Drew Gulak Was Raised on a Promise

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 11/25/21 - GREAT 

ER: This was the  6th (!) and final match Gulak and Mansoor had in 2021, and perhaps the final match they will ever have. I liked all six of their matches, but we didn't quite get one that was a head above the rest. All of them were good, none of them were quite enough to make a list (unless you were compiling a list of Gulak/Mansoor matches, to which I would say that all six of their matches belong on that list). This was a cool match, just like most of their matches, with Gulak starting things off with wrist and ankle control, and I've always been impressed by how well Mansoor stays in sequences with Gulak. It never looks like Gulak leading someone through matwork. Mansoor is always doing something like grabbing at Gulak's ankle, and he's really squirmy, constantly moving forward, so just holding onto his wrist always feels difficult. This broke open nicely with a real sick inverted atomic drop from Mansoor. He stopped Gulak running the ropes by grabbing him like he was going for an exploder, and instead just brought the hammer up into Gulak's balls. Gulak always has nice counters to throw out against Mansoor, and the best was when he threw him off mid-tornado DDT and then hit a fantastic running lariat while Mansoor was still getting his footing. 

I liked Gulak working over the ankle and back, love his little leg whip takedown. It's not a dragon screw he just has a hold on Mansoor's ankle and flings it while dropping his body weight down. There was an interesting fight over a vertical suplex, which isn't something that you really see in WWE. Both kept blocking each other's weight and kept backing the other up, until Mansoor wisely dropped back with his weight, rolling backward and came up to his feet powering Gulak into the suplex. Mansoor really looked like he was fighting to get him over, and the crowd responded much more to that fought-for suplex than they would have to either just hitting a snap suplex (source: they actually responded to that deadlift suplex and had been mostly quiet before that). My big complaint with the Gulak/Mansoor series is that they never really adequately build to a finish, and the finishes can be a bit sudden. It happened five times, so there was no reason to believe it would change for the sixth, and it didn't. Still, this was a real good way to cap off a series that a lot of people did not watch, two fun dance partners who would go on to be even more grossly underused in 2022. Unrestricted 5 minute matches on Main Event every month will always be better than random 2 minute Smackdown matches every few months.

#1 Contender Black Friday Battle Royal WWE Smackdown 11/26/21 - FUN

ER: There aren't many 2022 Drew Gulak matches, so one of his last TV matches is going to wind up being him getting eliminated 90 seconds into a battle royal. Somewhat cruelly, they teased two Gulak interactions that we've never got to see in actual matches: Gulak vs. Sheamus and Gulak vs. Sami Zayn. Gulak mixed it up with both and tried to eliminate Zayn before getting booted spectacularly to the floor by him, sprawling out onto his stomach when he hit. He wasn't the first eliminated (sorry Jinder) so he'll always have that at least. The rest of the battle royal, as battle royals go, was fine. It had Shanky without Veer, and Mace without T-Bar. Sami Zayn won, and he was far and away the best battle royal worker in the match, working constant character moments that added to the whole match, never making the match stand still the same way Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss made it stand still for their character work. Zayn knew how to cheapshot and get almost eliminated, and knew how to always be working while not always being the focus. Angel and Humberto should have stayed in the match longer, as they're better at integrating singles match spots into a battle royal setting, but both took great elimination bumps (Garza going fast to the floor, Carrillo getting body slammed into him). A lot of this felt like it was focusing on the wrong guys. Asskickers like Sheamus and Holland and Cesaro felt underutilized, and Sheamus wasn't working this like it was for a title shot. Fast guys like Mansoor were out of there before the ring was cleared out enough to do anything, but it got saved by Zayn running and stumbling through, Ricochet working a hot finishing stretch, and a false finish Jeff Hardy win before Zayn shoved him painfully to the floor. Needed more Gulak, but Zayn's 2021 was so great. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Gulak Was There With the Best Sometimes

 Drew Gulak vs. Baron Corbin WWE Smackdown 7/31/20 - FUN

ER: I really liked how these two matched up in their April match, and it feels like they have enough chemistry to work a satisfying feud. This match felt different than that match, and I like when guys bring different vibes to rematches. This one was shorter, but worked briskly. It had a lousy finish that made Gulak look like a goof, But getting to the bad finish was a fun trip. Gulak was really aggressive and worked a dominant strike game against Corbin, and those parts were great. Gulak punched and elbowed him around the ring, kicking at him, really backing up a larger opponent in convincing fashion. He looked really tough getting Corbin off balance with strike combos in the corner, throwing elbows and a hard shoulder to the ribs. And Gulak's late match crossface was a strong spot that feels like it would be starting to get a reaction from live crowds at this point. Corbin gave Gulak most of the match, but the finish betrayed that generosity. Riddle came out, distracted Corbin, Gulak small packaged him but only for a 2 count, then immediately ate End of Days. So bad. Gulak had looked dominant and on the same level the entire match, and then in the last seconds he looked unnecessarily desperate and immediately lost. Made no sense within the framework of the match. Still worth seeing for the rest of the match, which was enough to make me want to see the pairing again.

Drew Gulak vs. Jaxson Ryker WWE Main Event 7/29/21 - FUN

ER: Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that there probably aren't many other people who have been wanting to see a Drew Gulak/Jaxson Ryker match, but it's one of the few WWE singles match pairings I've been most excited to see. Nobody else is out here getting hyped for Jaxson Ryker matches, but he's long been a favorite of mine who barely showed up on WWE TV. In his first 3+ years in WWE he only had a dozen TV matches, before finally getting some more regular work in 2021. He works snug and aggressively, which is a style that goes well with Gulak. But what makes this match weird is that Ryker works babyface while Gulak works heel. Ryker has been a far more visible onscreen heel presence than Gulak, and he is obviously the larger man, so it's weird to see Gulak take on the role of heel (without doing anything visually heelish). Plus, Ryker projects as a psychopath who failed the police written exam a third time and has thus been relegated to working as a parking lot security guard, where he fills time posting on r/mybitchexwife for 10 hours a day. 

I don't know what agent decided to slot Ryker into the babyface role here, but it's a choice. Most importantly, Ryker's offense and the way he delivers that offense does not read like babyface offense, so here he worked more like Ted DiBiase Jr., which is a thing that literally no person has ever aspired to do. It's all bodyslams, a swinging side slam, and a falling headbutt. Gulak adds the interesting flash, with some great punches to Ryker's body, and a cool cravat that he works from multiple angles while leaning weight down on Ryker. Gulak works Ryker into a nice crossface, but you can see the moment where they decide to go home as Ryker just fights up, hits a couple of double chops, a nice slingshot suplex, and then the spinning slam. The crowd did get behind Ryker's comeback so they did respond positively to face Ryker (I don't think there was any kind of actual turn, as the week before he was the heel in a match that sent Elias packing), but it was not the match I wanted to see from them. They had another a couple months later, so we'll see what they change. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan vs. Uso

18. Daniel Bryan vs. Jey Uso WWE Smackdown 2/26

ER: Bryan doing his thing is still very entertaining to me, and his best matches still have this subconscious "retirement tour" vibe to them, while still being highly physical. Bryan has perhaps the strongest case for #1 in the world in 2021. He's not that old in the grand scheme of things, but he has this nise Rusher Kimura and hyper athletic Mitsuo Momota vibe, only while having the best timing and arguably execution in the fed. He really stalks Uso here, throwing vicious uppercuts and heavy landing kicks, but Uso is really good at fighting off his back foot and throwing surprisingly impactful elbows while being backed up. Bryan is convincing and intimidating as a shooter, and I loved how Uso reacted to the strong strikes and the forced pace. 

Things turned when Bryan tweaked his knee early, then aggravated it jumping off the apron. Uso got a thing to focus on and Bryan is great at working through and out of injury. Uso ran Bryan into the ring steps painfully, and slammed him knee first into the ring post. A single leg crab segment is nice and engaging, and made Bryan's later Yes lock attempt feel a little more charged. They have good chemistry and tight timing, and are able to pull off a nice snug fight. We end things with a count out, so we don't get to ramp up a little bit to a more violent home stretch, and that's too bad. But the work here was so strong that I don't think it suffered for lack of finish. It just made me want to see these two fight more people. 

PAS: This was a very smart TV match, Bryan really went out on a high note. The match was all about the bad knee and Bryan did some nice selling, and Uso did some really awesome attacks. The low superkick to the back of the knee was killer and I loved him cutting off the flying knee with a diving chop block, it totally looked like something that would rip up every tendon in Bryan's knee. Great Uso performance, both of those guys have been excellent for a really really long time. I really bought into the near fall Yes lock after the butterfly superplex, and I had no problem with the count out (although the ref aggressively counting as soon as they went outside kind of telegraphed it). 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Cesaro vs. Bryan

7. Cesaro vs. Daniel Bryan WWE Smackdown 1/15

ER: When you see Cesaro and Bryan are going to get 12 minutes to do their thing, this is the kind of match you go in expecting. They work their very good match and add in a couple of twists, familiar opponents who have been working opposite each other for 15 years and are still changing things. I wish we got even more matwork, but loved the tastes of it Bryan gave us, snug and grinding. Cesaro worked tight headlocks and attacks on the neck and used that to try to wear the rest of Bryan down, Bryan went after Cesaro's arm used that to try to wear the rest of Cesaro down. And these two are good at grinding each other down over the course of 12 minutes. Bryan holds a hammerlock painfully, Cesaro keeps fighting for the neck, and things open nicely when Cesaro breaks a hammerlock with a back elbow. He aims elbows and uppercuts and a running uppercut straight at Bryan's neck, and we get some sequences that don't look clean, but instead look intentionally rough. 

Bryan has a cool armbar takedown and really looked like he'd yank Cesaro's arm off, and he hits a monkey flip out of a knuckle lock that bounces Cesaro off the ropes and onto his head. I assume they had planned for Cesaro to go over or through the ropes, but I thought it was cool how it ended up. Cesaro either gets his head cut open from that, or bonks it on the back of the ring post while Bryan is kicking him, so we get the cool visual of the back of Cesaro's bald head bleeding while Bryan acts like a jerk and kicks out his arm. I thought Cesaro's selling was really strong, never performative, but actually looked like he was being appropriately slowed down on offense. Their fight over a crossface and Yes lock is really good, and I thought the finish of Bryan running in with the flying knee, only to get caught and thrown into an uppercut, then immediately plastered with the Neutralizer, all looked great. You saw Cesaro and Bryan were getting 12 minutes to do their thing, and this is the kind of thing you want.

