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Mathew’s Top 25 Matches of 2020: #15-11

Just shy of the Top 10, we get to see what Mathew has ranked 11-15!

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This is the third day of my countdown list, meaning that we are now at the halfway point of my list. We looked at ten great matches and it’s time to look at five more before we arrive at the top ten. Let’s see what the next five are.

The previous lists if you’re new to the articles.

#25-21

#20-16


15. Kagetsu vs. Meiko Satomura (Kagetsu Retirement Show 2/24/2020)

– One of the hardest things to happen in 2020 was to see Kagetsu retire from the world of professional wrestling. I felt like she had a lot more to offer, especially at such a young age but this was something she has decided to do. She wouldn’t leave us empty-handed since she would produce a show for her farewell, even competed in different promotions before the show took place. She fought Saya Iida at the beginning of the show but she had one more match to do before walking into the sunset and that was to fight her mentor, Meiko Satomura.

If this would be her final match, then it was a great way to end her career as it was intense and compelling. It was over ten years of progress, all leading to fighting her mentor, and Meiko made sure she gave it everything she had as well to put her pupil to rest. In old school fashion, Kagetsu would go out on her back to lose her final match, and just like that, her career would be over. Kagetsu was one of my favorites in Stardom and it’s sad to see her go but I’m thankful for all the memories she has given me as a wrestling fan. Thank you for everything, Kagetsu, and what a legacy you left behind in the Joshi world.

14. Go Shiozaki vs. Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH Departure 8/5/2020)

– This will be the first of many that you see of Go Shiozaki on here and the first one to make it on my list was with his third GHC Heavyweight Championship defense against Naomichi Marufuji. There was a lot to tell with this specific story of his title reign as Go’s goal was to prove that he was in fact NOAH. Marufuji, however, took exception to that and pinned Go in a tag match and told him that he was the real NOAH since he was considered the Symbol of NOAH for so long, so Go trying to make this claim would offend him. For Go to prove himself once again, he would have to challenge Marufuji in a match for the GHC Heavyweight Championship to prove if he was truly worthy of carrying the NOAH torch. This would be the pupil of Kenta Kobashi taking on the pupil of Mitsuharu Misawa.

The two went to war for a half-hour and they were able to do what they needed to do to deliver us a great match. The fighting spirit between two of these men was something else, hard-fought, emotional, and did enough to give it a proper conclusion. Go would eventually defeat the Symbol of NOAH to retain the title, and would be another step closer to being the guy to carry the company to new heights. Great match with one of the best reigns of 2020 by Go Shiozaki.

13. Hiromu Takahashi vs. El Desperado (NJPW Best of the Super Junior XVII 12/11/2020)

– This’ll be one of the other later entries into the countdown but if it’s a fantastic match, then it’s something that should be mentioned here. New Japan has had a rather awkward year with very questionable booking ever since they took that break during the Covid pandemic. Hiromu would lose the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and his new goal would be to win the BOSJ to try and get revenge against Taiji Ishimori. However, there would be an obstacle in his way as he had to fight the man who was also in the finals with him, El Desperado. Before the finals, they did fight in the regular tournament in another great match with Desperado getting the upset victory over the ticking time bomb. With the two of them meeting in the finals, Desperado wanted to prove that he could beat him for the second time in a row.

With their previous match, you had a feeling that they were holding back and could do so much, and they would show that with this match right here. El Desperado has always been an underrated talent in New Japan, and he was something that people should keep an eye on because he has proven time and time again that he was more than just a member of Suzuki-Gun, he was a wrestler and a damn good one. One of my favorite moments in the match was when Desperado would rip his own mask off after Hiromu trying to rip it up, so Desperado just did it for him to reveal his face, showing that he is a rather beautiful man under that mask. For the third straight year in a row, a final from the Super Juniors would make its way on my list, and this was an excellent final to boost it up. Hiromu would win the match and is now going to Wrestle Kingdom to hopefully win that belt back.

12. Kento Miyahara vs. Suwama (AJPW Dream Power Series 3/23/2020)

– So much history built into this one match. You have the current ace and Triple Crown Champion at the time, Kento Miyahara taking on the ace of the Mutoh era, Suwama. Both of these men had a lot to gain in this match with Kento wanting to set a new record for successful title defenses in a single reign after tying the record with Toshiaki Kawada with ten defenses. With Suwama, he wanted to be the first man to win the title seven times and to put an end to Kento’s reign and make sure he didn’t add another defense under his belt to break the record. These two are no strangers to each other and Kento defeated him over a year ago as one of his defenses during this reign, so it’s something Suwama also wants to correct.

2020 was the year of Suwama as he would up his game during the whole year, starting with this match where a spark would ignite in him to show that he is a guy who can still go on a main event level. To the surprise of many fans during that night, Kento would fail to retain the title, failing to make a record of his own as Suwama would defeat him to win the Triple Crown Championship for the seventh time. Many expected Kento to retain but at the same time, it would’ve been overkill, and just having the same record with Kawada is just as good to have. Suwama would still hold the title in what some might speculate to be his last run with the Triple Crown Championship and it if truly is the case, then he has done an excellent job.

11. Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW G1 Climax 9/20/2020)

-We all had to wash the awful taste of the Naito/EVIL series of matches out of our mouths sooner than later, and we were lucky enough to get exactly that with this match. After regaining the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, it was time to start our G1 Climax tournament and he had quite the challenge for the first day of his block as he faces our beloved Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi. Tanahashi has had a rough year with losses and this was the match he needed to prove that he was still at the top of his game. I love their matches together, their stories are always so unique, and the match quality on top of it is just a chef’s kiss of perfection. Now we see if they can still give us that bit of magic like they always do.

This would be Tanahashi’s best match this year and despite his track of losses in the year, he was still on top of his game, showing that he’s still on top. This was also a nice breath of fresh air now that he didn’t have to deal with EVIL for a while and we get to see Naito involved in great wrestling matches outside of him and Okada earlier in the year. With another classic written down in their long rivalry, Naito would be able to get the victory over the Ace to show that he runs the place now as the Double Champion. As I said before, the two hardly disappoint when they’re in the ring together and this one was no exception.

That about does it with the next five matches on my list and starting tomorrow, we begin our top ten matches in our countdown. Hope you all enjoyed it!

 

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Opinion

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions

Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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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.

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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)

r/Wrasslin - when did Brock lesner begin his farmer and cowboy gimmick and when did he stop doing the gimmick ? is it worth watching I believe it was 2021 but not sure when he stopped the gimmick
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?)

10 Greatest Summerslam Entrances in WWE History - GameSpot
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?)

Vickie Guerrero on Rey vs. Dominik Mysterio: 'I wish I was part of it' -  Cageside Seats
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)

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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!
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