July 2019

The layout for this was fantastic . PAC doing his slow methodical offense while sprinkling some high spots in between was also fantastic. Also he was great heeling on the crowd getting everyone to support Cara. Cara had hot hope spots and played the underdog very well keeping both strong in the end despite the loss.

This is what the Okada-Tanahashi formula looks like boiled down to its essentials. Lots of slick counters, a big bump to the outside, and a fun sense of history and rivalry that adds a little gravitas to the whole thing. This is their touring match, their comfort zone, and it's pretty damn good. Nice to see Okada finally get the G1 win over Tanahashi. I can definitely gripe that their progression in matches felt a little odd but if you consider that Okada's on an upward trajectory since the start of 2019 and Tanahashi has decidedly been on a downward one, then it fits well enough. Loved the continued trend of Tanahashi having none of Okada's Rainmaker pose and the wrist c…

Anyone expecting a crazy fast paced sprint hasn't been watching KENTA in the past 10 years. To quote one of my favorite songs from 2018 - "it ain't 2009 no more". Overall KENTA didn't look much different at all than as Hideo Itami, but what I thought made a huge difference was how brutal his kicks were. I remember watching his match vs. Mustafa Ali & thinking how ridiculous Ali's HBK at SummerSlam 05 bumping & selling looked when all of Hideo's offense looked light as a feather. Here I definitely didn't have to worry about that though. KENTA kicked the shit out of Ibushi with disgustingly brutal sounding & looking kicks. Ibushi sure got the shit beaten out of …

A small wrestler vs. big wrestler which actually feels brutal. Manase gets overwhelmed by the smaller wrestler but fights until the bitter end. It's all very good. Mizuki's run in Tokyo Joshi's tournament has to be one of the best of the year.

I never in a million years would've thought that I'd end up LOVING a match between these two, but here we are. This kicked so much ass. The beginning perfectly sets up the pace for what's about to come, as they collide in explosive fashion right from the get go. From that moment on, it's just borderline balls-to-the-walls bombfest action with the two, especially Big Mike, brutalizing one another in very compelling fashion. The length was just about perfect for the way they went with it, too. An absolutely awesome match with a big A. ***3/4

I'm not to big on inter gender matches but since I watch Impact on the regular I kept up with the build for this. While it was good I still had concerns about how things would play out and they surprised me. This is the perfect way to do these types of matches and they had the perfect performers in these roles. Tessa was the sympathetic babyface everyone wanted to beat the asshole heel in Sami. Just the simple story of her giving all she had but coming up short in the end was brilliantly done. And the aftermath of Sami handing her the bat giving her a endorsement made her come off like the biggest star in the company. Damn good match.

Impact X-Division Champion Rich Swann vs Johnny Impact - Impact Slammiversary 2019 John Matthews declared it a ***** classic, Don Callis tells him stop being conservative that was ******* brutha. Um, ok guys. There was actually a lot to love in this match even if the commentary was being hyperbolic. The reason to love this match was Morrison was committed to playing an old school cheating heel. Morrison has a stooge named Johnny Bravo. Hold on, one second, Momma, I thought Johnny Bravo was a cartoon, yeah this is some referee turned lackey. He threw streamers at Morrison as if he was coming out at the Budokan for All Japan, which I loved. He polished Morrison's…

WALTER defends the Progress Unified World Title. Talk about it here

To be honest, I've been down on this two, especially Yoshiko, for awhile now but this was a match that provided much needed strong performance from each. Mainly from Yoshiko as she finally rediscovers that she should be working like a bully which just makes everything she does more effective. Chihiro show a lot more energy and personality than she has in the last year. This is something that is well worth checking out. ****

This has been a dream match for a while and it ended up being exactly what you would want a match between these two to be. Mizunami bringing power moves, Satomura bringing technical stuff while both women bringing heavy strikes. Everything meshes together seamlessly, even Mizunami's comedy spots. Just a tremendous match. ****1/4

This is Sareee's first defense of the Sedai Girls title since winning it last month. This was surprisingly the most violent match on this card. Not just from the strike but a lot of the moves, especially the double stomps, looked particularly nasty. The only big mark against this match was Sareee's lack of selling for DASH's big moves, (this has been a consistent problem for Sareee all year.) Still, this match was fantastic and probably the best singles match of DASH's career. ****

This was fun. Suzuki transitioning into Fujiwara is an obvious route but a perfect one at his age -- the rear armbar and STF takedown and set-ups were slick. TAKA, of course, signing his own death certificate with the smack to the back of Suzuki's head and then Suzuki destroying with elbows after mocking TAKA's failed elbow attempts. We get some fun scrambles toward the end before Suzuki stretches the leg and taps him with a neat leglock.

This was another great shoot-style match between these two. Makabe mixed in a dropkick and an enzuiguri with his shoot-based offense and did some great selling. Thatcher mixed in some mauling with other mauling as he is wont to do. Makabe has a really cool cattle mutilation in which Thatcher is in a seated position, it looks painful.

