2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Brody

I wrote this 15 months ago and never posted it. Another love letter to Darby Allin. 

 

Darby Allin vs. Brody King AEW Dynamite 11/27/24

ER: It feels like a bit of a visual cheat to send Darby out there covered in bandages and tape. I understand selling a beating but I also love the idea of Darby's injuries all accumulating internally, his bones sounding like a wrench in a cement mixer when he moves. I don't need him biting into blood filled condoms every other week like Ken Shamrock, but I like the quiet dignity of a nutcase who has to be compiling injuries and refuses to show them. Now, Darby is showing all of them! His head is bandaged, his ribs are wrapped, his thigh is wrapped so visibly that it's wrapped over his leggings! In my day, men used to start wrestling in chaps or trash bag pants to hide their knee braces, but Darby is now wrapping his legs over his leggings.  Darby, I want you to hide your physical pain eternally, and to only let us in by way of screams and panicked writhing after a crash. I don't think I've ever seen a Darby match where he was doing this much physical selling before the bell, already holding his ribs and hopping around on one leg, and I don't know if I needed it. Not now. Don't tell us.  

I don't think the extra visible tape made this match any better than it was already going to be. But it is great, and Darby is provided hardly any openings. Brody catches the first kick thrown and chucks Darby into a reverse 450, then starts hitting full weight sentons, chops Darby off the apron to the floor, and introduces Darby to various areas of the floor and railing. 

There are two great missed spots by Brody that really move this match - excellently capped under the 10 minute mark - to another level: first, he misses a chop into the ringpost. I'm kind of over the missed chop into the ringpost as it's more expected than ever, but Brody is smart enough to not make it the singular miss. He swings hard and misses painfully in a way that easily could have broken his tibia, but the miss only drives him to set up something more risky, which leads to his second miss, a cannonball into the guardrail. One miss led to the bigger miss, and a twist of fate made that second miss even more special because it caused the production to short circuit. The TV screen went momentarily white, and when picture returned the commentary booth was disconnected. I really like the Excalibur/Schiavone team, but this match instantly felt different and special with no commentary, only the sounds of Darby's guttural moans and the impact of Brody's body. I wish the audio stayed unrestored for the entire home stretch. 

Where the considerable body tape continues to not work for me is during Darby's small comeback. Am I to believe his body is now in worse condition than ever before, as he does his tope and his two awesome Coffin Drops? Part of the big joy of Darby is not seeing how much pain he is going through to deliver these crash landings. I do not need visual clues beyond his own selling that Darby's skeleton is in pain. We all know he has to be in pain, and the imagination is a more powerful visual than any wrapped body part could be. I don't know if I've ever seen Darby come into a match selling damage before the bell, and it's kind of a foolish exercise as you knew those injuries were going to take a backseat once he got the chance to get moving, which is what we all wanted. The tape is not necessary for Darby. Leave that for other wrestlers. He transcends it. 

The finish rocked. They did a great job hinting at the double count out without milking drama from it, and then they just went straight to the end, playing off more than one classic plausible Darby finish in just 20 seconds. Darby is poised on the top rope, waiting for King to roll back in, waiting for that Coffin Drop. But if Brody had a miss so big that it sent the production truck scrambling, Darby had a miss so big it led to his near instant defeat. Darby trust falls straight back into Brody's big waiting arms. When Darby flipped back over into a pin, I thought my boy was going to sneak out with another one. But Brody dragged himself to his feet while never letting go of that hangman's sleeper. That sleeper also could have finished the match. Darby's eyes said that he knew it was going to finish him. He had no answer to two huge arms locked in tight around his neck and head with his feet not touching earth. Maybe Brody didn't want to chance it, maybe he didn't want to risk Darby lasting longer than his arms...so he finishes it so decisively with an over the shoulder piledriver so violent that anything other than a firm 1-2-3 would have proven Darby's T-1000 identity. He is mortal. He just shouldn't need tape. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: The First Darby/Claudio Singles

 

8. Darby Allin vs. Claudio Castagnoli AEW Dynamite 11/20/24

ER: I finally got around to watching the Darby/Claudio Falls Count Anywhere match from a couple months ago and thought it was good. It made me go back and revisit their first ever singles match. Also I had written this review of that first singles match almost a year ago and never posted it so it felt like a good time to finally put it up. I"m not gonna rewrite it with a comparison to the Falls Count Anywhere match, I'll let my review from a year ago stand. Maybe next year I'll write about the Falls Count Anywhere and that review will compare them. This first match of two natural opponents was my favorite Darby singles match of last year, with plenty of contenders. Here's why I thought that: 

It's good to run occasional matches where Darby Allin doesn't make any or is simply unable to make any real inroads. It's easy to get used to Darby Always Comes Back mindset that you need to interrupt things with a good steamrolling every now and again. Darby is smart in his match layouts and is good at presenting some (some, key) of his big wins as lucky scrapes or opportunistic escapes. He also knows that to make those wins work, there need to be matches where he receives no luck, no unforced opponent errors, and no opportunities. Claudio, as a Darby opponent, feels so obvious an opponent that it feels like I've written variations on their matches for years. It's my favorite unkillable crash test dummy facing a man with unmatched strength, and the whole story of the match is feats of strength delivered to the world's greatest facilitator of those feats until he can no longer stand. That's a great story, I love that story, these two feel like the most capable of making the most of that story, then they go and do exactly that and it's as good as it's supposed to be. 

They are the most natural pairing in the world so I am surprised this is their very first singles match. I do this a lot with Darby and Danielson. It's so easy to picture how their matches with everyone will go that my memory just checks them off and moves on to thinking about Best Breakout Jerry Flynn matches. This match goes how we want it to go, with the right amount of surprise. Darby's comebacks are so legendary that he can work an All Downhill From Here match for 85% of a match and know that it's the right amount of time to still buy into a Darby win at any moment. He's never out of it until the 3. 

This match is the best spiritual update of 1995 Malenko/Guerrero matches, or the 1996 Malenko/Misterio matches. This is an evolution for good. It's no a secret I don't like Malenko/Guerrero as opponents. I might dislike the Malenko/Misterio match structure even more. But, I understand why that style of match is represented more than any other style in our modern match type 30 years later. I don't like that fact, but it means we have look for the ones who understand the restraints and the possibilities of the style. In 1995/1996 it looked like a fresh breath of unseen air, today it's house style. It's here. 

Rey/Malenko had a Going Long house show style where Malenko would ground Rey for 85% of a match and "peak" the short bursts into a big finish. Often, their matches never peaked to their big finish, and were instead long collections of go nowhere submissions and Rey ping ponging between 100% incapacitated to 80% unleashed with little in between. Darby right now is actually better at selling for sympathy than 1995/1996 Rey Misterio Jr., and that makes Darby's one-sided matches more compelling. Rey later got better than Darby at selling but right now Darby is having years in contention with Rey's best years. 

Rey was great at memorable short bursts in those Malenko matches, but Darby makes much better use of his time. He makes his 2 minutes of control and 13 minutes of pain mean something during all of those minutes. Doing so, he gives yet another good wrestler their best showcase of the year. Claudio has been a great TV worker for a long time now and can suffer from the Sameness that comes with that. Year after year TV work against many of the same guys within the same style can get repetitive. Even the best TV workers can lapse into familiarity, and it's not uncommon for them to go through peaks and valley years. Darby Allin has been able to work outside of that while always wrestling like Darby Allin, and Claudio is a guy who I think benefits from being broken just outside of his formula. He is capable of spectacular feats but doesn't go spectacular as often as he used to. Darby Allin is made for the spectacular. 

I want to see Claudio catch a Coffin Drop and throw him. I want to see Claudio walk up the ring steps while holding a vertical suplex, getting him back into the ring by way of caber toss. I want to see Misawa level elbows and Finlay level neck twisting, and I want to see Darby take one of those bumps into the turnbuckles where he finds the least safe way to take a biel. The kind where his back manages to hit the buckles in two different bad spots. Claudio is great at dealing body damage and Darby's matches are always highlights of his body being damaged. On the bigger matches, we build to head damage and this match got greater when the side of Darby's head got swung into the ring steps about as hard as someone can get their head swung into metal. The way Darby sells it, by vigorously rubbing the new heat on the side of his head, is so blindingly accurate that he's either the most gifted seller of our time or he is just a man suffering head trauma in the middle of the week after being swung into metal. 

There's a press slam from an announce table to the unbreaking timekeeper's table that bounces Darby off his hip, and the table skirt wraps around him like a bodybag. It's the kind of crazy heightened spot Darby pushes his opponents to, everyone elevated to something bigger. Claudio's strength, Darby's death wish, and one table that wasn't expecting to be used that way. I loved the finish, where Darby heroically beat the 10 count and died instantly by lariat, no threat at all to kickout while Claudio palmed his entire face. Darby's threat can only be temporarily neutralized. He will return to inspire newer punishments. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Danielson vs. Sabre

 

2. Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr. NJPW 2/11/24

ER: I watched this match some time last year and fell in love with it, planned on writing it up to add to my glacially growing MOTY lists, but other wrestling felt like it was more worthy of my writing time, more worthy of coverage. This match was in no way under the radar as an acclaimed match. Who hadn't heard about or seen this match? Who needed to be convinced to seek out one of the most praised matches from Danielson's brilliant farewell tour? So, I devoted my energy to other things and now, after seeing Bryan at DEAN~! 2 beautifully bear witness to the power of independent wrestling, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this match. 

Yes, I understand this match is not an Independent Pro Wrestling Match. Clearly. New Japan is the biggest wrestling promotion on that side of the world and this took place in a large arena in Osaka. But Bryan Danielson defined indy wrestling, and Sabre was a wrestler who I fully got into after seeing him up close and live on indy wrestling shows. The close up magic was always my favorite part of indy wrestling. There's nowhere to hide when you're in a quiet gymnasium and some guy with thick glasses is sitting 8 feet away while you're working strikes. It was good that I got to see John Cena live when I was 20, to hear a gassed up green bodybuilder literally shout out spots across an echoing indoor soccer arena, just as it was good that I got to see Necro Butcher fall fully on top of my girlfriend's sister at the one wrestling show she ever attended. 

I fell in love with Danielson's wrestling after getting to see him at least a dozen times live and up close, from gyms to garages to county fairs. Any lingering doubts I had about Sabre vanished when I got to see him give and take seemingly impossible punishment from 10' away, my love fully realized when I was standing in the perfect location to witness him leave a boot imprint bruise on Dan Makabe's neck. It wasn't that long ago when people were saying Sabre was a skinny guy who wrestled an "unbelievable" matwork style, and it wasn't so many years before that when Danielson was spoken of as an incredible wrestler who would never be taken seriously on a big league level. Times certainly have changed. 

I am constantly at odds with modern wrestling. Wrestling has never been more easily accessible, and yet I have never felt on such a completely different page from modern interests and styles than I do now. So many guys wrestle like so many other guys that it feels like every guy has wrestled every other guy a couple dozen times, homogenous styles making it seem like every possible match has been regularly happening for years and been done to death. Considering that, I was surprised that there weren't already a dozen different Danielson/Sabre matches, but merely four, split down the middle by a 15 year gap. It feels, on paper, so predictable that they would make great opponents that I just assumed they had been out there being great opponents for each other during every year Danielson wasn't a) in WWE or b) critically injured. But no, there wrestled four times, and this will (surely?) be the last time. It is their definitive match, and it is so good that noted wrestling historian Dave Meltzer gave it an unprecedented 5 1/2 stars (!), an honor he has only bestowed upon his favorite several dozen matches over the last two years. 

This match was fantastic at being the match I expected it to be, and even better at being a match that could break out into something different at any time. It skated a line between "close your eyes and picture the match you think Sabre/Danielson would have" and "maybe these two are going to go 30 minutes of constantly struggling over every single hold with no breaks of any kind". I don't need a match to subvert my expectations for me to enjoy it. Often I want a match to do the exact things I am expecting it to do. And, while I thought the match was at its most thrilling when it was subverting my expectations and teasing the unknown, I also appreciated the ways that it played directly into expectations. While the structure played into my expectations, the brutality somehow exceeded them. This never felt like two guys working a Dream Match Farewell, it always felt like a brutal match that kept tipping further and further into unprofessional territory, in a way that only felt more engaging the longer it went, with the possibility of either man's body actually breaking feeling like a real thing that could happen. So the match built incredibly as a well laid out wrestling match, while ramping up the intensity appropriately in time with the build. 

The beginning was playful and didn't feel the need to rush. When I say "playful" I mean playful in a way that would rip the ligaments of most humans, but it was playful for them. These two are not normal men, and they are testing each other and it is playful and painful. One of the best things about Fujiwara was how happy he could look in matches. When he smiled about what a dickhead he was being a dick or after taking a kick to the teeth, he looked like he was doing the exact thing he most wanted to be doing in this world and loving it. Danielson's farewell run was at its best whenever he could not hide how much fun he was having, and that pure joy was evident in nearly his entire AEW run. Sabre was smiling and laughing too, but his laugh was more pensive; the dance partner who wasn't sure how far this smiling battered old guy was going to take things. They were testing each other, in different ways, while also entertaining each other with something they each love doing: wrestling. 

I didn't see a single second of inactivity on the mat. There was constant advancement without ever seeming like they were in charted waters. In a wrestling world where every reversal feels like it skipped the move entirely and went straight to the mapped out reversal, this looked like RINGS. It was the kind of matwork where you couldn't grab a headlock without having a palm jammed into your jaw, no way to scramble for a leg without getting your own leg bent weird. Snapmare reversals looked so good they would have been bought as a first fall finish to men in suits watching front row in the 50s. Ankles were targeted, some moves delivered with a sigh of relief, less desperation maneuver more clever quick thinking escape. Sabre adjusts his submissions on the fly to keep Danielson from getting from the ropes, and it felt like a Johnny Saint spot...if Saint had ever worked as a heel sadist. I lived through the era where indy wrestlers began seeing their first Johnny Saint match, and you couldn't go to a show without someone throwing their name into the hat of "who could do the worst Lady in the Lake". I always felt the Johnny Saint Rip Off descriptor was unfair to Sabre, and I think he's been exceeding that tag for a decade now. The history is there, but the ceiling of viciousness was never this high for Johnny. 

The stiff work was even stiffer than I expected, and the worked violence was so tight that it made me question what was legit and what wasn't. Was Danielson really mule kicking Sabre straight in the kneecap, or did it just Look Good? Was Danielson really trying to no sell like Kikuchi until Sabre starting kicking him in the face, making Kikuchi homage impossible? Sabre has one of the greatest worked headbutts, and I also get the sense he has a great shoot headbutt. Does the 5 minute Fujiwara/Kikuchi match from fucking Ice Ribbon exist on tape? ICE RIBBON are the ones who ran Fujiwara/Kikuchi? How could that be? 

Anyway, Danielson's downward strike elbows are maybe the only thing I wished Danielson would have dropped from his arsenal. It was tough to make them Look Good, and they inspired as many horrid copycats as The Lady in the Lake. But Danielson had the best version of this spot that dozens have now done much worse. Here, his 12 to 6 elbows were the best they've ever looked...or had the close up magicians fooled me again? It sure looked like Danielson was crossing a line with them while breaking a triangle, and I loved how he was acting like a guy who knew he was clearly crossing a line. Their off-timed body shots to block strikes felt like they each could have been intentionally trying to throw the other's timing off within a worked sequence or in a playful shoot way. They worked as beautifully together as anyone with a brain thought they would.

My faults with the match are minimal but I think important: The top rope back suplex felt like it was from a different match. It's a 32 minute match and most of it had been two guys struggling against the other's force, and now suddenly it was two guys kind of holding still so Sabre can make sure he's balanced and Danielson can find his footing. Everything else felt like two men trying to neutralize the other, and the suplex felt like two friends working together to boost each other over a pretty high fence. The finish itself was kind of a letdown. I kept liking parts of it - Sabre pulling back on Danielson's leg after the Zack Driver, then throwing his other leg over to clamp it down made me think that was it. That leg looked like a nail in a coffin - but I didn't love the rush for pinfalls, and the submission reversals suddenly felt more like Dean Malenko style Early Anticipation mapped out matwork. When you get half a match of Real Shit and finish with that, it's a harsh intrusion of 2024 Wrestling right when you're about to climax. Unfortunate placement by them, unfortunate wording by me. 

Those complaints aren't what I'm going to think about when I recall this match. This match was far more than that. It stands as one of the highest points of 2024 Wrestling, and no matter what I think about modern wrestling, I mean that as positively as possible. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Hechicero vs. Komander

 

13. Hechicero vs. Komander AEW Rampage 11/30/24

ER: With DEAN~! 2 in the rear view, I wanted to write about a guy who was almost a part of DEAN~! 2, but plans wildly changed. Hechicero was someone we tried to get from CMLL...and instead somehow wound up with Blue Panther, Virus, Valiente, and a host of others who all worked insanely hard to give us the greatest lucha Cibernetico of the last 20 years. I am not sure what would have changed had CMLL sent Hechicero, Mascara Dorada, and Barbara Cavernario instead of Averno, Virus, Euphoria, and Neon, but I'm sure it would have been great in an entirely different way. So we didn't get Hechicero, but Hechicero gets to show up in AEW every couple months and get a fun 10 minute match against a great opponent who he's never faced before. It's one of those gifts from Tony Khan, a match that exists simply because he wanted to see what it looked like. Hechicero vs. Danielson was an outstanding example of that, but I'm just as excited that we got to see Hechicero vs. Orange Cassidy. Collision is on in the background as I type this, and Hechicero is main eventing against Dorada, two DEAN~! Guys who never were.  

When the Hechicero/Komander match aired I wasn't sure if it was the last we'd see of Hechicero in AEW. It played as a fitting swan song if that's what it became, not just as a Hechicero AEW swan song, but also  to a Rampage era that I already greatly miss. Rampage was a show I really loved, with the hour format and shorter match layouts allowing a different feel from Dynamite and Collision. Hechicero/Komander was a great example of what made Rampage great, to me: A 13 minute classic main event, the perfect length for TV and perfect length for Rampage, the spiritual successor of guys getting to show out on Velocity or Superstars or WWECW. It got right back to the basics of the great Danielson match by letting Hechicero go full freak and break out all the tricked out work he wanted, with an opponent that would qualify this as a Dream Match. Is this the secret to Hechicero? Just let him go out there and control and break out Hechicero Things? Seems easy enough. 

His blue gear is gorgeous, with lighter offset blue boots to juxtapose the deep royal velvet of his tights. It's the perfect ensemble for him to go Hechicero Unleashed! When he starts rolling around with Komander's ankle for a tricked out stretch muffler only for Komander to do a full sit up until he was scaling the side of Hechicero's body, trying for a headscissors but landing in a Hechicero pin from guard, later getting pancaked after several revolutions on another headscissors attempt, I knew we were there. Hechicero moves like his own man in that ring. The way he leans out of a superkick, letting it scrape by his chin, before hitting a leaping Kawada style gamengiri to Komander's mouth was just one great example (of many) of his Big Spot attention to the small details. The gamengiri feels even better when we all know how close that superkick came to fully connecting. 

