Match Of The Month (July)

The month of July...in a word...DAMN! In the heat of the summertime, July delivered some of the hottest action this entire year.  Not only did we have a great PLE with Money In The Bank, but we also had AEW's yearly special of Dynamite, Blood & Guts, which featured the havoc-provoking Blood & Guts Cage.  However, Pro Wrestling NOAH, DDT-Pro, Marigold, and ROH all presented excellent PPVs worth the time, money, and attention to enjoy. Not to mention, it's that time in New Japan again, as the summertime tradition of the annual G1 Climax tournament started and goes through mid to late August.  So far, there have been some very good matches within the tournament.  This was a very physical month, but only one match can make the distinction of being the Match Of The Month. Plus it was a tight one for the Runner-Up MOTM spot, but we have that for you as well.  With that said, let's dive in!

Match Of The Month

Will Ospreay vs. MJF

AEW International Championship

AEW Dynamite 7/18

It's pretty much a safe bet that fans the world over can attest to the fact that MJF can wrestle, and can wrestle DAMN well. While we had already known he was a great bell-to-bell competitor going into his work with the likes of CM Punk, Moxley, Jericho, and others, it was his modern classic with Bryan Danielson at AEW Revolution '23 that the world officially knew how fantastic of an in-ring competitor the unbelievably brash, arrogant and highly controversial talent was. Not to mention his work with Darby Allen from 2021 as well.  The young Long Island native hung with Danielson for over sixty minutes while wearing the proverbial crimson mask as he retained the AEW World Championship from Danielson.  Fast forward to 2024 and MJF has more than erased any notions that his bite wasn't as powerful as his bark.  He's truly one of the most low-key gifted performers in all of the business, and this was displayed again against a man seen and viewed as the most exciting bell to bell performer in wrestling today, Will Ospreay.  Ospreay is one of the most exceptional talents the business has ever seen, especially within modern wrestling.  His encounters over the past few years against the likes of Omega, Takagi, Okada, Josh Alexander, Mike Bailey, and ZSJ more than show this.  With MJF returning from a five month absence to reclaim his throne and crown, it was only a matter of time before these two outstanding talents got it on.  With MJF officially back to being his masterfully heel self (as he turned on Daniel Garcia after his match against Ospreay on Dynamite in which he left Garcia injured, bloodied, and stretchered out of the arena), he challenged Ospreay for the International Title on the 7/18 edition of Dynamite. The match was a complete masterclass in the sum of its parts. Ospreay exhibited his electric and innovative offense, but also his ability to tell a story that has him trying to simultaneously scrap to defend his title while trying to not allow MJF to get him unraveled to where he defeats himself.  As for MJF, this was another story of him demonstrating his stellar ability to hang with absolutely anybody in wrestling and adapting to any style there is, even if it's a hodgepodge of various hybrid styles.  Plus of course, this was also a matter of him getting a step closer to regaining the AEW World Championship. This remarkable match was lasting in to the allotted sixty minutes, in which they were clearly showing the wounds of war within this game of human chess. However, as time was starting to end, MJF pulled out his ever notorious ring and  decked the British phenom with it behind the ref's back.  With a heart-pulsating TWO SECONDS REMAINING, MJF became the new International Champion in what was the greatest Dynamite match in quite some time, if not ever.  With oxygen mask in tow, MJF walked (or staggered) out with the belt, while Ospreay showed one more time why he is one of wrestling's most amazing competitors.  We will have a rematch for the title (or as MJF has now rebranded it, "The American" Championship) in Wembley, and if this rematch will be ANYTHING like this first encounter, make more room for another MOTY candidate.

Runner-Up Match Of The Month

Swerve Strickland, Darby Allen, Mark Briscoe, & The Acclaimed vs. Kazuchika Okada, Hangman Page, Jack Perry, & The Young Bucks

