Some nice, basic mat work to start things off, followed by Finlay just grounding Mysterio, and doing whatever he can to keep him there. Fucking loved the elbow to the face from Finlay when Rey gets back up and runs the ropes, looked about as manly as you can get in WWE (I’m guessing a spot like that in Japan would look even more vicious).
A nice clash of styles here, and a sign of things to come from them. Finlay is a vicious bastard, and Rey uses his high flying style the best he can given the beating he takes from Finlay, and the fact that Finlay is able to counter a lot of his shit.
You know what? Screw the whole “sign of things to come” crap I just said, this is basically what is to come lol, except their future matches (and the feud ender in particular) actually have a feud behind them. Finlay does a fantastic job at taking out Rey’s shoulder and just beating the living fuck out of him, and Rey’s hope spots are nicely timed, and his offence as the match goes on is pretty great too. He realises that his high flying shit won’t cut it against Finlay straight away, so he kicks and elbows the fuck out of Finlay first to wear him down, but Finlay always cuts him off before he can really get a rhythm going.
I think I may like this match MORE than their November 07 match! It gets plenty of time to develop, and ends up creating a story in the middle of the match, that is worked just as well, if not better, than their match in 07 that has the feud behind it.
Finish is pretty cool, setting up to WM. They continue the build to the title match as Orton interferes while Finlay has the ref distracted with the shillelagh, giving Finlay a big win going into MITB in just under 2 weeks time and keeping Rey looking strong still because he was cheated out of the win.
Definitely one of the very best SD 06 matches so far, and atm, given everything I have watched (including the random matches from later in the year), only the Angle/Undertaker and 2 of the Orton/Benoit matches beat it.
There is going to be a place for this on my list.
Rating: ***3/4
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