June 2015

KUSHIDA vs Kyle O'Reilly - NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Final 6/7/2015 Kyle O'Reilly first appeared on my radar when I was reviewing AJ Styles stellar 2014 campaign in 2015. I saw their ROH match and he made an immediate impression. There has been so much going on I don't actively seek his stuff out when I do see him live or on NXT l'll pay extra close attention because he wrestles that hybrid-shoot style I love. KUSHIDA is someone I have seen live I feel like twice I know I saw him at ROH's War of the Worlds in 2014, but cant think of the other time. This should be a great striker/grappler vs speedster match but don't sleep on KUSHIDA's mat prowess. The open…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s20uk0Fnflk&feature=youtu.be&t=1h24m24s This took a bit to get rolling, but man by then end it was pretty awesome. Cobb is a beast in this, he is one of the strongest wrestlers in the world, and he was chucking around a pretty big dude. Kaimana got stiffer and stiffer as the match went along and by the end he is just rearranging Cobbs dental work with elbows. He also throws this weird uranage with Cobbs legs hanging on the top rope. Premier is one of my favorite promotions in the world, they just deliver hard hitting nasty wrestling matches like this again and again.

They work a 30 minute draw that never drags. While Satomura is terrific, it's Hojo's performance that really makes the match. Early on in the match, Hojo quickly establishes that she not afraid of going toe-to-toe with Meiko. She hits Satomura with a nasty backfist out of the opening collar & elbow, and breaks up a Boston Crab attempt with an even nastier slap. Of course, this doesn't always work out well for Hojo as she running into some nice submission counters and eating some really brutal looking shots. Around the halfway point though, you see Satomura start to get more aggressive. After Hojo rolls out of the ring, Meiko follows her out, drags her to the entra…

An intergender comedy match. Probably way overrating this but I thought this was a really well done match, combining really goofy comedy with classic storytelling. *** 3/4

Really fun seven minutes, felt like you could take any given 90 seconds of it and it'd be about as good a 90 second match as there's ever been. First two minutes in particular were pretty amazing with Cesaro jumping Harper with a drop kick and wailing on him with some strikes, including firing off an awesome punch combo in the corner. Harper tries to get out of dodge and Cesaro reaches out and grabs him by the filthy singlet because he doesn't want any space. The uppercut over the barricade was great and much more unco-operative looking than I'd expect it to be on paper. Back in the ring, they work pretty evenly with Harper mostly trying to nail Cesaro down, or attempting…

I remember being blown away by this match when I first watched it, but it was even better on a re-watch over a year later. Goddamn, what a match! The way the story in this progressed felt so natural - first it was a respectful grappling contest between two of the best technical wrestlers in PWG, then ZSJ starts targeting Hero's finger & Hero gets more and more pissed as the match goes on. Then it goes to the underdog formula with Hero bullying & beating the shit out of ZSJ, while ZSJ digs in deep to nail those brutal submissions, wacky pins & cool counters. This was an absolute clinic. ****3/4

I'm not used to Cesaro getting to play underneath and use hope spots in an attempt to catch out a larger opponent who'll kill his momentum with a boot to the face, so this was especially a treat. Watching Harper on top in WWE makes me wish very badly we got him in the 00s facing all of your babyface tv workhorses like Mysterio, Matt Hardy, Christian, Eddie Guerrero. It's a lot easier to buy any given cut off on a guy Cesaro's size when the opponent delivers such a nasty knee to the face to shut him down. Cesaro getting shine in at the beginning was pretty great to see too and I like how many mini-uppercuts he had in the bank to use. Unfortunately the finish stunk. Cesaro …

Austin Aries vs Davey Richards - Slammiversary 2015 "If you can jump six inches, I can jump six and one more" - The Pope, with the most hilarious gaffe this side George W. Bush. I had to pause and just let the laughing subside. Thank God, finally a TNA/Impact match with a halfway decent layout! I thought nobody in TNA/Impact knew how to construct a match but leave it to two ROH veterans to put together a very good match. I saw Aries vs Richards main event an ROH house show out in Michigan when I was in college. Even though I run lukewarm on Richards, I remember it being a banger. So I was interested to see how this match would go down. Aries is the heel y…