With all of the wrestling streaming
services we have available its very easy to follow the wrestling that
you're a fan of, and all of them offer free trials so you can check
them out to see if you do like them. But the biggest problem with all
the streaming services isn't how much you can afford, but how much
time you have to take advantage of those services. I have NJPW and
follow AAA on twitch and even then I miss shows, so its hard to
justify having more than one wrestling subscription. But the plus
side is that there is youtube, which has some of everything for you
to watch. A bunch of companies put up random matches to get people
interested in their shows and some used that as their primary way to
distribute their matches before streaming became an option. Finding
the best places for wrestling on youtube isn't the easiest, and you
can end up with clipped matches, or matches split into a bunch of
parts that don't autoplay after each other, so I'm here to find the
matches to watch for you on the site.
To start this guide I started as I
often do when wanting to watch fun wrestling and I searched Rey
Mysterio Jr. The more I think about it I'd probably have Rey as the
best wrestler of all time, and you can't go wrong with watching one
of his matches.
Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Psychosis
The first fall starts with some classic
lucha exchanges before becoming a nice technical wrestling display.
They trade holds, pin attempts, and keep the action going fast while
grappling. They also go for some stuff that doesn't seem to work the
way they had hoped, but they keep going and it works well in the
match. Rey slips on the ropes and falls back to the mat, but he was
supposed to miss anybody so it's okay. He dodges a Psychosis spinning
kick in the corner then attacks the leg and gets a quick submission
for fall one. For some reason AAA replays the messed up rope move.
Psychosis powers out of a Rey submission attempt and reverses it into
one of his own and takes control. Rey successfully bounces off the
ropes, but Psychosis catches him into an electric chair drop, follows
with a moonsault and wraps him up in a submission to tie it at one
fall a piece. The third fall starts fast with Rey hitting more of the
offense you expect from him, Psychosis misses an attack and ends up
on the outside and Rey hits a huge springboard somersault plancha.
Psychosis is jealous and sends Rey to the outside then does a suicide
dive over the top rope and crushes Rey. Both mens seconds come over
and check on them after every dive and that's a touch I really like.
Rey avoids a corkscrew plancha and Psychosis takes out Juventud. Rey
hits a big tornado DDT and locks in a modified abdominal stretch to
get the win.
9/10
Unsurprisingly these two men had a
really good match together. It's less formulaic than the standard
lucha 2/3 falls matches now and built up in a nice way. The first
fall they're doing lots of mat work and trying to get an advantage or
a quick pinfall then the second fall they're going for some big
stuff, but still trying to get that pinfall. The third fall is a
bunch of big moves and huge dives the match becomes awesome then.
I've seen better matches between these two men, but this is still a
match that's well worth watching.
Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psychosis
Rey is unmasked in this match and that
makes me sad. This doesn't have a date, but must be early 2000s since
it's post WCW, but before WWE and Rey getting his mask back. They
taunt a lot more in this match and the first fall skips any mat work
and they hite some big moves and Psychosis crushes him with a
powerbomb then the top rope legdrop for the pin in fall one.
Psychosis waffles Rey with a chairshot and sends him to the outside
then does a suicide dive into a chairshot from Rey. Psychosis trips
Rey on the top rope and goes for a hurrincanranna, but Rey powerbombs
him off the second rope and wins the second fall. The match cuts off
during the third fall, damn fan cams.
7/10
This is an interesting match even
without the finish to see them evolve their style. They don't do the
mat wrestling to start and what's an even bigger change is them
playing to the crowd a lot more. They're bigger names now and people
know their moves so they can play them up and get the crowd excited
for what they're going to do. It's definitely a more US hybrid of
lucha which makes sense after the time they spent in WCW. Not as good
of a match as the first one, but that's hardly a fair comparison. Not
much can follow that up. You can see Rey trying to get bigger as he's
trying to get into WWE and he's definitely a lot more muscular than
he was in the first match and most of his time in WCW. But I don't
want to just talk about Rey, because Psychosis is also really good at
wrestling and definitely overshadowed by coming up to WCW with Eddie
and Rey. His top rope leg drop is beautiful and his dives aren't as
acrobatic as Rey's, but he always goes all in on them like Rey does.
Watching any of the matches between these two guys is always great,
because they are two dudes who just work together perfectly and even
when one of them botches something they immediately know how to work
it into the match and make it not seem like a mistake which is one of
the most important skills that is often overlooked in wrestling.
Matt Riddle vs. Mia Yim
The announcers treat this like an even
match up and the wrestlers do as well and I really like that in an
intergender match. A lot of back and forth trades early in the match
before Riddle takes an advantage with his rolling gutwrench suplexes,
which I think is a bad call, because the bump people take on that
just doesn't look that good. Also I don't know much about hair, but
Mia Yim's hair cut looks fucking dope here. Mia hits a Canadian
Destroyer off the second rope and Riddle kicks out at 1 then hits his
finishing sequence of moves.
7/10
This was my ideal intergender match as
it doesn't matter that they are different genders. It's just two bad
ass fighters going after each other. It also features my favorite
thing which is a bunch of suplexes. A lot of nice strikes from both
wrestlers and hard hitting action. Mia Yim is so good and her going
to WWE is definitely one of my saddest departures from the indies, or
companies I feel like watching. I haven't seen a lot of Riddle
matches and everytime I'm impressed by how well he's transitioned
from MMA to pro wrestling. A lot of people who do that transition put
too much emphasis on their MMA time and Riddle it really feels like
he knows he's a pro wrestler now and he is just great at the parts of
it that MMA would make somebody really good at pro wrestling.
