Bryan/Miz House Show Fancam

05/17/18 Newcastle House Show: Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz

These two are perfect against each other. I saw some reports saying that their matches on this house show run have been "PPV level", and my goodness, based on this match, those reports were 100% correct. What an absolutely fantastic piece of pro wrestling; starts with Bryan getting the better of the feeling out process & owning Miz, which causes Miz to be frustrated & stall in classic heel fashion. His bumping off of Bryan's shine was fantastic & Bryan was equally fantastic on the offense, of course. Eventually the match goes to the outside & Miz gets the control by being a nasty bastard, throwing Bryan face first into the steel post. It's Miz on control for quite a while after that; he is really good at working the heat on Bryan, focusing on the neck & Bryan is a wonderful FIP. Bryan starts mounting a comeback w/ some fantastic punches, but it gets cut off by the Miz very quickly. After that Miz starts targeting Bryan's knee, and he does so in an AWESOME, focused fashion. There's a great spot where Bryan starts mounting a comeback w/ those lovely punches of his again, but Miz once again cuts it off quickly by turning a suplex attempt into a chop block. After working the crap out of the knee, Miz goes for the Figure 4 & it's fantastic drama - after Bryan counters it in the classic Figure-4-counter -fashion, they start trading strikes while on their knees, eventually getting on their feet; Bryan starts getting the better of the exchange, and then BOOM! Miz kicks that worked over knee. Miz is still on the control, but eventually Bryan does finally get his big comeback in; he kicks Miz's ass all over the ring, all over to the outside. He runs wild on Miz for a while & Miz is great selling + bumping for his offense. Bryan does go for the diving headbutt, but Miz moves out of the way, thus gaining the control of the match again. This leads to my favorite moment of the match; with an amazing, cocky asshole smile on his face, Miz starts going for the "IT" kicks - before he started kicking him, I thought to myself "goddamn, Bryan needs to no sell those" - AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! As Miz starts unleashing the first kicks of the sequence, Bryan starts hulking up & then gets up and just stares at Miz for doing that. I can imagine in their future big PPV meeting they'll do that spot again and I can't wait for that. The finishing stretch is full of good drama & momentum swifts aka a fantastic way to cap off a brilliant match. One slight negative is that I thought Bryan could've & should've sold the worked over knee more in his comeback & the finishing run, but it didn't bother me THAT much, because of how they built the whole thing & executed it. I was getting some 80's Flair, Steamboat, Lawler vibes from it. Absolutely can't wait for them to do this thing on a PPV setting. ****1/4