PAS: We have been watching both of the guys for the better part of two decades, so you don't expect them to break out new things, but this match had a bunch of fun new twists. The monkey flip counter out of the knuckle lock into the ring ropes was super nasty, as was Cesaro using his freak strength to counter a superplex into a twisting one of his own. I hadn't seen either thing before and they were both awesome. I also loved Bryan ripping at the nose to get on the Yes lock. This match was basically face versus face and it was neat to see moments where both guys were showing what they were willing to do to win a match. Bryan was incredible all year at putting people over and still looking strong and this did feel like a big victory for Cesaro, well earned and hard fought. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan/Otis vs. Nakamura/Cesaro

16. Daniel Bryan/Otis vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Cesaro WWE Smackdown 1/1

ER: Here’s a little gem from the new year, as if the calendar turned over and these four decided to celebrate by working a quick stiff tag. Bryan and Cesaro are always going to be a cool match, but the other two are wildcards. Nakamura and Otis are both capable of coating, but their New Years resolutions must have been really motivating because they had a lot of my favorite moments of the match. Bryan had some cool amateur takedowns on Nakamura and really looked like he was refusing to let go of a waist lock, until Nakamura threw a back elbow at his eye. There’s a great rope running sequence where Bryan runs under a Nak high kick and elbows Cesaro off the apron, runs back under a Nak clothesline and hits a dive into Cesaro...except it gets even better as Cesaro catches this super fast dive and tosses Bryan into an uppercut. Brilliant sequence there. I wish we could have seen what happened right after, as the commercial break cut into Otis running full speed around the ring after Cesaro. 

Nak and Cesaro were strong in keeping Bryan isolated, Bryan taking a couple big bumps to the floor and Cesaro working him over with a smothering headlock and great elbowdrop, Nak getting a few kicks in at Bryan’s head. Otis’s hot tag is explosive as hell, everything he threw looked awesome. His avalanche has real impact, and that 360 clothesline is finisher worthy. The home stretch is filled with cool cut off spots, like Otis breaking up a Nakamura armbar with a diving headbutt to Nakamura’s chin, or Cesaro sending Otis back on his heels with a stiff uppercut before Otis punches him in the side of the head. Otis and Cesaro each take nice bumps to the floor to set up the finish (this match was filled with nice spills to the floor), and while I was hoping for one more save to set up an even bigger finish, this was a cool way to start off the wrestling year. I love a match where everyone has a legitimate claim  to best performance. 

PAS: Really fun all action tag match. Nakamura has been sleepwalking through matches for years now, but looked engaged and inspired here, and Cesaro/Bryan is a tremendous match up. I really loved Cesaro catching the dive and throwing him up into an uppercut, and I really wish we could have seen the heat section during the commercial. I thought Otis was a fun hot tag, although I could have done without him killing the momentum for his dumb worm spot. I actually liked the finish, so many of these WWE TV matches end with a rollup, so seeing Bryan countering into the Yes lock for the kill shot was really cool. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Smackdown Fatal 4-Way

15. Dolph Ziggler/Robert Roode vs. Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Otis/Chad Gable vs. Street Profits WWE Smackdown 4/9

ER: I love when they pull off one of these fast paced quick tag escalating move matches, reminding me of the best kind of 2000s indy spot tags. Every time someone new entered the tag it felt like the wrestling version of the Soul Train dance line, each person making the most of their screen time, and yet this never felt like anyone was trying to upstage anyone else. This gave us a great sampler of dance combos the whole runtime, never lingering on one specific pair. Every combo was great, every team got cool moments. I kind of hate when Ziggler has a good match like this, where he has a cool attention to detail, and Roode has that same attention to detail in a match like this (and is less hateable than Ziggler). Both keep working from the apron when they're not in, and both do a good job cutting off the ring. Rey has looked a bit washed this year, one of those things I haven't wanted to admit, and I've been waiting for months for a REY performance. 

This really felt like a classic Rey performance, so the reports of the middle aged legend's demise have been exaggerated. His misdirection was great, and his timing was as excellent as ever. He looked like he was directing traffic in there again, and back to being the guy you had to have your eyes on at all times. Dominik is coming along well, and is improving nicely for being maybe the most prominent guy thrust straight onto TV since Maven. The spot where his dive was caught by Otis, and his big frog splash that lead to him getting squashed on a save where great moments. Dawkins had a great hot tag, Ford bumped around huge for suplexes and a Roode tornado DDT, Otis was a great base with a couple of big power moments like his 360 lariat and that pinfall save I mentioned. I also loved Ziggler going for the Famouser and the faces he and Roode made as he was caught, like when heel Ricky Morton would get caught trying a headscissors. The build throughout was great, and this whole thing felt like an overproduced HD AIW tag. 

PAS: This was pretty fun stuff, sadly a bit chopped on TV. I liked the opening with Gable working Dominik's arm, would have liked to see 90 more seconds of that matwork. I haven't been watching much WWE TV in the pandemic, but man is it great to see Rey again. He looks just as fast as always, and I really want to see more of this Otis feud they are talking about. The bang bang at the end was fun too. Montez Ford gets crazy height on all of his dives, and that frog splash was killer (although it kind of showed up Dominik's a bit). I agree that this had the feel of an AIW four way and I really miss those. 

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Lesnar vs. Mysterio VS. Honda vs. Kobashi

Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio WWE Smackdown 12/11/03

ER: Talk about perfect match atmosphere, perfect location, perfect opponents; every element that makes a match a classic was right out in the open, and we get the pure glee of watching two of the most charismatic performers of all time do their thing. Mysterio has the hometown crowd on his side, his entire family in the front row, and Lesnar has the unreal nuclear heel charisma that makes this whole thing feel like Little Mac taking on Mike Tyson. 2003 Brock is a top contender for my favorite wrestler of all time, and I challenge anyone to watch his performance in this match and not feel the same. This was the perfect heel for Mysterio to be going up against, and Lesnar knew it. I'm a high voter on modern Lesnar, and still think he's the most unique performer in wrestling, but you watch him in 2003 and notice so many details, so many little touches that he doesn't really bother with anymore. 2003 Lesnar is the complete package, the ultimate T-800, only this Terminator also knows how to stooge wonderfully for a 160 lb. man while being a big bumping lucha base.

The kind of swagger Lesnar brings to the beginning parts of this match was exactly the kind of swagger the crowd wanted to play off. Lesnar works crowds the way a top 80s territory heel would work crowds, and that's something he kind of skips past now. He mocks Rey's size, jaws with fans like it was a 500 attendance house show, makes Rey eat dirt on a couple of lock ups by merely stepping aside, a real jerk. But he's a jerk who is so good at showing ass, and you can see that once Rey initiates a cat/mouse game and tricks Brock into chasing him all around the ring and through. By the time Lesnar realizes that Rey is just trying to gas him out (it was a long and very well done chase), he gets this impotent anger across his face, rips the ring steps from their base with the body language of a frustrated teen (or adult, ahem, couldn't be me) throwing a video game controller. And Rey gets exactly what he wants, takes Lesnar out of his zone, and flies through the ropes with a dropkick that sends Lesnar and the stairs crashing into the aisle. Lesnar is so great at doing atypical bumps, no standard flat back bumps, he falls in a way that is theatrical while realistic, not comically over the top athletic bumps, but large unique bumps that only magnify offense. Not long after his sprawl into the aisle he takes a gloriously arcing bump over the top to the floor, and it's time we just acknowledge that somehow this massive pile of lunchmeat is better than anyone else in wrestling history at bumping to the floor. Oh, and this pile of meat will also kick you in the balls from behind and then laugh about it.

I loved the vulnerability Lesnar shows for Rey's offense, and the creativity he uses in setting it up. It's weird to think Rey's best foil might be a man twice his size and not Eddie or Psicosis, but looking at how Lesnar sets up all of Rey's offense and twists it in little ways at least has to put him in the discussion for best opponent. We get the added danger knowing that anything Rey snaps off could be reversed at any part of the process, so for every time Lesnar is taking a 619 or eating a rana as fine as any lucha base you've seen, there's equal (or better) chance of Lesnar catching one of those ranas and powerbombing Rey into the ringpost, or attempting to powerbomb Rey directly through the ring in the ugliest flattest splat of a bump. 

My favorite little moment of the match was the way Lesnar got into position for the 619. I always appreciate creativity around setting up someone's trademark offense, the way Finlay would be off balance and drop to a knee before regaining his balance just in time to get plastered with Booker T's axe kick, instead of just bending at the waist waiting to take it. It's hard to come up with new ways to drape yourself over the middle rope to take the 619, and Lesnar shows just how smart his wrestling brain is here, setting it up in a way nobody else did and maybe nobody else could have: He's fighting with Rey on the apron, and Rey catches him with a kick as Brock is leaning down, and Brock - one of the most inventive bumpers in wrestling history - falls backwards, through the ropes diagonally into the ring, and in the struggle to gain his balance finds himself draped over the ropes, allowing Rey to pull off his tremendous 619 around the ringpost. It was a brilliant sequence. My only real complaint about the match was the finish could have used one tiny little hope spot from Rey, one little flash, and instead Lesnar flattened him with that powerbomb and bent Rey's body in horrible ways with a stretch muffler. But the complaint is minor, because Rey was getting so horrifically bent that it *should* have been the finish, I just wanted one tiny sliver of hope before the curtains fell.

PAS: Finding hidden gems is pretty much our raison d'etre here at Segunda Caida. You expect to dig up something off of a Japanese hand held or obscure lucha YouTube link, so it's weird to find a hidden gem on WWE Smackdown with two of the most praised wrestlers of the last 20 years, but here we are. This match has a pretty small online footprint, a PWO thread with two comments, no nomination over at the GWE board, it seems to have been forgotten to time. My goodness was this incredible, and honestly a career level match for two guys with incredible careers.

