Found Footage Friday: RIP NISHIMURA~! NAGATA~! GENTARO~! NAKANISHI~! CHONO~! TENZAN~!

Hiroyoshi Tenzan/Masahiro Chono vs. Manabu Nakanishi/Osamu Nishimura NJPW 06/05/02

MD: This is an hour draw where we never had the full version until recently. They structure the time extremely well all things considered, with a few major story beats to loop together the characters, the work, and the big moments. The first ten minutes were primarily Nakanashi paired with Tenzan and Nishimura paired with Chono, worked fairly even. They had time to breathe though and that meant a bit more struggle and effort to lock in or escape from every hold. Nakanishi and Tenzan brought little sprinkles of bombast and over the top theatrics and Chono and Nishimura were grounded and focused.

From there, they spent around ten minutes working on Tenzan, leading to a big entry Chono and a little less than twenty minutes working on Nishimura, including some big bits of hope including a superplex/toss off the rope combo. Nishimura was credible enough to stay in it and keep the crowd invested, so they were up and ready when Nakanishi came in like a truck, using feats of (as the commentary put it) "superhuman" strength to fight both off, including lifting both over his head at once. When he went for a German, however, his leg went out, setting up the back two-fifths of the match. 

It had seemed like maybe they were going into the finish, but instead Nishimura had to step forth and he did so iconically, taking his boots off and becoming an absolute wrestling machine, switching from one opponent to the other and keeping his head more than above water. Just when it seemed like he was getting swept under, there was Nakanishi, bandaged up for an extended comeback and finishing stretch. The match had one last wrinkle though, one thing to put it over the top and force the champion on their back foot in a very visual way. Nakanishi shot a knee into Tenzan and he bled big. That gave the last ten minutes a bloody, desperate overtone as they rushed on towards the draw. This warranted the time it got, with all of the comebacks and momentum shifts feeling suitably huge and the iconic moments even huger.

PAS:  Very cool match that I don't think I had ever watched before. Nishimura has always been one of my guys, but I was lower on Nakanish, Tenzan and 2000s Chono, and I imagine the length kept me from watching it in 2002, and it has never been something I have considered revisiting. Nishimura's passing and the new footage of it all, led me to advocate for this, and I am glad I did. 

Just a couple of all-time moments in this match. I loved the idea of Nakanishi on this Incredible hulk run of power spots and the injury being non-contact. If it was a real injury, tremendous improv, if it was part of the match, hell of an idea. Nishimura pulling off his boots is an iconic leading man moment from one of wrestling's great character actors, and instantly became one of my favorite strap drop momentum changes ever.. I did kind of wish that, that moment and the big Nakanish return from the back, led more quickly into the finish, I liked the finish run and the Tenzan blood, but there was some dead time in between the Nakanishi return and the big ending, which felt like it could have been trimmed, still hell of piece of business and a tribute to the greatness of Nishimura.

Osamu Nishimura vs Yugi Nagata - European Rounds NJPW 06/02/05

MD: Ah, a handheld of two guys in black trunks wrestling. That's what you want out of NJPW. This on the fabled Italy tour and was really European rounds. They went five to a draw. I liked it quite a bit actually. Balanced, good work, good anticipation, good story. The first round was mostly even, just feeling out but I liked how they made every touch seem like it could lead to something. Nagata took over with a kick in the ropes (unclean break) and he got carded for it but that was a small price to pay to break the stalemate (or the slight Nishimura advantage) and take over. 

He kept control through a roundbreak but one too many kicks led to his doom as Nishimura caught it for a dragon screw. Likewise, he kept control through a ropebreak (charging forth with a leaping kick to ensure he'd keep it right at the start of the round), and pressed the advantage with a figure-four. He couldn't get the win though and they leaned into the last round with some big bombs as they worked towards they draw. This worked for me as something different and they leaned into the gimmick well with Nagata holding his own. They could have gone back to Japan and done these matches for years and told interesting stories with them. We'd probably be in a better pro wrestling world if they did. 

Osamu Nishimura vs. GENTARO VKF 11/16/15

MD: Pretty enjoyable 20+ minutes here as they just went hard with one another. For the first half of the match GENTARO would try to press an advantage (anything from a vein-popping headlock to slamming Nishimura's head into the turnbuckles to a headscissors to a bow and arrow) and Nishimura had not just an answer for each but suitable punishment in return, most especially a nasty European Uppercuts. 

Midway through, things spilled outside, and Nishimura absolutely cracked GENTARO's knee with a shin breaker on a chair and started dismantling the leg. Sometimes you're watching a match and something takes a turn and even after watching for years and years you still get that feeling in your stomach of "how is this guy ever going to come back from that?" The answer was that Nishimura missed a knee drop off the top and GENTARO was able to slam his knee into the post with a shinbreaker of his own.

From there they were both on one leg and fought hobbled against one another, including a few figure-four attempts by GENTARO, one of which he was finally able to lock on outside the ring, staying in it for almost the entire twenty count. All of this was very good, with lots of struggle to try to prevent the hold and plenty of consequence for being in it. Finish came out of nowhere as GENTARO got it on again only for Nishimura to turn it and almost immediately get the submission. On the one hand, it made sense given the damage to the knee and how hard they were fighting over the hold. On the other, I'm not sure I've ever seen a submission on a turned Figure-Four before.

ER: This was so great. It's Nishimura at his best. He's the same age as I am right now and he looks 60, but moves like a tough 30 year old. He's a rare breed, a Masa Fuchi type who looks like a polite salaryman in his own Japanese Nobody. He has such a dedication to making every step of a match look earned, an honesty that is something became really important to me. He hits guys in slightly different ways and makes simple transitions look like rewarding events. There's so much satisfaction in watching a pro work slowly but effectively through a figure 4 or Indian deathlock. The camera work in VKF is really great and amplifies Nishimura's style. 

The ringside camera films inside the ring like they're aiming to show that there are no tricks or illusions in Nishimura's work. It's an honest camera for an honest style. But that close-up realism pays off when the match escalates to hard strikes and real impact. Nishimura had an incredible uppercut sandwich when he went full weight into GENTARO'S neck and jaw, then went low with one into his thigh, then went back to the neck and jaw just as hard as the first. He drove some of the hardest full body downward strike elbows into GENTARO'S quad, escalated things further with a knee breaker on a chair, attacked it in ways I wasn't expecting. When he hits a big kneedrop from the middle rope across the leg, it's the same movement that leads to a miss and transition back to GENTARO later. There's that honesty. I like when GENTARO realized he was losing this fight but looking for ways out, suddenly getting really serious about a Count Out win still being on the table while the ref calmly insisted that Nishimura was clearly on the apron. There are no bad Nishimura finishes, they always feel like one man won with a submission that was well earned, and I love the way Nishimura specifically showed his work while earning those wins. A true craftsman. 

