January 2015

Fun start in the first fall as Casas wants to start slow and play mind games with Dorada. That plan gets blown apart when Casas gets thrown to the floor with a headscissors with a quick follow up dive from Dorada. Casas quickly changes gameplans for the second fall, deciding to go right back at Dorada. He catches him on the apron with kick, throws him into the post, then hit a big running apron dive the takes the both of them to the guardrail with Casas' momentum taking him right over. Once they get back in the ring, Casas locks on a Scorpion to even things up. Third fall sees Dorada continue to go all out but Casas seem content to just try and lure him into a mistake. Pr…

AJPW Triple Crown Champion Joe Doering vs Go Shiozaki - AJPW 01/03/15 Hey if you are going to imitate, then imitate the best and there ain't much better than Hansen/Kobashi. Shiozaki is not nearly as histrionic as Kobashi and Doering is not as wild as Hansen, but together they still put together a great match. Unusual for a puroresu match, the eventual winner actually takes most of the offense in this one, but it still feels like Doering was a big mountain to climb. Early on, Go just could not get anything going with his vicious chops. Doering would just steamroll him with shoulder tackles and overwhelm him with power. Go got pissed off after one too many shoulder t…

AJ Styles vs Tetsuya Naito - Wrestle Kingdom 9 Remember what I said about Shinsuke Nakamura, I was wrong. AJ Styles is the best wrestler in the world. He never ever lets up. You really feel like he is wrestling to win a match and that's the most important thing to me. He just absolutely rocked it from the opening bell to the closing bell. Yes, the finishing sequence was not as hot as Nakamura/Ibushi and there is nothing in this match that will blow your minds, but it is just excellent pro wrestling. Right off the bat, AJ jumpstarts the match and looks for the Styles Clash not once, but twice. Immediately, he sets the tone, he is here to win and he is not fucking aroun…

I had a review written out for this and got an IPS Driver Error because of the apostrophe in Kyle O'Reilly's name. Ugh. Anyway, this was a solid match. I don't remember a ton about it, but it was fun while it lasted. They didn't really get the crowd into it very much, but I credit that more to the perils of working in a dome than I do the way they worked the match. There isn't much art to matches like this because the psychology isn't really important - they're just throwing bombs. But the bombs were well paced and hit cleanly, so I think they accomplished what they were going for just fine. Good.

This is super enjoyable. They wrestle it with a good, tight pace, we got a fun Goto FIP segment, very nice Shibata hot tag which gets cut off by Gallows in AWESOME fashion, really hot finishing stretch. Just really good stuff all around. ***3/4

It's late and I don't have a ton to say about it, but I thought this was another great match on this show. I really liked the way this built like a world title match with the slow crescendo to the string of big moves and nearfalls at the end, and once again, it didn't seem bloated or anything. I know that's not a rave review, but I'm tired.

This was pretty far from a traditional shoot-style match, although there were elements of it that were there. If you can get past that, I still think this is good. It wasn't the match I expected it to be, but it was a fun spectacle anyway. I'm guessing this is a nostalgia style at this point more than anything.

IWGP Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs Kota Ibushi - Wrestle Kingdom 9 Shinsuke Nakamura's entrance was Five Fucking Stars! Wow! Hearing Jim Ross' voice out of nowhere was wicked jarring. I forgot he and Striker did this match. It was weird they felt like they were reviewing the match as smart marks rather than as announcers. It was not too distracting, but there were times were both were grating. I may be in the minority, but I prefer Japanese commentary in Japanese matches. There is a certain rhythm the Japanese commentators have with the wrestlers that just works so well. The story of the match is one that I always dig and that is the young, prett…

The esteemed Mr. Sleeze originally wrote (because I can't actually quote the original post because I'm an idiot):

This one starts out as a fun little quick TV match, with Barrett playing the large bully to Dolph's scrappy underdog. Wade dominates until Dolph gets a lucky pin. (by the way, it's interesting how the match is showing Barrett to be dominant, while Booker T spends the whole first fall talking about how Wade has never lived up to his potential) After the match, Barrett throws a massive tantrum and beats the shit out of Dolph. Following said beating, Corporate!Kane comes out and declares the match to be 2/3 falls. Fittingly, Barrett wins the second fall in a matter of seconds. "Look at how interesting and compelling this is!" Thanks, Bradshaw. The third fall continues…

I feel like I am missing way too much stuff and that it's time for me to spread out my wrestling watching a little more so I can keep up with current wrestling. WWE is a much more pleasant viewing experience when watching the shows Vince doesn't micromanage, as here, you had inoffensive commentary and a match between two opening match guys given plenty of time. They really laid their shots in, which was what stood out to me more than anything. Titus has a really great mean streak. ***

WWE Divas Champion Nikki Bella vs Paige (WWE Main Event 01/06/15) I just knew these two had a great match in them. I was so pumped for their Fast Lane match based off Nikki's recent performances where she has just been stiffing the fuck out of everybody and playing the cocky mean heel to a tee. Bad News Barrett and Cesaro take notes. Paige vs Emma was an awesome fight and I knew Paige could hang with her. What we got at Fast Lane was a good bomb throwing sprint, but due to one egregious botch and very anti-climatic finish led me to wanting more. On the PWO-PTBN Reaction Show, Pete mentioned they got some time on Main Event. My Lord, they did not disappoint with best…

This was a solid match, but the match on Main Event was better. I wish either of them would have won two straight instead of trading wins but that's the WWE way.

This definitely exceeded expectations. Joshi is this weird style where two no-name workers can have a kickass match out of nowhere and rookie/vet matches tend to be better because of the difference in ranking, and that was the case here. Kagetsu is a butch looking rookie* in the vein of Toshiyo Yamada while Kuragaki is a powerhouse, with a cool moveset who throws these nasty Tenryu-ish "Fuck you, punk" lariats. This does a tremendous job avoiding all the usual pitfalls of joshi while building a match that gets better and better and leads to some real dramatic selling. Even the usual pesky little brawl on the outside wound up leading to a meaningful transition and set up s…

1993 RAW lives on. This was a fun TV match that would fit right in on a show at the Manhattan Center. Falla Bah makes a good fake Yokozuna and should probably be signed by WWE. Pretty agile for a guy his size. Starts at 6:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG8Ct2rJKHM

Really good match from Main Event that picked up steam the longer it went. I really enjoyed the elongated finishing stretch. I know Kofi's rep but I thought he was really good in this match, as was Xavier Woods. New Day worked the crowd really well. Kidd and Cesaro both seem like good mechanics and work well as a team but the purpose of this was to get New Day over and they did that. **1/4

On paper, this looks like a throwaway matchup since Hirota is a comedy worker. In reality though, it turns out to be a really well worked title match. The main reason for that is Sakura, as she works the match straight but finds reasonable ways to work in her comedy spots as legitimate offense without making it look ridiculous. It's pretty neat to see her get the crowd to buy into her nearfalls at the end of the match. Add in yet another really good performance from Shida and you get one of the more surprisingly good matches of 2015. ***3/4

This has a crazy pace which rarely slows down that makes this an absolute treat to watch. Everyone brought something unique to the table. Cena is the powerhouse babyface, Rollins is the sneaky high flyer who will try and steal a victory and Lesnar is the video game end boss. Lesnar and Cena are great as always, but I thought this was breakout performance for Rollins. He uses his insane atheism to make this mostly hoss fight stand out. He successfully pulls off that counter to the AA that made CM Punk fall on his arse on MITB 2011 and I think he hits the first ever phoenix splash in a WWE ring. The match loses some steam after Lesnar is taken out by the sick announce tabl…