June 2013

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Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrell - TNA Slammiversary 2013 Last Woman Standing A while ago, Soup (aka Chad) asked on Twitter the best match you have seen live and the correct answer for me is this match! I had stopped watching TNA for a good year or two and the only reason I went to this show because I really wanted to see AJ Styles wrestle live. This match easily stole the show. I went in with zero expectation and by the end I was going absolutely bonkers! Over seven years later, I still remember every major highspot. That Gail Kim charge into the steel chair was GNARLY! Not to be outdone Taryn just HURLS herself and eats a belly flop on the ramp way. The single leg pick up…

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I like these under 20 minute “modern strong style” match-ups. It feels compact and vicious, without dragging out into overkill territory. This was big boss golem Okabayashi doing a damn fine job of trying to keep the feisty Kawakami down, clubbing, chopping and lariating him silly. Whenever Kawakami gets a whiff of retaliation, Okabayashi cuts him off. The finishing stretch to this thing is outright nasty, with Okabayashi paintbrushing Kawakami with slaps and Kawakami firing back with rapid-fire elbows and a big rolling elbow. He hits a couple of Germans and a brutal half nelson suplex but Okabayashi will not die -- so Kawakami unleashes the Scarlet Flowsion~! to put the …

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This is a "Hammer above the ring Ladder match". It didn't suck! It actually made about as much sense as a TNA could. Hardy gets some nice shine early on before Bully Ray cuts him off on his first ladder climbing attempt and goes after the leg. And-say what you want about Jeff at this point-but his selling was still really good here. I liked how they teased his comebacks a couple of times (he never dropped selling during them btw) only for him to get quickly cut off and how his proper comeback only came when Bully Ray played to the crowd for too long. Ray also did some botchamania worthy stuff here, preposterously jumping over a ladder to set up a spot and completely missi…

Io Shirai & Mayu Iwatani vs. Nanae Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa Thunder Rock vs. Kiss no Sekai! This was a prelude match to Io/Nanae in November so there's significant heat building between the two, they work so well together; fast and furious action with great counters and cut-offs. I love what these two do in this match. To hell with Satomura, Nanae is Io's greatest opponent. Mayu is wearing her goofy pants, she's a different wrestler compared to now, less kicks and more pin-combinations. She takes a particularly nasty spot when Io is superplexed on top of her. Wakizawa was on fire! I miss her. ***3/4 Edit: Woops. Date should be 10/6/2013.

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I thought I liked Sami Callihan until I watched a sixty minute match of his. His flaws were exposed here. Spitting and swearing a lot doesn't make you a good worker. I don't want to sound too negative on this. Cole excelled at being the asshole heel, and the drama of Sami trying to get one more win so the match would go into overtime was very compelling. The commentary is great as always and the playful nature of it helped me digest the long match much easier than if they called it seriously. Some good-great stuff here, but there's so much filler and the match does drag on, I doubt I'll rewatch this any time soon. ★★★

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All the FIP segs are rock solid, and unsurprisingly the highlight of the entire match is Daniel Bryan's last hot tag, which is, once again, incredible. That Butterfly Suplex off the top rope to Rollins sure was the move of the match. They also overall tell the narrative of Reigns & Rollins being the more in-sync, experienced top-tier TEAM brilliantly while Bryan & Orton feel like two singles wrestlers thrown together. It fully shows in those moments where The Shield gets the advantage by capitalizing on the little miscommunications between Bryan & Orton -- it especially came into play in the finishing sequence, which was great stuff. I hadn't re-visited this m…

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