Top 5 has a nice mixture of participants, companies and styles. Which matches were worth checking out this past week?

Now last week I just didn’t find 5 matches worth even listing out. Everything paled in comparison to the Stardom Cinderella main event, World of Stardom: Utami Hayashishita (c) vs Syuri. It’s not often that Meltzer’s opinion makes a lot of sense, but this was a fantastic match. I wouldn’t say it’s the best Joshi match ever, but it’s definitely the best of the year so far. If it weren’t for my love of Shingo this might have made my number 1 of the year as well.

Anyway! This week we’ve got a decent bit of quality! So no struggle bus for a Top 5!

Quick Top 5:

1. NOAH Muta the World: Great Muta vs Kenoh
   Rating: **** ½
2. AJPW Champions Night: Vacant Triple Crown Tomoe Battle: Yuma Aoyagi vs Kento Miyahara vs Jake Lee
   Rating: **** ¼
3. NXT UK: Rampage Brown vs Ilja Dragunov vs Joe Coffey
   Rating: ****
4. IMPACT!: Tag Team Championship: VBD (c) vs Satoshi Kojima & Eddie Edwards
   Rating: ****
5. AEW Dynamite: AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs Jungle Boy
   Rating: *** ¾

Honorable Mentions:

• NOAH: Steel Cage Match: Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Masa Kitamiya
  Rating: *** ½
• WWE Raw: Matt Riddle vs Drew McIntyre
  Rating: *** ½
• NXT: Kyle O’Reilly vs Kushida
  Rating: *** ½
• AEW Dynamite: Matt Sydal vs Dante Martin
  Rating: *** ¼
• wXw Fan Night 2: wXw Unified World Championship: Marius al-Ani (c) vs Tristan Archer
  Rating: *** ¼
• AEW Dynamite: Hangman Page vs Hobbs
  Rating: ***
• NXT UK: Sha Samuels vs Mark Coffey
  Rating: ***
• AJPW Champions Night: World Junior Title: Koji Iwamoto (c) vs Francesco Akira
  Rating: ***
• IMPACT!: Rohit Raju & Shera vs Petey Williams & Trey Miguel
  Rating: ***
• NJPW NEVER 6 Man Title: CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto) vs Bullet Club (Dick Togo, EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi)
  Rating: ***
• WWE Raw: Hell in a Cell: Xavier Woods vs Bobby Lashley
  Rating: ***
• NXT: Carmelo Hayes vs Adam Cole
  Rating: ***

5. AEW Dynamite: AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs Jungle Boy

From Mitchell’s Coverage:
Kaz and Jurassic Express keep the Good Brothers away from the ring! Omega crawls over, ROPEBREAK! JB lets go reluctantly but he drags Omega back. Omega KICKS JB away! Omega gets up, throws a forearm on JB, but JB comes back with one of his own! Omega forearms again, but so does JB! JB gets the edge, runs, but Omega V-TRIGGERS!! Whip, REBOUND LARIAT from JB!! JB gets Omega up but Omega suplexes to BRAIN BUSTER! Return for earlier and Omega covers, TWO!!?! JB flounders to ropes but Omega takes aim again, for ANOTHER V-TRIGGER! Electric Chair lift, tuck, but JB sunset flips through! TWO!!?! INTO THE SNARE TRAP!!!

Omega endures all over again, reaches out, but he’s fading already! JB holds on tight, but Omega pulls hair and rakes eyes! JB lets go and the ref reprimands but Omega gets away. Callis says that’s what JB gets for having long hair, ignoring that Omega also has long hair. Omega gets to a corner, JB hurries over and kicks at him! JB hoists Omega up top, CHOPS him, and then climbs up to join him. JB stands, Omega ALLEY-OOPS him onto the buckles! Omega goes corner to corner, BLINDSIDE V-TRIGGER into the buckles! Double underhook, TIGER DRIVER 98!! Cover, TWO?!?!? Two and a half, maybe! Electric Chair, tuck, ONE WINGED ANGEL!! Cover, Omega wins!

Winner: Omega via One Winged Angel

3t. IMPACT!: Tag Team Championship: VBD (c) vs Satoshi Kojima & Eddie Edwards

From AJ’s Review:
Eddie and Doering come in first and Joe gets the fight started early and tags in Deaner before Eddie swings momentum and gets Kojima in the ring as Kojima takes down Deaner. The challengers come in hot, using frequent tags to each other until Joe Doering comes in and changes the pace to get a slight window of opportunity to tag into Joe Doering. Deaner and Doering are taking it to Kojima more often now as they tag frequently and take it to Kojima even more. Joe Doering putting Kojima in a choke hold and transitions it into a neck crank as Doering grinds his forearm into Kojima and Kojima looks gone, going to the wrong corner momentarily until he reverses a Suplex from Doering and gets the tag into Eddie as Deaner gets the tag now.

Eddie comes in like a house of fire and hits a pouncing forearm and even a Blue Thunder Bomb but Doering comes in and double teams Eddie to a failed effort as both champions go to the outside and both challengers fly to take them down, Plancha from Kojima and Shot of Caffeine from Eddie. EY and Rhino though, get involved and the champions come back with an advantage on the challengers, this time on Eddie. The champions getting more and more tags in frequently but Deaner makes the same mistake as Joe earlier and gets a suplex countered so Kojima gets tagged in and takes it to the champs, even doing Machine Gun Chops on Deaner and Doering tries to interfere and now Eddie and Kojima come in to do Dual Machine Gun Chops, getting a double team doing as Eddie hits a head scissors and Kojima hits an Elbow for a near fall. Eddie gets the tag back in to fight Deaner and Doering interferes one more time to stop Eddie’s momentum and Deaner hits a diving headbutt. Doering tags in after and now the challengers get some double team going and they take down Doering, looking to hit the Boston Knee Party but Doering catches him and hits the Revolution Bomb to retain the tag titles.

