There’s more great pro wrestling in 2023 than we know what to do with. So The Ringer brings you a regular cheat sheet with the three best matches of the past week—one from WWE, one from AEW, and one from the rest of the immense wrestling world.
Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Kazuchika Okada
Keiji Muto Grand Final Pro-Wrestling “Last” Love, February 21
Some of the greatest matches in Japanese wrestling history have taken place during interpromotional battles. For many years, the boundaries between the Japanese wrestling promotions were very strict: Wrestlers would join the dojo of a promotion to train, and would often spend their entire careers wrestling in that same promotion. The tremendous loyalty wrestlers showed to their promotions meant that when they crossed boundaries for matches, things would often get really ugly and really personal. Stiffer strikes would be thrown, there would be less cooperation during exchanges, and that frisson would be super compelling. (Examples include New Japan Pro-Wrestling vs. UWF International, NJPW vs. Wrestle Association R, and many more legendary battles.) Eric Bischoff has said that one of the biggest influences on the formation of the nWo were these interpromotional battles.
Last Tuesday, Pro Wrestling NOAH ran a show at the Tokyo Dome in which Keiji Muto’s final professional wrestling match, against NJPW’s Tetsuya Naito, was the main event. The rest of the card was full of NOAH versus NJPW matches, with the semi-main event being a battle of champions with NOAH’s Global Honored Crown Heavyweight champion Kaito Kiyomiya taking on the IWGP World Heavyweight champion (and NJPW’s ace), Kazuchika Okada. The feud between the two dates back to May 2020, when Kiyomiya began calling out Okada, even doing his Rainmaker pose. The two men first met in a tag match in 2022 during Night 3 of Wrestle Kingdom 16, which saw Kiyomiya and Muto fall to the dream team of Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, a match that left Kiyomiya in tears after he failed to defend NOAH’s honor.
The feud really exploded last month during Night 2 of Wrestle Kingdom 17, in a tag match in which Kiyomiya and Yoshiki Inamura took on Okada and Togi Makabe. Okada had Inamura in a chinlock and no-sold Kiyomiya’s attempt to break the hold with stomps. Kato responded by kicking Okada stiffly in the face—a move that was clearly designed to call back to Akira Maeda’s shoot kick on Riki Choshu, which led to Maeda being fired. Okada responded by knocking Kiyomiya off the apron and stiffly beating on him until they were pulled apart.
Okada initially refused Kiyomiya’s subsequent challenge, claiming Kiyomiya was beneath him, but he ended up attacking Kiyomiya from behind after his most recent GHC title defense. Although Okada then agreed to the match, he later no-showed the subsequent press conference in another sign of disrespect.
Despite both men holding the main titles of their respective promotions, there was definitely a hierarchy playing out in the match. Kiyomiya is almost a decade younger than Okada, and NOAH, especially in recent years, isn’t at the level of NJPW. Okada has been the biggest star in Japanese wrestling over the past decade, and Kiyomiya was the brash upstart trying to take the crown from Okada, who clearly doesn’t think Kiyomiya is on his level.
Okada started the match by backing Kiyomiya to the ropes and refusing to break. He then dismissively chucked Kiyomiya to the floor, only to see the younger wrestler roll back in and throw forearms. Okada tossed Kiyomiya to the floor again, and Kiyomiya rolled back in to resume his attack … only to run right into a nasty German suplex. Okada then tossed Kiyomiya to the floor, bodyslammed him, and hit a DDT on the floor beyond the ringside mats; he then just strolled back into the ring like he had tossed a bag of recycling onto the curb. Kiyomiya came back into the ring but ended up getting some of his shots shrugged off before Okada hit him with a bodyslam and an elbow. They exchanged some forearms, with Kiyomiya finally getting some nasty shots to Okada’s jaw which staggered and eventually dropped him. They both spilled to the floor, and Kiyomiya took the momentum, hitting a suplex on the outside section behind the rails and landing a running cannonball dive over the guardrail.
