August 2016

This is a fluorescent light tube ippon match, which means that there's a singular light tube in the ring and whoever can get the opponent to break it gets an ippon and wins. It's a cool/interesting gimmick and the match is really fun and the right length for this at 8 minutes. There's two other matches with this gimmick on this show, as it was part of a tournament (turns out there's lots of ways in which you can narrowly avoid breaking a light tube) but this was the standout to me. There's a bunch of clever teases. Obviously for this to work, it has to be against the rules to just whack the opponent with the light tube but they both still try it after Miyamoto shoves the …

Watching a poorly lit video of a 63 year old mexican man bleeding all over the place is quite the experience. I think this was my first time seeing Judas, his offence was limited to basic stuff but all of it looked good, nice punches and kicks and it looked like he potatoed the ref when he knocked him down. Of course Terry brough it as well with vicious punches and kicks. Non-finish didn't really impact my enjoyment one way or the other. ***1/4

Pretty average, Shiro Koshinaka tribute spots aren't what I'd like to see out of Asuka matches, the hip attacks themselves looked fine but her kicks and strikes were awkward as it's evident she's holding back. The Octopus Hold in the ropes was a cool spot and they built an interesting angle around the match hyping the Asuka-Bayley rematch. **1/2

This was perfectly ok though a little too evenly worked for my taste. Maluta is a samoan with bloodties to the business so you know he's gonna end up on the WWE payroll sooner or later. Maluta threw some solid kicks and his back elbow looked good but him ramming Itami into the corner for the transition was a bad Miz tribute spot I didn't buy at all. Itami looked good and more comfortable than better, it's just that the match was too evenly worked for Itami to look like a killer and Maluta wasn't good enough at gathering heat to make Itami look very sympathetic. Fine, a fun watch with some nice shots laid in but nothing memorable. **1/2-**3/4

It's kind of fascinating how many hyped matches in 2016 are that aren't any good and yet there's a huge amount of really good stuff in Mexico that virtually no one talks about. I absolutely loved the first half of this one as it was basically one control segment of Escorpion beating the shit out of Ultimo Guerrero, laying in vicious punches, chops and back elbows as well as executing beautiful head stomps (which are an underrated lucha brawl trademark). Ultimo Guerrero's facial expressions were on point and really spoke to the crowd-if there's one thing you can't blame him for it's not understanding them. They built a nice mini angle over the ref holding Ultimo's arm and …

This is a battle of semi-regular tag partners and Chelsea's first title match. This actually starts out with some solid chain wrestling, which is something that you wouldn't expect from these two. Chelsea breaks out some neat offense and does a good job of trying to neutralize Hojo's elbow-based offense with armwork. Hojo is great at selling Chelsea's offense and making it seem like she is real threat till the end. A quality, main event title match. ***1/2

This is just a make shift tag to preview a couple of matchups in the 5*GP. Even though that is the case, all 4 women go really hard here and have a really exciting match. It does pretty good job of previewing Iwatani/Bito, the two of them showed great chemistry here. Watanabe gives a spirited performance here. She takes a fair beating in the early going but makes a nice, fired up comeback at the end. Quite the quality match for something that could have been a throwaway. ***3/4

This Storm's first defense of her newly won SWA title. This starts out with some fun British style exchanges. One thing I like about Storm is that she is subtle with her influences rather than parade around with them like some of her male peers. Shanna manages some success when she can pick up the pace but is never really able to maintain it. Solid, entertaining title match that is a good showcase for what Toni Storm can do. ***1/2

Really fun underpitbull tale with a hot crowd and a super hot Liger on commentary. Ishii's such a maestro in the ring, making the ace champ's offense look like a million bucks. There's something satisfying about watching him bully Okada with chops, boot scrapes, and headbutts. Okada quickly realizes he can't hang with Ishii in the striking department and taps into his resource pool of spots to try and cool him down. Okada was good here but Ishii really elevated this to another level. The little things like the chop during the Rainmaker pose and stomping on Okada's foot to get out of the tombstone attempt. That finishing stretch was something else, too, with Ishii ducking …

