February 2009

AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Naomichi Marufuji (c) vs. Kaz Hayashi - AJPW Excite Series 2009 - Day 1 06/02/2009 I thought this was pretty good. Most of the match was Marufuji doing his thing, well I might add, with Hayashi coming up with occasional counters and strikes, trying to keep Marufuji at bay. Marufuji was pretty entertaining while on top. He switched his offence from flashy aerial moves to strikes to submissions well. I thought he did a good job of building his offence up with Hayashi just avoiding his signature moves such as the corner kicks making them feel big when he executes them. Hayashi worked well from beneath in terms of selling and he…

ECW Champion Jack Swagger vs Christian - WWECW 2/10/09 I accidentally watched the wrong match. I was wondering why this was thought of so highly. Christian returns to ECW after being in TNA for about 3 years and says "Sufferin' Succotash" in his opening promo so thats where Roman got it from. Swagger lost his first match to Finlay the week before due to some Hornswoggle chicanery. Swagger was great here gobbling Christian up with his amateur wrestling stuff. Christian's right hand was great and rang throughout the building. He used that liberally in his shine and as hope spots. He kept Swagger off balance early with roll ups before succumbing to Swagger's amateur acu…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This is the stuff right here, one of my favourite things about Otsuka is how unique and interesing his transitions are, he'll go from a Scorpion Deathlock to an Indian Deathlock to a Sleeper in one fluent motion in about three seconds and that's just a random example from an early mat exchange. The finishing stretch has some amazing stuff, like Yamamoto using Cena's Giant Swing counter we lost our shit for about 4 years earlier and just an awesome sense of struggle with Otsuka going for badass throws and Yamamoto trying to counter with any way he can. It's also really cool how Otsuka makes even pro style moves like Piledrivers and even a Frankensteiner seem more legit wi…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

So, this is for the title. One of the two. Not sure which one. Jeff Hardy is over like hell. Edge is the champ. Pretty good starting sequence, despite neither being particulary smooth. Interesting bit of booking here as Edge loses immediately in a small package spot. Another proof we need more of this as opposed to kicking out of finishers. More on that later. The guys in the pods grinning at Edge losing was a nice touch. Kozlov. Whatever happened to this guy ? He definitely had potential in a Goldbergian way. Looks green but also menacing. Good beating up sequence on Hardy, who's being thrown around like a rag doll. More beating up incoming with the Big Show. Aga…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

*aired 02/27/09 Boy is this a hidden gem of a match. My first thought is why the hell was The Big Show not booked like this his entire WWE career? This match was laid out to make him look like an unstoppable monster with Cena bumping all over the place and having his trademark offense practically no-sold (in a good way). If this was the first Big Show match you saw you'd think he was a guy who won 95% of his matches in dominant fashion. Cena's selling is fantastic. I love how he works so hard for each comeback attempt only to be cruelly cut off at some point. He does get slightly cocky with that grin once he gets Big Show down for the 5 knuckle shuffle, but that's…

Talk about it here.