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The 2012 MOTYC thread

340K views 3K replies 192 participants last post by  Alan4L 
#1 ·
#1,197 ·
WWE No Way Out 2012

Christian vs Cody Rhodes
Christian's selective selling of his arm stopped this from going into the 'great' territory. He sold the arm well enough in the opening sections of the match to keep me satisfied until the finishing stretch and what a finishing stretch it was. Plenty of finisher teases and a great false finish.
Rating: ★★★½

CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan vs Kane
Plenty of believable near-falls and they managed to take my mind of the stuff with AJ long enough so it was a surprise when she finally appeared. Punk and Bryan were the stars here and Kane can have a good showing in the right circumstances, and this was one example.
Rating: ★★★¾

Big Show vs John Cena (Steel Cage)
I know I'm in the minority but I really enjoyed this match. Things started off slow but it established Show as a monster and Cena as the underdog. It's your typical formulaic Cena performance spiced up with some sweet bumping from both men. This really gets good around the time the interference happens. Overbooked fun that will leave you wondering what will happen next.
Rating: ★★★½
 
#1,204 ·
Luke Gallows vs Charlie Dreamer - OSF 07.04.2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4y6ybeWFlw

Super around the arena brawl. Gallows looks totally badass and destructive and Dreamer's a great babyface too. Feels really uncooperative but in a good way of course and they get the desperation of fighting for their lives over really well. Really well structured for an unstructured brawl. Super spot where Gallows slides a bin into Dreamer and it takes his legs out and he splats on the floor. I'm not always a fan of arena brawls but Gallows has shown he's great at them since his release and this is the best brawl of 2012 so far for me. Preferred it to the Gallows/Davis brawls from last year too that nobody on here ever watched.


****+
 
#1,206 ·
Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs Yoshihito Sasaki & Shinya Ishikawa - BJW 25.05.2012
You know the routine by now. Loved the extra little touches they do in this. Stuff like Ishikawa not leaving his hands open for Okbayashi to stamp on them, Oka fighting his way out of a snapmare and Ishikawa teasing stopping the body slams of doom. Yoshihito, please don't headbutt people like that again. Sasaki/Okabayashi is gonna rule as long as Sasaki doesn't knock himself loopy for the finish again.

****
 
#1,210 ·
NWA ANARCHY HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE
STEEL CAGE MATCH from NWA Anarchy episode 333
SHAWN TEMPERS VS AZRAEL

This match was just bloody, these guys held nothing back. This whole NWA Anarchy vs. NWA Elite feud is too intense.

*** for the match itself, **** for the intensity and importance of the match to the storyline.
 
#1,214 ·
Caught the AAW show tonight and honestly, Davey/Sami was pretty good but not MOTYC material for me. There was a lot of energy there and things got pretty stiff at times, as it should between these two, but it felt a little.. flat. Like they both were trying hard to make it work, but at maybe 80 to 90 percent capacity. It's not atypical for bigger names to give less due to the lessened expectations of a smaller indy's crowd -- some worse than others in this regard -- but, yeah, it wasn't the wild, all out match it might have been in PWG or some other top-flight indy promotion. And maybe it's my fault for believing it would be, I don't know. I mean, I enjoyed the match, loved the atmosphere, and the in-ring action was actually fairly solid. But at the same time, perhaps I expected more?

I will say, the show was main evented by an insane six-man tag match between Silas Young and the Irish Airborne vs. BJ Whitmer/Jimmy Jacobs/Arik Cannon, and it was everything I expected and more. None of those six guys are that big of names but the match felt huge. Whitmer had his face cut open and there was plenty of back-and-forth to keep the crowd on its feet the entire time. It was a crazy, sprawling brawl and it told a great story. The Whitmer/Jacobs blood feud really impacted it, and there was this constant questioning of whether or not that team could keep it together long enough to pull out a W. Silas's heel work was top notch, and it's only getting better, and as great as the atmosphere was for Davey/Sami, I'd be remiss if I said the atmosphere produced in the six-man tag wasn't better.

