February 2021

These two have had several matches, mostly ones that many folks have not seen as they happened on 205 Live and more recently on Main Event earlier this year. Their most recent match on ME was more worked more evenly than this as this is mostly a Gulak torture show with him constantly grounding and out grappling Carrillo while also telling him how stupid some of his counter attempts are. Worth noting Gulak may have the best headlock takeover in wrestling as he puts force behind and does not solely just flip his opponent over. Finish was abrupt as Carrillo’s comeback is a big face kick and a moonsault. I would say this is more of a fun than good, but well worth a watch.

It's fun seeing Gonzalez throw people around, whether it's her opponents or tossing her partner at someone. The right team wins, and there's some big moments, but this feels like a collection of moments with no connective tissue. To me, NXT often feels like someone went into a laboratory and tried to replicate the formula for a "great match" in the super-indy era that began in 2005 or so. They tick all the boxes of what is now regarded by critics and fans as a "good match" but it all happens here in a vacuum with minimal emotion and no reason for me to care.

And with this, the first truly great match of 2021 has arrived. These two had an already awesome match a few weeks prior also on SmackDown, but this one was even better. Cesaro & Bryan get just a bit over 4-minutes, and goddang do they make the most out of every single second they're given; it's super intense & physical right from the get go with no feeling-out bullshit -- both guys are here to settle some business. It doesn't take long for Bryan to start working on Cesaro's arm, which is obviously superb in all of its focused viciousness, and Cesaro sells it beautifully. Bryan busted out a couple of really neat counters during his control period, namely the backs…

This was just so much fun. This kind of matches are always at their best when they got that organic chaotic feel to 'em, and I think this bout offered exactly that pretty excellently. No downtime whatsoever, as the action was hot right from the get go & remained that till the very end. Everybody looked great, with Archer in particular shining & coming off as a monster threat all the way through. ****

A good mixture of slugging it out, submission batting, then escalating into the standard junior heavy closing sequence. The work was fine between these two and I usually love what these men produce individually but collectively it didn't click with me and it also didn't help that it went over thirty minutes.

One word to describe this is physical as Stradom invades SEAdLINNG. These four women went at it throwing heavy bombs every minute. While Momo/Nanae was great and not taking away anything from them but what sucked me into the match was the interaction between Nakajima/Iida. Little Saya Iida giving it her all only to be knocked down every time by Arisa Nakajima with mighty blows coming off as the ultimate bully. I'm ready for more inter-promotional stuff.

This is the final of a tournament to crown the first ever Actwres girl'Z tag champions that has been ran on various shows the previous few months. SPiCEAP (Honma & Ozaki) have teamed semi-regularly for the last few years and seem to get better each time out with this match here being a true top tier performance. Sekiguchi and Aono do quite a job holding up their end, neither of them is a real standout but they have manage to form a quality team together. Overall, just a flat out tremendous tag match from a promotion that most likely flies under a lot of people's radar. ****1/4

A great one with Endo working over Akiyama's knee aggressively while the 51-year-old legend battles back effectively with excellent selling. This may have gone over 30 minutes but it did not feel like it. The action kept me captivated from leading to an incredible end with Uncle Jun being victorious and capturing the KO-D Openweight Title, great stuff.

DDT Universal Title Match: Yuki Ueno (c) vs. Yukio Sakaguchi The student defeats the master with his own specialty - submissions. Sakaguchi put Ueno through the ringer with his offence. Relentless strikes and submission attempts with Ueno hanging on by a thread at several points in the match. Ueno said in a press conference that his win wasn't necessarily because he was more skilled than Sakaguchi and the match showed that. He was out skilled but Ueno showed great heart and conviction in everything he did. And that's how he scored the victory. This was a pretty great title defence for Ueno. Yukio Sakaguchi was so good at the ripe age of 47. ***3/4.

Well I thought this was pretty darn awesome. It had such a fun pace to it right from the get go + everybody delivered extremely well spirited & energized performances; Sami Zayn in particular was on fire all match long, with his exchanges against D-Bryan certainly being my favorite bits of the whole thing. ***1/2

A solid technical contest that held my interest from the beginning to the conclusion. Everything was fluid and both men moved seamlessly at a slow down pace on offense especially CIMA working over Iwamoto's neck. Koji did well battling back and perfectly whipping out that beauty of a judo throw. The exchanges and reversals leading up to the CIMA victory were fantastic. Enjoyable and an easy watch.

This was fantastic. Bryan & Cesaro started it off wonderfully, and the match really never let up as it continued; Corbin got to have a really nice run before getting eliminated first, KO was a very solid ball of energy the entire time he was involved, Zayn was great, Uso did his thing - he definitely was the least exciting man with his output, but the big focus wasn't on him anyways, so it's all good & it's not like he was bad, annoying or anything like that -- he just didn't have those standout moments that the other men in this did. The easy MVP's for me were Bryan, Cesaro & Zayn. Those 3 were simply fantastic, which isn't a surprise at all. This thing defin…

KO-D Tag Team Title Match: Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi) (c) vs DDT Sauna Club (Konosuke Takeshita & MAO) - DDT Effort, Friendship And Victory In Nagoya 2021 - 23/02/2021 I thought this was excellent. The rating on cagematch raised a few eyebrows, but I'm in no way disappointed with the outcome. Whether it was Higuchi pairing off with MAO or Eruption’s incredible teamwork, this was purely quality. MAO sold for Higuchi’s back based attacks really well, bumping around while using his charisma to shine as an underdog. Sakaguchi was the right partner to compliment Higuchi’s work too. Even outside of the wrestling itself, Sakaguchi made Higuchi step o…

This ruled. Had a completely different feel to it than any other New Japan match of recent years; the whole build, the blunt NJPW STRONG presentation -- it all fit the nature of this match & these two to a T. KENTA & Moxley had a real heated fight that felt like a constant scrap for the entire duration of it. The thuds of KENTA's kicks & forearms, Moxley's terrific selling, loved everything about this. The ending with KENTA telling Mox to fuck off before getting put down was simply perfect for this match as well. Really great stuff all the way through. ****

Another quality TV main event between these two with Jey targeting the injured knee Bryan brought in from the Elimination Chamber and with the stipulation that if Bryan won, he would get a title rematch against Roman at Fastlane. These two had some quality TV matches late last year and they followed up with this one. The knee work by Jey is excellent as he just obliderates Bryan with a nasty knee first drop on the commentators table and he would use it to cut Bryan's comebacks short by targeting it. Jey's dropkick/double stomp to the knee is one of the nastiest spots around as you can see there's very little room for error and it can legit tear your knee out easily. Finis…