Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (October 2022)
Honorable Mentions
Here I’ll list matches that don’t quite make the cut of “best” or that don’t feel quite imperative or interesting to write about.
Mayu Iwatani vs. Starlight Kid (STARDOM 10/1/22)
Adam Priest vs. Anthony Henry (ACTION 10/7/22)
Imperium vs. The Brawling Brutes (WWE 10/8/22)
Jun Kasai & Masashi Takeda vs. Ryuichi Kawakami & Hayato Tamura (GLEAT 10/9/22)
Kevin Ku vs. Mike Bailey (Timebomb Pro 10/13/22)
Mike Bailey vs. Colby Corino (DPW 10/15/22)
Austin Connelly vs. Max Zero (PPW 10/22/22)
Jonathan Gresham vs. Mike Bailey (GCW 10/23/22)
Bianca Belair vs. Bayley (WWE 10/24/22)
Violence is Forever vs. Shigehiro Irie & Fuminori Abe (wXw 10/2/2022)
Fuminori Abe in Europe remains frustrating to me. He’s clearly identified that whatever he does for the wXw crowd gets massively over no matter what, so that’s led to him leaning into a little more silliness and shtick when wrestling there. It feels like a watered down version of him, Vacation Abe if you will.
Ku and Garrini are the perfect pair to wake up Abe (and to a lesser extent, Irie). The VIF boys hit hard and keep things moving at a good pace with stiff action. Even with all their best qualities, I think the middle section of the match does still suffer. The floor skirmish doesn’t do much for me, and I didn’t care all that much for the transitions between segments.
But also, Abe gives Ku a sick shoot headbutt that busts the dude open. Bonus points to Ku for instantly realizing how cool the visual would be and trying to sign VIF onto his own chest in blood. Hell yeah.
This isn’t a perfectly constructed thing but it’s four big dudes that hit hard and they do that just enough to make this great.
Rating: ****
Gunther vs. Sheamus (WWE 10/7/22)
The thing with these title matches that WWE run on TV is that they can often feel like stepping stones to bigger and better things down the line. Add to that the fact that this follows perhaps the most critically acclaimed WWE match of the year, and one ends up with a match that has a lot working against it just on paper.
Thank God then that these two just have wonderful chemistry together. Sheamus looks the most motivated and fired up he has in years, and Gunther makes the best of an opponent that’s willing to trade potatoes with him. As solid and impressive as Gunther always is, really it’s Sheamus’ fire and determination that stands out more to me.
I like Sheamus, broadly speaking, but in the year of our lord 2022, I didn’t expect to actively root for the guy to win wrestling matches. He’s really hit on something with this feud, an edge to the big power babyface character that works for him. It’s enough that when the shenanigans around the finish come around, I find myself feeling for Sheamus’ plight and actively anticipating the eventual big title win.
Rating: ****
Kaito Ishida vs. Tetsuya Izuchi (GLEAT 10/9/22)
It’s always nice when two young guns get fired up and try to make the best of being given the spotlight. That’s what Ishida and Izuchi both bring to this match. It’s a lot of ambition that translates into brutal kicks and striking. Before it all wraps up, they do bite off a little more than they can chew, but everything before that hits with such explosive power that a little youthful overreach doesn’t detract too much from the overall package.
Rating: ****
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Shinya Aoki (DDT 10/12/22)
Coming off a tag title defense that saw DAMNATION TA target his arm, Kazusada Higuchi is forced to now defend the KO-D Openweight Title against Shinya Aoki.
There’s a neat little trick the match pulls where it has to make the much smaller, but entirely legitimately threatening shooter Aoki come across as a credible threat to Higuchi’s title. The arm work in the tag title match gives Aoki a natural target to go after, and it’s one that Higuchi’s conscious of from the word go.
Higuchi’s game as anything to defend the title, but one can see the wheels turning in his head when the bell rings as he tries to protect his arm. Aoki shows no mercy in trying to break the arm off, and the injury offers him so many close shots at sealing the deal. A series of stiff kicks almost draw a referee stoppage to open, and at one point a simple wrist lock is all the leverage Aoki needs to take Higuchi off his feet and into a pinning predicament.
It’s such an achievement of a match from bell to bell. With a hotter crowd and a better atmosphere, could be one to top the MOTY lists. Even as is, it’s one of the best title matches out of Japan all year, and a marvelous performance from Higuchi as he demonstrates textbook big man selling.
Rating: ****
Pentagon Jr. vs. Villano IV (AAA 10/15/22)
It really is one of the coolest images in pro wrestling history.
As for the match itself, it’s not quite on that level, as great as it may be. There’s a lot working in its favor though. As someone who’s not a massive Pentagon fan, much of what I loved from this match came from Villano IV. Both the veteran’s strengths and weaknesses define the quality of this match.