Hometown hero taking a shot at a dominant champ is a classic wrestling trope, and Lesnar is amazing as traveling Ric Flair here. He is great as a taunting jock bully early, the way he says "You're just a little guy Rey" chefs kiss, what a marvelous asshole. I love how Rey just sends him on a wild goose chase in and around the ring, until he gasses and infuriates Brock, and the pissed off rage when he can't get his hands on this little shrimp. He is such a master at portraying terrifying menace and surprising vulnerability. Brock's basing and bumping in this was incredible. It is like someone used a supervillain ray to supersize 1996 Juventud Guerrera. I am not sure anyone ever took a Rey Mysterio headscissors as well as Brock Lesnar, which is fucking bonkers considering how enormous he is. He is so good at eating offense in a way which doesn't make it look cooperative,  he always seems completely flummoxed and out of control when he is getting spun around the ring, but also seconds away from wiping someone out. 

Rey is of course a master, we get some of his incredible timing and athleticism, he gets thrown to the top rope and lands as cleanly as anyone ever has, and rips off a bunch of big spots, and he is also amazing at timing things perfectly to bring the crowd along. I actually had no problems with the finish, Rey gets a bunch of really plausible near falls on Brock with ranas and headscissors and Brock is finally able to to smash him and bend him into a horrible pretzel. I don't think Rey needed another hope spot, because he was less then a minute removed from getting the win. It wasn't one of those drawn out Brock beatings which sometimes drag down his post UFC stuff, it was a lightning strike.


Honda vs. Kobashi Review

Verdict: 

PAS: I am pretty surprised that I am going along with Eric on this one. I was expecting a fun TV match that he was overrating due to his nostalgia for 2003 Brock, but this was a perfect match, with two incredible performances from two all timers. It was actually a similarly structured match to Kobashi vs. Honda, and while Honda might have slightly inched Rey in his performance in that match (no diss here, Honda's performance in that match is my favorite title challenger performance ever), Lesnar's dominant champ performance smokes Kobashi, and I really liked Kobashi in that match. The upstart takes this.

ER: The abrupt finish was my only complaint about this match, but the rest of it was classic pro wrestling with an unbeatable atmosphere and two larger than life performers. Honda/Kobashi had its own great atmosphere, but I thought Lesnar created and thrived within this atmosphere even better. The creativity, execution, and rabid crowd puts this one ahead for me. NEW CHAMP!

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan vs. Corbin

39. Daniel Bryan vs. Baron Corbin WWE Smackdown 5/1

ER: I really liked the Corbin/Gulak match last week, and this was even better. This was all about Bryan going after Corbin's leg - not to do any kind of Sell The Leg match, but with a cool MMA strategy of targeting one part of the body to pay dividends the longer a match may go. Bryan had to land at least 20 leg kicks in this one, and all of them were winners. He starts with an early low dropkick that was so precise, and Corbin is a really underrated bumper for those kind of strikes. I loved all of Bryan's leg work, a nicely twisting kneebar and a real firm grapevine on the legs. Bryan is so good at keeping those types of holds locked snug, and knows better than almost anyone just what position to hold them in to make it look like tight leverage is being applied. I really liked his ropes escape from a Corbin front facelock too, backing into the ropes and slipping his head out before going back on the attack. Bryan's leg kicks were the steady motorik drumbeat of the match, and Corbin filled in the melody by sneaking strikes where he could. I liked his mounted punches after catching a leg kick, a nice straight right hand while trash talking, some 12 to 6 elbows, and a nice body shot after being separated by the ref. I thought his Boss Man tribute offense was integrated into the match in interesting ways. He hits a 'round the ringpost clothesline, but when he goes back to hit another one Bryan catches him with a cool diagonal tope; Bryan hits his awesome corner dropkick, but when he goes for another that's when Corbin hits a big time Boss Man slam. You see these moves thrown out often with no relation to each other, only a guy doing something he saw on YouTube, and I like how they instead established some easy and productive cause and effect stuff. I had figured this was not going to get a clean finish, but we got a lot of match before the DQ, I liked the ladder shot that drew the DQ, and thought Bryan's spill into a bunch of ladders was rough stuff.

PAS: This was a real hidden gem, Corbin is a guy with an interesting background (Golden Gloves boxer, Submission fighter) who doesn't really wrestle interestingly, but we saw flashes of it here. Nasty punches to the temple, a good looking front face lock takedown, some good looking mounted elbows (a spot which is very hard to look good). Empty arena Bryan was one of the few wrestling treasures of the post COVID world, and he really starched Corbin with every shot. I liked the leg work a lot too, and I also really dug him losing the string a bit and stomping Corbin in the head after all of the trash talking, nicely combined both parts of Bryan's wrestling persona, the technician and the hot head. Could actually see placing this really high with a real finish section, but what we got was very good.

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Big E vs. Sheamus Falls Count Anywhere

25. Big E vs. Sheamus WWE Smackdown 10/9

ER: What a couple of psychos. This was a falls count anywhere match that played like Big E and Sheamus somehow saw Yard Call and wanted to do their own version of it. Except do it in the middle of a pandemic, without a crowd surrounding them and urging them on. No, this was just two guys hitting each other as hard as they could with weapons for 10 minutes, like neither had heard of the concept of pulling your shots. This lost any pretense of "wrestling match" within the first minute, and once Big E crashes Sheamus to the floor with the out of ring spear (how crazy do you have to be to not only still be regularly using that move, but using it with no live crowd?!?), this was two guys hitting each other with disgusting weapon shots. Sheamus and Big E were beating each other up so bad that you'd think Big E was refusing to wear the special glasses Sheamus wanted him to put on. 

These might have been the sickest Singapore cane shots I've seen, with Sheamus tying Big E's arms in the ropes before hitting him in the ribs as hard as he could, and Big E paying him back by welting most Sheamus's back. Sheamus had a wide bruise going from the back of one arm, across the broadest part of his back, and off the other arm. They break brooms over each other's heads, Big E beats Sheamus with a trashcan that doesn't really give, then runs him hard into a concrete wall before scraping him out a door. These hits looked nastier the more they did them, as every fall looked painful, every hit looked as hard as the first, and they were doing this with only a ref and cameraman around! This is among the sickest most inspired teenage backyard matches in their willingness to kill each other for no live crowd gratification. They do a lot of great things in and out and off of cars, including some sicko car bumps. Big E takes a White Noise on the windshield of a car, and Sheamus takes a powerbomb on a car windshield and slides off to the concrete; Big E gets his hip and legs slammed in the car door, and I loved the spot where he got his leg up to keep Sheamus from slamming his arm in the trunk. By the end Big E has cuts on his legs, Sheamus has cut up elbows and dark welts, and you know this whole thing would have played great at the Zone 23 junkyard. 

PAS: It is pretty crazy the amount of punishment wrestlers are willing to take in these sterile audienceless gimmick matches. I wasn't going to watch War Games but the clips I saw looked nuts, and I wasn't going to watch TLC but I can imagine the dumb shit they did there. This had a bit of random WWE weapon brawling in it, but it got pretty nasty pretty quick with the Kendo stick shots. They were really on the "Sandman canes Mikey to make Woman cum" level of violence (Rest in Power Nancy) and Sheamus's seal white body is a great wrestling special effect, it really accentuates every welt and cut. They really shouldn't have done the white noise on the windshield to set the match up, as it took a little of the steam off seeing it a second time, still totally nasty stuff, and both guys were smearing blood all over the hoods of the cars after the match. Uncalled for stuff, for something which was basically forgotten the next day, but we didn't forget it. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Two Pre-Pandemic Smackdown Gems

24. Roman Reigns/The Usos vs. Baron Corbin/Robert Roode/Dolph Ziggler WWE Smackdown 1/31

ER: Super hot Friday night main event, with a Loser Eats Dog Food stipulation straight out of late 80s Memphis, enforced and hyped to a hilarious degree. A ridiculous stip taken seriously, a gigantic chili pot full of fake dog food, and Michael Cole on commentary putting over how horrific the dog food smells from ringside. It's a silly thing that they've been giving time to, and then the six men involved go out and have a seriously great territory style showdown, filled with excellent nearfalls and effective twists in momentum. The match was worked like a super professional crowd pleasing house show main event, with Roman really coming off like prime Cena. He was hitting big dramatic uppercuts, big leaping clotheslines, dodging Corbin's attacks and hitting his own while he got gigantic babyface crowd reactions for everything. Usos were pinballs and cannonballs, taking big bumps to the floor, one of them ate a spinebuster on the floor from Roode, Ziggler stayed out of things only to run in with occasional nice punches or a big bump off the apron, Roode had a bunch of great apron work, Usos hit a pair of dives that sent Roode and Ziggler flying dramatically over the announce tables, all of it played to maximum crowd effect. Roman had a couple of great nearfall kickouts, really milking a close count for peak drama, a huge Corbin spinning slam looking like a plausible ending. The layout was great, total hot match from bell to bell, with a kid humor level mid 90s feeling post match vibe. All of it worked for me.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, Eric hit the nail on the head by calling it an entertaining house show main event, which is a great match style. Ziggler as a guy who just runs in to get bumped to the floor is a perfect use of him, and Roode hit his big spinebuster on the floor which is great spot and one good spot is a great use of him. I thought Roman's timing in this ruled, he was such a good babyface worker, and new just when to land a big move or give the heels a moment. The Uso dives on to the floor were both cool too, just cleaned out the heels for the babyface to finish him off. I also loved the roll up, such a different way to end a match. The current WWE is so antiseptic and overproduced, it is cool to watch something so pro-wrestling.

