MLW Worth Watching: Aries! Dirty Blondes! Yehi!

MLW has a nicely resurgent indy run going, and we've reviewed a few matches recently that landed on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. I figured it couldn't hurt to skim through the existing episodes of Fusion while it's still at Episode 25, as it's a smarter plan than still thinking about skimming through episodes when they're at ep 125. It's early enough in the run that I can catch up to live, and write up a few notable matches along the way. Since they're all so short I likely won't be writing up many Barrington Hughes matches, but that's alright because you all know Barrington is worth watching without some goof like me telling you so.


Austin Aries vs. ACH  MLW Fusion #1 2/8 (Aired 4/20/18)

ER: A fine way to reintroduce people to the promotion, with a compelling sell job of the ribs by ACH, and Aries looking precise as ever. ACH comes in with kinesiology tape on the ribs and Aries starts not really focusing his attack on the ribs, but throwing in shots throughout as a means to open ACH for Aries' other offense. It's a cool strategy from Aries and it was nice seeing ACH committing to putting over these attacks. ACH's selling was fun as he never forgot about his ribs, even when it got him into stupid situations (stop going for frog splashes and 450s if your ribs are hurting!), but it gave a little dimension to his selling when he would take a move that didn't focus on his ribs. If you eat a dropkick to the chin, sure your chin will be feeling it, but your core is still screaming as well. Aries is good in control, everything he does always has nice snap, and his normal offense worked even better with ACH's hurt ribs, like Aries' great elbow drop just means more when it's to a guy's injury. Aries is also great at making offense look good. There was a spot where ACH got a boot up in the corner, and Aries flew into that boot like he was actually trying to do offense, not like he was just running into a boot because that's the spot. It looks more violent when you see Aries leaping in for an elbow and you see his trajectory get changed by a kick to the face. Aries is smart about suckering ACH into doing dumb things (those splashes!) and we get a good nearfall when ACH hits knees on a 450, with Aries then immediately rolling him over into the Last Chancery, with ACH getting the ropes. Aries' brainbuster looked like something that should certainly end a match, he really has a great one. There were some exposed wires in this, from little things like Aries putting himself back into a headscissors to complete a sequence or ACH waiting frozen for Aries to run into his kick, to bigger things like a violent death valley driver on the apron that's mostly brushed off 10 seconds later. That driver just felt really unnecessary, but if you're going to use it, treat it like a big deal. Still, this had a hot pace, and was a nice debut feature match.

The Dirty Blondes vs. Jason Cade/Jimmy Yuta  MLW Fusion #2 4/12 (Aired 4/27/18)

ER: I can't really recommend this as a good match because Jimmy Yuta really stinks (his timing is terrible and he runs through one of the more embarrassing hot tags in this match), but it's such a fantastic showcase for the Blondes and especially Leo Brien. Leo Brien is a cool fat Steve Corino and wrestles like the best southern heels. He throws great punches, cuts low and fast on clotheslines, throws great elbows, drops a tremendous kneedrop and elbowdrop, he's a guy who really gets it. Patrick isn't far behind and he won me over for eternity with a really nice fistdrop. Cade isn't bad, I liked him attacking Brien at the bell with a hard dropkick and laid in some elbows, eats offense well, a guy who I would look for more if he had a better partner. So, not really a good match, but the Blondes are legit.

Fred Yehi vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman  MLW Fusion #4 4/12 (Aired 5/11/18)

