Chess Knight

I think Savage has more very good matches than people give him credit for. I wasn't able to find the full match but most of the 7/27/86 Steamboat match in particular I'd never seen until last year and it honestly blew me away a little. I think I didn't rate it higher (mentally, I don't use numbers) because I remembered there being at least two matches in the feud better. For what it's worth I might say the 2/15/87 Steamboat and 4/21/86 Santana matches place in my WWE top 50/60, along with Mania 3 and 7. I need to see the DiBiase matches again but I adored the SNME match pre-Mania when I saw it on a WWE DVD. I think that Bret Hart match is kind of overhyped but only because some call it 4*1/2 level whereas I'd sit it at a "really good." I think Savage clearly outworked Bret in the match with his selling. The DDP feud in WCW is a boat load of fun and I remember liking the Flair series there too. The 1996 yearbook was about as good a collection of wrestling footage I've seen in one place so saying Savage was the creeeeam of the crop on it would be overdoing it, but he was someone I always looked forward to in a very, very stacked year, and his tv matches on the set delivered. I kind of like the "random match theory" thing people have come up with, and I think Savage is a winner in that respect. The match doesn't even always have to be good, but Savage always looks like a guy achieving his goal of winning/revenge/whatever it may be, 100% of the time he has in front of people. E.g. This Tuesday in Texas vs. Jake Roberts is a six minute match but combining it with the pre/post-match promos, and the angle done after the match - it's one of the singles best things the WWE has ever aired. Obviously Roberts was unreal in it, but other than Piper I don't know how many wrestlers in WWF up until that point were as good as Savage at working within a feud. I'm not even talking about the promos, because for six minutes I think every move/moment in that match is placed where it should be. And having that level of believability while being such an obvious crazy man with a remarkably cartoony voice is should be an impossible thing to pull off, but Savage always just did it. If anything is a mark against ranking Savage imo it's that, like was typical for 80s WWF, he in a feud against the same person would result in some matches being too similar to each other. I do love that Santana feud but a couple of matches repeat key moments/spots, meaning the rematch can feel a touch like a replay. Rating the guys who spent most of their time there canb become tough, because it's not even really their doing when everyone else was along for the same ride. Slaughter vs. Sheik is a great feud that does it as well.

I became a huge Murdoch fan around 2009/2010 because of the Mid-South and NJPW 80s sets (which lead me to getting the helmet comp), but I had barely watched him for years now so I forgot how good he actually was. He goes to some awesome lengths just to put any move over that he has to sell, and will similarly grimace his face while torqueing in his own holds. Great, great post-move seller too to give his opponent a potential target should they want it. Jumbo was mostly good selling armbars and stuff too but when he got them, on he looked kind of dead faced. I actually thought the second and third falls both ruled and were given the appropriate amount of time; sometimes 2/3 falls match benefit from the quick ends to really show how gruelling the first fall was. That second fall in particular very brief and to the point with Murdoch hoping he just had it in the bag and trying what he could to put Jumbo away, while Jumbo had to fight upward from taking a brainbuster which is rightfully treated as a devastating move. Third fall had Murdoch struggling to even capitalize on his own moves because of the neck, resulting in Jumbo hopping up and reigning knee strikes on him. Not a tremendously match but the build toward the peak was great and overall I really liked it a lot.

This feels like what so many matches aspire to be. Eye boggling stiff ballista shot of a match where neither guy necessarily felt like they had the edge, but so many usual back-and-forth pitfalls were avoided. It helps that they actually managed to build to things too like the first Honma headbutt landing. For an 11 minute match there are just way too many cool moments to mention, from Shibata booting a diving Honma in the face, to the surprise back fists, to Shibata being burned out so he had to gradually apply the sleeper like a squid slowly latching onto prey, to the incredible Honma slap in retaliation to a Shibata onslaught. Shibata is just so much better than maybe everyone else at mixing the forearm battles and defiantly sprinting up from hard strikes that it should be illegal for anyone else to even bother.

