July 2015

Other Deep Dive stuff Link to match since it's very based Was dreading this but then realised that this was still around the time that Minoru was actually having good matches (when he gave a shit, anyway) The theme of this event was "Suzuki-Gun vs NOAH" (every singles match was a NOAH native vs one of the members) and the main follows the same as the plucky vet steps up to the invading NOAH champion. This was about the only year left where Suzuki was at least tolerable, even if this title run was WAY too long and actively buried half the roster in the process. In effect, it's the title reign that probably added to that impending burnout Suzuki would get aft…

TNA World Tag Team Champions Bobby Roode & Austin Aries vs The Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) - TNA Impact 7/1/15 30 minute Ironman First 15 minutes: No Falls to start. All the action is tight and good, but not really much happened. I cant even say oh they threw a ton of highspots. They just worked solid but not much was advanced in terms of the plot. I liked all the arm wringers. Roode stood out to me as the best verbal seller of the bunch and exhibiting the most struggle. Good stuff selling the arm wringer and an Indian Deathlock. I liked all the eyepokes and eyerakes by the Dirty Heels. The shine was not super strong but it was there. Aries deep, …

I had seen a little bit of their feud when Myzteziz was Mistico and prior to his WWE Sin Cara run. I won't lie that I've become quite fond of Averno as a rudo over the years. I can't quite put my finger on why, I guess just his general body of work overall. Chessman acts as Averno's second in this one while Myzteziz's brother, Argenis does the same for him. Overall, I really like the match as it has a nice flow with it - although I seem to stumble upon matches where masks are trying to get ripped off lately. In any event, my only complaint about this one would be that Argenis looks so weak, constantly whining about Chessman interfering rather than just neutralizing him at…

Talk about it here.

More fuel for the Hojo hype-train as she defends her title against former roster member now Chigusa protege Iroha. I actually had high expectations for this as Iroha had a shockingly great title match with Io Shirai last year. Although I was expecting this to more of a highspot/suplex affair, they actually keep it on the mat for most of the match. Iroha focuses on Hojo's back including using a nasty Canadian Backbreaker. Kairi gets her revenge later busting out an equally nasty cross-armed Regal Stretch. Breaking up the matwork are these Hashimoto/Tenryu level chop exchanges that make you question how the hell does a 100 lbs woman hit that hard. The finish is great too, a…

IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles vs Kazuchika Okada - Dominion 7.5.15 Okada is by far my least favorite of the New Japan performer. He is just a very dry, emotionless performer that relies on his spots and entrance to stay over. I really dig the entrance, but I wish there was more to him once he stepped in the ring. I do really enjoy his use of the dropkick as his ultimate counterwrestling weapon. I thought his selling was better here at times, but still he had a tendency to drop it or just not fight back enough. I thought AJ's worst main event singles performances last year were against Okada. Nothing has changed as this was my least favorite AJ match of the year,…

Man this was awesome. Shibata is someone I love in the right setting and roll my eyes at when he indulges his New Japan main event side, but this was was almost exclusively what I like about him condensed into thirteen minutes. Sakuraba is in his mid-40s and looks it, graying at the sides, his scraggly facial hair and his J League superfan ring gear. Shibata kicks lumps out of him and there's a great bit where he's doing his running corner dropkicks as Sakuraba just lays hunched up like a man who's forgotten why he's still doing this. He can't strike with Shibata, he'll lose that battle every day, so he has to dig into his bag and use everything that made him the Gracie H…

Hikaru Shida is someone who gets a lot of hype in joshi circles but I've never really been sold on her. She has a similar problem to Nikki Bella in that she does a lot of things well but just can't seem to consistently put it all together. She does manage to do that here though, and it's the best performance of her career. Her offense is focused on Nakajima's back, starting out with Boston Crabs and Camel Clutches that lead to her breaking out some Rodrick Strong style backbreakers, topping off with a nasty spot of her putting Arisa on her shoulders then dropping her back first on the top turnbuckle. Nakajima complements this with some absolutely fantastic selling. Once S…

This was a much different match than any of the Honda matches I've seen so far. It was a lot to take in. At it's core it's a face vs heel match-but there's just so much going on it's much more than that. Sato put on a really good heel performance, and Honda excelled in this role as well. In the first minute Sato managed to throw Honda outside, pull his hair and drop him suspiciously low on a reverse atomic drop. From then on all hell brooke loose-as Sato had wrestlefriends and even a fan help him beat Honda up. I love the way he viciously threw him onto chairs and then proceeded to throw more chairs at him. But what's really great about this is that these two understood t…

Short and to the point Mura squash, but quite enjoyable. Ashino will become a decently awesome talent, but at this point he's a generic Muto-trainee with not much else to give. Mura beats him down on the outside and inside. He walks with a violent swagger as he kicks and beats down both his opponent and the ref for good measure. Ashino lands generic forearms to the chest, Mura does his crazy face and hits him with a stiff slap to knock him down into shape. Him going for multiple pins, letting them go, clapping with the audience as they try to motivate Ashino's comeback, it's all peak dickhead antics. Ashino inevitably makes his comeback after Mura goes for a overtly …

NXT TV July 15th 2015 - Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte - NXT Women's Title By my count, this is only the second time that the women had the main event spot on NXT TV. The first was also Sasha vs. Charlotte, from March, which was also great but I lost my notes for that one. Story of my life. Anyway this was the fucking BUSINESS. Right from the first lock up they were ON. Charlotte has a great thing where she uses the kip up to make a point. It's an exclamation point, a snappy comeback, a statement of intent. Here, it's a way for her to regain dominance after Sasha won the first lock up - Charlotte immediately started showing off and kipping up, just to get some power …