Hechicero and Komander are highlight reels who connect the highlights with snug submissions and effective highspot teases. Komander and Hechicero make it all matter. Komander has a missile dropkick (bouncing off multiple sides of the ropes) that hits like something that would bump not just Hechicero but anyone in AEW. Hechicero's powerslam is on the level of Dustin; Every clothesline is a headhunter. One of my favorite spots in wrestling was Bill Dundee's clothesline sleeperhold. It always looked like a lethal snare, a crazy way to follow through a lariat. Hechicero has to be the first person I've seen do the Dundee clothesline while also leaping over the ropes to the apron. Of all the ways I was expecting Hechicero to counter, I was not expecting him to wind up so suddenly on the apron pulling Komander's head over with him. 

Hechicero hangs in for the high catch on a crazy Komander moonsault to the floor, and catches a Komander moonsault into the ring in a trapped scissored armbar, rolling around with it into another one of his leveraged cradles, almost getting pinned underneath in the melee. Defense to offense to pin to escape, and they both recognize the value in not showing any kind of light on a small package cradle nearfall. The finish run is Hechicero at his most punishing. The Mad Scientist Bomb is a finisher worthy backbreaker but he uses it to set up the best running knee in wrestling. Hechicero runs up the buckles so fast, size and speed and impact, slashing and driving with that left knee, spinning around Komander with a decapitating guillotine. Of course this is a Dream Match. Foolish to suggest otherwise. It's Hechicero showing out in the main event of a sadly defunct Good Wrestling Program, and Komander never has to be asked twice to show out. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Moxley

 

9. Darby Allin vs. Jon Moxley AEW Dynamite 9/25/24

ER: Darby's resiliency brings out the viciousness in his opponents, and often makes his opponents into something more interesting. Darby has the ability to lift people to new heights, whether that is lifting a weak wrestler into something greater, or lifting an established wrestler out of their rut. Jon Moxley is someone who can get into ruts. Moxley is a guy who has spent nearly a decade ping ponging around from Great Wrestler Dogging It to Maybe a Wrestler I Greatly Overrated to That's That Guy I Loved to Great Wrestler Wrestling Great to Was He Ever Great and all other points in between. I'm pretty sure I loved Moxley in 2023, but it is a fluid status. I have been consistently underwhelmed by Mox in 2024. I don't see everything and I miss plenty, but when I look back over the year and my takeaway is "Well I think I liked his singles match against Dax?" that tells me it's been a down year. 

Enter Darby Allin and his continuing quest to fall to the floor and take punishment in ways no other wrestler ever has. Some wrestlers bring out the worst in Jon Moxley's tendencies, but Darby is a full bingo card Free Space that allows any uncreative guy in a rut to just batter and bruise. I do not think Moxley is uncreative, but he sure can act like he is. But he will unleash punishment on the willing, and Darby is the most willing guy in wrestling. Jon Moxley's attitude is elevated here and everything he throws at Darby looks mean. But you know this is all part of Darby's Important Show. 

You find me someone, intentionally or not, who has ever flown through the ropes and off the ringpost (and ring steps) the way Darby keeps doing. This man keeps inventing new ways to fall through/into/off stationary objects. If you're a wrestler who finds a new way to integrate a ringpost into your fall to the floor, you're a great wrestler. I don't make the rules, it's just reality. Super Dragon, Sgt. Slaughter, Psicosis, Cassandro, Darby; it's one of those infallible Great Wrestler tests.   

Darby takes a lot of punishment because he knows we need it. His selling at its best plays upon our fears of his eventual crippling. There's a big crash landing that feels inevitable, but happens so quick that it plays into the fear of this unstoppable force suddenly stopping. He misses a big dive and does his full speed tope con giro into the matless floor covering Arthur Ashe. That dive hit big earlier, after a big time Coffin Drop, a bolo thrown at an escaping Moxley. This time it doesn't. The set up was big and fast, which made it Great. Marina Shafir, Moxley's second who had otherwise not gotten involved, peeled back and completely removed a large grid of the ringside mats in 15 seconds flat. It's one of the most impressive moments of Being A Second I can recall. Currently in AEW, Saraya and Harley Cameron are great at being seconds for each other, but it's almost all vocally within their characters and not usually physically setting up spots. Marina Shafir is setting up the major stunt spot for an unpredictably predictable daredevil and she makes these mats disappear so cleanly and efficiently that it shut the mouth of Load Out guys everywhere. Can you imagine Sinister Minister taking 3 minutes to set this stunt up on an ECW PPV? Shafir clears a full crash zone in 15 seconds and she momentarily had Chyna aura. 

When Darby wipes out into the Suddenly Created crash zone he's wiggling his fingers, selling the injury we've all been expecting. He is compelling not just for his wipe outs and stunts, but because he knows how to keep us in on the act. I love watching what he inflicts on his body and I'll tear up when he's moving like a man wearing someone else's legs like Johnny Knoxville. I fear the type of injuries Darby tempts. Darby himself is fearless. He does not consider injury. He lets nothing slow him down. He's wiggling those fingers for us, not for himself. Darby Allin inspires violence and makes men take risks in delivering that violence that they otherwise never would have taken. But they'll never take risks the way he takes risks. For us. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Harley vs. Mina

 

17. Harley Cameron vs. Mina Shirakawa AEW Collision 11/16/24

ER: What a silly match, that I have been looking forward to for what feels like months. This is easily the best the AEW women's division has ever been and a dozen of them feel like actual marketable superstars. I've been wanting to write about Harley Cameron, one of many AEW women who I feel have been giving off Superstar Auras over the last year. This was a match that I never wanted until I got caught up in the laugh out loud funny promos building to the match, peaking with Harley's guitar promo with Renee that "went long" and cut her off mid-proclamation. To quote Harley, "What does Mina have that Harley Cameron doesn't? NOTHING!" 

She's not wrong, and she wasn't even bragging about how much better she is in the ring than Mina. That might seem like a hot take, but it's true. To any viewer who had never seen a single AEW women's match, none of them would guess Harley Cameron is - as of this match - not quite 50 matches into her wrestling career. Compare her to other AEW women who are also relatively new, and there is no comparison. Julia Hart has taken some steps, but still clearly wrestles like someone with less than 100 matches. Anna Jay - 130 matches - on this same episode of Collision took an entire 60 burdensome seconds to get a table and set it up in the ring. Nearly 10% of her main event match was spent slowly setting up a table while Mariah May had to crawl around selling. There is no immediacy to anything she does, and she didn't take even one second to put in some extra boots to Mariah while in the long process of moving a table. It was awful. But there, earlier in the evening, you see Harley work her match at the exact right pace, with strong selling, working directly to her opponent, and it's clear she does not wrestle like someone less than 50 matches into her career. Hell, look around at the women who have had hundreds of matches and counting - Willow Nightingale, Nyla Rose, Kris Statlander - and none of them have the balance, control, and ring placement of Harley Cameron. How is that possible? 

She does not look like an athlete, yet she runs the ropes better than any woman I just mentioned and her offense actually fits her movement. She moves through that offense more naturally than any of the  women I've mentioned, which is another thing that just should not be. She works snug on her strikes and surely does not need to do so. Find me the other women in AEW with harder clubs to the back or betting looking elbow smashes. Queen Aminata for sure, Toni Storm, Jamie Hayter, maybe Serena Deeb. That's all, by my count. Go watch Kyle Fletcher throw a club to the back, then watch Harley Cameron do the same and tell me with an honest face that Fletcher's is better. You won't be able to. 

Perhaps more surprising than her strikes is the way Harley leans in to strikes. I am still surprised by how long she hangs in on offense that is aimed at her face. She waits for the contact with no arms held out in front. Mina's whipping kick, a big rolling elbow, a springboard kick, all of them taken with her head and face leaned in for contact, hanging in until impact. It's not just that she's good at taking her opponent's strikes and offense, she's somehow good at occupying herself while waiting for that offense. The way she occupied herself arguing with the ref before turning around directly into a rolling elbow was just one example of her strong timing. If you're talking her ability to make offense look good, look no further than the way she took Mina's slingblade. I don't think Mina has a very good slingblade - most wrestlers do not - but you wouldn't know it from watching Harley take it. It is a Bad Slingblade but Harley hangs in straight until the whip, then flies backward like her head outweighs her whole torso. 

It's not just the way she takes offense, it's the way she sells that offense, which is sometimes more layered than you'd think. I love the way she got staggered by an elbow, a sell that realistically reacted to the actual strike. She fought hard for rope breaks and her performer's intensity she showed in selling Mina's knee work was great. Again, find me any examples from any of the experienced names above who have sold knee work better. I haven't seen them. Harley abandoned a fireman's carry early because of that knee, and I my favorite part was how Mina progressively kicked out Harley's leg. It took five kicks to the knee and thigh to finally knock her down to a knee but each one furthered the damage and each kick was sold appropriately, small bits of selling leading up to one big goal. 

Look, I don't know what the future holds for Harley Cameron. In modern wrestling it seems like anyone who comes in as this much of a natural is eventually corrupted by all the worst elements and pick up habits that only make them do the same bad things as everyone else. Harley has a tough line to walk and I don't know what will happen. We'll always have her first 50. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Strong vs. Hook

 

15. Roderick Strong vs. Hook AEW Dynamite 9/25/24

ER: I've been saying, and I know I'm not the only one, that AEW needs to hit the 8-12 minute sweet spot on matches a lot more. Here's a great nine minute example of why that works so well. They worked this at such a brisk pace that 14 minutes of it would have been overkill. The offense wouldn't have felt as tough if they kept it up that long. This was a quick nine minutes, but I never felt like anything was rushed through or undersold. 

Roddy is a great opponent for Hook. In fact, a lot of people seem like great opponents for Hook. That probably means Hook is well beyond his years for a guy under 80 matches in. He was a hit on arrival and even though this is the first Hook match I've actually written about, I've been admiring the act the entire time. I missed a lot of his 2024, so I still haven't seen a lot of the "long" Hook matches. He was a great squash worker, and he's nestled in nicely to the 8-12 minute sweet spot while AEW seemingly doesn't know what to do with him. His takedowns remain strong the whole match, and I buy him doing all of it. His poise and feel are so good this early, that I worry he's going to lose his charm the more polished he gets at pro wrestling. He's at his best when he's not moving like a wrestler, and I hope he maintains what makes him unique when he's closer to match 200. 

