March 2016

My anticipation of this match significantly subsided once Casas said in an interview he was going to wrestle Volador's style of match. Casas has carried Volador plenty of times in the past but this is probably the least of their singles matches, it was sad to see Casas overreach and botch his spots which you usually never see. It was still fun, and Casas' Sunset Flip Powerbomb bump was INSANE, but I'd rather see Casas do anything else than watch him do a Cena-Owens type of match against Volador Jr. ***

I really loved the way Rush walked the line between dominance and peril here, he'd take so much of the much just kicking the shit ouf of Maximo and acting like a dick but would also become paranoid any time something that would endanger him would happen like his second being kicked out. Rush's incredible acting really carried the match, and it was amazing to see an Arena Mexico crowd react they *should* for once, it really added to the atmosphere and the overall experience. The finishing stretch was a little subsided compared to the dramatic finishes CMLL matches can have but I don't think anything else would have worked here and the triple kiss spot was amazing. One of m…

I really enjoyed this match. The focused armwork, attack and ring awareness by Shibata, his mounting frustration and Kojima's exhausted determination, were all compelling pieces of the narrative. There were plenty of stiff shots, too, especially Kojima's elbows. One of Kojima's best performances in awhile.

I've avoided NOAH like the plague since KENTA plague-the only time I ever think about them is when I wonder what exactly went wrong with the style. One of the theories I remember is that the AJ/NOAH guys took the style too far and nothing the new guys did could make the crowd care-but after seeing Zack Sabre Jr. get his matches hugely over in Differ Ariake I came to the conclusion the newer guys just have no clue how to build a match. This wasn't even the best example of that as most NOAH main events are structured worse than this one was-Sugiura vs. Shiozaki or Marufuji is just 30 minutes of repeating the same strike exchanges. Here you actually have something resembling…

This didn't reach the heights of their previous match, as this was more of a classic tag than a chaotic brawl, but was still pretty good. I really liked La Revolucion's work here, they found smart ways to distract the ref and utilize the blind tag to their advantage and had a lot of neat cut offs like good looking big boots, stomps or just pulling by the taping. Mendoza and Cuervo remind me of The Hardys-in that they seem to have the basics down, sell well, know how to fire up and make the crowd buy into them, but also opt to do jumping around, and while I really could live without ever seeing a sub-CM Punk Go 2 Sleep ever again it's mostly inoffensive, maybe due to how r…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHsSgSI6640 Great match, Riddle can be a pretty good cocky jerk, but this was Riddle as a babyface fighting a bully and he is awesome at it. Hero is amazing as a bully, and really smacked around Riddle with big elbows and kicks. Hero working over Riddles foot was super nasty, attacking Riddle's feet are getting to be like attacking Kobashi's knees during the NOAH days, but Hero had some of the cooler attacks on Riddle's foot. He really twisted and turned the muscles and bones and I don't see how Riddle wasn't cramping up in the morning. Riddle is great at desperately fighting back, and his submission ability means he is never out of …

Very good match that would've been great if Kodaka wasn't such a clown. His ringpost figure 4 botch was embarrassing and any time he was going after HARASHIMA's leg he had no idea what kid of hold he wanted to use, to the point HARASHIMA had to cover for him and counter it because it was so bad. Still HARASHIMA is a total badass, he rocks Isami with deadly kicks, knees, double stomps etc. and is the only ace in contemporary puro that knows to properly carry himself as such. I love his Suimengiri and he always does a great job of organically teasing, building to and using his bigger moves without making the set up obvious. It can be quite hard to nail the selling required …

One of the more entertaining tag matches I've seen this year, with some smart work by Sasaki, and some really good exchanges between Ishikawa and Takeshita, planting the seeds in my mind for a future slobberknocker between the two. Takeshita looked really strong in this, despite giving up the submission in dramatic fashion. Endo is kind of the low-end guy in this, who gets in a couple of glitzy spots, but he made good fodder for Sasaki's early submission work, and I liked Ishikawa's Fire Thunder Driver counter to Endo's pele kick. Nothing super high end but a lot of fun.