I was an edgy anti-Cena teen and then came around on him being a great worker. Aaaaand now I'm kind of dropped on him again, but less. There are some cases (vs. Lesnar) where there's nobody else who could fill that role, and I do value that, but a lot of his better matches to me now usually give me the mind set of "Cena looks good here" and not "Cena looks incredible here." He has his definite heights where I do think he looks incredible but there are less of them - and less spread across a consistent basis - than I used to. Him being a tv match worker was brought up, but I also find so many of his ppv matches a mostly bleh nothing to watch. His 2010 for example - I really liked the first couple in the Batista feud but following that I don't know if I'd say there's one good Cena match on ppv until MITB 2011, other than the big Nexus tag which obv involved a lot of others. Then there's his 2007 which I still find undeniable. His super indy dream match worker thing around 2015 is cool for a couple matches but I thought became tiresome and overdone pretty quickly. He's really an Undertaker kind of case to me where the consistency isn't always there, the lows are lowwww, but the highs are very high and enough to at least put them up for thought (I'd think about Cena as a case much more than Taker). Some Cena tv matches I remember thinking were worthwhile and have been maybe kind of forgotten(?): vs. Big Show (Smackdown 2/27/09) vs. Sheamus (Raw 5/17/10) w/Evan Bourne vs. Sheamus/Edge (Raw 5/31/10) vs. The Miz (Raw 5/2/11) vs. Alberto Del Rio (Raw 9/3/12)

This was so mat-focused that Nakano's snap mares and even sometimes the knee lifts kind of took me aback. The Fujinami vs. Nishimura chess game bits were captivating, and I love the progression in Fujinami's career from between the athletic junior to rolling on the mat using his weight advantage to stay on top a younger guy. I loved Nishimura using the keylock on the arm so Fujinami had more trouble using the weight, made him come off really smartly trained. I have a huge soft spot for any bit of any match that's centred around trying to get a cross armbreaker in; you can get several minutes out of the struggle alone, and then build on it. Fujinami hurries to put the arm over when Ishikawa gets in, holding it behind his back almost to bait Ishikawa but then gets caught off guard anyway. Such a great brief exchange. The match could have been elevated by having a violent and heated inter-promotional/Battlarts -esque end run but who can complain with what we saw here.

Man I'm gonna say it, the BCC have been disappointing for me. It's not that I don't like them or think their output has underwhelmed, it's that by all account of his AEW work so far, I think Bryan Danielson is probably either the best or second best wrestler on this planet still and doesn't really get to showcase it in a way that his singles matches did. I'm not even strictly talking about the "big ones" he had last year (thought that's exhibit A); that match with Lee Moriarty in February was pretty awesome to me purely because of Danielson. Moriarty looked ready to turn the match into generic back and forth indy trash any moment but Danielson just kept cutting him off, which resulted in the actual back and forth bit (the last couple minutes) feeling actually hard earned. I've truthfully never been the most MASSIVE Danielson fan, and making a list I'd maybe be a low voter (though that's probably still top 20), but stuff like that really bolsters the case to me - where he works match-specific to his opponent, and even seasoned wrestling watchers don't immediately grab at how exactly he's putting the guy over....by kicking their ass. I've before never liked him as much as I did in late 2021/early 2022.

I don't think I'd have him top 100 on a WWE list at all. I'd easily rate Chuck Palumbo as a worker over him for example, who maybe doesn't have Kane's highest tier matches but also didn't work with World Champion Chris Benoit in a PPV singles, and was way more consistently good. If Kane showed up regularly on Velocity the way Palumbo did, I think I would have leaned toward dreading it, instead of wondering what cool ways he'd punch people in the face like I did Palumbo. Hell there are like three to five year runs in NXT recently (O'Reilly, Strong, Bate, Dunne) that I think have had a better in ring career than Kane's 15-something year one pretty easily. Good big man at times and obviously has his very good matches but it's spread pretty thinly over years and years of mediocre-to-worthless work that a lot of others just don't have imo.

I've been a Mutoh denier for over a decade but I do like the late 80s/early 90s WCW run (plus he was pretty great in the G-1 Vader match), so it's not impossible there are more spurts of his career that win me over. A decent sized match list of post-91 Mutoh would be cool if someone wants to make the case for him. I don't really like the term "lazy" but he seemed unmotivated at the strangest of times. I think it was the Hashimoto match in April of 95 where he missed a moonsault and just....laid there on his stomach...looking around? Like he wasn't selling stomach or even making a grimacing face, he just did the wrestling version of starfishing in bed. It was weird, and I remember going through the 92 and 93 yearbooks years ago and seeing similar things.

