This was an impromptu match for Danielson’s PWG World Title.
This is their final independent match. They had a match in FCW in 2010 that was a really fun sort of ten minute television match, but that’s almost nothing like Bryan Danielson vs. Low Ki. Canonically, you could consider this their last match, as it’s their last without any sort of restrictions at all.
Similar to Bryan/Generico five months prior, it had the feeling of an impromptu match. Like Samoa Joe vs. Low Ki the year before in PWG, it’s very much a Low Ki-in-PWG style rematch. He’s not going insane, it’s a, ugh, lower key sort of effort, but it is absolutely and definitely great. Low Ki is one of the most talented wrestler of all time and Bryan Danielson is the greatest wrestler of all time. Even if they hold back, to some extent, they still wrestle for something like twenty five minutes and it is great. This is more mat based and focused on grinding it out, and you could not ask for a better pairing to have a match like this.
So much of this match feels like these two riffing it out, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. One of them will grab something new or find a new escape from an old hold, and the other will try and top it. They usually do. Eventually, they work into something just as good for me as two masters playing matwork jazz, and that’s a Bryan Danielson Double Limbwork match. The stomach and ribs aren’t exactly a limb, but spiritually, this is that. Bryan works on Low Ki’s arm to slow him down in this regard, and Low Ki is even better than Bryan Danielson from this point on. Bryan certainly doesn’t ignore the work done to him, but he’s nowhere near as great of a seller tonight as Low Ki is. Low Ki also has all of these great little attacks to try and comeback, like desperately chopping at Bryan’s thigh and knee to push him backwards. This match is a constantly evolving and shifting kind of instrumental jam, it’s not about those things, it’s not about anything, but it’s a delightful little feature.
This match never bothered with a comeback. There wasn’t a big epic finishing run. It was what it was and kept being that until it was over. The confidence is incredibly admirable, and it’s also a show of where these two are in any sort of independent wrestling hierarchy at this point, to have a match like this in a company like PWG. Eventually, they decided to stop riffing it out and went home. Low Ki stopped Danielson on the top rope, hit his Tree of Woe stomp, the Ki Krusher, and went into the Dragon Clutch. Ki adapted and set up the Clutch with Danielson style back elbows to the side of the head, and he wins the PWG World Title. Low Ki seemed like he had something he wanted to do at the end of this, a set sequence and plan. He tends to win most of his matches in the ways he tried to win this in the final minute. On the other hand, Bryan Danielson at this point can win in one of ten or twenty different ways and his matches at this point are so interesting because of that. It put him at a rare disadvantage here, perhaps, because Low Ki is one of the only wrestlers left on the independents not intimidated even a little by what Bryan can do, and therefore not at all cautious of this fact. Bryan Danielson was playing jazz and seeing where professional wrestling took him. Low Ki knew where a match he won was going to take him. Sometimes that matters.
Not their best, but a remarkable sort of a match. Violent, in its own way, but more of an artistic feeling match than either usually has. Both awesome and severe in its approach. A reaffirmation of the greatness of both in totally unique ways.
***1/2
HANDWERK 