Richards vs. Callihan: ***1/4
Silas/Irish Airborne vs. Whitmer/Jacobs/Cannon: ***3/4

Neither MOTYC from a classical standpoint, but fairly good for local indy standards. I'd definitely check out that main event if you're interested in seeing some wild brawling with a little story tossed in.
 
#1,216 ·
Damien Wayne vs Chris Escobar - VCW 02.06.2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkuJg6V6Dw

Has plenty of flashy Indy style spots but they structure this well and it's nicely paced out. They do a great job of working as equals and going back and forth without it ever being silly and infuriating. Wayne's wheelbarrow spot was cool. Really liked how he kicked Escobar in the gut while he was tied up in the tree of woe to set up the top rope leg drop. Looked much better than Ki's phony stomp from the same position where the other guy just sits perfectly in position for the spot rather than just falling down in the tree so Ki can't hit the move. Some of Escobar's stuff could be a bit smoother and a tad tighter but it's fine. Finish is the best part of the match which put a huge smile on my face. Represents the match perfectly I thought. Dug this a lot.


****+
 
#1,218 · (Edited)
CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan (WWE, Over The Limit 2012)

Fantastic match really. I was shocked to see them working stiff style like that, kudos. It was nice to see something like that in WWE (aside Lesnar/Cena), they wrestled a grand Junior style match, with a ton of reverseals, and fast back-and-forht action. Bryan is insanely over, so he needs to turn face ASAP, and his YES! shtick is making him a legit superstar, they need to pull the trigger with the man, ffs. They told a simple story about knowing each other so well, and the strategies and game plans were simple and effective - Punk was going after DBD's leg, and DBD was going after Punk's ribs. I loved the finish, Bryan looked damn strong there. To sum up, this was fantastic, and we need to see them going 1-on-1 again. MOTY(C), no doubt about it.
Rating: ****1/2
 
#1,220 ·
Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel vs. Heath Slater & Johnny Curtis - NXT, 6/6
Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel vs. Tyler Reks & Curt Hawkins - Superstars, 6/21

The Kidd/Gabriel team is quite possibly my favorite thing in WWE right now, at least from an in-ring perspective. I don't know what, if anything, it's going to take to get them a better spot on the card, but I'd love to see them as champs sooner than later.
 
#1,221 ·
Seth Rollins vs Dean Ambrose - Florida Heavyweight Championship. FCW 6.24.12

This match is really great, the chemistry these two have together is absolutely fantastic and it's on par with their work last year imo. Ambrose completely shines in this for me and the way he works this shows just how much he's improved since first going to FCW. The early armwork on Rollins is really well done and shows how technically sound Dean has become. Some of the shoulder work looks really painful too and I think it might be a callback to some previous match they had where Rollins had an injured shoulder and Ambrose did something similar. Ambrose essentially works two different styles for the match which is really great to see and shows how versatile he's become. Selling from both men is a delight to watch to and they really put over the battle wounds which adds to an awesome finishing stretch. Really, really good match and it seemed to fly by for me.

Oh and Regal on commentary was an absolute treat. The way he progresses from the beginning to the end from the hollow shell of what he once was, admiring Ambrose but not wanting to go anywhere near him to slowly becoming more involved in the match and remembering when he fought Dean to the end where he openly admits he wants one more go at Ambrose is superb and really adds to the match imo. He's probably my favourite commentator at the moment.

****1/4
 
#1,224 · (Edited)
Haven't had a chance to sit down and write for a while, so here it goes:

No Way Out, key matchups

John Cena vs Big Show
If anyone wants to see why Cena/Lesnar was such a breath of fresh air, watch this match. There's a lot to like, especially early on when Big Show first misses his first attempt at the WMD, but unlike the Lesnar match, the scent of danger and unpredictability is gone from the air. It's a basic story that Cena does well, but once we hit the extended beatdown segment, it turns into the match we expected: Big Show hits a move, Cena writhes in agony, Big Show yells. Rinse, repeat. They set up the WMD well, and the announcing team does a pretty good job of selling the danger in body blows, but this is all storytelling 101 stuff that has been around since King Kong Bundy and even for a Big man destroys little(er) man match, there's a lot of wandering around. Cena, of course, times his comebacks well, hitting his flurries of offense and drawing pops from the crowd, which is what makes Cena the babyface champion that he is (good or bad. Take your pick).

