All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2012: Lesnar v. Cena V. Akebono/Hama v. Okabayashi/Sekimoto

Akebono/Ryoto Hama v. Yuji Okabayashi/Daisuke Sekimoto BJW 1/3/12

PAS: It is really amazing how fat Hama and Akebono are, we aren't talking regular wrestler fat, but reality television fat. Hama looks like Jerry Blackwell had an emotional crisis and tried to eat his feelings, Akebono is the size of WWF champion era Yokozuna, probably the fattest tag team ever. Match told a pretty simple story, Hama and Bono would squish the Strong BJ guys under their massive bodies, while Okabayashi and Sekimoto would throw improbable looking suplexes. It is a great way to build a match. I don't understand how either guy was able to suplex Hama,  the only way it seemed plausible is if Okabayashi's baby was trapped under Hama and he needed to summon unknown reserves to get him off. 15 minutes is a perfect amount of time for this type of match, and it was really enjoyable

ER: Man, I don't even know how Akebono or Hama are even physically possible. Both seem simultaneously bullet proof and faberge-egg-fragile every time they move an inch. Akebono seems like there is equal chance he will throw Okabayashi into the 16th row, or that both of his ankles will shatter upon taking a step. Strong BJ throw full body weight into him and he doesn't move an inch, then he throws one of them onto the other and crushes Okabayashi with the greatest elbow drop, like an Acme anvil punching Wile E Coyote through a desert cliff. I think I used a Wile E Coyote reference in the review for Cena/Lesnar, so that immediately makes this match comparison wholly valid. Hama is just absurd. He looks like a man who should wash himself with a rag on a stick. He keeps a photo of Gilbert Grape's mom on his fridge for inspiration. And here he is laying out on splashes and throwing Vader bear attack punches and eating nasty frog splashes and throwing full weight elbows. I have zero clue how Okabayashi is able to suplex him. It does not make physical sense. Akebono is an amazing pro wrestler. I am probably his biggest fan. He feels like prime Andre to me. He carries so much presence, so much stoic facial anger, drops these amazing elbows, is able to be unbeatable and vulnerable; he's so damn good. The way he just gets annoyed when Okabayashi is trying to knock him off the apron, the way he finally takes a huge bump over the top to the apron, the way he gets vertical on a school boy and makes it entirely plausible that his own upper torso could pin him. Akebono is a guy I need to do a Complete & Accurate on. You heard it here. This guy is pro wrestling. I love this match, I love freakshow fatties, and this was just pure pro wrestling.

Lesnar v. Cena review

PAS: I dug SMOP v. Strong BJ, but it was more a fun snack, then some sort of epic meal. Cena v. Lesnar was a French Laundry dinner

ER: This match felt like more of a celebration of scientific advancement than an epic wrestling match. "Our human technology and evolution has created two pumped up undersized powerhouses and two freakishly massive round squishing machines. LOOK WHAT WE CAN ACCOMPLISH. These matches were both spectacles that are unduplicatable. But Lesnar/Cena is perfectly crafted pro wrestling drama. This was a step below, as a nonstop "No WAY they'll be able to..." match, which is special in its own way. Still, champ retains.

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

14. Genichiro Tenryu/Akebono/Ultimo Dragon v. Suwama/Atsushi Aoki/Hikaru Sato AJPW 1/31

PAS: Total blast, Tenryu is completely old and broken down, but still so much fun to watch. He gets into these nasty exchanges with these young guys, who seemingly can't believe how hard this fossil just smacked them. Meanwhile he sells ever shot like his heart is about to stop. There is this amazing moment where Sato backs him into the corner and starts unloading with fast kicks and Tenryu just wipes him out with a straight right. Liked Akebono in this too, but this was a great farewell lap Tenryu performance, and that is what got it on this list.

