March 2021

This is definitely a breath of fresh air as it's a really good heavyweight TV match. Sheamus was working really snug early on and hitting Drew with some brutal strikes which you could hear the thuds of them clearly connecting as some potatoes were definitely thrown in there. Drew gets a receipt by tossing Sheamus back first on the edge of the commentators table which is one of the nastiest WWE table bumps ever. He then dumps him with a nasty suplex on the table that doesn't give either. Both guys are dead by the end of this as you can clearly see the wear on their bodies. Unique finish with Drew cleverly countering the Brogue Kick with a Claymore. My type of match and I m…

Incredible match with Yoshiko making her homecoming to take on the current ace of Stardom. Yoshiko steamrolls Mayu at the beginning exhibiting her stellar selling working underneath. After making her comeback these went all out with Iwatani almost killing herself with a dive outside. After an insane dive to the floor, things went full-blown intense, and physical. A strong strike battle ensues leading to Mayu tapping into her inner Kota Ibushi knocking down Yoshiko with a mighty blow and putting her away with a beautiful looking moonsault. Like I stated earlier this was incredible.

This has been brewing for a good while and it all comes ahead for the white belt with each women's hair on the line. The opening had Gulia in control of Tam but her cockiness got the best of her, taunting Tam at every chance. Tam was in full form being the underdog taking everything Giulia gave her then firing back with retribution like no other. During the brawl, Giulia pulled out a nice homage to Akira Hokuto by piledriving Nakano through a table in front of Akira Hokuto. Then the two went into a vicious slap battle not holding back any laying them on full force and the echoes made it even better. Tam showed her desperation in putting Giulia away by hitting her Glorious…

Tag team partners going at it for the red belt. A good story told of a chess match between two people who know each other inside and out. Utami nailed it by presenting herself as an ace, display dominant offense when in command. They did a good job of convincing that Kamitani could pull out the upset. Also, they did wonders by protecting the Pheonix Splash so when she finally hits it on Utami it will have more importance. Damn good match planting the seeds for more down the line with these two.

This was so much better than I expected it to be. To me, Roddy was always the best member of TUE and before the pandemic he was killing it at NXT live events with quality matches against diverse opponents. Finn has also had a really good year so far putting on a MOTYC against KOr and the TakeOver title match with Dunne which I know some folks dug, however this to me was a notch above the Dunne title defense and a notch below the KOr rematch. Strong's back work is usually on point and here it was no different. There was a cool choke Finn pulled out here mid match that I'd never seen before and would make for a really cool finisher if he decided to change it up (although hi…

Unfortunately Gulak has been relegated to being a jobber on Main Event losing under 6 minute matches. Luckily his matches are still being recorded and we get quality TV level matches. We get some big Gulak German suplexes here and a beautiful enzuigiri counter into an STF. Mansoor's not as flashy offensively as Ricochet or Humberto Carrillo (which is a benefit to Mansoor when it comes to comparisons with Carrillo as Mansoor is much crisper than him) but he pulls out a neat slingshot neckbreaker for the finish. To me this is a notch below the Ricochet match from earlier this year, but it's still worth a watch as Gulak has mastered the art of the 6 minute TV match. With Dan…

Kay Lee Ray defends the WWE NXT UK Women's Title A match and a result too cute by half, to the point where you wonder what Meiko is doing there in the first place when it's all over. The WWE viewpoint is that they didn't just want Meiko to become another Asuka, an unbeatable Japanese Ace that can't possibly be on the same level as anyone else on the brand. The problem is that is EXACTLY who Meiko is, who she was billed as, and who she was promoted as when she came in, to the point where her moniker is literally "The Best In The World" in her ring introductions. And in 20 minutes, all of it basically vanishes? Ray still isn't great with transitions, and ther…

The boys did it again! Another absolute banger between 'em, this time inside the steel cage. I thought they used the cage gimmick pretty damn wonderfully, with lots of intense, additional brutality being brought into the thing w/ it. Uso continuing the attack on Bryan's bum knee from the Chamber was nice, and Bryan's armwork was beautiful as usual; especially that finishing sequence w/ him smacking it a few times against the cage, then that big butterfly suplex from the top rope, finished up by the LeBell Lock. ***1/2

MiSu was his normal scary badass self but what surprised me most the performance of Tomoaki Honma. The man turned back the hands of time for one night putting out the best outing he has had in years. Good stuff in the first round of the cup.

Great back and forth match that never let up one bit. Loved the announcers bringing up Shida never beating Mizunami at the opening. It added to the match with Shida playing semi heel with her acting cocky in her control segments even going for an eve poke to try and gain victory. Mizunami shined showing her charisma I believed she lacked during the women's tournament. She conveyed toughness, taking everything Shida gave her, taking it in stride, and dishing out some of her own. The stretch leading to the end was amazing with both throwing good strikes and some heavy bombs in between. The finish didn't hurt Ryo one bit because she got caught out of nowhere. This ruled and …

Not going to speak on the ending angle just focusing on the match. Much like their unsanctioned match in 2019 delivered on the promise of violence and gory carnage. These men had no limits on how they wanted to punish each other. They did a great job at selling and drawing in the audience in the drama of setting the explosives off. They also had creative ways of using the environment around them, like Moxley using the explosives to stop a pin attempt. As for the ending that one-winged angel on the steel chair looked rough. Damn good garbage match.

