July 2020

This is a pretty legit dream match on paper, and it ended up being the best match of the night (including AEW as well) by a pretty fair margin. It ended up being & feeling like kind of a sprint, and that suits both of the women involved, so of course it ruled. Great swagger shown throughout with a solid feeling of danger & urgency in their work -- loved it all the way through, but a special shout-out is in order for that plexiglass spot, which was just SO awesome. ***3/4

It’s nuance that separates kings from men. Eddie Kingston is having a fantastic year because that’s what Eddie Kingston does. Give the man the opportunity and he steals the show. He has such personality and charisma that seeps into everything that he does on a wrestling card. Even getting into the ring with a finicky set of chains instead of ring ropes becomes a spectacle. Rather than fumble into the ring to hide the awkwardness as others on the show did, Kingston makes a show of it. In the ring, the match itself plays out with a wonderfully simple structure. I’m not familiar with Brett Ison’s work from SUP so I can’t speak much to what he does here compared to …

One usually only knows of Paloma from his goofy backstreet indie antics, but here he shows off a bit and reminds everyone that he can bloody well go when pushed. The Catch sequences they were doing here were tremendous: these two just have so much creativity together that what we get are these great clashes where Keita could do cool stuff, but Paloma would just completely school him with a equally cool counter or transition, either throwing himself around with super slick cartwheels or grabbing on a hold, keeping a frantic and consistently solid pace throughout the beginning. That bit was great, they moved on to more conventional wrestling stuff which wasn't as good, most…

I checked this out as it was getting a lot of praise online, saying it was one of Jericho's best singles since joining AEW. This was probably the straightest that Orange Cassidy has ever played it. He does his pockets spot at the start of the match and he fakes out Jericho by starting his shin kicks shtick, before nailing him with a surprise superkick. OC is a decent babyface, he takes some nasty bumps into the barrier and get some decent-ish hope spots, with the best one being when he kicks out of the Codebreaker. This is a match that would benefited greatly by having an actual live crowd, as a lot of the reactions here sounded forced and inorganic. ★★★¼

This match was such a letdown. You got the longest reigning NXT Champ vs a force of nature in Keith Lee, who's also a champion, in a "winner takes all" deal. Should've been something special, but alas. Adam Cole, when he appeared in the 2018 Royal Rumble, looked just slightly bigger than Rey Mysterio. He's facing up against a dude who's almost as large as Lesnar. One of the first moments of the match sees Cole control Lee with a terrible headlock for quite a while. NXT is dead set on having their main events follow EPIC STRUCTURES AND DRAMATIC MOMENTS, but it fails to see the most glaringly obvious of stories. Dickhead smaller heel vs huge face isn't a hard stor…

Had a bit of catching up to do with Dragon Gate and I stumbled upon this event from the Hopeful Gate tour this summer and since I'm a sucker for any BxB Hulk match I can find, I was well served. Some of those names I saw in that main event, I wasn't too entirely familiar but I had seen Jason Lee in the Cruiserweight Classic so I wasn't exactly in the unknown too. Pretty fast pace through the entire match and I fell in love with Takashi Yoshida's offense. I don't know if it was the gear and the haircut, but he gave me a weird Missing Link mixed with Tajiri vibe that completely worked for me. Also was the first time that I was seeing Kota Minoura and I was really impressed …

A 30 minute draw is a hard match to get into, specially when you already know the result, much of the enjoyment depends on how compelling the action is and how both wrestlers are able to keep any sort of drama near the end. Well, I wouldn't say this was very dramatic - not in a "who will win?" way at least - but holy fuck was it compelling to watch. The first 10 minutes is basically these two working like mad men just trying to lock and get out of head scissors, then Abe tries to get slick with some striking but it quickly goes back to good ol' mat wrestling. There's some bursts of energy exchanges but everytime one of them did it, he ended up A LOT more tired than before…

These two brought it here. A simple story of contrasting styles with the technical savvy of Purrazzo against the brute force of Grace. They wasted no time going at it with each trying to establish dominance from the start, it was a stalemate until Deonna found her opportunity to work on Jordynne’s left arm. The arm work was great, it looked vicious with Grace also did a good job of selling working underneath. Grace had a good comeback with a senton and worked over on Deonna’s back. Everything escalated with cool transitions of Grace trying to fend off the fujiwara until finally getting caught and tapping out. This match lived up to the hype and stole the show on Slammiver…

Are we going to sit here and pretend to talk about anything other than finish? This is an eye for an eye match where the only way to win is by gouging out an opponent’s eyeball. This match has been sanctioned by the same promotion that thought hitting someone very hard with a very big hammer during a Hell in a Cell match was going too far. It’s such a truly WWE trait to be so preoccupied with seeming interesting that they refuse to ever just be interesting. An “eye for an eye match,” for example, is something that on paper brings about a lot of provocative imagery. As soon as the stipulation that you had to remove an opponent’s eye to win was announced, it drew …

Oh hell yes. The fact that this is a THING that happened is already wonderful, and the match certainly ruled too! A pure brawl from start to finish with Eddie getting to shine for all of it. Loved every second of him pummeling Cody down with his always nasty blows, and he also got to showcase his fantastic selling with them building to the (great btw) finish with his left knee proving to be a weak spot throughout. ***3/4

Jungle in her hometown going one more time for the red belt and also dedicating this to the memory of Hana Kimura, the stakes were high. In the case of Iwanti she's determined to defend her title in the place where she got injured and then later lost the red belt last year. This was nothing short of excellent, high drama from start to finish. Jungle using her power game and throwing bombs when need contrasted nicely with Mayu using her quickness and strikes to combat the attacks. Even though the finish came out no where it took nothing away from the masterpiece these two women painted. I'm a little bummed Jungle didn't win but this was a damn good match and is a very stro…

Suwama defends the AJPW Triple Crown Title. Talk about it here