March 2020

This had high stakes with this one, mask vs mask. Both feel each other out with strong mat work trying their best to get in a submission for the first fall. They had cool looking transitions setting up their holds leading to the big surprising finish with Aereo submitting Villano III Jr with a Atlántida, the same move Atlantis used to put away Jr's father Villano III in their legendary mask vs mask match in 2000. The pace picks up in the second fall with the Aereo hitting high spots and the desperate Villano III Jr faking a knee injury to gain the upper advantage and hitting some high spots of his own. The big spot of this fall was Villano III Jr hitting a tope suicida bu…

Naruki Doi defends the Open the Dream Gate title. Talk about it here

Four of the biggest and heaviest hitters face off in the co-main event of ZERO1's Anniversary show. Talk about it here

Coronavirus killed the attendance for this show (500 people) but it didn't kill the quality of this tag match that delivers on it's expectations First five minutes are pretty standard with a little brawl on the outside included. Things get more interesting once Sato and Sekimoto start working on Okabayashi - Sato does his disgusting headbutt and starts bleeding - who does a really great job as the face in peril. Irie's hot tag is fine and I liked that it didn't turn the tides because it really didn't deserve it. The work on him is really good too and it lead us to Yuji's turn of a comeback. Which of course is awesome. The final 4 minutes or so were fucking great and it m…

An intense battle with Kagetsu trying to finally best her trainer/mentor. She comes out in her old attire during her Sendai Girls tenure signaling that she wanted to go straight for her final match. This went back and forth with Satomura throwing on point brutal kicks in efforts to slow down her former pupil. As Satomura continued to gain steam Kagetsu had no choice but to spray her with that mist. The finishing stretch was amazing with each women kicking out of the other's finisher multiple times then finally it ends with Satomura hitting Scorpion Rising to put away her former student. Highly recommended watch to all and what a way to end your career for Kagetsu.

Bobby Gunns defends the WXW Unified World Title against David Starr's career in WXW. Talk about it here

Excellent quarter final match of the 2020 tournament. Talk about it here

Right from the get go they establish Ridgeway's strikes as something to fear w/ him delivering some leg kicks, which Makabe sells big. It's not long after when he starts to just kick the shit out of Makabe, to put it bluntly. And it's lovely. All of his kicks look super lethal, and as Makabe annoys him w/ a lil' slap, he changes it up & delivers a much more brutal looking n' sounding slap of his own, and then quickly after that, he just destroys poor Makabe with some absolutely devastating forearms to the mid-section. Absolutely LOVED his work as on the offense here, as he came off as a complete killer. Of course much of it is also thanks to Makabe's amazing selling o…

Two 50+ year old mad men from Japan might just come to Germany to beat the absolute piss out of each other. What a WILD effin' time this match was. Brutal kicks, slaps, forearms, punches, headbutts galore. And then throw some viciously tight looking submissions in there as well. A Super Fight, indeed. ****1/4

This being a 15-minute WWE PPV match is pretty mindblowing. And it was exactly everything I would expect from a match between these two outstanding individuals -- to put it simply, it just LOOKED like how a Bryan vs. Gulak match should look like + the storytelling was superb throughout; the whole story leading up to this was Gulak informing Bryan that he knows the weaknesses in his game, and they played up to that story here pretty much perfectly. Even when you look at it without paying attention to the smaller details, it's mostly Gulak just dominating Bryan in every department & that's exactly how it should've gone. They do an amazing job with Gulak countering any &…

Daniel Bryan & Cesaro having an empty arena match for the WWE, with Triple H on commentary + Drew Gulak, Sami Zayn & Nakamura hanging at ringside. WILD. This was a goddamn blast, to no one's surprise. They got like 5-minutes, but every second of those 5-minutes or so was filled with great, intense wrestling. The lads just beat the crap out of one another, to put it simply. Gotta love the ending too, with Cesaro trying to be cute n' sneaky w/ that crucifix pinfall attempt, but he sure wasn't prepared for MR. SMALL PACKAGE making him pay for that, baybay. This won't be making mine or probably any MOTYC lists, but for more reasons than one, it will be one of the more…

One minute in and I'm already in love with this match as Isami fights like hell to get out of a simple headlock this was fucking great. Minimalistic wrestling (as you can get it in 2020) at it's finest once again. Isami was fucking incredible here, the focused offense he had on Daisuke's arm during the whole match was beautiful to watch, the counters he made to avoid Sekimoto's strength were perfectly timed and done in the exact moment of the match that were needed. Daisuke's role in this is play the brute that can overcome Kodaka's intelligence just by being stronger. And when you combine a dude that can play the brute with such ease and a wrestler that can work so smar…

A great strong style battle with both men going all out. It started off going back and forth until Tanaka made his focus on Takeshita's right leg. This was vicious limb work escalating in Tanaka using the Sliding D with Takeshita's leg tied to the ropes, excellent spot. I know some had issues with the comeback with Takeshita not selling the leg enough but I'll chalk that up to the old classic line of "he's running on adrenaline". The finish was something with Tanaka hitting a Sliding D out of nowhere for the win, it's currently my move of the year. It's amazing that after all these years and all the punishment he has taken over the years Masato Tanaka at 47 is not only ha…

You'll probably never find another match like this outside of Marvelous. There's not much 'action', the dynamic is all about two youngsters being hopelessly outmatched against the Ace Takumi and their trainer Chigusa. It's really compelling and there's a few big moments where Mei fires up and manages to get the advantage, if but for a few moments. Not sure how to rate this but strongly recommend checking it out.

Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi, Saki Akai & Yukio Sakaguchi) vs. THE HALFEE (Katsuzaki Shunosuke, Moehiko Harumisawa & Washi Sakurai) - DDT Ganbare Pro Hermit Purple 2020 21/03/2020 This looked really good on paper. Eruption have been super solid since their formation in January of 2020. And their opponents mirror them in terms of styles, individually anyway. Sakaguchi and Shunosuke/Shuichiro Katsumura have the MMA influence, Harumisawa/Moeka Haruhi are the slender women of their team and Sakurai/Shuhei Washida are the burly big men of the respective groups. Something they were eager to explore in the opening exchanges. The GanPro team THE HALFEE were on the defe…

Kento Miyahara defends the AJPW Triple Crown title, attempting to break the record for most title defenses set by Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada. Talk about it here

One of the effects of the coronavirus outbreak is how various wrestling promotions have reacted to the policies set up in their respective locations and how that affects the cases that various wrestlers get to build. Because of everything happening right now, some talents are getting much more chances to shine without much in the way of competition. To put it simply, it’s a bunch of nerdy stuff that doesn’t truly matter in the world that we live in and these shows happening right now really shouldn’t be happening at all. That’s the main takeaway. But also, Kenny Omega’s shot to the front of the line in the wrestler of the year race. The guy’s already built an in…

Daichi can be hit or miss, well this is one of the times he hit it out of the park. He has benefited from the opponents in his block and it showed here with T-Hawk. Great urgency was shown from T- Hawk going on the attack working on Hashimoto's left leg viciously and just chopping the hell out of him every chance he got. Daichi did a good job working underneath and also having good comebacks. The finishing sequence was hot with both men throwing every bomb they possibly can until Daichi picked up the win with a brutal ddt. This was one of the best matches in the tournament so far and I hope Hashimoto can put out more performances like this.

Go Shiozaki defends the GHC Heavyweight Title. Talk about it here