April 2019

Talk about it here. Also, click here to check out Tim Livingston's review of this match.

One of my favourite matches from Mania weekend in which Dominic Garrini worked as if he could feel no pain. A flat-out awesome, wild brawl around the arena where both guys took huge punishment that felt like a real out-of-control Southern fight. Garrini was an absolute bumping machine here though, channelling Foley in that he took crazy hit after crazy hit and just kept on moving forward. It went from the fairly mundane (though still wild) dive through Bishop and the front row before culminating in a big bump into thumbtacks by way of a unbelievably nasty, back-first crash through an entire section of seats. At one point, Bishop is just nailing skewers into Garrini's EAR …

Exactly what you want from these two. A simple story to start, Shuji suplexes Yuji on the apron fucking up his mid section, giving him a target to hit every cut off spot he needs to keep control, and it also puts a large mountain Okabayashi has to climb to turn things around. Strikes are vicious in this, specially when compared to the rest of the show, this really was on another level. This had 2 suplex no sells by Yuji that would normally take me out of the match, but the fact that he was groggy for like 2 minutes and Ishikawa was still on top - which lead to an awesome struggle for control/test of strength segment - made up for the kind of excess I'm not a fan of. A thi…

Katsumata will have hardcore matches whenever they let him, so he was naturally gonna have one on the show for people DDT didn't take to New York. Katsumata is a jobber but he's one of the better wrestlers they have, great selling and all that. They let him blade on this one. GUNSO is the owner of Dove Pro and he has industrial rock playing over all his matches. I thought the few other matches of his that I've seen were boring, once the novelty of the music wore off but this match is very good. Shunma bleeds a lot and GUNSO does have a great uppercut, so that's enough for this to work. GUNSO has the best spot of the match with a legdrop on top of a ladder on top of Katsum…

This is about the same match as their February Sumo Hall match, which means everything I didn't like about that is still here but everything that was good there is still good. Once again leg work takes up most of the first third (nooooooo). Takeshita's knee selling is a bit better but still very annoying in how inconsistent it is once they get deeper into the match. They repeat a few spots from Sumo Hall. Takeshita catches the suicide dive and does a vertical suplex on the apron, which is really awesome and gross. Sasaki catches a senton headfirst, which I think is new. Takeshita also does some horrible stuff to himself. The finish is entertaining. As a whole, the good ou…

This right here rocked. Nice grappling from both trying the get the submission win then escalating into a slap battle with some hard hits. Smith has a known grappling background so this wasn’t a surprise to anyone but Kross stood out for me. Really hope he incorporate this style more in Impact and other places he work.

Making this thread because I saw people say this was a bad match but I thought it was good. Mir and Severn are skilled and there are flashes of cool shit happening here. The sudden finish via heel hook worked extremely well in my opinion.

A legit dream match that delivered. Great back & forth grappling throughout, with lots of little things to love, as I've come to expect by both guys. The slugfest portions of the thing rule big time too, and I especially loved Hideki's disrespectful little stomps & kicks. ****

MOTHERFUCKER WAS THIS GOOD. Excellent matwork, and then as Takeda gets cut open, the thing explodes & it's like a beast woke up after some light sparring. What a goddamn finishing sequence. ****

There were some points of the match where I lost interest for a while, but the highs of it were so high it couldn't be anything less than great overall. The smacktalking between them, Suzuki's slowly-turns-his-head-to-the-camera-side-to-reveal-his-sadistic-smile -moment & the last 10 minutes or so were absolutely amazing. ****

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Because comedy wrestling deserves to be talked about too. Here's a video I did with my thoughts on this match: .

Went into this match expecting very, very little so really it didn't take too much to turn me around on it. It was clear from the start that the main issue this match was going to have was being mostly heatless given the lack of story so the weight of the crowd reaction really had to come from the wrestling itself. On that note, the first fall was a pretty effective feeling out fall for me. They did some good stuff, some nice exchanges that didn't feel too cooperative (though there was some of that sprinkled in), and everything generally looked pretty good. I wasn't too big a fan of all their feints and counters because in kayfabe, I don't really see the reason for these …

BY FAR the best thing on the show. Two awesome wrestlers & personalities clashing - loved the storytelling with Riddle straight up destroying Dream for majority of the match, but Dream used his small openings to the maximum & in the end caught Riddle by a surprise, as he countered Bromission into a pin. Terrific performances by both; Riddle with his killer work on the offense & Dream with his strong selling & really good hope spots. Loved pretty much everything bell-to-bell, but the moment that made me pop the biggest was Riddle no-selling Dream's German Suplex hope spot. Dream should've been watching his indy tapes, because if he did, he would've known th…

Pete Dunne defends the WWE UK Title. Talk about it here

Shayna Baszler defends the NXT Women's Title. Talk about it here

War Raiders defend the NXT Tag Team titles. Talk about it here

Ishikawa in 2019 has ruled so far and another chapter in Ishikawa/Ikeda's storied rivalry is always a good thing. That's the highlight of this match for sure - Yone is good for a random kick or two, Otsuka has been hanging out at Disneyland a lot lately but he can still throw a good German or two and giant swing somebody. But the Ishikawa vs. Ikeda was great, from the opening groundwork, to the final encounter where we see Ikeda solebutt kick the shit out of Ishikawa's face. Ikeda has slowed down quite a bit but his selling was great throughout - gotta love the "I'm an old man still doing stiff shit but the stiff shit hurts now" selling. And he straight punches Yone in th…

I had an inkling that this match could be fun but it really delivered way beyond the sum of its parts for me. The build-up has been done really well on TV. Shane's entrance, conducting the ring announcer calling his name and his general heeling in the early minutes was fantastic. He was stiffing the shit out of Miz and busted him up with a TV monitor. The Miz Dad stuff went as well as it possibly could and Shane mockingly helping him to put his fists up was another great touch of heeling. And then, maybe for the first time in his career, Miz started laying his shit in as they fought through the crowd. If ever there was a time to do it, it's after your dad gets jumped…

I'm judging this match as a full whole, from both guys coming to the ring all the way to the pinfall. I did not believe in Seth at all coming into WrestleMania and I sure as hell didn't think he was going to win this match. I loved the kayfabe reason for having this open being Lesnar not wanting to wait around backstage if he wasn't going to main event anyway. The beatdown Lesnar gave him to open was great. Rollins bumped his ass off and that was really the best thing he could have done during this match. It also made a nice callback to the Balor match with Lesnar ensuring that he got the momentum early. Rollins making his comeback and hitting three Curb Stomps clean to f…

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

The Usos (Jimmy & Jey) defend the WWE Smackdown Tag Team titles in a Fatal Four Way This was very fun! They got about 10 minutes, and in those 10 minutes they had a very good get-your-shit-in bout w/ everybody getting time to shine. The highlight was the Cesaro vs. Ricochet exchanges; Cesaro is such an incredible base for Ricochet's incredible athletic flippy stuff. ***1/2

Short match built around striking. A lot of realistic, fluid kickboxing exchanges early on, and I enjoyed Okuda shooting in for a double leg takedown with any opening he sees. I thought the match would hit another level after Sakaguchi hits Okuda with a wonderful straight right. But sadly, they just do faces and trade forearms after that. Okuda might be the best in the world at that, but who could possibly care about that type of thing in this day and age. Disappointing match.