Villano IV’s age means that there’s a lot of things that Pentagon can not do. Penta’s not going to do a lot of crazed high flying offense because the old man can’t base for that anymore. The reverse is also true with Penta not having much chance to wildly bump for anything that Villano IV has to offer.
Stripping all that away leaves us with the bare bones of what makes a great apuesta match: blood, punches, and a hell of a lot of drama. Villano IV still throws a hell of a good punch, and he throws a lot of them in this. He also controls much of the early part of the match which further cuts away another of Penta’s awful habits—spamming and stalling with his “Cero miedo” taunt. Villano’s mean in small ways like using a full nelson to drive Penta into the ringpost repeatedly.
It’s all such that when Penta makes his own comeback, he’s also driven to be meaner himself. Constant jabs to keep Villano’s blood flowing, repeatedly driving the old man’s skull into the ringpost, wrenching the veteran’s arm out of its socket. It’s the best Pentagon Jr performance in years and years, wish we had more of this guy.
Always hits the spot to see a Villano in a big apuestas like this.
Rating: ****
Dominic Garrini vs. Bryan Keith (Timebomb Pro 10/13/22)
Take an old school cage match and swap out big punches for Japanese-influenced elbows and knees instead.
So much of this gets worked around the two men just beating the tar out of each other. That shows at the start when these two men do one of the better Frye/Takayama send ups I’ve seen in quite some time. Everything looks like it lands, and the crowd gets properly riled up for it as well.
Special mention needs to go to Garrini’s bully performance here. After that initial flurry from Keith that busts Garrini open, a big lariat leads into a delightful Garrini control segment that sees him just batter the challenger with some of his meanest strikes. He makes a convincing mountain to climb for challenger Keith.
Another thing of note from this match is how both wrestlers found small ways to interact with the crowd in this smaller room. Someone insists that Keith grate Dom’s face into the cage, he obliges. Another fan calls for a nipple twister, and Dom inflicts it on the challenger. It’s small stuff like that between all the blood and the bombs that shows these two listen to the people in the crowd and fold in their reactions into the bigger picture.
Rating: ****1/4
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Yukio Sakaguchi (DDT 10/23/22)
I love how distinct all of Higuchi’s KO-D Openweight Championship defenses have been. In this match, we get a fun take on the idea of student vs. mentor. Higuchi and Sakaguchi were longtime partners in the Eruption stable, and now Higuchi needs to prove himself against his old friend and mentor.
Sakaguchi comes in with a clear plan of trying to choke out the bigger man. He’s relentless in his attempts at triangle chokes, and generally trying to wear down Higuchi by knocking the wind out of him. Higuchi endures it all, using his power to make headway, but it’s not until late in the match that this takes its best dramatic turn.
Sakaguchi nails this gruesome punt to Higuchi’s face that cuts the champion on the nose. Rather than go down though, Higuchi rises up to his feet and begins to blast his former mentor right into the dirt. It’s an awesome and decisive moment to show that Higuchi is everything we’ve been saying: the coolest, the strongest, the best.
Rating: ****
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Ren Narita (NJPW 10/26/22)
The initial impulse is to compare this to the famed Ishii/Shibata match from the 2013 G1 Climax. The opening flurry that sees these two crashing into each other certainly invites that comparison, as it draws on the opening of the famed G1 clash. Narita’s history as a protege of Shibata’s also calls to mind that history.
However, the comparison to Ishii/Shibata is a bit of a red herring. The match intentionally brings it to mind before moving in a different direction that makes the dynamic all the richer. Rather than just replaying an old classic beat for beat, Ishii and Narita put a new narrative spin on it instead.
What this match does that’s so great is understand that this very much isn’t Ishii and Shibata in 2013. Ren Narita, as great as he already is at this young age, is not the explosive dynamo that Katsuyori Shibata was. Meanwhile, Tomohiro Ishii is nearly a decade removed from that outstanding breakout. He’s an entrenched part of the New Japan roster, he’s older and slower.
The match plays that dynamic to perfection. Narita wants to be like his stylistic father so much but he’s just not quite there yet. He doesn’t walk through Ishii’s blows. He grits his teeth through them but you can see how hard he gets rocked by Ishii. There’s a little dismissive pettiness to Ishii too, using those throat chops to really light up the youngster and force him to earn his stripes. At the same time though, Ishii’s a step slower and Narita’s youthful vigor gives him an edge that he’s able to exploit if he can weather the storm of Ishii’s offense.
Fantastic match, perhaps the best thing New Japan’s produced all year, with a red hot crowd and atmosphere to boot. Can’t recommend it enough, especially since it’s free on YouTube too.
Rating: ****1/4