ER: Yehi is really one of the top 10 workers in the world this year, and this is the first I'm seeing of MJF. MJF is really polished for a guy as young as he is, and he was a fun guy to get beat up by Yehi. Yehi tore it up, and looked like a guy who MJF wouldn't have any kind of answers for Yehi, as Yehi was running this show. He starts with a few hard shoulder blocks, switching up his rope running on one of them by rushing out of the corner followed hotly by MJF, then just cutting 90 degrees and blindsiding him off the ropes. Yehi hits a big back elbow, stomps hands, and hits a really cool German where he delays a little at first and then snaps him over. Schiavone seemed really impressed by that one. Yehi starts selling his left arm, and it comes about in a neat way: Yehi tries to Irish whip MJF, MJF holds onto the ropes tight, and right after Yehi shakes his arm out a bit. That would really be all it takes to tweak a limb, you miscalculate a step and end up taking it weird, suddenly your knee or foot feels funny, so I like that Yehi just built an injury like that from something believable. So that gave MJF a nice target, and believably slowed Yehi down enough, but it certainly didn't slow him down entirely. Yehi was still on the attack, throwing his heavy chops, using his dead arm for a backfist (why is that a theme with matches we review now??), blocking MJF's strikes in really cool ways, laying in that low dropkick (he hits that low dropkick better than almost anyone, and I dug how MJF came up rubbing out his jaw), and dropping a heavy dragon suplex (called as such by Schiavone, who genuinely feels reenergized and excited as an announcer). This was a fairly dominant Yehi performance up to this point, so the ending was both satisfying from a heel standpoint, and disappointing from a match standpoint, as MJF yanks the ref in front of himself as a human shield, then eye pokes Yehi, double stomps him, and rolls him up. The match at least did a decent job of featuring both guys, showing all of Yehi's damn cool offense, and establishing MJF as a decent heel. I wish it wasn't Yehi getting the loss, but hopefully he'll be featured more.

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Impact Wrestling Slammiverary 7/22/18 Cherry Picking

Heard good things about the top three on this show, so I was intrigued to check it out

Tessa Blanchard vs. Allie

ER: This was a letdown. Blanchard has been on fire since coming into Impact, really adding more of a spark to a good division, and even having my favorite Impact match of the year (against Kiera Hogan). But I think she gave Allie way too much here. I get there may be a seniority factor at play, but I don't know if Allie has enough material to be given this much of a match. There's a lot of disconnect or set up to Allie's offense here, a lot of played out modern moves like a backcracker and a code breaker, and she doesn't always seem totally able to pull of some of the moves very well. At least she dropped the high pitch squealing. But Blanchard is nuts and takes some sloppy offense anyway. We get a death valley driver on the floor that looked potentially dangerous, and she eats a huge crossbody from the top to the floor. Blanchard was a bit too generous with how much she gave Allie, but I thought Blanchard looked good, and she's got a lot of personality. She really comes off mean, misses moves big like a real heel (her missed senton looked spine rearranging) and looks explosive with forearms. Tessa hits a flat out brutal rana off the top, which Allie looked like she took it on the top of her head. They should have called an audible and had that be the finish. But this is where we get Tessa's big missed senton, and Allie hits a really great superkick for a good nearfall. Blanchard's trap arm DDT is a nasty finisher, and I like that they snuck in the extra nearfall, but that Frankensteiner was brutal and really should have ended. It's silly to have Josh Mathews screaming "THERE'S NO WAY ALLIE WILL BE KICKING OUT..." as she's kicking out and going back on offense seconds later.

39. LAX (Santana/Ortiz) vs. OGZ (Homicide/Hernandez)

PAS: So I need to check out this entire feud, Konan and Eddie Kingston spouting B-Movie gang nonsense it right up my alley, Konan is going off on how their business are legit now and how he taught Kingston the streets seem like rejected Belly script lines and I loved it. This was a totally fun JAPW style brawl with crazy table bumps, lots of trash can lid shots and everyone looking great. Homicide has really looked rejuvenated in the last year or so, and this was a classic Homicide performance, crazy somersault tope through a table, trying to burn Ortiz with Drano, cursing, selling nerve damage, all of the nutty Homicide shit I fell in love with nearly 20 years ago. Hernandez was a beast too, hitting all of his big spots and strutting around. Both LAX guys were clearly amped to work this match on this stage with these guys and were total superballs just flying all over the ring, I loved their Dead President's face makeup too. Kingston cleaning house post match with a sapper and spray painting the belts was great. I am an unabashed Doghouse mark and this felt like a total throwback to that kind of mania.

