AJW 9/14/87 Omiya Skate Center: Itsuki Yamazaki & Noriyo Tateno vs. Lioness Asuka & Chigusa Nagayo 16:34.
DC: This match took place when the AJW crowds were still filled with loudly screaming school girls. Chigusa Nagayo was extremely popular at the time, and the legions of school girls kept chanting her name while waving their pom poms up and down. Lioness Asuka’s popularity shouldn’t be underestimated, though, and Lioness was the better worker of the Crush Gals during most years. Chigusa and Lioness were not only super popular, they were also a superb tag team, as whenever they teamed up, you could expect interesting in-ring action alongside the amazing crowd heat. Their opponents, the Jumping Bomb Angels, were also one of the very best tag teams in the world at the time. While Noriyo Tateno was a strong worker who was very enjoyable to watch, Itsuki Yamazaki was considerably better. Really, the underrated and often overlooked Yamazaki is arguably one of the top 8 or top 10 women’s wrestlers in pro wrestling history. People should definitely start checking out more of her work if they’re interested in learning more about the great workers from the past. This was definitely a much anticipated tag team match (especially since their 3/20/86 match was excellent and is highly recommended viewing as well). Since June of 1987, the Jumping Bomb Angels had been appearing in the American wrestling circus, and they would continue to do so until March of 1988. Luckily, they were given the opportunity to participate in this classic match. What stood out in this match was that amazing effort was combined with fierce wrestling action. The workrate was super high, and some of the moves were quite spectacular for the time, especially the ones towards the end of the match. Not only was the work displayed impressive for the time, the liveliness and care shown here was far more powerful than that shown in virtually any joshi puroresu match of the 2020s. This is definitely one of the best joshi puroresu matches of the 1980s, and it’s arguably the best pro wrestling match of 1987. Great match. ****¾  

NJPW 12/26/90 Hamamatsu Arena. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Negro Casas 16:37.
DC: Casas started off with a bang, immediately attacking Liger with great urgency. Casas for some inexplicable reason was wearing the gear of his brother Felino. Speaking of unusual gear, this was the first time Liger wore black and gold gear. The match never really developed much beyond the initial urgency shown. Casas did hit a tremendous tope suicida though. This was wrestled like it was a lucha de apuestas match, with a lot of focus on selling and the feeling of this being a grudge match. However, this was in fact Negro Casas’ first appearance in NJPW. He came in with such a big reputation that he was allowed to challenge for Liger’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title (which was still quite a prestigious title back then) in his NJPW debut. On one hand, I love that Liger sold so much for Casas to make Casas look strong in his NJPW debut, but on the other hand, Liger could have pushed for a bit more of a dynamic match instead of this sort of straight-forward ‘my turn, your turn’ approach. The upside to this approach was that when Liger fought back, the fans went nuts (although the crowd was probably just particularly rabid to begin with that night). When Liger was on offense, this match was a lot more exciting, and this makes sense, since Casas at the time was stronger when there were lucha sequences that had him act more like a rudo base for a tecnico’s offense. This was kind of a unique and odd match, unlike most of the junior heavyweight matches in NJPW at the time. While it was disappointing considering the fact this was arguably a battle between the best Japanese wrestler and the best Mexican wrestler in the world at the time, the work was never less than good. And it was this oddness and unpredictability of this match that made it stand out in its own right. At times, the action was very good. However, it seemed the match rarely reached the excellence you’d hope for in this battle between these two international top stars. Still, there was enough sense of struggle to warrant viewing this match as more than just quite good. It’s not a pretty match, but what it lacks in prettiness, it makes up for in the grudge match aspect. Again, it’s odd that it felt like a grudge match when it was the first time they wrestled each other. However, this fits perfectly with the big introduction Casas got into NJPW by being presented like a top international star worthy of being a threat to Liger’s coveted title. Casas gave a good showing in his NJPW debut here, but it was Liger who truly stood out, as he adapted so well to Casas’ lucha style, understanding that he would have to approach this match in a different way than most of his previous big battles against guys like Naoki Sano and Pegasus Kid. This futher emphasizes the fact that Liger was a really strong candidate for Wrestler of the Year in 1990. By the way, watch the hand-held version if you want to see the complete version of this Liger vs. Casas match. Very good match. ***½  

