The Wrestling Bucket

Dick Togo vs Antonio Honda, DDT 1/30

Holy shit this was great, probably the best thing to come from a DDT ring ever. This was all about Honda, a mid-card comedy act, trying to hang with the champ, and they told that story really well. Honda's armwork at the start was a clever way of allowing him to control Togo for a while, before the big dive spot and the blade job. Togo was just off the charts here, great, great selling of the arm that pays off, really great at laying out parts of the match, great offence. The punching exchanges, with Honda covered in blood and Togo still selling the arm, were some of the best wrestling I've seen this year. Great shit.

Team Michinoku Pro vs Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw/Manami Toyota, Chikara KOT: Night 2

Another vanilla indy dream match. Once again Togo was really the only guy who knew what to do, instantly bringing heat to the match the moment he tagged in and cheapshotted Toyota and then FLEXED to mock her. He is the king heel. Everyone was just doing usual drea match sequences and shit, apart from Sasuke, who was just doing some bizarre stuff. He took a pretty crazy bump onto a chair, but it was ultimately pretty pointless. The Chikara guys looked pretty second rate, and there was like 10 big kickouts too many, with none of them really getting any heat to boot.

Rey Mysterio vs Alberto Del Rio vs The Miz, RAW 5/9

Pretty fun threeway with lots of big spots and huge bumps from everyone. The sequence with Del Rio laying Miz out on the outside then getting whiped out from a Rey dive was cool. There was a bit too much "throw the other guy out and make it 1 vs 1" stuff for my liking but the end run was exciting and actually had me thinking Rey might win.

Drew McIntyre vs Chris Masters, Superstars 5/12

This was pretty god damned great and easily the best match to happen on free TV in a long time. It could have gone a big longer, but otherwise pretty flawless. Drew's legwork was nasty, always love when guys do little stuff like taking down a dude's kneepad to inflict more damage. His dropkick and nip-up was 10 flavours of cool, especially for a guy Drew's size, and honestly I think Drew might be the most natural and believable guy in wrestling right now. And of course Masters was right there to sell like only Masters sells and come back with some great looking chops and power offence. Masters is probably the best bodypart seller today, even during the finish he was down on one knee.

Daniel Bryan vs Sin Cara, Smackdown 5/13

This is getting a little overated on certain boards, but was still a fun exhibition and the best Cara has looked so far. Of course that was mostly Bryan doing most of the work and making his usually loose, sloppy highspots much tighter, but the spots were fairly spectacular (especially in a WWE environment). Also glad Bryan got plenty of offence, he really delt out those kicks.

Best Of 2011