Larry Hamilton vs. Jack Hart
I tried to search for the Florida
Brothers from Dragongate, but got a bunch of Championship Wrestling
from Florida matches so I figured I'd watch one so lets watch some
classic wrestling. Hamilton is in the black trunks and Hart is in the
orange/yellow trunks. There are some interviews at the beginning I
skipped to the match, but I love the VCR scramble going on at the
bottom of the screen. Its a pretty simple 80s style match with pretty
basic lockups and wrestling, but still well done stuff. Apparently
Hart is a perenial jobber who is struggling for that first win, which
means I might keep searching him now to find that win happen. Decent
back and forth work between the two men and Hamilton hits a nice
looking pair of dropkicks before winning with with a bridging Okana
roll.
5/10
This may seem like a weird match to
highlight and I agree, but it also kind of highlights what's great
about wrestling on youtube that matches like this that didn't matter
from two guys I've never heard of before are just out there for
people to find and watch. Plus both of these guys are smooth in the
ring, they don't do anything crazy, but everything they do, they do
it well. Hamilton's dropkicks are good for wrestlers now let alone
what they normally looked like in the mid 80's. Plus its a nice short
match that gives you a taste for what was on wrestling tv then as
they always saved the best shows for exclusively live shows they
built up to or occasional special big tv shows.
The British Bulldogs vs. Joe and Dean
Malenko
British Bulldog is wrestling this match
as a junior heavyweight! I'm so used to him being a big power dude
from WWE and WCW this is awesome to see. He is still a big muscle
guy, but he's pretty acrobatic in this too. On a similar note its
weird to see Dean Malenko as the smaller more agile guy coming from
knowing him mostly how he wrestled as a cruiserweight in WCW as the
bigger, not lucha guy. Holy shit! Dean Malenko hit a reverse 'rana.
It wasn't as intense as the ones now a days, but he did that. There
is so much good hold for hold wrestling in this in between parts
where a wrestler has an advantage and pushes it with a series of big
moves and tries to get an advantage and the win during the middle
part. I love how this match builds up. Its real technical to start,
lots of submissions and maneuvering for position and then they slowly
start to find openings and eventually the Bulldogs find one as Davey
Boy hits Joe with a tombstone piledriver and fails to get the three
count, but starts to wear him down with submissions. Joe Malenko gets
a kneebar on Davey Boy and Dynamite Kid comes in and stomps Malenko,
but Malenko just redoubles the pressure then bridges the hold
afterword ignoring the kick is so good. Dean hits a german suplex in
this that is my ideal german suplex and all his stuff is so crisp,
which makes his sloppy reverse 'rana so funny to me. Everything I've
seen him in he hits everything so text book and clean, but that move
wasn't really in any text books then. Joe hits a northern lights
suplex just as crisply with as nice of a bridge as Dean did earlier
in the match. Dynamite Kid counters a victory roll with a pin of his
own and just barely gets a three count.
10/10
Holy fuck I love this match! I've never
seen it before or heard people talk about it, but it's so fucking
good. A bunch of great technical wrestling exchanges, smooth move
transitions, great suplexes and slams from everybody involved. Just
clean work from everybody involved and I'm so glad I found the match
before this because there was a clip about the Malenko Brothers so I
searched them and found this match and here we are. Just a simple
story of two great teams wrestling each other and one finds the one
crack in the teams plan and gets a quick pinfall. Dean Malenko has
always been one of my favorites who is underated, but all of these
other guys just shot back up into contention. Dynamite Kid is a noted
great wrestler, but his career was ended before I started following
wrestling so I always forget about him and Davey Boy wasn't as good
as he was here in WWF and WCW. This is just four great wrestlers in
their prime having a great match.
Da Hit Squad, SAT & Divine Storm
vs. Special K
This match is a fucking weird spotfest
match and the announcers tell us that and its so good as that. This
is the perfect match to watch and make fun of with your friends while
enjoying the good spots. Also Special K are a group of people who do
drugs. This is a 7 versus 7 match and its following up Xavier vs.
Paul London which was a great match. All of Special K is in the ring
with Mikey Whipwreck and look they're going to attack him, but he
drops to the mat and Special K makes 6 dives to the outside at the
same time. Mikey Whipwreck betrays the SAT and the rest of the team
and hits all of his teammates with a stunner. Special K isolate Quiet
Storm and beat the shit out of him in the ring and keep his teammates
out of the ring. We have a tower of doom spot with four guys doing a
powerbomb and like ten dudes getting powerbombed and suplexed and of
course some of them land on each other. It's ugly, but fun with its
audacity. People keep kicking out of huge moves, it's a 7 vs 7 match
have a teammate instead of them kicking out of a finisher. The finish
of Dan Maff hitting a top rop burning hammer is fucking awesome
though.
3/10
This match is just a string of spots in
a row, but as a fourteen person match that works better than just a
tag match or a singles match. This works a little better as a match
when its not watched with the rest of the card because it had to
follow two great matches. These guys all try some big flips and they
all seem to work pretty well which isn't always the case for them as
they try a lot of difficult stuff. Despite being way bigger they
don't really let Mack and Maff base for the flyers, but whatever it
all still is pulled off. The thing that really hurts this match is
that its aged and now the high flyers do so much more stuff than what
these guys did and the only point is the flashy moves and it loses
its effects from that. While I don't think its much of a match it is
still fun to watch
