December 2020

Jon Moxley defends the AEW World Title. Talk about it here

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

Women's Wargames match. Talk about it here

Leon Ruff defends the NXT North American title in a Triple Threat match. Talk about it here

The Undisputed Era (Roderick Strong, Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish) take on Pat McAfee's team in a wargames steel cage match. Talk about it here

This was easily the most appealing looking match-up from the show on paper, and I thought it ended up being kind of a best possible match between Timothy Thatcher & Tommaso Ciampa. Meaning it was fantastic. Loved the early work on the mat - felt slick, looked tight & violent + there's a good struggle behind it all. Awesome stuff, as was Thatcher's big control seg w/ him targeting Ciampa's neck. Thatchman brought lots of nice, focused, creative, vicious work there, and I thought the whole gameplan was sold extremely well w/ Ciampa feeling like he was in true peril. Ciampa's big comeback w/ that clothesline flurry was very nice as well, and the spot & the visual…

Much of the match is centered around El Desperado's work on Hiromu's knee, and I thought he did a nice job targeting it & Hiromu sold it well enough throughout. It was kind of the usual NJPW bodypart-selling, with him still hitting his movez & all, but I thought he sold it really well in some bigger, key moments & Despy's work towards it wasn't ALL that vicious, so it probably didn't require much more dramatic selling. Other than that legwork, there's also of course some good, explosive bombs à la Hiromu Takahashi showcased through it all, and it's indeed good stuff. The whole unmasking sequence was also extremely badass, including the full-on wild scrap they …

Kenny Omega defends the AAA Mega title. Talk about it here

Loved the dynamic of Nomura and Abe basically saying "fuck you, we are not the spunky young team anymore, we are the fucking champs" and going toe to toe with the two monsters. Shuji tried to disrespect Young Gawd by calling him "pretty boy" and refusing to even engage on a rope break, which lead to Nomura slapping the shit out of him and forcing Ishikawa to take Astronauts seriously...well, be careful what you wish for because from then on, Shuji literally tries to concuss both Abe and Nomura with vicious headbutts for the next 13 minutes. And you know, Sato already knows these kids so he tries to obliterate them from the get go. The finish is sudden but makes compl…

This was actually so great. I could just sum it up by saying that Drew McIntyre throwing AJ Styles around like a small child is so much fun & AJ countering that bulldozer-work by going after the bigger man's knee is some extremely good professional wrasslin'. McIntyre's selling was pretty outstanding throughout the whole thing, and AJ had his big match boots on - to say the least - as far as selling & bumping of his own goes. A total match made in Heaven, those two are or at least were here. The last third w/ The Miz cashing in that briefcase wasn't as flat-out amazing as the singles match it "followed" (if you can call it like that?), but I thought it was also so…

This is the best of the three singles matches they've had against each other this year. The pre-match attack by Jey set the tone for Bryan to be the underdog in this match, and as everybody should know, that man sure can rock that role magnificently. That he did, and I also thought that Jey's performance working on top was rock-solid. He had some nice, nasty & vicious moments in there. There's also a few good bits where they tease the Bryan comeback, only for Jey to not let that happen, and it made the eventual moment when the big comeback actually started feel all the more better & bigger. The comeback was great, and I loved the leg-injury after Bryan dumped Jey …

It may be 2020 but when Jun Akiyama has to put on a big time performance he still can and Konosuke Takeshita is one of the best in the world. This is a rematch from their great showing from Ultimate party, this time it’s the D-Ou finals so I knew these two would not disappoint. This was a simple story of Akiyama relentlessly attacking Konosuke’s left arm with Takeshita seizing an opening to go after Jun’s right leg to even the scale. Both men were great conveying anguish selling the effects of their limbs being focused on. After that we went into some bomb throwing, with the arm work paying off in the end getting Akiyama the win. Jun is 2-0 against Konosuke, probably sett…

WAVE is a frustrating promotion because it books so many talented wrestlers but frankly most of the time they’ll just half-ass it because it’s only WAVE. But it does mean that occasionally said talented wrestlers will wake up feeling motivated one day and you’ll get something great. This was one of these days. Getting to see Sareee & Mio Momono square off was special, but Hibiki upped her game more than anyone else here. Her opening salvo with the repeated attempted flash pins was fantastic and gave a frantic feel to everything else going forward. Yumi Ohka is past her prime, being a big grumpy tall woman just kicking everyone in the head is the best she’s looked all …