ShittyLittleBoots

This actually ruled so much, damn. The dynamic was that MJF is the better pure wrestler of the two, while Moxley destroys him when it comes to brawling on the outside. They played that dynamic brilliantly into the match throughout, and I thought it was a really cool, clear, interesting narrative between two different characters. There's also some pretty great armwork by MJF throughout, which Moxley sells wonderfully + the whole stip w/ the Paradigm Shift being banned was played extremely nicely into the match with that one sequence where Moxley almost went for it, but as he contemplated a little too long, MJF took advantage & went back to that arm with his Fujiwara Armbar finish. An extremely enjoyable match, but I do think it dragged a LITTLE BIT towards the end, and that's what separates it from being "great" rather than "very good" - I'd actually say it's one of the best very-good matches of the year. ***3/4

Jon Moxley defends his AEW World Championship. A bit of too much melodramatic TALKING by Moxley for my liking, but other than that, this was a pretty darn awesome underdog bout. The opening of the match with Moxley making Darby bleed with the very first punch delivered was badass, Moxley's control section was solid - of course made all the better by Darby's great bumping & good selling, as well as his always lovely, explosive comebacks. The finishing stretch after the MJF interference was real good too, with nice urgency by Darby & great selling by Mox. ***1/2

I felt very strongly about this one when it first aired, and while now I don't think of it as highly as I did back then, it's still a great match. A totally unique addition to both guys catalogues, too. It played out accordingly to Sami's heel character with him trying to get out of the match as easy as he could, but of course after all the (awesome btw) stalling, Bryan did get his hands on him & then it was total punishment time. Bryan is incredibly compelling dishing out the said punishment with his always terrific looking strikes, and with this being in front of no crowd & there's no fake crowd noise, the sounds of those strikes stood out. This whole match was all about the sound every strike & move made + Sami's vocal selling and the little bits of dialogue between him & Bryan. I thought those moments where they exchange words were done exceptionally well, as usually stuff like that comes off as total cringe in wrestling. Here that wasn't a problem, as it all brilliantly added to the bout & the story they were telling. Sami's all around vocal performance is absolutely phenomenal, with his screams of agony & begs of mercy reminding me a bit of Terry Funk, even. This is a totally great match for the sub-10 minute duration of it. The finish isn't very good though, as it does feel too sudden, which as a result sucks some juices out of it, but yeah, I still love this. ****

Still stands as one of the true highlights of the year, even if I would lower my rating from ****1/2 to ****1/4.

The result, or actually the way we got there & what it implies, is pretty cool. The match itself might just be the most disappointing one of 2020. The "brawling" (if you can call it that), which filled the first third or so was extremely uninteresting. As was the filler kneework done by Kenny - his targeting of the knee wasn't interesting in the slightest and lead to nowhere. Complete filler, which is what Moxley's selling also said about it. The last third is where the action gets more exciting on paper, but in reality it just continued the trend of this match feeling completely uninspired for the most part. I did like the sit-down punch-trading & the V-Trigger destruction scene towards the end though, but that's about it for the whole match. Moxley has been one of the best wrestlers in the world since leaving WWE & Kenny usually always delivers when he is against wrestlers of that caliber + both guys have had very good years in-ring wise this year, so this was indeed super underwhelming any way I look at it. *3/4

Low Ki's first one-on-one match in ROH in almost a year. I thought this was a very good match. It did a great job further establishing Ki's new character in the company going forward; he dominated most of the match, just kicking Mark's ass all the way through with some dirty tactics & The Rottweilers shenanigans thrown in there. Mark got just enough offense of his own in too, so he didn't look like a scrub or anything close to that - this was just a match he was never going to win with Low Ki riding a wave of momentum with his stablemates. "Ain't no cops here tonight, kill him!" - Julius Smokes for president. ***1/2

This is for Doug Williams' Pure Championship, under the Pure Division rules. Early on Aries outsmarts the champ & the ref by hitting Williams with closed fists behind the refs back, to which Williams answers back with some punches of his own under the refs eyes, which results in him losing one of his three rope breaks. I thought that was such an extremely fun, great new twist worked into the Pure rules. It brought some rarely-seen intensity in Doug's work later on too, as when he gained the control back after the little brawl on the outside, he was fully set on making Aries use all of his rope breaks by viciously stretching him in those submissions. That all lead to the great finish where he locked in the armbar for the win on the ropes, as Aries had indeed used all of those rope breaks. This was so much fun! Beautiful, strategic wrestling. Pretty much exactly what I love about the Pure Division. ***1/2

