February 2016

Everything you would expect from this match on paper. A pair of violent old fuckers beating the piss out of a spunky kind while Kanemura nods off in the corner. Kurisu has gotten older, fatter and less agile, however you don't watch Kurisu for his athleticism, you watch him for his uncalled crowbarism, and that is still here. He stomps HASEGAWA in places you aren't supposed to stomp, guys and hits some nasty looking headbutts right to the temple and point of the jaw. Fujiwara enjoys brutalizing the kid on the mat some and really twists at his limbs. Kanemura gets some offense in, but he really isn't trying hard. A little one sided to be a real MOTY contender, but man did …

After watching years of bad US indy wrestling and the Pentagon/Fenix match from Oudou I've really grown to appreciate how smoothly CMLL guys set up their highspots with their bumping. And they do have incredible highspots-Lee does one of the best Suicide Dives ever here, just crushing Tiger and slamming him onto the barricade. Also really liked the early matwork, Dragon Lee has showed he can hang with guys like Virus and Negro Casas when they take it there, he should be fine in 10-15 years when he won't be able to do as much as he does now. In the mean time we can enjoy him nearly killing himself on a Dropkick. This had a badass pinning sequence, you're used to seeing the…

This is a tag match were the woman that gets the winning fall becomes the number one contender to Sonoko Kato's OZ singles title. With that stipulation, one would assume that this match would probably turn into a messy but that doesn't happen here. Actually, all four women incorporate the stip into the story of the match. There are some of the typical 'feuding partners' moments, but they don't overwhelm the action. Everyone here turns in a really good performance allowing the match to be much better than expected. ***3/4

This is a typical, but fun, 'Big vs. Small' match. Io works it as a mix of '90 Manami Toyota and '00 Rey Mysterio, she use a lot of her big high-spots for offense but also does a lot of juking to keep her bigger opponent off balance. Like the tag title match from the previous show, Viper's offense looks squishy again with Io doing some big bumping and selling to really put it over. Nothing too special about this match, but still highly entertaining. ***1/2

Match Link Since this is a High Speed title match, these two get off to a quick start with a series of awesome looking exchanges. Evie eventual gets control and starts to work over Iwatani's back, which leads to some great selling from Mayu. When she gets back on offense she hits a double stomp to Evie's back, but can't follow up because she's selling the landing of the move. The finishing run has some pretty good kick exchanges. Evie's running croner kicks looked great and Iwatani caps it off with a nasty buzzsaw kick to setup her dragon suplex for the win. Could have gone a bit longer but this was the first of 3 title matches on this show so it's no surprise this wa…

Match Link This is Santana first defense of the 'White Belt' (wow that's weird to write) in Japan since she won it from Io Shirai late last year. Starts off with a catty strike exchange which leads to Hojo hitting a spear on Garrett. Santana uses a really good transition to get back in control and starts working over Hojo arm. The lead up to the finish has some great back-and-forth with probably the best setup to the usually contrived looking corner doublestomp. The finish itself was weak because they reuse the same finish, a rolling sunset flip, that Santana used to beat Io. Still, a fairly entertaining match despite the finish. ***1/2

Another very good in their feud, the two of three falls structure works perfectly to give more freshness to the matchup, since this was the 4th match in two months. Alberto goes quickly to the arm of Kalisto and attacks it with viciousness. He really nails the acting of an abusive heel, he manhandles him, and tries to rip his mask off. The champion, however, proves to be quicker and gets ahead with all his rapid movements, giving good use to his mexican heritage and pulling some neat spots off. Alberto, now being in danger, makes the best move he could make, steals a page from Rick Rude's book and disqualifies himself, with the purpose of further damaging Kalisto. This al…

LOVED THIS. So much great stuff in this one. Early on MiSu goes for a fake clean break and just as he is about to chest slap Nakajima he reverses the position and clean breaks Suzuki. That really set the tone for this match of Nakajima being too old for Suzuki's shit. Suzuki selling Nakajima as a threat by recuperating fit perfectly into this and him fixing his hair was awesome. I've come to really dislike Suzuki's Rope Hung Armbar because of its contrived set up but luckily here the set up was modified and it came off much better. Nakajima continuing to hit Suzuki with his injured arm even when it was obvious it was causing almost no damage and actually hurting him more …

For some reason I am not surprised the pimped (well, at least nerd-wrestling twitter-pimped, which is still a niche, but it's something at least) american indy claiming to preserve the grappling style does a pretty questionable (read: shit) job of actually doing so while a japanese indy no one talks about seems to be doing just that. This was really good. Sato is way better at working U-STYLE than he is at randomly grabbing chinlocks and headlocks. I like the guy but you can't hide he barely gives a shis sometimes. This played to his strengths and Honda put on a great performance as well-you wan't a guy named Honda to wrestle like Tamon Honda AND HE DOES!!! His offenc…

Solid submission work throughout, with a great payoff in the end. Tonai is so smooth in his counter work and the way he maintains control of the arm. There's a nice big nearfall after they go back and forth with the submission attempts and Mogami is able to pin Tonai's shoulders to the mat. The crowd was invested, the matwork technically as sound as it gets. Really good match.

Actually a fairly solid match given the conditions. Jay is a Young Lion here, so he's restricted to what he can and can't get away with: Young Lions are kept to a fairly basic move set and not really allowed to do much of anything else, even if Jay could (and had) done a lot more. That being said, Jay's still able to show that his fundamentals are very much solid. We see this with a strong starting pace as Ogawa and him exchange smooth technical work as they both battle for control. This bit is done really well as both men manage to balance coordination as they flow between White using his athleticism to take Ogawa down, as well as the latter's experience to eventually ta…

Tim Evans picked this match for me as part of the Secret Santo project. I haven't really seen any post-WWE Rey, nor have I seen any non-80s Puerto Rico, so this should be interesting. I'm guessing this match won't feature any pig blood. I did some research beforehand, and it seems that Hammett is the WWC Universal Heavyweight Champion going in, but the match is non-title. We start out with some basic lucha-infused matwork and a fair amount of stalling and playing to the crowd. Interestingly, the crowd is solidly behind Rey. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, but I thought that the Mexico-Puerto Rico rivalry might come into play. I guess not. Anyway, Hammett gets ca…

Neat match that was really made by the surprisingly good selling. Irie has some good power spots, and him punching through HARASHIMA's guard and annihilating him with THE POUNCE sounds great in a vacuum but the way HARASHIMA just throws himself with crazy bumps really adds to them. They do some crowd brawling early on but they throw good strikes and it is more them slamming each other into the barricade and the apron then one wrestler "dragging" the other halfway across the arena to get him back into the ring which looks more like they're holding hands than actual dragging. HARASHIMA responds to Irie's power offence wih vicious knee strikes and stomps. Finishing stretch i…

I'm torn on Endo, I really liked how he sold bodyslamming Ishikawa early on and he generally did a good job of selling his stuff but too much of his offence required elaborate set-ups which would just completely take me out of the match. Ishikawa relies too much on the spot where his opponent slips from the Fire Thunder Driver as a transition. My favourite thing here was probably Ishikawa grabbing Endo by the throat and slamming him into the corner, I hope he does that in other matches as well. **3/4

These four wrestlers are in my ballot. Certainly the best Negro Casas match from this year. Solar and Blue Panther are old and they are past their prime but they can still deliver the goods on the mat. Just don't ask them to go on the third rope. The best part of the match are the interactions between Casas and Terry.