July 2016

Minoru Suzuki is the baddest motherfucker in Japan today and this "match" is a shining example why. This thing starts off innocent enough. They scrapple for a bit and when Kawamura starts pummeling Minoru with shots against the ropes, Suzuki slaps on the rope-hung armbar and he's now officially pissed off. Outside the ring, Suzuki blasts him with chairshot after chairshot, and when the ref tries to restore some order, that just pisses Suzuki off more and he starts attacking everyone around him. He tries to use the time keeper's hammer on Kawamura but the ref takes it away. So what does he do? Bloodies Kawamura with a fucking retractable pen and brags about it. Minoru's sl…

This is another match between these two, instead this time it's for Satomura's Sendai Girls Title rather than the World of Stardom Title. I actually liked this match more than their December match. I thought the selling here was was better. The match did lack some of the drama that the last Stardom match had but overall it was a well put together title match. Another strong match at from two of the best in the world. ****1/4

LOOK WHO'S BACK!! Dick Togo returns from wandering the earth like Caine and is back doing what he does better then anyone. All of the regular DDT guys looked fine, their stuff is a little showy, but Urano had some nice looking shots including a great foreamr smash. I always liked Honda's Lawler punches and he took a good high backdrop. Still Togo was the star, landing everything with precision and not missing a step. I especially loved his casita which he rolled right into a crossface, just an awesome bit of business. We got to see that floating senton which was gorgeous. This was more of a showcase and a return I am really excited to see what Togo will do next.

Easily Takeshita's strongest performance of the year and probably the best KO-D Openweight Title match of 2016. Although you don't have a strong sense Miyamoto is winning this thing, he sure gives Takeshita hell, smartly working the leg in a crisp and effective manner. I loved his elbow drop to the back of the knee. Takeshita did a good job of keeping the submission work relevant. His offense looked really impressive, and I thought the final elbow battle was a lot of fun, where he half mad dogs/half collapses into Miyamoto's strikes before letting loose with a barrage of angry elbows. Good stuff!

This is a super fun, if throwaway, midcard tag match. Everybody is just on here even if they don't try anything to ambitious. Kurumi looked especially good here as pulls out some nice looking athletic stuff to go along with some impressive power spots. Watching Tsukushi try and go straight on with a bulldozer like Kurumi was entertaining. ***3/4

This is a big title match as Ice Ribbon's "Ace," Tsukasa Fujimoto, attempts to regain the belt from recently crowned champ, Risa Sera. The story that they work through the match is Fujimoto having issues dealing with Sera's size and power advantage. This forces Tsukka to use her experience and try to maximize any opening that she gets during the match. Sera does a nice job working over Fujimoto's back in order to try a slow her down. The match does go a little sideways at the finish but it doesn't completely throw out what they had been working to before it. ***3/4

I like Kamitani but he's an on/off guy. This is one of those instances where he was on. He looked super comfortable in the ring, sold well for Okabayashi's offense (including the dreaded Argentine backbreaker), and really dialed up the intensity, especially with those open hand shots. This was really all about these two going at it on and off for twenty minutes with Hash playing the enforcer roll well. Lots of heat and drama going into both time limit draws, which is rare. Fun stuff.

Did Matt Hardy read the post-wrestling thread? For all my talk about how Lucha Underground is flirting with post-wrestling this looks way more revolutionary than anything they've ever done. The sheer absurdity of it is brilliant, but my favourite moments were probably Jeff not dropping selling even when he's shooting fireworks and the finish where Matt took advantage of Jeff's stupidity and predictability. Rating it feels impossible but it was definitely one of the most entertaining experiences watching wrestling I've had.