RINGS 7/16/96 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Willie Peeters 10:47.
DC: This was Kiyoshi Tamura’s second match in RINGS. His first match in RINGS was a 3-minute win over Dick Vrij on 6/29/96. Here in this match against another Dutchman, Willie Peeters, Tamura gave a strong display of skill. Peeters was an amateur wrestler in his early teens. At the age of 16, he trained judo under Chris Dolman and Wilhelm Ruska. Later, he would also learn kickboxing and kyokushin. He joined RINGS when he was invited on Dolman’s team. Whenever Peeters wasn’t lifting up his pants, he tried to throw some strikes and tried to block Tamura’s strikes. Peeters also threw a suplex or two that looked actually quite impressive. Overall, this certainly wasn’t a pretty match, but it was quite an interesting one. Peeters was somewhat limited and lacked diversity as a worker, but he showed a lot of attitude and stiffness. Early on, while he was definitely moving and throwing offense, Tamura seemed to be trying to figure out what this unusual opponent was going to do. The most interesting aspect of this match was that they became increasingly more uncooperative with each other. In the final minutes, they were able to make it look like they were shooting. Maybe this was planned that way, or maybe they just became frustrated and stopped cooperating too much. With Peeters it's often difficult to know what's going through his head and when his questionable tactics are planned, and that’s just the way Peeters liked it. Peeters even started taunting, but Tamura remained calm and made Peeters tap to an arm submission. One of the most interesting aspects of this match was that they never really seemed to actually sell for each other, which made this definitely way more fascinating of a match than (shoot-style) matches with cringeworthy selling. This wasn’t a fancy match, but it was a very shoot-like work, and that’s sometimes more important than anything. Kudos to Tamura for staying cool and getting the job done. Very good match. ***¾ 

RINGS 9/25/96 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center: Volk Han vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 10:32.
DC: Tamura excluded himself from UWF-I's embarrassments with New Japan starting in late 1995, and switched to RINGS in mid 1996, opening up the possibility of this dream match that hardcore fans had been dying to see for half a decade. Han clearly had the gameplan of trying to make Tamura submit as soon as possible, as he kept trying to put Tamura in a difficult situation on the mat. However, Tamura showed her his own technical proficiency, and it certainly provided Han with the tough challenge of perhaps having to reconsider his game plan. However, Tamura briefly managed to stun Han even more when Tamura switched to stand-up striking. Han realized he had to do something big quickly, so he took Tamura down with a sleeper. They continued to dance a poetic yet intense dance of shoot-style chess on the mat, which meant they displayed some of the most amazing technical wrestling ever seen. At some point, Han surprised Tamura with some explosive hand strikes. Tamura then decided to surprise Han with a sleeper, but Han wasn’t as surprised as Tamura had hoped, and Han countered into an arm submission hold that made Tamura tap. They showed tremendous chemistry in this match. The matwork was on an extremely high level technically and it was worked in an urgent manner. They were both very focused and the match was intriguing from start to finish. If you want to watch just one Volk Han or Kiyoshi Tamura match, this would be an excellent choice, as it would be a great Han and Tamura match to start with and this will probably make you want to watch more than just one match of these all-time great workers. It was truly a beautiful display of high-end professional wrestling. Great match. ****½

RINGS 10/25/96 Nagoya Aichi-ken Taiikukan, Mega Battle Tournament Round 1: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Mikhail Ilyukhin 14:40.
DC: Just like several other Russian workers in RINGS, Mikhail Ilyukhin was a samboist prior to his pro wrestling career. While he gave a decent showing here, his performance was lacking the much-needed intensity you’d like to see in a shoot style wrestling match. Kiyoshi Tamura was certainly a lot quicker and daring than the slower and more cautious Ilyukhin. In fact, Ilyukhin was so cautious that Tamura could afford to kinda wait for Ilyukhin to make a mistake and then go for a submission, which resulted in this match coming across as not very competitive, despite Tamura’s efforts to pretend that Ilyukhin was providing him with challenges to overcome. Especially since Ilyukhin was so slow on the mat, Tamura could easily counter his moves very obviously. Thanks to Tamura’s spurts of urgency whenever he would go for a potential lethal submission hold, this match managed to be more than a regular puroresu match, because, at times, if it wasn’t stylistically so different from regular puroresu, this could easily be categorized as a regular puroresu match due to Ilyukhin’s display of trepidness. This wasn’t a very high-end shoot style match by any means, due to Ilyukhin’s limitations as a worker, but it definitely an interesting match overall, mostly thanks to Tamura’s display of technique. Good match. ***

