Hero/Richards; Hero/Hidaka

Chris Hero vs. Davey Richards - PWG Seven 7/30/10


I haven't seen a Davey Richards match in a long while. Probably saw him back in January when I tried to keep up with ROH on HDNet. Anyway, I figured I should check this out because he's a pretty divisive dude, and I've had mixed feelings about him, and I like Hero a fair amount. Match works like a typical indy main event dream match-- they open with mat work, and then they do some strike exchanges and dives to the outside, each guy gets a brief control segment, and then there's a finishing stretch where they beat the heck out of each other and there are about 30 2.9999 counts, half of which would've been much better finishes than the actual finish of the match.

But it's not as irritating as most matches of this type for a handful of reasons. First reason is that both guys hit really hard. Like, really hard. Looked like they were trying to kill each other. Second reason is that Hero's selling was really good down the finishing stretch. Davey worked the knee for a while, and Hero sold like a champ. Tons of neat little stuff where he alters his offense to show he's protecting the bad knee. Opening parts of the match were good, too, as the mat work was well-paced, and it looked like they were picking their spots and struggling and all that. Early strike exchanges were tremendous-- tons of nasty stuff. As for Davey, I wouldn't say I thought he was great in this match. He can do things well-- he hits like crazy and can sell when he wants to. But he tends to get so caught up in his own seriousness, his own love for competition or whatever the fuck, that he actually becomes a caricature of "serious" pro wrestling. His expressions and mannerisms and yells become so overwrought that I stop taking the match seriously. That thing he does where he kicks out at 2.9999 and yells and grabs his stomach drives me crazy.

But he sold well during most of the early exchanges, and he made the knockout blows look convincing. Hero's stuff looked awesome-- bunches of great forearms and elbows and knees and punches. Way too many of them, actually. The finishing stretch was really the match's biggest problem. About 20 minutes in, the crowd started chanting, "This is awesome!" and so both guys decided to start hitting the poop out of each other and then kicking out. Fortunately, Hero's selling made this part of the match a bit more tolerable than most matches that end like this, but it still hurt the match a fair amount.

I'd still call this good but didn't think it was as good as any of the Danielson matches from this year.

Chris Hero vs. Ikuto Hidaka - EVOLVE 2 3/13/10


The first half of this match was truly great. They work the mat, and Hero is awesome on the mat, and Hidaka kept up. Both guys worked slow and picked spots; Hero targeted Hidaka's left arm and Hidaka targeted Hero's left leg. Hero does a lot of little selling things throughout the mat work: he yells when Hidaka locks in a new hold and rushes for the ropes when he's in serious danger. All those little things make the mat work more engaging and believable without reaching Davey's preposterous levels of SERIOUS COMPETITION. Once Hero picks out the arm, the match gets insanely good: Hidaka rolls out of things and comes up with nifty counters, always going back to Hero's leg, but he can barely hold onto anything because Hero always finds a new way to go back to the arm, grabbing it or kicking it or stomping on it or whatever. He uses all of his long limbs to his advantage. Hidaka's selling isn't great by any means, but it's better than what I'd expect to see from a Japanese junior in 2010. Better than any of the Dragon Gate dudes. He always shakes it off when he locks in a leg hold, and it becomes clear that the arm damage will continue to prevent him from making a serious comeback on the mat. Still, he does enough to Hero's leg to force him to start selling, and Hero's selling is great throughout.

Eventually, Hero starts going for knockout blows, probably because he's frustrated that his leg hurts and Hidaka's arm isn't broken yet. Hero's strikes are really great, and I liked how his frustration opened a window  for Hidaka to comeback. Hidaka tried to comeback with headbutts to the midsection, but Hero pushed him off and hit some back splashes to Hidaka's midsection for payback. Here's when Hero started being a dick and left the window open for Hidaka to get back in the match. Rather than going back to the leg, he started busting out DDTs as hope spots. Finishing stretch is alright-ish. Hero continues to sell well but Hidaka forgets for the majority of the time he's on offense. He goes back to the leg after he weakens Hero, and Hero's selling gets even better while Hidaka's stops. Then they go through a whole bunch of big strikes and teased knockouts, and they all look cool, but I really wish the finish had gone back to the limb work, and I also wish they shaved about 5 minutes off the match length.

Still, this was a mostly great match. It looked like it was about to be my indy MOTY before the finish, but even with the problems in the finishing stretch, I'd only put this a notch below Danielson's matches with Fish and Kingston.