2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing MOTY List: Panther vs. Satanico

58. Satanico vs. Blue Panther Cara Lucha 7/25

ER: This is the kind of lucha match I will always seek out, working a style of lucha that I'm constantly afraid will wash away for good. I just love how these two move, love watching their dance. Give them 15 minutes, I'm good. I would be fine with these two just going through the motions as their lucha muscle memory alone is a treat. But this match is a little more than just their muscle memory. Panther really needles into Satanico in a few great moments, the best being Panther fighting for a drop toe hold and Satanico fighting to not go down, so Panther starts elbowing the back of Satanico's knee to get him to go down, then starts kicking at the back of his knees. Satanico showed his wonderful wily side, my favorite being a sequence with Panther coming off the ropes and Satanico setting out to kick him, but faking the kick to sucker Panther into a grapple, which Panther turns into a nice abdominal stretch. There's no bad blood or even strikes in this match, just a fine masterclass in lucha leg drags and old man grace. There aren't many things in wrestling I love more. 

PAS: I started writing this review five years ago, and stopped for some reason. Interesting to rewatch this with 2021 eyes, as it really was the end of an era. Six years later this generation of maestros has passed out of real relevance. Satanico is 71 now, insane he was performing at this level into his 60s, Panther is 60 now, was a spry 55 during this match. They could still really go in 2015, and there were a bunch of nifty little tricks. Loved Panther ripping down on the arm and Satanico finding little ways to free himself. Satanico isn't as intricate but is still really smooth with all of his movement, like watching lake period Baryshnikov: He isn't going to jump as high, but will still awe you with his movement.

2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing MOTY List: BJW Big Boys Go WAR

Twin Towers (Kohei Sato/Shuji Ishikawa) vs. Ryuichi Sekine/Ryuji Ito BJW 10/29

ER: What the hell took me so long to watch this match? This was the best WAR tag since WAR, a total baton pass that gets every damn thing right. They got a lumpy guy in Ishikawa, they got two different guys who throw hard kneelifts to the stomach, everyone throws a hard lariat, Sato throws a tough piledriver, everyone lands hard on every suplex, and these guys all take shots to every single part of their body. This was 17 minutes of breathless heavyweight tag wrestling, no wasted moments, always somebody eating a nasty shot or getting their neck twisted or getting slammed with someone's full weight. I kept waiting for this to come up for air, but they never did. We get a couple nasty trips tumbling and sliding through ringside chairs (always with nasty follow up attacks), constant hard clubbing arms, omnipresent kicks to the stomach, those knees from Sato kept making me want to barf, just total punishment. Sekine is the smallest guy in the match and tries to make up for that fact. He lands full weight on a top rope splash, and always voluntarily goes toe to toe with the Twin Towers, even when that ends up poorly for him more often than not. The long finishing stretch is Ishikawa and him throwing each other into chairs in increasingly painful ways, with Ishikawa dropping him with a side slam into a set up chair, and Ishikawa eating a superplex onto a stack of them. But much of the run was Ishikawa punishing heavyweight ways: an over shoulder piledriver, a high as hell angle powerbomb, a big lariat used as a killshot, making damn sure Sekine wasn't going to kick out. This is the kind of regularly surprising beating that would hold up in any era, really made every guy look like a cult legend.

PAS: This was a really good Big Japan Heavyweight tag, although lets pump the breaks a bit with the WAR comparisons, these guys are all good, but none of them are Takeshi Ishikawa, much less Tenryu. I always dug Sato in WAR and he is still a guy who will kick your lungs out, and Ishikawa is lumpy and nasty. Loved Sekine in this, really great underdog performance, I loved the spot where he squirmed his way out of a piledriver, only to deadlift Sato for a powerslam, I could hear the hernia's forming when he was squatting Sato. I really didn't like all of the chair stuff, didn't look particularly good, a couple of times guys were holding chairs waiting to be hit, and when guys are hitting this hard they don't need RVD spots. Finish run was really nasty with Ishikawa smushing Sekine and Sekine dying on his shield. Good stuff.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

30. Eddie Kingston vs. Drew Gulak Chikara 6/14

ER: I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I'm glad I caught it eventually. It's Gulak taking 90% of a match, while Kingston battles back and turns in one of his all time finest sell jobs in history (and you know how highly we think of King's selling). Gulak targets Kingston's right arm from go, and keeps clubbing and clubbing and yanking on that arm until Kingston is flopping it around as if he fell asleep on it. Gulak is throwing these awesome clubbing strikes the whole match, just grabbing King's arm by the wrist with his left hand, and crashing down across with his right. He has to do this a dozen times, and it looks painful as hell every time. That's not his only arm attack, as the rest of the time is filled with him bending it around the ropes, smashing it over his shoulder, dropping it over his knee in the only cool backcracker variation, bending it in all sorts of ways, and the whole time Kingston is just in agony. Quackenbush was really good on commentary, pointing out how Kingston is a creature of habit, and even though it's in his best interests to not use that arm, he's still going to try to use that arm, and while it's not in his best interest to talk trash while taking a beating, he's obviously going to talk trash while taking a beating. King peppers in brief comebacks, an enziguiri, a spinning backfist with his limply swinging dead arm smacking against Gulak's chin, Gulak's plan to deaden that arm working as Gulak is able to snap off an awesome tornado lariat. Gulak is all attack all the time here, hitting a big missile dropkick, headbutting Kingston in the stomach (Kingston holds his stomach and moans and heaves like he just lost an ill-advised hot dog eating contest), and late in the match Kingston suckers Gulak into trying that headbutt again, catching him with a beautiful sitout powerbomb. Kingston is able to throw Gulak, and dumps him with a backdrop driver for the win, and I loved how Gulak sold it, really made it look like a worthwhile way to finish off a guy who had just been dominated, Gulak managing to be one of the few who can pull off a "sit up and look dazed" sell after a taking a big move without looking like a total hack. This is 100% exactly what I wanted out of 15 minutes of Kingston/Gulak, and it somehow exceeded my expectations. Gulak turned in such a fantastic performance, yet it's nearly impossible to take your eyes of Kingston as he gloriously method acts his way through an arm injury. Eddie Kingston: The Michael Moriarty of wrestlers.

