AstroBoy's 2019 MOTY tracker

[AstroBoy]

I want to do one of these ongoing match of the year lists this year

Zack Sabre Jr. vs Tomohiro Ishii 1/4/19 NJPW

I am sure tons of stuff will surpass this but I was not disappointed at all by this.  Super simple story of striker vs submitter stripped down to a lean, bare, runtime.  The superplex no sell was really stupid and silly but at least led to probably the most brutal spot of the match.  I liked this alot.

[Boss Rock]

Kenny Omega vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 1/4/19 NJPW

So far the match to beat IMO. Thirty-nine minutes and yet nothing felt padded or done just for the sake of doing. There was a lot of intensity and disdain in the early striking encounters and tons of big bombs near the end. Kenny played a good heel and Tanahashi was a good fired-up face who nearly lost the match by compromising his wrestling ideology. Excellent main event match.

[Grimmas]

Nick Gage vs Josh Briggs 1/1/19 BEYOND

A brutal brutal brutal garbage match which made Briggs a star in BEYOND. The first match of the year and an excellent match to boot. Not quite the David Starr-Joey Janella one from last year, but pretty excellent and well worth a watch.

[AstroBoy]

Kento Miyahara vs. KAI (AJPW 1/3/19)

Really good, classic-feeling title match.  I thought this had strong selling and a nice build.  It felt worthy of a big championship event without slipping into excess or overindulgence.  I also loved the appropriate struggle for a finishing move that didn't devolve into endless reversals and nearfalls.  Well worth checking out.

[AstroBoy]

Rey Mysterio vs. Andrade (WWE 1/15/19)

Not much more to say about this one.  Great cat-and-mouse spots.  Big spots given room to matter and stand out.  Rey is a great puzzle-solver getting Andrade in position for the 619 multiple times.  Andrade takes Rey's offense spectacularly.  Fantastic match.

Hideki Suzuki, Takuya Nomura, Yoshihisa Uto vs. Kazumi Kikuta, Ryuichi Kawakami, Yuji Okabayashi, (BJW 1/2/19)

I'm a newbie to BJW so not familiar with most of these guys at all but this was great.  Really concise stiff battle that gets out of control midway through but doesn't devolve into garbagey nonsense.  Tremendous striking exchanges in the balcony and crowd brawling.  The finish with Okabayashi and Nomura is great too.

[Boss Rock]

Shuji Ishikawa and Suwama vs. Yuji Okabayashi and Daisuke Sekimoto (1/13/19 BJW)

Well that was quick. Already have a new MOTY and January isn't even over yet! An epic clash of the titans as these four behemoths just annihilate each other for 25+ minutes. Suwama and Shuji are great "heels" in controlling the pace and overwhelming their smaller, yet still very strong opponents. Sekimoto and Okabayashi are are also born babyfaces. Sekimoto is an excellent face in peril while Okabayashi cleans up as the mother of all hot tags. There wasn't just a lot of big bomb throwing, but some great long-term selling as well. All four guys looked exhausted near the end of the match and their strikes moved just a little bit slower and they couldn't get quite as much elevations as they usually do on their suplexes. That's a great attention to detail that's often overlooked these days. I also loved how in the end when Sekimoto hit the assisted German suplex on Okabayashi to lift Suwama, Okabayashi dragged Suwama out of the ring as he rolled out to ensure he couldn't interfere.

Even if this doesn't end up being the MOTY when all is said and done, it's going to be extremely tough to top, at least when it comes to tag matches.

[Noah Mark]

Dragon Lee vs Cavernario-CMLL 1/4/19.  The 1st 2 falls were not good, however the 3rd they both turned it up and burned the house down.  Lots of nice near falls and both men hitting all their big moves.

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kenny Omega-NJPW 1/4/19  What can I say about this match.  A pure classic!   Nothing else to say about it.

[AstroBoy]

Ben-K vs Shun Skywalker (Dragon Gate 2/5/19)

There were details about this I didn't love (rope-running tropes, some strike exchanges that went on too long, bits of overplayed fighting spirit stuff), but it hit the mark big-picture.  I have been pretty impressed by Skywalker.  He has a lanky body so he reminds me of a sort of young El Generico, and he was pretty good here with his bumping and flying.  Ben-K brought good personality and his offensive attack had a nice focus, he was a good bully here.  This also ended at just the right time.

Sasha Banks vs Ronda Rousey (1/27/19)

Maybe my match of the year so far.  I thought this was awesome.  Everything was a real struggle.  Great submission back and forth.  I loved Ronda's body shots and her desperation throws.  Great match.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet

This is a strong MOTYC for me. The contrasting styles of Gargano trying to chain wrestle while Ricochet trying pull off every flip imaginable messed well to start things off. Then they kick it to another gear going full on PWG with crazy spots and multiple nearfalls. Excellent match.