Hook understands a ton just 80 matches in, while Roderick Strong is a guy who can still seem wise beyond his years 1,400 matches in. I don't think I would have predicted this 18 years ago when my buddy was obsessed with him as the Master of the Backbreaker. This episode of Dynamite was sold on a very specific kind of 2006 indy wrestling nostalgia, with Nigel McGuinness getting his final return match against Bryan Danielson. Bryan Danielson had one of the most acclaimed final runs in wrestling history, and a career even the many Danielson optimists (we were all Danielson optimists) couldn't have imagined in 2006. But Roderick Strong has been there the whole 18 years since then, and he's kept his style just as relevant to each era as Danielson has. Roderick Strong has quietly been really, really good for nearly 25 years now. I don't think Strong has the high end classics that Danielson has, but he keeps finding ways to be the perfect TV match worker, and I love TV workers. He became a Christian level TV guy with slightly less opportunity and visibility. His NXT TV matches were a highlight of that run, and his house show work had the kind of tight execution that plays well in that environment. He does tired indy things better than the other indy workers: He knows how to throw an elbow, knows how to blend thigh slap offense, and hits chops designed to echo in a gymnasium or stadium. Roderick Strong embodies more about 2006 wrestling than Bryan Danielson and he's fucking great at it. He's just now entering his 40s and he doesn't Move Weird like Christopher Daniels (yet). He only seems to be getting faster and tighter and he hits just as hard. He's the kind of worker who can adapt to any opponent, an evergreen Good Hand. 

I dug how he and Hook went after each other. The opening scrambles were cool, Strong having actual answers for Hook's difficult-to-counter judo. Bennett and Taven added the right amount of spice on the floor, with each taking a big bump for Hook that led to Strong yeeting Hook into the ringpost. I don't think I've ever used that word before. I don't know if people are saying that word any longer. I think I'm using it properly and it's the only way to describe what happened. Hook's suplexes look like Hook's. They're not quite the same as you've seen them. He's small but throws larger. His hiptosses and northern lights look just different enough. He judo throws Strong off three different chair edges in one throw and Strong was so good all match at feeding into all things Hook big and small with that same energy. Man has had That Energy since 2006. We need our 8-12 minute kings, to nurture the next generation of 8-12 minute kings. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoe vs. Bad Apple

 

13. Mark Briscoe vs. Bryan Keith AEW Rampage 9/20/24

ER: I can't imagine what it's like being Mark Briscoe. I haven't gone through the pain that he's gone through. I've never had a brother, never lost a brother. Not just a brother, but a tag team partner. Most of you with brothers never would have spent anywhere near as much time on the road trapped in a car with your brother. How many other people have ever lived a life like that with your brother, for over 20 years? I hate that right now I don't get to see Jay Briscoe unleashed as the Jon Moxley style maniac that Jon Moxley could never be. We don't get to see Jay Briscoe as the top guy - which would have happened - but Mark Briscoe doesn't get to see it either. I hate it, but I love that he's wrestling. This match felt important, because it really felt like a guy refining himself as Singles Match Mark Briscoe. I'm sure in the last couple years he's had plenty of Meltzer 4 star + singles matches, and I've seen enough of those, but the ones I did all felt like AEW Style Great 14 Minute Match Formula. This match might not have been his most ambitious singles match over this 2 year stretch, but it felt focused and impactful and tight in a way that I associated more with Jay singles matches. This wasn't him going on Crazy Mark Briscoe autopilot in a six man, this was a guy who looked like a singles champ. 

His Redneck Kung Fu is used as comedy in those six mans tags, here it's the perfect mix of goofball delivery and stiff finish. His baseball slide was thrown with joshi speed and heavyweight impact, and his Cactus Jack elbow off the apron was one of the best elbowdrops of the year. He landed with impact on everything; on his bumps, on his follow through, on his chops that got more intense the longer we went. His clotheslines hit like a champion's. The J-Driller should be the most protected finish in AEW. I can't wait to watch the rest of his 2024 singles match run, because this suddenly feels very different. 

I've said that I don't fully buy into the Hangman Page character, but Bounty Hunter was a character I didn't buy into even a little. I don't buy Bryan Keith as a Bad News Brown. I think he looked so good in his spaghetti western Entrance Pancho that a lot of people bought in on sight. But he wrestles like a 2024 Scoot Andrews update and wears his pants at 75 year old luchador height. He makes a lot more sense as Already in the Ring Bad Apple Bryan Keith, so he worked great as Singles Star Mark Briscoe's opponent he was 100% going to beat. I don't like matches he works as a back and forth, and think he benefits from a match where he has a few minutes of control in the middle and a couple spots down the stretch. It tightens his 3-4 minutes and it all looks better when stacked. He has a great kneedrop and I am always going to rate a guy who uses a kneedrop in 2024, and not one of those safe ones to the chest, an honestly worked kneedrop to the temple that would have played in a Nick Bockwinkel match. He leaned into chops and clotheslines and he doesn't just have a good kneedrop, he has a good kneelift.  

There's a real sweet spot in hitting a nicely built 12 minute match. AEW should pepper way more 8-12 TV classics into their cards than ringing the 20 minute Great Match bell so often. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Hangman

 

12. Darby Allin vs. Hangman Page AEW Dynamite 7/31/24

ER: I don't buy Hangman Page as a character. I don't buy the wild card persona that they push on commentary, I don't buy this threats to the referees, I don't buy his emptiness any more than I buy into the emptiness of any man. I don't think his strikes fit his villainous turn. He needs better shitkicking kicks. When he throws a kick to the ribs of a grounded man, his body language is far too flowy, too West Side Story High School Production. If Page is indeed a Bad Guy, I want to see him kick Darby in the ribs. Darby will do worse things to his own ribs in every match, and I need a Villain to not pull his kicks like a background fight scene Jet. 

But it doesn't really matter whether I but Hangman or not, because I fully buy Darby Allin. I buy into the level of punishment Darby is able to absorb, because he is literally right there absorbing all of that damage in full view with no smoke and mirrors. Darby absorbs inhuman punishment and he walks through the fire, and it's the most entertaining act in wrestling. He makes up size like nobody else and he does things that nobody else will. And while I might not buy into Hangman Page: The Character, I do think he works great as a Darby Opponent. Now, I also think that nearly everybody works as a Darby Opponent, but Page seems to understand even better just what he can do to Darby in a match, and knows how to take his offense in cool ways. 

I was really impressed how Page made his catches not feel like catches. When Darby Coffin Dropped off the entrance...circle?...Hangman didn't wait for him with his arms out. He stood there wobbly with his shoulders in, leaning forward into it the Drop like he was trying to counter it or block it, but at the same time he's making a perfectly absorbed catch. When he gets his ass knocked off the ring steps with a battering ram tope, a real weapon, he sticks with it and takes all of it. Darby does not need Page to lean into his offense to come off dangerous, but it sure doesn't hurt. You know he is going to make Page's offense look as great as possible - those three weirdly Too Sexual powerbombs he took on the apron and violent post-coital breakup fallaway slam into the edges of the ring steps, and how he didn't have to take the Death Valley Driver as vertically as he did, getting turned inside out attempting a Buckshot lariat - because that is who he is. But it's his dedication to making everything look good is what sets him so far above the rest. 

Darby Allin understands Walk and Brawl better than almost any ECW wrestler. Nobody tries to make Walk and Brawl look good, most just, well, walk. When Darby walks Page back to the ring with a tight headlock, his free hand pulling at Page's upper jaw, it looks fully believable that a guy Darby's size would be able to force a larger man to walk with him, like he is giving him no choice at all. He takes spots that others sleepwalk through and makes them matter. Look at the way he works a 10 count on the floor. There's no rolling around until 8 and then sprinting back into the ring. This man took real damage, he's selling that damage on the floor, but when he needs more than 10 he slowly rolls in to break and then slowly rolls back out, still selling everything he should be selling, no miracle  resurrections. He is small, but knows how to make his offense look effective against men of any size. His shotgun dropkick, back elbow, coffin splash, all of it lands like a heavyweight, and the way he lands lower on the hips always makes his Code Red set up look like he understands the physics of all his offense. 

I didn't love the finish and didn't love the set up for the majistral, but I buy into Darby, and love how he makes me buy into others. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Best Friends vs. Sabian/Butcher

 

15. Orange Cassidy/Trent Beretta vs. Kip Sabian/The Butcher AEW Rampage 3/8/24

ER: I wrote about this before I knew the Best Friends suddenly broke up. The concept of a team called Best Friends makes me think about a kind of indy wrestling I've set out to avoid since Chikara, but it turns out I didn't need to soften my stance on that wrestling, because the few who weren't canceled just got better. I didn't know when watching this match I was watching the near end of a great TV match era. Orange and Trent were a team I really loved, and two wrestlers who have turned into must see AEW for me. I'm going to miss the Jefferson Starship TV era. Pixies Cassidy doesn't quite hit the same for me. Anyway. 

There are probably better AEW matches that I've watched and will not be adding to the MOTY List for reasons like "it went on longer than I thought it should" or the more accurate "I recognize it was good but not good enough to move me to want to write about it". A match like this feels like more of an accomplishment than a 20 minute ****3/4 match. They're both going to be forgotten about the next week, so I think a great Kip Sabian performance is more memorable. When I think back to the start of AEW, I think about how awful Kip Sabian was and how much TV time he was consistently getting over...well, almost everyone. I think at one point he was the most consistently featured TV worker. Those were the dark days, with guaranteed Kip Sabian and Private Party and Orange Cassidy matches every week. I couldn't stand Orange Cassidy matches for years. Now it's 5 years later, here's a show with Kip Sabian, Orange Cassidy, and Private Party, and it's the same but everything has changed. Cassidy is now one of the guys that make me watch these shows and Kip Sabian is one of the most improved wrestlers on the roster. I guess not everything has changed, as Private Party are still essentially doing the exact same thing in the exact same spot with the same spots done slower. The main event of this episode was the weakest go nowhere match on Rampage. 