PAS: Kingston is really amazing at pulling compelling performances out of minor matches. He is like a great character actor who can knock out two scenes in an action movie, and elevate it to the next level. Gulak is really good at working a body part, and Kingston is amazing at selling a body part and you put that together you end up with something really compelling. There was some really nice unique twisting and turning of the arm by Gulak, a lot of the armbars were turned just so. I loved Eddie working his dead bicep muscle to try to get some feeling out of it, and him throwing the backfist like he was hitting him with a dead fish was great. The Kingston finish did feel a bit abrupt, but Gulak did a great job of seeming completely stunned, and while I am used to indy wrestling matches needing ten suplexes to end a match, I certainly don't want wrestling to be like that.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

32. Negro Casas v. Maximo CMLL 1/11

ER: This match is the day after Casas's 54th birthday, and he celebrates in gleeful dickhead fashion by just continuing to be arguably the best wrestler of the last decade. That guy. Right out of the gate he jumps Maximo, going right after his knee over and over with low kicks, dropkicks, leg whips, you name it. He goes after Maximo with a viciousness normally reserved for stip matches or actual feuds. It is possible that on his birthday he got some novelty old age gag gifts from Spencer's Gifts and they were not sitting well with him, so for every novelty bottle of jelly beans labeled "Old Man Stay Hard Pills" he received, he was going to take it out tenfold on Maximo. And he must have received an insane amount of novelty dick pills. Maximo takes his beating well, not like a man, because there are many moments where Casas makes Maximo literally squeal. Like, he's wrenching at Maximo's jaw and nose and Maximo is squealing. At one point Casas mule kicks him right under the jaw and the way Maximo's leg buckled as he crumbled was a thing of beauty. Maximo's comebacks are all wonderful, with the crowd being way into them, and then blowing the doors off everything with an all time great, rewindable, comment worthy tope which plays like a gigantic missile that's all shoulders, head and chest. Just massively crashes into Casas. Great match, Casas is just on a whole different level when he gets the bug. Great match.

PAS: Casas is an all time great rudo, but for the most part he has worked defacto technico for years. I love that he celebrated his birthday by turning up the rudissimo to 11. He goes after Maximo's leg with unbridled aggression and it looks great. Not only does he try to rip off Maximo's patella, but he does a dickish little limping dance to make fun of him. He not only slaps Maximo in the face, he tries to rip his nose off. "You thought I was a good guy? I am the baddest fucking guy you have ever seen" Maximo is really great at limping, he limps around but still hits this amazing limping tope where he just obliterates Casas, top of the head right into the jaw. We get some great near falls, with Casas having tons of cool ways to almost put on the Casita but get foiled, and Maximo finally finishing him off with a giant top rope armdrag. Total blast and so much fun to watch Casas do what he does best.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

35. Negro Casas vs. Dragon Lee CMLL 5/22

ER: Nice little Leyenda de Plata final. The Arena Mexico crowd liked Casas a little more than Lee, which led to a fun dynamic where they wouldn't totally boo Casas' subtle heeling but would kind of boo Lee's appeals to the crowd. This had a real main event feel to it which many CMLL big time singles matches don't reach. Casas made things nice and clear how things were going to go, reaching for an early knucklelock and tricking Lee into eating a low mule kick. Casas kept going back to that kick and they all looked knee buckling when they landed, and also led to a satisfying Lee reversal later. Lee for his part added some nice little touches that are usually ignored by far more experienced workers. I particularly noticed when he was setting up his big tree of woe double stomp to Casas' chest, he held onto Casas' knees while getting his own balance. That's some wise beyond his years shit right there. Most every other worker would have left Casas up to his own, letting him find his own way to believably dangle there without anything really keeping him. But there's Lee holding Casas' knee while setting him up for the kill. The Casita works great as a flash pin and Casas was masterful going hard for other subs to keep Lee off balance before burying him with it. Lee had a nice big match showing here, Casas is still a top worker, life is happy.

PAS: This was really good. Casas has been having these kind of great main event matches with lesser guys for a while and it was good to see him get to work with a kid with some real ability to bring something to the table. Lee is an athletic marvel and clever worker that he can hang with Casas and not look smoked. I really liked all of the early matwork, with Casas countering the arm drags by flipping over, really simple stuff with Casas using his guile and experience to counter Lee's athleticism advantages. Casas reminded me of late period Bernard Hopkins in this match, outgunned in every way someone can be physically, but such a master of the ring and placement that he can survive and thrive. I loved how he kept grabbing at the arms in the STF to keep Lee from getting a rope break, and how he tried a bunch of different approaches to the Casita before pulling it out. Great Casas performance, and a very good Dragon Lee one.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

48. Drew Gulak v. Trevor Lee EVOLVE 49 10/17

PAS: Cool to see Lee mix it up with the EVOLVE grappler crew. Gulak was nasty working over Lee's knee, loved the ways he would catch it in the ropes, and there was a couple of vicious takedowns on that knee. Gulak also had an awesome leglock which was almost Navarroish. Lee did a nice job hanging on the mat, and sprinkled in some of his cool big spots. Slower paced then some of the other big Lee matches this year, but I liked this a lot.

ER: Phil originally wrote this up much closer to the actual event date, so I'm only two years late to the party. We've both seen so many Lee main event title matches in the past year that it was fun going back to a time before he was CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champ, before he began perfecting his main event title defense style. So it was neat going back and seeing how some of his spots have evolved, how certain things have become more reversible, and how other things are utilized better in his present matches. Both looked good here but I thought Gulak looked awesome. His focused mat attack was really becoming a favorite of mine, so it's a shame that two years after this match we get to see only one of these guys having the opportunity for weekly classics. But nevermind that, this is fun and that's what matters. Lee keeps trying to take things to his faster crazy level and Gulak is always right there to ground him, and while Lee's highspots always look good (especially loved a snap German suplex late in the match) I always love a good grounding. Gulak looks like a total ace with the quickness and ease he pulls off some of these tricks. Seeing him grab a wristlock and then snap back so fast, rolling through and springing to his feet - now with wrist control - was like Regal on fast forward. Later we see him DDT Lee's knee, and do this tripped out dragon screw that's short, fast, and ends with Lee's knee being brought down over Gulak's shoulder in nasty fashion. I don't actually recall seeing that before, and it looked vicious. I did think it went a bit too long, and Lee didn't always pay much attention to the attack his knee had been under, so that dropped it down a bit. But it was neat seeing a future main event style more in its infancy, and a nice reminder that there are dozens of Gulak matches I've never seen before, more than enough to satisfy.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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All Time MOTY Head to Head: Rey v. Ki VS. Yuki Ishikawa v. British Brawler

British Brawler v. Yuki Ishikawa BattleArts 4/11/15

PAS: This was the best of the Canadian Ishikawa matches we have seen. Brawler comes fully ready to wrestle Yuki Ishikawa and he comes in there throwing spuds. Big elbow smashes with his full weight behind it, nasty forearms into Yuki's ribs, jaw jacking slaps and some really crowbarish clotheslines. Meanwhile Ishikawa was mostly on defense and he is a great defensive wrestler, catching the overly aggressive Brawler with counter punches and armbar counters. The question is whether Brawler can KO Ishikawa before Ishikawa can catch him slipping. Finish is great with Yuki hitting a enzigiri right to the temple turning the Brawlers lights all the way out.

