Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (December 2022)
Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (December 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 enough to write about.
Atlantis Jr., Atlantis, & Volador Jr. vs. Gran Guererro, Ultimo Guerrero, & Stuka Jr. (CMLL 12/2/22)
Yuki Yoshioka vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (Dragongate 12/4/22)
Atlantis Jr. vs. Gran Guerrero (CMLL 12/9/22)
Mercedes Martinez vs. Athena (ROH 12/10/22)
Gunther vs. Ricochet (WWE 12/16/22)
Bryan Keith vs. Mike Bailey (Freelance 12/16/22)
HoodFoot vs. Abdullah Kobayashi (ICW:NHB 12/17/22)
HARASHIMA & Yukio Sakaguchi vs. Yuji Hino & Yuki Ishida (DDT 12/29/22)
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Yuki Ueno (DDT 12/29/22)
Shinya Aoki vs. Takanori Ito (GLEAT 12/30/22)
Perro de Guerra Jr. vs. Demus (Lucha Memes 6/19/22)
This gets thrown in here because the show only dropped on IWTV in December, so when the hell else was I meant to talk about it?
It’s the annual Coliseo Coacalco blood brawl, made even better here by the rainy weather making the dirt floor muddier than usual. It’s great to see these two scrap in and around the crowd, bumping into fans with wild abandon, and getting cut up with broken beer bottles. It’s not a complicated thing, just two dudes having a fight in the mud.
Rating: ****
Adam Priest vs. Anthony Henry (ACTION 12/2/22)
These two have been at the peak of the southeast indies all year. Before this, they’d wrestled three great matches across ACTION and Uncharted Territory, each of them different from the last. They continue the trend here with Priest opting for an ambush as revenge for Henry forcing a count out in their last match. It’s a great little brawl filled with meanness and fire, and these two don’t stop teeing off once things get back into the ring either. Very few people on the indie scene can be as believably vicious as these two, and Henry specifically ups his bastardy when working against Priest. Excited as all hell for the rematch in January.
Rating: ****1/4
Chihiro Hashimoto vs. ASUKA (Sendai Girls 12/4/22)
A great rematch to their bout from earlier in the year, filled with all the same kinds of delights. ASUKA’s one of the wrestlers that can believably push Chihiro to her limit. She hits just as hard and has the height to throw Chihiro about in the way the champion often does to other challengers. Great to see ASUKA dethrone Chihiro here, and I’m excited to see her work in the new year.
Rating: ****
Samoa Joe vs. Darby Allin (AEW 12/7/22)
Joe’s not what he was, but give him the right opponent and you get a taste again of the monster he was in the mid-2000s. No better way to tap into that raw, unbridled power than by pairing Joe with a man who seems determined to die in the ring. This match is grotesque, with Darby Allin bumping himself ever closer to an early retirement, and Joe happy to bask in the joy of dishing out the beating to make it happen. Literally don’t think anyone else in the company could pair better with Joe than this.
Rating: ****1/4
FTR vs. The Briscoes (ROH 12/10/22)
Between my year-end rewatch and the eventual year-ender itself, I’m going to be writing about this match a lot. So I’ll keep it short and sweet here. All the hype you’ve heard is 100% correct, it’s a wild, crazed, reckless brawl with buckets of blood and some truly insane violence. One of the best tag matches of the year, and really, perhaps one of the best in North American history.
Rating: ****1/2
Kazusada Higuchi & Yuki Ishida vs. Yuki Ueno & Toi Kojima (DDT 12/14/22)
Another entry into the wonderful series of Shinjuku FACE tags pitting HARIMAO against The 37Kamiina. Really, it’s a delightful display of the two fronts where DDT excels the best—its thrilling main event title scene, and the overwhelming potential of its young rookies. Higuchi and Ueno attack each other with the kind of ferocity that you want from the two men set to headline the company’s final major event of the year. Meanwhile, Ishide & Kojima batter each other in an effort to stay on par with their seniors. It’s entirely to their credit that, for the most part, they succeed in that endeavor.
Rating: ****1/4
Kzy vs. Shun Skywalker (Dragongate 12/16/22)
While I don’t think it’s quite as good as their Open the Dream Gate title bout last year, this feels distinct from that in a lot of interesting ways. Shun’s since turned heel, which makes for a much more honest dynamic with the ultra likeable Kzy. He’s always clawing at Kzy’s eyes and cutting him off in brutal ways, real easy to hate the guy.
Then there’s Kzy’s ever reliable babyface performance. Sympathetic and determined, with the benefit of having his friends at ringside too. Some may find it a little overbooked to have the frenzied interference at the end but the heels falling apart at the seems as a team of good friends presents a united front is classic pro wrestling storytelling that I don’t really tire off. A feel good Christmastime hit.
Rating: ****
Suzu Suzuki vs. Tomoka Inaba (JTO 12/19/22)
Suzu Suzuki wrestles beyond her years. Just look at her scarred up body, the way her shoulder’s held together by tape, it looks she’s a battle-tested despite being only 20-years-old. Yet she walks into this match with the swagger and confidence of a best in the world-level worker. She is violent and mean, laying in every single blow on Inaba, getting frustrated when Inaba refuses to stay down. Inaba herself shows a lot of promise, despite being a little more uneven. Once can see her whiff or pull on shots a little too often in this, but when she finally gets in her bag and starts unloading with her kicks, it’s dazzling stuff. It might just be the best women’s match in Japan all year—and that’s a competition that Suzuki’s keeping with herself.
Rating: ****
Minoru Suzuki & DOUKI vs. Jun Kasai & Tomoaki Honma (JTO 12/19/22)
It’s easy for someone like Minoru Suzuki to get lost in his own myth. One can always tell when Suzuki really cares to give it his all (hint: if he’s outside Japan, odds are it isn’t his all), so to see him really unleashed and delivering on something substantial creative is a real thrill. It’s rare to see the man in a blood bath these days, so it’s great that he gets the opportunity to indulge here.
It’s more than just mean mugging and great facial expressions—a habit made all the more bearable and enjoyable due to the blood—here though. It’s also a babyface-in-peril performance early in the match before a big, fiery comeback in the end that ends in him transforming into a monster. It’s not just him though, there’s also Kasai being an ever reliable facilitator of violence, and Honma tapping into that babyface charm that characterized his mid-2010s.
DOUKI’s here too, and hey, he bleeds so I’m not inclined to say anything mean.
Rating: ****1/4
Meltear vs. Nanae Takahashi & Yuu (STARDOM 12/29/22)
Most of this is just Nanae & Yuu being unstoppable killers beating the shit out of the champions, which is pretty much an ideal use for Tam Nakano. Tam gets bullied into throwing some great strikes against Nanae in this. Meanwhile, Yuu, who can occasionally drag down some of her Team 200kg matches, puts in some of her best work as a stiff power bruiser tossing the heroes about. Natsupoi is excellent as always in this, throwing hard blows and dazzling with some quick maneuvering, and all of it comes together to be one of the better STARDOM matches all year.
Rating: ****