Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (May 2023)
Joseph Montecillo's Best of the Month (May 2023)
They let Higuchi cook.
Honorable Mentions
Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, & Ren Narita vs. Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW 5/3/23)
Orange Cassidy vs. Daniel Garcia (AEW 5/10/23)
El Desperado vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (NJPW 5/12/23)
Atlantis Jr., Panterita del Ring Jr., & Esfinge vs. Mephisto, Hechicero, & Euforia (CMLL 5/12/23)
Volador Jr., Atlantis Jr., & Star Jr. vs. Euforia, Hechicero, & Mephisto (CMLL 5/26/23)
Astronauts vs. Strong BJ (BJW 5/28/23)
Jun Akiyama vs. Toi Kojima (DDT 5/28/23)
Takuya Nomura vs. Daisuke Sekimoto (BJW 5/28/23)
Yuji Okabayashi vs. Yuya Aoki (BJW 5/4/23)
It’s not a perfect thing. The suplex no selling in the middle probably could have been done a little better, and read more excessive than anything else. But sometimes, the spirit just takes you, and that’s what this match did by the end. A lot of that credit has to go to Yuya Aoki. Through it all, even the questionable no selling, he’s just so damn likeable. Fired up and determined for his big moment, and one can’t help but want to see it come to fruition. Big Yuji’s the perfect brick wall to have break through too. Casually brutal in so much of what he does, just battering the challenger and forcing him to earn every single inch. I love that it culminates for Aoki in him walking into Yuji’s chops—a spot that he’s turned to in the weeks leading up to this title match, now achieving full momentum to allow him to swing things decisively in his favor. Big chops, big bumps, and big emotions, it’s a formula for success.
Rating: ****1/4
Soberano Jr. vs. Averno (CMLL 5/5/23)
Stupid Sexy Soberano Jr. does it again. More than the athletic displays against the likes of Templario and Titan, it’s matches like this that I think will build the legend of Soberano Jr. It’s such a simple formula, as old as wrestling itself, and it’s applied to perfection here. A beautiful, beloved star gets put into the ring with a mean bully and the fans shriek and weep when the beautiful man gets beat up. Credit to Averno here for gamely living up to the role, being just the most bitter, hateful man in Arena Mexico that night. There’s a spiteful hater’s spirit in Averno second only to the best Stuka Jr. performances, and it’s the perfect kind of heel work to drive the fans in Mexico City absolutely batshit with rage whenever he goes after Soberano Jr. In the closing moments, there’s a woman in the audience absolutely losing her mind that Soberano Jr. pulled off the victory and that’s the spirit of real wrestling right there.
Rating: ****
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Yusuke Okada (DDT 5/6/23)
As a replacement for an injured Yukio Naya, Yusuke Okada made it known in the build up that he didn’t like his chances against Higuchi in the first round. And really, why should he? Higuchi won the tournament last year, had a famously dominant title reign, and boasts the hardest skull on the planet. Okada’s fucked, and luckily, he wrestles like it too.
Beyond just attacking Higuchi right at the bell, there’s a doomed quality to Okada’s performance here. He’s throwing heaters that keep the match compelling, but Higuchi barely seems dented by any of it. By the time Okada messed up his back, it’s pretty much game over. Even moreso when he starts trying to trade headbutts with Higuchi, a notoriously bad tactic for any Higuchi opponent. Mechancially too, Okada pulls this great little trick of always completing the rotation off of big flip bumps at the very last second, so that one thinks he might just land right on his skull before he completes the turn.
Higuchi allowed to cook is in the highest reaches of talent on the planet, and Okada here’s quietly been one of the best workers in Japan relative to his position. A high bar of quality for the rest of the tournament.
Rating: ****
Bianca Belair vs. IYO SKY (WWE 5/6/23)
I’ve been a big proponent of the idea that Bianca Belair might just be the WWE’s truest successor to John Cena than anyone else on the roster today. This match demonstrates yet again why I believe so. For the first time since her big title win at WrestleMania two years ago, Belair encounters a hostile crowd who’d much rather pull for IYO SKY. Belair doesn’t lean in as a heel, but instead perseveres, working the match that these two worked out. I don’t hate that idea, there’s something to Belair being too damn likeable to take that turn on this particular night, even in a subtle way. It’s such a great match, filled with crisp and snappy action, and one of the coolest power moves combined with an arm sell ever.
Rating: ****
Mio Momono vs. Masha Slamovich (West Coast Pro/PWRevolution 5/13/23)
I generally enjoy Masha’s work, but there’s some gaps in her matches always stand out to me. For example, as she demonstrates in this match and her other work in the tournament that evening, she’s actually quite adept at chain wrestling. I enjoy seeing her trade holds with Mio in the early goings of things. Where I find her less interesting is in more direct slugging. Her elbows are hit and miss for me, but luckily there’s a lot here to compensate for those things. There’s Masha’s cool signature cut off yanking Mio’s throat into the top rope. There’s Mio’s signature fire and stiff strikes to fill the spaces where Masha might lack. And also, there’s just an overall easy chemistry between these two from their time working together in Japan. A great match, pretty easily the best women’s match on the American indies this year.
