Views from the Hawke’s Nest 4.15.12: Top 10 Matches from the 2012 WrestleMania Weekend

WrestleMania weekend features a lot wrestling shows besides WrestleMania. Including the granddaddy of them all, six of those shows were televised on TV, Cable PPV or Internet PPV. Those six shows were WWE WrestleMania, WWE Raw (April 2nd, 2012), ROH Showdown in the Sun Parts 1 & 2, and DGUSA’s Mercury Rising and Open the Ultimate Gate. Those six shows lead to one of the greatest weekends of pro-wrestling in my lifetime. Here are the top 10 matches from the six shows as I see it. Feel free to agree, disagree, and/or make your own list in the comments section.

To me, your reaction to this match is going to be heavily dependent on how high your expectations were. I know some friends and writers that were in love with the idea of this match, and I think a lot of them were underwhelmed. I, on the other hand, am rather cynical towards what Low Ki is really bringing to the table in 2012, and his performance here did a lot to restore my faith in him. Since PAC only has good matches these days, I wouldn’t say I was expecting a bad match, but I did not think it would turn out nearly as well as it did. I hope to see a rematch before the year is out. PAC is one of the best wrestlers in the world, and this made me much more excited to see more Low Ki matches in DGUSA and Evolve.

From My 411wrestling.com Review: On one hand, I enjoyed this match for what it was, but I can’t help but feel underwhelmed by how unremarkable it seemed. My biggest gripe is that the match just didn’t feel fun in the way other “all-star matches” have felt in the past. Cena used two different bear hugs in this match. Why? There wasn’t any big importance to the work on Rock’s ribs so why even bother? The match was almost too normal, when it could have used some (minimal) crowd brawling, a broken Spanish announce table, and/or something similar…Overall, this was a fun and historically significant main event, but it seems like it could have been more [enjoyable].

I truly wonder how history will judge this match. It worked for the crowd and the match definitely has to be considered a success because of that. However, this match may not hold up compared to the other two big matches on the show. They will most likely have a rematch within the next year, and I hope that they are able to top themselves (but I won’t hold my breath)

DGUSA is often at its best when there is a high degree of fun, and this was one of the most fun matches the company had produced in quite some time. El Generico was a fantastic surprise after getting jobbed out in ROH earlier that day. Del Sol and Dorado both looked sharp, and they looked like bigger deals just by being in the same match as everyone else. I know Del Sol is with DGUSA/Evolve full time now, but I also think Dorado is going to get another look after this performance. Taylor’s entertaining heel personality shined here; Taylor manages to get booed while being incredibly funny, which is actually quite remarkable in some ways. This was one of my favorite DGUSA matches since Bryan Danielson left them for the second time.

Johnny Gargano had great singles matches with some of the biggest Dragon Gate stars in 2011 like CIMA, Akira Tozawa, Naruki Doi, BxB Hulk, and Yamato. In 2011, Masato Yoshino proved to be really stale (in the USA and in Japan), and his matches always seemed to leave something to be desired. Something had to give. Thankfully for us, Gargano proved capable of getting a super entertaining match out of Yoshino in what was arguably the latter’s best singles match ever in DGUSA. They had great chemistry and managed to create a lot of drama in what was an easy match to predict. Gargano’s Freedom Gate Title reign got off to a rocky start, but it took a turn for the great here. Gargano is one of the best wrestlers in the world, and we should all hope that the WWE signs him up soon.

Tozawa and Mochizuki were two of the best wrestlers in the year 2011, and they basically went out had a great Japan PPV match in front of a couple hundred people in Miami. Mochizuki’s performances in the US have often been lacking (I like to say that he has mastered the “Look how many fucks I give” demeanor for his State-side matches), but he has been great in all four of his big American matches so far in 2012. I do have to say however that the result (Mochizuki winning clean as a sheet) puzzles me unless Mochizuki is locked down for a Freedom Gate Title shot at DGUSA’s next weekend of shows. Since Tozawa pinned Gargano the night before and then pinned Mochi in the six man tag main event of Mercury Rising, it seems like he is also in line for a shot. Maybe they are both getting a shot. Thinking about DGUSA booking though shouldn’t detract from what was a great match though.

From my 411wrestling.com Review: This was a really well thought out match that was hurt by a dead crowd. The crowd may have been disenchanted by the sudden additional stipulation about Punk losing the title via disqualification, but regardless, it took them a long time to seemingly care at all about this match after the entrances. Suffice to say though, I found this match to be really compelling once Jericho stopped trying to get a DQ win, and I hope to see a rematch down the line.