After a heated rivalry last year, Satomura and Hojo come together to challenge the current tag champs, Thunder Rock. The opening part of this match quick establishes the difference between the two teams. While on paper Satomura and Hojo present a strong challenge, it becomes clear in the early going that they lack the true teamwork of the champs. When they are on the same page though, they are able to chain together some pretty nasty combos. Still, Thunder Rock's ability to keep watch of each other and be able to work together naturally is what ultimately gives them the edge in the end. This match doesn't reach the levels that it potential could have but it still managed …

Fun quasi-hoss match, I loved Rusev's knee counter to Big E's Spear through the ropes and they did a nice job of incorporating the stable brawling into the match but I can't shake the feeling these guys are either too athletic for their own good or too short for the roles they're cast in. Rusev doing Spinning Heel Kicks just doesn't seem right. **3/4

I come into all matches wanting to like them and there probably isn't a promotion that makes that harder than AAA. This has a really promising start, both guys do great blade job and there's mask ripping, a lot of garbage spots I liked....yet. It just. Doesn't grab me in any way. I actually think a lot of modern CMLL matches do a good job of incorporating bullshit (i.e. distraction spots, seconds getting involved etc.) into them but here it does nothing except ruin the flow of the match and I don't really care about Wagner and Psycho Clown when they're doing anything other than hitting each other with chairs and ripping each other's mask. A lot of stuff looked awkward and…

This is a rematch from Takeover: London plus Asuka's last match leading up to her title match vs. Bayley at Takeover: Dallas. The opening part of this match quickly reestablishes the Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam rivalry between the two with Emma trying to outsmart Asuka but the reverse ends up happening. Emma does eventually gain control and starts to work over Asuka with a variety of holds. Unfortunately, this does take some steam out of the match as Emma doesn't really mix in anything flashy to get a reaction out of the crowd. They do pick it up for the finish though with Emma actually hanging in there with Asuka during a strike exchange, but she ends up costing herself the …

Pro Wrestling Comfort Food at its finest. This has 3-4 minutes of Lawler on the mic with Crow feeding him material to use (in the way a heel would feed a babyface's offense), about another 5-8 of shtick where they really delay each lock up to the point that it's a little joy to see what Lawler does when they happen, some fun stuff with Lawler goading Crow into repeatedly going down for the three point stance, a few minutes of heat, and then the finish. The transition is directly based off of Lawler's previous goading (and if it's not, I don't care - that's how I'm reading it). I spent about half the match smiling. Crow's reactions to Lawler are very good and it's obvious …

While this is technically a preview for the tag title match on the next show, this turns out to be pretty good in it's own right. It says a lot about Hiroyo as a tag wrestler as this is the third different partner that she has had in the last six months and she has had instant chemistry with all of them. Iwatani also turns a great selling performance as she really puts over the offense of the future challengers. Surprisingly great match from something that would usually be treated as a throwaway. ****

A 30 minute iron man match between two champions. Sasaki has the title from Chilean promotion MAX (I assume the connection there was Togo), and Takanashi has a title from Singaporean promotion SPW, from when he was doing Gatoh Move shows. The initial matwork was cool. Takanashi does the tapatia once again and Sasaki teases his finisher a couple of times. Sasaki fits really well in iron man matches, he gets a lot of time to grapple and he can also heel it up. He always ends up doing little interesting things, such as multiple pin attempts right after the first fall here or dumping Takanashi on the hallway and climbing into the ring for the count out late in the match. Taka…

It was neat to see AKINO flashback to her Arsion roots here. Her matwork is still pretty good even though it isn't quite as crisp and quick as it use to be. Syuri looked pretty damn good here. Her strikes, matwork, and selling all looked terrific. I do wish they had kept up with the matwork throughout the match as towards the end it gets scaled down in favour of big moves. Still, this is a pretty good match and a nice change of pace for OZ Academy. ***1/2

