March 2019

This is Eddie doing his Kings Road tribute shtick, and it's fucking awesome. His opponent captivates too in my first time watching him; Thomas Shire is a tall, lanky dude, who is apparently trained by Dory Funk Jr. He does a lot of sweet suplexes + uppercuts, sells well & overall puts on a pretty great fighting from underneath performance, as Eddie just keeps on brutalizing him in an EXTREMELY compelling fashion. Badass match. ****

This was a really great piece of work with Gresham frustrating Starr on the mat to open. The arm work is really compelling and creative which is what Gresham excels at. The character work of Starr getting more frustrated with Gresham added a nice layer but the best narrative thread here is the arm work which Starr sells incredibly consistently throughout the whole match. And of course when the big bombs and dives started coming out, it escalated into a really exciting bit of indieriffic fun. Awesome stuff. ****1/2

Following the non-finish of their last match, these two are now having a hair match in the same arena. Yet again Califan attacks Guerrero on the outside. Caifan has great facials, intensely staring at the crowd while he massacres their hero. Guerrero eventually mounts a comeback hitting that brutal baseball slide he did in their previous encounter. Once they get into the ring, Guerrero stretches out Caifan with some neat submissions. They trade some convincing near falls before it's time to go home. Not quite the bloody match I was expecting, but this was still good. ★★★

Ben-K and Big R Shimuzu defend the Open the Twin Gate tag team titles All four men had something to prove in this match, and it led to a very exciting dynamic full of brawling and great tag team chemistry. There wasn’t much of a story going on in the match itself, but sequences on display here were absolutely amazing. U-T in particular proved once again why he’s one of the best false finish guys in the world with his performance, ****1/2.

PAC defends the Open the Dream Gate title. Shun has been building himself since last year for this very match, and I would say he delivered as well as he could’ve. It was hard to get the crowd to get behind Shun as a believable threat early on, but they played this up really well with PAC and Shun matching each other when it came to athleticism. A few things coming out of this match was Shun showing he can hang in big match situations, and PAC is on a roll of great matches in 2019, ****1/4.

Momo Watanabe, 18 years old, defends the Wonder of Stardom title. Talk about it here

This is a nontitle match between the IWGP Champ and the NEVER Openweight Champion. Talk about it here

Taiji Ishimori defends the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title against Jushin Thunder Liger. Talk about it here

4 guys who can go doing their thing for 24 minutes in a garage. Obviously getting to see Ishikawa in a lengthy match in 2019 is great, but the main reason I liked this is that everyone was pretty vicious. Ishikawa clogged Thatcher in the jaw during their first exchange, no real friendy grappling, lots of punches are thrown on the ground, Ringkampf would work over their opponents with nasty stomps and knees etc. Walter seems to understand how to not get stale as he hitting these Tenryu punts and busted out an awesome uranage. I haven't seen Irie in a while but his matwork was fun and he had these cool swinging Vader Hammers. Ishikawa was pretty much the star of the show a…

First round match in the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

David Starr got his pick for any first round opponent that he wanted. So he picked the man he just can't beat: WALTER. To start off, Starr went right after WALTER with relentless offense. It's this strategy, barreling forward at 100% that acts to both Starr's benefit and his detriment. While it does mean he absorbs WALTER's offense and keeps on coming, it also means that his risks don't always pay off. His suicide dive crashes and burns, he makes the same mistake WALTER has a million times and chops the ringpost. It's that same tenacity that makes Starr go for that Rear Naked Choke at the finish to try and put WALTER away. But The Ring General just knows the lay of the la…

First round match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Well shocker, this was good. I've been a wXw sceptic forever, but gotta give it up for them flying in an old japanese guy almost no one has heard of and let him completely outwork their boy and everyone else on the show. I've never been blown away by Thatchers grappling and he didn't do anything great here either, but that may have been the story of the match. Basically Ishikawa outclasses Thatcher the whole way through, making up great counters and doing cool shit I've never seen him do before. Thatcher has to resort to potatoeing Ishikawa and he doesn't hold back. Some BattlARTS worthy smacks here. This doesn't reach the higher pantheon of Ishikawa singles match but tha…

First round match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Easily Kaito's best defense yet and probably his best singles match to date. Marufuji too was on another level here as he worked Kaito's limbs with awesome looking precision. The story wasn't about surpassing the veterans here, this was about Kaito trying to prove his dominance, and it was amazing. His limb selling is already leagues ahead (for the most part) of someone like Kento or even Okada, and his athleticism has perfect timing in almost every move. If NOAH's aesthetic change wasn't apparent enough, Kaito is taking this promotion in a new direction, and I am 100% behind it, ****3/4.

Daniel Bryan defends the WWE Title in a triple threat match. Talk about it here

Samoa Joe defends the US title in a Fatal Four Way. Talk about it here

Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose reunite for a wild brawl. Talk about it here

We get pre-match promos from both guys, basically just saying "I'm gonna be there, we're both old" etc. Severn looks a lot better here as he pulls out some of his typical overbearing wrestling technique and lands a early German suplex. I think what works about this is that the two (mostly Severn) really use the ring set-up as you would in a actual grappling contest, with Severn consistently just squishing his opponent, ramming his head and such to make it as uncomfortable as possible, etc. Otsuka more uses it as a clutch to lay down and defend. The stand-up was much less impressive with the two landing really fakey looking punches, at times not even attempting to try to m…

Really enjoyed this one especially the performance of Nicholls. He did everything with aggression and every strike he delivered was stiff even busting open Okada's chest in the process. You can tell motivated and had something to prove. Okada for his part was his standard self but was so giving making the crowd actually believe an upset is going to happen. Good stuff.

Jay Lethal defends the ROH World Title. Talk about it here

Jeff Cobb defends the ROH Television title. Talk about it here

The Briscoes defend the ROH World tag titles in a no DQ streetfight against Villain Enterprises. Talk about it here

This has to be one of my favorite pairings in wrestling. They just work so well together especially with ZSJ's psychology of taking strikes in order to grab a hold. Ibushi's selling actually felt a lot more consistent in this match especially when his comebacks would be delayed or stalled because of the limbwork ZSJ tortures him with throughout. There was a consistent logic to this that Ibushi needs to overpower and outstrike Zack in order to get the win but closing the distance against Zack Sabre Jr. is one of the most dangerous things you can do because once he grabs a limb, he's on you like crazy. Probably my favorite match of the tournament so far. It was tight, fast,…

Available at OTT On Demand. https://overthetopwrestling.pivotshare.com/home WALTER defends the OTT World title. Talk about it here