RINGS 12/19/96 Fukuoka Kokusai Center, Mega Battle Tournament Semifinal: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto 9:49.
DC: Right from the start, both showed a good amount of urgency. Tamura took Yamamoto down whenever he noticed Yamamoto was getting lost in his focus on throwing hand strikes. Unlike Mikhail Ilyukhin in Tamura’s first round match on 10/25/96, Yamamoto showed a good amount of resistance to anything Tamura was trying to apply on him in this semifinal match. Tamura knew he couldn’t take Yamamoto lightly, since Yamamoto showed a strong will to win, and this caused Tamura to show increasingly more intensity. And as usual, Tamura displayed his great technical wrestling skills. Very good match. ***¾  

RINGS 1/22/97 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Mega Battle Tournament Final: Volk Han vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 12:36.
DC: This annual tournament was called the MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT ‘96 because it started in late 1996, but the final (this match) took place in early 1997. Before the match, they played the national anthems of Russia and Japan respectively. The match started off with extremely urgent and technically skilled matwork. The crowd was really into this match, and it really felt like a big match. This match featured a really strong performance by both workers, especially Volk Han. This was even better than their great 9/26/96 match. After a good early portion on the mat, there were some strikes. Tamura tried a spectacular spin kick of sorts, which missed, luckily for Han. But, Tamura did a nice kickup and the fans appreciated Tamura’s spectacular approach here. Tamura seemed confident and perhaps overconfident when he took the mat master Han to the mat. It didn’t take long for Han to show Tamura he was indeed the submission specialist, as Tamura clearly had to be on top of his game to survive. Lots of interesting matwork followed. Once they were going for standup strikes, Tamura appeared more dangerous, but Han cleverly would always take Tamura to the mat again in order to keep control of the match. Han went down after a big Tamura kick, but Han made it back up in time. Han almost won the match when he had Tamura in a leg submission. Tamura reached the ropes. Han simply grabbed another leg submission, and this time it was in the middle of the ring. Tamura had no choice but to tap out. ****½

RINGS 4/22/97 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kosaka 13:57.
DC: Though far less famous than their 6/27/98 rematch, this is actually the better match of the two. Both men were cautious early on, but they were trying to get some good strikes in while trying to avoid getting hit with a strike themselves. And when someone got taken down, they would try to finish them off on the mat. However, the opponent would always be trying to block or prevent any significant hold being applied on them properly. Basically, everything they did made sense from the perspective of a fight, which is why you could say that this practically was wrestled like a worked MMA match. The only downside of this match was that, despite this being one of the best worked matches you’ll ever see, this high level of realism made this less exciting than a more flashy Volk Han match. Great match. ****¾  

RINGS 5/23/97 Sendai Miyagi-ken Sports Center: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Grom Zaza 8:15.
DC: Zaza ‘Grom’ Tkeshelashvili from the former Soviet republic of Georgia had a very good match against Volk Han on 5/16/92 in RINGS that is worth checking out for sure. Kiyoshi Tamura was clearly one of the very best workers in pro wrestling at the time, arguably THE very best. Not only his technical skills makes him stand out as a top-level worker, but especially his ability to work this into a realistic-looking match. There was plenty of flashy matwork in this match, but it was never overly flashy, which helped it maintain at least some level of realism for a worked pro wrestling match. The main downside of this match was that they gave each other a bit too much space and time to react or go for a move. This criticism only stands when you compare this match to some of Tamura’s very best matches, of course, as this was obviously way more realistic than the average pro wrestling match. It was a relatively short match, but all the action, including the wicked finish, was superb. Excellent match. ****

RINGS 6/21/97 Tokyo Ariake Coliseum: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Nikolai Zouev 10:30.
DC: Russian wrestler Nikolai Zouev never was a really good pro wrestler, but he always seemed to improve over the years, and it helped that he wrestled Volk Han several times. Here in this match against Kiyoshi Tamura, Zouev certainly did several good things, and he played his role quite well overall. Tamura was the one leading and carrying the match, but that was more than expected anyway. Zouev’s way of reacting was sometimes too unsure or simply too awkward looking. Tamura did a great job of working around Zouev’s limitations though. Tamura only sold when Zouev actually did something that connected or hit. On many instances, Tamura did a great job of being in the right position for Zouev to apply a move that would enhance the drama of the match. Everything Tamura did seemed to make sense, and it was such a joy to enhance the quality of this match through his great performance. The only downside of the match was the final minute or so, as by that point, you’re left wondering why Tamura hasn’t finished Zouev off yet. To make things worse, Tamura ended up tapping to an awkwardly-applied hold by Zouev. Apart from the lame finish, this bout was yet another example of Tamura’s greatness. Very good match. ***½  