Shawn Michaels might have the biggest disparity between wrestling I love and wrestling I hate and it's all represented in this thread. The Mankind match is about as much fun a match to me can possibly be. I would rather swallow cyanide than see wrestlers clutch their face in distress like he did after the superkick, refereeing the Undertaker/HHH HIAC. His pinball bumping, especially as a heel, feels like it really should have been emulated by heels in a way that it hasn't much been since. His offense through the 21st Century is the kind of thing anti-wrestling kids at school make fun of you for watching. I've never handed in a top 100 wrestler list (nor even made one) but he'd be among the most frustrating to rank. He has enough positive and negative volume to be put in 40 different spots, or be kept off altogether. Ric Flair's post-peak would drag him down on the list for me but only because other post-peaks are consistently much better, like Tenryu's or Lawler's. Michaels has a pretty long, awesome peak, but too much of the rest is so insufferable that it drags him down so much more than it does Flair. The Rockers were a really good team for like 6 years, which is a fairly long ass time, but rewatching WWF Rockers last year I'm not really convinced he was particularly better than Jannetty. Shawn Michaels vs. _blank_ from 1995 would get me pretty excited even against guys I don't have much thought on like Tatanka, Shawn Michaels vs. _blank_ from 2008 would get me apathetic even against my favourite guys from that time like Finlay. It's almost worth making a whole list just to see where I'd rank him. edit - I never thought about "I'm sorry, I love you" being Shawn putting himself first but whether that the intention or not, it certainly has done that job.

I think a couple things hold this back a little, but that finishing stretch is one of the best, most dramatic there's ever been which shoots this into being one of the greats. It's first dozen minutes set things up well but didn't have any marks of a great match, and it wasn't until Kobashi riskily tries a suplex that Takayama gets to squeeze the life out of him and things sky rocket up. Kobashi's arm selling is god-tier, especially when he was on the outside after it was first hit. The lariat off of the guard rail whip was a great come back spot, but at the same time I think Takayama was overselling a little by collapsing after he delivered the apron German; it felt like they were just baiting the double count out. Maybe nit-picking but it's a big, pivotal moment that I do think was dampened a bit. Like I said the finish stretch is unreal, and one thing that stood out to me is that Kobashi actually manages to deliberately use an injured limb and have it not come off as totally silly. He tries his left arm for chops, headbutts, even a jumping clothesline thing, but he looks bugged about it all and starts throwing chops with the right hand anyway which totally dazes Takayama, while he himself hurdles in a corner screaming again. Made it feel actually worth it but also up in the air as to whether it would still be worth it down the road. Each big moment being an act of panicked opportunity-grabbing helped the match being back-and-forth actually work, like that one punch barrage from Takayama, which was maybe my favourite thing in the whole match. He actually started sticking to blows after the Everest failed like he was trying to weaken Kobashi for a big move he never got to pull off. - I had SERIOUSLY never noticed this was the same night as Misawa/Ogawa vs. KENTA/Marufuji, which on last watch a few years ago I thought was tremendous.

Simultaneously feels like a match everybody's written about, but not enough people have seen, though still a bit of legend in the online wrestling sphere. Choshu is bloodied basically as soon as Fujiwara gets his hands on him, and you don't see too many wrestlers focus on chokes after their opponent is in that state. Fujiwara was grinning like some sociopathic school kid squeezing the life out of a mouse. Best smile of the match came when Fujiwara countered the first lariat into a Fujiwara armbar. It's like he was just taking Choshu's shit just to humour himself, baiting Choshu into the lariat, for which he knowingly had a swift counter. Contrast to that, he looks much more determined to keep the second armbar on because Choshu actually gets in a lariat before it, and Choshu manages to rush toward the ropes during the hold because Fujiwara's actually finally been worn down a bit. Bloody Fujiwara changes the tone of the whole match (or at least reverses the roles) and his rigid selling of things is a sight. This one stumble after one of his own headbutts was just impossibly good. You couldn't teach kind of sell. You could show someone the first minute of the match, then last minute, and then tell them there's only about ten minutes in between and probably have them go "what the fuck how?" There are matches of a similar description but I can't get the same thing out of any other match.

