ROH 12/27/2003: AJ Styles def. Kaz Hayashi in 14:49: This was part of an All Japan vs. ROH series at Final Battle 2003. Because Muto was working the main event, this was the company’s biggest crowd to date, and it showed in this match what drew the house. The fans were overcheering everything early, bursting into applause at headlock takeovers and whatnot. When smart fans were cosplaying as Japanese crowds in this era, they could never distinguish between polite applause and thunderous applause in Japan. But it was clear the crowd REALLY WANTED to like this match, especially considering Kaz’s WCW run. Speaking of which, the announcers mentioned that these two had previously wrestled once in WCW, but not that they were in the first TNA match ever, which took place the previous year. Probably because no one wants to relive The Flying Elvises, and because the ROH fanbase almost unanimously hated TNA in 2003. They lost the crowd for a bit when Kaz whipped AJ into the guardrail, and AJ hopped it and kept running into the crowd, eventually disappearing. It seemed like the wrestlers thought that would get a big reaction, but these fans were here for MOVES, dammit! The chain at the beginning was good, and they built up to the big Indy moves you’d expect, but there was probably less flying than you would think overall. They mistimed a jumping DDT, and Kaz continually teased a dragon suplex that didn’t look very good when he eventually hit it, but the work was mostly good outside of that. They did a cool multireversal spot leading to AJ winning with the Styles Clash at just under fifteen minutes. ***1/4