June 2021

We got Masato Tanaka and CIMA for the ZERO1 world championship. Two pros that can still go and get the job done even at this advanced tenure in their careers. You know what you're getting with these men in sound grappling, Meteoras, Sliding Ds, splashing through tables, and great sequences with false finishes that lead to a hot finish. Do yourselves a favor and watch this.

Solid work from the two that built on working over each other left leg.

This was structured in the vein of a G1 allowing both men to excel at their strengths in a concise period. Cobb looked like a beast showing his power and launching Ibushi around like a ragdoll. Kota was amazing with his strikes, displaying his freaky power, and selling especially on the big tease of Cobb hitting the kamigoye for the win, great stuff.

Very few matches during the pandemic have made me feel something the way this match did. Team Marvelous’ strategy was clear from minute one: isolate Sendai Girls’ dominant force, Chihiro Hashimoto. It even worked for a while. In everything they did, the Marvelous crew came off as a cohesive force bound and determined to achieve their goal. Once thrown off their game plan thanks to some chief interference from Iwata and Chisako, they had to rely on a long-term plan to get rid of Chihiro. One of the biggest successes of this match is that they went to the near-fall well early without it ever feeling gratuitous. The match starts at a ridiculous pace and doesn’t let up for it…

My perspective on this maybe different as most as I was at the Performance Center live for this and this was an absolute blast. Balls to the wall action starting out with Santos playing the coward heel who wants the title but doesn't want to confront the champ and sending his cronies to do the dirty work. I'm not a big fan of Bronson but to me this is the best he's looked in NXT. He was great using his weight to run over Raúl and Joaquin and they also did the big man fall onto the smaller guy who's trying to slam him. The interactions with Bronson and Santos were also kept to a minimum as this was mostly worked by the tag teams so they will have to plenty to work with whe…

Not a MOTYC or anything by any stretch but a very good undercard PPV match. I believe this is Xia's first TakeOver match and she looked good. Early it on it was all about Xia's kick heavy offense before it backfired and she ended up kicking the ring post and causing the momentum shift in which Mercedes did a fantastic job of taking over hitting some big throws like a butterfly capture suplex, a nasty looking Razor's Edge into a DDT, a big backdrop ringside and some vicious arm captured knees to the face. Xia also added some throws to her offense as she hit Mercedes with a wrist clutch exploder suplex which is something I had never seen her do before. The finish was neat w…

As expected, this delivered. Rey is undoubtedly the greatest underdog of all-time. First part segment of the match featured the much smaller Rey using his speed and ringside weapons to ground the dominant and much bigger Reigns. Rey quickly running out of the ring and grabbing a chair and nailing Reigns in the ribs while he tried to grab him through the ropes was a great way to kick this off. I also thought Rey using the fire extinguisher to stop Reigns was clever. Also the use of the chair later on was perfectly executed with Rey wrapping the chair around Reigns neck and just shoving him into the cage and the ring post trying to asphyxiate him. We also got a great ragdol…

This has been an ongoing feud for 15+ years now? And to be honest, its a feud that never clicked for me as most of their matches always relied heavily on big head drops, finisher spamming and extensive 2.99 false finish kickouts. This however felt different. This felt more like an actual grudge match than a dream rematch and they brought more intensity to this than other matches. KO hurt his arm and did a pretty neat of selling it and even avoiding using in their strike exchanges. Also, the strikes they were throwing here looked much more impactful than the thigh slap heavy strikes they would throw before as Sami got his mouth busted open. They also dropped the extensive …

I believe this is the first time these two have faced each other on WWE TV and it was a good match. The WWE RAW TV match style has noticeably changed this year and I've honestly have been enjoying it. It seems more big bomb centered with actually heavyweights just coming in and ragdolling each other while throwing stiff strikes. This was worked excellently in that vein. They did a neat spot with Riddle kicking McIntyre on the HIAC welts on his back and McIntyre just splats him with a stiff lariat. I also feel McIntyre's punches don't get the credit they deserve. Sure he's not Lawler or Dundee when it comes to throwing hands but his punches look like they actually connect.…

This match was part of the 2021 Catch The Wave tournament. The format is the wrestlers are split into four blocks of four in a round robin, and the top placed wrestlers make the semi finals > final. In this group, there was a three way tie between Momono, Takase and Hirota, so to decide the winner of the block they had to wrestle again in a series of singles matches, with the first wrestler to win two consecutive falls winning the block. Fall 1 is Momono vs. Takase. Mio starts hot charging Takase right at the beginning with a flurry of kicks and forearms. She knocks Takase out of the ring and tries to go for a running dive from the top turnbuckle, but Takase gets …