God. What a week. Surely THIS week won’t be topped for a while… will be the name of this blog going forward. But maybe I’m right this week! This week started with a good WWE PPV, and NXT and UK both delivered quality main events. But alongside that, NJPW’s Best of the Super Juniors continued, and what had already been a good tournament became an all time great one after three amazing nights in Korakuen Hall. And then, at the very end of the week, the long awaited first Pay Per View from All Elite Wrestling, Double Or Nothing, was a perfect way to start off the new promotion.
As has been the case recently, there’s been a few matches that have been on my radar but that I’ve just not made it around to watching for myself – most notably, the Triple Crown Championship match in All Japan between Kento Miyahara and Shuji Ishikawa. My first exposure to modern All Japan was the Champion Carnival this year and Miyahara blew me away so I am really looking forward to checking this one out at some point, but it won’t be making this week’s list!
That said, let’s begin this week’s list…
Honorable Mentions
When this week started, there’s no way I could have expecting AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins wasn’t making my final list. They had a fantastic match at Money in the Bank that would have made the list almost any other week, one of my favourite WWE PPV matches in a long time. It was briefly on the list instead of #5, but the match that made the cut just did a better job of investing me emotionally. That is what I view as WWE’s big weakness and it did strike again here, despite AJ and Rollins doing tremendous work in the ring.
I also want to give a shout out to the NXT and NXT UK main events this week – both WALTER vs. Pete Dunne and Gargano/Riddle vs. Fish/O’Reilly were fun TV main events that furthered the main event stories of those brands and I think are worth checking out.
5. Cody vs. Dustin, AEW Double Or Nothing (25/5)
When this was announced as Cody’s match for Double or Nothing, I thought this was a stretch too far for Cody in being the “storytelling guy” – after All In’s match with Nick Aldis which over delivered by playing up the story and drama of Cody’s chase for the NWA title his father so famously held, facing Dustin here seemed like going back to the well and I wasn’t excited for it.
Obviously, I’m a huge fucking idiot, because story telling is all that wrestling is and if the dynamic here at AEW is going to be Kenny – modern singles epics, Bucks – modern high action tag matches, Cody – old school storytelling matches then we’re going to have some great cards coming up.
It’s hard to talk about this match and not bring up Dusty – this was as Rhodes a match as you get, right down to that image of Dustin covered in blood that nobody will soon forget. The match is punctuated with tributes to Dusty from both the crowd and the brothers which really highlights the emotional nature of this match, tapping into your emotions in a way a burgeoning promotion doesn’t usually have a chance to. The one piece of lore AEW comes with fully formed, outside of Being the Elite, is the Rhodes legacy, and between this match and the post-match promo setting up the Rhodes Bros vs. Young Bucks, it looks like they intend to play on that some more – and since it’s clearly worked so well on both shows so far, who can blame them?
While the story of this match basically comes down to Dustin’s bloody mask and refusal to go down, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how damn clean Dustin looked in this match. Contrasting him to Chris Jericho in the main event later only further highlights how great Dustin was in this match – everyone will remember the blood and the drama but don’t sleep on the fact that Dustin Rhodes is still a hell of a professional wrestler.
4. Will Ospreay vs. El Phantasmo, NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Night 7 (22/5)
This BOSJ tour has been an exercise in star making, but maybe none have been as surprising as El Phantasmo. It was clear when he pinned Will Ospreay in his debut match in the company just before the tour kicked off that New Japan saw something in the Canadian with the fake Mexican name living in the UK, but I don’t think anyone predicted him working as tremendously (as a heel!) as he has done, bringing us to the first of three consecutive nights in Korakuen Hall where El P is already enough of a made man to go in there and wrestle Will Ospreay in the main event.
Not only wrestle Will Ospreay, actually, but beat him to remain undefeated and hand Will his first loss of the tournament. And he didn’t get there just from being protected in the booking – although it helped. He more than held up his own end, getting his heel act over with the crowd who are loving hating him, and delivering between the bell more than I’ve ever seen him do on these shores. By the time we got to Korakuen Hall’s main event, there were no questions about El P in that spot.
The story, besides the points at stake, is that Ospreay was El P’s friend in England who helped him settle in there when he was fresh from Canada, and he feels betrayed by El P showing up in the Bullet Club. This match wasted no time in getting to the action, with Ospreay attacking El P as soon as the bell rung and taking him to the outside. A couple of minutes in we have El P moonsaulting off the balcony as seen above, and from there begins the ever escalating story of these two doing insane shit to each other, all while El P continues to establish himself as the cocky shit you don’t want to win.
By the closing stretch the Korakuen crowd is in a frenzy for Ospreay, but when El P is up for the Stormbreaker, he takes out Red Shoes, hits a low blow, and from there hits a series of big moves to finally put Ospreay away. There was no doubt by the end of this that El Phantasmo is a star in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and can hang with the very best in the world in a top notch main event spot.
3. Lucha Bros vs. The Young Bucks (AEW Double or Nothing)
How could I talk about this one and not include a bunch of GIFs? This was a spectacular tag team match just as you’ve come to expect from both of these teams, who went out there in front of a rabid crowd and set them alight for 25 minutes and showed a big audience what tag team wrestling can be, and it was perfectly contrasted with the matches either side of it which isn’t a luxury the Bucks have always had.
When the Bucks wrestled at All In, their time was cut short and while that match was wild, it left you wanting more. This match if anything went a little long, and I would probably be even higher on this match if it ended a couple minutes earlier, but it still stands as a phenomenal, balls to the wall action tag team match.
The highlights of the match were the Bucks paying homage to their great rivals of the most notably the El Generico turnbuckle brainbuster and the Motor City Machine Guns’ Made in Detroit, this match was just a tribute to PWG on a worldwide stage and you’ll get no complaints from me about that.
2. Shingo Takagi vs. Dragon Lee, NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Night 8 (23/5)
This GIF was only one exchange but it serves as a perfect microcosm of the match – especially when you take into account the 1 count kick out that followed. Dragon Lee threw everything at Shingo, but he just can’t take him down. That’s a story we’re going to see a lot with Shingo, as he continues to tear through the Junior division for a while. Shingo is the man in New Japan right now, never being pinned or submitted since debuting last October and that is becoming the story of his matches – how do you beat Shingo?
Dragon Lee was absolutely sensational in this match, which you have to be to hold your own with Shingo. Dragon Lee is one of the most amazing wrestlers to see on offense, and it was never captured better than in the final stretch of this match. He brings every style of offense to Shingo, but at the end of the day Shingo is just too strong, too dominant.
I got to show a friend this match who only sees wrestling outside of WWE if I show it to him, and his takeaway on Shingo was “he’s so mean!”. Shingo is a master of getting over that character in just a sneer and a few well placed taunts to his opponent, so even though everybody loves Shingo and will say “he should go undefeated forever!”, it was impossible not to be begging Dragon Lee to keep him down by the end of this.
1. Rocky Romero vs. El Phantasmo, NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Night 9 (24/5)
The reason I’m posting this on a Monday this week is I just couldn’t decide between these top 2 on Sunday and decided to watch them over today. It’s so close and they’re such different matches, to the credit of this amazing tournament as I referenced before. But I ended up going with this one because this had me screaming out of my seat for Rocky when I watched it, and that’s the highest praise I can give a wrestling match. Rocky Romero got me to care, which is especially impressive because I’m essentially dead inside. But God, was my blood pumping for this match.
This match isn’t here in a vacuum – it’s great because of two matches that preceded it. First, the Rocky vs. Ospreay match last week, that established Rocky as a plucky underdog who was as good as anybody – but couldn’t quite get it done with Ospreay. Second was the Phantasmo vs. Ospreay match from earlier in this list – establishing El Phantasmo as not only a star and a villain, but an even taller mountain for Rocky to climb in this final Korakuen Hall main event. There’s even the nice wrinkle that if Rocky can get the win, it helps his friend Will get back in block contention.
But while the story going into the match is strong, it’s the story told in the match that got everybody in Korakuen Hall (and me, at home) on their feet and screaming their hearts out for Rocky. He’s every bit as good as Phantasmo here, showing once again that he’s as good a Junior Heavyweight wrestler as there is, but El P keeps getting the upper hand with dirty tactics.
This leads to the end of the match which sees every trick to get people behind Rocky imaginable – from the moment of the 25 minute call there is such an urgency to everything that happens, that the audience is going wild for the low blow, the ref going down, the Eddie Guerrero tribute spot, and as much as all of that served to add heat to Korakuen Hall’s fire, at home nothing fired me up more than Juice Robinson on commentary. Juice was losing his god damn mind for Rocky here, and he brought me right along with him. One of my favourite commentary jobs of all time.
And what made this all the more memorable and rewarding as a viewer, is that Rocky did it. In his first ever singles main event of Korakuen Hall, he went out there, stole the show, and reminded all of us that he’s one of the best to ever do it, and then topped it off with a memorable win, and celebrating with Roppongi 3K and an elated Korakuen crowd. This was pro wrestling at it’s finest. Rocky Romero fucking rules.
Next Week…
We’ve no end in sight of the hot streak of wrestling in recent weeks, as this coming week we have 3 more nights of Best of the Super Juniors, including the A-Block final of Shingo and Ishimori to decide the block on Friday, and then on Saturday we have a show that always delivers high quality wrestling in NXT Takeover, featuring a rematch of Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole’s great title match from Mania weekend, and a Matt Riddle vs. Roderick Strong match that is what I’m most anticipating from the week as we roll into June and Dominion just a few days after. What a time to be a wrestling fan!
Wrestling is Good 