Andrew’s Top 5 Matches: Week Ending 5/17/20

Well we’ve had some interesting news, and more of an…let’s call it array this week. Last week was a really solid week, but this week has one elite match; that just blew away a lot of matches this year.

Thanks to the memes and general hotness of the insane Street Fight, the AEW Dynamite tag match between Le Sex Gods and Omega & Matt Hardy, won the vote by a decent margin.

I wonder if this week will cater more to the more visible, or the insane quality of the All Japan main event.

Quick Top 5:

1. AJPW Broadcast #3 2020: World Junior Heavyweight Championship: Susumu Yokosuka (c) vs Hikaru Sato
   Rating: *****
2. WWE SmackDown: Drew Gulak vs Daniel Bryan
   Rating: *** 3/4
3. IMPACT!: TNA World Heavyweight Championship: Moose (c) vs Suicide
   Ratings: *** 1/2
4. Dragon Gate King of Gate: Block A:  YAMATO vs Ryo Saito
   Ratung: *** 1/2
5. NXT: Cameron Grimes vs Finn Balor
   Rating: *** 1/2

Honorable Mentions:

• IMPACT!: #1 Contender Tournament Round 1: Rohit Raju vs Trey
  Rating: *** 1/4
• AEW Dynamite: Santana & Ortiz vs Kenny Omega & Matt Hardy
  Rating: *** 1/4
• AJPW Broadcast #3 2020: JIN (Jake Lee & Koji Iwamoto) vs Enfantes Terrible (Shotaro Ashino & Yusuke Kodama)
  Rating: *** 1/4
• NWA Powerrr: No DQ: Jax Dane vs Tim Storm
  Rating: ***
• Dragon Gate King of Gate: Block B: BxB Hulk vs Keisuke Okuda
  Rating: ***
• AJPW Broadcast #3 2020: Kento Miyahara & Yoshi Tatsu vs SUWAMA & Yusuke Okada
  Rating: ***
• WWE Raw: Andrade vs Drew McIntyre
  Rating: ***
• WWE Main Event: Ruby Riott vs Bianca Belair
  Rating: ***
• IMPACT!: Kylie Rae vs Tasha Steelz
  Rating: ***
• NXT: Matt Riddle vs Tim Thatcher
  Rating: ***

5. NXT: Cameron Grimes vs Finn Balor

From Mitchell’s Coverage:

NXT returns and Grimes grinds Balor into the mat with the chinlock. Grimes cranks back in a half camel clutch and shouts, “This is what you wanted, Balor!” Balor fights his way up and the two go around. Grimes wrangles Balor back down and grinds his forearm into Balor’s face. Balor fights up to forearm free but Grimes whips and hits a kitchen sink knee! Cover, TWO! Grimes keeps on Balor with another armlock and a wrench. Balor forearms free again, and keeps on Grimes with those forearms. Grimes turns things around to whip Balor hard into buckles! Grimes glares at Balor and stands on Balor’s head. He steps away at the ref’s count but stalks up behind Balor for forearm shots. Grimes pushes Balor into buckles then rams his shoulder in. He whips corner to corner again, but Balor BOOTS back! Balor runs into a LARIAT! Cover, TWO! Grimes keeps his cool but he also keeps talking trash. He CLUBS Balor down and is feeling confident now. But Balor trips him to DOUBLE STOMP him down!

Balor KICKS and stomps away at the ropes but the ref backs him off. Grimes bails out and drags Balor out to join him, but Balor bumps him off the apron. Balor stomps on Grimes’ head over and over, then stops at the count of 4. Balor lines up the shot to PENALTY KICK Grimes down! But wait! Is that Damian Priest? Is he the snake Balor talked of? Balor decks Damian and SLINGBLADES Grimes! Balor puts Grimes in the ring at the count of 6 and leaves Priest behind. But then Priest uses his night stick to CLUB Balor on the back! CAVE-IN!! Cover, Grimes wins!!