Rating: ****
Roderick Strong vs. Chris Jericho (AEW 5/17/23)
The highlight of one of the better Dynamites of the year. As with a lot of the best Jericho matches from his AEW run, it comes at the hands of a stiff striker who gives him no quarter. Roddy’s fantastic in this, hitting as hard as ever and constantly pressing forward with his array of power moves and chops. It’s the kind of situation where Jericho’s forced into the motivation to overdeliver. Not only does Jericho chop back as well (his best regular strike), but his punches and elbows had a crunch to them that they rarely don’t. Also, this shit is funny in the tradition of some of the best gimmick matches. Ice cream to the face, hand sanitizer to the eyes, teetering on a stairwell ledge, and rolling about in the dirt? All great stuff, perfect TV bafoonery from everyone involved.
Rating: ****
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Yuki Ueno (DDT 5/21/23)
When these two wrestled for the KO-D Openweight Title at the end of 2022, it felt like a step down from what both men were capable of. It was good, borderline great even, but that can’t help but be a disappointment from two men I considered some of the best workers in Japan.
This is the match I wanted those two to have last year. Ueno launches himself at the wall that is Higuchi with the necessary fire and determination. But beyond that too, Ueno comes in with a strategy here. It’s a two pronged attack. First, go after Higuchi’s arm to neutralize the Brain Claw Slam, a tactic that’s historically worked against the big man in the past. Second, wear down Higuchi’s infamously impenetrable skull. Ueno’s strategy comes out to mixed results, he’s able to create openings on the arm, but an attack on Higuchi’s head has not been effective in a long time.
Higuchi is breathtaking as ever. Perfectly credible as this indomitable force that brings out titanic-size struggles over the smallest things. I’m always in awe how much drama he can get out of merely the attempt at the Brain Claw Slam, let alone the awesome power of his striking and cut offs.
Rating: ****1/4
Kazusada Higuchi vs. Chris Brookes (DDT 5/21/23)
With how strong Higuchi’s last twelve months have been, this might just be his most impressive performance yet. I don’t dislike Brookes but his work in DDT over the last few years has always felt much better suited for the middle of the card. It should be no shock then that his best match at the top of the card came against the likes of an otherworldly talent like Kazusada Higuchi.
The reality is that it’s sort of absurd to imagine Chris Brookes defeating Higuchi. That’s not a slight on him. With the way Higuchi’s been performing and booked over the last year, it’s hard to imagine anybody in the world defeating him. This match plays on that idea. Higuchi doesn’t take it easy on Brookes. He absorbs Brookes’ best shots and barely budges. He cracks Brookes’ face open with the force of his own skull. It’s unthinkable for him to lose.
The match’s magic is finding just enough cracks in the armor for Brookes to slip through. Ueno already went after Higuchi’s arm earlier in the night, and Brookes only really breaks through by picking at it. In the end, after taking the beating of a lifetime, he worms his way into an armbar which he cranks on like his life depends on it. It’s just enough to buy in the moment, and that’s saying something.
Rating: ****
Sareee & Aja Kong vs. Mio Momono & Mika Iwata (Hana Kimura Memorial Show 5/23/23)
The singles match against Chihiro Hashimoto saw Sareee grow back into herself. In this tag on Hana Kimura’s memorial show, Sareee’s forced to maintain momentum against someone who might just be the best women’s wrestler on the planet: Mio Momono. The two display some great chemistry, aggressive and fiery at every stage, scrapping for everything they can get. It’s no longer the 90s but Aja still gets the most out of the little she can still do, still portraying a believable obstacle to the youngins across the ring from her.
Rating: ****
Kazusada Higuchi & Yuki Ishida vs. Kota Umeda & Takeshi Masada (DDT 5/28/23)
It’s not every day someone can match Higuchi’s striking ability, even rarer when they surpass it. Kota Umeda does just that here with truly amazing, bone crunching kicks. The concussive blasts on those things are crazy, overshadowing even Higuchi’s ever reliable chops. It’s not just the ferocity of the kicks, but the speed and volume at which Umeda’s able to deliver them—it’s especially effective when he’s bullying Ishida with them. I’ve said above that it’s hard to imagine anyone matching up to Kazusada Higuchi believably, and Kota Umeda made it look easy.
Rating: ****1/4
Yuji Okabayashi vs. Fuminori Abe (BJW 5/28/23)
While not quite as emotionally satisfying as Aoki capturing the Strong Heavyweight Championship, this match represents the best of what BJW’s been offering in the ring. Through the various Astronauts/Strong BJ interactions through the year, the Okabayashi/Abe pairing has been the most electing pairing. This singles match takes place on the same day that the Astronauts finally defeated Strong BJ in tag action thanks to Abe picking away at the arm. He tries a similar tack here, combined with all the hard hitting strikes one expects from these two. Great escalation as Abe tries to replicate his success from the tag match, but Okabayashi proves tougher one-on-one.
Rating: ****1/4