November 2011

First fall ruled, Santo hit many of his beautiful highspots and Solitario did a great job stooging for him. Whenever Santo interacts with the crowd it's the kind of special words can't do justice. Second fall was meh, Solitario wasn't very interesting in control, his strikes were OK and he hit a nice spin kick but outside of him bloodying up Santo nothing memorable happened. Third fall was also great as the bloody Santo ran over Solitario, beating on him with vicious punches and knees and hitting him with great dives. I wanted something more compact, and I'm in no rush to watch more Solitario, but it was still good for what it was. ***-***1/4

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Sawa's final match in BattlARTS and a good showing from both guys, especially Suruga, who is usually solid but never blows me away. Sawa did some neat stuff on the mat early on, pissing Suruga off, who starts laying into him with kicks on the ground. Really stiff strikes from Suruga and some nice snug elbows from Sawa. Sawa will eat these strikes and just grin at the crowd -- it's really something. On the ground, Suruga focuses on the arm but then he'll throw a tiger suplex. Exhaustion plays into the finish as they're both lobbing tired shots. Sawa hits all his signatures toward the end and finishes off Suruga with the octopus hold to send the fans home happy. Really good…

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Uploaded to Universe last week. This match is weird, everything involving Kanemoto vs. HARASHIMA is great and absolutely everything else sucks. I've seen both Omega and Tanaka in matches I like but they're just really boring here. And since it's a tag match building up to an Omega All Japan junior defense against Tanaka, the body of the match is focused on them. Really brings down Kanemoto and HARASHIMA's performances, which is mostly what I wanted to write about here. They have great chemistry with each other, and you can tell even from the handshakes. Koji ignores Omega, and then goes to shake HARASHIMA's hand but Hara snubs him! Thought that was great. When they'r…

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World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry vs Daniel Bryan - Smackdown 11/11/11 Daniel Bryan has a couple "hunnies" (AJ & Kaitlyn as Booker T would say) fawning over him. Booker T also insinuates that Daniel Bryan does not look like he has ever had a girlfriend. What!??! Michael Cole was still doing the heel gimmick this late, which I don't remember. Bryan bows up to Mark and slaps his hand out of his face. He even gives him some backsass. Mark Henry says he has guts just a shame he is going to spill all those guts over the ring tonight. Oh Hell Yeah! Michael Cole says Daniel Bryan is a hypocrite for almost cashing in last week since Bryan stated he was waiting for Man…

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A month before KENTA has beaten Sugiura in a grueling, thirty minute match to become the #1 contender for the GHC Heavyweight Championship. You can see that tensions are still high even before the match, as their postures and facial expressions tell you they're ready to duke it out, and boy do they ever. This match is kind of like the world's most awesome Pancrase sprint, as they just go out there and slap the hell out of each other, but they don't just exchange strikes by doing the "I strike you-you strike me" spot for two minutes before going to a finish, they bust out combinations, duck, block and counter. KENTA stops for a moment before the Go 2 Sleep, and it's uncert…

TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Roode vs AJ Styles - TNA Turning Point 2011 When I used to watch TNA, I did not think Roode was a particularly interesting pro wrestling and hey what do you know he was not in this match! I actually remember the angle he did when he bashed Storm with the beer bottle to win the title. Strong angle. AJ Styles is out for revenge against Roode on Storm's behalf. Good booking, giving Roode a credible series of victories of a very established babyface before going into the blood feud with James Storm. AJ Styles gave a typically excellent performance in this match, but it was not carry it over the hump. Roode reminds me a lot of HHH. …

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World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry vs Big Show - Survivor Series 2011 Big Show took down Mark Henry via a waistlock and then armdragged him. He armdragged Mark Henry. That was something else. Just basic spots are eye-popping when these two do it. The body of the match is very similar to Vengeance. I don't feel like they really broke new ground with Henry targeting the leg. It felt a lot more sluggish too. Henry hits his slam and a pair of splashes. The match gets better once Henry drives Big Show through the barricade. Again this pales in comparison to the Sheamus spot. Big Show makes it back to the ring and delivers a superkick. Without a doubt, the spot of the ma…

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Fantastic match. Finlay didn't come to Japan to play games, he came in to beat the shit out of StarBuck, and that's exactly what he did. Finlay was awesome working the heat on 'Buck, and I loved StarBuck's comeback - those punches of his are so, so, so good. Finlay got the control back very quickly by starting to work over the champs leg, which I thought StarBuck sold pretty well, could've been better, but he did fine. Finlay pretty much controlled the rest of the match, with StarBuck busting out some hope spots - but every time he did that, Finlay got something to counter them. The post-match moment with Finlay offering to shake hands with StarBuck, only for him to headb…