October 2018

I thought this was a really cool match. Aoki struggles with selling a bit but he's Shinya Aoki! It doesn't really matter that he's stonefaced most of the match. Aoki doesn't swallow up HARASHIMA either, they both look pretty good. HARASHIMA puts Aoki in a couple armbar attempts and a rear-naked choke attempt, and Aoki has to stand up and reset. He even gets him to use a rope break after reversing a leglock into an ankle lock. Aoki underselling a german suplex after that was the one moment where the match sort of disappointed me. Aoki does some things that I haven't seen anyone else do in pro wrestling, even something simple like when he gets out of a waistlock by thr…

Available at Progress On Demand. WALTER defends the Progress World Title. Talk about it here

Becky Lynch defends the WWE Smackdown Women's Title. Talk about it here

This match was awesome until the finish. The opening was great as Kairi clearly has the Kirifuda Clutch figured out so Shayna switches it up by going after Kairi's arm. Kairi's selling of her arm was terrific, especially when she made sure to work around it while on offense. The finish did feel like it was pasted on though. I wouldn't have had a problem with it had Shayna won with an armbar or if they worked it from an angle that didn't leave the ref in a bad spot. Still, this was the best match that these two have had and I have no problem with this feud continuing since these two probably have an even better match in them. ****

Ronda's run of inexplicably good matches continues here. Although, I thought Nikki was fantastic here. Veteran who holds the match together isn't a phrase that I'd thought I would use to describe a Nikki Bella performance but that's what happened here. Even Brie, after being pretty awful since coming back, did a very nice job here working as a second. I really liked how Ronda kept herself vulnerable by being too cocky at times thus leaving herself open to cheap shots from the Bellas. She still had a few bad moments as she took too long to set up some of the bigger spots and she's clearly using constant trash talk to cover up obvious spot calling. In the end though, this m…

WWE World Championship Match. AJ Styles defends against Daniel Bryan My love for both these guys has been made clear on this forum and I particularly enjoyed their TV match from earlier in the year. This paid off the potential of that match and thank God we got this outside of that horrid Saudi debacle. AJ Styles is the hometown boy which means he is solidly cheered throughout the match. It's interesting how both guys played slightly different roles from what their used to in this match. For AJ, he rarely works with people smaller than him so this match allowed him to show off his talents in the offensive Ace role as opposed to the bumping underdog he's used to. Br…