2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki v. Dutt

4. Low-Ki vs. Sonjay Dutt Impact Wrestling Slammiversary 7/2

ER: 2017 continues to bring Low-Ki matches on the reg, so after all these years TNA has done something right! This wasn't totally worked like a 2/3 falls match, but I liked the way the pinfalls were integrated into it, and how the mandatory ref count after a pinfall allowed them to eat pins and not have to keep wrestling the next second (always a psych quandary). They start with a lot of lock-ups and some solid grappling, always like bridge up spots, liked Dutt going for a kind of nasty crossface, not the opening I expected. The first fall comes when Ki takes a sunset flip power bomb and comes right up in one motion stomping through Dutt's chest. I usually dislike when a top rope rana or powerbomb is "rolled through" like that, as it never looks like anybody rolled through, just looks like a guy took the move and then decided to do his own move anyway. And this looked like Ki got hit with a bomb, but was also seamlessly able to stomp a hole in Dutt's chest. 

Dutt smartly starts the segunda by throwing Ki to the floor using his own momentum, and both guys take turns seeing who can bump more violently into the guardrail (it was a tie, for our benefit!). Ki misses a stomp and I like how they established that Ki stomping on Dutt as hard as possible is okay on his ankles, but landing on the mat was too hard. It's silly, but within its own universe. Ki misses a huge stomp onto the ring steps which leads to Dutt overshooting an ill-advised moonsault but Ki makes it look like a nasty Russian legsweep into the rail. Finish to the second is a good one, with Ki locking on a dragon sleeper, only to have Dutt flip into a pinfall for a sneaky win. Ki nails another stomp after Dutt monkey flips him into the buckles (I love spots where Ki gets thrown into something and he just holds on), but eventually Dutt hits his own disgusting stomp, a moonsault that lands him feet first into Ki's ribs. Suitable finish for a high quality match.

PAS: I thought this was excellent, a candidate for best TNA match ever. Ki is on a decades long roll, but I thought Sonjay really stepped it up too.  Dutt really flung his body around on bumps, the Ki John Woo dropkick is a cool spot, but Dutt flew off it like he was hit by a trolley car. I loved how the match was built around the danger of the double stomp, it added a structure to the match. Ki winning the first fall by the roll through double stomp, him torching his ankle on the missed in ring double stomp and missed double stomp on the steps (and it makes perfect sense that you would hurt your ankle when you miss, but not when you hit; ankle turns are all about landing where you don't expect to, Eric would know this if he had ever done anything athletic in his life), and finally Dutt winning with the old Hikakari Fukaoka moonsault double stomp (which is especially nasty when done by a guy Dutt's size, Dutt isn't big, but Fukaoka was like 110 pounds and it still looked like she liquefied the guts of anyone she landed on.) Ki would also lay in nasty body shots to cut off Dutt, which made total sense as your body has to be damaged from getting stomped on.  The whole thing felt like a the wrestling equivalent of a Julio Cesear Chavez fight, killing the body so head would die.

ER: First, I did competitive amateur dog dancing through my teens; Second, I have it on good authority that Phil has no idea how to leave his feet. I have an eye witness that gave me a hilarious account of him on a trampoline; Third, I still maintain that landing on an uneven, boney man will more likely lead to a rolled ankle than unexpectedly landing on a flat surface. But considering I know two people who ended up in a boot just from stepping off a curb, ankles are essentially looking for any opportunity to stab us in the back. I said the logic worked within the universe it created, and it does.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Low-Ki Has Been Controllin the Street, Holdin the Heat

Low-Ki v. Trevor Lee v. Suicide v. Sonjay Dutt v. Andrew Everett v. Dezmond Xavier Impact Wrestling 4/20/17 - FUN