I never foresaw loving Orange Cassidy, and I certainly did not anticipate Kip Sabian ever being a wrestler worth watching. But he now is, that. It happened, and it's cool. Cassidy came into the match with his back and ribs wrecked from his title loss to Roderick Strong, and Sabian and Butcher went after those ribs with backbreakers. There were two very cool physical momentum reversals, where Cassidy was slowed and couldn't pull off his round the world DDT, and Sabian and Butcher each stopped his momentum mid-move in ways that felt like both were really fighting to stop it. Butcher had wobbling legs as he powered OC up for a powerslam, then lifted him up by the front waistband of his joggers high enough to drop him over his knee. Sabian always looked like he was fighting OC's momentum, even on roll-ups. 

When they weren't working over his back, I thought Sabian was great at working around Cassidy's selling and his shtick. I liked the spot where Cassidy was fighting to tag out with his hands in pockets, as Sabian expertly crashed around him and into Butcher, credibly fucking up repeatedly against an armless man. All parts of Sabian's game have been tightened. Five years ago I couldn't imagine Sabian as a guy with good elbow smashes, but now he has them. He was always someone who could bump, but now his bumps seem more directed towards the match he is having than an empty athleticism. His bumps are an essential part of Trent's hot tag, he's great at being in position for the finish sprint, and he does it all while taking in-character bumps. The way he kicked his legs in panic while getting tossed with a backdrop, or getting yanked into a Saito suplex and knowing just how to get where he needed to be to lean into a knee, he does it like him. 

Cassidy's Superman punch to set up the finish looked its best and came in with force, like he wanted to get it in quicker than the one earlier that had been caught by Butcher and ended with his back being punished by a half nelson backbreaker. Instead of flying right at Butcher he came at an angle, blindsiding him into a Beretta Strong Zero. Cassidy is impossible to keep down but stayed with it in ways that didn't make Sabian and Butcher's back work feel stupid, it just made him seem tough. It's been five years, the surprise of my Orange love has finally faded, and now I'm spending my time writing glowing things about Kip Sabian. I'm convertible. Who will be the next to convert me?  

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Jericho vs. Suzuki

 

9. Chris Jericho vs. Minoru Suzuki AEW Dynamite 7/24/24

ER: I cannot stand modern matches with long bad-looking stand and trade sections, and that's what makes up the bulk of this match between two guys whose wrestling matches I no longer look forward to seeing. "Hey man you hear about that match where two guys just traded forearms for a half hour" yeah man I'm never going to watch it or read about it. Why would I want to watch two wrestlers throw worked strikes with a hard strike thrown in maybe every fifth exchange? Well, I guess there are rules, and there are exceptions to rules, and the rules and their exceptions change when the combined age in the ring is 110 years old. Two 30 year olds chopping each other and making faces and straining their necks? Sounds terrible. Shit would suck and nobody would speak about it again. "Hey man you hear about that match where two grandfathers chopped each other until their hands were swollen and blood was running down their chests?" The rules have changed. 

It's a bit sad seeing the most lucrative earning years of Suzuki's career finally winding down. The man has made career money working forearm exchange matches for 5 years in the states. The polaroid money alone must be incredible. Every person who saw clips of the Mecha Mummy match and had never heard of Yoshiaki Fujiwara lined up in droves to see Minoru Suzuki blow into town with his 5 Light/1 Heavy Stick Out Tongue Repeat routine and every single person who ever wanted to scream Kaze ni nare with a a ton of people who look exactly like them has had chance after chance after chance to do so. Now Minoru Suzuki blows into the Volunteer State for the first time and the crowd response to Ayumi Nakamura was so tepid that I finally realized the whole thing is over. It's been over for me for a while now, but there were still believers and I assumed it would thrill them until he was in his late 60s. I wanted it to. I couldn't have been less excited to watch a 2024 Minoru Suzuki match against 2024 Chris Jericho. I didn't want to see Suzuki working a Jericho match and I really didn't want to see Jericho work a Suzuki match. God. Please. 

What I did want to watch was an honest to god war of attrition between two old guys who decided to hit each other until one of them gassed out. It's Jericho. Jericho's the one who gasses out. Jericho's obviously going to be the one who gasses out from hitting a guy with chops as hard as he can. It's at least 8 minutes of two old guys doing nothing but chops, and that sure sounds rote as I type it but what might start rote turns intriguing real quick when you can see Jericho visibly tiring and physically in pain as he gets outstruck. Minoru Suzuki barely regards Jericho's first chop, and by minute three he isn't reacting in any way to them. Jericho, in continuing to hit Suzuki, begins to only damage himself. Suzuki was reacting to his chops like Jericho was a young boy from a rival fed. He had no life behind his chops, could barely swing his arms, and the more gassed out he got the harder his body reacted to Suzuki's chops. Blood was literally running down Jericho's chest in rivulets and he could no longer flex his chest or straighten his arms enough to absorb Suzuki's chops. His entire body was being turned with every chop and yet he was stuck in this bit now and couldn't get out. His hand was killing him and the only thing he could do was beat his hand against a small brick wall that was never going to break. All Jericho had to do was break, but he was in it, and you could tell he was really seeing just how long he could go with old man Suzuki, who it must be said now has the exact same posture and movement as old man Fujiwara. 

Jericho wanted to test himself, and that's interesting. That's more than just a too long forearm exchange or even a too long chop exchange. Jericho wanted to see how much he could absorb and see how far through the pain he could push himself. That's some rock headed dumb brain wrestler stuff right there man. He doesn't need to do that. Nobody asked him to do that and I bet the majority of people watching him do it wished he wasn't doing it and weren't interested in seeing it. But Jericho wanted to do it because he's a dumb pro wrestler and wanted to see how many more chops he could take after his chest was busted open in several spots, and wrestlers who don't need the money who choose to do stupid physical things are the kinds of wrestlers I still want to watch. 

He eventually broke and the match pivoted into Suzuki working over Jericho's self-pummeled hand, and I laughed when Jericho torched his arms and then had to get the bad one arm barred over the ropes and smashed inside a folding chair. This man don't know when to quit and I realized I was smack in the middle of the most interesting Suzuki match in years, because Jericho had twisted and tweaked his formula and made the exchanges turn into limb work that actually meant something and flowed out of the endless stand and trade. 

You would not believe how uninterested I was in seeing these two wrestle in 2024, and they made me interested. Rules change. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Premier Athletes vs. Kings of the Black Throne

 

10. Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari vs. Brody King/Malakai Black AEW Rampage 7/12/24

ER: Kings of the Black Throne? House of Black was fine, but it wasn't enough so now I have to type out something truly stupid to refer to a monster finally wrestling like a monster and a jaundice-thighed Dutch kickboxer. What's happening with the AEW jaundice tan? We established orange as the ridiculous tan color for two decades and suddenly the Big Yellow 5 feels emboldened by a lax FDA to start branching out into other areas, away from sodas with a high school reputation for shrinking dicks. I don't know what's happening with Black's legs and midsection but something needs to stop and we need to contain this. This isn't normal. You would be called Piss Boy every year of high school if you showed up with yellow legs from some kind of chemical burn accident, so there's no way we should be letting 40 year old Dutch kickers and skinny fat bunny hopping piledrivers get away with it. 

Maybe Brody King worked big in this match due to the fatigued state of his friend, finally throwing aside the middling forearm exchanges and fake big man work for stiff clotheslines and aggressive size. His Throne Buddy's brain is slowly being eaten away as the yellow spreads outward through his tissue, but it's making King hit hard and miss with a toppling big man intensity. His work with Premier Athletes associations was a real plus for the match, taking a great out-of-control-big-man bump to the floor on a low bridge, and aiming a crossbody at Daivari through Mark Sterling. It was a good way for him to stay occupied and make this more of a match. 

Tony Nese is arguably the least cool AEW worker to champion but I like him. I didn't like him in Evolve but I grew to enjoy him in 205 Live when I was watching that a bunch for Drew Gulak, Jack Gallagher, and Oney Lorcan matches before those guys were retired or canceled or canceled into partial retirement. Nese isn't so different from 30-40 other good body speedy backflip guys in AEW but I think he's better than a lot of them. He's good at getting naturally into place for unnatural offense, falls in some ways you wouldn't expect, is good at pinballing between two guys, and is capable of fucking up in cool ways that feel like part of his character. He goes up for one of the highest backdrops in AEW history, has shockingly good worked arm strikes, and he repeatedly eats shit on his 450 splash no matter where Black sets up. People love holding the opinion that Great Sasuke slipping off the ropes only makes his Jushin Liger match more legendary, but nobody is quick to accept missed spots as part of a wrestler's charm, unless it's a JT Smith situation. Tony Nese does these missed spots that are almost surely unintentional but can read like expertly planned out Chris Hamrick or Juventud Guerrera misses, because they're never sold as something that connected and they often lead to his downfall. His meathead athlete Dave Portnoy energy makes the misses more charming, and his first overshoot barely got him a nearfall. His second was supposed to hit knees and instead his rotation is fucked up and he winds up connecting knees hard with Black and whipping his own head into the mat. Tony Nese has the tight physics on headscissors and backdrops like Billy Kidman with the same type of "I kind of want him to mess up this finisher though" charm. 