Winner: Grimes via Cave-In

4. Dragon Gate King of Gate: Block A:  YAMATO vs Ryo Saito

This is a unique pairing, with two individuals that can go either way. YAMATO is a great talent, but Ryo went from being a fallen Ace, to a comedy guy, and now he’s been rebuilding himself the last few years. Do we get serious wrestling, or derpy owari stuff?

Well damn, this was a pretty good match. Ryo managed to catch YAMATO on many different occasions. YAMATO looked to actually be pushed more than most probably expected, and we nearly got an early big upset. Saito sets up for his Straight Jacket Piledriver, but YAMATO manages to slip out of it and hit Galleria!

YAMATO moves forward in Dragon Gate’s big tournament, but now we’ve got to wonder if he’s vulnerable after Ryo Saito almost beat him.

Winner: YAMATO via Galleria

3. IMPACT!: TNA World Heavyweight Championship: Moose (c) vs Suicide

From My Results:

Moose dominated a good portion of this match, but Suicide put it together nicely. We saw the Spiderman in the ropes, low bridge to send Moose to the outside and then we got some momentum for the video game gimmick. After the referee gets murdered by Moose splashing him in the corner, Suicide gets two visible pinfalls but nothing official. He hits a Rolling Shotei sending Moose on his backside, then Moose goes for a step up Corkscrew Splash, but Suicide jumps up and catches him with a Flatliner.

Suicide gets at least a 6 count, but has to go wake up the referee. Then Moose tries his Spear, but Suicide jumps and pulls of a Sunset Flip, but the injured ref counts slow and Moose kicks out. So Moose gets the opportunity to kick Suicide in the nuts, hit No Jackhammer Needed, and retains (?) the TNA title.

Winner: Moose via No Jackhammer Needed

2. WWE SmackDown: Drew Gulak vs Daniel Bryan

From Mitchell’s Coverage:

Bryan endures as Gulak drags him up that way, and spins out. Gulak back suplexes again but Bryan lands on his feet. Gulak bucks the roll off but not the SNAP GERMAN! Bryan stumbles to a corner while Gulak sits up. Bryan takes aim and runs corner to corner, but Gulak avoids the knee to sunset flip! Cover, TWO! Bryan goes for the leg, Gulak steps through to POWERBOMB! And jackknife cover, TWO! Bryan sits on the cover, TWO! Gulak runs and grabs Bryan in the dragon sleeper, GuLOCK! Bryan fades, pops back and pops out to get the arm! Gulak resists the Yes Lock to Oklahoma Roll! ONE, Bryan has the leg, but Gulak pops out of the dragon screw! Bryan tries again, and goes the other way! Bryan clamps on with a HEEL HOOK! Gulak reaches, but Bryan turns him from ropes. They both roll, Gulak taps! Bryan wins!

Winner: Bryan via Heel Hook

1. AJPW Broadcast #3 2020: World Junior Heavyweight Championship: Susumu Yokosuka (c) vs Hikaru Sato

From My Results:

The pacing in the match was frenetic and that really lead to an edge of your seat feeling. Hikaru had a few minutes where he was slapping on every submission in creation. Like Zack Sabre Jr levels of body manipulation. Yokosuka being the champion proved resilient and counters an attempts headlock with a Backdrop Driver, which gives him a target moving forward. Yokosuka focuses a lot of his offense at the head/neck region, which proves to help him out a bit.

This was just hard hitting and great action once the feeling out period stopped. Hikaru had many chances to end it, but Yokosuka just wouldn’t tap. So a few well-placed Lariats, Yokosuka Driver and a few variations of the Jumbo no Kachi gave Yokosuka a very surprising come from behind victory. A tremendous match, with a great story, hard hits, great mat work…just a treat to watch.

Winner: Yokosuka via Jumbo no Kachi

Thoughts:

This is going to be an easy decision for me. The All Japan main event was tremendous. Given that we’ve had sporadic wrestling, much less even less really good wrestling; this was the first match in a while that was just blow away fantastic.

Bryan versus Gulak was really good, especially for WWE television; but it’s not close to the cherry on top of the AJPW show. Try to find the match, subscribe to AJPW.tv – just find that match.