April 2016

Negro Casas is really great at this wrestling thing eh? Everything is a struggle here, even when going for a Headscissors Hechicero has to fight a good ten to fifteen seconds for it. Casas is just so awesome, him doing character work based around fixing his hair (when he's recently lost a hair match i.e. bald) while putting on a hold is the best. I've talked about playing to the crowd while selling in that recent Rush-UG match but man Hechicero fires himself up after Casas boots him in the face here and it reminds you Ultimo Guerrero is no Hechicero. There are times where you kind of know Casas' apron seated senton is coming but I loved the way he set it up here just driv…

Ultimo Guerrero's been pretty good since losing his mask, he played to the crowd a lot here but never really dropped selling in order to do so. His highspots (which included a badass sliding dropkick that knocked Rush off the apron and a diving lariat off the ramp in which he threw himself so hard he hit a fan in the first row) ruled. Still you watch this primarily to see Rush smash Ultimo Guerrero's head onto a wall and stomp on his head. ***1/4

Fun TV match with both of these guys laying it in but lacking anything to make it stand out amongst the plethora of other decent to good TV matches. I'm liking Styles' knew additions to his move set (he apron knee, the sliding forearm etc.) and he took a sweet bump of the steel steps. As three starish as a three star match has ever been.

I have no use for Cody Rhodes when he's not Goldust's hot tag. This way OK for the "two minute match that isn't a squash" that WWE insists on doing. It had a really amazing spot where Crews was on the apron and went for the dreaded shoulder block through the ropes and Stardust hit him with an awesome swinging neckbreaker that didn't mean anything.

Good grief-Emma might be my favourite wrestler after this match. Some fun chain wrestling early on and then Emma just potatoes Natalya with an Elbow, drops her on the apron, Butterfly Suplexes her on the floor, kicks her in the head.....I mean what more can you want out of a pro wrestler? Natalya does one move and wins the match with it. Not sure this was *the best* match on Raw but it was definitely the most entertaining one for me.

Gallows is a much better fit for the WWE style than the New Japan one and Anderson might be as well. His goofy chop selling is much more fitting when chops are used as transitional spots than when Kojima is hitting him in the corner for a minute. I liked this a little more than AJ-Sheamus because control segments felt more memorable and important. Everything after the huge barricade bump was awesome, I especially loved an Uso busting out the lucha diagonal suicide dive. ***-***1/4

I remember these two having a really good match on Smackdown just before Del Rio was fired. This one probably wasn't as good as that one but it was still very fun, Del Rio looked pretty motivated here, throwing lots of good looking kicks, busting out a cool double stomp off the apron and doing a great job of selling Reigns' headbutts. I love the way they modified the set up to Reigns' Apron Dropkick, I usually dislike the spot but here it looked both violent and natural. This was a good Raw for three star TV matches.

I really liked Rusev in this one, the way he carried himself, his clubbing blows, the way he'd use his forearms early on to either choke Zayn or get out of his headlock. I don't like the idea of him doing so many kicks, the Superkick looks great but I'd rather he just threw people around even more than did Spinning Heel Kick or whatever. His Gutwrench Suplexes and Fallaway Slam looked amazing. Zayn continues to look perfectly fine but albeit not terribly impressive on the main roster. The "pull the top rope so the heel falls out of the ring" spot is probably my least favourite transition and Zayn's headlock looked bad but outside of that I thought this was a surprisingly …

Really liked the match starting with them fighting on the ramp. I'm a sucker for that. Might be all the NOAH I've watched. I liked Mephisto in this, I enjoyed him beating up Dorada and taking his mask off in the primera and him quickly cutting off Dorada's attempted comeback in the segunda. I didn't like how they transitioned into a Dorada showcase and the match went a bit too long in my opinion, Dorada has some great looking spots but this wasn't something I'm going to remember in a few weeks. ***

This was a special match. It was nice to see a chaotic brawling trio in Arena Mexico again and the crowd greeted them with insane crowd heat. There were portion in this where they would digress and just do awesome macho bullshit and it was just so cool, you get the feeling these guys would be world champions at posing. LA Park's son threw a good punch and just catapulted himself into the crowd on a dive and also choked Pierroth with camera cables so he definitely has potential. Still you are here to see LA Park and Rush go aat it and, while the match is mostly worked around teasing that pairing rather than giving it straight away when you do get them going at it it's just…

