maciej

March is basically over as of this NXT episode, right? 1. The Authors of Pain vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa, NXT Takeover: San Antonio, 1/28 2. The Revival vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa, NXT TV, 1/11 3. Pete Dunne vs. Mark Andrews, WWE UK Championship Tournament, 1/15 4. Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair, Raw, 2/13 5. Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne, WWE UK Championship Tournament, 1/15 6. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, Fastlane, 3/5 7. Sami Zayn vs. Braun Strowman, Raw, 1/2 8. Big Show vs. Braun Strowman, Raw, 2/20 9. Oney Lorcan vs. Andrade Cien Almas, NXT TV, 3/22 10. Sami Zayn vs. Seth Rollins, Raw, 1/23

I really did too. But, hey did y'all not love those Revival vs. AA matches before the great DIY matches came along? I didn't think I was particularly far on an island with thinking this were almost as amazing as the DIY series. Go Revival!

So for me a Meiko argument looks like this: First of all, I do think that while the better DIY/Revival match is worthy of all the hype that it gets and a fine choice for MOTY, and the AoP match from San Antonio match is also awesome, Meiko does actually have a bunch of matches that go above "that was pretty fun!" territory, and actually a higher quantity of great (or ****+ or whatever) matches in the period. Your mileage may vary, but the matches vs. Chihiro Hashimoto, vs. Aja Kong, w/ Hojo vs. Shirai/Iwatani, w/ DASH vs. Nanae/Yoshiko, vs. Tsukushi, and the King of Trios semis and finals, I like all of those better than the Gargano vs. Ciampa CWC match, which was totally quite good and helped build that very useful tension but for me isn't quite on that level. I forget which thread it was on where someone was putting it this way, but if you rank matches from the time period I think I would have it like #1 DIY, #2 Satomura, #3-5 DIY, and the literally like #6-#14 Satomura. The second thing is that, while there is obviously a lot more to wrestling than cool offense, Meiko just makes everything look really great. She has a variety of kicks that look great, she can be quick on the mat when necessary, the signature stuff like the cartwheel knee drop all works, and for me when you compare that to Gargano's slingshot spears and whatnot it's a pretty big advantage. Now she definitely hasn't had a year of vast improvement or incredibly important victories like DIY has. But, while I agree DIY totally belongs here and won't be too upset when they win, I'm still not sold on voting for them over who I think is the better wrestler and who has also had a very good year, even if it hasn't been as exciting of one or one that's as easy to put a cohesive narrative on.

I've never seen either of those guys before; that was really something. Some completely ridiculous dives in there, and yeah, a little random uncooperative-looking brawling, really fun stuff and highly recommended. The LA Park/Rush match is, of course, glorious as well.

I was looking forward to Justice/Garrini because it seemed like it would just be super fun and up my alley stylistically, but I definitely underestimated how goddamn good it would be. Great stuff.

I just voted Revival over and indy wrestler who has had an even more amazing year than Riddle, so that makes this choice super easy for me. Love Riddle, though. Have y'all seen the Rampage Brown match from Progress this year? It's such fun stuff and really helped allay some of my fears that he was getting too formulaic.

Man, I so can't get down with this. AJ has been way better than I expected on the mic since coming to WWE for sure, but I'll take Owens on the mic over anyone else. He projects his disdain for basically every wrestler so well and gets over as a legit heel while still basically having believable motivations. The Jericho run is my favorite character work anyone has done in WWE in a very long time and it wasn't just Jericho getting that over. I think I might still be voting AJ here, but yeah.

This is likely because I missed a few years of ROH and indie wrestling right when he was getting popular, but I just watched that main event and I cannot for the life of me understand people who cheer for Adam Cole.

I know that the basis of the case for Hero is such that one match not counting shouldn't really make a difference, but in case it sways anybody that is very understandably on the fence away from the vote I happen to support I'll point out that this match is not from the time period.

I hadn't really thought that much about why I enjoyed some of the G1 stuff last year more than I usually enjoy New Japan but this is probably right on the money.