ER: I came away a little underwhelmed by this. It came off more like 0.7 JAPW brawl, with light trash can lids and too many instances of guys wobbling on their feet while peaking to see how close someone is to hitting their spot. It felt a little sluggish in spots and didn't have that same chaos that the best of the JAPW brawls have. But I came away really impressed with Santana (and the new LAX in general). Hernandez is older and slower but can still throw guys through tables and still hit that big no hands dive. Homicide brought a lot of selling to this and really stepped back to allow Santana to shine and took a lot of LAX's offense, and I thought Santana made the most of it. Homicide's big moment was that wild flipping tope into Ortiz and through a set up table, really the spot that felt like it finally woke the fans up. Santana was running all over the place during the match, hitting dives, punting Homicide in the face, trying not recommended stuff like leaping off Homicide's back into a crossbody, hitting a great rolling senton onto Hernandez (who was laid out on a ladder) and following that up with a sick Asai moonsault, hits a gorgeous high angle cannonball in the corner, just great energy all around. I wish we got more Kingston involvement, he was far too subdued at ringside. I know Konnan can't actually physically move, so you kind of have to match the energy, but Kingston should have been cheapshotting the hell out of LAX. The tacks finish was unexpected (though another overly long set up), but then Kingston comes in with a slapjack and again just makes me wonder why the hell Kingston wasn't slapping the sap out of these saps all match long.

43. Pentagon Jr. vs. Sami Callihan

PAS: Nifty 2000s indy style garbage brawl, which delivered the gore you want from an apuestas match, Callihan was really leaking and Pentagon had a great ripped mask blade job. I am a low voter on Pentagon, but he is compelling in these kind of gore fest brawls, he is mostly a cool look, but that face paint and mask looks cool as shit with blood dripping down. I really dug the Jimmy Jacobs railroad spike spots (have there been any great Jacobs brawls since he got fired from NXT?) Pentagon banging the spike into Callihan's head with a baseball bat was really violent, and the only good wrestling Frye vs. Takayama spot is Fryeakayaming with railroad spikes. The spot where Callihan throws his cocaine in Pentagon's eyes, and a blinded and high Pentagon breaks the ref's arm was some classic Memphis nonsense. I liked how the finish was decisive and Fenix taking out the Crists was a great set up for the head shaving.

ER: If you're gonna do a throwback indy death match, then sure, go on and do it. Pentagon has become a bigger star over the last few years, and while his popularity creeps steadily up the Y axis, his laziness creeps up there with it. But he's clearly willing to go big when necessary, and Callihan is someone who will not allow somebody to half ass a brawl. They go violent pretty early and TNA/Impact has never really shied away from having their guys basically do death matches. I always think of old Sting working death match spots with Abyss, and this is more in their history of two guys out to murder the other. There's some big stiff shots (Callihan never has a problem leaning into those) and Pentagon always lands nicely on superkicks (which Callihan also leans jaw first into). Their spike spots were fantastic, just super dangerous and disgusting. I loved Pentagon's drawn out spike torture of Callihan, hammering them into his head with Callihan's baseball bat and getting immediate flowing crimson. Pentagon clinking the spikes together before stabbing is like an awesome version of Luther clinking empty bottles in the Warriors. Also loved him tossing Callihan a spike and telling him to bring it. I am a person who is essentially in constant fear of having my eyeglasses broken, so seeing two nutmeats throw hard spike shots inches from their eyeballs just seems not worth it at all, but my god was it a visual. This match is partying like it's 1999 so of course both Crist brothers lean forehead first into Pentagon's chairshots. It's not like we've seen anything bad happen to any of those ECW guys from that era. Things drug on a bit long, but it's an apuestas match so you almost have to go over the top. I did think Callihan's piledriver was just too pretty to kick out of, and the set up was way too much for Pentagon's...and then they go full silly with Callihan kicking out of the package piledriver ON all those set up chairs. It was a crazy spot, but it probably would have been more unexpected to actually have it finish the match. And I appreciate Phil coming up with an entertaining reason for the powder spot, but I think assuming Pentagon went into a 5 second cocaine blackout might be giving them a bit too much credit. Still both guys busted ass and had a memorable mask/hair match filled with the violence you'd want from both guys. Booking a violent hair match when you're starting to thin on top is a smart business strategy, one oddly not capitalized on by WWE and Baron Corbin (they could have had a Viktor/Corbin match end in a double pinfall leading to both getting shaved). It reminds me that in the next year or two I'll have to challenge someone, because it will be a damn shame when I just start buzzing my head again, for no reason. Someone at least gotta cut my head open.