Nese and Daivari are both really good at getting in the way of Black's crescent kicks, and you know who has spent years gently flying under the radars of anyone offering a wrestling opinion? Ariya Daivari. Daivari is another guy I fell for during the glory days of 205 Live, but doesn't get talked about because his brand of professionalism can fade into the background. He has a consistently good floor, and a style that has always reminded me of Christian, but with less offense and less upside. He's great at using logic in matches the same as Christian, like the way he changed his pescado delivery here in an attempt to actually damage Brody King, getting a running leap that he doesn't otherwise do, just to throw more weight. He doesn't bump big like Christian but he has good selection in bumps. My favorite here was the way he fell off rigidly to the side after a running back elbow. The finish played great: Nese getting his face in the way of another kick while King hanged Daivari's motionless body off the apron in a sleeper in the camera foreground. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Sabre vs. Shingo

 

1. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Shingo Takagi NJPW 11/4/24

ER: "Wow," he thought. "A Shingo Takagi match, finally getting discussed on Segunda Caida." That's not true of course, because Matt is a psycho who covers so much wrestling that obviously he hit the AEW appearances of Shingo, but he's a big name whose acclaimed work has never quite connected with me. His career has been long and successful and I'm sure there are plenty of matches among his thousands that will connect with me, but this is the first I've seen that felt just right. I fell in love with Michinoku Pro and still love it as much as ever, and I was there for the Toryumon tape trading and fell in love with a new generation of guys, and then I was older and out of college and had a job and a live in girlfriend and didn't connect with Dragon Gate the same and had less time to watch wrestling and so now I'm writing about Shingo Takagi for the first time on Segunda Caida. 

But this is a Zack Sabre Jr. review. Carry job is an insulting term that I don't really like using and this was not that, but Sabre's constant interruptions of Shingo's well orchestrated timing based wrestling made this dynamite. Dragon Gate at its best had exceptional speed with exceptional timing. The best of their multimans are undeniable. The timing and flow was real important to the style and Zack Sabre is amazing at working with the same timing to purposely monkeywrench the steps. He hits very hard and seems to enjoy being hit very hard. Sabre, over the last decade, has transitioned from a guy formerly accused of being a beanpole who needs people to hold still, to a deceptively sturdy guy who works as stiff as any of the BattlArts legends. He's a disruptor, he disrupts with surprising pop, and he seems to have this insistence on being hit just as hard and just as much. Unlike guys who make that their entire personality, whether they're actually stiff workers or just mimes doing bad stand and trade, he does not make it his personality. The stiffness and abuse are all part of the methodology to get to his submissions, which are also applied stiffly and forcefully. There's never any overwrought Hit Me Harder faces in sequences that stop a match dead, it's all stiffness that's intent on finishing. 

Sabre never seems to look for one answer. He has a shocking amount of depth and knows how to go several directions from established positions, making his method of attack always feel like his own while always surprising me. His willingness to lean into punishment to lean timing allows Shingo to work at his stiff best, getting to land full force clotheslines that occasionally get caught and twisted or beaten. But it never becomes an arm match, or a neck match, or a leg match, even though Sabre runs through sections of working on all of those things with the intent to finish, to wound, to slow. He can crank Shingo's neck with his legs, dropping his weight to drag him into the ring, without going back to a neck attack until the attack presents itself. When Shingo takes a second too long attempting a Gory Special, Sabre is there with a side headlock clutch that moves quickly into a disgusting octopus hold. If the neck presents itself, it becomes a neck match. As a disruptor, he allows Shingo to work his timing and takes every torso extension that presents itself. Sabre understands the weight of his offense and how to make submission applications and submission set ups look and feel as real as possible. The way he can straight an arm - quickly, slowly with pressure, working against resistance - and make it look like straightening an arm away from a man's body is requiring full strength from both, keeping that weight and gravity always present. For me, it adds meaning. Shingo looks like he's struggling to keep his head up at spots and it gave his responses frantic importance. 

Sabre is adept at catching Shingo's Actually Fast stuff, like the way he catches a few of his lariats and twists them into something dangerous, catching one and throwing uppercuts at it once he traps the arm, kicking at it another time. It's an all out attack and he commits just as hard to each attack, knowing one of them will lead to an ultimate opening. The weight made this into a match that could have ended satisfactorily at 15, 20 or 30 minutes. The survival felt earned but the attempts to finish felt real. Sabre's match long wear down was made even better with Shingo working 30 full minutes of body degradation. The final straw came down to Sabre throwing several short mule kicks at the inside of Shingo's knee before Shingo pulls off the Shingo Driver, causing enough of a delay in the pin attempt, and the way those kicks and the other knee and body attacks culminated in Shingo's slightly slower step down the stretch, his inability to get his legs underneath him on more than one occasion, and the way it was all done with no overacting, captured the best of this style. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: The Beast Mortos Debuts in AEW

 

6. The Beast Mortos vs. Rey Fenix AEW Collision 4/27/24

ER: I love a debut that feels like a real debut. The Beast Mortos is new, Debuting. Black Taurus is not new at all. Black Taurus has been almost everywhere, all over the place, constantly, for at least 5 years now. You have had multiple chances to see Black Taurus wrestle live in a city near you within the last 5 years. He's done all of the Super Indies, he's been one of the few hundred people on MLW's roster, one of the few dozen to wrestle on a show where Ric Flair died, he even wrestled multiple matches on AXS TV for a mudshow fed that airs after old episodes of That Metal Show with Eddie Trunk. He's been everywhere, doing his great thing, and now he's on real TV against a guy he's been doing that great thing against for over a decade. AEW putting guys on TV specifically to try to capture the magic of someone seeing Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis for the first time is message board pro wrestling and it's hard not to appreciate someone paying money to try to recapture it on TV. Rey and Psicosis got to do their great thing in front of increasingly larger crowds before unleashing it on WCW, and the Beast Mortos has been doing the same. Now, wrestling is a lot different now than it was when Rey and Psicosis did Their Thing on PPV (nearly 30 years ago!). Now everybody frequently gets the chance to do Their Thing and it feels rarer and rarer that someone can show up doing something Unexpected. If you've been paying attention, there should be nothing Unexpected about The Beast Mortos. He's the best of the dozen or so animal's head wearing luchadors that have come to prominence in the last decade, and this was him doing his thing in front of the most eyeballs of his career, and he completely crushes it.  

His AEW debut is so good, that it essentially overshadows the fact that Rey Fenix hadn't wrestled in over 6 months. This is Fenix's big return and while he did Rey Fenix things, people were now also getting to see a ton of Beast Mortos things. I loved Mortos's NOAH-like sicko dedication to going after Fenix's knees after Fenix has been out a half year because of his knees. Jun Akiyama hated Kenta Kobashi's knees so fucking much and I support Mortos's hatred of Fenix's knees even if Fenix didn't seem to mind too much.  It is a fool's errand to go into depth describing what they are each capable of. I can tell you that The Beast has an incredible tornillo, with an improbably tight spiral and amazing impact, but it's something you need to see to believe. I can tell you about a bulldog that spikes Fenix vertically, but that's something you will want to see. I have no way to describe Fenix leaping onto The Beast's shoulders and kicking him in the back of the head - while standing on his shoulders - and I can tell you how cool it looked when Mortos headbutted him out of the sky but I wouldn't be able to do it justice. To see how fast and far Mortos takes a Jerry bump and how well he can catch a complicated dive, why would you just want to take my word for it. The match was filled with things almost beyond description, unless you are someone who has been seeing The Beast and Fenix reinvent how things are done for nearly a decade now. But thousands have not, and this match was for the thousands. Even for the dedicated, it played as fresh. A debut of a known quantity that felt like a new debuting force. Mortos lost this battle, but I am sure that after this he will be doing nothing but winning in AEW. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Tornado of Love for Darby and Sting

 

5. Sting/Darby Allin vs. Big Bill/Ricky Starks AEW Dynamite 2/7/24

ER: I must be the easiest to surprise person who routinely spends double digit hours per week watching and writing about pro wrestling. Maybe it's my bad memory or the glacial pace I take projects through, but I am frequently surprised by how good the guys I like watching are. Darby Allin has the ability of surprising me more than any of my other modern favorites, a real innovator of shocking and death defying indestructibility. He shouldn't be possible, but he's real and he's incredible. Big Bill catching Darby's tope and in one fluid long motion and turning it into a high swinging Boss Man Slam on the floor just might be the most expertly executed momentous Large Man Rey Mysterioing Darby spots we've ever been gifted. It's a seamless, dangerous, eye popping moment. A Darby Classic, which is a thing I have said a comical amount of times. But Darby is special because he is also good at every other little thing, not just the biggest most incredible wrestling spots of the year. I don't know if anyone in wrestling runs into a boot as well as Darby. I don't know if anyone ever has. He makes it look like a guy getting knocked out by a boot he never saw coming. He does things like that every match. He's incredible, we've all known he's incredible. He is always Must See. He is probably my favorite wrestler and I am routinely surprised by how good my favorite wrestler is...

but I am still in absolute disbelief that Sting is this damn good. I can't be alone here. Sting is fucking 65 years old. What is remarkable, is that I'm pretty sure that 65 years old Sting is my favorite Sting ever. Sting, a legend with several eras and years and runs and matches to be the personal favorite wrestler of millions, has captured my heart so surprisingly in his team with Darby. Sting was a guy I didn't even know existed until I was 10 or 11 years old. We didn't have cable TV and I barely even knew WCW existed. My friend Justin had a Sting wrestling buddy, and he told me it was Sting, but this man was less real to me than Gordon Sumner. To me it just looked like an off brand Ultimate Warrior doll. I did not grow up with Sting as my hero, and by the time I was watching WCW he was just about to become inactive for an entire year. It was an uphill battle getting into Sting as an adult. I've never even gotten too into Sting retroactively. I don't think he would come anywhere close to making a Top 100 Guys list. 