ER: Killer match, jealous of the fine citizens of Canada (for a few reasons right now). But I don't see Ishikawa as being "mostly on defense" in this at all. This felt like a very aggressive approach for him, especially down the last half of the match (which is usually when he's most defensive, as he's typically taken big damage by that point). But here he's hitting enziguiris, pulling Brawler's legs, getting mount and slamming him with sick body shots, even being the aggressor on standing strikes. Brawler is gamely along for the ride, and I'd love to see these two match up again with some learned behavior. Brawler doesn't hold back on strikes, including some of the best damn stiff arm standing lariats I've ever seen; I have to believe those things rearranged Ishikawa's spine. The stuff around dueling kneebars was great, with Ishikawa going after it, then Brawler grabbing his own while expertly sliding Ishikawa's grip with his free leg, cool sequence. Overall this felt like an easier than normal win for Ishikawa, but that may also be because I'm used to seeing him get the life beat out of him. Still, this was a wonderfully crafted match, probably Ishikawa's best Canadian match so far.

Rey v. Ki review

Verdict:

ER: A wonderful match, right among my favorites of 2015. But not as good as the absolute upper echelon stuff. It still lands really high on our 2015 MOTY List.

PAS: I loved this, nobody is really doing FUTEN style matches anymore, and while British Brawler isn't Daisuke Ikeda he was bringing it. Still Rey v. Ki is hard to beat.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD: Ki v. Rey V. Brock v. Reigns

Brock Lesnar v. Roman Reigns WWE Wrestlemania 31 3/29

ER: Man, I can't believe it took me 15 months to watch this (watched this in June), and I somehow didn't know or completely forgot how it ended. This was such a great, great match. Wow. THIS is the match you want main eventing your biggest show of the year. This match is one of those argument settlers for both men, the kind of match that few people could ever have. This is just peak performance Lesnar, showing everything he's great at: That superhuman strength combined with a godly willingness to lean deep into every strike and bump deservedly large. I really loved everything about this. People complained about the Ambrose match at this past WM, about how he looked weak and it was too one-sided. Well, Reigns came out and made SURE he wasn't going to look weak. Reigns plastered Lesnar with every damn shot, enough that I think Reigns' lightest shot in this match was better than the best Ambrose strike in his respective match. Lesnar is going to kick the shit out of you. If you don't want to look like a wimp, you're going to need to lay it in back. And boy, Reigns does. His punches, elbows, knees, it all looked great. WWE wisely capitalizes on this by giving us several awesome slo mo shots, specifically Lesnar's face getting rearranged when he runs into a knee. And the bumps taken by Reigns were just devastating. I can't imagine the toll those kind of suplexes take on a body, but the exhaustion on both men's faces was conveyed beautifully. I mean jeez that belly to belly from the apron into the ring. Good lord.

Brock has skin like flypaper so gets cuts throughout the match that add to everything. Him getting busted open after a superman punch was epic, but him taking a hardway shot to the post was just....so brutal. Brock's willingness to do crazy things to his head and body, and Reigns having no problem punching and elbowing Brock in his massive face made both guys look like killers. Brock made those superman punches look better than anybody else has, really flying into them nose first and taking bumps like Charlie Brown missing the football. Again I had forgotten/didn't know about the Rollins run-in, and that couldn't have been handled better. Being 15 months removed (and not really caring about titles) I forgot who came out of this champ, so I was on the edge of my seat wondering if Rollins was going to blow it, wondering if Brock/Reigns were going to team up, just no clue what would happen. The final sequence of Rollins getting caught in an F5, Reigns hitting the spear and Rollins curb stomping Reigns was masterfully laid out. This whole thing was just the best.

PAS: I absolutely loved 11/12ths of this. This is one of the greatest examples of pro-wrestling mimicking the atmosphere and feel of an epic boxing match or MMA battle. This was Ali v. Frazier, Newton v. Hughes, Barrera v. Morales, or Sapp v. Nogiera , two athletic behemoths throwing everything they have at each other.

The opening flurry was spectacular, with both guys colliding, Lesnar's eye coming out swollen, but Reigns body coming out broken. Then we get this totally vicious beat down by Lesnar with explosive demolition derby suplexes, and Reigns looking like a total badass fighting through the pain. I loved the smile, Reigns was destroyed but threw out a smirk, like he was happy to die like this,  felt like an action hero delivering an awesome death scene. That post shot was an awesome transition, Lesnar cut up and bleeding and getting wasted by giant punches and spears was a great Kong falling off the building moment. If the match had ended with a Reigns spear, or Lesnar catching him with an F5, it is hands down one of the greatest matches in wrestling history, but the fucking WWE can't help themselves. Instead we get another innumerable version of the Money in the Bank cash in, a spot which has been beaten to death for a decade, lame ass Seth Rollins runs out and poops all over the match. Instead of an epic sports movie climax perfectly delivered, we get some cornball shit.  I loved this, awesome performance by both guys, but the writers can't stay out of their own way

Rey v. Ki review

Verdict: 

ER: This is it for me. One of the great clash of the titans matches in wrestling history. I think both matches are pretty flawlessly executed, but big hoss will almost always win it for me.

PAS: Awesome performance from both guys, best Wrestlemania main event ever, but there was still that spit in the soup. Cut the last three minutes, it wins for sure, but Seth Rollins ruined this like it was the first hour of RAW.

2015 MOTY List

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

27. Jushin Liger v. Yohei Komatsu NJPW 5/22

ER: This one kind of snuck up and surprised me. Right from the beginning this felt like a 2 minute match, with veteran Liger getting rushed by young lion Komatsu and then the vet punishing the youngster for his insubordination. But then it turned into much more. Komatsu nails two beautiful dropkicks on Liger before the bell, chases him to the floor and attacks him off the apron, hits a big somersault senton off the top back in the ring. But Liger catches his breath and blasts him under the chin with a shotei, then drags him far off into the entranceway to plant him with a nasty piledriver. I actually thought that was how the match would end, with the veteran snapping and acting like a dick, dropping him with a brainbuster on the floor, and then cockily walking back to the ring. But Komatsu makes it back in, even doing a nice chest first bump running into the apron to further tease his count out. Liger starts getting meaner and meaner, flipping out and stiffing the hell out of Komatsu for not going down. Every move looked like it would put Komatsu away, but he'd keep on surviving. Liger locks on a rough as hell camel clutch, really leaning back all the way, bending that spine, then locks on an even meaner knee bar. But Komatsu gets the boots up in the corner and Liger starts to panic. Awesome moment when Liger came springing off the ropes trying to shotei Komatsu out of Korakuen, really swinging hard and low, but Komatsu drops to his back and rolls into a single leg crab. I lost my shit on that one. Komatsu hits a big falcon arrow, gets a nice nearfall and suddenly Liger is scrambling. But Komatsu makes the mistake of going up top where Liger palm strikes him, suplexes him, then plants him with a Liger bomb and two brainbusters, making sure that kid stays down. Awesome under-10 minute match, starting with a youngster surprising a vet, turning into Masao Inoue vs. Akiyama for awhile in the middle, and ending hot on a potential upset. Really great stuff.

