April 2008

I'm usually quite iffy on Kensuke Sasaki's ring work and these two have had a real mixed range of matches in the past; some good, some real bad. Sasaki shows some good fundamentals but his real strength here is, well, his strength, and he uses that here to dictate the standing portions of the match with big meaty chops and bombs. Nishimura takes the advantage with smart positioning, working over Sasaki's leg with forearm smashes and Inoki-crab leg kicks, as well as locking in a nasty Muta Lock, excelling when Sasaki is off his feet and having to work on the mat, which is obviously not his bright spot. The pacing is solid and also rather realistic: Nishimura isn't going to…

15 minutes is within the time-frame of a good Suwama match, and Nishimura works well with his kind of smashmouth rampaging. He shows a different side here with his technical fundamentals coming into play against Suwama's sheer strength, a dynamic he's done aplenty. I also liked the narrative of Nishimura getting miffed about his opponent doing well and throwing in some dirty work to even the odds, namely some unclean breaks and the like. This quickly gets into a ugly brawl on the outside as the two land some stiff shots to the other before Nishimura goes back to his technical stuff, namely working on the legs. Good Inoki-style Enzuigiri to the Suwama on the apron, as well…

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Generico looks to slow Ibushi down as his gameplan -- he is lovely just dropping him w/ those great looking backbreakers & Michinoku Drivers. Ibushi sells every move well, and all of his comebacks are intense, fast-paced + come with a nice sense of urgency. He basically does those IBUSHI THINGS, ya know, and it's great. After they come face-to-face, things get even more intense & essentially the match kicks into its finishing gear, and it's pretty damn fantastic. Such a banger of a match. Ibushi ends his ROH tour on an absolute high note. ****

Shinsuke Nakamura defends the IWGP Heavyweight Title At this stage of the game you know how the Mutoh formula goes with the limb work on the legs but they played up to it by having Nakamura doing his damndest to counter it every time also throwing in knee strikes and armbars of his own. Had a hot finishing sequence with a sick dragon screw neck whip that looked liked it killed Nakamura. This was an entertaining affair.

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Shawn Michaels vs Batista - Backlash 2008 SGR: Chris Jericho I want someone to watch this match and then look me in the eye and tell me that Shawn Michaels is not a GOAT contender. Goddamn he was fucking awesome in this match. Maybe I am mistaken, but I have never heard anyone talk up this match. I figure it gets overlooked for the phenomenal series between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho that this very feud spawns. Before, I get into the match, I want to point out how great of a job they did here with the storytelling. I am an avid fan of soap operas and I think this one of the few times in the last 15 years that WWE really nailed soap opera storytelling. The Ric Fl…

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Match Link The first five minutes of this match are pretty much a squash by Hyuga. She just runs Haruyama right over and anything that Kayoko tries to do to stop or counter her ends up going wrong. Once she finally gets on offense, Haruyama goes all out to even the score. The best thing about the match is that after such a big, fast start neither one of them ever stop selling the effects of it the rest of the match. Towards the finish, Hyuga looks like she is about to wrap up the win until Haruyama hits a dropkick, chopblock style, to Azumi's heavily braced knee. Hyuga's selling of the knee is so good that you know that she would have won had she not been hit on the k…

This was expected quality: Chono and Yasuda were not fully out of their depth here workrate wise, but neither are particularly well adjusted for a huge workrate-style sprint. To disguise this....and in usual ZERO1 inter-promotional fashion this quickly turns into a outside brawl. Chono and co quickly realise that their opponents are somewhat beyond their capabilities, so they use a lot of dirty antics to become de-facto heels here. Yasuda in particular was really great, shouting at the ref, crude low blows, having chop contests with Omori, just solid shtick on display. The middle section has the babyfaces get their big comeback with Yasuda mostly throwing himself all over…

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