Ten years ago I would have told you this was a great match with too many tag partner run ins. I'd now call it one of the greatest matches of all time with the run ins adding to the already unpredictable and scornfully badass aura of the match. It's like the best ever violent inter-promotional tag match that isn't inter-promotional. It's cheap shot city and the amount of different reactions that came out of it, from anger to defiant ignorance (especially when refusing to let go of a hold like some invisible middle finger) made me totally bug eyed in captivation. That's obviously not mentioning the crazy stiffness, oddly enough one of the more memorable moments to me being Ishikawa accidentally whiffing a punch entirely, and it getting rightfully ignored because screw that monkey show shit we actually hit each other here. Otsuka added a different flavour by keeping close toward the opponent's waist, plus hitting his suplexes, but eventually got wiped out with suplexes himself and then later had the best ten count tease of the match. Ono's constant run ins coming in while Ikeda kept getting laid out made for an amazing escalation toward the final moments, and the finish appropriately had all four guys in the ring. I have to mention Otsuka sprinting a dropkick into an interfering Ikeda, then taking over from Ishikawa to deliver the giant swing on Ono.

Naturally seen this many times, and even though I usually reject the "what's left to say about _X_?" way of thinking, I doubt I can add much to fifteen years of talk about this thing. I will say that despite having seen it enough times, I hadn't seen it for a while, so I forgot exactly how many times Necro was slammed directly on his forehead. Every awesome, desperate rain of blows he threw at Joe I half-wondered (and half-worried) he'd eat another one. The powerbomb on the guardrail, while it was set up on the ropes, was grosser than I remembered too; Necro's neck looked to snap back because Joe kind of aimed it so his shoulders hit it while his back hit air. Necro started to bleed early from shoot headbutts and probably just bladed twice more anyway to get the visuals. Small shout out to Joe actually getting a concerned look on his face after a couple kick outs. The stars aligned for this one. I remember thinking the tag match Necro had the same night was the best CZW match I've seen, and considering this is most certainly the best IWA-MS match I've seen (I've argued for Necro/Klein as better before, but probably wouldn't now), that's an all timer of a night for one guy.

Maybe the most unfortunately named wrestler to praise for the past couple years but VIRUS! A lot of the best rudo luchadores always manage to do the classiest looking grappling, while still keeping in character just by reacting to everything, and Virus just brings it. You can play-by-play some of this to me on paper and I'd be like "ehhh" but the execution is where the in-sync-yet-unco-operative magic happens. They even did some 'duck a backflip pose' thing and then Virus just dropkicks Marvin in the chest for it. First fall had a pretty great botched finish where Marvin slapped on an octopus, but Virus tripped to one knee, which looked like a potential counter until Marvin just improvised with a crucifix pin while Virus' leg was still caught up. Shout out to Virus' abdominal stretch, where he stepped backward so one of Marvin's ankles was rolled. Was pretty ugly. The second fall was great, with Marvin trying for a bum rush but after one Irish whip too many, Virus splats his face on the ground like he's shaking sand off a beach towel. I almost thought they'd go for two falls based on how kick out-heavy it was getting but Virus wasn't done bringing the face splats to tear Marvin down. The third fall started with Marvin not even being able to stand without tumbling which was a super cool dichotomy to the sprint he did to start the second. Falling flat on his face after Virus ducked the lariat was maybe a little goofy but hey he pulled it off all right. His tempo picks up throughout the fall but I thought, for the most part, he did a really good job of coming across as someone pushing themselves. Virus is unreal good at "caught off guard" selling, including somehow making dropkicks to the knee look like they should actually be flipping him 270 degrees. This was really, really good.

The LWO implodes or whatever with Eddie feeling like Rey is too much of his own man, so Eddie responds by yelling at him and beating the fucking shit out of him for the better part of a dozen minutes. This was squash match-level for most of it, and based on it, I wish we had more Eddie Guerrero squash matches. I couldn't even list the amount of interesting moves he did if I tried, and everything right down to thumping Rey on the back of the head with his fists looked tough. The powerbomb was one of THOSE kinds of powerbombs - you know, the THOSE kinds, the SPLAT, BOUNCE and FOLD kinds. These nutters even pulled off a suplex to the outside (that was Rey-on-Eddie violence, though) which Eddie sells by possibly yelling obscenities. Great opening spots with Eddie pulling Rey's tights from outside so he flies into the guardrail, and the steel steps Irish whip that made the steps sliiiide a little. Looked so cool. Later, Eddie gets tossed out the ring and Rey, composing himself, pulls a FOOL MOVE and turns his back and crouches to recuperate only for Eddie to SLIDE INTO THE RING WITH A CHOPBLOCK? How? Who even thinks of that? Rey's springs of life maybe came too easily a couple times considering all the punishment, but they never really lasted so hey whatever. Have I actually underrated Eddie Guerrero at a point in his career? I don't remember thinking he was this badass in 1998 a decade ago, makes me want to see everything he did that year.