9. Austin Aries vs. Moose

PAS: Really great title match, up there with the best of Aries's ROH title defenses. Loved the early part of this with Aries working like Flair against Road Warrior Hawk. When it got into the big near fall section at the end, we got some absolutely huge near falls. Hadn't seen much Moose before, but he has some fun power moves and a willingness to take some big bumps, I really like his no hands headbutt. I liked how Aries kept using cheapshots to get an advantage, and we had some killer big spots, including Aries getting tossed into the crowd, Moose killing him with a forearm counter to the low tope, Moose missing his dive on the ramp, and Aries going for almost a stinger splash on the outside. The finish was decisive, but still left me wanting to see a rematch. Just great stuff all around, kudos to both guys.

ER: What a fantastic match and I think a legitimate contender for best TNA/Impact match ever. Low-Ki/Sonjay Dutt was fantastic but this felt like a classic, like an modern take on Flair/Luger. Earlier in the year Impact aired a tag match from NOAH featuring Moose, and I thought he looked like a total superstar in that match. And while I've liked his Impact work I've never been quite as impressed in the same way. Well, here I think he turned in one of the finest heavyweight performances of the year. And Aries is arguably the best wrestler in the world who we rarely write about. This will be only the 5th time we've written about Aries, and the first time in 5 years he's shown up on our MOTY List. But I loved this match so much, just a classic big title main event. This hit me in a similar way to the Gargano/Almas match, where things kept building perfectly and the execution from both men was impeccable. The match made Moose look like a guy who should be a big player in wrestling, and it made Aries look like a guy who shouldn't be stuck wrestling other guys around 205 pounds.

Aries' strikes (especially those quick and sharp back elbows) looked like something that would hurt any wrestler, and he never let any little attack slide. One of my favorite little moments of the match was when he and Moose were fighting on the floor and with Moose slumped in the railing Aries walks up and whips him with a nasty side kick to the stomach. It's a little thing, but you see guys throw away or space out on those kinds of exchanges all the time, enough that it really stands out when they're not. All of the big spots looked fantastic. I leapt out of my chair when Moose countered Aries' tope. We've seen that spot a lot over the last decade, and we've seen some nasty variations on it (Sasha falling out of the ring onto her head after Asuka kicked her out of the air comes to mind), but this might have been the best executed version of that spot. Aries looked like he flew into a brick wall, body horizontal practically in mid air when Moose countered that low angle tope, like Wile E. Coyote running into a tunnel painted onto a cliffside. When Aries eventually does hit that tope it looks great, really slamming fast into Moose. All of Moose's power offense looks even better against Aries, who is not only smaller but a guy who knows how to take offense. I love press slam spots so a press slam spot with a guy getting thrown into a crowd is just icing. But Moose shows Aries a thing or two about taking nasty spills, wiping out rows of chairs after flying into the crowd, and crashing like an air show disaster on a dive to the entrance ramp. That tumble was really nasty and sprawling, and Aries followed it up with a killer running double knee strike, running down the ramp way to plaster Moose against the ringpost. Moose threw a couple cool headbutt cut-offs, and Aries had great ideas about how to logically come back on offense. This match up went so well that I suddenly want to see much more from both, and they weren't exactly guys who were strangers to my eyes before now. Excellent title match, one of my very favorite matches of the year.

ER: This show definitely delivered, even the matches that we didn't write up were worth checking out. Any show with three matches landing on our MOTY List is notable, and this show really felt like a company worth spending time with. How often have you said that about TNA?

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Low-Ki Used to Watch Dynasty Just to See Heather

Low-Ki vs. Austin Aries Wrestling Superstar 5/6 - FUN

PAS: This was from a show in Lima Peru, and it was fun to watch these two guys work a house show match. This is what I imagine a touring match between the two would have been if I had seen them work a WCW show in 1997 in Fairfax VA. There are a lot of shticky spots to get the crowd involved, including a collar and elbow tie up, which they roll out of the ring, walk around the arena and roll back into the ring without breaking. There are a bunch of teases of big spots, including Ki trying a Ki Krusher on the apron. but it is all teases. Both guys are such kinetic athletes, so it is fun to watch them do simple things. Finish is kind of lame with a ref bump and a run in by what I am assuming is a local Peruvian heel faction.