40. Bayley vs. Carmella WWE Smackdown 2/14/20

ER: WWE is quietly delivering some really high end women's wrestling right under our noses this year, with a great Asuka/Natalya match early this month, and now this surprisingly great show opening title match. Just like Asuka/Natalya, this was worked unexpectedly snug, and that really elevates a match like this. This was worked like an important title match, and the fans picked up on that quickly as their reactions kept getting more and more live-or-die as the match went on. The match drew the crowd strongly enough that the crowd didn't feel the need to chant dumb stuff, they just kept reacting louder and louder to nearfalls and close victories. This was the best Carmella match I can remember, and a strong champ performance from Bayley. Both of them leaned into each other's strikes, and I really snapped up and took notice when Bayley gave a hard shove to Carmella's head and bounced it off the bottom rope. But both of them were running face first into boots, and they were setting up bigger moves with stiff shots. 

I loved when Carmella posted up in the corner to push a hard kick into Bayley's face, before hitting a rana. Carmella hit a big tope that landed most of her body on Bayley, and Bayley paid her back by trying to snap her in half with a hotshot into the announce table. The hotshot is a great move that really looks savage when you have two people like this taking it seriously. The nearfalls they built to were really strong, with the crowd reactions really ramping up when Carmella kicked out of the Bayley to Belly. The years WWE spent ending matches quickly with school boys or small packages have learned my behaviors and I always react to well done backslides or roll ups, and the crowd really buying them made me get even more into it. Carmella's great headscissor submission looked like something trippy that Negro Navarro has broken out, and I flipped out when Bayley knocked Carmella's posting arm out from under her to break it. When Carmella locked it in again moments later I thought for sure we were getting a shock title change, but Bayley got her feet on the ropes with a champ's desperate intensity to save her belt.

PAS: I may have never watched Carmella wrestle before, and without that context, I thought she looked pretty green for someone who has been wrestling for a while. This was a great Bayley carry job though, it felt like she was aware of every thing Carmella could do competently and was going to build around those spots. Sometimes it felt like Bayley was rolling up her self. It was a great rudo performance by her, down to the little tricks like hiding behind the ref to sneak in a shot. I thought this was borderline for most of the match, until that finish run, the Carmella submission was awesome looking and that counter where Bayley knocked out the base arm is the kind of little clever counter I absolutely love, and you don't see nearly enough of these days. That did it for me. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan vs. Styles

12. Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles WWE Smackdown 6/12

ER: I thought this was tremendous. Two veterans that I have been watching nearly 20 years, going out and having their modern, middle aged, hard struggle version of the indy dream matches they had last decade. This was all of those ROH and IWA Mid-South matches with a veteran wisdom, and god willing they'll be putting on their version of this match in their 50s. It's cool getting to see wrestling feuds carry from early 20s to late 30s, seeing the beginning of that and the end of that, and wondering what's next. Bryan was a guy who could stake a claim as the best in the world in 2002, and Bryan is a guy who can stake a claim as the best in the world in 2020. Styles has also had years that far apart where he is in at least top 20 discussion, and I love that we're getting to see them work their thing. We have written this a lot in the past few months, but Bryan has been the very best wrestler to adapt to 2020, the weirdest era of wrestling in any of our lifetimes. He has embraced this odd era more in a way that few have, and has put on some of his career best matches. Since he's a guy specifically known for having a career filled with career best matches, that is even more impressive.

This gets a ton of time, as much or more than any of their indy matches, and they fill it well. Their standing exchanges are snug and take no shortcuts, and they don't cheat while working limbs or getting into submissions, always showing their work when they shift sequences. They both hit hard and keep close, not working a ton of breath into a near 30 minute match. Both were really showing off their gas tanks, and it made the physicality of this more impressive the longer it went. Styles started a golden brown and due to the pace and Bryan's stiff shots, kept getting redder the deeper we got. At one point he rolled across the ring to get to the floor away from Bryan, and he looked like a plump red hot dog on the rollers at 7-11. Bryan subtly sold knee work throughout the match, never making it the focus but always paying mind to it after hard landings or any move that required torque. He would rub it out, reposition it during standing lock ups, and adjust how he threw strikes without every resorting to any "ohhhh I can't go on with this bad kneeeee" selling.

They built through fought-over rope breaks, a standing strike exchange that didn't feel mechanical (both men throwing hard off rhythm kicks), and they kept managing to escalate the tone without things ever getting off track. It always felt like they were working to a satisfying end and it made things like Bryan's crossface come off big. Learned behavior moments like Bryan catching a Pele kick over his shoulder and turning it into a kneebar played like an Ishikawa/Ikeda feud moment, and Styles catching a running Bryan knee the way a luchador blocks a rana and turning it into a Styles Clash to set up the finish was an awesome exclamation point. I love how Styles hit it and polished him off with the flying forearm. Styles is used to Bryan's pluckiness at this point, he knew he needed something extra to make sure this guy stays down. A great match that would have played incredibly well with an actual audience, but stands on its own.

PAS: This was the last match of Bryan's awesome pandemic run, and he was one of the only wrestlers to adjust to the weird no-fans style. He embraced his inner Ishikawa and ramped up the violence and matwork, and the parts of this match that were focused on that were tremendous. Both guys viciously went after body parts, and really made the matwork portions of the match count. That is the secret to making a long match work: you are going to have matwork, and if you make that memorable, it is going to build to the final stretch well. There were a lot of nifty individual moments, I thought Styles reversing out of the LeBell lock into the calf slicer was nifty stuff and Bryan really sold the torn up ligaments. I also really liked the rana counter into the Styles Clash. I did think they abandoned the nasty violence to work a regular workrate finale, and while these guys are two of the best at that style, the first part of this match was so interesting and different that it was a little disappointing to see them work the last 7 minutes of a  Seth Rollins match.

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WWF 305 Live: Bradshaw! Rhyno! Undertaker! Mark Henry! Big Daddy V! Kane!

Bradshaw vs. Rhyno WWE Smackdown 12/11/03 - VERY GOOD

ER: It's pretty jarring how much faster some the house style was in 2003. Guys obviously move fast now, but an absurd amount of the time is based on missed moves and reversals and learned behavior garbage. This was worked super fast but built entirely around both guys colliding. Learned behavior wrestling is a real curse, give me 4 minutes of two big guys throwing punches and boots and taking big spills. Rhyno starts by running at Bradshaw before the bell, Bradshaw turns and sticks his boot up and Rhyno stops. No contact made, but a fun way of doing it that you rarely see. When was the last time you saw a guy try to get a cheapshot, get caught before delivering the cheapshot, and agreeably stop the cheapshot? Bradshaw hits a nice floatover suplex early, which is a neat way to hint at the finish. There was a weird delay in his floatover, that also planted a visual seed for the finish. He hit the suplex, but didn't immediately float, instead they both lied there as if he was considering rolling into another suplex...but then floated over. The delay felt odd, but I understood what he was doing after the finish.

We got plenty of big chops, Bradshaw throwing short right hands and big elbows, a nice big boot, and the whole thing was go go go while always based around collision. I loved how Bradshaw missed an elbowdrop: as quickly and close to Rhyno as possible, the kind of miss that looked like it was aiming to hit. Bradshaw was really good at working cutoffs, my favorite being when Rhyno climbed to the top and Bradshaw just grabbed his hair and headbutted him. What I was not expecting was Bradshaw to hit him with a fallaway slam off the buckles. Bradshaw headbutts Rhyno (who is already mostly to the top buckle), then climbs to the middle buckle while also lifting Rhyno, and it would have been so easy to lose his footing and drop Rhyno directly onto his face, the whole thing looked super dangerous. Now, the finish was both solid and a little too manufactured. Bradshaw hit a fantastic superplex, and then - just like that earlier vertical suplex - they both lie there. For a bit too long. I'm starting to thing "did they BOTH get stingers? That's why huge dudes shouldn't do superplexes", but then Bradshaw goes for the floatover, and Rhyno sees it coming and gets a small package win. So, yes, Bradshaw was really showing his work to the fans, making it a bit too easy to connect the cause-and-effect dots. "Ohhhhh, he waited a couple seconds to floatover with that suplex earlier, and this time his habit of waiting several seconds to floatover cost him the match." It's a neat idea to leave breadcrumbs like that in a match, and it often makes for a much better match. But it's not neat when it's something like this that looks so out of place. I'd never seen Bradshaw delay a floatover on a suplex, so when he delayed even longer on the finish floatover it looked even weirder. This wasn't a regular thing he did, it was an odd pitfall invented only for this match, and not a very good one. When you leave match psychology breadcrumbs for fans, their takeaway shouldn't be "wait why was he lying on the mat for so long after hitting a suplex?"


Undertaker/Kane vs. Big Daddy V/Mark Henry WWE Smackdown 2/1/08 - VERY GOOD

ER: This is an on paper dream pairing for 305 Live, a match they ran a few times on house shows (wish any one of those made it as a handheld), and I really wish they had given Henry/V a run as an unstoppable monster team. They paired them infrequently enough that they never completely gelled or felt like a team, and they were around so much at the same time that they really should have been given that chance. This was their highest profile tag together, and also their last time tagging together. The match itself is kind of aimless, and more than a little repetitive. It was made by Undertaker flinging himself into the corners off of big whips from giant men, and Mark Henry leaning into every single piece of offense thrown at his head. Taker and Kane hit him with four big boots over the course of the match and he's out there taking all of them with his face. Henry is the real slugger of these four, and it's wild how much that stands out here. You'll have Kane hitting these bad stomach kicks and you know it blows, but then Henry will counter with two nasty clubbering arms sounding like he's beating a rug. Henry hit a knee right to Kane's jaw that was probably the coolest thing in the match, and that's saying something because put four 300+ pounders in a ring and it is impossible for there not to be cool stuff. BDV came off a little too tentative, not so much in his offense as in how he was treating the storyline. The week prior Undertaker had debuted his triangle choke on him, and they did a cool angle where V tapped quick and then bled from his mouth. He gets backed down by Taker a couple times here and obviously I was hoping it was building to Taker getting crushed and flattened (it wasn't), but V has no problems smooshing Kane. BDV really crushes Kane with a corner clothesline, and Kane pays that back by hitting his big flying clothesline that stops a few feet short of the target. This actually could have been a really cool feud with some legs to it, easily could have seen this getting a big street fight stip on a PPV, but this was always going to be a Brothers of Destruction slaughter. Henry gets big height on the chokeslam and also bleeds from the triangle, putting this epically mammoth tag team to permanent rest.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan vs. Sheamus

17. Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus WWE Smackdown 5/29

ER: Bryan shows up on TV, Bryan has an awesome match. He's the all star of the silent era, lifting up everyone he comes in contact with. I love how Bryan has taken advantage of the quieter arena (although at least WWE has finally picked up on the fact that 30 people of crowd is much better than 0 people), and his uppercuts, body kicks, and leg kicks have never sounded or looked better. And the coolest thing about Bryan is the stiffer he works the more he encourages the same from his opponent, and Sheamus is a guy who is going to be cool with that arrangement. I can get into a contest where two guys try to figure out who has the harder European uppercut (I give it to Bryan), but every piece of contact worked for me. Maybe the nastiest shots of the match were Sheamus rocking Bryan in the corner with a dozen or so back elbows, just dropping him to the mat one inch at a time, then starts dropping knees on Bryan's face. Hell yes. Was that my favorite part of the match? Maybe it was Bryan hitting a great tope and seeing nutbar Sheamus clearly whip the right side of his head into the barricade to ring his own bell going into the break. Sheamus yanks on Bryan's nose and upends him with a lariat (love how Bryan gets dumped by lariats), and we got a couple of solid nearfalls down the stretch. Bryan rolling through a crucifix for a pin looked like it could finish, and Bryan kicking out of White Noise felt like a big moment. I cannot understate how much having enthusiastic noise out there while these two are killing each other was an absolute boon to the match, making this thing work even with the lame "man distracted by another man" finish. These two always match up great, and this is their first singles match in over 5 years. No surprise, that match wound up on our 2015 Ongoing MOTY List.

PAS: I do love how Bryan has just embraced "silent crowd violent wrestling" and Sheamus is the perfect dance partner for a stiff fest. Sheamus has been gone so long, I kind of forgot about him, but he is still pretty great. The ghost white skin shows up every bruise and Bryan shoots to break blood vessels with every shot. I want to second the greatness of Sheamus's back elbows and knees, in a match built around stiff shots, those were on another level. I really hope Bryan's neurologist is top level. I could have used a more dynamic finish, but I will never tire of two guys trying to wallop the crap out of each other.


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WWE Big 3 Returns! Lorcan, Gallagher, GULAK 5/24-6/7/20

Battle Royal WWE Smackdown 5/29

ER: Drew Gulak has not had great luck in battle royals during his WWE tenure, but he's always a good presence in a battle royal. Here he is mostly on the defensive, but I like how he hooks his leg over the bottom rope while trying to eliminate guys from the apron, mostly locked in a battle with Cesaro. I will always love battle royal spots where one man is on the apron and someone in ring is pushing boot to throat, and Gulak is great at hanging on while Cesaro pushes that boot under his chin.  It feels like a good idea for me to make a couple keyboard shortcuts for Gulak, one of them being "would have liked to see this go longer but", as I was foolishly thinking his return after not taking a weak offer was going to turn into one of those weird Vince "this guy stood up to me and now I respect him" kind of situations, and I would have like more of him with Corbin. Corbin and Gulak had a good match on Smackdown last month, and Bryan had a great match with Corbin, along with a great trios. So they were keeping that Cesaro/Nakamura/Corbin feud going with Gulak and it would have been cool to see that go in Gulak's favor. But I also like Gulak taking a huge hiptoss to elimination, so oh well. As for non-Gulak people, Dolph Ziggler continued to show that his greatest strength is as a guy who comes very close to being eliminated from battle royals before eventually dying on his elimination bump. This was a decent enough battle royal.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. vs. Roderick Strong/Bobby Fish vs. Tyler Breeze/Fandango NXT 6/3

ER: I wish this got twice the time it did, because I loved what these guys were bringing. The structure was tough to follow as it was a 3 way tag, meaning three guys were in the ring at all times, except for half of the match you had both members of UE in there and after awhile everyone was involved. Typing that out makes it sound like this was a mess and that guys would constantly be getting in each other's way, but somehow this was worked with precision. Everyone (except maybe Fish?) was working snug, and with nearly everyone involved at all times I thought they did a killer job of always giving everyone something to do. Burch is like an old man luchador as he seems to get better the higher up his trunks go, and here he at later career Villano III levels of trunk height (he really needs to pace himself as he's the same age as me, meaning those trunks will be over his tits by age 48, way too soon). Three way exchanges can be clunky and tired, but Burch was in their keeping things moving and mixing up strikes, throwing in a hard headbutt to make sure the exchange never approached rote, hard dropkick, throwing a surprise back elbow at Fish on the apron (which was paid off nicely when Fish laid him out on the floor later), and running interference for Lorcan's hot tag. Strong was a great pinball for Breeze and Burch, and I like that he took over when he just said fuck it and had Fish come in the ring full time. Fandango's hot tag was cool, totally forgot he had a cool snap powerslam and after he broke off the second one I kinda just wanted him to keep going. Lorcan's hot tag obviously ruled, with him flying into everyone with chops and elbows. Love how he flew into one corner with an uppercut, and cleared his path with an elbow on his way back to throw an uppercut in the opposite corner. Fandango tossing him over the top into most of the guys was done really well, but everything here was done well. With just a couple more minutes this could have been list, and it really wasn't far away as is.


Drew Gulak vs. AJ Styles WWE Smackdown 6/5

ER: Hot little Nitro match with both working quick to make up for the time. Styles always tightens things up when working against guys like Gulak. Not that Styles is out here showing daylight every other week, but he's also not throwing corner punches or aiming lariats at throats like he did against Gulak here. I like how Gulak recognized Styles' aggression early and started turning that into submission attempts, running Styles' into the mat with his cool crossface variation. Both guys got bounced off their head and shoulders in uncool ways: Styles shoving Gulak down into a backbreaker that bounced his head to the mat was probably my favorite moment of the match, and Gulak pays him back late with his cool drop down Michinoku driver variation. A fired up Gulak is quite a thing, and he really crushed AJ down the stretch with a dropkick that looked like it would have staggered anyone on the roster, big clothesline and an even bigger corner clothesline, and he knew exactly how snug to hold that pinfall. I had the weird hunch Gulak was winning here, and I'm happy he got the win with no kind of shenanigans, just outsmarting Styles and beating him to the punch.


Oney Lorcan vs. Tehuti Miles 205 Live 6/5

ER: I've been enjoying Tehuti on 205, he's the newest 205 guy who doesn't actually work like a cruiserweight. I like his brand of minimalism, and really enjoyed his Tyler Breeze match from a couple weeks ago. This match is built around the simple premise that Danny Burch kicked Miles around the ring last week, but Miles won with a schoolboy while grabbing the trunks. Someone who does a schoolboy with a handful of trunks on the show hyped entirely around the spectacular things that smaller wrestlers can do in the ring is someone I'm going to enjoy. This whole thing is worked simply, like a fun house show match where the goal is to pay off the simple story they broadly presented to the crowd. There's a reason that simplicity works. Lorcan uses almost entirely chops - and one wicked knee to the gut - to start and finish, hitting our story note early when Miles bails to the floor after taking some chops, gets stopped by Burch, then turns around into another Lorcan chop. The camera work was surprisingly good (because it was actually different) during Miles' control, and I especially liked the camera zooming in on Lorcan's face when Miles was scraping it with his boot in the corner. Miles drops some nice elbowdrops and works a cool Fujiwara armbar, then of course tries to win a handful of tights. This got a lot of time and I'm sure there was a better match they could have had, as neither guy was bringing out his biggest guns. But I liked the simple storytelling, Burch yelling about the pulled tights leading to Lorcan rolling Miles up with a prawn hold, and I like when guys work a more bare match like this. It's cool seeing wrestlers boiled down to their basics, and I'd love to see them build off of it.


Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 6/5

ER: This felt really scattered but always threatening to get really good, and the most successful moments were typical for Scott matches: whenever he drops the unnecessary embellishments things look better. This had a lot of Scott embellishments, and it played more like a Scott showcase than an actual match. And that's kind of what it feels like EVERY time we get a Gallagher/Scott match. Gallagher is great at working style clashes, but against Scott you never get enough "clash", you get guys waiting around for Scott to finish his windmill backspins so he can finally hit his headscissors. There were at least four different moments where Gallagher had to pause and leave a limb out for Scott to finish his embellished sequence, or stop short because he arrived at the right time for a sequence but Scott wasn't done with his handstand. Gallagher would try to drop interesting threads into the match, and Scott would make sure they'd go nowhere. I got excited for the moments that felt like the change was happening, like Gallagher wasting Scott's time avoiding him on the apron, only to grab his leg and yank it through the turnbuckles. But those moments where quickly forgotten in favor of Scott working so so armbars. When he toned down the BS it got good, and Gallagher's adjustments to go briefly into control were cool. I loved Gallagher leaping into a guillotine to drop Scott to a knee, or Gallagher working a side headlock on the top freaking rope, and reversing a big backdrop suplex into a hard landing crossbody. But you take a cool moment like that, and it instantly looks more silly with Scott kicking all four of his limbs like an upturned turtle. There was plenty to like here, but the main thing that hurt this match was that it never felt like a match, it just felt like Scott doing Scott things.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 5/10-5/16/20

Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott NXT 5/13

ER: I'm not sure why all the matches in this NXT cruiserweight tournament are only getting 4 minutes, but perhaps I got too used to 20 minute long 205 matches. They...do know that there's a middle ground between those match lengths, right? The shorter length on this one at least makes sense, with Nese jumping Scott before the bell and running him ribs first into the ring steps. Scott did a nice job of selling a nagging rib over the short runtime, and I dug how we got a plausible finish right off the bell when Gallagher just plastering Scott with his running corner dropkick. Not only was it one of Gallagher's finest, but with the way Scott fell he was able to just get his boot on the ropes, instead of a silly dramatic 2.9 kickout. And the rest of this was all about Gallagher punching Scott's body with strikes, aiming several kicks to those ribs, included some doozies while Scott was seated on the apron. We built to a great moment where Gallagher missed a second big dropkick in the corner, then eating a great Killshot kick to the side of the head. I thought for sure that Scott was winning after that, after Gallagher flopped nose first to the mat. But I was mighty pleased when Gallagher hopped up and grabbed a guillotine, and then got to win with a roaring elbow. Scott sold it like he got hit with a Gallagher roaring elbow.


