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2022 Match of the Year List


Phil Schneider

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That is a good list you have, Phil. I still have to play catch up and ranking is going to wreck me, so this is what I have so far: 

Kazuchika Okada Vs. Will Ospreay
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom In Tokyo Dome - Day 2
1/5/2022

Hangman Page Vs. Bryan Danielson
AEW Dynamite
1/5/2022

Giulia Vs. Mayu Iwatani
Stardom    Nagoya Supreme Fight
1/29/2022

AZM Vs. Starlight Kid
Stardom    Cinderella Journey In Nagaoka
2/23/2022

FTR Vs. The Briscoes
ROH Supercard Of Honor 2022
4/1/2022

The Jericho Appreciation Society Vs. Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, Santana, & Ortiz
AEW Double Or Nothing 2022
5/29/2022

Fenix Vs. Laredo Kid Vs. Black Taurus Vs. El Hijo del Vikingo Vs. Bandido
AAA TripleMania XXX: Tijuana
6/18/2022

Mike Bailey Vs. Trey Miguel
IMPACT Against All Odds 2022
7/1/2022

Shingo Takagi Vs. Will Ospreay
NJPW G1 Climax 32 - Day 12
8/6/2022

Josh Alexander Vs. Alex Shelley
IMPACT Emergence 
8/12/2022

Giulia Vs. Starlight Kid
Stardom 5STAR Grand Prix 2022 - Day 9
8/27/2022

Gunther Vs. Sheamus
WWE Clash At The Castle
9/3/2022    

El Desperado Vs. Jun Kasai
JTO    TAKA Michinoku Debut 30th Anniversary - TAKATaichiDESPEMania
9/12/2022

Kazusada Higuchi Vs. Konosuke Takeshita
DDT Who's Gonna Top? 2022
9/25/2022

Death Triangle Vs. The Elite
AEW Full Gear 2022                    
11/19/2022

The Briscoes Vs. FTR
ROH Final Battle 2022
12/10/2022

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I'm horribly biased and don't watch a ton of modern stuff but quick list for the lads

Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Yoshinari Ogawa (12.02.2022)

Have more detailed review in the usual places but this was just 40 minutes of really good, really minimalistic wrestling. Ogawa is in his mid-50's and is arguably even better  than he was in AJPW 20+ years ago and Kaito is a fun act with lots of babyface fire when it matters. This went by in a flash despite the heavy reliance on holds and transitions.

Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Keiji Muto (16.07.2022)

Limited by Muto's wear and tear, but a pretty great match that took advantage of that fact and built on their prior matches beautifully; Kaito just completely shutting down Muto and blasting him to death was really something to see and Muto for everything you can say negative about him really made the guy look like a world-ender. For the last truly solid big Muto performance, it definitely paid off. 

Hideki Suzuki vs. Kenoh (19.08.2022)

Suzuki when motivated can do really amazing stuff and this in particular was a ton of fun to go though: usually 30 minute draws are really badly telegraphed and overblown but this was paced smartly and never felt like a draw would be a big deal until the last 2 minutes. Really smooth mat-work paired with brutal strikes when it mattered.

Naoya Nomura & Hayato Mashita vs. Super Tiger II & Shingo Suzuki (16.10.2022)

Stole this off Jetlag's blog and gave it a watch: I'm generally pretty sceptical about modern shoot-style because it either looks like UWF cosplay or really boring attempts to look as legitimately like MMA as possible, but instead this was a really nailed-down sub-10 match that removed the filler in favour of some great action and genuine unpredictability I hadn't really seen since the days of wacky Inoki-Ism. Definitely sleeper hit.

Hideki Suzuki vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (17.08.2022)

Fujita is in his prime element....doing a 70's Dory Funk match? This should be GOAT'd just for that, but I thought this was actually pretty great given the stakes; Fujita is fairly good doing his more aggressive amateur-style mat-work and Suzuki being stuck on the mat more means he can't just bounce off with Billy Robertson spots the whole match, so what we get is a slow but very measured technical match, even if it does border into grapplefuck tier at moments. 

 

Akitoshi Saito & Mohammed Yone vs. Satoshi Kojima & Takashi Sugiura (10.11.2022)

Funky Express in a actual competitive match sounds like a bad idea, but it actually isn't, because Yone and Saito are still real great at playing their underdog roles respectfully, and of course Sugiura and Kojima turn this into a real stiff beating despite Express's stubbornness. Saito's still got it, which is impressive given I'm not his biggest fan. 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomohiro Ishii (01.05.2022)

Now this could've been just another Ishii match which I'd be fine with anyway, but Tana and co really flipped the formula around, especially given Tana isn't much of a strike-heavy wrestler at this point and time so things were a bit more...unpredictable. Also Ishii does a Slingblade so 5+ stars

Shingo Takagi vs. Taichi (25.04.2022)

Most KoPWC matches are bad, was fully expecting this to be a bad gimmick-laden match with Taichi goofing off a good chunk and then ripping off Kawada for the other half. It wasn't, thankfully, and they actually do some great job selling and getting over the 30-count stipulation, like regular moves getting 1 or 2 counts and finishers getting 3+. Shingo is super on the ball here getting this really stupid championship over despite being capable of a lot more.