ER: At times messy, almost always fun scramble with Ki looking like a megastar and Lee not looking too far behind. We got a lot of dorkiness with six guys either trying to not get in the way, or trying to sync things while other pairings are syncing things, with the match reaching peak fart sound when all six tried to dropkick each other at once. Things got better after that. Ki looked like a total beast here, every move he did look vicious and every move he took made someone else look vicious. His baseball slide dropkick to the floor (to two guys!) looked the best. Lee adds a bunch of little things that these matches don't always get (like leaping to grab for Dutt's leg as Dutt is going for a trainwreck dive), and the best flying was probably done by Suicide. Caleb Konley is under the hood now and he had a nice little match, his stuff looked real crisp and his fast segments came off most fluid (an important skill to bring to one of these clusters). We get dives, we get some stupid and nasty reverse ranas from Everett (hated his slo mo handspring by the way), Dutt worked the match with basically one eye (which is nuts), and this was good. Gimme Ki v. Lee eventually (lotta fucking hard E sounds in that last sentence).

PAS: Too many guys, too much nonsense to be a really good match, but this was certainly fun stuff. Ki looked like a kingpin his moves have such impact, and this match was full of young guys excited to bump like nutsos on Low-Ki spots. Everett especially takes every in ring bump like he is try to shatter his own spine. Xavier seemed to be mostly backflips, but he does get cracked. That double stomp by Ki onto the small of Lee's spine felt like it would either cause permanent back problems, or solve them. Lee v. Ki will hopefully get some really time to shine when it finally happens as those guys could put on a killer.  (lets run in CWF-MA actually.)

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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Dick Togo Conversates a Bit About Your DNA, and His Salmon Suit From the VMAs

Dick Togo/Shoichi Funaki/Danny Collins/Shiryu vs. Gran Hamada/Super Astro/Alexander Otsuka/Super Delfin MPRO 9/23/96 - GREAT 

PAS: What an awesome weirdo lineup, it was like someone took a bag of my favorite wrestlers, shook it up, and drew eight out at random. Your MPRO regulars were as great as usual, Shiryu was just blindingly fast at this point, his flip out of the german suplex looks like it is in 8X fast forward. Hamada wasn't featured, but man is his signature stuff beautiful, that high rana he hits is just crazy, how he can get such ups off of such stumpy legs is a mystery. Your special guest stars were all awesome. Collins is a stubby little pissed off British guy, he wrestle similar to Dynamite Kid at his best, all nasty knees to the face, uppercuts, suplexes and scowls. Otsuka is a little out of his element, but we got to him rock some sweet mat wrestling with Shiryu and chuck some folks with suplexes. If anyone is tailor made to be thrown into a 96 MPRO 8 man it is Super Astro, he is such a breathtaking wrestler, and watching him and Togo match up is a portly dream match. Two tiny pot bellied men moving with a totally unexpected grace and beauty. Stunning stuff. Dick Togo/Men's Teiho v. El Hijo Del Santo/Super Delfin MPRO-11/10/96-FUN Perfectly enjoyable professional wrestling, although ultimately disappointing. Santo v. Togo is such a tremendous on paper match up, but it never really kicked into the next gear. This was worked much more like a Puro tag, rather then the awesome lucha tag it should have been. There were a couple of nifty moments where Santo and Togo do some rope running and we get to see Santo rip off a headscissors and see Togo fly for them. Still Santo felt like a bit of an afterthought, and the match was mostly Delfin being worked over by KDX. Again I want to judge the match on what it was, not what it should have been, but it is hard considering how good it should have been. 

Dick Togo/Sonjay Dutt v. Alex Shelley/Masato Tanaka Z-1 3/15/05 - FUN 

PAS: Lots to like in this match, but enough to hate to drop it below great status. This is a TLC match and those are what they are. Match starts out looking like the weird bifurcated Santo/Onita matches from LA with Togo and Tanaka doing some nasty brawling on the floor, with Togo sprinklering blood out of his head, meanwhile in the ring Dutt and Shelly are running through their horseshit. Match gets better when Tanaka and Shelly double team Dutt smashing him through tables and such. Togo makes an awesome hot tag, with a bloody white towel wrapped around his head like zombie Lawrence of Arabia. He just explodes with an awesome run of offense ending with a phenomenal tope con hilo That was the high point of the match, as the rest is a bunch of prop bumps, some of them cool, some of them awkward. Hard to avoid getting drawn in at points, also hard to be drawn out. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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