2/3 Falls Match for the ROH World Tag Team Titles This completes the 2004 trilogy between these two teams. It's a very good match. It goes almost 40-minutes, and it doesn't really feel like it because of how well it naturally builds from fall-to-fall-to-fall. I loved how the first fall ended with The Briscoes brilliantly isolating Punk; Punk manages to get the hot tag to Cabana though & they run wild on The Briscoes for a bit, but THEN Punk makes the crucial mistake of tagging himself in, which ends up in him eating the Jay Driller moments later for the challengers to go 1-0. A pretty great way to get this match going, that whole fall was. 2nd fall wasn't as interesting as the first one w/ its action, but it's still solid stuff & continues the good story they're telling so it's all good. And the final fall completes that story very nicely with the action obviously hitting that second gear once Punk returns. Quality stuff. I would probably rank this as the weakest of their matches, but that just goes to show you how good of a tag team pairing The Briscoes & The Saints were. ***1/2

Sadly this didn't reach the greatness that was their meeting at Generation Next. I would put this on par with their Reborn match, meaning it's a good one. It didn't truly hook me in like that said match of theirs at Generation Next, but with this being Homicide vs. Samoa Joe & it having such a heated, hot angle behind it? Of course it was good shit. Lots of violence as they peppered into each other throughout with brutal strikes & bombs. A couple of real nice nearfalls towards the end as well. ***

A yet another banger of a tag match featuring Generation Next. They did such a compelling job cutting the ring in half, so to say, here; really enjoyed their work over Stryker's leg - watching them execute their number on the bodypart with frequent tags & great teamwork was a joy. I thought that Jacobs' hot tag at first was a bit weak, but the Gen Next lads cut that shit off very quickly by utilizing their great teamwork to distract the ref & triple-team to gain the advantage back. Jimmy's FIP segment was really good with all three Gen Next members looking good dominating him - in particular Roddy looked really good in there almost ragdolling Jimmy around. Everything from Jacobs' hot tag afterwards is some chaotic, fun stuff too, even if it is a bit annoying that it mostly is with everyone involved fighting in the ring - this match had some great bits revolving around the ref getting distracted & the heels using that to their advantage, and that certainly made that said finishing stretch w/ all six men being in there feel extra silly, but as mentioned, it was still a fun & chaotic conclusion to the bout. Mark Nulty on commentary also covered for it really well with him explaining what-might-be the reasons for the ref to allow it happen, so a shout-out to him as well. ***1/2

Billed as a Six Man WAR with all the issues between the teams, this one goes over 30 minutes, so it's a pretty long boy. It's full of some hard-hitting & VERY intense action though, so it kept me entertained for the entirety of it. The Briscoes & The Havana Pitbulls serve in their roles wonderfully, and I thought that especially the Pitbulls - in particular Rocky Romero - delivered some really compelling offense in the form of submissions & kicks. Homicide & Joe are definitely unsurprisingly the clear stars though, with the energy being off the charts whenever they come in & start smashing fools in their nasty, vicious ways. ***1/2 The post-match scene is also well worth a watch with it being a pretty legendary moment in ROH's lore.

The early technical wrasslin' between these two is so charming & compelling to watch. Doug especially busted out some truly neat stuff; one of my favorite moments of the bout was the sequence that lead to him tying Shelley up in that Paradise Lock. Extremely fun action! Shelley was of course coming into this with a bum arm, so that's obviously a big story here with Doug working it over throughout. Loved all of Doug's armwork & Shelley's selling was very good. Shelley on the defense was overall a role that he rocked well, and him finding success by doing a number of his own on Doug's neck was also awesome. All kinds of good focused work over that said bodypart. It's a banger of a match with a compelling in-ring story being told, and the absolutely fantastic finish puts it over the top as a truly great one. ****

Forgetting about the Fiend gimmick, Bray Wyatt just isn't a very captivating wrestler for most of the time. There's one man who seemingly always makes me forget about that when they face off though, and that's the man he was facing here. This is a great match. They incorporate the strap gimmick wonderfully into the thing, with the punishing shots of it feeling pretty brutal + Bryan greatly using it to his advantage by working/mixing his normal offense into it & also straight-up using it to brutalize The Fiend, for an example with the almost Unified-like spot around the post, but instead of using his opponents hand to repeatedly pull him into that post, he used the strap. The LeBell Lock with the strap later on was awesome as well. As were the usual Yes-Sequence kicks with the strap-shots in-between. The match is largely dominated by The Fiend, who's solid with it, but it really is Bryan's incredible comebacks & overall performance that propel this into greatness, imo. It felt like the timings for Bryan's comebacks, whether those were bigger or quicker ones, were just about perfect. Every time it seemed like the crowd was losing hope as Fiend was suffocating him with his monster work? Boom, here's an awesome, fiery, exciting sequence by D-Bry. Hats off to Bray too though; obviously with the character there's lots of limitations when it comes to how much he will actually sell in a match, but here the amount of no-selling & the selling when Bryan was doing his thing was just about perfect. He came off as an unbeatable horror monster perfectly, while also looking the right amount of vulnerable at the same time. Terrific match. Something about that Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt match-up at them Royal Rumble PPV's, I tell ya! ****

