February 2012

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AJPW Triple Crown Champion Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori - AJPW 2/3/12 I will give the Korakuen credit it is still rocking after all these years! Akiyama is probably the best offensive wrestler in the world this decade with the exception of maybe AJ Styles. There is no one I rather see on offense or in a bomb throwing war than Akiyama this decade. The best use of Omori is to have do as little as possible in my opinion. I feel like the first twenty minutes used him perfectly. He threw himself hard into his bumps especially the that dive from the apron into the railing. That was wicked! Akiyama just killed it working the arm. Some of the nastiest armbars ever, throwing the…

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This has a "before they were stars" feel and would be a great inclusion on a Shield DVD retrospective if people still watched DVDs. As it is, it's a nifty look at these three before they joined the Shield, and when Reigns -- known as Leakee here -- was still quite green. He's quite a bit leaner here and busts out a kip-up and a leapfrog. Most of this is standard WWE triple threat fare with a nice feat of strength by Reigns at the end on a double Samoan drop, but I enjoyed it for the historical value. Check out my full review, which is Day 36 in my 365 Wrestling project.

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Don't worry, I am not going to make everyone watch this match. AJ Styles vs Kazarian - TNA Against All Odds 2012 It is my least favorite storyline, wrestler A forces wrestler B to wrestle wrestler C against his will. Why should Kaz be reluctant to wrestle AJ? The objective of wrestling is not to hurt your opponent just pin or submit him. If you respect someone, just wrestle a clean match. It is the stupidest storyline in wrestling. Lets try to get past that. Oh by the way, Daniels is back from his pathetic exit at Bound for Glory and he is forcing Kaz to wrestle AJ because he has something on him. Eventually Kaz just joins him outright and this becomes the Claire…

TNA X-Division Champion Austin Aries vs Alex Shelley - TNA Against All Odds 2012 A shockingly basic match between the two former Generation Next. Basic means I liked this match! Nothing is overwrought. They focus on babyface/heel dynamics ok really Aries is just a great heel and Shelley is a long for the ride. I have always liked Shelley since the Paparazzi Productions with Nash but he has never done much for me in the ring and nothing has changed here. Aries seems like the brains behind this operation creating payoff spots and places for Shelley to excel. Shelley's shine is very boring compared to Aries establishing he is a dick early. I like how Aries misses the Pe…

There's a 2-seconds-long clip from this match on the DDT Judgement 2017 opening VTR (which is really lovely and worth seeing). The clip is just a very bloodied Antonio Honda trading punches with Dino. It was enough to make me curious about this match, but it sadly just wasn't online. UNTIL, last week when it was uploaded to Universe. Dino does his whole thing but past both's goofy offense (which at this point was just established as offense to the audience), nothing is really played for laughs. It must be noted that Dino is the KO-D champ at this time and all his matches ended up going super long during this reign. And they're wrestled at a very deliberate, technical…

Smash Champion Fit Finlay vs Tajiri - SMASH 2/19/12 SMASH was a short-lived promotion in the early 2010s run by Tajiri, I guess as a part of the fallout of HUSTLE closing. Finlay was fired from the WWE surrounding some sort of controversy around the National Anthem. It was one of those the heels crossed the line too far and Finlay was the producer of the segment. It was on a house show no less. It sounded to me at least like one of those things where everyone needed to loosen up and some people got worked into a shoot. The silver lining of course is that we got Finlay back out wrestling and got this gem of a match. Finlay is defending the Championship and the o…

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Jericho & Kingston have the sunken chest. Ziggler has already been World champ, which means it meant zilch at this point (pun intended). CM Punk coming out to Cult of Personnality only makes him stand out so much more in the middle of all these awful generic themes (except for Kingston, which is awful but also "ethnic", you see). Kingston and him have a very good, quite hot first sequence; Kofi not only assume the Rey Jr. role of acrobatic underdog but also bumps his ass off on the gimmick. Ziggler is next and he's quite the heel at this point. Looks to have potential still. He also, as a show-off I guess, really wants to bump as much as possible on the steel …

This is an odd one. Likewise CM Punk and Living Colour, Bryan coming out to the remix of Walkyries makes him stand out so much, whereas Barrett & Rhodes, already looking cookie cutter, have those awful generic, same sounding metal stuff. The WWE really lost the plot with music themes in the 00's. Apparently, this is all about Big Show (who looks great) vs Bryan. So, Wade starting gets no reaction at all, although his work actually looks solid as all hell. So they have a match with Show, which could be a TV match for all it matters. Solid, looks good, but no heat. To insure even less heat, let's get Cody Rhodes in the mix. He's like a Stromtrooper : he's bland,…

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Terrific brawling and tons of blood. I don't think it had even one dull moment. Really dug the story of aging vets trying to survive the onslaught of the younger guys and fight fire with fire. **** 1/2