Annnnd then the overbooking begins, and this thing goes to hell. First we get Johnny trying to intercept Cena, McMahon intercepting Johnny, Johnny taking McMahon down. Fine. Ok. Makes sense, that's what McMahon would have done to Austin or Rock. But then things get screwy as Big Show nails the ref, and then nails Cena. Clean. Big Show has an opportunity to win. Clean.

In the WWE universe,apparently, one heelish action by the authority figure justifies a "by any means necessary" approach for the rest of the match on the part of the babyface. Nevermind that Show never did anything dirty. So...because Johnny cheated at one point in the match, interference from Brodus, Alex Rielly, Santino, and finally Kofi, is not only ok, but moral. We can cheer the AA Cena hits. We can cheer the race between Big Show and Cena to get to the floor, all because Johnny did one rotten thing, thereby justifying the faces blatantly cheating. And that, Ladies and gentlemen, is the moral code of your WWE.

I'm going to have to go ** 1/2 on this one. Cena and Show put on a perfectly acceptable match with all the necessary spots to make it a main event, but the warped double standards that have plagued John Cena's run at the top once again reared their ugly head. Lesnar/Cena had a terrible ending, but it was still better than this crap.

Bryan/Kane/Show
Fun, fun match, but whereas Cena/Show was morally confused, this one was thematically confused. Was the story Punk/Bryan/AJ with Kane as an added player, or Punke/Kane/AJ with Bryan as an added player. Early on, the match plays like it's Punk/Bryan, but the ending eliminates Bryan from the equation all together. Odd. Early on, the chemistry between Bryan and Punk is fantastic. The way they communicate with each other, and the way the switch so seamlessly from tag partners (when they are mutually targeting Kane) back to enemies is great. Not too much to say about the action as it's what you expect: tight, crisp, and doesn't leave much breathing room. This is how you do a triple threat match. Kane looks good as well, hitting a low drop kick on Punk near the post (he would also hit a seated dropkick on Daniel Bryan on the next night's Raw. As people have noted in other posts, he's looking VERY motivated). It's good to see Kane moving that well again. All the little things are there, such as how CM Punk grabs Daniel Bryan by both his ears to yell "NO!" It's a nice little match with some cool spots such as the battle over the right to superplex Bryan. That spot returns later as Bryan tries to superplex Punk, but then Kane pulls him into an Electric Chair position, allowing Punk to Hit a Doomsday device. THAT's how you do a call back.

All the problems people have with ending I share. DB dissapears for a good 3 minutes, which was probably seen as a way to protect him when they came up with it, relegates him to the sidelines in reality. I've only come to this conclusion in seeing how the story played out over the past two Raws, where Kane has basically been written out of the story. It's a good example how booking doesn't always translate from theory to practice, and how there are frequently good intentions behind questionable booking decisions. I like this match lots, but it feels like a transition match, and not a real match. Kind of like a very good Raw Main Event. Can't go higher the *** 1/2.

Ziggler vs Sheamus
Match of the Night. Not a question in my mind on that. I know that some of it feels stilted, with Dolph bringing Sheamus' momentum to a halt with sleeper holds, but I think that's the right story, and they tell it fantastically. One of Ziggler's great talents is going from 0 to sixty. He'll look like he has no chance one minute, and then he'll turn on the juice very similar to what I remember from Randy Savage. I'm a sucker for crowds turning a guy "face" during a match, and that's exactly what happened here. I especially like how Lawler had to try and cover up the "Let's go Ziggler" chants by claiming they were chanting "Let's Go Sheamus!" Ziggler, like Bryan, is going to go forward as a tweener in that he will be a heel in storyline terms, but a clear face for much of the crowd. You're going to be seeing a lot of that as WWE moves forward, and I think it may be the best thing for them. Ziggler is the clear ring general here, but Sheamus keeps up with him just fine, and is clearly improving as he works with talents like Ziggler and Bryan. In a couple years, maybe even as little as 1, I think Sheamus will be the wrestler WWE wants him to be. I have no problems with that as long as they let guys lik Ziggler shine along with him.
*** 3/4