ER: Love Low-Ki will skip town on WM weekend bookings, but he's going to show up at some club gig in Peru. This is some weird Egyptian theme (or possibly Stargate themed...) club that doesn't feel like a wrestling club, feels more like an all purpose club that will have industrial bands, metal bands, occasional wrestling, and bare chest calendar contests. For being two of the biggest indy wrestling names of the last 15 years, these two really haven't crossed paths much: A couple of ROH matches (one I remember really enjoying at the time) and a couple fun but short TNA matches. Phil is right that this is a house show touring match for them, but these two are good with teases and good with simple spots, never mechanical. I liked them fighting through the club with a collar and elbow, falling onto chairs and moving people off a couch, and Ki is always interesting working simple knucklelock stuff. It's not simple with him, it always looks like it could go somewhere cool. Ki threw some really great downward strike elbows and took a great snap neckbreaker over the middle ropes, and I loved the way these two moved around each other. It's probably worth it to go seek out their few matches together, as this was a cool glimpse.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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WWE Extreme Rules 2017 Live Blog

1. Kalisto vs. Apollo Crews

ER: These pre-show matches almost always deliver, which makes sense as they're a combination of low expectations with guys seemingly trying to get noticed. Kalisto hits an Aerostar-esque 450 from the middle rope to the floor, hopping from inside the ring to the rope on the outside, and crashing senton style into the standing Crews. Awesome. And then he follows it up with another springboard and crashes spectacularly when Crews enziguiris him on the way down. Back in there are a couple of slightly mistimed spots, but all is saved when Crews takes a gorgeous tornado DDT and later hits a huge pop up Samoan drop and a flawless standing shooting star. Kalisto kicking Titus off the apron while hitting the Salida del Sol in one motion was a nice touch to the finish.

2. The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: First minute or so is total dullsville, and then suddenly something wakes up in Dean and he starts throwing stinging chops on Miz and a huge lariat that sends Miz super fast to the floor. Okay, we're doing this. Miz is great trying to goad Dean into using a chair, and Miz hitting an apron DDT looked real good. Both men tighten things up with Dean actually trying on a couple kicks to the stomach (something he hasn't put effort into in over a year), Miz hits a great dropkick in the corner, Dean levels Miz with his flying elbow to the floor (great timed bump by Miz) and this is definitely better than I was expecting. The fight over the figure 4 is pretty lackluster and I hate that the rebound lariat hits 90% of the time. Finish was logical but couldn't be seen as satisfying to anyone, as ending a match by arguing with the referee for 30 seconds before being hit with a finisher is just unsatisfying. Still, match exceeded expectations.

3. Alicia Fox/Noam Dar vs. Sasha Banks/Rich Swann

ER: Really liked the early Fox/Sasha tangling, Alicia going for a tilt a whirl only for Sasha to reverse to the Banks Statement looked really great. Goddamn do I hate Michael Cole constantly given the directive that black babyfaces "love to have fun!" It's a dumb as hell line that they keep going to, and it never sounds convincing and always sounds insulting. Thankfully the fun hating women get in to break up a pin and yank arms in nasty ways. Sasha hits her pretty spectacular double knees off the top into Dar on the floor and Swann plants the phoenix. This whole thing felt like an inconsequential pre-show match, but was perfectly fine for what it was. Dug Team Swasha's post-match dancing.

ER: I have no clue who Elias Samson is, but shitty guy with an acoustic singing original songs is some pretty immediate heel heat from me. It feels like more of a college heel gimmick but it works as a guy who plays open mics and works 12 hours a week at a coffee shop. Michael Cole almost makes me spit out my coffee after the song, with the hilariously mis-delivered line "That sounds like something that should be on The Ghost of Tom Joad!" Nothing like dropping a reference to Springsteen's worst album, which is also over 20 years old. That's his go-to stark singer songwriter album reference!? Compare Samson to fucking Nebraska or something if you're going old. Shit, do I now have to go back and see if GoTJ has gotten better with age? Whatever, Cole's line could not have sounded less cool. Nobody reacted to it. It was amazing. "That sounds like a cut off of No Jacket Required!!" he says in his voice that sounds like he's recording a video game soundbite. 10 stars.

4. Kendo Stick on a Pole: Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: Well this couldn't have been more disappointing. Did Miz/Ambrose go way too long and this just had most of the middle cut out? The hype video was longer than the match! I don't tend to use terms like "bury" but damn did this feel like a "Spirit Squad get sent back to OVW" moment for Bayley.

