AJ Styles v Jerry Lynn

[Loss]

AJ Styles v Jerry Lynn - ROH Road To The Title

 

The announcers are still jabbering on about "match of the year candidates", and it's really an annoying breach of kayfabe. This match is essentially a wankfest, with the armbar reversals and fast paced stuff. Don't get me wrong, a fast pace is nice, but here, it only seems to be there to give the illusion that fans are actually seeing action with true cause and effect, and to give the illusion that they're building toward some type of finish. Jerry Lynn looks worse every time I see him, I guess because his total lack of charisma brings all of his matches down. No matter how athletic he is, there's no fire in his eyes, and he doesn't seem to be really battling to secure a victory or convey a message to the audience, with the only message possibly being "I'm Indy Guy Jerry Lynn, and after being held down for all these years, I'm going to wrestle a really fast match in front of you where I do lots of cradles and springboards and other needless flashes. I'm not going to acknowledge your existence, even through anything as simple as pumping my fists or smiling at someone in the audience, because that would take away from the time I had to do tornado DDTs. Thanks for understanding." You're not exactly welcome, Jerry.

 

AJ is a little better, because he at least has clear determination, as he succeeds in the areas where Lynn fails, at least to an extent; he's not really doing much to involve the crowd or tell any type of story himself, but he at least wrestles like he gives a damn about winning. As much as he may be better in that regard, however, he's just as spot-spot-spot minded as Lynn, and there's some really ridiculously obvious cooperation in this match -- at one point, when they're working a series of really fast, masturbatory two counts that do nothing to pop the crowd, you can see Lynn waiting calmly to start bridging up when the referee gets to two. You don't hear him let out a large battle cry or see a look of strain on his face at all. The best moment of the match in that regard comes when the camera shows AJ's total shock over Lynn kicking out of the twisting senton bomb. Besides that, don't expect anything to make you care about the match happening in the ring.