A few days ago on the discord we were discussing AJ Styles' best match. Me and Ed seemed to agree that the choice was likely his TNA match with Samoa Joe at Turning Point 2005, though other matches were mentioned. Both of us were interested in revisiting his New Japan work, as it marked a career resurgence for AJ Styles after stagnating within TNA. His NJPW work elevated AJ back to the forefront of everyone's mind when discussing the best wrestler in the world, and that is why I chose this match for the Match of the Week. Watching AJ here is such a joy. He's still amazing today, but he's into his 40s at the time of writing - here he's so agile and fluid in his movements, which is a reminder of what a special, special talent he is and was.
My immediate impression of this match is that Suzuki's facial expressions throughout this are priceless. Odd thing to notice first, but I love that he's just an angry old man and he's here to let AJ Styles know it. Within the match itself it's as if he's getting frustrated that AJ would dare to even strike him. He brought the violence to the match, which was complemented by some fantastic selling by AJ. The audible selling of Styles is magnificent. It's the sort of thing I've always lauded Ric Flair for in the past, and I give similar praise to Styles here. It truly put over the nasty work that Suzuki was doing to his arm. This is a prime example of two guys using their strengths to improve the match. Speaking of which, I think this is a feather in the cap of both men considering how wildly different their styles are, that they were able to have a match of this quality.
I loved the limb work, in particular the nasty little touches that Suzuki would do. He wouldn't just put in an arm bar, he'd twist at the fingers, or he'd move to a crossface. He wouldn't just stretch the right arm, he'd start working over the left one if it was available. Every hold he put on worked because of how he mixed it up. This is how you do engaging holds. For a match that concentrates a lot of work on more subtle aspects like stretching fingers, AJ's audible screams helped put it over to the crowd. Visually, this arm work looked stunning, and suitably aggressive for what they were going for.
This in turn led to Styles himself becoming noticeably more aggressive later in the match. He'd gone from being flashy AJ Styles in the first few minutes, to a guy that had to do the nitty gritty stuff to compete with Suzuki. In turn, that puts Suzuki over even in eventual defeat - he's beaten by Styles, but he forced AJ to come out of his comfort zone and gave him the fight of his life.
While Suzuki's offence looked fantastic, and certainly warranted the selling that Styles delivered, it's the performance of Styles that puts it over the top. From the subtle way he'd try and regain feeling between moves, to the moment where he stops using it because it was a liability. He made us, the viewer, feel every bit of pain in his arm.
The best part of this match is the struggle between moves. Each move used feels like either guy has to fight tooth and nail for. In particular the suspense they built up down the finishing stretch for their big moves. I loved Suzuki's strategy of using the ankle lock to bait Styles into a counter that would expose the injured arm, leading to a wonderful tease and struggle in an arm bar. That arm bar leads to a Styles Clash that AJ can't capitalise on due to his injured arm. The finishing sequence had practically no near falls, but the drama and energy was built from the previous arm work that made the finish exciting in spite of a lack of near falls.
One glaring negative is I did think the interference was totally unnecessary. It added nothing to the match, nor did it add any drama - especially coming right in the middle of the match. Instead it just felt like a distraction to a match I was already thoroughly enjoying.
Overall I had a blast revisiting some NJPW AJ Styles work. This might not be his best match from this run, but it's certainly up there and a match I wouldn't mind watching again and again. An excellent match from two great wrestlers.
No comments:
Post a Comment