5. Drew Gulak vs. Daniel Bryan WWE Smackdown 5/15

ER: Just keep giving these two time, and I'm confident they'll keep pumping out a fresh new match every single time. Gulak and Bryan are real artists, have a wealth of talent and influences to build fresh matches from, and after already having the best match of 2020 they now also have the best Smackdown match of 2020 (and there have been some cool contenders). This is the kind of technical wrestling I'm not certain even a crowd of drunk bikers could shit on, and it's still unfathomable to me that Gulak and Bryan are doing some of their greatest all time matwork on WWE programming, making it clearly the best WWE matwork we've seen. The opening couple moments of rolling was some time capsule stuff, not one second of the rolling feeling performative, counters that actually felt like legitimate counters, contact that felt real. Guys being allowed to stretch out matwork is possibly the only blessing of the empty arena era. I almost thought they were going the flash tapout route early, when Bryan locked in one of his most snug Yes Locks I can remember, looking like he wanted to bend Gulak's nose to his ear. But Gulak made the ropes, and then I thought they were going flash tapout when Gulak locked in one of his most snug Gu-locks with him actually yanking Bryan's beard to lock it in tighter!

Gulak is really cool on control, drops a nice belly to back suplex, nice cradle, and a Michinoku driver with him dropping to his knees. It looked like something I remember Regal doing to Benoit. Bryan starts plotting his comeback throughout Gulak's control, setting up attacks on Gulak's knee that pay off the longer things go. Bryan has a cruel dragon screw, but Gulak stepping out of a dragon screw attempt was even cooler, but then Bryan snapping tendons with a counterclockwise dragon screw was impossibly cool. I love the subtle way Gulak sold a kneebreaker, and Bryan going back to that kneebreaker and using it in a trap leg German was a killer payoff. Love these two working go behind sequences early, paying that off late when Bryan runs Gulak into the ropes with a waistlock and skips him across the ring like a stone with a quick German. The finish stretch is as class as you'd expect from these two left to their own, with Gulak breaking out a big powerbomb and some clean and believable cradle reversals, but of course Bryan goes shies away from the reversed Yes Lock and just attacks that knee with a heel hook. More brilliant work from these two, seriously among the best of their respectively impressive careers.

PAS: What a swan song for Gulak, I mean this is as great a final performance as I can remember, and the fact he was able to orchestrate his last WWE match so he could go 14 minutes of hard mat work with his idol is amazing. What a triumph for the Catch Point movement. Loved all the cools spots worked around the tight headlock with Bryan nailing him with shinbreakers, it built really well towards everything. The trap leg german, the dragon screws and the killer finish. I just finished Jon Snowden's incredible Shamrock biography, so I especially appreciated the match ending with the Pancrase dueling leglocks. Bryan and Gulak clearly used the pandemic as an opportunity to work matches which might kill a WWE crowd, and it was such a pleasure to see. I can't imagine Gulak getting a chance to do this in AEW, so bizarrely his best chance to continue this kind of output is actually to re-sign with the WWE. What a world.


10. Jack Gallagher vs. Tony Nese 205 Live 5/15

ER: What a colossal performance from Gallagher, up there with his excellent performance in last month's match against Oney Lorcan. This is maybe even more impressive, if we consider the abilities of his dance partner in each match. I wouldn't say this was an entire one man show, as Nese has actually improved his game a lot over the past year, and there were cool things he added here. There were also things he did that could have taken away from a match with a lesser opponent, and those things are where Gallagher showed some real merit. The whole thing was built around some really great body shots, with Gallagher landing hard closed fists with both hands, and Nese showing off a really killer short left that kept landing in the same spot, like Nese was trying to cause a gallbladder malfunction. Jack gets a couple different reversals into ground and pound, and I love how Gallagher's ground and pound isn't just forearms striking forearms, instead mixing up shots and leading his opponent.

When Nese takes over, that's where Gallagher shines in a very different way, as he's maybe the only person I've seen who makes Nese's DDR kick/legsweep combo look interesting, actually occupying himself by selling the strikes in between rather than just standing there like a doof waiting for the next dance step. Nese even drops him on a backbreaker and Gallagher manages to salvage that, instead focusing on selling damage from prior strikes. Now as I said, it wasn't all bad with Nese, as I really dug his rolling dropdown to take out Gallagher's legs near the ropes, I liked his Macho Man leaping neck snap to the floor/moonsault combo (with Gallagher's selling making Nese's quick timing on the spot work well), he has a thrust directly into Gallagher's throat that is maybe the nastiest strike I've ever seen Nese throw, and at one point Nese grabs Gallagher in a grounded headlock that squished Gallagher's face so tight that it looked like Gallagher was having a bad peanut allergy reaction. Gallagher was great at switching from throwing hard kicks and more body shots, and I love him mixing up his headbutt strike by throwing it at Nese's weakened body instead of how he usually throws it. I've said before how great it is that Gallagher doesn't use his signature offense the same way every match, always mixing up order and not using everything he has in every match, and making it all mean different things by the way he incorporates it into a match. Also, it rules that Jack got to win two TV matches this week with a roaring elbow.

PAS: Probably the best Tony Nese match I can remember, and it wasn't 100% Gallagher (maybe 85%). I can tolerate some backflips if you are going punch someone right in the throat, and Nese was swinging some ham hocks into Gallagher's ribs. I am digging new ground and pound Jack, it is really cool that he is showing off other sides of his game now, and stiff violence is what works in silent arenas. Cutting off Nese's knee strike with that running headbutt was a spot of the year candidate and Gallagher has mastered making that headbutt look devastating. They really should just slot Gallagher right into Gulak's spot as Bryan's running buddy.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 5/3-5/9/20

Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa NXT 5/6

ER: Pretty meager stuff right here. These two have matched up several times over the past couple of years and this was easily the weakest of those matches, but their other matches at least had some time. This was under 4 minutes, and not one of Tozawa's best performances. He seemed off for a lot of this, never quite grabbing Gallagher the right way, missing beats on sequences, not landing his actual offense flush. He lets Gallagher slip on a samoan drop, flies too far past him on his top rope senton, loses his grip and makes Gallagher basically DDT himself on the apron, and some of his strikes had the accuracy of someone throwing their their eyes closed. Gallagher did his best, took a killer folding bump on a German suplex, and had a cool sequence where he held onto Tozawa's right arm like arm kept working offense from that short distance, showing a few cool things he could quickly pull off all while holding that arm, just by using it as leverage. But Gallagher wasn't going to be able to turn this into a good match.


Drew Gulak/Daniel Bryan/Otis vs. Cesaro/Baron Corbin/Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 5/8

ER: This ruled, the kind of fast paced action trading match that it seems like WWE used to be really great at, until the focus switched to fast paced phony reversal wrestling. This was fast paced wrestling with consequences. Moves weren't thrown with the intention of being reversed, moves were thrown to hit (and did!) and thrown with such enthusiasm that the reversals were due to misses leaving guys exposed. I really loved the style of constant partner tradeoffs, where you could have big moments with several different dance partner combinations without feeling like anything was being shrugged off. Gulak has been on a real tear in 2020, and he was the major standout in this match for me, showing how great he is at taking unique bumps from different offense. Early on he took a great uppercut from Corbin and bumped it really cool, with a diagonal staggered bump instead of the played out back bump; later he was shoved off the top by Nakamura headlong into a Cesaro uppercut, and after that ate a kick to the back of the head from Nakamura. He took all of this different offense with bumps that read more like Futen than WWE to me, and it added to the feel of the match greatly.

I think Gulak was the standout, but everyone brought something different and never felt like those awful modern wrestling trios where it feels like everyone is trying to wrestle the exact same style instead of just playing to individual strengths. Otis had some cool stiff arm lariats and always seemed to be getting Gulak out of jams by running his belly into people, Bryan played more crowd control and would come in with a nice dropkick to the knee or a big running knee of his own, Cesaro was an excellent foil for Gulak (including taking a bunch of killer Gulak strikes and stomps in the corner) and I loved how he powered up and out of a Gulak chickenwing/jaw hold, and I like the way Corbin came in and got the win after others put in far more work. It feels like they're actually building some sort of Gulak/Corbin program that will lead to a dominant Gulak win, but that's just me buying into old school logical feud building.

PAS: I enjoyed this, although I think it fell short of a MOTY list level match. These quarantine matches for the most part are failures, and in the few cases that it has worked, it is when the wrestlers have acknowledged that they need to work differently. I usually enjoy Otis, but him working all of his crowd response comedy spots to silence was rough to watch. That worm elbow in an empty arena, oof. It is crazy that Gulak has somehow gotten to the main event of WWE TV, and he was the star of this match, taking a big beating and locking in some cool moves. Corbin is a nice foil too, and his big finishing slam looked great. I think I needed another couple of momentum shifts at the end, I do like this kind of WWE spots trios, but it is tough to build that momentum in silence.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 4/12-4/25/20

Oney Lorcan vs. Aleister Black WWE Raw 4/13

ER: Lorcan is turning up on every damn show these days (Willing to die? Live in Tampa? Your ticket to the main roster starts now!) and I love how competitive this was. Black has been making quick work of guys lately and I am so very thankful that wasn't the case here. Lorcan was presented as Black's equal and that's alright by me. I expected this to go a couple minutes and it somehow took us through a commercial break, and I was into all of the headlocks we got to start. If a match has a moment where someone tries to push out of a headlock, but the headlocker holds on? I'm almost certain to like the match and what they're going for. Lorcan holds onto a couple of them here, and dishes some nice uppercuts and chops when they're apart. In some ways Black worked this like the underdog, going for schoolboys and bailing out of holds, and that felt like a cool nod to Lorcan's ability. Every time it looked like Black would pull away, hitting a quebrada, kicking Lorcan to the floor, kicking to get out of subs, Lorcan would fire back with something else. My favorite bit of home stretch Lorcan offense was a big damn lariat, love when a guy I'm sure is losing gets an awesome last gasp. I didn't love the final strike exchange that lead to the winning Black Mass, but loved that we got this as a serious match.


