Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (January 2023)
Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (January 2023)
From the Tokyo Dome to the chains, it's the best in pro wrestling from January of the new year!
Honorable Mentions
Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Kenoh (NOAH 1/1/23)
Matt Tremont vs. Mad Man Pondo (GCW 1/1/23)
Hitamaru Sasaki vs. Hikaru Sato (Kyushu Pro 1/3/23)
El Lindaman vs. Kaito Ishida (GLEAT 1/8/23)
Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Page (AEW 1/11/23)
YAMATO, Naruki Doi, Shuji Kondo, & Don Fuji vs. Minorita, Kaito Nagano, Yoshiki Kato, & Ryu Fuda (Dragongate 1/12/23)
Hechicero vs. Euforia (CMLL 1/13/23)
The Young Bucks vs. Top Flight (AEW 1/18/23)
Kazuchika Okada & Togi Makabe vs. Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura (NJPW 1/21/23)
Will Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega (NJPW 1/4/23)
Contrary to what some may say, I don’t go into matches wanting to dislike them. As with anyone else, I just have my own expectations of what a match might be like based on what I’ve seen previously. I didn’t really expect to like this match, because I haven’t cared all that much for either Ospreay or Omega’s work in the 2020s.
I liked this match, but for literally none of the reasons this match wanted me to enjoy it for. Even with English commentary off, the performances and structure of this shows what the intended effect is. Will Ospreay puts in a valiant babyface performance but runs into the wall of a returning veteran violently knocking him down a peg, presumably setting up a future big victory for Ospreay.
That’s not what I liked this for. I liked it for Kenny Omega coming home, breathing the Japanese air again, and burying an imitator to his throne in the dirt. He is motivated in a way I haven’t seen in years, enacting a grotesque amount of violence upon Ospreay. Nothing could have made him a bigger babyface in my eyes.
Rating: ****1/4
Jon Moxley & Bryan Danielson vs. Top Flight (AEW 1/6/23)
Danielson & Mox are just such a potent combination, arguably the two best wrestlers on the planet today. Channeling them back into something as mean and brutal as this is a great way to put a cap on the Top Flight/BCC mini program that was a quiet highlight of the tail end of 2022. Top Flight are great in their own right, if now quite in the same tier as their opponents. They acquit themselves well, and Darius especially shows a lot of potential as a more heavy hitting and intense member of the team. Likeable babyfaces getting beat up by bullies, it feels easy when done right.
Rating: ****
Bryan Keith vs. Kevin Ku (Timebomb Pro 1/12/23)
Hey, let’s not shout racist shit at wrestlers this year!
That aside, this is another great edition in the Ku/BK rivalry. Especially noteworthy is how this introduces some fun new narrative wrinkles thanks to its stipulation. Ku wrestles much more as a smug bully in this, and it’s so thrilling to see him cast back in that role. It’s especially fun because BK’s one of the wrestlers on the indie scenes who can thrash Ku for his sins. I probably would have preferred a more hellacious vengeance on BK’s part, but this is a hard-hitting, well structured affair all around.
Rating: ****
Adam Priest vs. Anthony Henry (ACTION 1/20/23)
Fuck yeah, dude. I don’t know how you see Adam Priest throw a steel chair from one side of the ring all the way to the other to catch Anthony Henry and not just freak out. This takes the more brawling-based animosity from the third and fourth matches and just turns it up to eleven. Just a mean, tightly contested thing, from two guys that make every single thing look good. We’re maybe one truly excellent bladejob away from this maybe being one of the best matches of the decade.
Rating: ****1/2
HoodFoot vs. Matt Tremont (ICW:NHB 1/21/23)
Two of my favorite American deathmatch wrestlers clash in a bullrope match. That little detail is important, as it actually plays into the finish when I forgot for a second how bullrope matches work. I could probably quibble that I wish it was incorporated more into the body of the match, but I don’t really care to because everything else they did rocked. Beyond the gimmickry and fuckery, they just beat the crap out of each other. Stiff punches and chops all elevated by having such great sellers in the ring to put over the impact of it all. A bloody delight.
Rating: ****
Bryan Danielson vs. Bandido (AEW 1/28/23)
Bryan Danielson lives out his Arena Mexico fantasy with Bandido instead, and I’m absolutely here for it. I don’t really associate Bandido with the more grounded, llave stylings that we see in this match, so it was a nice change of pace to see him slow things down and show a little more versatility than I was expecting. As with the best grounded lucha matches, it’s all about smoothness, struggle, and sick ass holds. And we get all of that, including one of my absolute favorite Romero Special struggles that I’ve seen in a minute. The kind of great match where I didn’t expect to love it nearly as much as I did.
Rating: ****1/4
Blue Panther, Panterita del Ring, & Valiente vs. Euforia, Hechicero, & Mephisto (CMLL 1/20/23)
One of the most feel good matches of the month. Blue Panther really brings a real gravitas to proceedings here, making us really feel the weight of seeing a living legend plying his trade. His interactions with Hechicero are the meat of this thing, seeing those two riff on the mat is exactly what I want from those two, but that’s elevated further by just how mean Los Infernales are to both Panther and his partners throughout the match. Just a real good slice of lucha goodness.
Rating: ****
Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal (AEW 1/25/23)
Just feels good to see everyone pour their love out for Jay Briscoe. If you want to talk about the match, it’s worked well and Mark’s tribute spots hit all the right notes. The dude even pulls out another truly nutty bump to the outside for the occasion as well. But really, all that’s secondary. It’s about Jay, and how much we miss him.
Rating: Numbers are made up, Jay Briscoe’s legacy is real
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Yuji Hino (DDT 1/29/23)
A match that’s 95% chops somehow tells a truly great story that suits all the themes that Higuchi’s reign has established so far. As with much of Higuchi’s reign, we see the champion actually selling far more than one might expect of a big man. When the chops start flying, it’s the champion who loses his footing or stumbles back far more often than the challenge. That’s not new for the champion though as at any point, Hino might run into what I’ve been terming The Wall—the point when Higuchi surpasses opposition and simply becomes indestructible. Higuchi even tries to incite this power on his own, turning to his famously effective headbutts to try and halt Hino’s momentum.
The problem is that Hino’s defenses never crumbles. He holds his ground, and stays the course, dismantling The Wall brick by brick, chop by chop.
Rating: ****