Winner: Doering via Revolution Bomb

3t. NXT UK: Rampage Brown vs Ilja Dragunov vs Joe Coffey

From Mitchell’s Coverage:
Rampage elbows Dragunov, switches to get Coffey, DOUBLE GERMAN SUPLEX! Dragunov flops all the way to the apron, and Coffey flounders to a corner! Rampage staggers to an opposite corner as BT Sports Studio says, “This is Awesome!” Rampage runs corner to corner, Coffey dodges and the boot hits buckles! Rampage is stuck, Coffey Electric Chair lifts! Coffey hits an ELECTRIC CHAIR SLAM!! But he can’t make the cover! Coffey slowly rises, Rampage gets up and then Dragunov. ALL THE BEST to Rampage WHILE Dragunov hits Coffey with TORPEDO MOSCOW!! That actually saves Rampage from the worst of Coffey’s attack!

Rampage gets Coffey up and gut wrenches for the DOCTOR BOMB!! Cover, Dragunov breaks it in time! Rampage clamps onto Dragunov, reels him in and gut wrenches, but Dragunov slips free! Dragunov dodges a clothesline to go up a corner, FLYING TORPEDO MOSCOW?!? Cover, DRAGUNOV WINS!!

Winner: Ilja via Flying Torpedo Moscow

2. AJPW Champions Night: Vacant Triple Crown Tomoe Battle: Yuma Aoyagi vs Kento Miyahara vs Jake Lee

So the Tomoe match may not be unique to AJPW, but I don’t see it often and the last one I can think of was in ’97 between Kawada/Misawa/Kobashi. A Tomoe match is a 3 participant match, where there is a gauntlet of 1v1 matches, the winner moves to the next opponent and they recycle until someone achieves 2 wins.

With that said, Yuma and Kento start off, and it continues their story of Yuma coming into his own. Kento has been the measuring stick, especially for former NEXTream members. Yuma has been the perceived lowest on the totem pole, and you could see this through the early match. Kento broke clean and toyed with Yuma a little, until Yuma hit a nice flurry and Kento remembered to try. Kento eventually dropped Yuma after nearly 20 minutes, and Jake comes out fresh as a daisy.

Jake plays into his heel persona and toys with Kento, which I suppose is why Kento won the first match since he’s more resilient since he’s the Ace. Kento had a few surprise Blackouts and Suplexes, but Jake did overcome Kento with Giant Killing. So Kento goes to the back, needing Yuma to win to still have a chance at winning the vacant title.

Yuma walks out exhausted, but he continues to show a lot of heart. He goes nearly 20 minutes again, but after the initial loss, it was hard to think he was going to upset Jake. Great moments with End Game, Rockstar Buster, and a few German Suplexes; but Yuma just wasn’t on the same level.

So Suwama vacating the title because of covid, finally leads to Jake getting his first Triple Crown reign! If Yuma was a bigger threat/perceived as an equal, this would’ve been nearly a 5 star match.

Winner: Jake Lee

1. NOAH Muta the World: Great Muta vs Kenoh

So as we know, Keiji Mutoh and Muta are considered separate entities, and Muta has been jealous of Mutoh’s success. So Muta decided it was his turn to make a bigger mark in the current NOAH and chose Kenoh as his first potential victim.

Anyone that has followed Muta’s career knows you don’t expect a 100% straight forward wrestling match. Kenoh bringing Kongo members was his first insurance, but much like Kenoh’s faction match during CyberFest Festival, he started to play in the a space he wasn’t comfortable with.

Muta paced things out looking for weapons that matched his violent designs, and it was also interesting to see the normally hotheaded Kenoh give Muta space and respect. Eventually we get to Muta choking Kenoh with power chords, attacking the camera drones, red and green mist and a chair. Kenoh’s play along spot was when he had the Kongo guys throw him some lighter fluid and a lighter, lit his kick pad on fire, and Buzzsaw Kicked Muta in the face.

When they made it to the outside, Muta retaliated by palm thrusting a firecracker into Kenoh’s chest, hits a few Shining Wizards, more mist, and another Shining Wizard to win the match. It was insanely entertaining and there was no real “wow he’s old” moments.

Winner: Muta via Shining Wizard

拳王が自ら火をつけた脚でムタを蹴る！！！！ @ABEMA で視聴中 https://t.co/qu2RGY8Vvc #ムタ・ザ・ワールド #noah_ghc pic.twitter.com/LErDhD2F3V

— プロレスリング・ノア | PRO WRESTLING NOAH (@noah_ghc) June 27, 2021

Thoughts:

Now even though Muta had my highest rating, it was a heavily entertainment focused match. So with all that given, the AJPW Tomoe Match will be my choice. I can only hope this helps to elevate Yuma to a better level since he was the glue that kept the crowd invested and the stories of the matches moving forward.

A small shout out to Impact for doing a good job at highlighting a solid tag match, involving 3 men who achieved top championships in more than just New Japan (Kojima IWGP & Triple Crown, Doering: Triple Crown, Edwards: GHC). So even if I’m not a fan of the AEW involvement, Impact is really just keeping their hands on every company not named WWE. It’s interesting to see the umbrella they’re trying to cast.

Either way, so fun matches and if you haven’t seen the Utami Hayashishita vs Syuri match from last week; do it.