May 2007

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Talk about it here.

This happened 10 years ago. It's pretty wild to think that KENTA is the only one who hasn't retired from in-ring competition out of the 4. This just had super fun, hot interactions between 4 of the best wrestlers in the world - Bryan & Nigel, Bryan & KENTA, Morishima & Nigel, Morishima & KENTA. Great atmosphere, great sequences, FIP segments, hot tags, an all-time great balls-to-the-walls finishing stretch - this truly had it all. Terrific match; one of the best tags ROH has ever put on & a helluva way for ROH to debut in the PPV biz. ****1/2

Battlarts 2.0 did have some questionable elements about it, but including talents like these certainly wasn't one of them; this was pretty incredible for a undercard match. This started off with some grappling and then they pushed up the pace rather early with a pair of dropkicks before settling back down to more mat-work. As I've said about Kimura before she's not exactly one to really be the person pushing for holds here; she's more around just to essentially carry the pacing behind someone more competent like Amano rather than doing her own thing, so this meant that she was basically just jousting around rather than making any actual aim to working any real mechanisms …

An excellent teacher vs. pupil bout. Ishikawa busting out ridiculous counters to Sawa's offense was really clever from a narrative standpoint because who knows Sawa's style and approach better than Ishikawa? At the same time though he sells a lot and puts Sawa over as a resilient and dangerous opponent. A great, complete performance. Lots of struggle and many intense, dramatic mat and strike exchanges. ****

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Talk about it here.

Am I missing something? People talk about this as a hidden Cena gem but I thought it was barely anything. And not because of the length, I have seen matches three minutes shorter that I have given **** to. It was just Khali doing some stuff and Cena selling and then a sudden comeback and win for Cena. There was no meat or flow at all. A good Cena selling performance but that's about it. * 1/2

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