The Best Match of 2021: SHINGO TAKAGI vs. WILL OSPREAY "NJPW DONTAKU" MAY 4TH

     These two also won Best Match of 2019, so it was pretty much inevitable they would do it again. The funny thing is that this was their second match of 2021, after Will Ospreay beat Shingo Takagi in the finals of the New Japan Cup. Ospreay won a title shot and beat Ibushi for the title. This was a main event title match then and it shockingly lived up to all expectations. It was 44 minutes long and I'm not sure if there was even a dull second in this. The huge surprise in all of this is that in Japan all year, every match was held in half full arenas in front of crowds that were only allowed to clap. Considering that hindered most wrestling shows, it's almost unbelievable that this epic, four star masterpiece arose out of such dire circumstances (the Jr. title match on the same show was cancelled because of Covid). This was also, sadly, pretty much the peak of New Japan this year. Ospreay injured his neck after this match and had to relinquish the title and leave the company. He wasn't seen in Japan the rest of 2021. But he certainly left his mark. This might have been, actually, maybe, perhaps, better than any of the Okada/Omega matches, which are legendary. And now this one is, too. 

Other Notable Matches:

Jay White vs. Kota Ibushi   NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 15 Night 2   1/5

Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi   NJPW New Japan Cup Finals   3/21

Walter vs. Tommaso Ciampa   NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver   4/7

Utami Hayashishita vs. Syuri   Stardom Tokyo Dream Cinderella Special Edition   6/12

The Young Bucks vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus   AEW Dynamite   8/18

Ilja Dragunov vs. Walter   NXT Takeover 36   8/22

The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Brothers   AEW All Out   9/5

Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson   AEW Grand Slam   9/22

Kota Ibushi vs. Shingo Takagi   NJPW G1 Climax Day 9   10/3

The Best Wrestlers of 2021: THE YOUNG BUCKS

  

   It seems like every year I contemplate giving The Young Bucks the Wrestlers of the Year award. They were in 2020's match of the year. In 2021 they were in the 2nd best match of the year, a cage match against The Lucha Brothers. The reason The Young Bucks are always in the conversation for wrestlers of the year is simply because they're entertaining. When you watch a Young Bucks match you know that you're going to be entertained. You're going to have a great time. They create a party type atmosphere. And this year they turned heel while they held the tag titles all year until September. Their heel personas were so stupid and so amusing that you had to shake your head at the audacity of their creativity. Wearing bright pink matching outfits, dying their beards, wearing nose ring jewelry. They had one match dressed up like basketball players with a hoop at ringside, and another match before Halloween dressed up as ghostbusters. While they had good matches against Moxley & Kingston and The Lucha Brothers in the Spring and early Summer, their entertainment value began to peak in July and August when AEW started to tour across the country again and the Bucks had a series of unforgettable matches in front of raucous, frothing-at-the-mouth crowds. They had a match against Penta & Kingston that included a Canadian Destroyer through a ringside table and a Superkick to a mouthful of thumbtacks. They defeated Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus in one of the year's most entertaining matches that was wild, crazy, frenetic, fast-paced, and hilarious (Brandon Cutler waving a flare to distract Luchasaurus). The wild summer culminated in the Bucks' four star masterpiece cage match against The Lucha Brothers, a match that included thumbtack sneakers. The Young Bucks, as usual, had a killer year filled with a billion highlights and pretty much good to great matches every time out. That's very rare, as if you didn't know.

The Best Show of 2021: AEW ALL OUT

 

   Every AEW show is wildly entertaining, but All Out this year happened to be the one with two monumental surprise debuts to close the show. As if Adam Cole making his debut after the Kenny Omega vs. Christian match wasn't big enough, the debut of Bryan Danielson happened right after that. I'm not sure I can ever remember a wrestling PPV having such a monumental ending. It felt like the wrestling world had shifted when All Out went off the air, and can you think of another wrestling show ever doing that? And besides the huge debuts to close the show, All Out also had the 2nd best wrestling match of the year, an epic, crazy, bloody, super entertaining cage match where The Lucha Brothers beat The Young Bucks for the tag titles. The other big deal about this PPV was that it featured CM Punk's first match in 7 years, a fairly entertaining bout against Darby Allin. The Omega/Christian main event match was also pretty damn good, and the loud, rowdy, Chicago crowd helped every match seem better & more entertaining than they probably were. This was definitely a show for the ages.

