2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Park and Rush Return!

LA Park vs. Rush AAA/Sanchez 7/17

PAS: This was their first singles match against each other since 2019 and I am happy to watch these two guys slam their bloody heads into each other again. This was a bit of a Greatest Hits version of their match, with a little less frenzy than their best stuff. There was no crazy Park tope here, and I hope that is still in his bag. But, their greatest hits are still pretty great. Rush dominates early and opens Park up with a broken beer bottle, Park fires back and bounces an entire case of beer off of Rush's head and carves him up as well. We get a bunch of big exchanges and a couple of foul near falls, before PARK gets a surprisingly clean pin with a spear.  I imagine Rush leaving ROH leaves us open to this match being run back more times, and while we are probably never getting the hair vs. mask match, I'll watch this as often as they run it. 

ER: Man this was great. I love this feud. Phil and I love this feud so much that we actually went to New York just to see this match, which of course wound up canceled. But I'll watch any match these two have for the rest of their careers, just to see their specific kind of magic. This was nearly two years after their previous match and didn't break new ground, but it's amazing what kind of drama and frenzy they can whip up playing the hits. This is some great Fat Elvis Park and it's great how much sympathy and excitement he can draw while taking a beating, because everyone in Arena Neza knew it was leading to him potentially murdering Rush. The acoustics in Neza are perfect, and when Rush whips Park's chest with his big belt it gets an incredible echo. I think part of the reason why I continue to love Park and Rush matches is because they're always filmed the exact way I want to watch Park and Rush. Every big chop, slap, and bottle break sounded amazing, and the camera made me feel ringside. Rush beat Park around ringside and into the crowd, throwing a drink overhand at him while Park was being comforted by a very small child. Minutes later after getting a box of empty beer bottles bounced off his head, Park breaks one of those bottles on a chair directly next to that same child. 

There's a great shot of Park as he's in the crowd breaking bottles, where you can see his big belly hanging down, and you realize Park is getting the same Regional Old Fat Guy huge crowd reactions Big Daddy or Otto Wanz would get. Park takes some big spills in the ring, going down hard on an overhead belly to belly and getting the back of his head whipped into the mat on a German that was mostly just a fast rear waistlock takedown. The match structure with them always works, as Park takes big falls and needs recovery time, so Rush gets to flex and preen and toss his hair and it's always great. Park's overhand chops are the loudest in wrestling, the referee takes a hard slap from each (which slows him down counting the pin after each guy kicks the other in the balls), and Parks' match finishing spear hit Rush like a truck. I really loved the build to that spear, getting things to the point where both just ran at each other for one final joust, Rush getting stopped dead cold by the biggest skeleton in history. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Skayde/Maya vs. Navarro/Komander

57. Skayde/Cometa Maya vs. Negro Navarro/Komander BIG Lucha 12/19

PAS: This was a maestro teaming with a wild youngster and does a cool job of mixing both of those styles. Maya looked very comfortable exchanging on the mat with Navarro, and Komander looked comfortable doing the fast Skayde style rope exchanges. The Komander vs. Maya stuff was super fast flips and rolls, and we get a crazy dive from Maya to the floor. Short match but it hit the points you want from a match like this. The old guys were very giving and this kind of development can only help the kids. 

ER: I could have seen this match being fun in a completely different way if it was vets vs. youth, but I like seeing maestros teaming with fliers and weaving their crafts together. The beginning was great fun, as Navarro stands basically still while letting Maya work some standing arm and wrist control exchanges. Navarro's eyes the whole time look like he's letting Maya have a bit of fun while also giving him a bit of rope, and sure enough, with a gleam in his eye Navarro traps Maya's wrist the second he feels like it, and then ties him up in knots while Maya is powerless to counter. Navarro takes Maya through some cool sequences and they worked in some very cool roll-ups. Komander has some balance issues (two different moments of people waiting for him to get his footing on the ropes before doing a spot) but once he irons that out he will be gold, as he already has some cool tricks. He walks the entire length of the ring on the top rope to catching Skayde with a rope flip slingshot armdrag, and this was a large ring. He should work his shaky balance into his gimmick, like a Drunken Master luchador. Maya and Komander pull off maybe the most gorgeous dive of the year, a perfectly executed sequence where Maya hits the Fenix/Metalik flip dive, springing off the middle rope into one of the smoothest arcing flips I've seen, and Komander flat out could NOT have caught the dive better. It was one of the most squared up catches I've seen, giving both men the softest possible landing on an incredible spot. The match overall didn't always rise above an exhibition feel, but maestro matwork with some slick flying is a combination I'll always view with some rose lenses. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Arez vs. Vikingo

9. Arez vs. El Hijo del Vikingo RIOT Lucha 3/21

PAS: These are two of the young lions of lucha going out there to stake their claim. They demonstrated a real skill at a bunch of different levels of lucha, starting with some pretty slick chain and mat wrestling, including both guys doing some crazy rope tricks to manuever out of arm locks. They then have some cool rope running exchanges with headscissors and ranas, before breaking out the big dives and bombs near the end. I thought the end run was a bit your turn/my turn although the turns they were taking were really spectacular, spot of the year contender stuff. Vikingo hits a spring board rope climb 450 splash to the ring apron, and Arez hits this amazing looking rope bounce assisted northern lights superplex, just crazy inventive stuff. I would have liked to see a bit more structure near the end, but this was these guys trying a Top This Style PWG main event, not my favorite type of lucha, but for that style this is the pinnacle. 

ER: This kind of move trading wrestling is right down towards the bottom of my Least Favorite Wrestling barrel, ahead only of stuff like forearm trade exhibitions or mid-match Street Fighter II references. But whereas those styles are completely unsalvageable for me, a big moves match can always win me over. When they don't take a couple directions I expect them to take, or they find some unique ways to deliver a move, or focus the kind of moves they do, all those things can make a big moves match stand out from a typical moves match. Arez and Vikingo did enough to surprise me here, both offensively and in the direction of the match, turned into a great mixture of cool spots and painful landings. They worked some co-operative but impressive strength spots into the matwork and it plays into the finish, which I liked. 

I'm not sure I've ever seen the ways they got into and out of Rito Romero specials before, like some kind of lucha Mark Henry sorcery. I really flipped for Arez's hook kick feint, which at first looks like he was doing bad Low Ki kick combos, kicking past Vikingo's head, but the missed kicked is used to hook his leg around Vikingo's head to get him into position for a great sitout powerbomb. I kinda like when wrestlers spam a specific move into their moveset, set up in different ways. I like Asian Cougar throwing weird legdrops or DDP's diamond cutter variations, and I liked Arez throwing out a bunch of double stomps while Vikingo kept nailing running double knees. Arez had this great 1-2-3 stomp where he hit a big one on the apron, hit a slingshot one back into the ring, then another flying stomp from the other side. Vikingo hit a running knee like a baseball slide, flying through the ropes and sending Arez to the floor. Vikingo's step up 450 to the entrance ramp was nuts and pulled off more slickly than any similar Fenix spots I've seen this year. The finish was cooperative as hell, but it's also something I've never seen before, so greater good and all. Arez lifts Vikingo up to the middle rope, I had no idea where they were going with it, and I was not expecting them to turn it into a Spanish Fly with a near vertical landing from Vikingo. That felt like the right thing to end on. 

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