RINGS 8/13/97 Kagoshima Arena: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Hans Nijman 9:14.
DC: This match featured a great display of skill by Kiyoshi Tamura against a mediocre Dutch pro wrestler. Hans Nijman’s strikes were quite good, thanks to his karate and kickboxing background, but he lacked speed, and he certainly was no match for Tamura on the mat. Tamura had to really dumb down his work and take it easy on the mat in order to not embarrass Nijman too much. Still, Tamura’s ability to make the most out of a match once again was evident. Because of Nijman’s relative limitations, the match relied a bit more on Tamura’s ability to sell in a regular pro wrestling way than most of Tamura’s more realistic matches in RINGS that year. Thanks to Tamura’s high-quality work, this match made Nijman look like a better wrestler than he actually was, which speaks volumes about Tamura’s ability. Good match. ***

CMLL 3/26/21 Mexico City Arena Mexico, Historic Welterweight Title: Volador Jr. vs. Bandido.
DC: After Volador's requisite two quick falls, they could fully concentrate on doing their thing in the third fall. Bandido hit an awesome tope con giro. After an impressive huracarrana, Volador Jr. hit an impressive tope con giro of his own. What makes Volador such a great high flyer is that he never seems to fly for the sake of it, he uses high flying moves as a way to do damage to his opponent. After a nasty bump to the floor, Volador got attacked by a twisting tope con giro by Bandido. There was a great spot that saw Bandido slide underneath the bottom rope to the floor and then be surprised by Volador Jr. with an Asai moonsault. What kept this from being great was that during the middle portion of the third fall, it almost seemed like they were kinda running out of ideas and running out of momentum, since they had done so much spectacular stuff prior. Also, Bandido showed once again that, while he is a very talented athlete, it seems he just cares about the highspots. Luckily, Volador is quite a strong storyteller in the ring most of the time. As the match went on, we would still witness impressive moves, but it almost seemed like the third fall was worked in reverse, in terms of build up. The pace also gradually declined as the match went on, which made sense, since they were selling damage, but it would have been nice to have seen some flashes of speed and urgency later in the match as well. After what looked like a somewhat botched finish, Volador retained the title. Even though this wasn’t as great as hoped, it was still a memorable bout. Excellent match. ****  

CMLL 1/20/23 Mexico City Arena Mexico, Historic Welterweight Title: Volador Jr. vs. Rocky Romero 22:56.
DC: This was Volador Jr.’s tenth title defense in his third reign as Historic Welterweight Champion. This match certainly exceeded expectations and turned into an excellent title match with plenty of impressive spots, sequences and segments. While Rocky Romero was being a cocky rudo character, at least his wrestling was more serious than usual. Romero is an American luchador of Puerto Rican heritage, but he’s from Cuba in kayfabe. Volador Jr.’s execution was excellent, as usual. Whenever he wasn’t hitting impressive moves of his own, he did a really good job selling for Romero’s offense. Some of the early highlights of the match included a tope suicida by Volador that sent Romero over the guardrail. Towards the end of the match, we got to see plenty of near falls that helped make this feel like a big title match. The build-up and storytelling aspects of the match were really well done. The match was wrestled at a consistent pace, and it seemingly became slightly more dramatic with the minute. It’s good to see that Volador is still among the best and most spectacular luchadores these days, which is pretty incredible considering he’s currently 42 years old and has been wrestling for 27 years now. However, in the end, Romero won the match. This meant that Volador’s impressive 1,631-day title reign had come to an end! It was not necessarily a very undeserving victory, as this was probably Romero’s best match and performance ever. Excellent match. **** 

NJPW/CMLL 2/27/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Volador Jr. vs. Templario 14:25.
DC: This match featured plenty of spectacular moves. Volador Jr. hit an awesome tope con giro. Templario hit a tremendous tope suicida. This was definitely a fun match that was all about highspots. While it was enjoyable to watch, it never felt like an important match, just a fun match with two talented luchadores showing their stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that also potentially prevented this match from reaching greater heights. Still, the effort given was strong, and the spots executed were impressive enough for this match to be considered a memorable one. Excellent match. ****  