Jack Gallagher vs. El Hijo Del Fantasma WWE NXT 4/22

ER: This was a cool style clash, had a real "Hey these guys are both on the WCW roster and they randomly crossed paths on Thunder for 8 minutes" feel to it. It didn't really seem like it had a specific goal or story in mind, and that's what gave it that fun carefree WCW "go out there and do some cool stuff in the 6th quarter hour" vibe. This was Fantasma's TV debut and he needed a guy to show off his cool stuff against, and Gallagher is a cool guy to eat a few clotheslines, eat a plancha, fly out of the ring after taking a nice superkick, and then eat a big tope. I would have liked to see them work some conflicting matwork, Fantasma's lucha upbringing with Gallagher's violent twisting, and we didn't get that. WWE does not bring in luchadors to do flashy matwork, but I liked Gallagher routinely yanking Fantasma around by the mask, kicking him across the shoulderblades, and more mask yanking. Gallagher's big headbutt was the highlight of the match for me, that perfect Zidane arc that landed flush, and whenever I see something look that good I always just want it to be the finish. This was clearly going to be a Fantasma showcase, and that's cool, but I'd like to see them run this back without the need to get someone over in their debut.


Drew Gulak vs. Baron Corbin WWE Smackdown 4/24

ER: This was really cool. even though I obviously wanted a different result. This was a major change from the 2-3 minute matches Gulak was getting on Smackdown at the end of 2019, and really illustrates the important difference 3 extra minutes can make. It was tough to write about a 2 minute Gulak match against Braun, because what more can I say other than "Well it was cool the way Gulak hit that one punch before that truck ran over him and then also backed over him." A few extra competitive minutes takes the sting off a Gulak loss, and while it was a loss and it would have been cool to see him featured at Money in the Bank, this was not a clean win for Corbin. An optimist could argue that the tide was clearly turned for Gulak when Nakamura and Cesaro interfered, and that the match was professionally laid out. I thought Corbin had some cool stuff here that Gulak fed into really well, like that dope unrolling powerslam that spun Gulak into the mat, or the nicely pulled off Boss Man lariat around the ringpost (and for all the crap Corbin takes he's maybe the only guy I've seen post Boss Man who can pull that off without a hitch), the End of Days looked crushing, and he had some smaller things like a cool blocked strike that lead to a wicked kidney punch. Corbin as counter striker to Gulak would make for a great match.

But Gulak looked like his equal for much of this, and I loved how Corbin took a lot of Gulak's offense. We got some cool stuff on the floor with Gulak hitting a hard dropkick to send Corbin flying over the announce table, and Gulak hitting a leg whip that sent Corbin into the ring steps, and later flying off those ring steps with his nice diving lariat into Cesaro. I'm always going to be into a guy who utilizes parts of the ring and surrounding area, and Gulak is good at that. There were also a couple of strong Gulak nearfalls, including a convincing schoolboy and a great crossbody. And maybe the coolest part of the match was when Gulak's strikes really started landing, and he backed Corbin into the corner with a series of nasty forearm strikes to Corbin's chest, and the forearms all looked powerful enough to actually back up Corbin. Those forearms blossomed into bigger strikes and I loved the visual of Gulak having Corbin literally on the ropes. Silver lining: hopefully this loss and his strong presentation just lead to an actual cool match at MITB, as I'd rather see him in a cool singles than a big ladder match anyway.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/22-3/28/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Shane Thorne/Brendan Vink NXT 3/25/20

ER: Lorcan and Burch are usually the guys used to showcase other talent, so it's always fun when we get a short match showcasing them. And true to their nature, they don't treat this like just a squash match, throwing a couple bones to Thorne and Vink. Shane Thorne is a guy I have seen live twice at NXT house shows (once in the main event!) and every time he shows up on TV I go "huh must be some new guy they're debuting". I never remember him, and the second his matches end I go back to forgetting him. So, Burch starts the match against...some guy, and he has a nice short uppercut and a cool wristlock takedown, stomping on...someone's wrist right after tossing him down. Lorcan is a guy I love seeing opposite big guys and Vink is a guy with a big muscular build. When Lorcan tags in and charges Vink in the corner we get a big high delay uranage from Vink, and the move set up actually makes sense as Lorcan was flying into the corner with his flying back elbow. It's an established way Lorcan leaps into offense, so we don't have any of those "Well, I don't normally do this, but now seems as good a time as any to charge and leap at Samoa Joe" logic leaps. I begin laughing thinking that Lorcan is still going to get flattened in his showcase match, but not long after he is flying horizontally into both the Australians with back elbows and nails Vink with a hard as hell lariat, Burch hits a missile dropkick, and we rush to a quick double submission finish like it was a CMLL primera caida. These 3 minute showcases are not common for Lorcan/Burch, they should have stiffed up these goons even more.

Drew Gulak vs. Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/27/20

ER: This was really good, until it ended suddenly about 4 minutes in. The way they were working it felt like we were getting a nice 10 minute match, but quick Bryan interference and a schoolboy later, and we were out. Shame, as this was going along great. I didn't think Nakamura was putting too much  effort into the tag opposite Drew last week, but here they were really jelling. Nakamura started with some nice grounded knees (and later went back for an even better one while working a choke) and I was into the ways he was staying on Gulak. Gulak hit the John Woo dropkick and Nakamura sprawled to the floor, and hooked Gulak's leg, and upending Gulak on the apron. As they got back in Gulak snared him in a couple dragon screws as Nak was stepping through the ropes, and it just felt like they were setting up some cool stuff for a longer match. Nakamura seemed ready for a good match, loved his leaping knee off the top and the way he forced his forearm into Gulak's throat on a guillotine. However, a schoolboy finish after interference to end a cool match is almost as satisfying as finding a pube in a meal you were enjoying.

Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Nese 205 Live 3/27/20

ER: This was the best of the three matches we were given this week, which makes sense as this one actually got some time. Nese has been slowly getting more focused in-ring and has dropped a lot of those disconnected athletic combo spots, and I have to imagine being in the ring with guys like Lorcan, Kendrick, or even Mike Kanellis has benefitted him. For much of his run he's been paired with more athletic flier types and that just begets a looped series of mirror reversal backflip spots. Against a guy like Lorcan, instead of seeing mirror reversals, we get battles over tight headscissors and body vices. That is far more interesting to me, as it cuts off Nese's excesses. Lorcan is really good at doing compelling things with a headscissors and Nese has strong thighs and knows how to make a body vice look really painful. Whenever Nese tries to snap of some kicks, Lorcan is right there with big chops and hard uppercuts, and when Nese gets lulled into playing Lorcan's ground game he winds up getting punished with some ground and pound. Nese is a big bumper so he'll always take Lorcan's blockbuster right on his neck, and I thought it was really smart the way they built to Nese's bigger flourishes. Nese flipped out of Lorcan's half nelson suplex and hit him in the throat to set up his springboard moonsault, tosses Lorcan rudely into the turnbuckles with a German suplex, and nails him with a running knee. I don't quite trust him with guys who are like 2016-2019 Tony Nese, but this is a guy growing as a wrestler, and Lorcan is a great guide. I dug all of this.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/15-3/21/20

Drew Gulak/Daniel Bryan vs. Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/20/20

ER: There's a chance this match was as long as every Smackdown match, combined, Gulak has been in since "leaving" 205 Live last year. This was good, but it felt like Nakamura was throwing the timing off a bit. I know why they didn't have Sami Zayn in the match, as they were building to a Bryan/Zayn singles match and part of me appreciates the distance that comes with having Zayn hold the belt, but Zayn in Nakamura's place would have fit so much stronger. Nak isn't someone who is going to go out and work hard every show (or, well, most shows), and you put him out there with no audience to play off? Yeah, he's not likely to show up. He barely showed up on Bryan's tope, leaning as far out of that thing as possible without moving entirely out of Bryan's way. He's better when it's just simply keeping Bryan away from Gulak, and that happens when Cesaro catches Bryan on a top rope crossbody and slams him with a backbreaker, drops him with a couple suplexes, and I like it more when Gulak and Nakamura get back in with each other. Cesaro and Nak working over Gulak was good, especially dug Cesaro's big flapjack into an uppercut. Nak actually takes a German from Gulak and we get a fun spot of Nakamura going for a triangle out of the Gu-Lock (but submission trading in WWE is almost guaranteed to come off underwhelming after I watched the entire WXW Ambition show yesterday), and I liked Gulak's discus lariat on him. The finish felt abrupt, with Bryan tagging in and getting a sunset flip on Cesaro, but I can't complain too much. Gulak is in an actual cool program and he couldn't be associated with anyone better than Bryan.

Oney Lorcan vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 3/20/20

ER: This was good, but really any Lorcan match given 10 minutes is going to be good. I was hoping this was going to be mostly Lorcan forcing Scott into working a Lorcan match, but Lorcan is too generous so I knew we would build to a long run of Scott match. So, it was going to be up to how well mapped out Scott's offense was and how nicely Lorcan ran into it. But I do get a little of what I want, as Lorcan grounds Scott in cool ways for the first long stretch. Lorcan can do a lot of interesting things around driving his knee into pressure points, fires off some nice chops and back elbows (I liked how Scott recoiled from the chops, turning his body away from them so that Lorcan had to open that chest back up to smack him more), and Lorcan starts focusing on the knee, starting with a mean dragon screw while Scott was coming back through the ropes. Now, there's obviously a problem when you opt to do focused limb work in an Isaiah Scott match, because there is next to zero chance that he will acknowledge that limb work in any way once he goes into Scott offense. And once Scott did start going on offense - and this is a problem I have with Scott matches in general - there's always a sense of inevitability. He's not great at making it look like his opponent is still in the match, he merely endures some offense until it's time to go into full Swerve mode. Lorcan upends himself on a Scott lariat, flies to the floor on a superkick, takes a Flatliner nicely, you know all the things that Lorcan is clearly great at doing. I wish things didn't feel so inevitable halfway through, but  just like that Gulak match up above, I can't complain about 10 minute Oney Lorcan matches.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Lesnar vs. Benoit VS. Honda vs. Kobashi

Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit WWE Smackdown 12/4/03

This match has been recommended a couple times as a contender for the 2003 crown, and it's notable to me because of my personal connection to the match, and for how entirely different it may be viewed in 2020. Outside of WCW TV, we really haven't written up many Benoit matches since 2007, and I don't anticipate that changing. He was a favorite of mine for many years, and he's decidedly not a favorite of mine now, and that's only partly related to him being a child murderer. His style hasn't aged well for me in the past 13 years, similar to the Christopher Daniels effect. Daniels was one of my very favorite live workers and favorite workers period around '99/'00, and then a few years later I aged out of being interested in Daniels. In going back and watching Benoit matches, they don't hit me the same way they did when I was there experiencing them in real time. His limitations seem more glaring now, in the same way Daniels' limitations seemed obvious even by 2003. Also, to my knowledge Christopher Daniels is an upstanding citizen who has yet to kill his family.