5. Cage Match: Sheamus/Cesaro vs. Hardy Boys

ER: Both teams go for escapes right away which is like the least interesting way to work a team cage match, but Cesaro does look awesome running across the ring, leaping up the ropes and springing to the top of the cage. Jeff hits on of the best lariats of his career on Sheamus. Cesaro does the Scott Hall "Bad Guy" pose. Sheamus is the only one saving this with several painful looking bumps into the cage. he really has no problem flying over the ropes into that cage in violent ways. The escape attempts don't do much for me and I'd much rather see violent asskickings and guys getting thrown into the cage, but they win me over once Jeff is dangling from the side of the cage while Cesaro is holding on to only his arm. That looked great. The psychology of team escape cage matches just never makes sense to me, as it seems like the heel team should just let one of the faces escape, and then just kick the shit out of the remaining face for 10 minutes and walk out the door. If they had let Jeff escape 10 seconds in, this could have just been both of them teeing off on Matt with Jeff unable to save. It all just makes no sense. Jeff coming back in to do a dive off the top makes confuses me even more. So is he back in the match? Is he unescaped? Cole says so, and I actually like that. THAT makes me more interested in this. And that rule totally saved the match. Cesaro and Sheamus giving Matt such a beating that Jeff reenters the match, which leads directly to them losing, is a great finish. Matt dragging Jeff for the door while C&S climb over was really well done.

6. Austin Aries vs. Neville

ER: I hate how high Neville cuts on missed clotheslines. Aries is freaking 5'5", he can duck a normal lariat. This gets good once Neville goes after Aries' left arm. Graves is good putting over how Aries is a southpaw and this is going to take his most important weapons away from him. The kicks to the arm look great and the fight to the ring ropes was quality. They lose the magic pretty kick when Aries grabs a guillotine with that same arm that's been beaten to a pulp. Do you know how hard your arm has to work to hold a guillotine? So I did not like that, but then Aries crashes hard on a missed dive and Neville hits a picture perfect red arrow, so I can't complain too much. Still, other than some Kendrick, it doesn't seem like I'm missing too much by skipping 205 Live.

7. Bray Wyatt vs. Samoa Joe vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I wish they had found a 6th man, odd numbered matches are usually the pits. This is okay I guess. There's a lot of movement, so that's something. Bray is doing a nice job of not ignoring the people just lying around selling, always throwing in a kick or stomp whenever he passes one. This is pretty predictably a mess, but the fans have been engaged the whole time which doesn't always happen in formless multimans. They even counted along to Roman's corner clotheslines which made me smile. Roman/Joe do an absolutely terrible phone booth fighting spot. My god those were ugly punches. Does Rollins aim a couple feet past his opponent on every dive on purpose? All of his dives end up looking like really painless slingblade clotheslines. It has to be intentional. At least Bray throwing Joe into a tope looked nice (even if the tope was ugly). This is apparently "Extreme Rules" but it takes 18 minutes for a chair to get involved. How is that possible? The big moment in a lot of these matches is the go go go spot where one guy hits a finisher, then gets leveled by someone else's finisher, and so on. But since this match was tornado style they had already basically been doing that the whole time, so when they went into that mode it felt pretty anticlimactic. Having Joe against Lesnar is at least a new match, so I'm interested, despite not being very interested in current Samoa Joe.

ER: Overall the PPV over-delivered, though Rachel was most excited for the Bliss/Bayley match and that...was really weird. That's like the match that happens before we find out Bayley got a wellness suspension.

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Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY List

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29
2. Nigel McGuinness v. Bryan Danielson ROH 6/23
3. Nigel McGuinness v. Samoa Joe ROH 3/3
4. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
5. Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero IWA-MS 9/29
6. Bryan Danielson v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 8/25
7. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14
8. Chris Harris v. James Storm TNA 5/13
9. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/4
10. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16
11. Matt Hardy v. Finlay WWE 6/19
12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21
13. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23
14. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/31
15. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
16. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
17. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
18. Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima v. KENTA/Nigel McGuiness ROH 5/12
19. John Cena v. Great Khali 5/20
20. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Bison Smith NOAH 6/3
21. John Cena v. King Booker v. Bobby Lashley v. Mick Foley v. Randy Orton WWE 6/24
22. Necro Butcher v. Jay Briscoe ROH 10/5
23. Briscoes v. Murder City Machine Guns ROH 4/28
24. Finlay v. Undertaker WWE 3/6
25. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14

