2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Styles v. Lesnar

1. AJ Styles v. Brock Lesnar WWE Survivor Series 11/19

ER: I'm sure most people were expecting this to be a 7 minute Lesnar mauling, and it is a 7 minute mauling. What I meant is that most people probably thought it would end after those 7 minutes, instead we got something special. But my does Lesnar maul him for 7 minutes. Brock tosses AJ around like a total dead body, and AJ flies around spectacularly. His bumps on German suplexes look absolutely body collapsing, and he bumps over the top to the floor with a real death wish. Lesnar's knees to the ribs look like something a human shouldn't be able to manage. But the comeback is great, and I'll always love that Lesnar missed knee in the corner as a transition. Once AJ gets in control he really makes it count. They flub a tornado DDT a bit, but after that Brock shows off why he is so special, bumping wildly and deservedly for AJ. Lesnar gets run through the ringside steps with such force that it looked like a car crashing through the front of a strip mall nail salon. Styles hits all of his big flying moves, and they work great as actual offense, and better as actual tension: Every time he goes up in the air you keep expecting it to end badly for him, for him to get caught. the moment of Styles locking in the calf crusher was huge. Brock is a super gifted salesman, and in that moment you could see the size difference completely erased, Brock easily looking like a man who could be beaten clean by Styles. And then Lesnar comes up with the greatest escape from the calf crusher, just grabbing AJ by the back of the head and smashing his face into the canvas, several times. It was one of the more violent wrestling moments I've seen this year. And wouldn't you know, all that tension AJ built up with the flying ends up backfiring, with Brock catching him coolly and planting him roughly with a quick lights out F5. Awesome match.

PAS: This was really tremendous, best Brock match since the Wrestlemania match with Reigns, and it is great to see that he can still bring it on big occasions. I loved the opening thrust kick right to Styles chest great way to say hello, and the knees he was throwing looked like they were going to puncture lungs. Styles is still an electric bumper even at 40 years old he really has kept almost all of his athleticism.  Some of those suplex bumps looked terrifying, a great combo of force and acrobatic bumps, they weren't the Shawn Michaels/Ziggler look at me bumps, he flew the way a guy should fly when being thrown by a Gorilla. After taking this huge beating Styles comeback was credible and great, his flying moves really land with force, he never felt like he was doing springboards to look cool, they always felt like attacking from afar was his only approach. Airplanes don't try to punch it out with King Kong they dive bomb. The calf slicer spot was incredible, Styles had been killing the leg all match, and Brock sold the calf slicer like all of the tendons in his knee were shredding, Brock countering it by trying to show Styles the inside of the ring was incredible stuff, right up their with Ki breaking Callihan's jaw for violence of the year. I also like how Brock has brought back the F5 as a one move killshot, he isn't throwing ten of the them a match anymore, it is back being a one hitter quitter. Incredible match, loved every second of it. Big match inspired Brock is still the absolute best.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST