just wipes him out with a diving through the ropes dropkick. Then they have a fun finish with Ki hurling a handful of thumbtacks into Abyss's eyes, the blinded Abyss chokeslams his manager into the tacks and gets rolled up for the pin. Kind of a waste of Ki (so many more intriguing matchups with the talent booked on the show) but I dug it.

ER: Yeah Abyss is one of the true, honest to goodness terrible wrestlers out there. This right here is definitely the best you can hope for from him, and it was really fun. He stayed away from his always terrible strikes (the ones that are in a permanent competition with Makabe to see who can throw them farther over an opponent's head) and focused on just using his size to smother Ki. I have a weird fascination with seeing my absolute favorite wrestlers wrestle the worst opponent, sometimes moreso than them against an actual good wrestler. It's neat seeing what Finlay can do with Boogeyman (or Davey Richards, a previous AAW match), seeing Lawler or Funk against anybody, seeing Necro Butcher against anybody, it lets them thrive in different ways. There are a dozen people on this card who are indisputably better wrestlers than Abyss, but I'll always be more interested in seeing Low-Ki against a barely mobile blob than against obviously better guys like ACH or Jake Crist. But this match was totally great. Ki stuck and move, brought some great elbow strikes, Abyss smashed him in the corners a couple times, and it had some of the best manager interference you've seen. JT Davidson hit a killer elbow on Ki while he was prone on the apron and later attacking Ki on the floor and violently throwing him back in the ring. The fans hated Abyss, which is great, and Ki played into it perfectly. Davidson got out a bag of thumbtacks and they tease some stuff around them, like Davidson pushing Ki off the top into them, but Ki adjusting his fall and landing awkwardly past them. Ki kicks Abyss around and completely obliterates Davidson with a baseball slide dropkick, totally killer spot. Ki is really good at finding ways to fit his spots in, like Abyss sending him into the buckles, Ki jumping to the middle rope and hitting his double stomp. Eventually we get Ki throwing thumbtacks in Abyss' eyes which leads to Abyss chokeslamming Davidson into the tacks. Normally those kind of blinded, friendly fire spots are silly because how often does your ally feel like your opponent, but here it works pretty terrific as Ki and Davidson are the only ones wearing their suits and dress shirts. Low-Ki is the best worker of 2017, and matches like this are just layers of tasty icing on that cake.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST