Will Ospreay Vs Kenny Omega - NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 (4/1/23)

  

Just a little bit of housekeeping here before mania week puts me too far behind in my 2023 viewing.  Ospreay/Omega feels like the biggest match this year I’ve not shared my views on, mainly because back in early January I was cranky as hell having just been diagnosed with a hernia and was not in the mood for the high-end athletic ability of Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega.  After Kenny’s great match with El Hijo Del Vikingo last week I was finally in the mood to revisit his big Dome Show encounter with Ospreay over the IWGP US Championship.

The first 80% of this match is absolutely fantastic and on another level to any other wrestling match I’ve seen this year.  

You know both guys are gonna bring flawless execution of their brand of wrestling to the table, but the bonus was they brought the aggression and petty hate to the match that was warranted after the shots fired leading up to Wrestle Kingdom.  A minute in they're already doing nasty bumps into the guard rail to go along with their high-octane offence - not a hint of a feeling out process at all in this one.  Omega works over the back for a while and Ospreay hits some of his regular routines, but then they start sprinkling in spots worthy of the biggest show of the year.  Omega does the Japanese table stomp spot to Ospreay, who retaliates with a suplex onto the metal frame of the underside of the table followed by a sensational corkscrew dive.

Where things reach the next level is Omega giving Ospreay a DDT onto the exposed turnbuckle which busted Ospreay open.  A huge spot which sets up the next chapter in this match - the butchering of Ospreay.  With blood streaming down his face, Ospreay then has his head repeatedly bashed into the broken table by Omega.  He then went on a parade of piledrivers, dragon suplexes and V-Triggers that reduced Ospreay to a lifeless ragdoll being flung around the ring without mercy.  Vicious Kenny is the best Kenny.

And then we come to the final 20% of this match where the match went in a direction I hated.  Despite hanging onto the match by a thread for the last 5 minutes since he got busted open, Ospreay then rallies to run through his finisher combos in a baffling comeback.....only to lose to Omega anyway.  I’m an Ospreay fan generally speaking, but I can’t stand his closing stretches where every match, regardless of his opponent, he insists on running through the Oscutter, Stormbreaker and Hidden Blade where the first couple will always be kicked out of.  It’s like a bastardised, modern version of Undertaker’s Chokeslam, Last Ride and Tombstone Piledriver nearfalls during streak matches – only Ospreay is doing it every match he has!!  I remember when the Hidden Blade was created as Ospreay’s death move and it concussed Ibushi in the Tokyo Dome, it was his Burning Hammer, and now he’s hitting the fucking thing 3 times a match and they always kick out of the first one.  I'll be here for another 1,000 words if I go into detail about how dumb the counter to the Oscutter looks. 

For me the ending of this match would have been so much better if Ospreay just toned down his ridiculous comeback, maybe limit it to one big hope spot, and he loses to Omega about 5 minutes earlier than he did to put over the blood loss and how on the ropes he looked.  To insert Ospreay’s ‘epic’ closing stretch actually turned an extraordinary match into an ordinary match.  In these moments Ospreay isn't a wrestler who reacts to the situation he's faced with.  He resorts to his instincts and empties his chamber when it's time to go home - and after years of watching him do in every match it all starts to ring hollow.  This is why I'm never quite all the way in with him and have to stop short of 'wrestler of the year' or 'match of the year' talk.  

That Kenny Omega though, he's off to a good start for 2023 wrestler of the year conversations.

So I don't know what to do with this match given how much I loved the majority of the action, but how irritating I found the ending.  I'm gonna add it to the MOTY ongoing list, but right at the bottom so it sets the standard of what to beat to make the list.  Typically I only add matches that are the whole package that I enjoyed from start to finish, but this is too good to write off.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

Worst WWE Match Ever - 92 - Team Raw vs. Team SmackDown - Survivor Series 2017

 92.

Traditional Survivor Series Match

Team SmackDown - Bobby Roode, John Cena, Randy Orton, Shane McMahon & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Team Raw - Braun Strowman, Finn Balor, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe & Triple H

Survivor Series 2017

After last year’s excellent Raw vs SmackDown traditional Survivor Series match, you’d be forgiven for thinking this match could follow suit. And looking at the list of men in the match, you can certainly see the potential for something decent, and not one of the 100 worst matches in WWE history. However a closer look reveals a couple of wrestlers in this match that are clearly out of place. And therein lies the problem which we will of course address here. 

