By: Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt on Twitter)

2/17/2018

Now that we’ve made it to the end of the week, it’s time to honor the greatest match of all time…this week. The pick this week won’t be a selection of PPV main event implications or a selection of NXT Live’s continuous fun. This week’s selection is in honor of the great work being shown at 205 Live and the great performances for the last few weeks.

This week’s match was the bout between Mark Andrews and Akira Tozawa. A fight that I almost skipped due to my need for sleep and video games, but I also felt the result couldn’t be more obvious. Tozawa was going to win.

I was wrong (and if you were paying attention to 205 Live and predicting your winner, you were too). Tozawa, being a former champion and global performer apparently hasn’t done enough to earn a second-round match in this cruiserweight championship tournament. That’s right…your winner…was the guy who I had to look up…twice…before I wrote this article. Mark Anthony! …Andrews! I mean Andrews!!! I meant to write Andrews!!! I swear!

Now…Andrews made his way to ring to a ‘Pop-Punk’ song that he apparently sings (being the lead singer of the band). This made me question Andrews and how quickly Tozawa was going to squash him. (Again, I don’t think I can stress enough how sure I was that Tozawa was going to win this match). And as this ‘sure victory’ for Tozawa began, I was learning how off-base I was on Andrews. Andrews took the fight to Tozawa and never looked clumsy or green. Maybe this is my own naiveté, but I needed every minute of this match to convince me what a great competitor Andrews is. And…he is.

This match was highlighted with plenty of high flying risks, great combo grapples, and one amazing shot from Tozawa to Andrew’s jaw. Andrews took that shot like a champ. A shot that left even Tozawa shaking his hand to get the feeling back. This punch was real. You can’t fake the sound of knuckles to the jaw with a knee slap. At least a sound as strong and hard as the sound Andrew’s jaw produced.

For Andrews, his fight to earn my respect (as if that mattered to him) was emphasized with a Northern Lights suplex, a couple Octopus stretches, standing twisted corkscrew backflips, and his Slumdog millionaire stunner.

Now, none of these moves were enough to take out Tozawa and all I could think throughout the match was: “Yeah…that makes sense. Tozawa is gonna win.” This felt like the classic ‘let the young guy show what he can do and let the older guy win’. Tozawa is the guy we see every week and Andrews…well…he was supposed to be headed back home after this match (a story which I’m still mad at myself for falling for it. The 5th time the ring announcers mentioned his flight back to the UK should have been the clue that it was a lie).

As Tozawa thought he properly lined up his move to victory, Andrews countered to turn Tozawa’s attempted roll up into a roll up of his own. One of the reasons I’m a huge fan of Tozawa are his facial expressions. Like the hate filled, disgusted looks we get from Alexa Bliss, Tozawa always looks shocked and pumped for whatever is coming up next. Andrews’ counter for the rollup pin victory gave us one of the best looks we’ve ever seen. The shock on Tozawa’s face matched mine perfectly. I got another HELLLLLLL of a match from 205 Live…but this time…I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor.

This might not be the match of the year candidate, but when I ask for something one week and the WWE delivers, I like to honor that. I wanted a surprise ending for one of these matches and now it has me questioning everything. Would this even be a surprise ending if the other matches last week had ended differently? I know…mind blower.

Credit is given where credit is due. You can consider this credit owed to 205 Live delivered and of course…the credit due to Mark Andrews and Akira Tozawa for delivering the Greatest Match of All Time…This week!
 

Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt on Twitter)

@BODPodcast for Twitter and Facebook