April 2021

This ruled. The big goal of it was obviously to showcase Kyle O'Reilly after his big match vs. Adam Cole, and he sure got to look real good in there against the best opponent possible. Good matwork in the early going w/ Grimes selling wonderfully for Kyle's control there + then Cameron also continues that trend of wonderfulness in his control seg where he displays that signature smash-mouth offense of his; loved that clothesline, his kicks are always awesome & that throw into the corner (which Kyle ate like he was on his Hitman shit, hell yes) was a thing of beauty. One little thing that I really loved as well was Kyle swaying Cameron's dizzy punch-attempt before deli…

Two babyfaces going at it for the TNT title that built with good action having Darby going the extra mile using some miner heel tactics to survive, good stuff.

Great tv match displaying the improvement made by Tay Conti during AEW run. Everything she did was well executed from her knees, kicks, and judo throws. Shida did awesome asserting the aura of being the ace of the women's division, especially during her control periods. Two major bombs were thrown and the teasing of Conti winning made this a top match for AEW this year.

Heck of a lengthy opening TV tag match. This goes through 3 commercial breaks and is worked at a high pace. The first segment kicked off with a wild 4 man brawl and culminated with a a great save from Cesaro after the big buckle bomb and big splash from Jey. The second segment was more of a heel beatdown and FIP segment from Bryan with some nasty offense from Jey including a nasty kick to the liver and a great cutoff with a big Samoan drop catching a desperate leaping Bryan. Loved the double collision cross body leading to the hot tag (instead of a one man comeback leading to the cold tag). Cesaro's apron work isn't particularly remarkable (kind of hard to pull that off w…

I dug this much more than opening tag match (which was still good in its own right). This was shorter and more compact with Otis and Gable just doing an incredible job of bullying and tossing Dominik around. Otis just coming in to ram into smaller folks and bulldoze them is great. Gable's float over belly-to-belly suplexes and the tiger suplex were a thing of beauty. These two teams have been feuding for a few weeks now and have yet to have the great match between them that they have in them but this is so far the best one. I'm really looking forward to this feud's development and to seeing more of Gable and Otis together.

Tsukasa Fujimoto is on a roll with these ICExfinity title defenses, an awesome back and forth match. Both women were so fluid moving at an accelerated pace you could believe that things could end at any moment. I'm surprised no mishaps occurred. Also, they had great call-back spots featuring moves of their trainers Manami Toyota, Nanae Takahashi, and Emi Sakura.

This was a wild heavyweight match with them throwing some wild bombs that felt like two Mack trucks colliding into each other. Strowman countering the Claymore with a big powerbomb and McIntyre's big spinebuster were great, however the highlight has to be the that superplex that looked more like a nasty top second rope brainbuster as McIntyre landed on his neck. That chest punch from Strowman is kind of lame as were the constant camera cuts to MVP and Lashley, but those served their purpose. Pretty good heavyweight main event TV match which I wouldn't mind them running back.

He may be 58 and have bad knees but on this night Keiji Muto was motivated. He bumped around crazy and did everything he could to make everyone buy into the idea of Kitamiya beating him for the GHC title. Kitamiya held up his end of things by looking beastly in his attacks and showing urgency building to the big tease of the prison lock. Strong title defense from the Muto.

Incredible war of two old battle-tested dudes beating each other senseless. If you like hard slaps, elbows, and punt kicks this is for you.

Much better than the Satomura title match with KLR. Stiff veteran vs. up and comer match. At this point I'm convinced anyone can have a quality match with Meiko as long as they are willing to let her call the match and are willing to let her lay in her brutal offense while also being willing to dish it back out. Meiko's early flash armdrags are a thing of beauty as they are rapid and impactful. Her strikes of course are stiff and connect as you can hear the thud of them landing on Aoife. That head kick was particularly quite nasty. Aoife's selling and facial aren't anything to write home about, but she was willing to let Meiko lay them in on her and her overhead kick mayb…

Unsurprisingly great. Beautiful armwork-story with Bryan first starting out working the left arm, but naturally switching the focus to the right arm once opportunity presented itself when he countered Reigns' Superman Punch attempt w/ that kick to it. Bryan's work over the arm is obviously awesome, and Reigns' selling is rock-solid. Love the way the story played out in the end; the whole finishing stretch is so great with Reigns looking to put a blunt end to things, but Bryan just goddamn HOLDS ON to that arm with everything he got left, because he knows it's HIS. Then Reigns wisely simply switches it & ends it all. Simple, wonderful stuff that plays up to both of the…