Previously on the list

Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16
Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24
Nigel McGuiness v. Jimmy Rave ROH 3/4
Matt Sydal v. The Man Gravity Forgot PAC ROH 3/4
Matt Hardy v. Ken Kennedy WWE 3/13
Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14
Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17
Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
Chris Benoit v. MVP 4/10
Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14
Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takuma Sano NOAH 4/28
John Cena v. Great Khali v. Umaga WWE 6/4

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29

No arguing with Nigel anymore, in 2007 he had four of my top ten matches, with four different opponents. This match is sitting at the top spot. Aries is a hell of an athlete, and put in a match with good pace, can be spectacular. Here he was amazing, taking enormous bumps, moving with tremendous speed, and hitting with real impact. This was Nigel's show though, as he has become really good at working a big main event style match. One of the things Nigel does during his big matches, is little restarts. Here Aries hits him with a tope to the back driving his head into the guardrail, and Nigel spend the next couple of minutes backpedaling avoiding Aries offense, it is a set of very cool counters and nice slowing down on a show which is all moving forward. Finish run is pretty great too, as there are just the right number of two counts, and it never gets into ROH overkill territory even with the huge moves. Just great wrestling.

12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21

This is about as good a garbage wrestling match as I have seen in a while. They built the match around 5 or 6 crazy spots, and they were all nuts and executed nicely. Pondo going headfirst into the garbage can of lightbulb tubes was especially crazy, as was Necro getting DVD through a table on the floor. There are two major flaws in most death matches, one flaw is that the in between stuff often looks bad, you sometimes get the sense that they are moving from spot to spot and everything else is just killing time, and the other problem is finish overkill, where the final spot doesn’t seem final, like the match could have ended at any point. This match avoided both of those, the regular brawling here was darn good (which is one of the reasons Necro is a class above other people working this style) and the crazy Mark Briscoe U-Haul dive felt like a finish to a match.

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The Quest for the Whitest Match in History: Day 2

Izzy, Dixie, & Angel Dust vs. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, & Jack Evans
ROH - 5/22/2004

This was the debut of the Generation Next gimmick, four guys who would go on to be guilty of extreme whiteness at various points in their careers - Aries co-opting stuff from tapes with no rhyme or reason, Jack Evans being a wigger, Roderick Strong being Paul Hamm, and Alex Shelley doing a tape-watching gimmick in TNA that evolved into a low-budget filmmaker gimmick somehow - but don't stand out as exceptionally white here. To pick up the slack, we have Special K, which, in fairness, was a pretty multi-ethnic group, but a stable of rich kid ravers is a pretty white concept. Also, let's not forget they have Dixie, who first gained notoriety as a white guy doing Southern chickenshit heel shtick against Puerto Ricans in northeast indies.

At this point, I felt that outside of Shelley, the GenNext guys kinda struggled in singles matches, but we were a lot of fun in multi-mans like this. They had enough cool spots and were competent enough heels that they could excel in this setting, but in singles matches, they tended to fall into their various bad habits. Special K were kinda similar in that regard, as aside from Dixie and Lethal, they were guys who really benefited from the team setting, as evidenced by the fact that they broke up, and now they're all gone from the company. Well, I guess we can't blame the team's break-up for Deranged stealing Teddy Hart's car, but you get the idea. Of course, this was a team that used the team gimmick to justify bad habits - which is still probably the most clever booking move Gabe Sapolsky ever pulled off - whereas GenNext used it to hide theirs. And this is a match where those bad habits become apparent - Angel Dust working the match with an injured neck, which he sells early, but forgets about while doing Manami Toyota's rolling pin thingy, which I imagine would be pretty traumatic for a dude with an injured neck, being the most glaring example - but GenNext have a lot of fun stuff to do to keep me interested. Jack Evans uncorks the reverse hurricanrana on a listless Izzy, Strong military presses Izzy back-first into the corner, and Aries spinning elbowdrop looks a lot better when he doesn't take an hour to set it up. They'd all do better stuff later, but this was a fine intro to the gimmick.

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