This didn't hold up as a top tier MOTYC on a rewatch. The first half, which takes up nearly 20-minutes in this almost a 40-minute long match, is completely boring in all of its time killing hollowness. Nothing there feels like it matters, as it does feel like they're just in a never-ending, generic, time killing feeling out process of sorts. The first great moment of the match comes with Ibushi countering Okada's running attack with that double foot stomp. That woke the match up a little bit, but it's when Ibushi no-sells Okada's uppercut that the match FINALLY hits that second gear & becomes a full-fledged epic; Ibushi no-selling that shotgun dropkick with that blank zombie stare on his face & then straight-up closed-fist PUNCHING Okada was badass as hell. The whole sequence with him doing those punches & some kicks was absolutely amazing. Okada's sell of the shock of eating those stiff looking & sounding punches was phenomenal, too; the glazed look on his face really put Ibushi's terminator-mode over perfectly. That surely was the best bit of the whole match, but everything afterwards is some exciting, great action too -- I especially dug the apron battle leading to Okada's tombstone there, as well as Ibushi's Boma Ye's (& Okada's kick-out at 1 from one of those) + that V-Trigger. All great, and sensational stuff even. Makes the first 20-minutes or so even more frustrating, because if that first half didn't feel so needless, this really would've been a classic. It says something when I still think of it as a great match overall, even with half of it being boring & forgettable. ****

The final one-on-one showdown between Aries & Danielson covers over half of the match & it's some great stuff. Everything beforehand is rock-solid with stories progressing between participants, but Aries & Danielson take it to another level w/ their battle; I really liked Bryan's work over Aries' back, especially with his bodyslams becoming angrier & angrier as the bout progressed. The finish with the bear-hug sequence ruled too, that vicious finishing submission was a great pay-off to Danielson's focused attack. At 40+ minutes, it's a real lengthy match, but it's a very good one. The action is solid all the way through with the peaks (Danielson vs. Aries) being great. ***3/4

This looks like an absolutely LOVELY pairing on paper. And the match does rule; it's pretty much a 10-minute squash with Danielson showcasing his submissions, but man what a blast it is. Bryan twisting & stretching Evans is all some superbly vicious stuff, and much of it is thanks to Evans' willingness to bend & twist his own body in visually stunning ways to make each hold look all the more brutal. And then there's that amazing bump he does off of Bryan's uppercut. If I was a wrestler, I would sure love to face that man, because he truly can make people look like a million bucks in there. What a fun-ass match. Also a shout-out to Evans bringing up Danielson's backyard-gimmick, THE DAGGER. Very amusing. ***1/2

It's definitely much better than their previous match, which was way shorter & more "angle-driven". Jey also looked way better here than he did in that match, with some of his work actually being really neat & good! I especially really liked those rapid kidney shots towards the end with them elbows & knees. Bryan was of course just the best as always, with that fantastic selling, facial expressions, timing & offense. Good match! ***1/4 Totally agree on Bryan being the WOTY.

Going through ROH chronologically, I never would've expected CM Punk & Samoa Joe to be a duo to deliver a 60-damn-minute draw with 99% of it being SUPER compelling & straight-up fantastic. They keep me hooked for the entire duration, with my favorite thing about it being watching CM Punk's strategy unfold; the way he controlled Joe w/ HIS pacing & those headlocks -- it's such fascinating pro-wrestling. Punk sells & tells the story perfectly with his work, including some brilliant moments of his body language & facial expressions. Joe is also absolutely superb with everything he does throughout -- I thought he especially sold brilliantly, as through that, it really feels like Punk's masterful gameplan might pay off. The overall pacing in this is also exceptional; in classic 60-minute-match fashion, the battle of course gets more dramatic as minutes pass, but they don't go overboard with it, as they instead have a few major dramatic moments - namely the Pepsi Plunge one & then the DDT in the closing moments - and both of those named moments are absolutely terrific. There's maybe a few stretches here n' there where I wasn't as interested as I was in the early going or in the closing stages, but it's still at least very good action for the entire 1-hour runtime, with the most compelling stretches (which goes for most of the match) being simply wonderful. There's just nothing phony or hollow about this one. It's the first match of THE trilogy in 00s indy pro-wrestling, and it's a stone cold classic. Can't wait to revisit the other two. ****1/2