PAS: I found it a little problematic that basically a young boy gets to survive a brainbuster on the concrete, that really should be a move which puts him out for months. Still outside of that quibble this was a great little match. Liger has been carrying kids in black boots and trunks to fun matches for 20+ years, he know exactly when to ratchet up the tension and when to bring it back down, you could give Liger any semi-competent wrestler with three big moves and he could craft a fun match. Komatsu added a little more spice to the stew though, his frantic run chest first into the apron trying to beat the count was a nice bit of desperation and his dropkicks looked great. Not sure how he would look outside this setting, but he was great here.

2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

48. Villano IV v. Blue Demon Jr. AAA 3/18

PAS: VIV shows up twice a year on tape to have these gritty nasty brawls. Blue Demon is sort of luggage set, but he is solid in all the different parts of this match, and that iconic mask soaked in blood is a great visual. Villano is awesome in this, he does a bunch of interesting mat stuff early, lands some beautiful punches on the cuts and builds a lot of drama till the finish. Villano is one of the most interesting punch combos in wrestling, he mixes in hooks, jabs, body shots, the highlight of the match is Demon and Villano IV standing toe to toe and just exchanging until both fall over. I would rather see VIV matched up with someone a little better (man he would be great against Pentagon Jr.) but I am thrilled we still get to see him on a big stage.

ER: I really liked this, it combined the kind of clumsy stiffness you typically see from old white guy wrestling, with the slow grace of old luchadors fighting. When old guys fight there's a built in vulnerability that really appeals to me. Every spill resonates more as these guys are long past the days of feeling invincible. At this point they have a finite number of falls left in their bodies. Both men operate to a degree as symbols. Demon is a legend who isn't a legend, more like a son running his father's drywall business into the ground, but the long time employees still like him despite his faults because of how much they loved his father. V4 is much closer to a legend, but probably pales when compared to V3 and V5. But here they are both legends, older slower, still willing to takes risks, still utilizing their tools. I love the slowed down old man lucha spots, the slower armdrags, the slower go behinds, and we get those; but things take a turn as V4 backs Demon back into the corner with punches to the face, body, short kicks to the ribs and kidneys, and soon we get biting and mask ripping and bleeding, and any ounce of grace is gone. V4 drops that classic leg on the apron, falls short on a dive, Demon hits a rana off the top rope; these are things they don't need to do and don't often do anymore, but you can hear the fans getting deeper and deeper involved as they see what level the two luchadors are taking it to. The big moment comes - and this is legitimately one of my absolute favorite wrestling moments of the last few years - where V4 comes out of the corner throwing tight balled up fists right at Demon's chin, and Demon responds in kind, and you have these two just standing in the middle of the ring punching each other in the face, not taking turns, just swinging until collapse. Hearing the fan murmur slowly starting to build to a roar was really special. I love it when old guys really show up. These kinds of matches are just made for me.


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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

19. Timothy Thatcher v. Marcus Lewis PREMIER IX 6/7

ER: Well this was awesome. I had high expectations for it and it totally lived up to them. Lewis has been doing this for just a couple years, is a really nice guy and is improving really fast. One of my favorite local guys that I get to see on a regular basis. Thatcher has had an incredible last year and is now known nationally (I have to imagine his WM weekend EVOLVE matches were star making, the building was in love with him during the Hero match). I've never seen these two match up and it's been one of my little Bay Area "dream matches". The mat stuff is as good as expected, and Lewis brings more than I anticipated. At one point he does a mean scrambly boot scrape to avoid a Thatcher ankle pick, and Thatcher naturally works tons of tight cravates (one of them ripping out one of Lewis' dreadlocks, which Thatcher graciously hangs over a turnbuckle for him), and I like how aggressive Lewis is at fighting out of Thatcher's holds. My favorite little sequence was Lewis hitting a couple nice stomps, then a tight short knee to Thatcher's chin followed by a sick double knee drop to his stomach. After kicking out Thatcher dumps Lewis with a big release German and immediately pounces with a rough half nelson while scraping Lewis face with his wrist and forearm. Thatcher is always great at taking spills and he really made a lot of Lewis' strikes look great, leaning into uppercuts and kicks and doing nice Kawada falls for them. Really I like everything they do in this. Lewis hit one of the best missile dropkicks of recent memory, Thatcher does his badass floatover chickenwing into the Fujiwara (which was a nice nearfall since I've seen that sub beat tons of guys), some nasty stomps and elbows, his impressive deadlift Karelin suplex, really it's kind of crazy how much great stuff they cram into 12 minutes without ever making it seem like overkill. They just matched up incredibly well. I was even buying the upset finish, with Lewis throwing all of his weight into strikes and a big time shoulderblock, but then missing his 450 and bouncing his head off the mat. Thatcher's finish is gross as he does a headlock takeover (between he and Busick, maybe my favorite move of 2015) locks Lewis' arm and then traps Lewis' neck between his knees!! Great finish.

PAS: This was really great, totally should have been a star making performance for Lewis, feels like that this would have gotten him into the WWE CWC if it had been in EVOLVE (although HHH may have a quota). I loved his second rope missile dropkick which really had a GAEA girls level force to it, and his fireman's carry lift from the mat is a nifty feat of strength, the bump he takes on that missed 450 was gross looking. Great Thatcher show as well. I haven't really seen him work pissy veteran before, but he was really contemptuous, scraping his forearm against Lewis's face, driving his sternum into the ring apron, ripping out a dreadlock. Really felt like the kind of bullying stuff Finlay would do, but he also sells huge for all of Lewis's big moves, really does a nice job of putting over the kid's upset potential. Great stuff, and PREMIER is the best, we are going to start writing up all of their new shows.

2015 ONGOING MOTY LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

26. Virus v. Avisman Chilanga Mask 4/12

PAS: Hey Avisman!! I used to love that dude back during the glory days of IWRG. He was always a guy who could work on the mat, and really developed into a great brawler, and then he disappeared (along with other awesome guys like Chico Che and Freelance) so IWRG could be all crappy fake Capos sons. This is Virus working a straight maestro style, focused on leg and arm locks and cool standing counters. Avisman is perfectly comfortable working this match, he has some very cool abdominal stretch variations, and looks perfectly comfortable countering arms and legs, great performance and I hope he shows up more. Virus is great at working this kind of match too, it is different then what he does in CMLL, and while I liked this a lot, I kind of wanted him to work more of his title match style so we could see Avisman stretch out a bit. This was a great painting, but I wanting to see them use more of their pallete.