 

Sheamo vs Gunther is better than Paul/Reigns ngl. One revitalised a near-dead belt with a super sharp focus back to just hard-hitting shots and a great redemsion story for Sheamus while the other was a fun athletic spectacle that never really got to "oh shit Logan might actually win this" tier, which was the whole point of the match really. I will say Reigns sold the fear of losing when it got sticky, but for me I was never convinced of the same. One accomplished the mission at hand, the other didn't: for me that drags it down given it reflects massively on the quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PROMOTION NAME

NAME OF SHOW DATE    MATCH  
AAA TripleMania XXX 10/15/22     

Pentagon Jr. vs. Villano IV

 
AEW Revolution 3/6/22

      Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson

 
ICW: NHB NHB  11/12/22

Casey Kirk vs. Mickie Knuckles

 
GCW Bloodsport 4/1/22

Jon Moxley vs. Biff Busick

 
AAA TripleManie XXX Part 1 4/30/22

LA Park vs. Villano IV

 
AEW Double or Nothing 5/29/22

Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Jon Moxley, Ortiz, Santana vs. Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Daniel Garica, Angelo Parker, Matt Menard

 

 
Zona 23 Deshuasedero 5/15/22 Lunatik Fly, Osiris, Chucho el Roto, Amnesia vs. Lunatik Xtreme, Ovett Jr., Super Boy, Vengaza  
IWRG Arena Naucalpan 2/13/22 Hijo de Fishman, Tonalli, Hijo de Pirata Morgan vs. Toxin, Aster Boy, Relampago http://youtu.be/8Nr6kmS4rtk?t=01h07m35s
WWE WrestleMania 4/2/22 Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch  
LLDLJ Puebla 4/3/22 Avisman vs. Prayer https://youtu.be/S-_NWCIACdQ
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I watched so little outside of AEW/WWE PPVs and the ROH PPVs. I think I watched WK but I'm not positive and I don't think I watched any NJ the rest of the year.

 

The matches that stand out in my mind are the Cody/Rollins HIAC, Sheamus/Gunther, all the FTR/Briscoes. I'm sure there were a ton of great matches on AEW tv that I watched and just can not recall. 

 

Sami vs Knoxville is a top contender, though.

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On 1/3/2023 at 12:08 AM, Tetsujin said:

Kaito/Kenoh from the NOAH show was really good. Not MOTYC level for me, but I'm sure it can be for a lot of people. Tbh I really apareciste their take on the usual big match, making it shorter and with more original and fluid offence.

A top rope Falcon Arrow to the edge of the ring apron is a pretty big no-no for me. That spot looked dangerous as fuck, no idea how, or rather if, you can do this spot safely.

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8 hours ago, Robert S said:

A top rope Falcon Arrow to the edge of the ring apron is a pretty big no-no for me. That spot looked dangerous as fuck, no idea how, or rather if, you can do this spot safely.

Yeah I agree. Landing looked pretty nasty, too. To be clear, I wasn't refering to that spot when talking about the good offence on display in the match, Inwas talking about some creative strike exchanges, ways of setting up different spots and the rythim and intesinty behind everything they did. The match as a whole is pretty good.

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I watched the least amount of wrestling I have watched in a long ass time in a single year in 2022, just full-on cherry-picking throughout the year on what to watch, so my list is kind-of boring, but here's what I would have as my top-10:

1) CM Punk vs. MJF - AEW Dynamite 2/2
2) Angelo Parker, Chris Jericho, Daniel Garcia, Jake Hager & Matt Menard vs. Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Jon Moxley, Ortiz & Santana - AEW Double or Nothing
3) Adam Page vs. Bryan Danielson - AEW Dynamite 1/5
4) Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns - WWE SummerSlam
5) Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe - ROH Supercard of Honor
6) Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley - AEW Revolution
7) Jon Moxley vs. Wheeler Yuta - AEW Rampage 4/8
8) CM Punk vs. MJF - AEW Revolution
9) Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair - WWE WrestleMania 38
10) Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn - WWE WrestleMania 38

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do not think 2022 was a great year for wrestling, and I'm pretty much the low vote on all of the hyped matches from this year, but here's a list of the stuff I really liked this year.

1. Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre  - 9/3

2. Templario vs Soberano Jr - 7/29

3. Brock Lesnar vs Big E vs Seth Rollins vs Kevin Owens vs Bobby Lashley - 1/1

4. Fujita Hayato vs MUSHASHI - 7/1

5. Kazuyuki Fujita vs Katsuhiko Nakajima - 2/23

6. Bianca Belair vs Becky Lynch - 4/2

7. Kento Miyahara vs Naoya Nomura - 9/19

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  • 3 weeks later...

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