NJPW/CMLL 2/27/23 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, CMLL World Welterweight Title: Titan vs. Soberano Jr. 12:04.
DC: This was the main event of this Fantastica Mania show. For this title match, Titan had NJPW worker BUSHI in his corner, and Soberano Jr. had Atlantis Jr. in his corner. The seconds barely played any part in this match though, as they were probably just as much in awe of the action as everyone else in attendance. This match featured so many fast-paced and highly athletic moves that it was at times almost too hard to keep up with all the action. Little but important things like Titan showing a lot of eagerness to hit a springboard move on Soberano by impatiently waiting for Soberano to get up and turn around helped make this match feel more urgent and less pretentious than a lot of highspot-oriented matches. What they did particularly well was putting over the idea that they were trying to outdo each other and really trying to show everyone that they could beat the other, but they were only willing to make a serious attempt to beat the other after trying to outshine the other. Another thing they did so well was stick to their lucha style while understanding that the foreign crowd was here to be wowed by spectacular action. The match started off with Titan hitting a tope suicida right away, which is always a good way to start. Soberano dropkicked Titan off the turnbuckle to the floor when Titan was sitting on the turnbuckle. Soberano then hit an amazing variation of the tope con giro that saw him rotate in mid air so that he ended up hitting a moonsault. The execution was generally excellent, especially considering the difficulty level of the work. In an era in which highspot-oriented matches have become the norm, for this match to stand out THIS much means that this is a truly exceptional match within its genre, and a true MOTYC. This was brief, but nonetheless on another level. They raised the bar somehow. ****½  

CMLL 6/30/23 Mexico City Arena Mexico, World Historic Welterweight Title: Rocky Romero vs. Volador Jr. 22:02.
DC: Volador Jr. wasted no time and attacked Rocky Romero during the ring introductions. Romero fell to the floor and Volador immediately hit a tope suicida. Volador showed his tremendous speed and high flying ability from the get-go, which enabled him to stay in control for the first few minutes. At some point, Romero managed to counter Volador’s offense and hit a tope suicida to halt Volador’s momentum. Romero got a bit distracted by the crowd and his heelish ego, and this ended up giving Volador an opportunity to get some offense in again. At this point, things started going more back and forth. Romero wasted some time again by trying to show off his heelish charisma, and Volador once again used that as an opportunity to try to put Romero away. A bit later on, Volador hit a beautiful tope con giro. It shouldn’t be overlooked how Volador hits huracarranas in a vicious way to get his opponents either on the mat or on the floor, as Volador hits huracarranas in a way that looks like he’s out there to do some damage and not just trying to show off a fancy move. Romero became a bit more aggressive now and threw Volador into the crowd. There was some action on the floor now while the referee slowly kept counting. The action returned to the ring, but the match started to lose momentum a bit, so they went back to the floor again. This time Volador was the aggressor and back suplexed Romero off the guardrail. The pace became increasingly slower. It took a while for them to really be able to turn up the drama level a bit more. They were able to do this when they hit suplexes off the top rope for near falls. The finish came when Romero applied an armbar. Volador tried to escape, but by doing so, he actually put himself in a worse position and had to tap out. This was an interesting match for sure, and there were plenty of cool spots, but this bout didn’t have the strong storytelling, flow and feeling of importance that their excellent 1/10/23 match had. Still, it’s clear that this feud with Volador Jr. has brought the best out of Romero, as we’ve seen more quality matches involving Romero this year than ever before. Very good match. ***¾ 

CMLL 9/16/23 Mexico City Arena Mexico, Hair vs. Hair: Volador Jr. vs. Angel de Oro 13:27.
DC: This match took place immediately after Volador Jr. & Angel de Oro vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Averno, which was a very good fast paced tag match with the stipulation that the winning tag team would face off against each other in a hair vs. hair match. As soon as this singles match started, Angel dropkicked Volador over the top rope to the floor. It looked like Volador legitimately (re)injured his right shoulder at this point. Angel then threw Volador into the guardrail. Angel continued the onslaught by ramming Volador’s right shoulder into the guardrail several more times. One of the things that made this match stand out so much was that from this point onward, everything Volador did, he tried to do without the use of his right arm and shoulder.  When you keep that in mind, what followed was surely an extraordinary performance by Volador. One of the coolest-looking moves Volador was able to pull off was a tope con giro and an Asai moonsault. Angel executed several impressive moves of his own. There was never a dull moment in this match and the storytelling was very consistent in this brilliantly-executed match. In the end, after an impressive and hard-fought performance, Volador managed to pull off the win. Angel deserves praise for his ability and performance, but it was truly Volador’s match. If Volador’s injury was a work (which I don’t think it was, though the shoulder has featured prominently in his big matches of late), we could still consider this a superbly executed match. However, since it’s likely he did indeed injure himself early in the match, we can say that Volador’s ability to improvise and spontaneously create a masterpiece truly turned this into a very unique match. Either way, this is a 2023 MOTYC featuring high-quality lucha libre. Great match. ****½ 