But Sting at 65 is a real game changer for me. All it took to get behind Sting, I guess, was the now built in vulnerability of being an old human, combined with a willingness - or a sicko urge - to take a clothesline on the floor the way he did here from Big Bill. Sting has been in his Gypsy Joe era on and off for over a decade and even with his crazy-at-the-time-crazier-in-retrospect run in TNA I still wouldn't have expected his AEW run. It's not the balcony dives, either, even though holy shit the balcony dives right?! Can you imagine even cleaning the gutters on your house when you're 65? My parents used to invite me up to use the pool and BBQ just to spring a surprise gutters check on me before I left. They were probably right to do so, because I wouldn't want to think of my dad climbing around on the roof at 65. So Sting is doing leaps off of his nice but modest Colonial, and folks that is crazy. But more than the great risks from a man whose career looked mostly finished 20 years ago, it's that he just wrestles harder than I can ever remember. I believe in this babyface hero more than I have at any point in my life. I love this babyface with a tastefully redone hairline, who throws his entire body into his punches and back elbows in a way he never did when he was 40. I think his form has gotten better on almost all of his offense. He's like if John Cena came back and did all of his old offense but with harder landings, harder impact, agonizing misses, and real stakes. Sting throws himself into every hit and miss in a way I've never seen from him, and I am finally a Stinger in my 40s. 

The finish is a spectacular moment. Of course it is. Darby takes himself and Bill out of the match by Human Backpacking onto him on the apron, navigating his torso like an attacking ape, riding him off the apron through a table, forcing Bill to bump by gouging his thumbs into the big man's eyes like a lonely toymaker. Taz was right to make fun of Big Bill's mint green boots all match, by the way. Sting had a great run with Ricky Starks, who is a wrestler I don't love but one I view as a little better than the other Austin Theories that have been clogging up cards with what people refer to as their Potential. He will at minimum take a nice bump to the floor and I was impressed by his comparative Face Acting restraint in handling an I'm Sorry I Love You moment. The timing on Sting hitting that exposed buckle was a work of Bret Hart or Jerry Lawler level of brilliant timing. Sting's shoulder-only kickout after Starks' spear true perfection. His Scorpion Death drop has never looked heavier or as conquering. I don't know if there's been a more exciting tag team run this decade than Darby Allin and a guy whose biggest year in pro wrestling was the year before Darby Allin existed. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Hechicero vs. Danielson

 

2. Bryan Danielson vs. Hechicero AEW Collision 2/3/24

ER: One of the things I really love about AEW, is that a guy like Hechicero can unexpectedly show up 5 years into the whole thing and get placed directly into a match where he gets to spin off into his thing more than maybe any time since I called him Rey Hechicero. I don't think I ever stopped calling him Rey Hechicero. We wrote a ton about Hechicero in the 2010s. I was enough of a maniac to write up weekly episodes of more than one CMLL TV show, and Phil and I were adding Hechicero matches from all over Mexico to our 2014 MOTY List. It felt like I was writing about Hechicero literally every week, because I was. And now 10 years later, there's a fed that can bring him in and let him get a whole new bunch of people addicted the way he hooked us. Honestly, I don't know of a match where Hechicero does go off into his thing more than this one. This was the one big singles match in his entire AEW run (so far?) that was allowed to Deliver. This was the match the most people wanted to see, and it delivered in a way that even those who knew what Hechicero was capable of couldn't have anticipated. 

I didn't go into this match expecting anything, really, but I didn't expect it to be such a Hechicero match. This whole thing felt designed to make Hechicero a star which is pretty incredible. I don't think there are any actual plans to bring in and use Hechicero on a regular basis, and the idea of bringing a guy in who is Not Yours just to make him look like a superstar and then hang around to wrestle AEW Miz is a weird mainstream wrestling thing that never would have happened before AEW. This was not Hechicero working a Danielson match. This was Danielson trying to work a Danielson match but instead being constantly foiled and taken for a ride by Hechicero until barely escaping with a win. Danielson looked like a guy who knew he escaped with a win. That's cool as hell. 

I love how Hechicero had an answer for all of the Danielson stuff, as if during all these years of Danielson talking about wrestling Blue Panther, Hechicero was actually doing the same and preparing to wrestle Danielson. If he didn't have an answer for it, he calmly withstood it. He walked through kicks and backed him down while also working two steps ahead of him on the mat. When Danielson started realizing his shit wasn't working - maybe after Hechicero held onto Danielson's ankle during a surfboard escape and crept into his own rolling surfboard and then later surfboard wheeled him into a rear naked choke - Danielson just started punching him a lot, and even that didn't work. Hechicero just withstood, forcing Danielson to go to more punches and headbutts. The knot he tied Danielson up in after snaring him on a missed diving headbutt was getting so painful that it looked like a spot that was actually getting away from Danielson, like Hechicero came into the Rio Grande Valley and started shooting. 

Hechicero has such explosive violence on all of his impact spots. I don't know if Danielson has done a Busaiku knee as well as the Average Hechicero Running Knee. Hechicero mangling his way through Danielson with a flying knee as a means to hook a sleeperhold from the apron is as violent as Bill Dundee's best clotheslines yanked into a sleeper. The way that he keeps twisting Danielson into different llave stretches takes me right back to that space when I was getting fully into lucha 25 years ago and branching out into older and indy lucha. Bihari's Skayde video, seeing IWRG Negro Navarro, Solar matches; Hechicero always brings that feeling but combines it with Shocker's charisma and movement and impact. Shocker was one of those guys whose best years coincided with my favorite wrestling years, where I was tape trading more than ever and seeing more new things than ever. Hechicero has the physical spark of those best years of Shocker, while also feeling like at all times older man Negro Navarro. His final roll through three different submissions and two different pinning combinations, with his arms and legs moving for constantly better and contrasting positioning, was brilliant. It's the kind of fun twisting lucha that you'd find on a 4 minute YouTube video inappropriately scored by something off Tool's Lateralus. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Hardy

 

2. Jeff Hardy vs. Darby Allin AEW Rampage 1/19/24

ER: I am pretty deep in the bag for anything involving Darby Allin and A Hardy Boy. They haven't had a single thing to do with each other since 2022, but there were three different Darby/Hardy matches in 2022 and I loved them all: I loved the Tornado Tag with Darby teaming with Sting and the Hardys, I loved Darby vs. Matt despite what everyone said about Matt's "Always Been Weird, Actually" legs, and I especially loved Darby vs. Jeff. I haven't seen any of Darby's matches with Shaun Cassidy but as I said, I've loved every other match involving Darby and the Hardy Boys so I assume they're great. Now, I assumed that Darby/Jeff match was going to be The Last Great Jeff Hardy Singles Match. There was no real indication he had another in him, and while he won that match and didn't actually pass a torch, it felt almost like a guy winning in his last match before retirement, only there was no retirement. 

Now it's a year and a half later and nobody seems to want the Hardys around anymore, so Jeff gets to have a big time swan song, again. Darby and Jeff's first match felt like Jackass Forever: two lunatics doing stunts, but one guy is old and broken so does 1-2 really big stunts, making up the difference in damage to his dick, and leaves the constant bumps to the New Jeff. This match might not have a ridiculously tall ladder made for suicide attempts, but I think it's better, meaner, and created room to be more violent without needing to build to a Big Stunt. 

Hardy wrestles completely differently here and I think it's his literal best individual performance of the decade. His game looks tighter than at any part of his career, and instead of trying to match his stunt successor he decides to just beat the shit out of him. Find me any other matches where Jeff Hardy punches someone - multiple times - as hard as he was punching Darby and I'll show you some more Jeff Hardy matches I'll be writing about. Almost every time Hardy tries any kind of risky stunt in this match, he eats shit. He learns quickly that he doesn't need to eat shit to beat Darby, because he is physically bigger than him and can hit harder. Hardy has a great early miss, vaulting off the ring steps one step late and hitting the guardrail hard enough that it looked like one of the most painful bumps of the match, and decides Fuck This and just starts stiffing Darby the rest of the match. 

For years now Hardy has been mostly doing really sloppy versions of all his trademark pieces of offense, but in this match it looks like he actually wants to murder someone. Suddenly he isn't just hitting everything crisp, but he's finding violent innovations. His Curt Hennig rolling neck snap often looks like trash, but here, when he started doing them perpendicularly, running in from Darby's side and snapping his ear to his shoulder it somehow breathed new life into a move that has been co-opted by too many bad wrestlers. Jeff Hardy is somehow working smarter, not harder, and it's like finding out a guy that has a 98 mph fastball 15 years ago also could have been using a knuckleball the whole time. 

But it's difficult to work smarter when you are historically known for making stupid decisions. Hardy figuring out to dominate Darby with fists but then relapsing into missing a swanton off the top to the floor? That's just the story of this man's life. It doesn't matter that he learned to use his fists, crash landings are hardwired into this lunatic's brain. It was inevitable. This match was one of my absolute favorite Hardy stories of his career, and I'm honestly not sure he's ever told it better. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Takeshita

 

4. Darby Allin vs. Konosuke Takeshita AEW Dynamite 1/3/24

ER: I spent most of this match thinking "this is way too much damage for Darby to be taking, Takeshita is a big guy expending way too much energy and taking far too much time to beat this guy and it's only making Darby Allin come off like the ultimately undefeatable babyface and only making his own offense look weak because......"