[AstroBoy]

Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulax (NXT 2/6/19)

Great grapple battle.  The mat wrestling takes up most of the runtime and both guys really got to shine in this.  Gulak looks great but it all builds to Riddle's big deadlift powerbomb and knee strike combo.  Really good concise match and it got over too.

PAC vs. Kzy (Dragon Gate 2/10/19)

World-class performance from PAC.  He doesn't always do a ton for me but he was great here.  Great sense of pacing, ferocious strikes, showed enough weakness to make Kzy look great, really in control of the match.  Kzy had his moments and an especially great dive to the outside to jumpstart his comeback but this was PAC's performance that led the way.  Really good match.

[AstroBoy]

Darby Allin vs Austin Theory (EVOLVE 2/15/19)

Really good match with Darby using nasty work on Theory's fingers and making it work as an underdog babyface.  Stretches of this were more solid than great, including a lot of the body of the match, but it really kicks into something special in the last few minutes.  Great Darby performance especially. 

[Grimmas]

My MOTY so far, the most old school ECW style brawl I've seen in over a decade. Not stupid, everything made sense.

 

 

[AstroBoy]

Barbaro Cavernario vs Titan (CMLL 2/22/19)

Fantastic, fantastic match.  Great use of dynamic flippy offense at just the right times for maximum effect.  Titan's brief but spirited comeback in the second fall was excellent, using a cascade of big moves to even the match.  Cavernario is great and his beatdown in the second fall was more vicious and thorough than I would have expected, good stuff.  Final fall has lots of worthy fireworks and big spots.  Probably my match of the year at this moment.

[peachchaos]

Bump.

Plenty of good stuff in the past month, anyone wanna drop some recommendations? 

[SmartMark15]

55 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

Bump.

Plenty of good stuff in the past month, anyone wanna drop some recommendations? 

Masashi Takeda vs. Jonathan Gresham (GCW 4/4)

Masashi Takeda vs. Jimmy Lloyd (GCW 4/6)

Ishimori vs. Lee vs. Bandido (ROH/NJPW 4/6)

Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi (ROH/NJPW 4/6)

Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada (ROH/NJPW 4/6)

LAX vs. The Rock N Roll Express (GCW 4/7)

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston (WWE 4/7)

Tony Nese vs. Buddy Murphy (WWE 4/9)

[WingedEagle]

20 hours ago, peachchaos said:

Bump.

Plenty of good stuff in the past month, anyone wanna drop some recommendations? 

Unlikely a lot of sleepers, but here's everything that earned 4 stars or better in my list:

Walter vs. Jordan Devlin (OTT 3/16/2019)

Jay White vs. Will Ospreay (NJPW 47th Anniversary Show 3/6/2019)

Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW NJ Cup 3/10/2019)

Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW NJ Cup 3/21/2019)

Kota Ibushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW NJ Cup 3/16/2019)

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW NJ Cup 3/21/2019)

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yuji Nagata (NJPW NJ Cup 3/8/2019)

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shota Umino (NJPW NJ Cup 3/10/2019)

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Taichi (NJPW NJ Cup 3/13/2019)

Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa vs. Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish (NXT 3/6/2019)

Jeff Cobb vs. Shane Taylor (ROH 17th Anniversary Show 3/15/2019)

Walter vs. David Starr (WXW 16 Carat Gold Night 1 3/8/2019)

Walter vs. Fenix (WXW 16 Carat Gold Night 2 3/9/2019)

Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama (AJPW 3/19/2019)

Adam Cole vs. Ricocchet vs. Matt Riddle vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Aleister Black (NXT 3/20/2019)

Will Ospreay vs. A-Kid (Triple W 3/30/2019)

War Raiders vs. Ricochet & Aleister Black (NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019)

Velveteen Dream vs. Matt Riddle (NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019)

Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole (2/3 Falls, NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019)

Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019)

Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019)

Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019)

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yuji Okabayashi (AJPW 4/4/2019)

 

[Boss Rock]

Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW 3/23/19)

What I said in the match thread:

Managed to top their classic G1 2016 match. Loved how they got to work right away. No padding, just all action. Just like the Ishii match with YOSHI-HASHI, I love these stablemate matches as they know each other so well and push each other so hard that there appears to be legitimate hatred. Some really creative and unexpected spots such as Ishii's armbar counter and Okada's backslide into the Rainmaker. I can't really say much more that hasn't been said. Just seriously watch this match.

****3/4.

 

 

[Boss Rock]

Jake Lee vs. Kento Miyahara (AJPW 4/29/2019)

The Champion Carnival finals between the dominant ace and the once-struggling up-and-comer who has seemingly begun to put the pieces together. Jake shows a great deal of confidence and fire that he was missing in early years and takes it to Kento almost immediately, overwhelming him with kicks and knees. Kento begins to mount his comeback but Jake continues to stagger the champ with heavy strikes. A really great story of Lee proving himself to be on Kento's level and both men surviving the other's best shots to win the tournament. Excellent offense, selling, and emotion.