October 2018

PAC's big return match. The reaction to his return is brilliant, with the overly excited announcer selling the moment perfectly. He attacks Shingo right of the bat and they go full throttle from the first bell to the finish. The heel stable gets involves and attacks Shingo on the outside. There's a lot of impressive spots, but nobody does a particularly great job of building them up, and the audience don't seem to react to them. The match is at it's strongest when the heel stable once again get up in Shingo's business and rush the ring, garnering a big reaction out of the Korakuen Hall crowd. He eats some nasty superkicks from Eita, before PAC puts him away with the Red A…

Holy hell, this one surprised me. Both women made me a fan during this match. They start out with some slick matwork and there's a big struggle to get a front facelock locked in. Martinez gets frustrated and slaps Meiko hard! Meiko returns the favor by laying in some disgustingly stiff kicks right to the tits. Martinez was fantastic at being the heel bully, but I also admired Meiko for managing to still feel like a babyface while dishing out some seriously nasty offense. Meiko countering Martinez's escapes from her Fujiwara armbar by rolling into a different position was an incredible moment that felt very natural and realistic. People need to check this out. It's a serio…

I feel like I can write an essay for why this was a great match but I won't. The match is awesome, incredible even. Nakajima and Sugiura play their roles perfectly; whether it's the sneaky heel (Nakajima) or the annoyed, veteran fighting champion (Sugiura). Both are exceptional. Nakajima being arrogant in his body language, soaking in the crowd, playing with Sugiura throughout the match even when he had the match won, laying into some nasty kicks, cheating just because. Katsu showed why he is a prime contender for WOTY (IMO). Sugiura being on the defensive, trying to survive Nakajima's tactics, firing up at points, laying into Nakajima with some viscous elbows trying to k…

No idea how anyone could dislike this unless they weren't into the style of their other matches. I quite enjoyed this and would slot it on the same level as their X-Seven match and above their two other Wrestlemania matches. I liked how they didn't try too hard to make the match feel epic by filling it with near falls or melodrama and instead went the route of it just being two legends having fun together. The beginning with some light hearted old man boxing cosplay set the tone pretty well. Still, the match didn't ignore their history of epics together and there were some nice counter-into-counter type moments alongside some references to past Wrestlemania matches. They …

For Tanahashi's IWGP Tokyo Dome Title Shot Contract Briefcase. Talk about it here

Three way match for Omega's IWGP Heavyweight Title. Talk about it here

For the vacant IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title. Talk about it here

Available at OTT On Demand. Talk about it here

Naito, EVIL and Sanada six man tag. Talk about it here

Available at OTT On Demand. Talk about it here

Available at OTT On Demand. Walter defends the Over The Top Wrestling Championship. Talk about it here

Undead Bride. Allie In A White Tank. Sinister Minister. Sign Me Up. I wouldnt say this was a home run, but I found it exceedingly enjoyable. I know Su Yung kills Allie and I thought this was the segment. It is not so it was a nice swerve for me when Allie takes the hatchet to Su Yung! I popped for that! They wisely limited the dialogue in this. In the hands of even the most skilled actors, the chance for the cheese factor to be strong is high. Allie didnt speak until taking the hatchet to Su Yung. Before that they had James Vandenburg do all the talking and explain the context/rules of the Undead Realm. Allie kills two Undead Bridesmaids and splatters blood everywhe…

Impact World Heavyweight Champion Austin Aries vs Johnny Impact - Bound for Glory 2018 So who had these two down for best shoot-style brawl of the 2010s? Anybody? Anybody? I love both dudes. I have been banging the Morrison drum for a while, but I thought this was his more visceral, pugnacious performance yet. The fucking wacky shoot ending is unprofessional as fuck and Aries is a massive prick for doing it, but it does add to bizarrely shoot-y nature of the match. It turns into more of a spectacle and Aries' rationale for it in an Instagram Live interview is all the more ridiculous, but first the match. The first five minutes of this match are absolutely kille…

Impact Women's Champion Tessa Blanchard vs Taya Valkyrie - Impact Bound For Glory 2018 Only my second Taya match, but she is a bayface here, excited to see what it is like. I like Taya's look a lot and she busted out a couple lucha sequences and a submission so that was pretty cool. This was definitely a workrate match. A lot of the highspots blurred together. Taya did keep up with Tessa and went shot for shot with her. Taya being as big as she is poses an interesting challenge for Tessa. I always like a wrestler going for their finish early we see that from Tessa early. Some of the transitions were too loose for my liking, but I did like how Taya was countering with…

Minoru Suzuki defends the Rev Pro Undisputed Heavyweight Title. Available at Rev Pro On Demand. Talk about it here

Ridgeway is a very special UK talent that I don't think gets enough recognition for how good he is. In a scene full of stereotypical high flyers and "british strong style", it's refreshing to see a hard and technical style get a good position on a high profile card. Ospreay did an excellent job in allowing Ridgeway's style to take center stage, and what was produced was a great match with wonderful chemistry that kept building into some cool spots and sequences. Unfortunately, the finish came very abruptly in that Ospreay seemed to have been injured (it was stated as rib-based, but he botched an overhead kick landing on his neck right before the finish) thus having the ma…

I run hot and cold on a lot of PWG, and this fell on the warmer end of the spectrum for me. Trevor Lee riles up the crowd on the mic, making sure to cuss as much as he can before heading to WWE. He whips the crowd into a frenzy, and then gets the chance to play power heel against Allin, who is smaller than almost everyone he's going to ever face. I dig Allin as an undersized, never-give-up babyface, and I thought these two worked well together. The duct tape spot came off a little contrived, only because there was no real reason to do it for Trevor, and it just gave Allin a chance to get in his "look what I can do without hands" shit. That being said, what he's able to do…

Lucha dude triple threat! Puma King made his name with the PWG crowd during BOLA, and they pulled out a bunch of big moves and showed off their athleticism. However, this didn't do much for me at all. A lot of it came off feeling very exhibition-y, and it's hard to buy into any exchange of strikes when the guy taking it stands there for more than a minute waiting for you to hit him. My suspension of disbelief in wrestling was tested here.

Modern lucha libre is my biggest gap in terms of wrestling viewing, and I had never seen a Hechicero match but you can bet damn sure I'll be seeking him out in the future. Super smooth on the mat and I thought this match with ZSJ was pretty damn fantastic. Sabre gets too cutesy with some of his holds at times, but there was less of that here, and more of him escaping the holds of Hechicero. ZSJ's escape from the surfboard and transition into an elbow stomp was beautiful. Definitely seek out this one if you haven't seen it.

Mercedes Martinez defends the Phoenix of Rise Title in an Iron Man Match. Talk about it here

Zeus defends the AJPW Triple Crown. Talk about it here

Excellent match. CIMA is a great heel, aggressively attacking the leg of Takeshita with his smug facial expression. He dominated the entire match with Takeshita being helpless because of the injured leg. Takeshita selling was a spotty in the middle parts of the match but generally good and they incorporated it at the end which is good to see. Shocked at the result but great match. ****1/4

An underrated gem that's definitely worth watching. Just my kind of match with the pace that I like to see in a wrestling contest. Starting slow and a tad old school and then, Takizawa opens the machine and all hell breaks loose. I had heard quite a bit about Mashimo prior to seeing this match but Takizawa was unknown to me so it was fun to discover his work a bit. I'll definitely check more of K-DOJO in the future.

This match came off better live and didn't really hold up to the transition to the footage. It's still a fun midcard match to help the crowd get going though. Both Quatro and Emma bring some good looking offense here and there's enough big spots spaced throughout the match to keep everyone invested. The crowd noise does let this down when you're watching the footage though and it's clear most people weren't invested until the bigger moments like that wild backstabber out of nowhere from Quatro. Overall, nothing much here but a fun match that doesn't overstay its welcome. ***1/2

This is for Watanabe's Wonder of Stardom title and the match that Iwatani asked for after winning the 5* Grand Prix the previous match. This is pretty much a slugfest from beginning to end. These two lay into each other while mixing in some big spots. Not quite the great match that you would expect between these two but very enjoyable none the less. ***3/4