"Another really good Austin Aries match." I guess I should stop being surprised at this point, but since I started going through all of this stuff again a few years back, there really hasn't been one Aries match I've revisited - or visited for the first time, like this one - that I've come out of without a higher opinion of him as a wrestler. I feel like he was at his absolute peak around this time and there's pretty much nobody I'd be opposed to seeing him in there against. The opening section had a real nice snap to it and all of the hold-trading was airtight, none of the counters into and out of holds looking overly cooperative or choreographed. It's sort of crazy to me that with all the bells and whistles and production values of today, I can't think of many current wrestlers doing these sequences who manage to pull them off like this crop of indie guys in the mid-2000s who were being recorded by like three people with video cameras. I could quite easily be convinced this period was as good as it's ever been for workrate promotions doing workrate. Even if the STUFF they're doing today is bigger and flashier, it rarely feels as organic to me as what they were doing on a 2005 ROH show. Anyhow, the early parts were good and I liked them foreshadowing Aries targeting Gibson's arm by stomping on the elbow out of a key lock. He takes over fully with one of his rocket topes and Aries really does have one of the best topes of the last 25 years, certainly outside of Mexico. They then follow through on that arm stomp as Aries drapes Gibson's arm over the barricade and crushes it with a running dropkick, which sets off a pretty great control segment. He's mean and focused working the arm, hitting some cool hammerlocked scoop and sidewalk slam variations, really snapping Gibson to the mat with arm wringers. I don't need offence in wrestling to look super crisp, but it's worth mentioning it when you've got a guy like Aries making everything look killer, like he's actually trying to hurt a guy and win the match. Gibson for his part is really strong working from below and selling the arm. He made it show that nothing was coming easily, clearly hindered in trying to fight back and hit certain moves. He hangs the arm limp by his side and has to throw punches and forearms with his right, then resorts to headbutts from his knees in moments of desperation. At other points he'd fight from his back and on one occasion Aries just about piledrove himself on his own head off a monkey flip. They played up the arm for the big spot out on the floor as well, with Gibson failing to get Aries up for the Tiger Driver and that leading to a wild flip senton into the crowd. This was also second from the top on a show where Danielson and Homicide would blow off their best of 5 series in a cage, so they worked the finishing run with a bit of restraint rather than going for epic. The two big kickouts felt huge even still; Aries' 450 splash and Gibson's Tiger Driver that he was finally able to hit after locking in a guillotine choke (that he had to release fairly quickly because it was applied with the left arm). I thought the last couple transitions were maybe a little rushed, but I did like the finish with Aries almost being out on his feet and fluking his way into a home run bomb. A very good wrestling match.
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