ER: I have a lot of "match types" I like, obviously, but some combos excite me way more than they excite most people. I like two fat guys in a match. I like two old guys in a match. But my favorite type of match in the history of wrestling is old past his prime guy taking abuse from young punk. Nothing draws more sympathy for me than an old guy getting picked on, and nothing makes me cheer more than that same old guy making a comeback. It just works for me. Fujiwara of course was the master of this, as the ancient dude who always had a couple tricks up his sleeve and was just waiting for a young kicker to slip up and hoping his body could withstand the abuse up until that slip. This isn't *quite* that style, as this is more a victory lap for Tenryu, with him now working more like Rusher Kimura than Fujiwara. But Tenryu makes a really really fun Rusher Kimura. Tenryu is older than my father. My father is a man who hates going on walks. But my father CAN walk. At the moment it appears that Tenryu is a man who cannot actually walk anymore. Tenryu does not appear to have the mobility of late career Rusher Kimura. So this match is mostly some bullies picking on an elderly man who cannot move, but then those bullies getting walloped when they get just a biiiit too close to Tenryu. Because he is a man who can still wallop. Much of the match is him being backed into various parts of the ring with chops and kicks, kind of selling them the way modern Super Porky sells strikes (i.e. not moving his body much, as if he hadn't actually been struck), and then throwing chops and punches every bit as vicious as they've ever been. Old man can still light up a chest and rattle a jaw. There are some wonderful moments like him breaking out the rolling koppo kick (and...not really being able to stand up afterwards), and Suwama and Aoki being good sports and taking some classic Tenryu kicks to the face. I really loved Ultimo's rolling headscissor/neck crank, and Akebono is just great. One of my favorite guys of the last couple years and I am always in awe of his strength. His throwing strength is Andre-esque and I love his giant elbow drop and falling fat guy "splash". Guys work him like he's Andre in Princess Bride and it's always awesome. Tenryu hot tags him in with a Ricky Morton somersault tag, which is bittersweet. I hope this is all for this fine old man and excellent pro wrestler. It was great getting to see him punch guys in the chin, and his jab combos are still incredible. But we also never wanted to see Dick Clark trotted back out on NYE, so fare thee well Tenryu. You were the lumpiest.


2015 MASTER LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year...Or IS It!? YOU Decide!

So, Phil and I recently watched a 2014 pro wrestling match. I really enjoyed it. Phil enjoyed it, but (rightly) felt that one of the participants brought nothing to the table and the match as a whole wasn't good enough to make our 2014 MOTY list. I thought it should definitely be on our list. Since this is a partnership, we both have to turn our keys on a match for it to make it on the list. We don't often disagree on pro wrestling, so this situation hasn't come up much. So we spoke, and decided that we would let you, the readers, decide whether or not the following match is indeed worthy of inclusion on our 2014 MOTY list. Watch the match, read my fair review, leave a comment saying why you think I'm correct or why you think Phil is correct and how dare I step out of line by disagreeing with him. If you think it goes on, it will be our new gatekeeper at the bottom of the list. If you think it stinks, then at least we all got to watch an awesome fat guy performance. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!


Akebono v. Go Shiozaki AJPW 2/23

I've been out of the puro scene for a couple years. Out of the All Japan scene. Out of the Triple Crown scene. If there was any sort of scene centered around this match, your author was not a part of it. But, I saw Akebono had won the Triple Crown at some point, and was interested. As an unabashed fan of giant wrestling fatsos, in additition to my equally unabashed love of wrestling sumos, my interest was piqued. I am a big fan of the 80s AJPW sumo-on-sumo singles and tags, a huge fan of WAR sumo alumni, even a fake sumo like Yokozuna was one of my favorite WWF wrestlers of the 90s. Sumos in pro wrestling are great. They're lumpy, grouchy, and have cool specific body strength that no other pro wrestlers have. And this ended up being a really cool match, and could have been a great match had Go Shizaki brought much of anything to the table. He wasn't bad, but turned in just about the most nondescript  performance I've seen in some time. Just a total 0 WAR (Wins Above Replacement or Tenryu's fed, you choose) performance out there. He could have been worse, as he was not bad. He ended up in the spots where he was supposed to end up, and was there to move the match along as the underdog.

