2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Ohno vs. Bate

11. Kassius Ohno vs. Tyler Bate WWE NXT UK 10/5 (Aired 11/14/19)

ER: This was pretty fantastic, and a real masterclass performance from Ohno. This was a long match, at 25 minutes one of the longest WWE matches of the year. But Ohno is one of the best time fillers in wrestling, and his attention to small details and effective delivery in the biggest moments continues to keep him one of my all time favorites. Ohno can work the mat, he can deliver trippy sequences other people can't, he can work a big bomb throwing stretch, he can really smash a guy and really pump him up for babyface comebacks, and has no problem talking a bunch of trash. Ohno comes off as confident as anyone I've seen in a ring, someone who never even seems like he's thinking of the next spot, who often makes his match progression seem effortless and instinctive. He broke out some tricks that I could watch over and over, stuff like grabbing Bate by the arm and pressing in on Bate's inner knee with his boot to force him down, some neat standing exchanges around abdominal stretches, or when he worked a cravat with Bate held completely off the ground (with such a size difference that it made it look like Ohno was choking out a doll in his Baby Bjorn) before snapping him right down to the mat. 

He sends Bate flying and crashing after lifting out of the Tyler Driver, buries a sick knee into Bate's guts on a corner charge, and lights Bate up with kicks, elbows, punches, every single shot landing big. Ohno was such a bully and such an asskicker that it almost made it implausible that Bate could come back from it all. Ohno looked like he was aiming to win by count out when he kicked Bate's head clear out of the ring. But I like how Bate hit harder the longer the match went on, really trying to bridge that gap. We've seen so many awful stand and trade strike exchanges this year, and here's Ohno and Bate punching each other in the face, Ohno trying to fake him out by going high (Ohno had successfully faked Bate on a few moves throughout the match) and getting popped for it. Bate hits a torture rack airplane spin which looked downright freakish due to the size difference, like Superman growing into his strength and realizing he could lift his father for the first time. Not many guys can make me excited for a 25 minutes match these days, but Ohno is one of them.

PAS: I have been watching Chris Hero matches for about 20 years now, and he continues to deliver in new and interesting ways. He is probably the most formally inventive wrestler of the 2000s. He constantly tweaks his approach, not just by adding cool moves but by switching up his approach. And I love his new approach, where he tries to prove his wrestling superiority only to snap and try to knock someones head in. I loved how the size difference was used here, Ohno was able to manhandle Bate in some really cool ways, and that hanging Hero's clutch was truly disgusting. On the other side of it Bate was able to hit his power moves, but had to really convey struggle. Bate lifting Ohno into a German suplex after failing early, by using every ounce of his strength, was so much more impressive then big guys flying around the ring for little guy throws (that was always one of my few problems with Vader, he needed to sandbag a bit more). Clearly we need to go back and watch the NXT UK Ohno because he has been hiding in plain sight.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST