[2017-05-18-NJPW-Best of the Super Juniors] Will Ospreay vs Ricochet

[paul sosnowski]

Nobody wants to talk about this one? A much different match than their most famous one from a year ago, but still excellent in every way. I loved it. 4 1/2****

[William Bologna]

God I hated this.

 

I read tons about the first one before I actually saw it, and I expected to be on Team Vader, but I wound up really liking it. This one, though, was self-indulgent and maudlin.

 

Matches where the only way to hit a move is by reversing the other guy's move are exhausting to watch and silly. When you do that for half an hour, and then hold hands and make speeches about it - it doesn't help.

 

This match gets negative two stars because I docked it five for self-importance.

[bradhindsight]

I may have liked this on par with their more famous match, and from a style standpoint liked this better with it being more mat-based with a large sprinkling of callbacks. This was f'n crisp too - especially that destroyer sequence into the finish. Beautiful. ****1/4

[ShittyLittleBoots]

This was so much better than their singles matches from 2016. Here it actually felt like they wanted to win this wrestling match instead of just showing how athletic & creative they are w/ their flippy stuff. Both guys showed good intensity & were great in their control segments. The big counters & sequences all felt natural. Had they trimmed the match length down a bit this could've been ****+ for me. Still borderline great though. ***3/4

[Vinnie B]

Finally got round to watching this, and was interested after I quite liked last year's match:

 

As a collection of moves, and perhaps an exhibition in what the human body can achieve in a wrestling ring, this was still very impressive. However, they had a remarkably similar match last year, and such a style without advancement can only remain a novelty for so long, and will eventually start to produce diminishing returns. There were only a few moments where I was genuinely invested in the match, and spent most of it staring blankly as they threw lots of admittedly cool moves at each other.

 

Wrestling, to me, is moves (be that a headlock or a reverse rana) + drama. They have pushed one part of this possibly to its human limits. Yet they leave a lot to be desired and could really do a lot more in terms of bringing their audience into the action. ****.