I think over time, I am going to enjoy this match more and more. While I didn’t like the red herring stipulation that was added at the last minute, I appreciate the story they were going for. Everything after that though was truly well executed, and I only wish that the crowd reacted sooner to the great match that was happening. Jericho and Punk are two of the best wrestlers in the world, and I am glad that they were able to prove it on the biggest wrestling stage of all. I think their rematch in Chicago could be better.

Since 2006, the Dragon Gate Six Man tag match has become a staple of WrestleMania weekend (only not happening in 2009 since then), and DGUSA delivered one of the more unique versions of the match yet. I don’t know if it was better than past incarnations of the match, but in my mind, it was at least the best match of the (loaded) DGUSA weekend. The highlight by far was watching Mochizuki kick the shit out of Low Ki. Hopefully, DGUSA will produce Mochi vs. Ki in a 1v1 match by the end of the year, so we can all take more satisfaction from watching Low Ki get beat up. Ricochet, PAC, and Tozawa continued to show why they have been 3 of DGUSA’s best players over the last year, and hopefully BxB Hulk’s push in the company is (hopefully being) renewed in light of his fantastic heel character.

These two have essentially been doing a series of death matches for the last two and half years and all of them have been fantastic. These are the two best wrestlers in American independent wrestling and they bring the absolute best out of each other. I have no idea why Ring of Honor doesn’t invest a lot of time and money into El Generico as he has been the most consistent wrestler for them for about 3 years now. These two have had big matches in ROH and PWG a lot, but they still somehow pulled off a very fresh match that didn’t in any way feel repetitive or cliché (or even that dangerous compared to a lot of their past matches). My only nitpick with this match is that the ending came off a little flat with the Jimmy Jacobs interference. However, that is a small nitpick for what was a fantastic match.

To say that Davey Richards’s ROH World Title reign has been underwhelming would definitely be an understatement. ROH spent a year (June 2010-June 2011) seemingly trying to build up Davey as a champion, and then once he got the belt, they completely dropped the ball with him. He’s been stuck in the wretched breakup angle with Eddie Edwards for 6+ months, and most of his title matches (of which there have been far too little of) have actually been letdowns in terms of quality (most notably his Final Battle main event against Eddie Edwards). Then this match happened. Davey made Elgin look like a beast in this matchup, and if there wasn’t so much money and time invested in Davey losing the title to Steen, I think most fans would be happy with Elgin taking the title off of Davey. Michael Elgin is one of the top players from ROH after this match and companies around the world should be looking to book him. This was the best Davey Richards match (from any promotion) in a year. It was the best ROH match in over a year. But it wasn’t quite as good as…

From My 411wrestling.com Review: If I were any of these three men, I would suggest that none of them ever step in a WWE ring again, because this was as good of a way as any for them to all go out at once. When I re-watched Taker’s previous 5 matches at WrestleMania, I noted that his WrestleMania 27 match with HHH did not hold up as well as the others. My main complaint was that the storytelling kicked in too late. Here, the storytelling was started early and they kept it up throughout the whole match. The WWE may have wasted the first hour of the show with bad booking, but this was all incredible.

When people criticize the WWE as “just being entertainment,” I laugh. Yes, the WWE does a lot of crappy comedy and inane booking, but their product can entertain me just as well as any independent promotion’s super serious wrestling. This match was entertainment and storytelling at its best. This match was like a movie. It told so many wonderful stories with characters that we have become invested in after years and years of television. As I said at the time, I really don’t mind this being the last significant wrestling related angle/story/match that any of these three men do. Rarely do three wrestlers get to go out on top, and I can’t think of a better moment for all of their wrestling careers to end.

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My Favorite Matches in 2012 So Far

I am now the editor of a brand new wrestling website, FreeProWrestling.com . What is this site, you ask? It’s a website that posts a free wrestling match every single weekday. All matches are legally provided by the promotions that originally put them on. Occasionally, we are lucky enough to have the wrestlers of the matches exclusively discuss the matches retrospectively. So far, we’ve been lucky to have thoughts from Eddie Kingston , Prince Devitt , Sugar Dunkerton , AR Fox , and more! If you like wrestling and you hate spending money, I think you will enjoy it!