September 2018

Good action and a fine performance from both but the main reason is that this match resonated with me is that there was actual uncertainty over the outcome. Both competitors had been built as viable potential champions. Contrast that with the Hiroshima show... Ishii is cool and all, but no one actually buys that he's going to headline NJ's biggest event of the year. Some excellent false finishes, most notably KUSHIDA with the Hoverboard Lock, and then BUSHI with the backslide into the bridge after spraying the mist. Thought it was over both times. KUSHIDA is so smooth and steady, you always know you're going to get a solid performance out of him. A friend of mi…

The Ladykiller is coming in from Singapore as a foreign invader going up against local boy Chris Panzer. Perfectly serviceable match here with a decent opening shine only marred by a mistimed handspring off the ropes. The Ladykiller's heat segment is far too long, taking up what feels like a good eight or ten minutes before we get a quick Panzer comeback at the end. I enjoyed Ladykiller's heel mannerisms but his heat segment really did just go on and on and while Panzer's comeback was fun, it just didn't seem proportional to the amount of time he spent on the defense. Gotta love Panzer's Tanahashi-esque splash though. Looked pretty good and was a nice finish. ***1/2

This is for Jake de Leon's PHX Championship with Tengu flying in from London to challenge for the title. You can see some of the British influences on Tengu in the opening exchanges where they mix the hold trading with some comedy spots. Thought they played off well and got the crowd invested early on. The fact that they added in some character moments and taunts helped to start things off hot as well. From there, it transitions into a pretty straightforward arm vs. leg match. JDL targets Tengu's left arm to soften him up for the Inasal Lock and Tengu goes after the leg to try and weaken JDL's base. Thought Tengu's bumping looked a little weird in some spots, taking it mo…

Thought this was a legitimately great title match. Opens up with some decent exchanges. Then we get into an Imabayashi heat segment trying to take out Quatro's leg. I don't know what it is about Ralph but he moves kind of slowly in the ring and that sort of kills the energy of his heat segments. Luckily he doesn't give in to the temptation to just do rest hold after rest hold and instead does some pretty decent looking offense on Quatro's leg even though it doesn't quite catch the momentum of the crowd. Quatro does a decent selling job of the leg for a lot of the match but it more or less disappears once we hit the finishing stretch. There are some legitimately great…

This match happen of the final show of the 5*GP. For Konami, this was quite the bookend to a tremendous tournament for her. She looked great here again working over Utami with kicks and various holds. For her part, Utami has another better than expect performance. She sells Konami's arm-work well and fires back with some judo throws and submissions of her own. This was a bit on the short side but the work here makes it well worth checking out. ***3/4

5STAR Grand Prix 2018 Finals: Mayu Iwatani vs. Utami Hayashishita This was a star-making performance for Utami in her first ever Korakuen main event. The dismissive veteran versus the cool super-rookie dynamic was played well. Mayu does a splendid job bumping (as usual) for Utami's power-based offense when the tide turns and her comebacks were well obtained. Excellent match to cap off a great tournament. ****1/2

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Golden Lovers vs Chaos. Talk about it here

Semifinals of the IWGP Junior Title Tournament. Talk about it here

The Young Bucks defend the IWGP Tag Team Titles against Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa. Talk about it here

I'm writing this review now on just having got home from seeing the show. It should be available to watch on their streaming service in a few days and this match is really worth seeking out. It's for the Progress World Title. Tyler is the "Big Strong Boy" who's facing a huge strong man in the champion Walter. Walter (got a live violin duo playing his entrance theme) totally dominated the opening half, lots of basic wrestling and tests of strength type manoeuvres, however hard he fights nothing Tyler does seems to have any significant effect on Walter. It's like he's just made out of brick. The fighting spills out to the floor at one point and Tyler manages to reverse…

This is a match for both the World of Stardom title and the Wonder of Stardom title with the winner taking both belts. This match gets off to a fairly methodical start but it never feels like its killing time as they always seem to keep things moving along. They do manage to slowly, but naturally, increase the pace along the way to point that you don't suddenly notice that they are in the finishing run. A very well laid out title match. ****

This was Kagetsu's second title defense of the day as she takes on Shimmer champ Nicole Savoy. Savoy actually controls the opening part with a mix of matwork and power forcing Kagetsu to use more of her high-risk offense. I really liked the matwork here a lot. It's not smooth looking but the roughness of it made everything come off as earned. Savoy going back and forth between matwork and throws worked well because you felt like she was keeping Kagetsu off balance. The finish keeps this from being great as Kagetsu sprays mists in Savoy's face right in front of the ref leading to the end. Still, a entertaining match that will hopefully led to Savoy coming back to Stardom a…