Shinske Nakamura vs. Cody Rhodes WWE RAW 12/11
With in-ring wrestling becoming so homogenized over the last half a decade, it is refreshing to see someone who works at a slightly different pace and rhythm than the norm.
Nakamura plays the beats of a match slightly askew, his timing is funky, he doesn’t really do pop up spots and dancy reverals, instead preferring to slap on submissions from weird places. The counter of the Cody cutter into an crossarmbreaker could come off too cute in other hands, the Tyler Bate vs. Dragon Lee version of that move would be cloying, instead it really looked like Nakamura yanked his shoulder out of socket, I also dug him snatching a rear naked choke out of nowhere.
Nakamura is an Inoki disciple and he has some of Inoki’s sudden danger about what he does. Cody is a pretty reactive wrestler, he can get Seth Rollinsy when put in with Seth, but on the upside he can match Nakamura’s energy pretty well when given the chance. I also liked the red mist giving Cody a chance to do bloody Dusty cosplay in a promotion without a blade. I am into the idea of rematch, and love that Nakamura is out of the wilderness and back in a big position
Daniel Garcia vs. Eddie Kingston
AEW Collision 12/16
Yet again we get a head to head battle for this column spot between Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson, I really dug Danielson vs. King as kind of a slightly poor man’s Danielson vs. Morishima (and really was into the Final Battle six-man and main event), but Kingston takes this week by a hair in a great physical battle with Garcia.
When I interviewed Kingston for AEWay of the Blade he talked about how much he believed in Garcia, and they just match up great.
I have a bad knee from an old rugby injury, and Kingston is the best wrestler ever at giving me sympathy pains. Garcia blocks a half nelson suplex on the apron, by kicking Kingston in the patella and then takes him off the apron with a nasty awkward dragon screw. Kingston was in bad shape after that, and he seemed pissed not only at Garcia, but at his own body betraying him.
Kingston had a countdown until his knee swelled up so bad he couldn’t walk, so he was super aggressive dropping Garcia on his head and trying to cave his chest in with chops. Garcia meanwhile refused to back down to the bigger more experienced guy and kept getting in Eddie’s face and firing back at him.
I am generally not a fan of fighting spirit spots, they are almost always hack, there were two pretty great ones here though, with Eddie trying to pop up but his knee giving out because he stood too quickly, and Garcia gritting his teeth only to walk right into a backfist for the pin.
Killer match, I would love for these two to do more together after the CC wraps up.
Gabe Kidd vs. Will Osprey
Rev Pro Uprising 12/16
This match was set up with a lot of extremely incomprehensible British screaming at each other, and Kidd livestreaming himself jumping Osprey at a meet and great. Lots of Bruv’s and spittle, it felt like the two dumbest guys on a season of Geordie Shore getting into a fist fight at a chip shop at 2 am.
Luckily they leaned into that in the match, mostly forgoing the dramatic 2 count kick outs and reversal no-sells and instead focused on giving each other concussions. The opening slap fight was Dana White Power slap level of disregard for brain health and it kept going, with both guys getting busted open, and banging on skulls.
There were some big bombs like you might expect in a modern New Japan style indy match, but I liked how they kept coming back to hard KO shots. At one point they were on their knees clunking skulls and it felt like Danielson vs. McGuniness or Ikeda vs. Hashi.
The end had Osprey just murder Kidd, with a Tiger Driver 91, cutting off a rope run with a reckless jumping back elbow to the point of Kidd’s jaw and finally a hidden blade and forearms to the back of Kidd’s skull which knocked five levels of maths out of Kidd’s brain.
Sicko stuff which really leans into the parts of Osprey I enjoy, the utter disregard for the wellbeing of himself and his opponents.