May 2016

I have missed these two beating the shit out of each other. I could probably watch Rush pose and yell at fans for twenty minutes. There's nobody in wrestling that's as good as conveying being a dick as him. I loved the way he countered Casas' Scorpion Deathlock and Elite's awesome camera angles also added to the match. ***1/4

Sexy Star vs Mariposa - Lucha Underground 5/4/16 I Quit Vampiro does an excellent job putting I Quit Matches by saying he has always shied away from them because he is too afraid to say "I Quit" so he might just die instead. Fuck yeah, thats some damn good shit. Technically, this is a "No Mas" match. I liked that Lucha Underground gives their own name to their gimmick matches. Mariposa means Butterfly, I admit I used Google Translate. Mariposa is Cheerleader Melissa for all the SHIMMER fans and TNA fans. Sexy Star is a pretty famous AAA Luchadora, for me the most famous, but I could be wrong when I would watch AAA randomly from like around 2010 she was the one I alwa…

Hama has good fat man offence and can be fun against someone who knows how to pinball for him like Uto but this was all about Hideki Suzuki mauling Nakanoue, and it's not just that they vary their strikes and throw awesome shoot headbutts, kicks and slaps instead of just standing there looking at each other like idiots and exchanging chops and weak elbows for five minutes, they also do the awesome lock ups, shoving, knocking each other off the apron etc. you'll see in older matches too. ***3/4

This was the finals of the K-METAL LEAGUE. Pretty good stuff here with the butterfly vs. chickenwing struggle. Mogami's roll back into the butterfly after a flash pin attempt was great. Yoshida's a much better striker than mat tech, and it plays into the finish as he abandons the submission strategy. He had some stiff open hands and a particularly nice high kick to the head. Nothing flashy but simple and effective.

GREAT MATCH. Maybe the best WWE TV match of the year so far. It started out as a tag match between The Usos and Anderson/Gallows, then that fell apart after Anderson hit Reigns with an awesome stomp through the ropes (I'm so glad that move is coming back and won't be lost to time and only known to folks who watch thirty year old CMLL trios matches). I love AJ/Reigns interactions, I could watch them wrestle forever, there was a great sequences where AJ went from a Sunset Flip but Reigns blocked it, picked AJ BY THE THROAT and just threw him into the air and tried to Samoan Drop it, AJ tried to counter it with back elbows so Reigns put him down and drilled him with a punch,…

Seems like Natalya and Charlotte alternate between opening their matches between chain wrestling that looks either solid or sloppy, it looked ok here. Charlotte escaping the waistlock by using the ropes and then quickly cutting off Natalya with a big boot was a smart and efficient spot. Emma's character work on the apron was ofen more interesting than what Charlotte was doing inside the ring. Man-Emma viciously slammed Natalya's face right on the apron like LA Park did Dr.Wagner Jr. in their TxT match. And then she hit her with a bunch of good looking punches. She's really grown into a great worker. Ok, I really liked the "Charlotte pulls Emma out of the ring while Becky …

In terms of WWE babyface TV workers I would probably rate Ryder above Zayn. This was a total blast, just an awesome sprint, probably the best squash match I've seen since I started watching WWE TV again and creating threads for it over here to try and document modern wrestling (you know I could use some help in that). Not sure if Rusev potatoed himself on a ringpost/a wrestling move or if he came into the match like that but the swelling on his forehead made for a great visual.

I'm sure it's a fairly unique opinion but at this point I'm completely convinced Miz is a better worker than Zayn. He's really great at stooging and both of his big transitions ruld (him countering Zayn's ten punches in the corner and pulling him out of the ring). Zayn is a fairly standard armdrag-flip flop babyface not really adding much. It was fairly predictable how this one was going to end as soon as Owens joined commentary and I feel like I've seen the "two heels attack one face before the other face makes the save" spot five times in the last two weeks in the IC title feud but here the post-match had a couple of neat details, like Miz pushing Zayn into a Cesaro Upp…

I absolutely love the rivalry between Hero & ZSJ. Their matches are always amazing, and this year their rivalry got even more heated up as Hero took offense in people calling ZSJ the "best in the world" - so now he calls himself the "greatest of all-time". At Mercury Rising, Zack didn't keep his emotions in check (in what was an amazing match btw), so here he was his usual stoic self, but it still wasn't enough to beat the man who ain't nothing to fuck with, Chris Hero. Fantastic match. ****1/2

Nothing super high-end but a solid, entertaining match smartly worked by Sasaki and one of the better KO-D Openweight title matches of the year. Sasaki is one of the better indie guys out there, and he's good at stringing together his offense in a realistic way. Like if one thing doesn't work, he quickly transitions into the next as to not give Yukio time to breath. Sakaguchi was a good first defense opponent and it made Sasaki wrestle as if in real constant danger of losing his title. Loved Yukio's snap kick and knee rush to Sasaki's defensive stance. Yukio's strikes looked really sound, especially his kicks and knees, and Sasaki did a great job of selling them. I'm also…

I have no idea what's going on in DDT ever so I'm trying to figure out how the short match time figures into the match and whether Takeshita is one of those young guys DDT gave title shots or whatever but actually isn't that high on the pecking order and could still get run over by Big Dog and end up freaking out when I realise he actually has a chance of winning. A very exciting four minute sprint for sure.