The weak finish hurt this, as Suzuki spends about 75% of the match working Sato’s arm like a full-time job, cranking, whipping, stomping, kneeing, etc., yet he seems a little too easy to put away in the end as the defending champ. Suzuki does a great job of cutting off Sato’s offensive rebuttals, and Sato sells it pretty well, eventually switching to kicks after failing to use the arm to strike. I liked Sato’s German suplex counter off the European uppercut. But it felt like they rushed through the finishing stretch. This could’ve benefited from a few more minutes and a little more danger surrounding the arm work.

This was a chance for me to see three guys I like and a white kid I've never heard of that was only here to take the fall. Unfortunately it's a JIP but somehow I don't feel particularly motivated to shill out cash for the full version of this that may be available in a few months for like, 200$. Some nice strikes and grappling and it was cool to see Ogasawara work a karate master gimmick. ***

IPW:UK is no longer as heralded on the UK indie scene as it once was, overtaken by a number of other promotions, but has always been one that I’ve enjoyed. That did mean though that over the last couple of years you get to see some different guys and girls not seen in the more high profile promotions, with them using a lot of younger and not as polished workers that come out of their training school. Writing at the end of 2017 they’ve merged with Fight! Nation to relaunch the promotion, so I’m interested to see how that goes. Tom Dawkins hasn’t appeared too many times for the more high profile companies but is starting to get more buzz thanks to his Cara Noir persona whi…

Good match, they did some bigger spots and bumps but laid the match out nicely so their effect was maximized. The bumps AJ took on the barricade and on the missed Springboard Forearm were nuts and I liked how he tried to counter Owens' Headlock by grabbing his face. Generic screwy Raw finish with the face looking stupid but what can you do. ***

Not much to comment on here, ok match, everything they did looked pretty good which is a huge improvement from what we were getting on Raw just a few months ago. Becky's Capture Suplex looks badass and I thought the Flair interference was handled well.

How many matches have these two had in the last few months? Another ok but completely forgettable match that took a backseat to the guest commentary. As much as I like the back stomp Natalya does some of her stuff looked pretty bad/sloppy here. Have to wonder what ever made anyone think she was this great worker outside of the Bret connection and that one tables match with her and Beth Phoenix vs. LayCool. I'm sure that made the Jimmy Redman 100 best matches ever list, it might be the best "divas" match ever. It's nice to see Charlotte at least try to act like a heel by using the ropes and begging off when Natalya went to Powerbomb her but she does seem more like she's pl…

So, ahem........let's talk about another two minute Raw match shall we? The idea of Jericho revenging all of his embarrassing defeats is pretty funny, lord knows how many JTGs they'd have to rehire for him to get all of his wins back. I'm totally behind his character at this point. He's my favourite comedy wrestler. Feuding with Ambrose is pretty much perfect for them both. As long as he's not up against someone who would otherwise have good matches I'm fine with him being around. Laughing at his shtick gives me much more joy than watching jobbers take most of the (supposed) squash matches against a promising black wrestler. He should win least outstanding and best gimmic…

Ryder has turned into a pretty good worker, he deserved the IC title win at Mania for his bumping here alone. Between Styles' childish insult and Jericho hitting Ryder with JBL's cowboy hat this was pretty hilarious. Fun little match, a good showcase for Ryder and something that would have been an efficient way to enrich the Styles-Jericho feud if Jericho was still good.

I kind of love Braun Strowman's gimmick of barely selling and not taking any bumps, I'd tease guys like Ziggler so much if I were him. He doesn't do anything other than basic stuff but his basic stuff looks good, I loved him throwing Ambrose around, mauling him and running over him. Of course Ambrose gets into control by lowering the top rope while the heel runs at him; my least favourite transition and Strowman having to sell for his idiotic offence after the match looked stupid. Average; weird match to end the show with.