Akito's great DDT extreme title run comes to an end against Honda. Honda has the drip. He's not a workrate guy or anything but sometimes everything clicks for him on a mostly serious match. This is a "fall to the hell" match, where there are no ropes and you lose by falling out of the ring. It bothered me that there are pinfall attempts, which were never gonna be the finish, but everything else is good. They get so much out of this dumb stipulation. Akito works the leg, which is what you'd do in this match and also what Akito would do every match. Honda's thing is how expressive he is and the connection he has to this crowd, which means him struggling out of holds and com…

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins vs Brock Lesnar - WWE Battleground 2015 We are at a decade of Seth Rollins being a WWE Main Event act. Wild. Has to go down as one of the weaker main event acts in history. Classic issue the move set of a babyface and the personality of a heel. But in this match he wrestles as a great heel. One of my favorite archetypes that is underutilized in pro wrestling: walking tall badass babyface average chump scum ball heel. Rollins stole the World Title from Brock in “Heist of Century” at WrestleMania. I hate Money In The Bank but I will say that was the best use of it and they did create a memorable angle that has stood…

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kota Ibushi - G-1 Climax 7/20/15 So I have seen Ibushi go against two hard-hitting badasses. Lets see how he fares against the best counter-wrestler/tactician of this generation. Every NJPW fan and their brother could tell you what would happen in this match with Tanahashi targeting the knee, but predictable is not always bad as this match is fantastic and is currently my NJPW match of the year. Now relying on leg work in 2015 against a high flyer is always a risky proposition and yes the main flaw of this match is Ibushi continuing to wrestle his high flying style after extensive leg work. I felt like he did sell enough and Tanahashi kept going b…

AJ Styles vs Kota Ibushi - G-1 Climax 7/26/15 Kayfabe-wise, this is a match between the #4 and #5 wrestler on the New Japan roster. What separates AJ right now from the rest of the pack is that he is able to beat two of the big three for the IWGP Championship. However, he is more prone than the rest of the Big Three to lose to upper midcard wrestlers like Ibushi and Naito. I like that booking of AJ. He has big credible wins over Tanahashi and Okada, but he is still susceptible to being upset. Ibushi had HUGE showings against Nakamura, Styles and Tanahashi on big stages, but the big victory always eluded him until this night. Not only was this a HUGE victory for Ibushi…

This was a really great follow-up to the previous month's match. Survival alone will not be good enough; Hojo needs a win to prove herself after barely surviving the last time these to met. Even against a dangerous and vastly more experienced opponent, Hojo tries to wrestle like an ace, going toe-to-toe with Satomura. Notwithstanding a bad right arm that's been her Achilles' heel since winning the title, Hojo gives it her all and, at one point, is a single flying elbow away from successfully defending the Red Belt. But Satomura is like a force of nature. Hojo tries to weather the storm, but Satomura beats her down until she can't kick out anymore. Hojo put on a …

Considering the amount of attention that the Diva's Revolution got at the start, I'm pretty surprised that this match got passed by without much attention. It gets off to an intense start as they lock up and manage to keep it going for awhile, eventually going to the floor. The main part of the match is after the commercial break with Sasha working over Paige. It's not at the level of the Takeover special but Sasha does a terrific job of making Paige earn her comebacks. Paige's selling wonderful here as she puts over Sasha's work and really throws everything into her offensive spurts. The finish seems simple but it works as it rewards the Sasha's strategy during the body …

Cage vs The Mack - Lucha Underground 7/29/15 Falls Count Anywhere Never seen or heard of the Mack before, but this got high marks on Cagematch & I wanted to see more Brian Cage. This is part one of the first Season Finale of Lucha Underground. Awesome brawl that is very entertaining. Matt Striker is terrible and Vampiro is useless. What makes this match is fun is that almost all fun babyface spots. Like Mack spearing Cage through a door, a massive powerbomb off the top rope through a table on the floor and the peak babyface awesome spot, Mack cracking up a couple beers, KICK WHAM STUNNER, TALK SOME STONE COLD TRASH! The crowd and I both popped huge for that! Stri…

Katsuyori Shibata vs Kota Ibushi - NJPW G-1 Climax 7/29/15 HOLY SHIT! DAT SLAP! WOW! That was wicked. I really enjoyed this for what it was your stiff, strike-heavy modern New Japan sprint. Kota Ibushi needs as many of these as he can get. He really ought to have won this match, but that's neither here nor there. This was the inverse of the Nakamura match, I really enjoyed the beginning, but then it devolved into a slap-happy, move-trading spotfest. That's enjoyable, but just not the best. I really liked Shibata kicking Ibushi's ass in the beginning. Ibushi is best coming from underneath. Shibata went for the penalty kick early and Ibushi avoided. He tries something c…

Main Event 29th July 2015 - Becky Lynch vs. Brie Bella This is Becky Lynch's first singles match on the main roster, albeit on a C show. She didn't take long to start making history, because I feel like this is clearly, at least through 2015, the best match Brie Bella ever had. There is an AMAZING moment early where the bloke on PBP is putting over Becky's performance at Takeover Unstoppable and Jerry Lawler, with a completely straight face, goes, "Yeah, that was awesome!" There is a 100% chance that he had NO FUCKING IDEA ON EARTH what he was talking about. Anyway, this match was Actually Good. Becky shines early going for arm holds, working the arm, and s…