Christian vs Cody
I don't get it. I like both of these wrestlers. Cody is my favorite mid card talent (that excludes upper midcarders like Ziggler and Bryan) and yet there's nothing for me really to grab onto here. The action was crisp, they hit their spots, they went back and forth, fighting with expert timing, but something was missing. I think in the end, the problems lies with them working a WWE style match, with no real WWE storyline. All of this would have killed if there was a build to it, and not just the unfocused rantings that Cody has been reduced to as of late. All the dramatic pauses, dramatic reversals, and dramatic moments were there, but there were no real stakes, so all the drama was theoretical in nature. Like they were teaching a class. Where as Sheamus/Ziggler gave me hope that WWE can handle its talent, this match just bummed me out to no end and confirmed my belief that talent needs management and creative to put it in position to succeed.

** 1/2-***. Take your pick.

Over all this show was kind of a reversal of Over The Limit. Over the Limit was a huge surprise where every match delivered more than I expected. That was a great card with a little bit for everyone and with booking that made sense (I'm excluding all these compliments from the main event. That was terrible). No Way Out provided exactly what was expected, with no pleasant surprises, and with all the booking I feared. It was grim professionalism, with enough excitement to keep the crowd entertained, but without anything to truly cherish. Only the past two Raws and a fantastic Smackdown have helped keep me optimistic. The subsequent Bryan/Punk/Kane matches have alleviated my concerns over the ending here, and their collective chemistry continues to impress.

Thumbs in the middle show. Filler PPV.
 
#1,228 ·
I need to re-watch Lesnar/Cena and Richards/Elgin to evaluate where they really belong, but they kind of rule my list right now.

1. Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena - Extreme Rules
2. Daniel Bryan vs. CM Punk – WWE Over the Limit
3. Kazuchika Okada Vs. Tetsuya Naito – NJPW 4/3
4. Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus 2/3 Falls - Extreme Rules
5. Kana Vs. Syuri - SMASH 2/23
6. Davey Richards Vs. Michael Elgin – ROH Showdown in the Sun Night 2
7. Hiroshi Tanahashi Vs. Minoru Suzuki – Wrestle Kingdom 67
8. Akira Tozawa & BxB Hulk Vs. Jimmy Susumu & Jimmy Kagetora – Dragon Gate Infinity 252
9. Shingo Takagi Vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima - Diamond Ring 2/11
10. CIMA Vs. PAC – Dragon Gate Infinity 252
11. Kurt Angle & AJ Styles Vs. Daniels & Kazarian – TNA Slammiversary
12. CM Punk Vs. Chris Jericho – Wrestlemania
13. Austin Aries Vs. Samoa Joe – TNA Slammiversary
14. El Generico & Harashima Vs. Kenny Omega & KUDO - DDT
15. Daniel Bryan Vs. CM Punk - Live Smackdown (Restart-Mania, but they worked harder every time)
16. Kenny Omega Vs. Hiroshi Yamato - AJPW 1/3
17. Shingo Takagi Vs. Akira Tozawa – No Ropes Match from Dragon Gate Infinity 251
18. Low Ki Vs. El Generico - EVOLVE 11
19. Kenny Omega Vs. Shuji Kondo - AJPW Pro Wrestling Love in Ryogoku Vol 14
20. Low Ki Vs. Jon Davis EVOLVE 13
21. Davey Richards Vs. Kevin Steen – ROH: Border Wars
22. Austin Aries vs Alex Shelley - TNA Against All Odds
23. El Generico Vs. Kevin Steen – ROH Showdown in the Sun Night 1
24. Kota Ibushi vs El Generico - DDT 4/5
25. Kazuchika Okada Vs. Hirooki Goto – NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 3/5
26. Daniel Bryan vs Big Show - No DQ Match - Smackdown January 6
27. Undertaker Vs. HHH -Hell in a Cell, Wrestlemania 28
28. Daisuke Sekimoto vs Yuji Okabayashi - BJW 2/26
 
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