January 2019

Kyle O'Reilly & Roderick Strong defend the NXT tag team titles against Hanson & Rowe. Talk about it here

Tomasso Ciampa defends the NXT Heavyweight title. Talk about it here

Kota Umeda is one part KENTA, the other Hayato "Jr." Fujita. He's the underdog going into this match but he's such a little prick to the Big Dawg that you can't really root for him. The insolence with his stiff ass kicks and then the way he throws himself wildy into his counter elbows and flying knee strikes. But Shuji's here to teach him a lesson, as this is part of Umeda's trial series, and boy, does he. Mean surly bastard Ishikawa slangin' elbows and Fire Thunder Drivin' Umeda's hopes out the window. Simple, hard-hitting, classic story with the obvious end result but its's a fun trip. Good stuff.

I remain endlessly fascinated and entertained by Aoki's run. He goes to the top rope in this match! He takes a chair shot! This is a match between the four singles title match participants at Judgement, DDT's first (second if you count MUSCLEMANIA [musclemania!]) Ryogoku show this year. The first half of the match has a slow build-up and serves as a preview for the two Sumo Hall matches, there's the methodical technical wrestling between HARASHIMA and Aoki, and the counter-fest between Takeshita and Sasaki. Both are good. Then, Takeshita gets his leg worked over again here and he's still selling like he always has, which is an issue and I hope it's not a focus of their ne…

This is for Kagetsu's world of Stardom title and is a battle of Oedo Tai members. I'll be honest, I went into this without any real expectations mainly because of not being a fan of Oedo Tai in general. The way that this match was laid out was incredibly well done. They started out with some intense exchanges in the ring that spills outside leading to some actually good brawling, which is exceedingly rare in joshi. After that, you have some fantastic back and forth producing some nasty looking exchanges. Things do get a little messy in the final few moments but it doesn't downgrade the match as a whole. Tremendous stuff. ****1/2

Asuka defends the WWE Smackdown Womens title. Talk about it here

From being one of the most uninteresting characters on TV in ages to being a believable challenge against the Beast himself, Finn Balor has never looked better in his WWE run. This match was brilliantly paced, toying with the Lesnar formula match by pretty much excising the traditional suplex heat segment and turning it instead into an extended babyface shine for Balor. The stomach psychology (has anyone ever done STOMACH psychology) added so much to story and allowed Brock to flex those Top 10 All Time Selling muscles he's been hiding from us for a bit. Brock being unable to hit the Germans was a great hope spot followed by the triple topes that had me entirely invested …

Daniel Bryan defends the WWE World title. Talk about it here

The Rousey train keeps on rolling and this was the best Sasha's looked in aaaaages. I was hyped for this and it totally delivered. Everything around the arm was great. Sasha had a bunch of awesome and nasty looking ways of working it over and Rousey continues to be the best seller in the company. The ringpost spot to set it up was killer just for the visual of Ronda literally punching the lights out and she really never looked back from there. She had lots of great little moments around that busted up hand/arm, like throwing punches primarily with her left hand and never being able to throw rights without impunity (and she only threw a couple before abandoning the idea an…

Excellent match. After Ronda's disappointing show at the Rumble, she totally made up for this here. Ronda was clearly pissed off by the crowd pre match and thus brought tons of aggression in this, going at Bayley early on like a rabid dog leading to some cool scrambles for the arm bar. Then Ronda's selling came into play when she twisted her leg in the corner, Bayley zeros in on the leg, hitting a nasty dragon screw in the ropes. Ronda selling her leg and arm (from Sasha's rumble and Bayley's initial arm work early in the match) superbly. Bayley was great here too, loved her work here and she did a great job at the limb work. Glad to see Bayley back into the mix again. To…

This is Kushida's final match in NJPW, and it is non-title. Talk about it here

This event is being held in an actual bar, no ring, and the Shamrock/Lawlor match is the main event on a four match card. The vibe they wanted was more your ‘bar room brawl, hence the name of the show, but it generally comes off more like a WWF hardcore match from the late 90s/early 2000s, especially when Shamrock was in control. Cosmetically he looks tremendous for a 54 year old man, although not sure the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Man’ moniker is still fitting. Things were much better when Filthy Tom was on offense as it actually resembled a fight then as opposed to a wrestling match. Lawlor applies a triangle choke at one point which Shamrock escapes from by slamming …