July 2008

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

The match is mostly dominated by Kensuke who just beats the shit out of KENTA. KENTA sells really well for him & gets some great big comebacks in. A very well told, great Heavyweight vs. Jr. Heavyweight story. ****1/2

Not a forgotten or super obscure match, but I still found myself stunned by how good this was. I imagine if Kota booked more shootstyle shows and did this kind of match more often we'd all be Kota fans. That aside, I thought this was Satos best performance ever. He was pushing hard and capable of carrying a servicable Kota to some very good mat exchanges. The best thing about this was the unique twist they did on the wrestler vs. shooter formula by having Kota rely on pinfalls and Sato outclassing him and giving up no points. It easily could've ended up looking like a goofy spectacle but thanks to both guys throwing some hideous suplexes and not pussying around with their…

I assume in 2008 when BattlARTS was running wild people didn't care much for HARD HIT, but I find it neat to go back and check out these indy shootstyle matches. This was a quite good undercard match and wouldn't have looked out of place on one of the smaller U-Style shows. I've never seen Ishikura before, but apparently he's an MMA fighter who's been around since the 90s. Baby Irie is capable and this was a fun power vs. skill matchup. Ishikura seemed the superior shooter so Irie had to try and push him out through sheer pudginess.

WWE Champion Triple H vs Edge - GAB 2008 Chock this one up to the morbid curiosity. There are no two main eventers from the 2000s that I care about less, but this is one of the few matchups that really was not done often. I guess there was also the Rated RKO vs DX feud, but overall this is not one of the more frequent matchups of the 2000s. The year 2008 was Edge at the peak of his career as he had FIVE matches with Undertaker including main eventing both WrestleMania and Summerslam that year. This also featured the last calendar year that HHH spent a significant length of time as the world champion. HHH had been drafted to Smackdown, which was a definite shock and Ed…

ECW Champion Mark Henry vs Tommy Dreamer - Great American Bash 2008 At this point, Umaga has impressed me more than Mark Henry. I know I am not in prim Mark Henry yet. I also have multiple long matches with Matt Hardy and Finlay coming up to really show me what Mark Henry can do. There is plenty off good. Treating Dreamer like a gnat, laying it that badmouth (It don't matter what you do) steamrolling him. It is just lacks that next level. He is not as brutal as Vader or athletic as Umaga. He is good about setting up offense by missing the Splash. Some nice weeble wobble selling before Dreamer hits the DDT. Colin Delaney, remember that jabroni!, turns on Dreamer. Not w…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This was fantastic - another absolutely perfect performance by Nigel McGuinness during his all-time great ROH World Title reign - he absolutely MADE this match. His heel shtick in front of Steen's home crowd was tremendous, and his work over Steen's back & work on top in general was really great. The match quality actually dropped a bit when Steen made his big comeback, it wasn't bad, but I thought he didn't bring enough fire & energy to match Nigel's amazing work over him - if he had been on Nigel's level, or anywhere near it, this could've been one of the best matches in ROH history. BUT even with that being said, this still was a classic, cannot say enough good…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.