But my brain was operating on the premise that of course Darby was going to win this match. Darby is such a good babyface that my brain doesn't necessarily expect victory in every match, it just expects him to...not lose. We know he's going to take punishment, and we're not sure if we've seen someone who can take punishment like him. Takeshita punished, but I believe in my little guy so much that he's just never out of any match. Takeshita is a big guy and I wish he commanded his size better. It's easy to forget how large he is because he still works toe to toe with smaller guys. Every Darby Allin opponent seems to understand that no matter what size they are - from Mike Bennett up to Brian Cage - that Darby is the ultimate Small Guy and they are The Big Guy. Takeshita seemed to understand this less than the others and wanted to work more of a Black Taurus/Hijo Del Vikingo match with Darby, but luckily Darby is great at working that match too while bringing drama to all of the spills and kickouts and Takeshita is good at stunt bumping just like Darby. Not just like Darby, but a guy who is willing to do stupider things than he needs to be doing. Takeshita could get by without doing an Estrada bump into the timekeeper's pit but I'm glad he doesn't. 

Takeshita's Match doesn't work if Darby isn't Darby, so in that fact he knew his opponent. Even if the match didn't hit its peaks or put some of the parts in the right order, once Darby tope'd into a Takeshita jumping knee and Takeshita timed the thigh slap so well that it sounded like a quick snap of Darby's jaw breaking? I knew the cool shit in this match was likely going to make most of the structural failings seem foolish to complain about. Not everything has to be To the T. I want Darby to survive moves he shouldn't be able to be kicking out of, because I want to see Darby survive to take more moves he shouldn't be kicking out of. I thrill at the damage, and I thrill at the perfectly crafted moments of Darby almost pulling out a 3. Darby is so good at taking damage and making moves look as painful as possible, that no matter how many of his frequently excellent matches I see, he still has a way of surprising me with an out of nowhere 3 count. Darby Allin is the master of pulling out a win and a master of placing nearfalls in his matches. He reminds you just often enough that he will weather any avalanche suplex or suplex on the ramp or suplex on his head and pull out of your soul an entirely plausible 3 seconds of distraction that we still don't see coming. When Takeshita took that Akiyama knee into the timekeeper corral and barely made the 10 count, only for Darby's expertly timed Code Red to hit him in exactly the right way at the exact perfect time? I thought this shit was over. I went from not seeing how Darby could pull this one out to being shocked again when ol' Darby Allin wriggled his way out of this skeleton damage. Takeshita selling a knee wouldn't have been able to make me believe, the way Darby's nearfall set ups and close 3s make me believe. This kid has the best babyface instincts since Rey and it's a beautiful thing to watch. What else could matter. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Latin American Five Way

 

2. Belcegor vs. Australian Suicide vs. Dinamico vs. Taurus vs. Octagon Jr. AAA 5/11/24

ER: This is an elimination match for AAA's Latin American Title, which is a title belt that I know nothing about, and mostly, these are wrestlers I know little about. This might be me writing about the 18th best match that these guys have had over the past 2 years, but I won't know that because this match is knowing them enough. Belcegor has a red pentagram goat mask with big horns and is shaped like a 5'7" Sultan; like Gronda, but if he didn't lift, and if he had a fat ass instead of ass implants. Australian Suicide is an Immortan Joe War Boy who was too ugly to get cast in Furiosa. He's got a great Australian bunched up face and looks and works like an Evil Darby Allin. He takes back bumps to concrete, tornillos like Jack Evans, and climbs nice and fast to the 2nd floor of the Olympic Gym to shooting star press off it while taking a selfie with some guy. His dive was filmed expertly from above, perfectly capturing the distance of his dark world beady-eyed suicidal tendencies. 

Belcegor can base, hits a wild twisting superplex that lands like a bookcase falling off a pickup, and gets eliminated by a folding head drop driver straight out of 2000s CZW. Taurus has an incredible look and hits a tope spear that aims to cut Dinamico in half at the waist. Dinamico is a guy I have seen either this one time or a dozen times. There are a lot of guys who look like Dinamico. He, like many of the best Dinamicos, gets great height on everything, has great commitment to bumps, and stands up to punishment in surprising ways. Dinamico gets Taka Michinoku distance on his plancha. He took Taurus's tope as full on as possible and that really impressed me. He took it right to the damn stomach and Taurus was moving heavy. He goes down with a real fight, and could have died on Octagon Jr.'s appropriately match-finishing fallaway slam off the top. It was like a more dangerous Spanish Fly and a cool death defying way to end a sprint. 

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Makabe vs. Sabre

 

Tangled Up in You

1. Daniel Makabe vs. Zack Sabre Jr. Prestige Wrestling 4/14

ER: I didn't plan on following Dan around on tour like I was following late era Dead, but after he worked the main event of our DEAN~!!! show last week and I saw he was working Zack Sabre in Portland the next weekend, I checked plane tickets just to see how feasible it would be. You know those plane ticket deals you hear about but never actually experience? The kind where someone you know makes it sound like an airline paid them $1,500 and gave them free flight vouchers to anywhere in the world just for moving to an empty seat to accommodate a mom and her child? And then a similar deal is offered to you on a future flight and there is no cash offer, no flight vouchers, only the knowledge of letting a mother sit with her child, and you feel like a sucker? Well, whatever happened, I looked up flights and there was the kind of screaming deal that I have never benefitted from, some kooky mileage plan perk that was giving me 5x the usual value on points, meaning I booked a trip to see Wrestling Genius Daniel Makabe wrestling Zack Sabre Jr. for what came out to $22.40. That is a deal I could not pass up, so after seeing Dan in Philly and New Jersey one week, I jetted off to see him in Portland the next, and this summer I plan on seeing him in Deer Creek, IN, the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin, and possibly out to the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia for a two-nighter. 

It was totally worth it. Makabe and Sabre worked a long, nearly 25 minute match, that did not in any way feel like a 20+ minute match. It was heavy on grappling and leverage and the crowd ate it up. That's not an easy feat on a 4 hour show that already had several 15-20 minute matches, but this packed 1,000+ strong house at the Roseland wanted to see some fucking grappling, and these are two of the finest to do it. Seeing a match like this up close (standing behind the 3rd row on camera side) only makes this style of wrestling sing, but I also feel the match would play no matter how you watched it. You can watch it on 240p on your phone to save battery, or you can stand and watch it next to some gal who is going to be married to Makabe, both of you reacting with disgust and glee as Sabre leaves a literal boot print on Dan's neck with a kick. There's no wrong way. They could have gone on grappling forever and tricked the crowd into watching a 60 minute Broadway until midnight on a work night. That's how strong a command they had. 

They stayed close and tangled through much of it. The gamesmanship was great. Sabre is the perfect kind of cock who can back it up, Dan is a guy who can be goaded into things but also loves letting opponents get comfortable thinking they can ace him. Both have tricks, both wrestle with the confidence of someone who knows their tricks are craftier than the other. My favorite thing to see Makabe do up close is dig his palm or elbow into flesh to procure a method of advancement, Digging a quick elbow into Sabre's ribs and being right there to catch his arm when he flinches. There are no seams, nobody is moving their arm or leg into place for the other, you can watch Makabe force an error and be waiting to catch the forced error, like a guy bouncing a ball off a wall and anticipating how to play it before the bounce. Dan digs elbow points into thighs, throws a stiff palm underneath the ribs, seemingly knows many pressure points to strike on every limb that allow him split second distractions on his way to advancing up or down that limb. It's a joy to watch up close, like Ricky Jay is showing you a card trick repeatedly, until you can process what he's doing. 

A kid standing on his seat not far from me kept screaming out for Zack Sabre to twist or injure a part of Makabe. This kid was a real sicko, screaming for Sabre to twist Makabe's neck, leg, feet, fingers, just screaming out his childlike voodoo doll requests with every Twisting Dream sounding like a worse and worse existence for Dan. I loved little ways Dan would play possum, lying in wait for Sabre to throw a kick just so he could catch him with a sick abbreviated dragon screw, or luring Sabre into a stomach kick just to pivot instantly into a trap leg suplex (the only throw of the match). The possum moments were great, because they also led to possum moments that worked out terribly: laying in wait for a kick he knew was coming only to not be quick enough and instead take a full kick to the chest, or later when he gets a little too married to a kneebar while legs are tangled, he's left prone for a swinging kick right in the neck that sounded louder than anything else in the match (and left an even louder welt). Sabre was of course the first one to go for strikes, but this is a match that didn't need any kind of strikes (and didn't have many). Sabre is always the first one to pull shit like that, but I loved the ways Dan forced him back into a Frye/Shamrock stubborn kneebar battle. Watching ol' slippery Daniel Makabe slip his way in and out of an octopus, or squirm through shifting Sabre's foot a couple inches to allow him to get his own trailer hitch while Sabre was also pushing on Makabe's foot to do the same, locked in a ligament twisting ouroboros that managed to always build while still feeling like they left hours of material on the table. 

Sabre worked over and welted up Dan's arm whenever the leg twisting didn't go well for him, and there were multiple times where Makabe couldn't capitalize on something because of the ways it was now harder to utilize his left arm. Posting up on the arm was now out of the question, but using it bluntly for twisting now became more focused, and no matter how many times Sabre kicked at Makabe's left arm, he couldn't slow down Dan's Luis Castillo-like right hand (one of which landed hard and clean, one which landed on Sabre's jaw just as a flat boot kick landed right in Makabe's gut). Both men had a couple of rope breaks during some long engagements with tangled legs, including Sabre having to scramble so quickly that he ended up grabbing the bottom rope on either side of ref Aubrey Edwards like he was Eddie Guerrero hugging the referee for protection. Every twist felt like a possible finish, a thing that could catch the other on a bad day, but when Sabre locked his leg around Dan's left arm and trapped them both behind his back in a sick attempt to make Makabe's elbows touch, the could started feeling like a certain would. 

I don't think it's easy to main event a long show and keep a tired Sunday night crowd hot for wrist bending and elbows dug into hip points, but it's business as usual for a wrestling genius and the evergreen Gotta Hand it To Sabre. These people, me included, got louder and louder for all of it, and I think we all would have been right there in minute 45. Two wrestlers so good they make you lose track of time, when everything we do every day revolves exclusively around time. I like the way they twisted. 

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