ER: I really loved this, my favorite Virus performance of 2015, and Avisman is a cool guy to see him match up against. This could have easily devolved into heatless holds trading as there are hardly any strikes to speak of, but these two didn't let that come close to happening. These holds had meaning and Virus always looked like he was going for a finish, working over moves with actual substance. Avisman doesn't have the grace of other luchadors, which I thought really worked to the advantage of this kind of maestro style mat work. He would thud into the mat, land tailbone first on a double leg, his sunset flip and code red looked like actual scrambling pinfall attempts instead of large looping gestures. And the best thing he brought was, oddly, Avisman is a great screamer. His screaming helped Virus' holds as much as Virus being awesome helped is holds. Virus was so damn good at showing progression of holds, never ever making it look like he was just holding a guy static to fill time. You see Virus do a single leg, you can see 6+ different points of progression through it. You see him lock it in, you see him grab his own hand to tighten the hold, you see him grit his teeth which immediately gives the impression he's wrenching it in even more, you see him broaden his squat which bends the leg and back even more, and he does this stuff for every hold! This is about as far away as you can possibly get from Muta lying in a legbar for two minutes. And Avisman helps this move progression, as he yelps at all the right times, howls when an arm starts getting bent back, really made Virus sound like a sadistic dungeon master. Virus kept working different nasty bow and arrow variations, a standing abdominal stretch type one, one with him on his back, the classic knee into opponents back style, and he kept going back to that the entire match. So when Virus hit s his killer chopblock and locks it on again, it really felt like the finish. I loved Avisman's stiff unpolished counters to Virus' almost muscle memory skill, and this may have actually been my favorite of the last couple years of mat-based indy lucha.


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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

"Mr. Athletic" Jeff Cobb v. Kaimana PREMIER IX 6/7


ER: When I first became aware of Cobb he was working a lot of dominant matches, working like young Lesnar or Scott Steiner; a hyper athletic guy with freakish strength who just steamrolled people. But the last several times I've seen him he's mostly worked from the bottom, with his opponent getting an early advantage and him making more of a late fast break. This match was similar, but Cobb's comeback was much longer than in other recent matches. I had never seen Kaimana before and my luck was really great with this show as every single guy I hadn't seen before, made me want to see them more. I don't remember a time where that has ever happened. Northern CA went through a dry patch in the mid 2000s but certainly seems like it's heating right back up. Kaimana is a stocky Hawaiian guy, Cobb is a stocky Guamanian (is that right? I wanted to not say "guy from Guam". Guamanian? That has to be it), we got a battle of the islands! I love it. Kaimana has some solid kicks that Cobb takes to his back and chest, including one brutal dropkick to a seated Cobb that noticeably scoots Cobb a few feet across the mat. Cobb's comeback is as impressive as you would want, with him doing several cool throws from positions he just happens to catch Kaimana in. I loved the tease to the Tour of the Islands and when he hits it it's epic. Such a freakish physical move. We also had a brutal callback spot where Cobb had hit his impressive standing shooting star, and went to hit it later in the match and Kaimana got his knee up right into Cobb's jaw. It looked like Sabu moonsaulting into a table leg. Cobb's head snaps back and my god it's just a sick spot. Finishing run is great as Kaimana starts decking Cobb with hard elbows (including a sick back elbow) but Cobb catches him with the Tour of the Islands. Awesome match.

PAS: This took a bit to get rolling, but man by then end it was pretty awesome. Cobb is a beast in this, he is one of the strongest wrestlers in the world, and he was chucking around a pretty big dude. Kaimana got stiffer and stiffer as the match went along and by the end he is just rearranging Cobbs dental work with elbows. He also throws this weird uranage with Cobbs legs hanging on the top rope. Premier is one of my favorite promotions in the world, they just deliver hard hitting nasty wrestling matches like this again and again.


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PREMIER XI: Embrace the Grind Tourney 11/28/15

PAS: I reviewed the Tetsujin Shoot style tourney from England earlier this year and this is sort of the US version of it. A promotion in Northern California ran a three man round robin tourney focusing on grappling, the matches were in rounds and had three judges giving scores. I like all three guys and thought it would be worth checking out.

ER: Premier always has grappling based matches, but this was their first actual time addressing the style as such. It also has arguably the worst name ever for a wrestling show. PRIDE Man Fest might actually be dethroned. I didn't even want to risk googling Embrace the Grind. But the Premier show I went to last year in September (PREMIER X, sadly not online as it had a cracking Graves/Thatcher match that would certainly make the 2015 MOTY List) was one of the most fun shows I've been to in a couple years. I wish I could attend them more but their shows are *just* far enough away from me to make it inconvenient to attend. But I do love their product, and I love how into it the crowd gets when it's easily a style that a traditional pro wrestling crowd could turn on.

Joe Graves v. Jeff Cobb

PAS: This was really fun. Graves looked great his transition between leg locks are arm locks were really cool, at one point he put one a totally plausible looking shoot figure four leg lock. There was much more of an amateur wrestling base then a Jujitsu base in the grappling which makes sense as Cobb was an Olympic wrestler. Cobb is at his best as kind of an athletic freak suplex machine, sort of a lost Polynesian Steiner brother this kind of real mat based match tamps down what makes him special a bit. Last round was especially exciting with Cobb smacking Graves with his big headbutt he rushes him to finish Graves off and gets clipped in the knee, which Graves jumps on. Loved that Graves move, such a great out of nowhere transition. Match goes to the judges which I didn't like, it didn't really have a finish, and even though the mentioned a ten point must system, we never got scorecards. Don't think this tourney needed this gimmick, and if you are going to do it, you should at least have countdowns, time clocks and scorecards.

ER: Joe Graves is legit, and Cobb gets to show off some of his incredible amateur based throws. I think the rounds really hurt this one as almost every round ended moments after a neat twist had happened and some drama was starting to build, and the end of rounds killed it each time. First round ended with a hot kneebar reversal that looked to be going somewhere, and the third ended with an awesome battle of wills as Graves maneuvers somehow into a plausible shoot figure 4 (was excited to mention that right when it happened and saw it was the first thing Phil jumped on as well) while Cobb suffered through it but also lock on a heel hook. So you had two guys in an awesome Frye/Shamrock battle where one has a rough figure 4 on his hurt knee but it may get dropped due to the heel hook...but then the bell rings. With no countdowns or anything it was impossible to build to any natural excitement, they just always acted like an immediate match cooldown. Still both guys are awesome and the great spots were there. I love Cobb's pro wrestling suplexes, but his amateur takedowns and throws are even better. Watching Graves try to do a go behind and seeing Cobb just pop his hips into a mean belly to back takedown, or seeing Graves try to tie up and Cobb just grabs him in a head and arm butterfly suplex, really makes you appreciate Cobb's close range power. Graves is a guy I know little about, don't know who trained him, where he started, where he typically calls home. I first saw him in Premier against Thatcher and instantly dug him, later saw him pop up occasionally on that weird Paragon fed out of Vegas, but really haven't seen him a lot outside his work in Premier. He's strong and always seems to know exactly where he's headed during a mat scramble. All his work on Cobb's knee built nicely and it felt like that joint was just going to pop when he was bending Cobb's calf back against his thigh. It feels like only a matter of time before Graves is recruited by Evolve/WWE.