Pretty subdued Hashimoto performance. When he wasn't chopping or kicking it almost looked like he was just waiting for his opponent to do something. He and Honda almost came to blows before the match begun, so their initial show down should have felt big. Alas, Honda comes in to interfere while Hashimoto and Inoue are squaring off, leading to it feeling like I'd lost a sneeze. If Honda was gonna rush in then, at least let the match totally go to bonkers city. They did do a great little tentative dance around each other when actually both legal, but didn't have too memorable an exchange. Honestly, I can say that about the whole match. It had highlights, was enjoyable enough, I was excited to see more 2001 Honda, especially opposite Hashimoto, but didn't deliver anything close to greatness. Didn't help the finish was total trash, I have no idea what even happened. Yasuda had this semi-limp leg lock on (he even let one of his arms go and looked away at one point), and the ref just called for the bell. Inoue submitted? I don't want to make it sound as if this is a bad overall match, but I'd be disappointed if this isn't the worst of inter-promotional Hashimoto. Surprised, too, actually.

Really, really awesome start that set the tone for the whole match. Shibata, the young'un, tries steam-rolling the legend and actually busts Akiyama open on a few kicks to the head. Akiyama gets absolutely furious and they wind up outside, with Akiyama chucking chairs down at Shibata like a madman. Not folding chairs either; like, Shibata was eating LEG. He was even more violent later after more Shibata offense. Shibata swings a kick and hits pole instead, but doesn't allow himself to fall over so to not leave Akiyama any oxygen. The damage, unfortunately for him, is already done, and Akiyama sees the opening. I actually loved that Akiyama didn't just predictably target the leg from that point in a major way (other than one chair swing), instead dropping him on the announce table, giving him a piledriver on the concrete, and brutalising his upper area with chair shots. He really appeared to just be too angry to go with the obvious "limb work" strategy and let his emotions fight for him for a bit. Even when Shibata tries getting back in the ring, Akiyama just sprints at him with some sort of ballistic, uncouth knee smash that looked like it almost made Akiyama himself fly out of the ring. Shibata doesn't get any less rowdy because of all this; fighting out of a front facelock with blows to the mid-section, and persisting with the kicks. Speaking of the facelock, the crowd were sadly pretty heatless for all submission moves; I feel like, with the blood, they should have been taken seriously as moves that could have knocked the opponent out. I wish some of those exploders were sold a bit more, too. Though Shibata at least does the "surprise get up from big move" better than almost anybody in the 21st Century because of his in-between selling, but I've spoken on that before. And those little negatives didn't stop it being a really, really good match.

Did 1998 Tenryu vs. 2005 Necro Butcher just become my dream match? I don't really know what the deal is here but when Tenryu has no cool and sprints for his opponent then something must have gone down between them previously. There were a lot of moments that, on paper, might read like flashy highlight video package bait, but in execution was just ugly, gritty, hateful violence. Like, Tenryu takes a moonsault while standing, and his spleen might have gotten the worst of it because of the landing. Araya goes ham with a kendo stick (even smashing it against the ring post to loosen the bamboo) and Tenryu blades his own arm to put the whacks over. He starts jamming it into Tenryu's throat too and I half-wondered if Tenryu would start blading his neck. Tenryu getting a moment during an Araya run-up to lift a boot allows him to chop the guy dead in the fucking throat, which looked more violent than any smash with a foreign object possibly could. When I tell you he looked to THROW his arm about as hard as he could, please believe me. I swear if the match had ended here we'd have probably the greatest five minute match of all time on our hands with a 10/10 finish. Tenryu isn't entirely on top following that, but still just finds an opportunity to chuck chairs into Araya's head, and dive on him by also basically just landing on his noggin. He barely looked like he could execute the dives he was doing but the end result definitely came off as a guy with a fat ass throwing all his weight onto somebody to try to win a legit battle. Tenryu mostly has Araya where he wants him (even Araya's nose is bloody by the looks of it) so he brings it back in the ring and starts throwing the usual chops and kicks, but Araya doesn't need weapons to build an offensive again either, so we get a pretty even last few minutes. Tenryu might do one of the best facial sells of a SLAP ever during. What a wild clash of cellulite and muscle.