NXT WARGAMES

Orlando

RAQUEL GONZALEZ, IO SHIRAI, CORA JADE & KAY LEE RAY vs. DAKOTA KAI, MANDY ROSE, GIGI DOLIN & JACY JAYNE "WARGAMES MATCH" (31:22): Two months ago, NXT revamped their show and brought in a whole new slew of fresh faced, green rookies. Triple H, who had been in charge of booking NXT, was out. While there hasn't been a definitive reason why they scrapped the great, superior-to-WWE, action packed, exciting NXT for a new, dull, awful version...the rumor is that because they couldn't beat AEW in ratings, Vince was angry and destroyed it. That might not be true but it makes sense. After all, why would you change NXT when NXT was better than WWE? NXT Takeover shows were pretty legendary for their entertainment & great matches. Why get rid of all that? The WWE is full of basket cases is probably the best answer. Just watch an episode of RAW and you'll understand why the WWE is filled with morons in charge. Eventually Vince will die or retire and Triple H will do to RAW and Smackdown what he did with NXT...but until that day comes we're left with mediocrity across the board. The WWE's latest strategy is not to sign popular free agents or indie stars but to groom and create new wrestling stars from scratch, mostly men and women from the college or pro sports world. Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle came from that realm, but there's been a hell of a lot more great wrestlers that came out of the indie wrestling world than the Olympics. What this show proved is that all the new, pretty faces aren't worth watching. All the old NXT stars are the ones anyone cares about. I'm guessing that might be a problem when the old NXT stars are phased out. And will they be phased out? The show now doesn't make sense. There's old stars like Ciampa and Gargano still hanging around while the entire show is about being new and featuring young people. It certainly doesn't mesh at all...which is probably why the ratings sank and the fans hate it. Oh, well. It also probably wasn't the smartest thing to put a gang of new wrestlers in a Wargames match. Shockingly no one was seriously injured, although the WWE perhaps realized this might happen so they played it into the storyline when Cora Jade was fake injured and eventually got the pin to win. Jade, a cute 20 year old, did a Swanton Bomb off the top of the cage onto someone on a table. She then clutched her shoulder as if she broke it or dislocated it. I actually thought that this was a legit injury until it became obvious it was storyline when Io Shirai waved off the doctors and started kicking Jade's shoulder to put it back into place. As for the rest of this match...it was, obviously, mostly a sloppy mess. The old-head stars like Io Shirai and Dakota Kai looked good. The new, pretty, 20-somethings looked green as expected. With trashcans and tables and everything the match was at least entertaining. I still can't figure out why they demoted Mandy Rose to NXT, though. I think by this point, though, trying to make sense of the WWE's decisions is like looking for water in the desert. **1/2

IMPERIUM vs. KYLE O'REILLY & VON WAGNER (14:53): This was a very entertaining match. One of the Imperium wrestlers did a bunch of top rope moves like AEW's Dante Martin does (the jump from the top rope to the top rope on the other side of the ring into a moonsault was one). O'Reilly looked fantastic. It was kind of sad seeing him in this match, though, as two of his Undisputed Era mates are now in the greener pastures of AEW (and Bobby Fish was actually in the great AAA PPV main event on Saturday night). It's as if O'Reilly and Roderick Strong were left behind and, seemingly, left for dead. O'Reilly beat up Von Wagner after the match which I guess means O'Reilly will be in a new feud and not fired anytime soon (or not...the WWE has fired a ton of wrestlers this year for no good reason). Von Wagner is one of the new NXT 2.0 faces. Like all of them, he's big and muscled and dull and forgettable. But thankfully the other three produced a good match. Imperium retained the tag team titles. Sadly, Jacket Time, the tag team with Kushida and All Japan's Jiro, were not on this show. **1/2

CAMERON GRIMES vs. DUKE HUDSON "HAIR VS. HAIR MATCH" (10:24): This wasn't any good. Grimes at least is amusing in skits. Duke Hudson is like a GQ model...which means his future in the business is zero. Even the hair cutting portion was a disappointment, as Grimes did two swipes with the razor and that was it. 1/2*

RODERICK STRONG vs. JOE GACY (8:27): Another disappointing match. Gacy is kind of fat so I'm not sure how or why he's battling for Strong's Cruiserweight title. I had heard that they were possibly changing the title to an Open Weight title or something. I think 205Live is still on the air but I haven't watched it in years so who knows? One reason I never watch it is probably because it stopped being a) live and b) good. It's also on Peacock now, which sucks, because like this show, Peacock has a ton of commercials between matches. 1/2*

BRON BREAKKER, CARMELO HAYES, GRAYSON WALLER & TONY D'ANGELO vs. TOMMASO CIAMPA, JOHNNY GARGANO, PETE DUNNE & LA KNIGHT "WARGAMES MATCH" (38:11): I was actually more entertained with the women's Wargames match. I think the reason was probably because it's tough to watch a Wargames match after you just fucking watched one. Maybe if they had done some new things in this it would have been better...but they didn't. It didn't help that the one team was all new guys and the new guys are all terribly dull and terribly green. Seeing all these great wrestlers like Gargano and Ciampa and Dunne in NXT 2.0 is just depressing. Those 3 wrestlers could be in 4 star matches in their sleep yet they're attempting to wrestle rookies that are still learning on a frigging PPV. One of the rookies did a top of the cage elbow through someone on a table. That was impressive...although the women's Wargames had a more impressive top of the cage table spot. Breakker, the big star, who's Rick Steiner's son even though they won't say that, got the pin and won. The one thing so far holding together NXT 2.0 is the gimmick matches. They've had a bunch of ladder matches and now Wargames matches. If they ever attempt a PPV show with just 3 hours of straight wrestling matches they're fucking goners. **