AEW 10/1/23 Seattle, WA Climate Pledge Arena: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson 23:12
DC: It was nice to see Zack Sabre Jr. in an excellent match again. This was Sabre’s best match since his great match against Shingo Takagi in NJPW on 3/26/22. Sabre spent the majority of 2022 being saddled with a greatly inferior tag team partner (Taichi), and he spent the majority of 2023 just having fun TV Title matches. Here in this match against the best American pro wrestler in the world today, Bryan Danielson, Sabre finally got to have the big technical match we want to see from him. This AEW WrestleDream show took place in Danielson’s home state of Washington. These two were definitely an excellent match for each other, and it was a technical wrestling dream match fans had been anticipating. Danielson was also a dream opponent for another reason, because it was on 3/2/08 that Sabre actually had his very first good match against Danielson at a small indy show in England. That was prior to Sabre’s ascend to the top as one of the best technical wrestlers of the modern era, as he was still just an up-and-coming youngster at the time. This WrestleDream match took place at a very different stage of Sabre’s career obviously, as Sabre is now a respected veteran, known all over the wrestling world for his high-quality technical wrestling performances. It’s quite impressive to see Danielson still perform at a high level at this stage of his career. He even survived what appeared to be career-ending injury and career-hurting run in a certain sports-entertainment league. Danielson’s perseverance not only shines through in his career story but also in matches like these, in which he sells the struggle of trying to overcome a top opponent so well. What made this match so excellent were all the little things they did and also the overall storytelling. There was always something interesting happening from a technical wrestling perspective, and these two took the viewer on a wonderful ride of pure wrestling. Excellent match. ****¼  

NJPW 10/14/23 London, England Copper Box Arena, IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title: Will Ospreay vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 31:19.
DC: The two best current British wrestlers battled each other once again, and this time for New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. Of course, these two shouldn’t get a free pass merely for facing each other in a much-anticipated match. It should be noted that in the first ten minutes, nothing really exceptional or unexpected happened. From the tenth minute onward, we slowly got to see more of the things we wanted to see from these two. This included cool-looking counters and spectacular moves. The work was super crisp, and they pretty much hit all their moves superbly. The main criticism for this match is that at times, it felt like they were basically going through the motions. In a way, this is understandable, since people want to see a certain type of match with certain types of moves and sequences, and these two are very familiar with each other’s work. However, on the other hand, it would have been nice to see these two show a bit more animosity towards each other, like in their great NJPW matches (2/2/20, 3/14/21, 3/21/22) and their great RevPro match (11/10/17). By the way, they also had several other matches against each other, including the excellent NJPW 7/30/19 match and excellent RevPro 2/14/20 match (and they had seven matches against each other prior to 2017 in various indy leagues). Also, in their best matches against each other, it was less the ‘Ospreay show’ type match, and it had more of the interesting technical counters Sabre is known for. Despite this not being their best match against each other, this match featured plenty of high-quality wrestling moments. This match from 10/14/23 was arguably the sixth or seventh best match Will Ospreay and Zack Sabre Jr. ever had against each other, and it’s arguably among the ten or fifteen best pro wrestling matches of the year 2023 so far. Excellent match. ****   

Impact 10/21/23 Cicero, IL: Will Ospreay vs. Mike Bailey 17:59.
DC: This was a really enjoyable spotfest between two spectacular workers. This is probably the best match these two have had together, and it was quite a bit more energetic and better flowing than their previous battle from RevPro 8/20/22, which was merely a very good match. The match gradually became more and more impressive athletically and dramatically. Really the only downside of this match was that it was a bit too exhibition-esque at times (especially during the first half of the match), but that was principally expected anyway. By the final minutes, the work ended up being impressive enough to make you want to forgive them for the exhibition-esque moments earlier on. In this match, Will Ospreay clearly gave more of a caring and lively performance than in his match against Zack Sabre Jr. earlier in the month. Mike Bailey gave a strong performance, and once again proved that he is currently the best Canadian pro wrestler in the world today. Excellent match. ****¼