Asked a friend for an old TNA rec so she gave me this, and it was exactly the kind of under-the-radar thing I wanted. Like damn did NWA TNA actually have tag matches that felt like NWA tag matches? Watching this in a vacuum I'd almost be fooled into thinking they were actually, quality-wise, a great competitor/alternative to WWE at the time. First few minutes are spent brawling out of the ring with low blows and wire chokes and concrete suplexes, with AMW ultimately losing the upperhand they had with a Michinoku Driver on the ramp by Slash. They work a pretty classic FIP following that and Slash & Lee (in a group called The Disciples of...whatever, I forget, look it up) mix up their offense pretty creatively. Slash (who is Wolfie D btw) has some really cool running headbutts/shoulder tackles, and at one point just kind of steps all over Storm with both boots. Storm's best chance came when hitting an enzuigiri to Slash, but Slash actually swings left and accidentally (!?) headbutts the ref in the fucking stomach, leading to the ref being blind to the hot tag. What a weird and cool little spot. Harris has the ref accidentally (!) distracted because of that and Lee levels Storm with the belt outside. The finish stretch is stuffed with tons of kick outs and a chair and POWDER and BELT WHIPPING and a SPIKE and interference and the ref just straight up not doing his job and I thought it dragged a bit but not enough to complain about it. Super fun tag, good enough that there's a sick part of me that believe a Best of TNA list/poll would actually be an enjoyable endeavour.

This is the first Kingdom match I think I've ever watched, and I liked the format of only 5 rope breaks and/or downs each creating quick but escalating drama. They're also wearing gloves which is pretty unlike any other shoot style promotion (not even Vader wore gloves in UWFi) but thank god they were because they fucking HANDED it to each other when throwing blows. I actually said "fuck me" aloud at one of the bursts. They mostly spent the match grappling though, which I was enamoured with. Really quick chess game of steering with the skid, slapping on a submission no matter how close to the ropes to force a point loss, and gripping onto to themselves to try to stop a hold. The cross-armbreaker played a strong part, being the first rope break and being responsible for a couple more down the road. Was a really easy to create tension (physically and dramatically) because the guy in it would rush for the ropes like a cat every time, once their own vice grip was busted. The only actual down of the match comes when Sakuraba tries to duck a kick, I think not realising Kanehara is actually aiming pretty low, and catches it square in the face - and let me tell you, people - this is straight up as nasty and violent a kick I can remember in a match (outside of Akira Maeda actually trying to injure people, I guess). I wouldn't wish it on anybody but it sure as hell made for a perfect surprise down, especially because Sakuraba was looking exhausted by then and looked to let his guard down by a bit. Sakuraba tries to return to submissions after getting up from that - including a cross-armbreaker attempt - even to try to whittle away Kanehara's score (Sakuraba was down 3-1 by now) which really helped put the kick over. I won't spoil the last few minutes but it ties in the rest of the match really, really well, including the finish. I will note Kanehara trying and failing to swing near the end, as a desperate attempt to finish it because he got the only down in the match earlier. Wouldn't surprise me if the first Kingdom match I watched is the best of them all.

Badass match initially based around Honda's superior ground work before they start trying to finish each other off with suplexes and lariats. Ikeda's first real chance comes minutes after Honda keeping him in check. Ikeda starts blasting Honda with kicks and forearm blows (that first kick looked stiff as hell, too), which at least wore Honda down, but Honda just keeps going low and bringing him lateral to give himself a breather. Honda had some strikes of his own but he was against the Potato King himself so he had to be smart in tying up Ikeda's limbs instead. Ikeda, finding any opening he could, delivered a GREAT counter where he was holding onto the ropes to prevent a German, but then instead improvises by pushing on the rope with his boot, going down with Honda and from what I could tell landing on Honda's HEAD. Awesome end stretch filled with almost each move, no matter how basic, being a potential ender. This is the kind of match that makes you respect every suplex or takedown. Great finish, too, thanks to Honda actually kind of slipping up on that STF and having to change gears.

