August 2011

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

I acquired a bunch of 2011 puro shows in HD, including several from that year's G1, and decided to throw this on today because I felt like watching this match and Nakamura vs. Suzuki. This match is SO GOOD. They go about 15 minutes, they build to a suitably big finish for the final night of the G1, Tenzan takes an absolutely UNGODLY bump on a neckbreaker out of the corner and they throw some big old bombs towards the finish, with the finish itself being pretty nasty. Tenzan was still that dude in 2011, it's a shame his role lessened pretty quickly after this, but his G1 in 2011 was wonderful and this was a tremendous end to it. My pick for the best match of the entire tou…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This is a very good & nice midcard match. Barrett isn't exactly a highlight reel when working on top, but his work is definitely very solid, and Bryan's crafty babyface performance is just all kinds of awesome. My favorite bits were him chopping Barrett down w/ them leg kicks in one his comebacks, and then him countering Wade's first Wasteland attempt w/ those repeated elbow strikes, getting the Guillotine in & then transitioning that into the LeBell Lock. That's some pretty great stuff there. Felt like the match got better as it went on too; like I said, this was a real strong midcard contest, in which both guys looked really good, and in Bryan's case, great. ***…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Nothing groundbreaking here, a very solid traditional heavyweight tag match. I dislike Goto and don't care much for Kea but Saito and Makabe were good enough to keep them from doing anything stupid, and having this be a ten minute match instead of an epic in which Kea's and Goto's performances have often choked helped things, doesn't take a magician to do some nice brawling for a bit before going home. Kea's quasi-Tornado DDT is probably the single counter spot I've fallen for the biggest number of times since I always forget it's a thing he does and don't watch his stuff often. It looks good every time I watch him, maybe it would wear off if I ever binge watched 2005 All…

This really puts into perspective how bad the workrate tag matches New Japan puts out these days are. It helps that an 8 man tag is a very good format for this type of match but there's no way you'd see Ricochet pull out a performance like Ricky Marvin did here-his rope tricks were breathtaking and his dives a thing of beauty. It's not that the match was just flip-flops-there was plenty of striking and kicking (Tiger Mask IV remininding you he worked Battlarts once was nice) and combining them with the flips makes for a much better match, as did it occasionally slowing it down (it's still a junior workrate match, it's not like they worked a hold for two minutes, but that …

A lackluster heavyweight spotfest. Yujiro Takahashi was the worst performer here, using a turnbuckle powerbomb as a throwaway move and being responsible for most of the miscommunication. Taniguchi did some cool slams but no one else seemed to care much here. Never had much use for Manabu Soya, he might be an even duller Sekimoto than the actual one. **

I imagine Taichi would be universally loved if he worked 1973 WWWF since all he does is stall and cheat. The opening was fun and Suzuki's willingness to stooge was crucial to it. Mathc lost steam in the middle with the Liger in peril section, attacking the mask might get heat but it's boring and somewhat pointless when it goes for a while as you understand they're pretending to try to take it off instead of actually trying to take it off. Finish was fun with the face team clearing the ring with lots of doulbe/triple team moves and the Funaki-Aoki finish was more dramatic than I'd expected as they set up the nearfalls very well and I bought into them. Aoki's frog splash lo…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.