Standard affair for the set up to this. Since the reintroduction of the brand extension they began to run an annual SmackDown vs Raw Survivor Series. Shane was upset that SmackDown is considered the B show (which is the set up to literally all of these brand supremacy storylines). However there’s extra authority figure struggles after Stephanie McMahon took exception to Shane invading Raw, and now Kurt’s job is at risk as punishment for her embarrassment. If Raw loses, then Kurt Angle will be out as Raw General Manager. 

For the first part of the match, you may be wondering why this match is on this list. The match wasn’t particularly exciting in terms of action. What I did like and appreciate was that they took the time to soak in the unique matchups that the match put together. They really milked the interesting combinations of wrestlers like Triple H vs Nakamura, Joe vs Cena, and even a bizarre mirror match between Triple H and Bobby Roode - which is a long time comparison that I didn’t even think WWE would even entertain referencing. Even the homages to matches that happened elsewhere like Balor vs Nakamura and Angle vs Roode were pretty neat.

In fact, in rewatching this for this review, I began to second guess myself. Why did I think this was one of the 100 worst matches in WWE history? The first part of the match, while nothing spectacular, was interesting and fanservice-y enough to make it enjoyable. Then it all happened and everything became clear again.

Other Survivor Series matches can become more interesting as the match develops as stories are allowed to grow and there’s a focus on the more important wrestlers. And there certainly is more of a focus on the more important wrestlers. The issue is that those "important wrestlers" are the 50-year-old part timers. Braun eliminates Nakamura (the guy that will be winning the Royal Rumble and going to Wrestlemania in a matter of months) and Bobby Roode first in quick succession. This would be a sign of things to come. Roode never translated to the main roster and you can point to matches like this as an example why. The “Glorious” gimmick is one that only works when the man is a focus of the brand, because he basically treated himself like a Ric Flair / Triple H hybrid. That cannot work if you aren’t all-in on the man, which they never were on the main roster. As for Nakamura, while this wasn’t what killed him on the main roster, it’s not a good sign for his future.

The other problem is this match made SmackDown look like crap. In the context of the match, SmackDown was the more unified team, whereas Raw competitors were constantly bickering with one another. The SmackDown wrestlers even go out of their way to take Braun out of the match (with some help from two already-eliminated wrestlers). But it doesn’t matter because despite all that, the Raw team is just better.

Let’s talk about some other guys. For the second time in this list, John Cena’s impact on the match is to essentially be a cheerleader for the rest of the wrestlers. A tremendous waste of a big name. Samoa Joe and Finn Balor get a couple of token moments, but outside that make very little impact on the match, and as a result this match did as much good for them as it did for Roode and Nakamura. 

This is a classic example of the booking and order of elimination being so crucial to these matches. The focus of the second half of the match was on Shane McMahon, Triple H, Kurt Angle and Braun Strowman. Once Angle gets in a second time against John Cena, it’s just sad. Kurt Angle, for better or worse, was one of the most dynamic and explosive wrestlers in his prime with a 100mph style that helped popularise an entire genre of wrestling. But in 2017 after so many injuries and countless other problems, he’s noticeably struggling to move around the ring. Shane McMahon isn’t much better though and continues his geriatric performances here. Now the argument may be, “well these men are in their 50s, how much can you expect of them”. To which my response would be, okay so why are these the men you are focusing on.

The only wrestler who debuted after 2002 who managed to get a pin in this whole match was Braun Strowman. And while the match did a decent job of making Braun look good, it wasn’t at the expense of anyone that could afford it (like Shane, Orton or Cena) but rather at the expense of the younger talent. 

Later in the match, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn attack Shane McMahon because they feel like they should have been on Team SmackDown. Well, they’re not wrong, that’s for sure. It’s ok though because Shane McMahon fights them both off anyway, so what’s the point outside of making more fresh talents look like shit. Not only this, but if you are going to use Zayn and Owens as a means to hurt SmackDown, why not use them in a situation that could explain Roode or Nakamura's elimination? Instead they are just an obstacle that Shane McMahon alone has to overcome. 

At the end of the match we're left with Shane McMahon up against Braun Strowman, Kurt Angle and Triple H. The three Raw stars take more time to fight over who gets to fight Shane. If you though Angle and Cena was sad, watching Angle and Shane recreating the early parts of their King of the Ring match was tragic. Angle gets Shane in the ankle lock for an excruciatingly long time. As someone who vehemently hates Shane McMahon matches, even most of his lauded ones, this match is a chore to get through in the second half of the match. After at least a minute in the ankle lock, Triple H shocks everyone by turning on Angle. A pedigree allows Shane to pin Angle, making it 2-1 in favour of Raw. 

Braun’s confused look is everyone at this. Triple H teases teaming with Shane, but it’s all a shocking ruse as he pedigrees Shane which allows him to pick up the win for Team Raw. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Triple H goes over. The commentators go on to say how Triple H played Braun Strowman, but he didn’t. HHH never did anything to Braun so the double turn (if you can even call it that) just felt like a contrived way of trying to get some reason for Braun to attack HHH after the match. That’s not even to mention how much of an idiot it makes Shane look like to let his guard down next to the notoriously trustworthy Triple H.

Ultimately this match did set up the surprisingly excellent mixed tag match featuring Angle and Triple H at Wrestlemania. But outside of that, it was mostly inconsequential. Like all brand supremacy storylines this was forgotten about in a matter of weeks. Instead, WWE dropped the opportunity to showcase it’s fresh talent in favour of old men. The second half of this match is a tiresome microcosm of the sort of things that have often held back WWE in its history. It set a bad precedent for Shane McMahon being all over WWE television in a wrestling capacity in 2019, and for that reason alone this match deserves it's place here.

Up next - midgets and clowns. Yep, it’s the mid 90s WWF.

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Kenny Omega Vs El Hijo Del Vikingo - AEW Dyanmite 22/2/23

This was your quintessential popcorn/fireworks match where you park your brain for 20 minutes and just let yourself be wowed by the spectacle playing out in front of your eyes. 

I had no doubts that Vikingo would impress on his AEW debut.  His high flying spots are so unique and mind boggling that he was always going to get over with this crowd, especially with a seasoned pro in Kenny Omega as his dance partner to keep up with him.  The implosion rana about a minute in set the tone for the bonkers spots dotted throughout the match, the meteora through the ropes was fantastic, and the multiple dragon rana’s were crazy, and I thought he killed Omega when he countered the top rope powerbomb into a last-second super rana.  We’re talking about a guy that makes Fenix seem about as mobile as Kevin Nash post quad blow out. 

The step up-630 through the table was amazing and probably the pick of the highlight reel.  When Kenny set the table up so close to the apron, I knew it was for the signature Vikingo 630 dive, but that didn’t stop my jaw falling a little closer to the ground at how perfect it was.  I wasn’t around for Rey Mysterio bursting onto the scene in America in the mid 90s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is how it felt to live through that.

First impressions aren’t an issue for this guy, it’s when you’ve seen him for the 10^th and 11^th time and you’re looking for him to do something other than just all his big spots, something specific to the match and the challenge he’s facing and not just for his opponent to take his moves one after another and not impose themselves on the match.  Unfortunately he’s not always a hit.  I saw him have a match with Fenix last year at AAA which I thought was majorly disappointing because it was nothing but spots and it had no flow and a lot of stalling.  The spot heavy nature of this match worked because it was designed purely as a showcase of Vikingo's abilities, but if he's making more appearances in the future for AEW I think the fans will eventually want more substance out of him.

I have to give credit to Kenny here for being an able match for Vikingo, keeping up with that incredible pace, doing his part to make Vikingo look great by landing everything perfectly, putting some extra vinegar on his offence to make the match feel special and in general doing everything in his power to help make this sensational luchador a star in the US in one night.  Kenny in 2023 looks and feels back to his best.  I think this was better than any match he had during his AEW World title reign, and this is his 2^nd match on my MOTYC list already.  If I could get motivated to write up my thoughts on Omega/Ospreay he’d probably make that 3. 

Kenny won the match eventually at the 17 minute mark with the one winged angel, but Vikingo had won enough new fans along the way to not come away feeling like a loser.  If he wasn’t already a coveted booking on the indies (and beyond!), he certainly is now.  I really enjoyed Bandido’s first night in AEW against Chris Jericho last year, but this was another level.  If they ever bring in Vikingo again they can’t keep him on ice like they have done Bandido.

I would have preferred the Elite’s latest chapter of melodrama to have been saved for another week so that the show’s closing moments be centred on Vikingo with some kind of standing ovation from the crowd or Kenny giving him a sign of respect.  I found the ambulance joy-ride complete with the Scott Steiner sirens to be a hokey callback to the Attitude Era, and the Kenny/Hangman trust issues can get in the bin with Bray Wyatt’s Wrestlemania plans.  Surely Kenny’s gonna take a break from playing Resident Evil 4 this week to watch a replay of Don faking the Hangman attack.

Anyway, I’ll wrap this review up with a request to Tony Khan for the next AEW dream match:

Claudio Vs Vikingo.

Make it so.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List

WWE Worst Match Ever - 93 - Billy Gunn vs. Kenzo Suzuki - Great American Bash 2004

 93.

Billy Gunn vs. Kenzo Suzuki

Great American Bash 2004

2004 SmackDown was a weird, sad, grim place. The main event scene had a giant Brock Lesnar sized hole that needed patched up. Undertaker was back as the Deadman, but WWE were still getting the grips on how to book this supernatural being in a post-Attitude era world - no doubt we’ll get to that later in this project. Bradshaw was suddenly thrust into the main event as the brand’s champion after Eddie Guerrero struggled with the pressure of heading a brand. Beyond that, however, the brand had lost Benoit, but it wasn’t like it had been culled like they had in, say, 2007.

Speaking of post-Attitude era world, this is where Billy Gunn got lost. After a relatively interesting gimmick with Chuck (at least interesting by Billy Gunn standards), he was back to where he was. See WWE as a whole had an issue with reverting back to what was popular 4 years ago. Back in the late 90s into the early 00s, WWE was hotter than ever, with seemingly every midcard act being popular. But as time grew on, many talents like Billy Gunn, Rikishi, the Dudleyz, Hardcore Holly just loitered as the leftover remnants of a time when WWE was the hottest thing in the world. They weren’t getting fresh new gimmicks, just existing in much the same way they had for years earlier except with more mileage on the clock. 

In among this, however, SmackDown in 2004 was clearly making an active effort after Wrestlemania to promote new stars. As you’ll see in the list to follow, we can generously say this is a mixed bag of success at best. JBL is the obvious example. Beyond that however, there was a conscious effort to heavily push young talent like John Cena (probably a smart decision) and Renee Dupree who had been around a couple of years. As well as this, SmackDown began introducing new stars such as Mordecai, Mark Jindrak, and our showcase wrestler here, Kenzo Suzuki. 

Michael Cole comments that Suzuki is undefeated since coming in to WWE, not 30 seconds before we are presented with Suzuki being disqualified on the Thursday before this show to set this match up. I’m a big Cole fan nowadays but my god he didn’t half come out with some rubbish lines in his time. There is a fantastic exchange between him and Tazz regarding Suzuki’s geisha manager’s name.

Tazz: “Hiroku”

Cole: “It’s Hiroko”

Tazz: “All right, all right, I don’t speak Japanese!”

Cole comments that Kenzo is out for vengeance … because of reasons. He’s basically a typical anti-American evil foreigner fit with every stereotype of a Japanese samurai. This gimmick feels incredibly dated for this time period - made even worse by Kenzo’s goofy mannerisms. If you dumped Kenzo into 1980s WWF, maybe he wouldn’t stand out as badly as he does here. But if you think his awkward wannabe samurai mannerisms were bad, his wrestling here was even worse.

If I didn’t know better this felt like it was an effort to fit as many long drawn out restholds in a single match. I counted 4 decently long rest holds, including 2 nerve holds, one of which sucked all the life out of an already tepid crowd. Yep, he would definitely fit into 1980s WWF. By the final nerve hold, the fans generously give Gunn a rousing USA chant. During Gunn’s comeback, Suzuki was absolutely nowhere he needed to be for Gunn’s comeback, to the point that Billy was awkwardly picking him up during a basic comeback routine. This man was woefully underprepared for a pay-per-view match. It is not often I watch a Billy Gunn match and think he’s comfortably the better wrestler in the match. There’s parts where Suzuki is building up that he’s going to hit Gunn with some big move after he gets up, just to put him in another rest hold, or do the world’s worst shining wizard. 

A low blow followed by an ugly looking neckbreaker picks up the win for Suzuki.

Shockingly, Suzuki would stick around a fair bit longer than this, even going on to win the WWE Tag Team Titles with Renee Dupree before being released in 2005. Billy Gunn would go on to leave WWE in 2004, hang about in TNA for a while, and is still relevant on television in 2023 as part of AEW.

Up next - I’ve got two traditional Survivor Series matches coming up one after the other. This recent Survivor Series match is lucky that I consider it just a little bit better than the match with the midgets and the clowns. 

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The Elite Vs House of Black - AEW Revolution (5/3/23)

Hopefully a quick review here as it's been 10 days since the PPV so no need to go too in-depth on a cold topic, but I'm determined to keep an updated MOTYC list this year.

This was a great lesson in tolerance because as many of you know, I do not like The House of Black's gimmick, but this was undeniably awesome.  I'm 34 years old now and I have no use for supernatural gimmicks in wrestling, and that's a firm stance I take whether it's Malakai Black's nonsense in AEW or Bray Wyatt's nonsense in WWE.  This means I really struggle to get into any program that Black, King or Murphy do in AEW because I either skip their vignettes or just roll my eyes through them, which is frustrating because I rate them all highly as workers and think the look of the act is good.  They're a super intimidating trio that all offer something different in the ring rather than being three stylistically similar wrestlers doing a bunch of triple team spots.  

I think that's why this match worked for me a lot more than the recent Elite trios matches against Death Triangle and Top Flight/AR Fox.   It wasn't just a 20 minute match where the action had the same beats regardless of who was in the ring, the action was specific to who was in the ring.  If Buddy was in the ring, he'd showcase his athleticism against the man he's clearly influenced by in Kenny Omega.  If Black was in the ring, he'd look to control things with his martial arts clinches and try to land a killer blow with a kick.  If Brody was in the ring, then the monster was in play.   Brody was the MVP of the match to me.  I think they did a grand job of making the guy look like a beast, the Elite sold for him like crazy when he was on offence, but he had that Vader like quality of selling so convincingly that he still looked like he could be beaten if the babyfaces landed the right combination of moves.  

A word on Julia Hart too.  The brainwashing mist that forced her to wear an eyepatch for months before she finally join The House of Black was really corny shit, but it's done wonders for her career.  She's now a solid part of the stable and has more upside in this gimmick than she ever had before in the Varsity Blondes gimmick.  A highlight of the match was Julia's bump off the accidental V-Trigger which Kenny brushed off like she was asking for it and he didn't give it a seconds thought or remorse about it - That was awesome, too many babyfaces fake concern for managers and valets who deserve to be caught in the crossfire. 

Where this match hit the next level was the nearfalls for either team before the finish.  These were better than nearfalls, these were believable finishes that worked me back and forth.  Firstly Omega eats the Black Mass and then Brody's Dante's Inferno and has to be saved by a Buck a piece.  When Brody does the suicide dive to take out both the Bucks and Omega yet again is staring down the barrel of a 3 on 1 onslaught, I thought the finish was coming as Black lined up the Black Mass, but the bucks made the save again.  Then came The Elite's big comeback with the superkicks and BTE-Trigger, and I was worked yet again that that was the finish.  Buddy Murphy countered the Meltzer Driver with a hellacious knee to Nick Jackson's face which set up the ultimate finish of the Dante's Inferno on Matt Jackson.  I didn't know which way they'd go when the match started, but The House of Black won me over big time as the trio I'm most interested in seeing in AEW and to crown them here felt like the right result.

If they keep delivering in the ring, I'll keep putting up with the Occult vignettes.

Ed's Ongoing 2023 MOTY List