This is a big match for Mizunami as she is fresh off winning the Catch the WAVE tournament and lost to Takahashi earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Nanae has had a sneaky great year which has been lost in the noise surrounding Yoshiko's return. The early part of this match is interesting as Mizunami gets her arm worked over by Takahashi. When she tries to make her comebacks she has to switch up her offense a bit to not use the arm, but when she does break down and use it she sells the arm as still being in pain. Eventually the match turns into a slugfest and starts to go Mizunami's way. To counter, Nanae decides to try and bust out her big moves which allows her to pick up t…

This is a rematch of the NXT Women's Title match that they had last fall. Right from start Bliss is in ramped up, Takako Inoue style, bitch mode. Just like the Carmella match, she hits all of her offense in a really nasty way. It was surprising to see Bayley get off most of her offense from counters or take advantage of Alexa having a tantrum. Match could have really used another 5 minutes that could have potentially made it a MOTYC, but even though it's a bit short it's still a great TV match. ***3/4

Ok I am in on this little mini feud. Nomura is a rookie and this is a nice progression for him after their match in June. Suzuki is still chucking this kid around, but he has a little harder time keeping a grip on him. Nomura lands some nice kicks, and there is a very cool counter where he slips an uppercut and gets a great backslide which Suzuki rolls through right into a Nomura kick. Nomura even survives the backbreaker which put him down. I am in the bag for Suzuki, and think this Nomura kid might get pretty good.

Match Link This is the main event of Nanae Takahashi's 20th anniversary show. The big strength of this match is the team dynamics that all 4 setup in the early part of the match. Takahashi and Yoshiko work well together as a team while Satomura and DASH are a contrast in strength and speed. They really ramp things up at the finish with a mix of hard strike exchanges and big finishing moves. Another great interpromotional main event, which has been happening a fair bit in joshi for the last year or so. ****

Did Matt Hardy watch Death Note? The notebook and the manical delete screaming seem like too much of a coincidence. For reference: Anyway this was another great segment. Hardy's current character is brilliant.

It is very fitting that in his last NXT match quite possibly ever, Finn Bálor put on the best performance of his career. His work was really damn great in this, I loved all of his work on top, his mannerisms & the leg work was awesome. Shinsuke was Shinsuke, he was pretty awesome, I only wish that he had sold the leg work a bit better, but then again the spotty selling was expected because it was Shinskay. It didn't really bother me THAT MUCH though, as I still loved the match & because his selling with his facial expressions is always great + his initial selling is really great too, but it's just that he forgets about the work done on his leg to do his usual leg/…

Well this was something else. I liked them starting the match off with brawling on the ramp as that's something a lot of matches I like do in CMLL but then there was a portion where they kind of, uhm.......just kinda walked around without much intent to hurt each other and it felt like the type of Attitude Era brawls stuff that also had insanely hot crowds but wasn't any good. Then they just started killing each other and I was all in. cubsfan described the weapon thrown as a wooden cooler-which sounds pretty insane but I have no idea what it was so let's run with it. It was nice to see blood in Arena Mexico once again and that, combined with the insane crowd heat really …

I enjoy Bryan as the enthusiastic commentator that marks out to everything, not really sure if he's better than Liger and Millano Collection AT in that role. This is a pretty good showcase for how little it takes for a match to be called an all time classic these days, a couple of hot nearfalls that the crowd bites on and it's ****465/887 match of the decade candidate everywhere. The sequence where Ibushi botched the Frankensteiner was pretty ugly but outside of that this was a strong, well paced junior match. The early matwork wasn't anything special or even remotely interesting but helped set the pace and the selling inbetween the moves was crucial to it as well. Loved …

Very fun junior workrate match. There were two instances where they were setting up the next spot and it looked bad (them turning around in the corner so Metalik could strike Tajiri and Metalik not falling to the floor to set up the Dragon Screw) and I wasn't a fan of them faux-dramatically using Tajiri's high kicks as highspots just to have Dorada come back from peril in the next move. Still there was some fun stuff, Dorada is an elite high flier and Tajiri is the kind of base you want to see him against, Tajiri's offence was on point, I'm sure everyone's pointed out his strikes and kicks still look good but I was impressed by the impact of his knee drop and neckbreaker …

