August 2021

This has a slow start, the action is good but the pace is too slow and there's no sense of urgency from anyone, which was surprising considering the talent involved. Thankfully by the 5 minute mark shit gets more interesting with Daichi working a good control section over Nomura and setting the tone for the match. From that point forward is basically 20 minutes of very good tag team action and all four showing out, as they usually do when they face each other. Some great nearfalls and saves, fucking LOVED everything Okami had to do to keep Abe at bay and just focusing on Nomura. This started "meh" and slowly but surely ended up being pretty great.

This was much, much better than their previous encounter, which I liked. Roman as a shit talking heel and just loving playing to the crowd is some special shit. The first part of the match was just both of them doing their best to wake up and work the crowd without going crazy with the spots. The second part, which does have the big bombs, do a great fucking job in not overdoing with the nearfalls. That Super AA was the best one ever because you absolutely think they were going to finish the match then and there. Great stuff with two big main eventers.

WALTER defends the NXT UK Championship. You know what you get when these two collide, and as usual, it was some really good stuff. They did "the usual" between them, but also brought a bunch of new cool things to make it feel fresh enough. WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov always guarantees the kind of pro-wrestling where everything looks & sounds as violent and uncomfortable as possible. And it's awesome. I would put this on par with that last big NXT match of theirs. There is really no real reason for me to not call it straight-up ****+ great, but it's the same gut feeling I had with their last match where it's like one of the best "very good" matches of the year. ***3/…

Just an unbelievable clusterfuck of a match. Wholly unprofessional. From stiff shots and slams to just blatant no-selling, things escalate to a point where it seemed a fist fight could take place. It was dangerous, ugly, yet it was engaging as shit. This sense of realism is lost. Coldly analyzing it, it sucked, but man was it awsome.