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