June 2008

Hey, it's Kimura from RINGS not wrestling a 30 minute draw but something much more exciting! He's more aggressive with the submissions, going after Sawa's arm, fighting through Sawa's slaps and firing back with kicks and dirty stomps to beat him down in order to attack the arm with holds. Even when Sawa mounts a little comeback with the baseball punch and tries to choke him out, Kimura judo throws him down and goes back to the armbar. Good back-and-forth struggle toward the end before Kimura busts out some nasty rear mount headbutts and knee drops. He's able to block the Shining Wizard but Sawa snags him in a triangle for the submission. Fun match.

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Beth Phoenix vs Melina - WWE One Night Stand 2008 I Quit Match A women's match without the title on the line! Wow! I didnt know that happened. Mickie James was champion at this time, FYI. Kadaveri recommended me this match on Twitter after I raved about Beth vs Candice. I got to say I really enjoyed this one. It felt like a really good PWFG match catch wrestling match. They focus almost exclusively on submission holds and there is no weapons. I thought there were a lot of innovative submissions that looked great. One thing, I think is that they dont always cater to the women's strengths in women's matches. They make them wrestle like men, but women have certain physi…

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A bloody, brutal fight without honor. They sure brought the hate for this one & put on a classic ROH grudge match. ****1/2

AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle - Slammiversary 2008 -Disturbing Trend: AJ's matches are totally disconnected from storyline, probably not his fault - Heated Angle: Centered around Angle's jealousy that AJ has a crush on his wife and thus Angle beat living shit out of him on TV. Big bladejob by AJ. - So they wrestle a classic championship match. The Announcers and I are like whaaaaaattttttt - AJ is proud of hitting dropkicks on the guy just mauled him like a week ago. Like I said it feels like an underdog who is proving himself to the ace veteran rather than a blood feud match - Angle is King of Shitty Transitions. It feels like a video game. The g…

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The main selling point of this match was the interactions between Danielson & KENTA - and those sure did not disappoint. This was just a really well structured & paced tag match that delivered on all levels. Danielson was absolutely brilliant right from the get go - he established during his entrance when he said that "only Americans deserve to hear the Final Countdown" that he was gonna be a dick in this match. And he sure was one. He was absolutely phenomenal in that, working over Ishimori, going toe-toe-toe with KENTA all the while playing a complete dick to them. KENTA was also great kicking the shit out of Edwards & Edwards was really good at getting the …

Terrific storytelling with Bryan looking to tire Nigel out (while annoying the wXw fans at the same time) w/ submission holds, specifically the CHINLOCK. Bryan's facial expressions while working Nigel over w/ a wristlock while the crowd is booing the shit out of him = GOLD. The whole dynamic was actually really fun, because at the same time over in ROH, Bryan & Nigel were having a World Championship feud where Nigel was an absolute bastard of a heel while Bryan was the babyface ace. Pretty cool how the dynamic flipped when their rivalry made it's way to Germany. Great match. ****1/4

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This is during Suwama very mixed first reign with the Triple Crown, but I felt like this was one of his better bouts: it was clear the intent with this match was to get him over, and Nishimura is obviously the perfect man for the job there. First 10 minutes are basically just rest holds and grappling, with Suwama not being able to really do much against the far more accomplished technical worker, through he's able to transition out of Nishimura's holds rather well and is shown at least to be able to hold his own defensively, with some ring work in using his elbows and knees to dig in to Nishimura's joints during sequences, alongside his size to really keep things from get…

WWE Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho vs Kofi Kingston - WWE Night of Champions 2008 Chris Jericho has officially turned heel smashing Shawn Michaels' face into the Jeritron 5000 and injuring his eye which would be the crux of the feud going forward. He is still in long tights, but the nature of his pre-match promo is a harbinger of his style to come. He is defending his title against a surprise opponent, Kofi Kingston, who is still from Jamaica at this point. It has been a while since I have some pre-AEW Jericho, but my feeling was this Jericho was a lot different than first run Jericho but I should watch some first run Jericho back this up. He felt more…

World Heavyweight Champion Edge vs Batista - WWE Night of Champions 2008 The wrinkle here is that HHH, the WWE Champion, has been drafted to Smackdown so both champions are slated to be on Smackdown. Batista has been drafted to RAW. Can The Animal bring one of the titles back to RAW? Let's see... I admittedly had very low expectations for this match (I watched both of the prior Edge/Taker matches which were terrible), but I thought this was very good even with a pretty bad finish. They established the power game for Batista early with Edge surprisingly bumping and feeding well. Edge tried to turn it into a track meet but Batista fought through the baseball slide…

WWE US Champion Matt Hardy vs Chavo Guerrero - WWE Night of Champions 2008 I was not watching Smackdown at this time, but I did watch RAW so vague notions of the La Familia faction. The idea here was Chavo was awarded this title match due to nepotism. Bam Neely is his muscle and gets involved in the match a grand total of one time at the beginning. It was a solid limb psychology match. Chavo was pretty useless. He is not a good kicker. He should have switched to stomping. Pretty brief Hardy shine with no high spots, Chavito chopblocked the leg. Came down on against the apron, that was pretty cool. Wrapped it around the corner. Standard stuff. What kept this mat…

Mickie James vs Katie Lea Burchill - WWE Night of Champions 2008 They should have cast Katie Lea as Blackie Lawless' sister, the resemblance is uncanny. Obscure heavy metal references aside, I remember the Burchills but I couldnt have told what year they were a thing. I dont think Katie Lea last long because I remember her in TNA shortly after this. I always liked Paul Burchill for some reason but I couldnt tell you why, must have been the cut of his jib. I had a massive crush on Mickie as a teenager and is a kickass wrestler. Best match of the night so far, plenty of workrate combined with struggle and psychology. Katie Lea gets three flash pin attempts which …

WWE Tag Team Champions Miz & Morrison vs Finlay & Hornswoggle - WWE Night of Champions 2008 It is unclear to me if Miz & Morrison are on Smackdown, ECW or both. I watched their match with Kane & Punk at Judgment Day two months and was unimpressive with their performance. They seemed more interested in getting in the right place for their spots than having fun and being loose. The presence of Hornswoggle helped loosen them up here. There is just so much fun a midget can bring inherently. It was a pretty fun match. I always enjoy watching Finlay wrestle. He did a great job whuppin up on Morrison. He did the apron capture spot but Miz threatened Swoggle.…

ECW Champion Kane vs Mark Henry vs Big Show - Night of Champions 2008 Man, do you remember McMahon's Millions? What the fuck? Did people actually win money in a shoot? Was the accident just a way to write off the publicity stunt and McMahon? Or was there more to it, I honestly, cant remember? Kane certainly had his working boots on this night. Workrate Kane is surely something to behold. He was flying all over the ring just hitting big move after big move. He worked a great sprint with Big Show early. Then got "eliminated" so to speak but then came back and was just all over the place. Big Shown & Mark Henry had a good Clash of the Titans feel …

WWE Champion Triple H vs John Cena - WWE Night of Champions 2008 The NOAH-ification of WWE is strong in this match and that of course brings both pros and cons to this most hit but sometimes miss of a Clash of the Titans-style main event. It is nominally babyface vs babyface but with Cena's propensity to work underneath and HHH's history as a heel they fall into their natural roles quite easily in this match. The hook of the match is that if Cena loses, both world championships will be on Smackdown. I thought this was a very Greatest Hits style match where each opponent blends their stock highspots with the other opponent. Lots of good symmetry, which is key to…