Jeff Cobb v. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: These guys had a fun match against each other a couple of years ago, and a match I found from Utah, but otherwise they have been circling each other without matching up. They missed each other in the APW KOI last year, and unfortunately this is more of a tease then a great match. Cobb comes in limping from the previous match, and they have a first round of solid but unspectacular rolling, it was fine, but felt very much like a warm up. Early in the second round Thatcher gets a scissor take down and twists the leg for a tap out. Felt abrupt which is fine for this kind of match, but I still want to see Cobb and Thatcher really go at it.

ER: This really was a cruel tease. The first round rolling was really good, I liked little things like Cobb kneeling on Thatcher's arm, but yeah the second Thatcher targets Cobb's knee the match ends. I know these two have wrestled plenty of times, but only a couple have made tape which is just inexcusable in 2016.

Joe Graves v. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: This was excellent stuff and well worthy of a final. The final went five rounds instead of three and they worked a nice pace right into the final round. Thatcher is so good at infighting, throwing kidney shots from the mat, cracking fingers, twisting ankles. Graves also looked very good he really does some interesting transitional things on the mat. I loved how the match got chippier with some shots thrown after the bell. Liked the finish too, with Graves countering an armbar, into a half nelson choke which Thatcher tried a bunch of different counters out of before finally tapping. Graves feels right on the level of Thatcher, Gulak ect. and really should get a shot at a bigger stage.

ER: Really good final that was longer and added more striking and heel dynamics than the previous matches. Graves comes off strong and does little things like neutralize guys in a sort of hogtied fetal position before pouncing into his next wear down hold. Both guys' grappling is on point and the struggle through some of this has to be exhausting. We get both trying to work the other's arm, and Thatcher starts to lean towards dickish by kneeling on certain parts of Graves while trying to work a hold. We see him kneel on his arm, even kneel on Graves face to maneuver into a go behind into a crossface. Graves starts taking apart the arm and Thatcher gets pissed, kicking Graves well after the bell. Things get more heated after that and we get some grounded knees to the chest, a standing exchange where Thatcher suckers Graves into a single leg, and both guys getting their arms bent behind them at angles that terrify my tennis elbow. Both guys move through reversals and counters so naturally, no guy has to dangle a limb out there for the other to pick up on a signal, felt like a gym sparring session that turned into something more serious, like Oliver Reed and Alan Bates' fight in "Women in Love" (but with much less penis). I think I preferred their fight at PREMIER X, as even though much shorter (about 11 minutes if memory serves) it had proper build and was go go go. But it's tough as I was there live which often can kick a match up several notches. Hopefully we get that one hitting YouTube eventually.

***Graves/Thatcher was good stuff, and an easy choice for our 2015 Ongoing MOTY List. Check out the tourney, and check out some other Premier stuff (they have a lot of their shows uploaded). ***

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

39. Slim J v. Fred Yehi NWA Anarchy 3/28

PAS: This is a 2/3 falls match and the 6th match of a best of five series (don't ask). I remember Slim J as a spotfest guy doing a Eminem gimmick in the early 2000 indies (He was a short lived member of Special K), and this was the first time I have seen Yehi. For a US Indy juniors match this was pretty simple wrestling, one dive in the third fall, no real complicated do-si-do stuff, just two guys hitting the mat and each other really hard. I loved how both guys kept contact, they would throw a suplex or an armdrag, and just go immediately into a hold. Yehi especially looked like he was squeezing a orange everytime he put on a bodyscissors or a headlock. Liked the finish to all three falls, and this makes me want to go watch all five of their previous matches

ER: It's amusing to watch this match now, as even though it was only a year ago you can tell Yehi has just grown immensely as a worker. The strides he's made in the past year are insane. You watch this match and see a guy who is clearly talented, clearly has a fleshed out idea of what kind of wrestler he wants to be. but I would have never guessed just how incredible he would be in less than a year. This match had all sorts of sneak previews of his future best features, and was a really cool snapshot. And I fully agree with Phil about how both guys kept contact. Seems like the only times they were apart was during the brief breaks between falls. But it wasn't any sort of gimmicky "12 minute headlock" Danielson match (which I was amusingly there live for), not that kind of closeness. It was just working a US juniors match without any of the pauses and bullshit you've come to expect from that. No breathless pauses for applause after a mirror sequence, no appeals to crowd after a forearm exchange, just some tight mat wrestling, snug grappling without flash, finishes that built compactly and ended logically, some hard forearms, some nice throws, just simple logical and satisfying. What's weird is I see myself appreciating current Yehi a lot, having just watched this match, but in a different way than if I had watched this match a year ago as I should have. If I had seen it then I would be blown away by his advancement as the year went on. Watching it now I impressed seeing him lay the groundwork for his already great 2016. Slim J was no slouch either and I feel bad for not writing more about him here, but this is Yehi's world baby, we're just writing about wrestling in it.


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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

8. Kazushi Sakuraba v. Katsuyori Shibata NJPW 7/5

ER: Awesome little fight, my favorite Saku pro wrestling match. Not only was Sak unrelenting, but found nice ways to incorporate his history and story into a jam packed 12 minutes. I loved him throwing out the double stomp the second Shibata ends up on his back, and from there we get tons of knees, great chokes, and ultimately a man who is older than his 46 years, getting outlasted by a younger, fresher opponent. Old man dying on his sword is maybe my favorite match story in pro wrestling, and Sak played it to a T here. He took some ungodly punishment from Shibata, who blasted him with all kinds of kicks. Those corner dropkicks to a slumped Sak were vicious. But Sakuraba would fight back, and him finagling his way into a choke was epic, with Shibata making a bunch of really good dead eye gasps while going out. Sakuraba was great at using his more dated skillset, still breaking out some cool throws and going for older MMA subs, and Shibata just came strong with strikes. The match ended when it should have, with a devastating kick, followed by a respectful bow to a mentor and friend after his win.

PAS: This was really, really good. Sakuraba brings such a legacy into a pro-wrestling match, and is great at telling the story of his life with wrestling as the medium. I loved how he would mix in stuff from Pride into a Shibata style potato fest, Sakuraba isn't going to stand in from of Shibata anymore then he would stand in front of Wanderlei Silva, so when Shibata starts to crack him, he moves right into a choke or a thai clinch or anything besides an exchange. Sakuraba's chokes were so cool, I loved the choke with the ankles and how he would scramble on Shibata's back counter ever attempt to throw him off. I didn't love the finish I have seen the kind of soccer kicks it takes to finish Sakuraba and that shot was no Ricardo Arona.