I think these arguments are super valid assuming you like the top Hero matches close to as much as the top Revival matches, but it just didn't work out that way for me last year. He's clearly a very, very, very good wrestler, but way too many of his matches for me were ones in which like 8 minutes in I kept thinking "it looks like Hero has basically murdered the other person; why isn't this match over yet?" The one match of his I thought was really transcendent last year happened to happen on the last day of February (vs. Gresham in Beyond; if y'all have time to watch non-March Madness-eligible matches, get on that one), so that leaves, at the very least, 4 Revival matches I like better than my favorite Hero match in the period (I think the Revival/AA match from The End is barely worse than the big DIY one), and at that point I'll have to take that quality over quantity (and I think I've seen enough of the high-end Hero matches to say that with some level of confidence). So obviously I can still be accused of just having shitty taste in wrestling, but I'm pretty confident in my choices. God, so many parentheses.

I might not actually. Still, this one is pretty cut and dry for me.

Hey that Swann/Neville match was great!

This is super, super tough mostly because AoP/DIY match is my favorite match in the first two months of this year as well. Still, Io just has so much more good work than DIY do for me.

I'll take Satomura over AJ too if and when the time comes

poor, sweet caveman

Pretty happy I watched What Ever Happened to Baby Jane instead of this last night, as, based on most of the reactions in this thread, I wonder if I wouldn't like the matches I just watched a lot less if I had had to watch them within the context of this show as a whole. Specifically, I though Strowman/Reigns was excellent, and I don't hate the ending at all. Strowman escalating and doing increasingly athletic things is fine for his character, I think. Sasha climbing up and down Nia was probably my favorite wrestling thing of the night. Bayley/Charlotte was a little disappointing, though, especially that finis.

Yeah, February update, why not: 1. The Authors of Pain vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa, NXT Takeover: San Antonio, 1/28 2. The Revival vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa, NXT TV, 1/11 3. Pete Dunne vs. Mark Andrews, WWE UK Championship Tournament, 1/15 4. Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair, Raw, 2/13 5. Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne, WWE UK Championship Tournament, 1/15 6. Sami Zayn vs. Braun Strowman, Raw, 1/2 7. Big Show vs. Braun Strowman, Raw, 2/20 8. Sami Zayn vs. Seth Rollins, Raw, 1/23 9. AJ Styles vs. John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt vs. The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin, Elimination Chamber, 2/12 10. AJ Styles vs. John Cena, Royal Rumble, 1/29

I'd recommend the first two matches on that show (Star Jr/Robin vs. Cancerebro/Raziel and Soberano/Triton/Esfinge vs. Misterioso, Sagrado, Bobby Z) as well if you went straight for the (very good) main event, there's some really fun stuff in there.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I still like Keith Lee's ridiculous combination of power and agility and personality better, though.

Yeah rewatching the last one that lack of build really left me cold. There were things about it I really enjoyed, like the Cena clotheslines, but they seemed to realllllly quickly get to a level we're both guys were (work) exhausted and selling this epic match when they hadn't really worked for it yet.

I think I'm higher on the Bayley matches from this period than most, and I know I'm lower on those Cena/Styles matches than most people in this wrestling-loving world, so it's Bayley in a walk for me.

I think it might also be cuz a lot of us think they're not that good.

I like Hojo a whole lot, but Suzuki is a special, weird worker and I'll be voting for him. Having a dude throwing Fujiwara-y submission stuff into the pile of big dudes hitting each other that is BJW is awesome, and he gets across pure hatred as well as anyone in Japan. If you have 5 minutes and haven't seen the 5/30 tag with him and Uto vs. Okabayashi and Yasufumi Nakanoue, please spend that five minutes on watching Suzuki and Nakanoue get into a crazy-ass brawl and completely destroy the match in the best way possible.

I loved the match against the Stardom women but I realized this year that, outside of LU, I tend to not really love Pentagon matches all that much.