Kiyomiya threw Okada back in the ring and hit a missile dropkick and German suplex for a near-fall, and all of a sudden we had ourselves a fight. Okada used his gorgeous dropkick to cut off Kiyomiya’s attack, landing a tombstone and a lariat for a near-fall. Okada went for the Rainmaker but Kiyomiya countered with a jumping knee to the arm, and then went after the arm with Muto-style low dropkicks and a great-looking missile dropkick to the elbow. I loved how much of this match was based on dropkicks; Jim Brunzell would be proud. Then in another shout-out to Muto, Kiyomiya landed a Shining Wizard on Okada’s bad arm and another to the head, nearly pulling off a huge upset. Another Wizard attempt got cut off by an Okada dropkick, who then dropped Kiyomiya with a couple of clotheslines and set up another Rainmaker, only for Kiyomiya to cut him off mid-move with a jumping knee to the skull, which dimmed Okada’s lights, allowing him to hit a subsequent Tiger suplex for a super-close 2.9 count. Kiyomiya went to line up another Shining Wizard, but he gave Okada just enough time to recover, and he got caught and dropped with the Money Clip. Okada then finally hit the Rainmaker, but smirkingly pulled Kiyomiya up at two. He then finished Kiyomiya with the Emerald Frosion, the finishing move of Mitsuharu Misawa, NOAH’s founder and Kiyomiya’s wrestling idol.
Okada is a wrestler who can leave me cold sometimes, but I really enjoyed his overdog performance here. From dismissing Kiyomiya early to getting caught, rocked, and nearly put away, to finally taking out the younger upstart with such contempt, this is a really great example of the asshole veteran taking down a fiery youngster. Kiyomiya played his role well; he was outclassed by a legend early, but all of his scouting paid off and he was able to take advantage of Okada’s overconfidence, taking some big swings. I don’t think politics will allow it, but the payoff of this story should be Kiyomiya learning from his mistakes and finally scoring the win. Even if we don’t get the conclusion to the story, this match was a very entertaining chapter.
Orange Cassidy vs. Wheeler Yuta
AEW Dynamite, February 22
Chikara Pro was a Northeast independent promotion that ran from 2002 to 2020. It was really at the vanguard of integrating comic book fandom and pro wrestling. The promotion was filled with out-there characters and story lines, from wrestling ants to time travelers to feuds with elaborate backstories involving secret comic books and web series. There is a heavy Chikara influence in AEW, not only in the talent—wrestlers like Claudio Castagnoli, Eddie Kingston, and Chuck Taylor are all Chikara alumni—but some of the more oddball gimmicks in AEW (think MJF and Chris Jericho singing a duet, Danhausen cursing people, and a lot of Being the Elite) have the absurdist tinge which Chikara brought to wrestling.
Chikara has been influential on AEW’s in-ring work, as well. Much of the independent wrestling scene of the early 2000s took its cues from Japanese wrestling. There was some of that in Chikara, as well (Kingston is a Chikara trainee and brought that edge while he was in Chikara), but there was much more of a lucha libre/World of Sport–feel to the wrestling. One of the frequent guest trainers at Chikara was Jorge “Skayde” Rivera, who was a master of the llave style of lucha matwork—especially at finding intricate and unique ways to roll into pinning combinations.
Both Orange Cassidy and Wheeler Yuta were Chikara mainstays. Cassidy wrestled under a mask as Fire Ant, served as a trainer in the Chikara school, and developed the Orange Cassidy gimmick on its shows. Yuta is from a later generation but worked Chikara shows as Sylverhawk, where he won the Chikara Young Lions Cup. Yuta came to AEW as part of Best Friends (which Chuck Taylor helped form) before leaving and joining the Blackpool Combat Club. The story of this match was Yuta leaving behind his light-hearted Chikara roots and treating wrestling as serious business, while Cassidy continues to be the torch bearer for the Chikara movement.
The match opened with both wrestlers breaking out complicated Skayde-style crucifix rollups, with Yuta taking a powder after nearly being pinned, coming back in, and then rolling out again when Cassidy caught him in his own seatbelt pin combo. You could easily see Cassidy schooling Yuta like this on the mats at the Wrestle Factory a decade ago. That brought out Castagnoli, who berated Yuta and slapped him in the face. Yuta rolled back into the ring and immediately began clawing at Cassidy’s eyes and biting him on his ear. Yuta then tossed Cassidy to the floor, drilled him with a tope, and chucked him over the ringside table. He then threw Cassidy into the ring and started fileting him in the corner with chops. Cassidy held up his hands to stop the onslaught, only to place them in his pockets, leaving his torso wide open for shots (a.k.a., Cassidy’s version of Hulk Hogan hulking up or Jerry Lawler’s strap drop). Cassidy took another series of hard shots, but was able to hit a hands-in-the-pocket dropkick to take things back over when Yuta got pissed at his antics.
Yuta bounced back and started working over Cassidy’s back with some hard bodyslams on the floor and a bow-and-arrow submission. They exchanged some big moves, including both guys landing German suplexes and another series of rollups. When they were face to face, Yuta spit his gum at Cassidy, which landed and stuck right on his forehead. Cassidy responded with a viscous loogie of his own, leading to these two beating each other with their forearms. After they both got knocked down, Cassidy was able to backdrop Yuta on the ring apron and hit a diving DDT on the floor, followed by one in the ring for a two-count. He tried for a Beach Break, but Yuta stuck him with a piledriver. This led to another series of seatbelt pin reversals, with Yuta nearly stealing the title, but after Cassidy kicked out, Yuta walked right into a brutal Orange Punch right on the jaw. Yuta was able to kick out of the Beach Break, but was only able to get to his knees before Cassidy KO’ed him with another Orange Punch. That is the thing about Cassidy: everything is a joke until his knuckles are flying at your jaw.
This was a great match. It was clear both guys were very familiar with each other and had tremendous chemistry. Cassidy is at his best when he is taking on someone who takes wrestling too seriously, and Yuta has the seething true-believer rage of a new religious convert. He abandoned Cassidy and what he represents and is hell-bent on proving his way is the true way. Yuta seems to be moving on to Ring of Honor business based on the first ROH taping results (spoilers!), but I would love for this feud to simmer for now and be brought back to a boil soon.
Imperium (Gunther, Giovanni Vinci, and Ludwig Kaiser) vs. Braun Strowman, Ricochet, and Madcap Moss
WWE SmackDown, February 24
The weeks leading up to WrestleMania are traditionally a little bare of great WWE matches. The shows tend to be focused on setting up angles for the big show, with the in-ring wrestling usually being a means to the end more than anything else. Luckily for me, I am always going to find something to write about in Imperium six-man tag team matches. The peak of in-ring weekly WWE television wrestling this century was the period right after the Shield debuted and they just put on killer bout after killer bout, week after week. They could pretty much slot in any three wrestlers on the antagonist side, put them in the Shield trios match formula, and it would be tremendous.
Imperium may not be at peak-Shield level, but they are pretty close. Madcap Moss, Ricochet, and Braun Strowman are quite the pu pu platter of WWE performers, but this ended up being an energetic, hard-hitting match. Moss desperately needs to drop the Madcap nickname, especially because his angle with Baron Corbin is in the dustbin of history; however, he is a guy with good meathead energy and a varsity outside linebacker’s ability to hit a nice shoulder block. With WWE recruiting heavily from NCAA athletes lately, we have gotten a lot of new wrestlers who are versions of the Steiner Brothers. Moss isn’t top-tier 2020s Steiner (that would be the Creed Brothers, who are even more Steinerish than Rick Steiner’s actual kid), but even midtier Steiner is well worth watching.
There was a fun Giovanni Vinci and Ricochet exchange; Vinci is an under-the-radar athletic beast who matched Ricochet move for move, getting the best of him with a great-looking Crowbar-ish clothesline. We got a great Imperium heat section on Ricochet, including Kaiser cutting off a series of flips with a double thrust to the throat, and Kaiser and Vinci hitting a Total Elimination variation on the ring apron, which led right into a Gunther side suplex on the same apron. They continued the beating through the commercial break and into the next segment, including some lacerating Gunther chops and Vinci knocking Ricochet down with a hard clothesline and yanking him back up for a second. When he tried it a third time, Ricochet was able to flip out and finally make the tag to Strowman, who cleaned house on Vinci and Kaiser before slugging it out with Gunther. Gunther was able to hit his big dropkick, sending Strowman into Moss, who tagged in. Moss came out firing but got distracted by Kaiser and then crushed by Gunther, who hit him with a chop to the throat, German suplex big lariat, and a powerbomb for the pin. Just a monster explosion of nasty offense, when Gunther uncorks the throttle; there are few people in wrestling who can match his violence.
There was a post-match staredown with Drew McIntyre, who came from the back. Before McIntyre could walk to the ring to square off with Gunther, he got jumped by the Viking Raiders, which led to a big brawl with Sheamus coming out, with Strowman and Ricochet joining in to take out the Raiders, as well. The ’Mania match seems to be McIntyre vs. Gunther, but we are already getting a lot of singles matches on the WrestleMania card. I would love to see a big 10-man tag with the Raiders and Imperium taking on Sheamus, McIntyre, Ricochet, Moss, and Strowman. Give them a bit of time and just let them all beat the hell out of each other all over the arena. The Imperium vs. Brawling Brutes Donnybrook match from Extreme Rules was one of my favorite matches of 2022, and a supersized version of that would really be a fun change of pace for ’Mania.
Phil Schneider is a cofounder of the Death Valley Driver Video Review, a writer on the Segunda Caida blog, host of The Way of the Blade podcast, and the author of Way of the Blade: 100 of the Greatest Bloody Matches in Wrestling History, which is available on Amazon. He is on Twitter at @philaschneider.