This was the clear MOTN in my eyes. Dustin is a legendary FIP, and while he sure was what I enjoyed the most about it, The Bucks sure can work a compelling heat segment too. Them being total douchebags to the Rhodes Bros, mocking their big DoN moment + constantly taunting them & even spitting at Cody was a lot of fun. Cody himself is a very good hot tag, and the Brotherhood gaining control & working the crap out of Matt's shoulder was really great, I thought. Nice stomps, kicks & holds to it, and I especially loved the hard irish whip by Dustin as he threw Matt into the corner shoulder-first. Matt sells pretty excellently throughout as well. Now after Nick's h…

A real throwback to the good ol' days when EVOLVE was the best damn pro-wrestling product on the planet. Somewhat depressing in that regard too, because nothing they've put out ever since guys like these two (& of course many others too) left has touched the magic they brought here. They just do what Riddle & Gulak do; greatly spirited, competitive, mat & strike heavy action with excellent urgency, progress & escalation. Exactly what that CATCH POINT name is all about. ****

Pure physicality & viciousness right from Taichi's awesome pre-match attack, till the very end. Had a very genuine & authentic feel to it - it's hard to truly explain what I mean by that, but that's probably the best I can put it. Extremely enjoyable stuff. ***3/4

"The Takeover, the breaks over"... ♫ This was EXACTLY what I wanted it to be. KENTA as the brutal asshole invader taking on the home-promotion legend ace is such a compelling dynamic, and in many ways, it's puro at its purest & best. The staredown during the entrances is intense, and then as the bell rings, things get more intense after every moment. The stiff SLAP from KENTA during the clean break spot, Tana giving a receipt, Tana's aggressive & proud air guitar playing stopped by KENTA's lil kick to the back of his head.. My GOODNESS. Things are escalating at an incredible rate. Then as they take their fight to the outside, KENTA cements control by absolutely br…

Fucking absurd. MOTY shit right here. Black and Cesaro looked like a million bucks and working a match around inside leg kicks rocked.

What a fun brawl, with a simple story. Lashley had the very effective gameplan of targeting Strowman's injured midsection, but the monster persevered, and gave us a remarkable and badass finish to the match. Crowd loved it, and so did I.

Daniel Bryan & Rowan defend the WWE SmackDown Tag Team titles in a triple threat match What a terrific way to end the short, yet awesome tag title reign of Bryan & Rowan. The Bryan vs. Xavier battle in the beginning rules so much - Xavier becomes the FIP & it's great. Rowan just manhandles him in compelling fashion & Bryan is of course great; loved him yelling "OH THATS RIGHT, NO DQS!" when he was cranking Xavier's nose, which lead to him doing it even more viciously, and then also raking his eyes. What an absolute BASTARD. I love it. Otis was a really good hot tag too, doing his wacky shtick while running through Bryan w/ his power moves. Then the hi…

This match was awesome, all the offense looked awesome and they kept a fantastic pace. Even to open, trading off the various pinfall counters, helped to create a sense of big time urgency that shows they really wanted to get the win here. Endo showed off some heeling tactics like having the turnbuckles removed and it was nice to see him get the comeuppance of being crashed into it. Despite this, Endo became incredibly sympathetic after he took that leg wrap German onto the apron. Following that up with the suplex into the edge of the apron made me and the crowd really want to see him pull out the win. They really sold the effects of the match down the edge, their exhausti…

White is such a good shithead & this is a very compelling story of that shithead getting his ass-kicked, and who better to do that said ass-kicking than the Stone Pitbull himself? White's work on Ishii's neck throughout is viciously awesome, Ishii's selling rules, as does his times on the offense punishing the former stablemate-turned-traitor of his. Very good match. ***3/4

Moxley's performance in this is really great. He goes to town on Cobb's shoulder, and he is vicious & EXTREMELY compelling with it. And if he is not trying to destroy that shoulder, he is delivering awesomely brutal looking knees to Cobb's head. Then there's little touches like him stomping on Cobb's foot to stop him from suplexing him off the apron. Absolutely awesome performance all around, and just a really nice & tight match. Great introduction to Jon Moxley & his style in the G1 without any of the weapon gimmicks which were involved in the Taichi match. ***3/4

This is it, boys. They've done it again, and did it even better than their great first match. It's just a shame that both men have put on a clinic to a crowd sitting on their hands (although in true 205 fashion, the crowd was losing their shit at the end). Still, the speed, intensity and timing both wrestlers had was absurd. That tiger driver transitioned into an ankle lock was money.

Up until the last 3 minutes, this was "just" a fun Strong BJ 6 man tag. It started with Nomura working differently than the previous tag matches against Okabayashi, this time the young gawd is trying to avoid getting into a strike exchange and out smart the champion, which actually works out on his favor. But it's a quick sequence, the rest is exactly what you expect from these guys: they get paired up, beat the shit out of each other, do compelling stuff, rinse and repeat. Loved the little things like Okabayashi getting hyped the fuck up by Kamitani's fighting spirit against Sato, Abe checking on his buddy Nomura after he got fucked up by Okami, or Daichi desperately try…