But this was all about the Akebono show. Akebono was completely awesome here, showing nice vulnerability and eventually insurmountable power. The story was laid out nicely as Shiozaki already had an uphill battle against a larger, tougher opponent, but also eventually beat himself by getting too greedy. When he felled Akebono early and began working on his leg he finally started to make some headway, but he got so obsessed with trying to hit the Go Flasher that even when he finally did, it didn't matter. He had the blinders on and that wasn't going to be the way to beat Akebono. The damage he did by hitting it didn't come close to make up for the damage he took from trying the move multiple times and having Akebono squash him. I loved Akebono's offense in this, as he's mastered a fat guy move set that is so simple you wonder why you don't see it more often. When you're this large simply falling on a guy is enough to turn things in your favor, and here he falls on Shiozaki in plenty of cool ways. He has a cool splash and killer elbow drops, and turns a Go Flasher into a mean crossbody. But the sumo elements he incorporates were the best, using his awesome short range quickness to regularly beat Go to the punch. Instead of resorting to derivative "I forearm you, you forearm me" puro exchanges, Go would try to hit a forearm and Akebono would just slap him across the face before Go's strike could even reach him. Akebono's a man who spent 15 years constantly training how to shove and smack somebody around in a phone booth, so it's not a great plan to stay in his wheelhouse. His short range quickness was super impressive in this, and he also had that really cool sumo shoving strength, bullying Go into corners at will. Some people had complaints with the way he sold Go's legwork but I liked it. It was nice and subtle, as it should be. Sumos take more of a beating on their joints than most other sports, I don't need to see a giant 500 lb. sumo doing "Ohhhhhh my kneeeeeee!" type over-emoting. These guys are trained to work through intense pain, no reason for him to be gripping his knee and screaming after a Go kneebar. This was a really fun match, and a great one man performance.

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All Japan Real World Tag League 11/20/10

These Puro tourney Project always tend to flame out (SLL's G1, my attempt to get through the BOSJ), but this is a tourney with Joe Malenko and Tamon Honda so we might make it.

Dark Ozz/Dark Cuervo/MAZADA vs. Kaz Hayashi/Shuji Kondo/BUSHI

This had its moments, but it was underwhelming at the end. There was some pretty lucha exchanges with Hayashi and one of the fake Charlie Mansons. I have been watching a bunch of MPRO six mans and back in his Shiryu days he was one of the best at quick armdrag and rope running. Ozz (or maybe Cuervo) has a really nasty finishing piledriver. Still much of this was pretty sloppy and awkward looking. It kind of sucks that AJ sends their rookies to IWRG but brings over AAA guys, this match would have been much better with the Terrible Cerebros or Oficiales as the rudo team.

TARU/Minoru/Voodoo Mask vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Tamon Honda

Not a long match, mostly comedy stuff with Kikuchi making faces at TARU. I am always happy to see Honda as he got to break out some Olympic Hell and his great deadlift German. This was undercard trios match, and really worked that way. No one was going to stretch out, they were going to do some shtick and hit some spots and go home.

Hiroshi Yamato vs. Keiji Muto

This was Muto diffidently squashing a young guy. He looked kind of bored and it resembled the laziest of Inoki New Japan matches. I remember Yamato kind of stinking up Black Terry matches in IWRG, but he seems to be someone they are pushing and I don't see any point in something like this.

KENSO/KONO vs. Seiya Sanada/Manabu Soya

I hadn't seen any of these guys before (outside of Kenzo Suzuki), and was pleasantly surprised at this ending up decent. First part of the match wasn't much, mostly Soya throwing clotheslines and KENSO choking folks with his scarf. The match built to a nice exciting finish. KENSO has a really cool looking dive and he hit it twice, and Soya and KONO did a cool near fall exchange with KONO hitting a nasty knee drop, not sure if I recommend the match, but I dug the end.

Masakatsu Funaki/Minoru Suzuki vs. Osamu Nishimura/Joe Malenko

This was as fun as I was hoping it would be. Malenko didn't look like he missed a step. We got a long awesome Malenko v. Funaki mat stand off in the beginning of the match which really had the feel of watching Navarro or Panther work holds. Suzuki and Nishimura had a really cool mat opening too, I loved the twists they put on the MUGA headscissors stuff. The match was pretty good when it sped up too, Malenko and Suzuki throwing headbutts on the floor was sweet. The draws you end up getting in these kind of tournaments can be kind of a buzzkill, but the finish run was awesome with Suzuki trying to lock on his sleeper and Malenko countering it with an ankle lock and both guys fighting over it. Really good stuff and I am hoping all of the Malenko shows up.

Taiyo Kea/Akebono vs. Suwama/Ryota Hama

Wow, I was pretty shocked at how much I dug this. Really had the feel of a solid WAR tag with a bunch of big heavyweight dudes pounding on each other. I always love battle of monsters and while I don't really get the sense Akebono or Hama are very good, their exchanges really felt like a pair of Bison smashing into each other. I was also really into Suwama v. Kea, their opening mat work was pretty great, with Kea doing some awesome amateur rides. The middle portion of the match was just guys pounding on each other, there is a great spot where Suwama just slams Akebono with short lariats until he finally chopped him down. Finish was really cool, Suwama had a very cool wobbly sell of a suplex, and you buy Kea getting the pin as a big moment.

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