There have been many cinematic matches during the pandemic era of wrestling, some were fun and some were god awful but this street fight was the most exceptional of them. This was shot so dark and had a gritty, they perfectly captured the tone of an action movie fight scene. Sting looked great here he had to do nothing special but kick ass. Darby was great doing and more importantly taking crazy spots. Cage was superb in getting over him being the powerhouse and Starks was good at his role of showing toughness. The only complaint I have is the commentating, it took some of the steam out of things. Another complaint is that while Sting looked great they could've been more …

After their MOTYC last week, they follow up with a No DQ match and you can't help but get excited for this only to be letdown as they can't follow up. Last week we got a stiff heavyweight match with some potatoes being thrown and this week we got an underwhelming no DQ weapon heavy WWE style brawl. Instead of relying on stiff strikes like last week, they relied on using a kendo stick. Drew took a big table bump, which was neat, but nowhere near as brutal as the big table bump Sheamus took last week where he landed viciously on the edge of the table. There was a great looking punch to the head from McIntyre which you could clearly hear connect a big knee from Sheamus, but …

Well I enjoyed this a lot, although probably not as much as many. Ospreay's broken nose definitely added to the final portion of the match. Reminiscent of an MMA fight as Ospreay's blood began to cover ZSJ whilst he was in the triangle as you are trying to determine just where the blood is coming from. This led to a pretty great spot where Ospreay lifts ZSJ up to the top turnbuckle and ZSJ takes him down to the mat with a crazy armbar. I liked all the shit talking. Exciting match between two wrestlers who know each other well and it felt intense and unique enough to at least mostly make up for Ospreay doing handspring elbows and chopping with his bad arm etc.

WWE continues putting on quality heavyweight matches featuring real heavyweights just throwing bombs and working extra snug on TV on a a monthly basis. This wasn’t quite McIntyre/Sheamus levels, but this was still good. The early mat work with Lashley just grounding Sheamus and roughing him up with his forearms before dropping bombs on him from the knee on belly mount was great and set the tone for most of the match. Sheamus also got some brutality in this as he was dropping some clubs on Lashley with some knee strikes on a grounded a Lashley that looked like they were going to crack his skull and some brutal 12-6 elbows that were clearly hitting Lashley in the jaw and ch…

Blood usually always boosts matches like this, and such was the case here as both women rocked the crimson mask & created some pretty memorable scenes with it. And by all means it was indeed a damn awesome, big-bomb-driven grudge match; really nice use of all the weapons, a couple of great bigger spots, and most of the standard offense, such as Britt's forearm strikes before that superplex, looked real good as well. A hit in every way, pretty much. ***3/4

This was the epitome of a banger. Beginning things off with great chain wrestling with tremendous and fluid counters displaying both guys' athleticism. This wasn't the usual go all out while doing big spots in between type of match. They took their time and let things breathe, man this would've been great with full attendance. It culminated with even more crazy spots involving on the stage on a part to Vikingo leading to a devastating-looking spanish fly for Arez to get the win. Hands down this is one of the best lucha matches of the year

WAR. Just two huge, gigantic muscly dudes beating the shit out of each other with stiff punches, knees, kicks, headbutts and slams. Braveheart McIntyre should be his permanent look. Those two guys must have had the worst of mornings.

Roman Reigns defends the WWE Universal Title, Special Enforcer : Edge Excellent stuff. Daniel Bryan is such a magnificent worker, trying to be a tick that never says die, chipping away at Roman's limbs. When Roman did get him though, even the simples of takedowns looked brutal. Gotta love how they managed to build everything to the max, and the story of how Roman never tapping out made this match a nail biter. Of course, there was some overbooked sections which may be a letdown to some, but even then that made sense within the context of the ongoing storyline, and it may lead us to another Daniel Bryan title reign which honestly rocks.

Fun, intense 5 minute mid card NXT TV match and the Karrion Kross match I've enjoyed the most and that's partly due to how good Oney is at working these. Oney's fireball brief comebacks always deliver as he brings this intense wrecking ball style offense with some nasty slaps and some wild running European uppercuts. Kross always seems timid on offense and you can tell he's always holding back, but Oney does a neat job of bumping for his 1-2 throws. Not a MOTYC or anything, but a fun TV match.

Gulak's Main Event run continues this week with another brief 6 minute singles match against a former 205 Live frequent opponent. It's always cool watching Gulak sporadically pop up as he always delivers. This is mostly Gulak working as a base and catching Tozawa's offense for the most part and the highlight is Tozawa running on the ring apron and then diving on top of a Gulak off the ring steps with a cannonball. There's a nasty Gulak slam on here always. Pretty easy way to spend 6 minutes.

These three were put in the position to excel at what they do best, fast-paced sprints with crazy innovative looking offense, and boy did they deliver.

They did a great job of using the construction of the David vs Goliath match. Gresham attacked the legs of Draper to slow the larger man down while Draper opposed that by aggressively working over the ribs of Gresham using his strength as an advantage. Like other Pure championship matches this year they've used the rope breaks while even taking one away from Draper when he landed a closed fist. The false finishes were done perfectly giving you the belief of Gresham being in danger of losing his title leading to one of the best finishes this year. Gresham was his usual great self and this was my first exposure to Draper and I was impressed by his performance. Excellent pur…

These two have good chemistry together and have put on quality matches throughout the past 8 or so months. While this isn't on par with some of their previous matches, it's still good. The early mat exchanges are quite gritty with Sheamus just grinding his forearms in Riddle's face aggressively and Riddle catching him in a pretty deep rear naked choke that you can see his forearm clearly under Sheamus throat and Sheamus tapping his arm to let him know he needs to loosen up. Thankfully the WWE truly seems to be done with thigh slaps as now folks are more focused on putting a little heat behind their strikes and these two threw some bombs here. I'm usually not sold on big S…