Awesome performance from Mr. Gannosuke, who showed tons of energy and hustle throughout, great old man armwork, and a hot finish. Daisuke was good here, too, with decent selling and a fun callback to his earlier work in the match. I could watch Gannosuke work the arm all day with his grinding elbows and finger manipulation. I loved him pulling Daisuke's elbow pad off and tossing it into the crowd before kicking the arm and delivering those running armbreakers. Relentless work from the vet. He does a good job of cutting Daisuke's comebacks short, going back to the arm to escape predicaments and at one point countering the sliding elbow and hitting another pair of running a…

I'm loving this feud, it's bringing us awesome 6 man tags that have been long gone from WWE television, kind of a workrate WAR match as it has a punch of punching, kicking, guys knocking each other off the apron, the awesome cut offs etc. but also does all of that at an insane pace. Reigns looks like such a beast when AJ is bumping for him and AJ continues to look like the smartest babyface in WWE with how he tried to sucker Reigns in into a Springboard Forearm when they threw the chair around. It feels so refreshing to have the crowd actually be invested in the match and chant for participants in it and cheer them and boo them instead of chanting stupid stuff in hopes of…

This was the worst Tanahashi/Bad Luck Fale match ever. Corbin's stuff looks good and I liked the finish but man the body of the match was just dull. Can Ziggler disappear into the ether already? Seek out a GIF of Corbin's awesome Deep Six instead of watching the whole match.

A battle of shtick so terrible it makes me long for 2016 Chris Jericho. At least his scarf is funny. It's still kind of shocking at times to see women's matches in WWE have good looking stuff, it would probably be less shocking if they weren't surrounded by a lot of sloppy work and eye-rolling set-ups. Forgettable but inoffensive.

I don't have a reddit so Owens' trash talk doesn't do much for me. Ryder is really good at organically setting up and building to spots by teasing them and countering his opponents' moves which is something I care about and is even more impressive when he's relegated to 2 minute squashes and manages to do that stuff in such a short amount of time.

I have no idea who is responsible for how strong Kalisto's been booked but they are good people. Rusev throwing people around is always good and Sin Cara was a good enough flyer to his base to make this entertaining, he hit a badass Diving DDT. Ref botched the finish but what can you do. Fun while it lasted.

I don't really care for Zayn and his whole "Ricky Steamboat doing moves from Japan" deal. Miiz gave him a lot early on but he didn't do anything memorable, in fact he outshined his own control segment with his bump onto the steel steps, that's the kind of thing you'd expect from 2011 Dolph Ziggler. I like Zayn's Corner Exploder as a spot that looks nastier than it probably is but this was very basic and formulaic and Zayn's formula isn't one I really care about. I did love the way Miz locked his own hands when doing the Figure 4, how he acted during his entrance and that he actually uses the ropes for leverage like a proper heel. **1/2-**3/4

Very nice too see these two square off once again, this was very much their house show brawl but that works for me. Rush's stalling before the machismo strike exchange was pretty great and I really liked them switching to slaps during the exchange as well. I wish Rush would drop the Minoru Suzuki Rope Hung Armbar, it doesn't fit into his move-set at all and doesn't good look enough on its own to warrant being done just because it's cool. ***-***1/4

Man what did Virus' mother ever do to Hechicero? Some really high end grappling as expected but the match featured even more than that, I loved the spot where they dramatically took their shirts off and started a chop exchange only for Virus to quickly cut off Hechicero by kicking him in the leg. Hechicero has some signature spots like the corner knee and the spinning backbreaker and I loved how they'd do sequences where he'd get overzealous and then Virus would counter him and he'd get stuck in/on the ropes. Finishing hold was absolutely breathtaking. ****

This is the title match that was setup after Iwatani won the Cinderella tourny a couple of weeks earlier. The match really comes off as a more cohesive version of the Io/Hojo match in January. Here, they do a much better job of mixing the heavy striking with the big moves. By the finish you really feel that Io won a war while Mayu managed to truly establish herself as a true rival in defeat. ****1/2

This is a rematch of the February title match that these two had. These two had been a bit disappointing when working together when you consider that you had one of the best joshi workers of 2015 taking on one of the best women on the indies but I thought this was easily their best match together. Santana had her best performance in Stardom. Most notably, she did a great job of holding the match together when Hojo messed up a couple of spots. Other than the miscues, I thought Hojo was pretty good. I like how she mixed in submissions when Santana was getting the advantage in order to try and slow her down. The finish was well worked as Hojo was able to survive all of Santa…

Well. I liked Becky countering Dana's Bow and Arrow-ish hold by kicking out of it. Still this was Dana trying to work like Emma but with Kelly Kelly-esque execution and it did not come off well at all. It was servicable enough because Becky is the best babyface worker in WWE's women division but it was by no means an impressive Raw debut.

Another good match between this pairing even though it was probably the least of those they've had so far, The Usos have had a sneaky good run, I like their shtick a lot and Anderson and Gallows are good foils for them. I liked how agressive The Usos looked here, continuing to punch Anderson and Gallows after diving on them, driving them into the barricade etc. Post-match brawl was really cool as expected. ***

The angle with Rusev taking out Sin Cara while he was watching the match backstage was brilliant, weird to see them step out of their comfort zone so much with the parejas increibles tag, this and Ambrose's clockwork orange house of fun announcement. Another good performance by Kalisto who's had a killer year so far but Del Rio was completely off here, both messing up stuff and doing nothing interest in control for long periods of time. The angle surrounding the match and Kalisto's selling and bumping salvaged it as much as it was possible. **1/2