June 2007

Best Of The Super Junior XIV Block B Match: Koji Kanemoto vs. BxB Hulk - NJPW New Japan 35 Anniversary Tour Circuit 2007 Best Of The Super Junior XIV ~Power of Mind~ - Day 1 01/06/2007 It's half three in the morning, I'm ready to go to bed but I find my favoutie Jr of all time against one of my favourite DG wrestlers in Korakuen Hall. I must watch it. This was predictably awesome. Kanemoto has no time for the tricky striker with all his movements and slaps and kicks the piss out of BxB Hulk. And to his credit, BxB Hulk adapt to his enviroment, realises who he is against and fires back with some stiff kicks of his own. He wrestled like a NJ Junior really …

This was the only Misawa GHC match that I was completely unable to review back when I was going through his title reign; namely because the match itself, much like many mid-2000's Puro content had been scrubbed off the internet completely bar a occasional snippet uploaded onto somewhere like Veoh (RIP) leaving a very noticeable gap in content. This made it so elusive that even the most famous video on Misawa's reign doesn't cover the match whatsoever! Thankfully some random Japanese salaryman just happened to have a low quality upload of it from a week or so ago so it does once again exist online. This is about as complete as the match appeared to have been, which means t…

This is technically a one-on-one match, but Vince has back-up. Shane McMahon and Umaga fight alongside the chairman, effectively turning this into a handicap match. As soon as the bell rings, Lashley hits a plancha on Umaga to stop him from interfering. Well, he tried too. His leg was the only part of his that connected. You tried, Bobby. This is a by-the-numbers handicap match with Lashley repeatedly trying to mount a comeback before getting cut off. The crowd do get behind him, to his credit. Shane hits his usual big spots and Vince doesn't get involved in anything too crazy, but he's great at being a provocative heel. Lashley eventually cleans house for good and wins …

ECW was clearly dead in the water at this point. Elijah Burke looked like a star during his entrance, it's a shame nothing ever came from his WWE run. Marcus Cor Von was a decent powerhouse too. Punk has joined the ECW Originals to stop them from feeling like complete nostalgia act. This is a mildly entertaining brawl that did nothing to help the younger talent in the long run. They kept the pace up despite having to accommodate for Dreamer and Sandman. ★★½

Edge immediately tries to escape as soon as the match begins. Edge is much better when he's playing the chickenshit 'alt-rock douchebag' character rather than the hammy 'bug-eyed psycho'. There's really not much to say about this one. Batista hits a couple of nice power spots before Edge escapes after do the cliched 'one man climbing over the cage, whilst another man tries to escape via the door' ending. You couldn't get a more by the book WWE cage match than this. It's completely okay. Average. ★★½

Let's face it, Khali is awful. His offence is so shit that even Jim Ross craps all over it. There's two instances where he attempts a kick and completely misses Cena. Cena, with help from the gimmick match stipulation, does everything is his power to get a good match out of what he's been given. He sells Khali's strikes like death and he really puts over Khali as someone not to mess with. Khali doesn't take any big bumps until the end of the match, where he eats a FU from a crane to the floor. When people try to defend Cena as a top tier wrestler, don't use his matches with other great workers like Punk, Bryan and Cesaro as proof, use this instead. Anyone can have a…

One of the lumberjacks here is Chris Benoit. It's his last ever PPV appearance and it's chilling to watch as he looks like his mind is elsewhere and he doesn't get involved like any of the other 11 lumberjacks. Mark Henry had yet to hit his stride. He's nowhere near the levels of 'Hall of Pain' Mark Henry, but he has the aura of a man you don't want to fuck with nailed down. Kane is not the ideal opponent for him and the result is a slow, lumbering match. Henry works down Kane with a bearhug as a rest hold, and then it's later used to end the match. This would of been a lot more tolerable with a smaller opponent. ★

I hadn't heard of this match and I was excited to watch it, but it doesn't hold a candle to some of the Hardys' ladder matches with Edge & Christian and The Dudleyz. There's a lot miscommunication and spots get blown. Shelton is the real MVP here. He goes all out and even he when botches a leap to the ladder, he flawlessly improvises mid-air and stops another spot from being ruined. This is fun overall, just not go in expecting a Wrestlemania X7 level classic. ★★★

Yeah, this was awful. They wrestle in a pool filled with chocolate pudding, all while (accused) rapist Jerry Lawler lusts over the women and name-drops Bill Cosby on commentary. Candice wins by submission when she tries to drown Melina in the pudding. Maria comes out to interview the winner before a catfight breaks out, leaving all three women and the referee covered in pudding. When they did these kind of matches during the Attitude Era, you could at least say that they were a product of their time. This was a mere 13 years ago. This was trashy, exploitative and insulting, even for 2007 standards. DUD

Orton was only five years into his run here and it's clear at this point that he 'gets' wrestling. His facial expressions are golden and he radiates arrogance. The story going into this is that Orton concussed RVD on Raw and he wants to do it again. Most of Orton's offence is simple, strike at RVD's head and scrabble his brains some more. What brings this match down is that RVD is abysmal at selling a head injury. He looks hokey. The stretcher stipulation also hurt the match. There's just not much to work with. Still, this did it's job and got Orton over as a massive headcase despite his loss. ★★¾

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Every Murakami match has blood in it -- I mean, how else are you going to get him to lick it up? From a visual standpoint, it works. When you look at Murakami, with his wicked smile, you expect him to bust somebody open, possibly himself, and revel in it. Before Marufuji can even make his grand entrance, Marukami has already bloodied him. He takes him down to the ring and rams him headfirst into the ring post before showing off the carnage to the fans and licking the blood from Marufuji's forehead. What a nutjob. He tries choking Marufuji with a chair but once Marufuji gets a hold of it, he cracks it over Murakami's head a couple of times before getting him into the ring…

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Oh Carlos, I will never not watch your matches. And she faces off against AKINO who I know can go as she pretty much works like a gender switched Ikuto Hidaka/Katsumi Usuda type of lucharesu shooter so this is an automatic must watch anyways. And this was a damn good undercard match, let me tell you, despite the JIP and all. This starts out a little weird as both are full of disdain for eachother but also working kind of comedic, then move swiftly into slick technical sequences lifted straight from a Hidaka/Usuda matchup and finally end it with all the skull crushing headbutt and orbital bone breaking shootkick glory you can wish for. The selling is decent enough for all …

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This is meant to be Team 3D vs. The Steiners, but due to an injury, Animal steps in as a surprise replacement. The challengers are way past their prime here, but it’s cool them being teamed up in a ‘veteran super team’ sort of way. The match is kept very basic due to the limitations of the challengers, basically playing the hits, but the crowd are buying into the ‘legends’ and the ‘dream tag team’ storyline for the match. Rick looks a bit all over the place at times, but the Dudley’s do a great job of bumping all over the place to help put the challengers over as threats. Unfortunately it’s a pretty flat ending, but the crowd were invested throughout and they got as much …

This was AWESOME. Featured a really good FIP segment on Bryan, and then it just built & built to the finishing stretch which was one helluva climax. ****

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Bryan/KENTA III lived up to all the hype. Tremendous atmosphere for a tremendous match - the crowd was super hot for the whole thing & rightfully so. There were some neat callbacks to their previous 2 singles matches like KENTA getting tired of Bryan's mat work & showing that he doesn't want to play that game anymore by slapping the man. Bryan was simply tremendous during his control segments & much like in their previous meeting in NOAH, he also sold tremendously for KENTA when it was time for that. Superb performance by the man. The meat of the match is amazing & it builds to an insane finishing stretch. The chemistry these two had was special. ****3/4