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[2021-10-15-AEW Rampage - The Buy In] Bryan Danielson vs Minoru Suzuki


ShittyLittleBoots

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A genuine dream match right here, and the crowd sure made it feel like one with the atmosphere they provided from bell-to-bell. I must admit that for 98% of the time the generic strike-trading sequences do absolutely nothing for me, but here MiSu & Dragon sucked me right into 'em -- much of it has to do with the fact that it's THEM doing it, but also because those said sequences were genuinely fantastic with the timing of when to stop em, when to sell big, when to show that fighting spirit~! etc, you know the deal. This was pro-wrestling happy magic. ****

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The crowd sounded so hot and this was giving them exactly what they wanted, so any complaint I have is a bit of a moot point since they were right to work the way they did. I do feel like an especially old grump as I cringe at the early chanting, but that argument is old hat. The early wrestling, locks, matwork, etc. is good in that it's well done but it couldn't hook me because I was just waiting for the strike exchanges. Everyone was just waiting for the strike exchanges. It's a little unfair of me because I watched a replay and saw others talk about it so I knew it was coming but let's be real, so did the crowd. That said, I really liked how they kept going back to the mat and trying to grind each other down to a submission. Didn't love the choreography of the ending until the very last second when Danielson smoked Suzuki with the knee. I'd say three stars-ish, worth watching.

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This was a fun match. It had elements of being an exhibition type match at times, particularly early on with the loose grappling and elbow exchanges but once the action got sustained momentum, this rocked. I think they went through every spot you could have between the two and did it really well. The best parts of the match for me were Suzuki stiffing Bryan with the elbow later in the match and the finish itself. The finish was great. Good match. ***1/4

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This was even better on a rewatch. Once you take out the "holy shit, I'm actually watching these wrestle each other" feel the live watch had, the little things they did were more evident to me. As SLB said, they knew when to go slow, fast, no sell, scream, make a facial expression, etc. Everything to make this feel less generic in terms of both just trading blows, which was truly needed because this was very, very simple match. There's literally one bump and it's a very small one (Suzuki's back bump after Dragon avoided the Gotch piledriver) and I think only two pin attempts in a 20 minute match. Loved how they kept trying to lock on a submission and how they reacted quick as fuck to get the ropes every time they got locked in with a hold.

How high you rate this will depend on how much you can enjoy strike exchanges but man, there's a lot of others things to appreciate with this (like Dragon's pin attempt transition after realizing he couldn't lock Cattle Mutilation, that shit was tight as hell and MiSu had to fight to kick out). Loved it.

 

PS: MiSu's elbows being vicious is something I was expecting, but man, I've never seen Danielson land harder elbows than the ones he threw here.

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I’ll need to give this another watch because live, this felt contrived. I understand Bryan putting his own twist on things but I thought they could have done a lot more than they did. That being said, when they did get away from the strike exchange stuff, it was really fun. I think seeing that just made me want to see more, and then they just went back to it. The stiffness and toughness is one thing, but the output here seemed like folks wanted to give it credit for being a dream match and forget things a bit. The finish also was a bit too cute by half. Hopefully a second watch betters things. 

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