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Post by kas on Jan 29, 2019 18:22:08 GMT -5
In contention for greatest indie match of all time. This match could be separated into three sections. In the first section, we get some nice technical stuff on the mat with some really good looking holds. The second section ups the pace and becomes a lot more brawl and strike heavy, with both men laying into each other with a great amount of intensity. At around the half-hour mark is when they transition into throwing bombs at each other, it really felt like both of them tried everything else to keep the other down and having to resort to bomb-throwing. Throughout all of this, both men's selling was top-notch and they paced the match to perfection, milking the crowd for every moment they could. With this being Danielson's farewell match he was desperate to win, which came across great in his work as there was definitely an air of desperation to some of his comebacks. Phenomenal match.
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Post by Cap on Aug 22, 2019 8:13:07 GMT -5
I am going to hard second this. I am also going to go ahead and flesh this out enough to constitute a direct nomination. I am not really sure why I hadn't seen this before. I am sure I watched it on some binge forever ago, but I had never sat down and watched it carefully till this morning. This is phenomenal. I agree completely with the three sections outlined by Kas. I would even argue them this way: 1) Almost 70s styles title match start with fun, sharp grappling. 2) 80s-esque brawling mixed with 00s indie offense 3) 90s AJPW tribute indie work. This really shows off how sharp both men are as wrestling minds as well. The pace and flow of this seems more or less flawless to me. The crowd seemed really drained about half way through the match for a PWG crowd of this era and they were still getting pumped down the stretch. I also think the comentary was good but it didn't seem to be on point in terms of where Hero/Dragon where in building the ebbs and flows. Those things were working against them in the overall presentation of the match, but the match itself was absolutely phenomenal and transcended those two things. Another thing that really stood out here was how good they were at creating visuals. I am not sure the cameras were always quick to catch it, but Hero and Dragon where clearly working to create some cool moments. One is when Hero is just beating on Dragon's face and then they cut to the hard cam finally and Hero is standing really tall to accent the size difference as he cracks dragon in the head. The other was when Dragon was standing over Hero trash talking. The positioning and how they held that was really good. They also hit the chair to dragon's head coming off the top rope perfectly here. It was more of a desperation throw from hero than Nigel's spot in ROH and I liked it better. Finally, I think this falls in with a hand full of Dragon matches from his time on the indies that I think are better than they get credit for because of when they happened. This is a match you could watch alongside some 70s NWA title matches and it wouldn't feel that out of place and would still look great. I am particularly enjoying finding some of those Dragon matches (and Hero matches to a lesser extent) in the past few years that I appreciated, but think they actually hold up well and get better with age. This is a classic. I would agree its up there with the top indie match.
It probably doesn't have a real shot at making my list, but I think it is a really good match that holds up well over time. Definitely worth consideration.
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Post by violentbydesign on Sept 16, 2021 4:28:00 GMT -5
I really wanted to like this match because these guys are giving a bit of everything for a nice epic match. But the commentary totally zapped me out of it for like the first half of the match. I seriously hate indie wrestling commentary, but PWG's is really really bad.
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Post by mrjmml on May 1, 2023 19:58:06 GMT -5
A slightly overrated indie classic that stands the test of time. A clear second for me. I agree with violentbydesign's view of the commentary but it doesn't really bother me that much.
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Post by elliott on Oct 1, 2023 16:57:48 GMT -5
These long super indy matches are very tiresome.
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Post by fxnj on Oct 5, 2023 21:43:07 GMT -5
Really good but way too long and felt kind of repetitive. I lost count of how many times Hero did a bunch of elbows, Bryan sold like he was out, and then blew it off so he could do a bunch of stuff on his comeback. Even the crowd was chanting “same old shit” by the end.
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Post by 4pillars on Dec 28, 2023 19:41:09 GMT -5
Used to love this atch dearly. It was my favorite PWG match the first time I watched it. On rewatch, it's really not my thing. fxnj put it well, this match gets incredibly repetitive and tiresome. After the third or fourth Hero rolling elbow kickout, my eyes start to glaze over. These two, like Punk and Hero, do practically nothing against each other for me (besides indulge in each other's worst tendencies). Matches like these drag Bryan down my GWE list even further because he's so prone to long, almost masturbatory stuff like this.
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