Andrew’s Top Matches: November Pool & Second Chance Votes

Now part of the fun of December is the “second chance” pool. Because the year has to end, and I like to insure we have a MoTY by December 31st, the whole month of December is narrowing the existing pool, giving some matches a second chance to be the honorary December match; and then we vote on the overall!

With that said, let’s look at the November Pool we’re voting on.

November Pool:

• NOAH the Chronicle vol 4: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Katsuhiko Nakajima
• NJPW BOSJ 27: Robbie Eagles vs Hiromu Takahashi
• AEW Dynamite: Penta El Zero M vs Rey Fenix
• AEW Full Gear: TNT Title Match: Cody Rhodes (c) vs Darby Allin

Out of these four matches, my vote will go to NOAH the Chronicle vol 4: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Katsuhiko Nakajima. The culmination of a large story betrayal, and the battered both physically and mentally champion overcoming his challenger is great. Great match, great story, hard to top!

Now on to the second chance!

Second Chance December:

• NOAH Final Chronicle: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Takashi Sugiura
• Impact Wrestling Victory Road: Impact World Championship: Eddie Edwards vs Eric Young (c)
• G1 Climax 30 A Block Day 13: Kazuchika Okada vs Shingo Takagi
• WWE Backlash: Edge vs Randy Orton
• WWE SmackDown: Intercontinental Tournament Finals: AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan

NOAH Final Chronicle: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Takashi Sugiura

Air Date: 12.6.2020

Not so much a second chance as a last minute addition to MoTY lists. Shiozaki has been having a great year, winning the title at NOAH’s 1.4.2020 event and dominating his singles matches except for 1 loss and 2 Draws. This was an old guard match that saw Takashi Sugiura, one of the last remaining original 20 to start NOAH, force the younger wrestler to prove himself against him. This also carried historical weight, as 11 years ago, on the same date, Sugiura ended Shiozaki’s first GHC title reign.

The emotions of Shiozaki’s first title reign fueled a few of his matches this year. Shiozaki tends to always get saddled with a hard year to be champion. His first reign the day after the death of Mitsuharu Misawa (who was his tag partner during that match), second during the down turn of NOAH, third during the Suzuki-Gun era, and now Corona. Shiozaki has finally proven he’s not a Fallen Ace with classic matches, interesting matches to peak interest and a very captivating narrative. This match is prime professional wrestling, and needs to be seen.

Impact Wrestling Victory Road: Impact World Championship: Eddie Edwards vs Eric Young (c)

Air Date: 10.3.2020

After taking a few short cuts to defeat the fighting champion, Eric Young has to defend his title in the rematch. This match shows off Eddie’s amazing in-ring ability and his convincing babyface in peril skills (even if he’s lacking on the verbal charisma). It also gets over Eric Young’s ability to work a damn good match. Young focused on existing story line injuries and exacerbated them during the match to hammer home the storytelling.

In a beautifully wrestled match, Impact Wrestling put on a match to be in the same discussion as Unbreakable 2005. Young work, Eddie’s selling, a simple yet effective story and Eric Young’s usage of an old school Spinning Toe Hold submission we never really see anymore, made this a must see match and MoTY contender.

G1 Climax 30 A Block Day 13: Kazuchika Okada vs Shingo Takagi

Air Date: 10.10.2020

October was jam packed full of possible MoTY contenders, and it’s not surprising that one of them came out of the G1 Climax 30. This was an age old easy told story of the former Dragon Gate Ace versus the current New Japan Ace. Never facing off in a single match prior to this, we all got a taste of what we could see for years to come.

With New Japan and Okada being a little under the radar this year, this helped us remind us all of who Okada is and that New Japan is still one of the more consistent products out today. It will be hard for these two to surpass this match, but it was amazing and really helped to spike excitement towards the back end of the tournament.

WWE Backlash: Edge vs Randy Orton

Air Date: 6.14.2020

Now this match got meme’d on from the first declaration since it was being tagged as “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”. But if we’re being honest, it was still really good, but “greatest” is easy to insult since it’s a hyperbolic statement, but no disrespect, this was a great match. It was paced well, the references to different finishers, certain spots and just the general vibe of the match had a point.

Randy going over was great for his story and the amazing work he’s done this year, and even though it resulted in Edge getting injured, there was no significant drop off from the weight of the match. WWE has had a lot of flack for not putting on any really great in-ring product in a while, compared to other IWC favorite companies, but this was definitely one of the most impressive combinations of story telling. veteran execution and damn good professional wrestling from WWE in a while.

WWE SmackDown: Intercontinental Tournament Finals: AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan

Air Date: 6.12.2020

Talk about an unexpected gem from 2020! Sami Zayn was stripped since he opted to stay home during the height of covid, which opened up a tournament! Most of the preliminary matches were solid, but this match went to another level. Over 30 minutes of action, both Daniel and AJ got to show off their ability that made them both IWC darlings for so many years.

We got a match that could’ve been slotted into an old school ROH or TNA episode, and it was a very nice change of pace from what we’ve grown to expect from the wrestling company that focuses more on the Entertainment than the in-ring. June was a month with a lot of quality matches, so it should be interesting to see if this resonates with people 6 months after the fact.

Thoughts:

My vote is obviously going to the NOAH Final Chronicle match. That was just an amazing match, and if you consider the work Shiozaki has done, including putting on MoTY contender matches while being held together with athletic tape and paper clips, I can’t deny the year Go Shiozaki has had.

Whatever wins both votes will be solid additions, and I’m really impressed with the amount of WWE matches that made IWC radar and the variety of companies in the mix.

Next week will start the thinning down from 12 to 5, and then the final vote the week after that!

Let’s look at the current MoTY Pool before these votes are finalized!

MOTY 2020 Pool:

• January – Wrestle Kingdom 14: Double Gold Match: Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito
• February – AEW Revolution: AEW World Tag Team Championship: Hangman Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs The Young Bucks
• March – AEW Dynamite: AAA Mega Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs Sammy Guevara
• April – WrestleMania 36: NXT Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) vs Charlotte Flair
• May – NXT: Pit Fight: Matt Riddle vs Tim Thatcher
• June – NXT In Your House: NXT Women’s Champion Triple Threat: Io Shirai vs Charlotte Flair (c) vs Rhea Ripley
• July – NJPW Dominion: NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs SHO
• August – NOAH the Chronicle Vol 3: GHC National Openweight & GHC Heavyweight Championship Double Title Match: Kenoh (c) vs Go Shiozaki (c)
• September – AEW Dynamite: Parking Lot Fight: Santana & Ortiz vs Best Friends
• October – NXT UK: United Kingdom Championship: Walter (c) vs Ilja Dragunov