February 2007

Crazy crazy hot brawl which delivers all you can ask for. Big bumps and boots to the face a plenty at a great pace. They did a great job filming this with the dual cams so you get pretty much a great shot every other second. Briscoes are great in this flipping around the place while Necro & Pondo hurl furniture at them. Pondo may not be a great wrestler but he understands to play a heel outsider, giving fans the finger and shit talking while grimacing dementedly. Lots of 2,99999s towards the end (it's indy wrestling baby!!) which feel a little out of place but a cool finish with Necro & Pondo looking like psychos who will kick anyones ass.

This was match with the Commissioners office being put up in a WarGames match, with Dillinger and Cross playing the J.J. Dillon and Paul Ellering roles as non-wrestlers (I know Dillon and Ellering used to wrestling, but you know what I mean). Lots of this was really great, I loved the opening section with a pre Man Scout Manning and Brad Attitude. Manning bleeds buckets, and Attitude has great punches and some really cool dives between the two rings. I also really liked Silivia who had some nutso athleticism, including maybe the best Scott Steiner backflip powerslam I have ever seen. They used the two rings really well, including an insane superplex from one ring to anoth…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nOgJyixVX8

Not sure how to describe well this match but, i think this deserves to be seen by everybody. Bryan Alvarez said this was the best match he has ever seen in his life. Match rating - Strongly, strongly, strongly recommend

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUL5Wxm-q-E

Talk about it here.

Daisuke Sekimoto fits into Battlarts just fine. He adds a bit of pro-style to the mix with his strike exchanges, but they don't look too out of place and they work as a perfect foil for Kazunari Murakami. Murakami starts off much more reserve than usual, although it's not long until we see the utter bastard side of him that we all know and love after a couple of strike offs with Sekimoto helps him loosen up. Ikeda and Ishikawa having wrestled against each other countless times over the past decade, predictably have great chemistry. They have had better encounters against each other and it's usually more interesting to see them mix it up with the other team mate than w…

Pretty fun tag with Sawa and Usuda being the standouts. Usuda was pretty stiff with his strikes, at one point punt kicking Yoshikawa in the face. Sawa's takedowns and transitions on the mat are always great, and he uses a neat armbar takedown on Hayato, switching to the leg to set-up the figure-four. Hayato isn't great on the mat but he brings the hard kicks and I liked how he used the knees when he's got the double wristlock on Yoshikawa. Yoshikawa was pretty good as the underdog but there were a few times he seemed lost in the shuffle. He hits a nice arm-trap suplex into the jujigatame before finishing it out with Usuda, who wins via submission. Nothing too crazy.

I had no idea what to expect going into this, since it's Kandori close to her last hurray, this being the finals of a 1 night tournament, and I've never heard of anyone mentioning any great Kandori performances in the 2000s. This ended up being just awesome though and exactly what it should be. It's basically Satomura brutalizing Kandori from the get go with the kind of nothing-held-back kicks you wouldn't expect a 43 year old lady to take. Kandori was damn great here as the aging legend trying to pull out one last trick. She came in with a bandage over her forehead with a cut and bruises underneath and takes some absolutely disgusting kicks to the skull. The spot where s…