Really liked how the babyfaces established the first control period of the match - them isolating Roddy & executing a nice number on his knee ruled. Also really liked how Gen Next came back into things by utilizing their numbers, which is something that ended up being a pretty big story in the match overall, in my eyes. Rave works a big FIP segment, in which he sells his beating very well & Gen Next do a pretty compelling job working him over, utilizing great teamwork & their numbers every time they needed to. I keep mentioning the "numbers", and I wanna say that it was indeed a 3-on-3 bout, so they didn't have more members than the babyface team or anything like that, but they were certainly more willing to come in there & use 2 or 3 men at the same time if needed, and that narrative ended up delivering some pretty big moments in the thing. Very good FIP segment w/ Rave indeed, and I really loved his big flurry before he finally tagged in Matt Stryker for that hot tag. Stryker's hot tag is solid, and the rest of the match is them going at it on the "usual" 2nd gear that matches like this usually kick into in the last third of 'em. It's good stuff, but I did prefer the first 2/3rds w/ the babyfaces looking good doing their thing working over Roddy, and then that big Rave FIP seg. Really loved all of that + the finish is also absolutely great, so this quality trios match truly ended on a high note. ***1/2

Foley's pre-match promo is pretty hilarious with his banter being lovely. LONG LIVE THE ALLIANCE. This match is just pure goddamn clunky chaos & it's so damn good! Funk & Foley going at it rules - Funk in general is such a madman here at 61 years of age with awesome punches, old-man hardcore insanity, huge bumps, awesome selling. What a GOAT. And I didn't even mention the "MY EYE" bit, which instantly reminded me of you know what. I love that man. All the barbed wire stuff, including the bats, the board, the FLAMING bat/wood/whatever it was that Funker brought -- it's all such gnarly, brutal, EXTREME stuff, if you will. Like I already mentioned, this thing is just pure uncoordinated-feeling having chaos & violence. It's one of the best matches each person involved here has ever been in. Long Live The Alliance, and long live this match. ****1/2

This was creative, this was brutal, this was dumb. That's a 3-piece recipe for ladder match success. There's some nice limb-targeting, quite a few very brutal n' dumb spots & some nice little touches that I totally loved. One of them was in the early going when Kyle went to climb the ladder for the first time, Dunne came in & just quickly and bluntly pushed the ladder down; usually they always milk them for at least some amount of time, so just pushing it as quick & bluntly as he could made it feel super neat. The ladder also hit Kyle when it went down, so that's some more brutality for ya. Sure there's some moments that felt pretty unnecessary & pretty silly in there, such as Kyle popping up like one second after being hit with Dunne's finish on the barricade, but even with those & the finish, this really was a big PPV-level effort from the two, and I would say it is one of the best ladder matches of recent years. ***3/4

Loved this so much. An absolutely lovely grappling exhibition with everything looking slick & coming with such a nice sense of urgency. It never feels like they're sitting & waiting for the other one to do something either -- there's a good feel of lil' competition & having to earn what you're going for, whether it's a hold or another position. Some terrific selling in there as well, especially by Thatcher, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. And of course when they throw in some strikes in there, all of those look great & fit the match well. It's a jolly good time. Really hoping that we get some more Thatcher vs. Kushida goodness eventually, because this truly rocked. ***3/4

Intense build-up to this one, and they start the match accordingly by going at it right away, fighting in a sea of streamers. It's a great, chaotic scene. It doesn't take long for Joe to establish early dominance, and he dishes out punishment in such a lovely fashion & looks cool doing it w/ him sidestepping Homicide's dive attempts n' all. Badass shit. That big dive through the table? Sick. Homicide always puts everything he has into those dives & he did so here, but also went indeed through a table as a bonus. Him bringing out the FORK & going to town on Joe's forehead with it was nasty as hell, and I loved every second of it. Then he continues the violence by throwing a chair HARD right at Joe's face for good measure. The whole match has been superb brutality, and the All Japan-esq section leading to the finish fit right into it, imo -- they started dropping each other on their necks with so many absolutely VICIOUS looking kick-ass bombs, and in-between all that there's Joe slapping the taste out of 'cide's mouth with sweat flying everywhere + 'cide bringing back the fork to repeatedly stab that forehead some more -- it's all such glorious stuff. Definitely the best match they have had up to this point against one another. ****

Another very good match between these two fellas. They get a lot more time here than they did in their previous meeting, and this really feels like a bigger PPV-version of that said previous match of theirs. Great feel of physicality, with both guys always looking to do some more damage without letting the other guy breathe. Both of them once again showcased their wide array of offense with lots of nice strikes & vicious bombs. Sheamus also looked really good going on the ground w/ Riddle! That heel-hook he busted out seriously popped me. Banger of a match. I liked that October match more, because it felt a bit more tight w/ its sprint nature, but this one also kicked ass. Very good chemistry between the two. ***1/2

This was full of badass physicality. Both guys own such great arsenal of kick-ass moves & they busted out some truly lovely, vicious ones here. The early submission work by Riddle was awesome, and the back-injury towards the end which set up the finish was great. Real tight, physical sprint-y match. ***3/4