Coming into this I was hoping YOSHI-HASHI would get zero offence in. Of course there's no way that would happen in a New Japan match in 2016 but it should've. Shibata was killer on offence, some weakish stomps aside, his forearms, uppercuts and kicks were absolutely brutal. YOSHI-HASHI's offence on the other hand was so ridiculous I had trouble taking it seriously, he's a guy I liked as a hot tag but I had my doubts about how he would translate to being a singles worker, and if I see more performances like this it would just point to the Naito match being a complete carry-job. **3/4

Yano can build a neat match around rope breaks and shaking hands. I don't know what more you could ask from a wrestler. I don't remember seeing the crowd chant along his antics before, that really added to the experience. "Yano goes to grab a bald wrestler's hair" remains hilarious even years after he did it to Karl Anderson the first time. ***

This is a rematch from their December title match, plus previewing a likely Regina Di WAVE title match between Yamagata and Mizunami. I really liked how this match was laid out. Las Aventureras take the early advantage with the story of the match that Avid Rival have to try and fight their way back onto an even footing with the champs. This was the best performance that I've seen from the Hamada/Yamagata team, they did a great job of controlling the action but always giving the challengers enough chance to keep you interested in the match. Just a great match with a deserving title win for the underappreciated team of Ohata and Mizunami. ****1/4 Edit: It should be 8/7 …

This is a fun draw. I really like Ayako playing the angry vet, even though she's actually only a few years older than Tsukka. Both of them were pretty vicious with their strikes even though they worked the match in a standard, fast-paced, action style. I've been down on Ayako for about the last year but she's looked really good the last few matches that I've seen her in. Fujimoto continues to be one of, if not the, most underappreciated women in joshi. ***3/4

Badass underdog story which came in the form of a hard hitting, brutal war of a brawl. Muertes was absolutely awesome just destroying Crane & Crane was tremendous as the underdog doing everything he can to put Muertes down. ****1/4

Even with the super libre rules this didn't feel as chaotic as their previous match, some nice violence but the match dragged and got repetitive, there's only so many tame chest slap exchanges I can watch and they did a pretty shitty take on the New Japan strike exchange. Terry wiping the blood of his forehead on the canvas made for such a great visual I just can't call it completely average. **3/4

Back in 2012 Kenny Omega was an invading junior champion in All Japan. His shtick consisted of shitting on Mutoh and doing about 15 Dragon Suplexes per match, and not I am not throwing that number around as a hyperbole. That's about as many as he'd do. In the first minute of this match they exchanged about five control segments and did a Dragon Suplex on the floor. And-you know what-I'd rather they start that way than do the usual New Japan BS. Match wasn't much early on-there was some semblance of neckwork but it was more about Nakajima's (solid) selling than Omega doing anything interesting-his neck attacks consisted of weak kesagiri chops and kicks. You'd think if ther…

Disappointing in the context of their feud, if you've watched any of their other matches you've seen them do this match better. It is a skill to have great matches with the same opponent over and over again, it's not something Nagata possesses and I'm having my doubts about Shibata currently. It was fine but cliched-the "fight outside until 19 when we both get in the ring at the same time", the no sell suplex sequence, Shibata countering Nagata's middle kick with a quick slap........I've seen them before and I've seen them done better. Highlight of the match was Shibata sneakily low kicking Nagata after daring him to kick him in the puro macho bullshit 2k10 spot™. Some ni…

Very interesting match. Essentially it's Matt D's write up of the Buddy Rose-Martel match I'm going to watch like three years from now. Naito has to get YOSHI-HASHI over and help legitimize him after he spent years as a jobber. There isn't much in the opening portion worth discussing-but there was a phenomenal moment during YOSHI-HASHI's early shine where it looked like Naito was going to cut him off because he positioned himself like he was going for a Hiptoss, which is a lead in to his Sliding Dropkick. Just *positioning* himself like that made YOSHI-HASHI executing a move during his run mean that much more. There was *armwork*, in terms of how much the limbwork meant, …