Blood & Guts Match

AEW Dynamite: Blood & Guts

For the fourth time, AEW presented its special edition of Dynamite entitled Blood & Guts, which is essentially a War Games match on prime-time television.  If you know the history of War Games, you know this is traditionally one of wrestling's most brutal, violent, and blood-soaked matches. Going back to the first War Games in '87 between Dusty Rhodes, Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff, and Road Warriors' well-known manager, Hall Of Famer, Paul Ellering against The 4 Horsemen of Flair, Luger, Arn Anderson, Blanchard, and another HOF figure, their old manager, J.J. Dillon at the Great American Bash on July 4 of that year. It was a bloody, vicious affair that had injuries but also was a classic street fight that innovated the way we see cage matches.  While the greatest War Games match of all-time is widely seen as Sting, Koloff, Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes, and Barry Windham vs. Paul E. Dangerously's (Heyman) Dangerous Alliance of Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson, Rick Rude, Steve Austin (yes, THAT Steve Austin to my younger heads reading), and Larry Zybysko from Wrestle War '92 in Jacksonville, FL.  Since then, we've had some memorable War Games and some very forgettable ones as well. While WWE officially secured the rights to use the name 'War Games', AEW made the match in its traditional ways: a two-ring affair with a steel cage surrounding it with a roof on top and submission/surrender being the only way to win. WWE has no roof on the cage and pinfall and submission decides the winner when all men (and women for their own War Games match) have entered.  AEW had to call their War Games match 'Blood & Guts', but regardless of what you call it, it's nearly an hour of the most chaotic minutes in wrestling television.  This year's edition involved Team Elite, which consisted of the reigning three-time AEW World Tag Team Champions, The Young Bucks, the current Continental Champion, Kazuchika Okada, the newly crown TNT Champion, Jack Perry, and original Elite member, Hangman Page facing Team AEW in the form of current AEW World Champion, Swerve Strickland, reigning ROH World Champion, Mark Briscoe, The Acclaimed, and the ever unpredictable, Darby Allen.  As this new version of The Elite has been running over people flaunting their EVP power (mostly The Bucks, but Okada and Perry have a hand in their decision making), the likes of Team AEW were tired of putting up with it and came together for this potentially extremely vicious encounter.  Rules were standard as two men started off in the match, and in this case, it was Allen and Perry.  These two young guys fought like hell during those initial three minutes before Team Elite (who used a double-sided coin to help them gain the advantage going into the match) sent out Nick Jackson to make the odds two against one and Jackson and Perry went to town on Allen.  After that two minute beatdown was over, in came Briscoe, who thrives in these type of violent environments historically (along with his late, great brother Jay).  From there, after those two minutes were up, Matt Jackson came out (both Bucks, by the way, came out with hard briefcases with some goodies inside them as will get explained later).  The elder Jackson opened up Briscoe, who bled the most in this affair, and the work on him and Allen commenced.  Time for Team AEW to send their next man out, which was Anthony Bowens of The Acclaimed, who did a great job showing his toughness and violence, as he nailed Perry with scissors (appropriate) to the head and opened up Perry.  In the home stretch of entrants, when it was time for Page to arrive, he never showed up, even though there was an apparent deal made between Page and Matt Jackson sometime prior to the event.  Once Swerve came suited up for war, Page attacked him from behind and proceeded to handcuff him and beat up on Swerve before he could even get in the ring.  Matt had threatened to fire him if he didn't go through with this "deal", and that brought Page inside ad Jackson demanded the ref to ring the bell for the match to officially begin, where submission or surrender was the only way to win.  Swerve eventually got assistance from his manager, Prince Nana, as well as Billy Gunn and Jeff Jarrett to get Swerve unhooked and into the cage.  Frankly, Swerve was on fire in this match.  He looked like the star, and champion, that he was supposed to be presented as.  In perhaps the most vicious spot of the match, inside one of the briefcases, there were five staple guns. All of Team Elite stapled Swerve's body in an excruciating looking situation. The ever sadistic, yet tough as a board, Swerve laughed off the stapling and started doing some stapling of his own onto his opponents, especially Page who caught a staple in his cheek.  The ending came as a lacerated Darby doused Perry with gasoline and had a torch ready to set Perry on fire, demanding Matt Jackson to not only quit for his team, but for him to give him a match against Perry in Wembley for the TNT Championship. Both happened, and Team AEW won.  This was a violent, yet fun as hell, match to be engaged in.  It was a soaker like the first two B&G matches were, but this was definitely among the upper two best so far.  With barbed wire boards, barbed wire chairs, tables, staple guns, scissors, cuffs, and thumbtacks, this had all the gnarly ingredients for carnage and that's what we got.  Everybody in the match showed tremendous toughness, but perhaps the award for most tough went to Darby, as he and Perry started the match from the beginning and he out his body through more punishment than anybody else arguably in this encounter.  Of course, the ever violent and uncomfortable chair shot to Perry from Briscoe (an homage to infamous rivalry from ECW, Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven) made just as much news, if not more so, but as a whole, this match was Anarchy In the Arena confined, and the results were a chaotic, bloody good time for all watching, although very surely not at all for the combatants.

Honorable Mentions

Drew McIntyre vs. Jay Uso vs. LA Knight vs. Carmelo Hayes vs. Andrade El Idolo vs. Chad Gable/WWE Money In The Bank '24

Stratton vs. Skyy vs. Naomi vs. Valkyria vs. Greene vs. Stark/WWE Money In the Bank '24

Diamanté vs. Hirsch/ROH Death before Dishonor '24

Uemara vs. Konosuke Takeshita/NJPW G1 Climax 34 Day 4

Yota Tsuji vs. Konosuke Takeshita/NJPW G1 Climax 34 Day 1

Strickland vs. Okada/AEW Dynamite 7/18

AJ Styles vs. Naomichi Marufuji/NOAH Destination '24

Sareee vs. Giulia/Marigold Summer Destiny '24

Io Skyy vs. Utami Hayashashita/Marigold Summer Destiny '24

Bryan Danielson vs. Hangman Page/AEW Dynamite 7/10

Henare vs. Konosuke Takeshita/NJPW G1 Climax 34 Day 6

Donshoku Dino vs. Shanshiro Takagi/DDT- Pro Wrestle Peter Pan '24

MAO vs. Yuki Ueno/DDT-Pro Wrestle Peter Pan '24

El Desperado vs. Adam Brookes/DDT-Pro Wrestle Peter Pan '24

Shota Umino vs. Gabe Kidd/NJPW G1 Climax 34 Day 3

Kommander vs. The Beast Mortos/ROH Death Before Dishonor '24

Mark Briscoe vs. Roderick Strong/ROH Death Before Dishonor '24

July was a hell of a month with its action and physicality.  We saw another modern classic and one of the best War Games-styled matches in a long time.  Mixed with several of the matches in the HM, July has s et the bar for the summer in terms of matches go.  Will August set a new one? We sure will see.  Until next month folks!