January 2020

Yuji Hino defends the ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title These two had my attention 1 minute in when they do a test of strength/struggle for control for an irish whip but to be honest, this has 7 minutes edited and even though it's only really noticeable once (at the very beginning after the irish wish spot), you can feel the match is kinda disjointed. The 17 minutes showed are a brutal hoss match though, it doesn't have all the nuances nor flow of Sekimoto vs Hino but it reaches an even higher level of viciousness - which is saying something - at first with an incredible chop battle, and then after Okabayashi busts Hino's eyelid open with a botched lariat...the receipt…

Jay White defends the IWGP Intercontinental Title. Winner faces the IWGP Heavyweight Champ in a double title match the next day!!! Talk about it here

Kazuchika Okada defends the IWGP Heavyweight Title Talk about it here

Lance Archer defends the IWGP United States Title in a Texas Death match. Talk about it here

Will Ospreay defends the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title. Talk about it here

Non title match. Talk about it here

Bullet Club (El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori) defend the IWGP Junior Tag Team Titles against Roppongi 3K. Talk about it here

What can you say about the retirement of Jushin Liger? I cried. Talk about it here

Kazuchika Okada defends the IWGP Heavyweight Title against the new IWGP Intercontinental Champion, Tetsuya Naito. Winner takes all!!! Double title match. Talk about it here

KENTA defends the NEVER Openweight Title. Talk about it here

Neither man has a title anymore. Talk about it here

Zack Sabre Jr defends the Rev Pro Undisputed British Heavyweight Title. Talk about it here

These guys have such great chemistry and they are never out of sync with each other. Mysterio finds new ways to tweak his offence and Andrade bumps like crazy for Rey. Rey gets the pin, but Zelina Vega puts her client's foot on the rope and the match is restarted. Although the crowd showed Andrade little reaction when he walked to the ring, he was certainly getting a lot of boos now. Vega takes a bump and Mysterio is conflicted whether to help her or not. This ends up costing Mysterio the match. I liked the finish in theory, but I thought the execution fell flat. Finish aside, I thought that the combination of these two might of gotten stale, but this match proved otherw…

This is the blowoff of a six-month feud in SHW between Black and Huckaby, which began when their tag team imploded. The feud even carried over to other independent promotions in the Southeast; when Black smashed a glass bottle in Huckaby's face, causing a kayfabe eye injury, Huckaby wore the eyepatch to bookings for other companies in other states. Black issued the throwback challenge for a dog collar match, and SHW held a special contract signing at a prior event, where Huckaby sliced his arm and signed with his own blood. The match itself is an escalation of violence, beginning with strong-style exchanges of strikes and including a partial dismantling of the ring …

No title on the line, just the main event of Melbourne City's big show. Meltzer received several reports from Australia that this was a five star match. Check it out for yourself at Melbourne on Demand.

This was just outstanding. Mandrews & Webster were terrific babyfaces with their work throughout, and then to counter that, Riddle & Dunne were amazing dishing out the punishment in that vintage Riddle & Dunne fashion. Killer double team moves, fantastic structure from start to finish, great nearfalls -- EVERYTHING about this ruled big time! ****

Kazarian & Scorpio Sky defend the AEW World Tag Team titles. Talk about it here

Roderick Strong defends the WWE NXT North American title. Talk about it here

If you are a slut for meaningful limbwork like I am, then this is a match for you. Kendrick is the savvy veteran, whilst Banks is the plucky smash mouth babyface. Eric from Segunda Caida said that Kendrick reminded him of Finlay, and I have to agree with him. The way he moves around the ring and his opponent lets you know that this isn't his first rodeo. He's a pro. Kendrick spends time working on Banks's wrist and hand, and it's never felt like an afterthought during Bank's comebacks. It's a shame that not many people have seen this, as it's a neat little match from WWE's D-show. ★★★½

Imperium (WALTER, Fabian Aichner, Alexander Wolfe & Marcel Barthel) take on the Undisputed ERA (Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish) in an 8 man tag team main event

Even better than their already-excellent SurSer meeting. A "psychological thriller" in a pro-wrestling ring of sorts, and the kind of a match that I feel like not many could make work, but you just knew the greatest of all-time had to do it again. ****

Remember when Dick Togo actually wrestled? I sure do. This was a semi-final match so Togo wasn't pushed a ton (as he'd be working the finals) but Ogawa's style also means they could do a lot without it being super exhausting or high-impact. The result was a lot of really well-put together technical work where the two basically had a Catch-style masterclass where they got over duelling over arms and heads, some seriously smooth transitions (like there's one where Togo tries escaping out of a hammerlock by going the other way and Ogawa immediately responding by snapping on a standing rolling double wrist-lock that's just seamless, legit near perfect in execution) and a gene…

This is a nothing tag team match than ends up being a ton of fun. There's not much of a big hot tag segment here, but just watching Burch and Lorcan controlling their opponents with some crisp British styled grappling makes this worth watching and it's the kind of stuff that gives NXT UK more of an identity than just being a UK version of it's big brother. ★★★