Watching the Top 100

[Matt D]

4 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

#94 Claudio Castagnoli

Same deal as Kingston.

Kenny Omega, Swerve Strickland, The Opps (Katsuyori Shibata, Powerhouse Hobbs & Samoa Joe) & Willow Nightingale (w/Prince Nana) vs. Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley, Marina Shafir & Wheeler Yuta) & The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson), Anarchy In The Arena Match (AEW, 5/25/25)

What the fuck was this? This was one of the worst matches I've seen in my entire life. I hated crowd brawling and backstage fights while it was happening in the 90s. Why would I want to watch a pussified version of it in 2025? I think Claudio was the guy fighting Fat Joe. He did his giant swing a couple of times later in the match. God the shit later on was awful. The Bucks are awful. Kenny Omega is awful. Claudio deserved a better match than this, but Dave and his wrestling midlife crisis gave this five stars. The CZW match was so much better. I need to go watch a classic concession brawl to wash the taste of this match out of my mouth with mustard and ketchup. 

Someone extrapolate forward what Ospreay match he has to watch.

[ohtani's jacket]

#93 Necro Butcher

Necro Butcher may be the lowest cagematch ranked wrestler to make the top 100 at 6.96.

Team CZW (Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon) vs. Team ROH (Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer & Samoa Joe) (ROH, 4/22/06)

This was pretty great. Wrestlers, I'm telling you, if you hate a guy, I mean really, really hate a guy, it's much better if you beat him up in and around the ring than in the bowels of the arena. Just letting you now. This obviously had great heat and a ton of fantastic violence. I loved how much Joe was enjoying throwing cats around at the start of the match. It was a nice bit of juxtaposition to the rage he showed after the bout was over. I like Necro Butcher. I mean, how could you not? He looks like a mentally ill vagrant, and has such a simple, direct approach to wrestling. Loved all of his exchanges with Joe, and the exchanges with Whitmer. Super Dragon was low key great in a style of bout that you don't automatically associate him with. Hero seemed to be ducking the action a bit. Perhaps the camera man wasn't following him, or the editor didn't find any shots he liked. I thought his selling was a bit iffy at times. They could have trimmed the fat a bit, but it was a heck of a spectacle, and a great set up for the Cage of Death match. Claudio's cameo at the end was better than anything in the AEW match. There's your Claudio match, folks. 

 

[Phil Schneider]

16 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

This match sounds like hepatitis. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

If you have never seen this, take 20 minutes and watch it, you might not like it but it is incredibly memorable.

[Tetsujin]

Maybe not your cup of tea but the first Anarchy in the Arena (2022) is genuinely awesome. That one takes itself very seriously. It should have been the only one in history, because any succesor tried to recreate or even surpass what made the first one so great, failling misserably as you just witnessed.

[Phil Schneider]

Yeah the first Anarchy in the Arena is my pick for best AEW match ever, go buy my book I have some great quotes from a bunch of guys in that match. I was live for the Anarchy in the Arena match OJ reviewed, maybe the only Meltzer five spot I have been live for (did he give anything else on that PPV 5?) but it didn't do a ton for me live. I was obviously pretty burned out from helping run DEAN 2 the day before. 

[HeadCheese]

For context, I watched the first Anarchy in The Arena years after it happened (so I knew what happend in the match).

I think all of those kind of matches are always fun to great but, have a ceiling on not being match of the year level great though. I think the first one felt more hate lead and alot of the other ones have been big dumb spectacle party matches especially leaning into music while the match happens.

The TV one they ran (Rascalz, Jack Perry, and Young Bucks vs. FTR, Ricochet, and Gates of Agony) this year was really fun too.