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

17. Young Bucks v. Angelico/Jack Evans PWG 7/24

PAS: I am really rating this as a whole segment. Ricochet and Tozawa are hugging after their wank off of a match, and Super Dragon comes from the back and starts killing folks, the Young Bucks come out in Super Dragon masks and the three of them lay waste to the entire locker room. Super Dragon especially kills Candace LaRae including curb stomping her on the bottom turnbuckle which is just horrific looking. All three guys are hateble dicks. Finally Evans and Angelico make the save with some big dives and we have a balls to the wall spotfest tag. I imagine if I watched a lot of Young Bucks matches I would get tired of their shtick, but it is fun in small doses, and Jack Evans just takes a huge asskicking. Didn't out stay it's welcome (Hero v. Bailey earlier on the show went 5 near falls and 6 minutes too long) kept it moving and had plenty of high points.

ER: Well this is pretty much the spotfest of the year. This is just absurd, at times flat out impossible wrestling. This whole segment was outstanding, with Super Dragon destroying everybody while the Bucks wait for them to feed out of the entrance way. Reminded me of the big coliseum scene in Gladiator where all the captives are shoved into the battle arena and one gladiator is just waiting at the entranceway to blindside them. The abuse LaRae takes is borderline uncomfortable, and Super Dragon basks in the discomfort. And the beatings just continue, and continue, and that's what makes the Evans and Angelico entrances so great, as they rush out and separately fling themselves into the attackers. Angelico especially just launches himself past the rinpost and into the crowd. The Reseda venue adds TONS to a match like this, as the crowd is just directly in the way of everything at all times, and this match featured guys constantly flying into the crowd in dangerous and spectacular ways. Some of the double teams in this are just.....I have no idea how they came up with them. I'm not even going to begin to describe them, but there were so many strange "I'm holding this guy and then another guy jumps off of me into a shooting star and then I do a 450 while holding this guy" and it's incredible that nobody broke their neck. Sometimes I think they're setting up one insane spot and then they take it a whole different direction ("oh, obviously Evans is going to springboard onto his partner's back while Matt is holding Angelico in a samoan drop.....wait Evans did that and then moonsaulted from Angelico's back to the floor!?!?"). Guys fly in and out of frame, you get every flying move you could possibly desire, done from the top to the floor, done springboard style, men fly into fans, through chairs, and the whole thing is a flat out sprint from beginning to end. This is the match you show to your friends who don't care about one bit about pro wrestling, and then watch them lose their shit the entire time. Just unreal.


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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

Aerostar/Australian Suicide/Fireball v. Hijo De Pirata Morgan/Steve Pain/Daga AAA 11/6

PAS: Totally lunatic spotfest, the best crazy lucha spotfest of the year. Steve Pain and Aeorstar have just crazy chemistry, breaking out some super awesome next level spots, felt like nuclear powered Rey v. Psicosis, Dick Togo v. Yakushiji stuff. Aerostar also breaks out an insane tope where he goes fully vertical. Daga and Australian Suicide were fun potato shotting each other, and all the other guys broke out some cool spots. Still you have to watch this for Pain v. Aerostar

ER: When you're going to do a spotfest, do a spotfest! And this right here was a good spotfest. And while you would rightfully come for the Aerostar vs. Pain match-ups, the rest of the guys all had value as well. Hijo de Pirata Morgan is not a guy I watch much, and after he took the safest bump possible on an early rana I already had him as the weak link, but after that I thought he looked good. He's a nice power wrestler, stands up to dives, hits a really nice vertical suplex, hits a really great moonsault and handles some basics very nicely. He was a pleasant surprise. Daga is not a guy I love, but a guy who certainly works far better as a rudo. And he was a total dickhead in this match. That was a major strength of the match, not just Daga being a dick, but the rudos feeling like rudos. And more than that, the rudos felt like a TEAM. Not just three assembled rudos, but they felt like three like-minded dickheads. That adds sooooo much to a match like this. The tecniocs all had fun stuff, with Fireball dying on a dive and breaking out some nice ranas, and Australian Suicide flipping out post-match as he and Daga beat the absolute shit out of each other. I have no idea what happened but it was a couple seconds away from the post match of an Onita vs. karate guy match. For whatever reason that start rapidly and violently teeing off on each other, in a way that immediately screamed "we are actually punching each other's faces". They get split up and Daga has a brutal cut under his eye that's gushing blood. Holy shit. But yeah you want Aerostar and Pain. Pain is a classic rudo base, working almost like a larger version of a great mini base like Demus 3:16. He does really vicious power offense and then hangs in for the ride on some of Aerostar's nuttier armdrags. These two clearly know each other and bring out some magic. The Aerostar tope is an easy contender for spot of the year, as he plows through Pirata completely vertical and then flips into the 4th row. AAA does the opposite of AAAing the shot, as they get a couple great shots of the tope and show it several times in all its glorious detail. This was too much fun.


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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

Jeff Cobb v. Timothy Thatcher FSW 12/12

PAS: I have been waiting to see a really long singles match between these two for a while, and this was a solid one. Loved the early grappling with Thatcher trying to grab a limb, and Cobb looking to throw him. They got a little nasty although never breaking the rules, Cobb sets Thatcher up for a brutal ground and pound elbow, Thatcher throws some lifters. Liked the finish run a bunch too, with Thatcher scrambling for a Fujiwara while getting chucked around the ring by Cobb. Very good stuff and I am glad this showed up.

ER: I'm with Phil as this was the Bay Area dream match of the last year or two, and while they matched up it was never for a long satisfying singles match. And it finally happened inside a mausoleum in the middle of some town in California that Californians have never heard about before (yet is still under 3 hours away from me. California is weird.). This match was exactly what I wanted from these two. I loved all the control and strength segments. Cobb tries to hammer his weight on Thatcher as Thatcher uses his own freak strength to bridge up on his neck. Sheesh the neck bridges in this. That's a weird thing to get excited about, but when they keep getting out of pins and popping up to transition out of subs by bridging with no hands, you can't help but notice. I like the running story of Thatcher trying to catch the Fujiwara, sometimes suckering him in and getting him to throw strikes so he can catch one, other times that suckering ending with him getting pounded. Thatcher's positioning on his armbars was great and I loved him shifting weight and posting up with legs to counter Cobb trying to roll through. Both guys' strength is just too much fun to watch, with Thatcher snatching him up for a gutwrench, which is a bad move as that leads to Cobb showing off a gorgeous deadlift german and a mean gutwrench of his own. I loved the finish as Thatcher almost mocks Cobb for not finishing him off, and Cobb quietly snaps and starts laying into Thatcher with brutal standing elbows before plastering him with the tour of the islands. Love these guys.


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