I still love this so much. I don't know whether it qualifies as a "sprint" but with the amount they crammed into the time they had, and how quickly they moved from moment-to-moment (e.g. Rey on bottom usually lasts a lot longer than this), I wouldn't think it's a stretch to say it is one. I honestly don't remember a more compelling heel Punk match than this one, just for how tenacious he is beelining for any opportunity to smash Rey to bits. Once that barricade backdrop hits (a spot that's been burned in my memory since I saw this in 2010) he takes no chances in unleashing, smashing Rey with a clothesline on the outside, dropping him a vicious backbreaker, shoving him off of the ropes, trying to keep the match grounded with holds. He throws in some talk too because of course he does. "I CAN SAVE YOU!" Like I said Rey on bottom doesn't last very long but that I think makes it more unpredictable because it's out of the norm for him to start dodging around this successfully, this early. Absolutely loved how they managed to integrate Gallows and Deeb at the end without having them just sloppily run in and ruin the match, too. From what I remember I thought this was actually better than any of their PPV matches back when, but I will watch those again. I'd be a-ok with this being the best though because it is indeed the fuckin best. I might call it a top ten SmackDown match.

Very good match that could have been elevated a bit more had it been more logical. It's just, I think Savage hurting his leg and taking his boot off to further expose the leg (especially the ankle), especially against a technician, is a bit of a dumb move. Hart is kind of dull on top before the leg injury but is much more fun being flung into the ring post and bumping into the turnbuckle pads and whatnot. For a heel he's not a very theatrical bumper but he'll take some rough shots to make his opponent look great (something he obviously continued becoming WWF's #1 throughout the early 90s). The guardrail shot off the apron looked particularly good; big fan of wrestlers flying into things and flopping down while holding onto said thing. Again not a fan of Savage's boot being off because it becomes a more vulnerable target, but Hart is naturally good working a limb and I dig the flash finish a lot as a convincing way for a one legged man to pull off the victory.

Utterly vicious offensive showing from Otani, repeatedly digging his heel into Tajiri's face, stomping the shit out of him in the corner, grinding his forearm across the cheek, etc. He even does Tajiri's tree of woe sliding dropkick (maybe that's where Tajiri got it!) and we get a close up of Tajiri's squished face after it. Tajiri gets a few hope spots in those first few minutes but it's usually killed by Otani using his superior size and tenacity. Tajiri's actual competitive comeback starts with a fucking awesome spot where Otani blocks a high kick with his forearms, but only manages to hit a limp slap in retaliation, so Tajiri uses the ropes for momentum and launches his feet at Otani's leg. Can't believe how much heat they managed to create within the time, and I can't believe what has to be one of the best Tajiri matches happens in 1997.

I hope these motherfuckers had beers together after this. Kitahara and Kabuki were totally relentless kicking heads in and levelling throats with lariats, and making exactly none of it look flashy. Orihara when selling for all that shucked out about as good a Never Say Die showing as I can remember, even with some of the flubbed moves and that random pointless backflip. His exchanges looked really unruly when he was just swinging wildly at any body part in the way before being minced. He somehow sold to make a swinging neckbreaker look violent, and that thing usually looks like garbage. The Ganso Bomb looked utterly fucked; like CCTV footage of an assault and battery from that angle. Also on the lariats he took late in the match, there were women in the front row clasping their hands in front of their mouths and made a great visual. I thought it was pretty brilliant how they didn't immediately let Tenryu come in hot after the first Orihara FIP bit either; Kabuki blindsiding him really allowed the second hot tag to feel like The Big One instead. Tenryu obviously doesn't take kindly to that though and starts breaking up half of every pinfall, which helped the match fly further into a chaotic spectacle. The ref didn't need to squeeze in a cardio workout that week, let's say that much. And Tenryu breaking up the pinfalls with the most unpretty kicks to the head looked possibly even more disgustingly violent than anything, especially thanks to how Kitahara didn't bump or turn for them, but instead just jolted his head and stayed in place. Deranged classic.