I'm not as high on singles wrestler HARASHIMA as others but in a tag situation, he's pretty great. This was a very fun, smartly worked tag match, building from Irie's silly mistake of going to the wrong corner for the tag out. HARASHIMA and Ishii keep the tags fresh, working together to keep Irie grounded, cutting off his comeback attempts until Irie is finally able to hit the POUUUNCE! and make the tag to Sakaguchi. The double team spots were clever, HARASHIMA makes a great out-of-nowhere save, and the finishing stretch (which included a great pop-up Fire Thunder Driver from irie) had the right amount of flash and drama. DDT's been a blast this year and although it's sad…

The opening of this is awkward. It's just standard opening matwork, but technical wrestling isn't either's strength. Match gets better after Takeshita hits Endo on a break but weirldy, it is Endo who starts dominating the match afterwards. That seems like stalling because eventually Takeshita starts working Endo's arm. Takeshita has a neat transition into a kimura and Endo's selling is good as per usual. The match is better when Takeshita is in control, but they go back-and-forth. One of the best moments is Takeshita no-selling Endo's chops in a strike exchange and Endo building up to a comeback before getting cut off by a lariat. I think it's a disappointing match, the b…

This is the main event for this house show setting up a rematch for the SWA title between Shirai and Storm. This match gets off to a slow start, although it did enjoy the matwork exchanges between Io and Toni. Once it gets going though, it turns into a nice mix of double teams, cutoffs, and saves. Was actually surprised that Kyona, for a rookie, was able to keep up with everything going on. Super fun main event. ***1/2

This is a tag match building to the Wonder of Stardom title match between Hojo and Viper. Hojo was really good here, especially in emoting and bumping to put over Viper's size. This was the best that Chelsea's looked since coming back from injury. She's had some rough performances on this tour but solid hitting her stuff here. Leah Vaughan has good ring presence she just needs more experience to add some polish to her ring work. In the end, the highlight was the Hojo/Viper interaction that makes you look forward to their title match. ***1/2

This is Fujimoto's first title defense since winning the Infinity title a couple of weeks earlier. Tsukka has a really strong ace/veteran performance as she does a great job of selling Yukihi's offense to make her look like a threat, while also leading the way through the match to keep it from falling apart. Yukihi, who has only been wrestling for about a year and a half, does show her inexperience with some of her execution and selling but in other moments pulls off some impressive stuff. There is definitely a star quality about Yukihi, not just with her look but also with the way she carries herself and the ability that she shows in the ring. This isn't just a good matc…

This is a rematch of a fun draw that these two had back in June. This one end up a better match by being shorter with some smoother execution and better selling. I was really surprised by how good Chelsea's matwork was. Everything she tried ran together well plus she made sure to work the actual hold to make it worth something. Shanna looked better here mainly because she didn't try anything too elaborate leading to her being sloppy if not flat out blowing spots. One of the more surprisingly really good match that I've seen this year. ***1/2

Prince Puma vs Rey Mysterio - Lucha Underground 7/20/16 The Dream Match of Lucha Underground. They did a great job building Prince Puma as their Ace Babyface and with Rey Mysterio leaving WWE to work Lucha shows this was a huge score for Lucha Underground. What's funny is this match feels a lot bigger here than lets say Rey vs Ricochet going 20 on a random RAW. Really shows how much promotion, build and context matter in pro wrestling. I thought they did a fabulous job working this Lucha Dream Match. Lots of great symmetry (the opening classic Lucha Libre sequence was just awesome!) that one would expect given this is babyface vs babyface but they added a lot o…

This is the rubber match of their feud with Bayley have the added motivation of looking to get a title shot plus revenge for being injured by Jax. This match is more of a game of cat and mouse than their other two matches. Bayley doing a lot of darting and dodging in order to find opening for offense. Eventually, Nia is able to catch her and just starts clubbing her down. Bayley does an excellent job of selling plus adding some neat transitions to tease comebacks. Run up to the finish is great with both women taking some nasty bumps along the way. Fantastic way to end their rivalry. ****