2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Mason vs. Sabre

18. Zach Sabre Jr. vs. James Mason RPW 3/31

PAS: So cool to see Mason, who has been one of the great under the radar wrestlers of the last 20 years get a big showcase main event match. I imagine this will be one of his most watched matches ever, and he was great in it. This was worked similar to Sabre vs. Navarro, with Sabre working as a guy outclassed on the mat, and trying to keep up. I think I prefer that to Sabre as a dominant mat guy, and really want to see Sabre vs. Fujiwara or Sabre vs. Joe Malenko. They had some very cool reversals, including a long section of reversing straightjacket neck locks in cool ways. Mason always seemed a step ahead and I liked Sabre getting frustrated and throwing a couple of cheapshots, especially right after Mason refused to hit a downed opponent. Didn't build to an epic finish, but I liked the idea of Mason thinking he had pulled one over on the kid, only to fall into a trap.

ER: I loved this, just what I was in the mood for this evening and didn't realize it until I had started it. Phil and I have become the big Sabre drum beaters, which is great, but Mason is a guy who is an obvious SC fave...who we don't happen to write about that often. It's weird. Mason is a guy who, whenever he's come up, we both think routinely looks like one of the best in the world. Feels like a guy we should do a compact C&A for just so we can get more Mason content in our archives. We have as many Doug Williams reviews on this site as we do James Mason reviews, and that's just stupid. Mason is great, and this is like seeing Sabre against a younger and dare I say even better Negro Navarro. Both guys can work mean and this had a lot of nasty neck cranks that felt even worse as I watched it with a stiff neck, lots of yanking jaws one way while pushing on the ear, lots of smothering guys with their own arm, lots of snugly applied straightjacket locks with precision counters, lots of wrists bent over and snapped around, looking like some classic gorgeous violent World of Sport. This show should have been filled with old men in brown sport coats and old women in overcoats. I dug all the stuff around butterflying the legs, loved both men's attempts at tying the other's arms behind them, Mason locks on a Kikuchi level Boston crab at one point, throws battering ram headbutts to the gut and hits shoulderblocks and shoves like a Put Yer Dukes Up prohibition streetfighter. Agree with Phil about Sabre as frustrated lightly overmatched prick being extremely entertaining (though I also like a ton of Sabre-dominant matches), as there are always legitimately painful moments that Mason gets put through, but he just as often has a quick and violent counter for it, and tricked Sabre is always fun. Mason even takes a great classic British comedy slo mo pratfall bump over the top rope and almost landing hands first on the chest of a busty lady in the front row. Felt like a spry Benny Hill bit that hadn't been sped up yet. I like how this escalated and thought both guys kept an impressive violent pace throughout, though the finish felt mildly out of nowhere despite plenty of match time. I would love to see Mason become a guy who gets on American indy shows, and Sabre now has a long streak of delivering.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST