March 2019

Triple Crown match An Ace at his peak (or entering his peak) vs the future Ace in a title match is not a dynamic that you get to see much in Japan and I gotta say they pulled it off nicely here. At first this is all about Kento, he's a cocky motherfucker that wants to show the kid he ain't got what it takes, and he pretty much does exactly that. Miyahara's mannerisms and the mandatory Wada fuckery carry the first 10 minutes or so of the match, which are fine but nothing to write home about either. Nomura has to fight like hell to land anything meaningful and it doesn't have a lasting impact because Kento is just better. But as the match goes along, Naoya starts to fi…

All Japan World Tag Team titles on the line. A worthy successor to the classic they had in January, though not on THAT level. This one doesn't have the emotional rollercoaster vibe the first one had, and it was more about bomb throwing, which kinda makes sense because things had to escalate from their previous encounter. The roles are reversed on the first third of the match, with Strong BJ dominating this time and working over Suwama, and Shuji having to be the hot tag and the fired up one. Korakuen loves Strong BJ though, so even tough they are the invaders, they are still over and never get booed - they didn't try to get booed either though, except for like 2 t…

Quarter Final match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Well, this ruled quite a bit. Having a lackluster match with Ishii is pretty hard to do (Taichi got rather close), but this was easily the best YOSHI-HASHI match I've ever seen. Really loved the theme of the two friends and stablemates pushing each other so hard it looked like they hated each other's guts. Ishii brought the violence as always but YOSHI-HASHI managed to convincingly go blow-for-blow with him and had some really fiery comebacks. YOSHI-HASHI has really endeared himself to me as the guy who almost always loses and know he's probably going to lose and yet never gives up while finding ways to overachieve in singles matches. Definitely seek this one out. **…

Quarter Final match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Semi Final match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Semi Final match of the 2019 New Japan Cup. Talk about it here

Finals of the 2019 New Japan Cup to determine who will face Jay White for the IWGP Heavyweight Title at Madison Square Garden on April 6th. Talk about it here

First of all, sorry for the ugly title! These handicap tag gauntlet tag deals are hard to deal with Anyways, this rocked my world. The first segment of the New Day going against Gallows & Anderson was pretty short, but I liked what we got very much; everything looked good and it served as a good opener for the Gauntlet. The 2nd segment w/ Rusev & Nakamura was very solid too - I actually thought that Nakamura looked the most compelling he has since probably SummerSlam vs. Jeff Hardy. And then out comes The Bar & things kick up into higher gear - Sheamus has a clear strategy going in, as he immediately starts doing some work over Big E's left leg; Big E is …

You can keep your Devlin vs WALTER, THIS is the European match of the year for me, AND one of the best matches I have seen all year. I can't praise Ospreay enough in how ridiculously talented he is, so all the props to him for giving such an awesome performance for the still relatively small Triple W. A-Kid too is just an out of this world talent that you will be hearing a lot in the future as a major star somewhere in the world. His performance in this match was just as incredible as everything he did had meaning behind it. Whether it was getting beaten down and selling like death or countering Ospreay's athleticism with his own unique athleticism, he was a hometown boy …