This match was almost like a mini-game for Honma-he'd try a move, get overwhelmed by Elgin's power, persevere and eventually succeed, then go for another move and get cut off by Elgin's power again. Every time Honma would execute a move he would earn a trophy or an accomplishment. In the end, because he was more concerned with earning the platinum trophy than beating the game, he lost. Best moments in the match came from Honma firing himself up and his theatrical selling in the finish. The turnbuckle Powerbomb no-sell spot worked because Elgin's Powerbomb actually looks good and dangerous and has credibility unlike Rollins'. Honma managing to take Elgin down with shoulder…

Oh man I've missed Yano so much. He is now a triple crown champion-he has a new shirt, has produced a DVD and has the GHC tag team belt and they're all worth about the same. EVIL's current gimmick is something inbetween Akitoshi Saito and MABACH Taniguchi 2012, kinda wish he DQed himself in every match by chairshotting his opponent to death (he already does that but it's outside the ring and in New Japan you'd have to knife someone there to get DQed). This was a blast, and Yano's biggest virtue might be that he manages to pull of convincing nearfalls in contemporary New Japan. A blast. ***

This match is literally women vs. girls as the Ice Ribbon girls are both still teenagers. I will give them credit as this match is really competitive. It helps that both Tsukushi and Kurumi can hit hard, especially Tsukushi since she is tiny. The story of the match is more that Avid Rival can out last the physicality rather than simply the case of them being veterans. A great match that ends up being different than what you would first think based on appearances. ****

This opens up great with some taunting back and forth. We get some nice focused work on the left arm of Chris Hero from Marty Scurll. A really nasty looking stomp to the arm of Hero is delivered by Scurll. Eventually, this leads to a really good comeback from Chris Hero and of course some very stiff shots. Hero, at one point decides to hit a moonsault, which he misses and Scurll gets fired up taking this into another gear. Scrull had a really awesome reversal of one of Hero's big elbows, that gets Hero on his back and he drops him back down on the worked over arm. We eventually get the MONSTER elbow from Hero, followed by more devastating looking blows. Scurll thro…

This is just a great matchup of different personalities and styles here. You have the heel, Pete Dunne. He's excellent with facial expressions. He's pulling on and biting fingers. He's hard hitting and throwing out painful submissions. Then you have Ricochet. He's the explosive babyface, and his offense is impressive athletically while remaining very crisp. This turned out to be a REALLY good match, at probably around ***3/4 if I had to use rating to show what I thought of it. IMO, Ricochet was very impressive with his maneuvers and threw out some sweet uppercuts at one point, but the really good portion was carried on the heel antics, facial expressions, and offe…

Interesting opening-Elgin overwhelms Nakajima with power, Nakajima had to use the dreaded Dean Ambrose rope pull and drop toe holds to get back in control, first attacks the arm and then when Elgin fights back goes for the legs. Nakajima's armwork and legwork is pretty inconsequential-triple limbwork would've been interesting but Nakajima's kicks were pretty enough that I'll just take that segment for what it was. I find it really hard to care about Elgin's control segments when all he does is spam spots, and his spots aren't really that special. Nakajima's selling carried the strike exchanges-Elgin nailed a couple of good elbows but also did stupid sound effect enzuigiri…

Neat match. No wasted motion as the match pretty much starts as a finishing stretch with Shibata going after EVIL right out of the gate. Shibata's injured shoulder was handled perfectly-in modern New Japan you often get boring limbwork and walking around the ring to waste time. Here you also had limbwork and action outside the ring but it was handled as good as it could've been with EVIL just decimating Shibata's arm with devastating chairshots. A couple of years ago pretty much every Suzuki-gun match would have spots like that with weak, bad looking chairshots, luckily Shibata is a maniac who really lets EVIL nail him as strong as he can. Attempt move-get cut-off is such…