Neither of these guys are exactly my favourites but I decided to give this the benefit of the doubt. 10-15 minutes sounded like the ideal time for the type of match these two were going to work. The issue with this is that they only have a certain amount of ways to create momentum and when you're working this type of match it does become repetitive. But man they just do so much insane stuff and a match that leaves me gasping for air deserves a high rating, even if they did climb on the top rope the same way one too many times. ***3/4

They injected a little hate into this, making it feel more personal. The veterans are pissed off Liger busts out the chair, cracking it over KUSHIDA's knee. He's a great leg bully in this and KUSHIDA does a great job selling, at one point desperately clinging to the ref to escape the leglock, and then selling the tilt-a-whirl landing off the fresh tag, an easily overlooked nuance that keeps the leg work relevant. Liger and Nagata are such a fun pairing. I loved Nagata standing vigilantly like a watchdog by Liger's side as he puts KUSHIDA back in the leglock. Lots of cranked-up intensity between Nagata and Shibata. I like how Shibata so calmly avoids Nagata's apron attacks…

NXT Women's Champion Asuka vs Eva Marie - NXT 4/27/16 The first disappointing match I've seen from Asuka. Asuka is a great TV match worker working with Billie Kay, Santana Garrett and Deeana from New Jersey. All were very fun contests with Asuka giving plenty to her opponents but also kicking ass and showing her charisma. Here the beginning was solid with Asuka leading Eva Marie through the basics and Asuka showed off some of that charming playfulness that I love. At the end of the day this was too long with a few Asuka spots and way too much Eva Marie. I go Bank N forth on Eva Marie. She is capable her Senton looked good as did her suplex and she can take a shot so …

Man I hate WWE's "we can only have one x wrestler at a time", this is the result of that policy, Corbin has to lose to Dolph Ziggler because being undefeated is Crews' thing and Crews has to work 50/50 matches against Cody Rhodes because being dominant is Corbin's thing. Completely unmemorable outside of Stardust busting out the most ridiculous leg submission in history (and by that I mean it looked really bad and inefficient, not funny).

Boy you could tell Sandow's WWE career wasn't going to last much longer. Corbin treats him like literal trash, takes the entire match and beats him clean. And that was way more fun to watch than the usual WWE evenly worked quasi-squash, everything Corbin did looked super nasty.

I am all in on Miz and this match only helps his case for being one of the best WWE wrestlers of 2016. I absolutely love the way he transitions into offence. Nothing fancy or flashly, just wery smart use of his surrounding, whether it be the ropes, the corner, the ringpost, the steel steps or the announce table. Reigns seems to have more shtick that works now and it's astonishing how much better he is at carrying himself when he's not asked to be El Hijo Del Cena. He's also improved his selling a lot which was pretty evident here. ***1/4

This was awesome, Akiyama's Big Japan debut did not disappoint, he might be the best wrestler in the world right now, I loved the way he stooged for Okabayashi and played he was outmatched, he was borderline stooging for his Chops and it was great. Then Uto starts provoking him and makes the worst mistake of his life, watching Akiyama brutalize youngsters with knees is a thing of beauty. Hash Jr. has nice kicks and Okabayashi will LAY IT IN but what really makes it stand out is the sense of struggle and hate a lot of Big Japan strike exchange/power spots exhibition matches lack that Akiyama brought. There was a moment when Okabayashi and Daichi were brawling outside where…

For a nine minute spotfest in 2016 this is about as good as it gets, both of these guys bust out so much cool stuff-good looking strikes, insane dives, nutty bumps, you'll get all of those here but along with those really good character work inbetwen them that held the match together. ***1/2

This is the final to Stardom's Cinderella tournament, which is a one-night tourny where the matches have a 10 minute time-limit plus the option of winning via throwing your opponent over the top rope. This gets heated right off the bat as after Hiroyo gets knocked to the outside, Iwatani takes too long to follow up allowing Hiroyo to hurl a chair at her. She then quickly follows up by powerbombing her on the apron. The match turns into a bunch of bomb-throwing but they never forget to put over everything with their selling. I really wish that they hadn't gone with the battle royal style finish, even though it was well worked, since that was the only time that the teased t…