Not by accident, Phil has reviewed at most four Chris Benoit matches since 2007, and I'm not about to ask him to start reviewing more now. But this match was suggested as a 2003 challenger, and it's an extremely important match to me and my pro wrestling fandom, so it felt appropriate that I would review it alone. This was actually the first big wrestling show I ever attended. When I was younger my parents wouldn't allow me to attend wrestling shows, so I didn't start seeing live wrestling until I turned 18 and began attending Bay Area APW shows. My dad actually went with me and friends to my first wrestling show (APW 1/16/99) right after my 18th birthday. He hated it, but wouldn't say so. He used to attend Cow Palace shows when he was a youth so was not yet fully ashamed at my level of wrestling fandom. The only name he really remembered was Pat Patterson, because he and his buddies had all called him "Fat Pat" while heckling.

In college, a friend of mine had a WWF ticket connection through the radio station, but that connection dried up from '99-'02 due to the insane demand. By 2003 demand had lessened enough that he was finally able to get us some comped seats. WWF's west coast ticket guy was Will McCoy, and he hooked up a tiny little college radio station with some great seats for several years - long past the time any of us were still attending college - and for that I am still thankful. When we showed up in San Jose to get our Smackdown tickets, one thing we were not expecting was Will McCoy hooking us up with 2nd row ringside seats. Radio giveaway tickets were always good, but nowhere near this good. Typically they would be lower bowl, same side as camera. Those were the less desirable seats, as it meant your unfunny sign had zero chance of ending up on camera. And yet here we were walking closer and closer to the ring, until we found our seats directly to the left of the announce tables. My god, was I excited.

At that point in time, my favorite wrestler in the world was Brock Lesnar. First run Brock Lesnar is STILL among my favorite wrestlers in the world, and by that point I was watching enough Japan and Mexico footage to be confident that Brock was the best wrestler in the world, period. And whenever I go back and watch footage I'm reminded of how undoubtedly inarguably correct I was. Plus, we all knew that due to the battle royal the prior week, we were guaranteed either a Brock/Benoit or Brock/Cena main event, both of which sounded great. We were all rooting for it to be Brock/Benoit, as Benoit had been a favorite of ours for far longer than Brock had been, the pairing seemed like a natural fit, and - this is big - it was a singles match that hadn't yet happened on TV. Midway through the show, once Benoit beat Cena, we knew we were guaranteed what probably would have been my literal dream match at that point in time. Three months later I got to see my next dream match, Brock vs. Eddie, but on 12/2/03 Brock vs. Benoit was the match I wanted to see more than any other. I was so excited that early in the match when they brawled near us on the floor, my friend Sean turned to me and asked "pretty into this one, huh?" When I asked how he could tell, he informed me that I had been jumping up and down with my arms in the air the entire time they brawled on the floor. I did not realize I was doing this, but I can say 17 years later that you can clearly see an idiot 22 year old near-sighted goober pogoing in place, arms lifted directly above my head, nearly the entire time they brawled on the floor. I was that excited to be seeing this match.

When we left we all thought it was one of the greatest matches any of us had ever seen live. Two months prior a couple of us had driven down to Tijuana to see El Hijo Del Santo vs. Super Parka, Mascara contra Mascara. The live atmosphere for that couldn't be beat (and I still hold out hope that Roy Lucier is going to randomly throw that match up on his YouTube channel some day, as I have not seen it since), but Brock vs. Benoit was the match I had been dying to see for months at this point, and we all felt so lucky that the match had been given every opportunity to live up to its on-paper potential. I watched the match on TV a couple days later, loved it again, and haven't seen it since.

The match benefitted from a strong, concise TV build. Benoit tapped Brock at Survivor Series, and Brock was pelted with You Tapped Out chants every time he appeared in the ring afterward. Brock was so dynamite on the mic during this era. I think people forget how often Brock cut promos, since Paul Heyman has been used almost exclusively as his mouthpiece for the past decade while Brock hops around behind him. In 2003 Brock was one of the most confident mic workers of all time, able to expertly manipulate and taunt crowds while coming off intense and unscripted. He knew how to shut down chants, while also showing a small amount of ass for those chants. The crowd saw Benoit tap Brock, and they wanted him to do it again, and Brock saying boastful hyperbolic things like "I will NEVER tap out to anything EVER again" was said with such undercutting pride that it thread the needle of "he's definitely going to tap" and "maybe he really WON'T ever tap again". In addition to Brock's jock hubris, we got very effective segments backstage from other wrestlers. The best job of selling this match may have actually been done by A-Train. There was a running gag during this era where Nunzio, assisted by Chuck Palumbo and Johnny Stamboli, was running a backstage gambling ring. Nunzio laid the odds at 3:2 Brock, because while Benoit had tapped Brock, Benoit had also worked a match against Cena already that night. We got a great shot of the chalkboard with every wrestler's laid bets, and A-Train comes into the room wanting to drop 10 grand on the match. And we got this simple, but perfect exchange:

Nunzio: "Alright boys, put 10 G's on Brock!"
A-Train: "No. I'm putting it on Benoit."

That's the kind of easy attention to detail that is completely absent from modern WWE programming. Portraying wrestlers with no allegiances to either guy, actually expressing interest in who wins and who loses. A-Train was aligned with Brock at this point, was on his team at Survivor Series, and this simple action of betting against the odds - and against his own interests - is the kind of moment I would be stunned to see on TV in 2020.


The match itself delivered exactly what I wanted, and watching it back it's still a testament to how great a talent Brock Lesnar was in 2003. Brock is obviously still a guy I am going out of my way to watch, and has been in some of the best matches of the decade since his return. But in 2003 he was even better, and he was doing it full time, and it was incredible. In hindsight this came off like an incredible Brock performance, and I get the sense he could have done this same match with Edge, Test, Shelton Benjamin, Rodney Mack, honestly anyone on the roster at that time. Benoit brought an intensity that others on the roster couldn't, a toughness that many others didn't project, and - most importantly - the fans believed he could beat Brock. For his part Benoit went at Brock like there wasn't a massive size difference, attacking with chops, a couple of big Germans, and a brutal diving headbutt. But Brock was The Terminator here. He came at Benoit with big swinging arms, brutal kneelifts, and threw him around at will (including a wicked hotshot on the announce table, and a German suplex that whipped Benoit's head disgustingly into the mat). Where Brock excels as more than just a great smashing machine, was his attention to small details. Brock knows how to make a big bump mean something (check out his explosive bump into the ring steps, as I cannot imagine someone crashing harder full weight into those steps), and he connects the dots on all of his smaller moments. 

There's a moment in this match that I love, and it's a spot we've all seen hundreds of times, where someone pulls down the top rope to send a charging opponent tumbling over. And Brock did that spot here better than I've ever seen it done. Nearly every time we see that spot, we see the guy pulling down that top rope and we see the opponent clearly seeing the top rope pulled down, and yet charge over anyway. What move were any of those guys doing? What did they have planned if the rope hadn't been pulled down? Were they just planning on awkwardly colliding? Well, just like that first time you saw someone actually try to take out an opponent's legs during a drop down, here Brock does every step of the spot perfectly. It's amazing when you see a common spot executed perfectly, reminding you of what a poorly set up crutch the spot almost always is. Brock busied himself excellently while Benoit was charging, looking like a sitting duck, Benoit charging in for a lariat, and Brock yanked that top rope down at the precisely CORRECT time, when it was too late for Benoit to stop, and Benoit takes an absolute gem of a fast dangerous bump to the floor. It seems like a small thing, performing the top rope feint correctly, but it's one of those moments - of many - where you see what an excellent pro wrestling brain Lesnar has. This is a guy who truly gets it, truly understands why moves are done and what they mean.

We get the great section where Brock hoists Benoit up for the F5 and accidentally, or not, bashes swings Benoit hard directly into ref Brian Hebner, and the fans get that visual tap out as Brock taps repeatedly to the Crossface while the ref is down. Brock survives, the ref doesn't see, Brock gets a chair, and wastes Benoit's knee. We then get treated to the debut of the Brock Lock, the greatest main event submission during an era where WWE was giving their main event guys submissions. This is an absolutely body damaging submission, with Brock not only bending that damaged leg around his traps, but sitting back into it so deeply that Benoit's body gets as contorted as a Peking acrobat. Benoit passes out from pain, Brock retains, and in a perfect meathead moment, Brock applies the Crossface to a passed out Benoit, making Benoit's free arm tap.


Honda vs. Kobashi Review


Verdict:

ER: This is not unseating Honda vs. Kobashi, but it's a fantastic Big Match Brock performance, and remains a favorite (if tarnished) live wrestling memory for me. The stuff with the referees was inconsistent in a way I didn't remember. Hebner goes down and Hebner misses Brock tapping, but then Nick Patrick runs out the second the match is over to save Benoit. It's annoying when a ref misses a finish, but even moreso when it's made clear that another referee has been watching the match and surely saw what happened. It also could have used more of Brock bashing Benoit's knee before the Brock Lock, but the hold itself was applied so painfully that a pass out finish was totally acceptable. This is still a great match, and if anything, it cements Brock's standing as a true all time great.

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