Opinion
Mathew’s Top 25 Matches of 2018 #25-21
Mathew begins his Top 25 of 2018 matches! Scroll down and see if your favorite matches are on the list.
Hello and welcome to my list of Top 25 Matches of 2018! From now until December 31st, I’ll be posting five matches a day that was my personal favorites of this year. If you saw my honorable mentions from yesterday, that might give you a clear idea of what might be on here. And if you haven’t, there’s a link in here somewhere for you to click on.
Also remember, this is all opinion based and my words shouldn’t be taken as gospel for my countdown since we all have different tastes in what we look for in matches. I also had to balance this out a little, otherwise, we would have like Kento, Okada, Tanahashi, and Ibushi matches taking over 75% of the list and it wouldn’t be fair to just about everyone that has busted their asses all year, so I’m picking about 2-3 of people’s best matches to make it more balanced but still amazing matches regardless.
So let’s get down to it and list our first five matches.
25. Buddy Murphy vs. Mustafa Ali (205 Live 7/3/2018)
– “A 205 Live match made the list?!” Is probably what you’re thinking right now but 2018 was definitely the year that the Cruiserweight division pulled a 180 and got much better than 2017. 205 Live focused more on the stories of the matches while giving us basic storylines. Also making clear who the top people in this division were, Buddy Murphy and Mustafa Ali. they would have a series matches over the course of the first half of the year where the rivalry would conclude in a No Disqualification Match being their best outing together.
The two opponents were creative with their ability along with how they used the steel steps in the matches which is something I hardly do see in wrestling, especially the Superplex from the steel steps in the angle that they did it with. Mustafa Ali won with a Tornado DDT when he jumped off the steps and I know some people were thrown off with that ending but I actually thought it was fitting because it gave you that feeling of the match can happen at any given moment if you were caught off guard and the damage they’ve done each other, it makes sense that any big move would make you lost if not careful. This match was a ton of fun and both of these guys had a great year in the WWE. If you were skeptical about 205 Live last year, I definitely would try to give them a second chance as they’re slowly getting better with a new focus.
24. Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll (NJPW Sakura Genesis 4/1/2018)
– Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll have a history together wherever they wrestled. Whether it’s in the United States, United Kingdom, or Japan, they would fight everywhere and most of the time Marty would be the victor in these types of matches. Will was the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion at the time after defeating Marty, KUSHIDA, and Hiromu Takahashi in a Fatal Four Way at Wrestle Kingdom, with Marty stating that Will couldn’t defeat him one on one and wanted to fight him for the championship.
This one is probably my favorite outing between these two since the story with them got more personal between them along with the progression that these two wrestlers experienced in their careers that you can see how much they grew over the years. They knew each other so well that they would counter most of their big moves back and forth as we also saw a more aggressive side of Marty when he made Will bleed and stomped on his face, making it look like it was a dead body or something. Will would eventually overcome his rival and get that big win for Marty to retain the championship. My favorite match from both of these men this year and definitely one to remember in their rivalry.
23. Natural Vibes (Kzy, Genki Horiguchi, & Susumu Yokosuka) vs. MaxiMuM (Jason Lee, Naruki Doi, & Masato Yoshino) (Dragon Gate Dead or Alive 2018 5/6/2018)
– Natural Vibes made their debut this year after Kzy wanted to branch out of Tribe Vanguard to explore on his own and made this group where they would have their first match for the Open the Triangle Gate Championships against MaxiMuM at the Dead or Alive 2018 show.
These were the types of six-man tag team action that make me enjoy the company since it was face-paced, well executed, and just great tag team action from all six of these men as it was just seventeen minutes of non-stop action. This was probably my favorite title reign of 2018 as each match with Natural Vibes defending their titles always gave us something creative and fun with each title defense, and they would even break the record with most defenses with that title by retaining it six times before they dropped it at Final Gate recently. Out of all the matches they had for this belt, the time they won it was the more memorable one and how it all started for Natural Vibes. If you’re a fan of tag team wrestling, I highly recommend this one as it was my favorite six-man tag match this year.
22. Tessa Blanchard vs. Brian Cage (WrestleCircus The Show Must Go On 2/17/2018)
– I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of intergender matches since most of the time they’re a bit over the top or unbelievable at times, but this match right here made me very impressed. The main event of this WrestleCircus show had a title for title match with Brian Cage defending his Ringmaster Championship against Tessa Blanchard, who was the Sideshow Champion and this was probably my favorite intergender match.
The match told a story and was believable with Brian Cage dominating most of the match with Tessa being the underdog type of wrestler to get the crowd behind her and when Tessa was able to get a comeback, the crowd would just explode with excitement. Tessa is normally known for doing intergender matches and is considered one of the better females to do this type of stuff and this match showed me why that was the case. Brian Cage is also a beast in the ring as he can go very well for his size and showed he can work with anyone regardless of size and gender. Tessa had a tough fight and while she came close a few times, Brian Cage would pick up the win to become a double champion. They would have a rematch later on in the year at Bar Wrestling and while that was good, this match was far better and more memorable. If you’re a fan of intergender wrestling, I highly recommend this one or if you’re not and need convincing, I would start out with this one.
21. Ilja Dragunov vs. John Klinger vs. WALTER (wXw 16 Carat Gold 2018 Night 2 3/10/2018)
– Originally, this was set to be a one on one match between WALTER and John Klinger for the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship at the main event of the wXw 16 Carat Gold Tournament, but there was a change in the match as it was now going to be a Triple Threat Match with the returning Ilja Dragunov being added into the match. The crowd for Ilja was electric when he made his way to the ring and this was the first time I’ve seen Ilja Dragunov as I immediately became a fan of him once this match was over along with the company for that matter since it was the first time watching wXw as well.
All three of these men played their roles well in the match and it was more of the crowd that made it all the more better with their cheering for a much better atmosphere that it seemed like a fantastic time live. Ilja would eventually win the match after 20 minutes of great action to become the new champion during his return and the ovation he received was unreal. If you haven’t checked out Ilja Dragunov yet, he’s a great wrestler with fantastic charisma to be one of my favorites in 2018, also wXw is a fun promotion to follow with their own streaming service that’s recommended.
Thank you guys for reading the first five matches on my list, I’m sure you were shocked by the picks, agree, or disagree with some of them which are fine and would love to hear your response. Be sure to check in tomorrow for the next five, who do you think makes the cut? See you all next time!
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Opinion
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
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Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!