December 2007

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

TNA Knockouts Champion Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong - TNA Turning Point 2007 For those who are having a bit of trouble remembering the timeline like I was, Gail Kim won the right to be the first knockouts champion at Bound For Glory (October 2007) and this is the first PPV meeting between these two. During my TNA fan heyday, I was a huge Awesome Kong mark. Going back and watching this did not let me down one bit. If this happened today in WWE, this would be considered tippy top stuff. Awesome Kong is well awesome! Just an absolute freight train. She jumps Kim before the bell knocking her off the apron. Everyone loves to compare her to Vader and I get it: the gloves, the …

These two are absolute lunatics known for entirely different characteristics, yet they are both very resilient, can absorb ridiculous amounts of punishment and are both insane bump freaks in their own ways. On paper this sounds like an odd pairing and you're not sure what to make of it, but in real time, it delivers. Usually Necro thrives when he's paired with other reckless death match wrestlers or with folks who aren't afraid to take work overly stiff, here however he is in a match with Evans who is mostly known for being a breakdancing contortionist who can do some incredible flips that no one has been able to replicate and despite Evans not being able to punch or kick…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGMJOCOVPWQ The storyline for this match is your typical Japanese "Company Ace vs. Rising Young Star." The main thing about this match that I love is that while it's fairly similar to a Noah match at the time with a lot of big moves and bumps is that everything is given time to breathe. At around the midpoint of the match Yoneyama hits a senton to the floor and it's treated as a big momentum changing move. Hyuga sells it big, barely getting back in before being counted out and sells it in some form for the rest of the match. The finish involves a lot of nice teases and nearfalls. A true hidden gem from joshi's "dead" era. ****1/2

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More Deep Diving here It's a double turn.....but with Inoki-ism! Imagine Bret/Austin, now replace the two with a really tall guy and a tubby ex-sumo. This comes abruptly after Yasuda had fought a Dutch kickboxer by the name of Rene Rooze: the two had already fought for real at one of Inoki's earlier events, with Yasuda of course losing. This was obviously worked so the match was fairly tame, thankfully only three minutes long. Yasuda and him fall out of the ring after a clinch and Yasuda smacks him on the ground with a chair two times (yet doesn't get DQ'd because uhhhh don't think about it) and beats Rooze by TKO, potentially ruining the main event with his usu…

This time it's Morishima's turn to jump Danielson during the entrances, and that certainly set the pace for the rest of the match. Morishima absolutely destroys Danielson for most of it - Danielson's bladejob is sick & Morishima's offense is absolutely brutal. Bryan's selling is tremendous & his big comeback was great; he shows great fire in it & gets to stun Morishima for a little while - just for a little while indeed, because very quickly Morishima shuts that comeback down w/ an absolutely vicious looking lariat. The finishing stretch is superb; some really great callbacks to their previous meetings there. Excellent, brutal sprint. ****1/2

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Shinjuku Shark is a boxer who has been working sleaze indy shows since forever. With his shaggy hair and lanky frame, he looks kinda like Tobas dad. But he never had a big run in any promotion, mostly doing sleazy shit in promotions like FMW, while Toba at least has a series of DDT main events to his name, not to mention that Shark can’t use his feet. Shark is essentially the underdog here and Toba dominates him early until Shark is able to down with him with a big surprise punch. After that it’s like the last 5 minutes of an epic FUTEN match with both guys trading big combos and Shark mostly coming back using his toughness and puncher’s chance. You don’t really expect mu…

I think this was a work. I was suspicious that it was one before I even watched it-I found a clip of Maeda aggressively showing the winner's trophy onto Tamura after this match. It didn't really make sense-I mean you could say Maeda is crazy, but I don't really believe that. Usually there's reasoning behind his violent outbursts. You may argue how sound that reasoning is and how defendable his methods are, but let's move on from that. The match starts with Tokoro slapping Tamura when they go to shake gloves. I'm 100% perceived this is going to be a pro wrestling match by this point. The pre-fight video had Tokoro saying Tamura is his hero and that he wears red pants becau…

Kind of under the radar gem and maybe one of the better Michaels TV matches of his second run. There are a couple other matches between them from around this time, one of which from Armageddon that I don't remember at all, so I guess they were feuding. I don't care much for Kennedy so I guess you can say it's faint praise, but this might be one of his best matches outright and I thought he was really good in it. Michaels worked over his leg early and I liked the sell of it, mostly in how he was super vocal. Michaels threw on a half crab variation where he sat across the hooked leg rather than doing the normal version of the hold that would target the back, which was a coo…