September 2016

This is another match between the top two women in Stardom, the third in 17 months. To be honest, I feel that this is the best match that these two have had so far, although I haven't been that high on their other matches. The main story of the match is Hojo working over Io's back like her other opponents had in earlier matches. Io decides to fire back with some big time offense, including the infamous piledriver/powerbomb to the floor. Hojo's strategy ends up working in the end as she hits all of her big moves while targeting Io's back, finishing her off with a cross-legged crab hold for the win. ****

This is a 5*GP match between two UK workers. This match is put together really well. They start out doing some British style exchange of holds. Then naturally build to a modern New Japan style of finish with elaborate teases of finishers and nearfalls. The best showing for each woman in Stardom so far and it was nice to see both of them being over with the crowd. ****

Aoyagi was almost a non factor here as the match is a total showcase for Kashin's shtick, and it's really good shtick. I cannotf help but love classic spots like the face falling for the heel's handshake and the heel pulling the face's hair to maintain control of a side headlock but Kashin also does really intruiging stuff like take a breather by sitting next to a fan before attacking the fan and pulling the ref into an Aoyagi crossbody. And he does a pretty Armbar. **3/4

What an transcendent match. Blood, escalation, some of the best nearfalls I have ever seen, agony of defeat, elation of winning. MOTY and one of the 50 best matches I have ever seen in my life. *****

Bo Dallas' pre-match speeches are the height of WWE comedy. Whenever there is conscious intent to create comedy in the fed it's usually cringeworthy but when you have these obviously scripted lines and the ridiculous delivery of a D-level actor in a minute long promo it can be quite brilliant. See also: genesis of mcgillicutty and other similar post-modern botchamania memes. Unfortunately usually those types of segments last 20 minutes and dissolve quickly. As for the match, well, Bo's knee drops weren't quite on the level of the rest of his offence but it was still a fun short squash.

Pretty standard Jax squash, I liked her pushing Esposito by grabbing her by the jaw and viciously slamming her into the corner. The Esposito/Alicia Fox "hey we're friends" social media post might seem like an irrelevant tidbit but it does make me wonder when someone is going to start "working" more seriously and using the tools the current age offers to enrich the storylines with new media. So it is a far more belieavable tidbit than Alicia Fox going after Nia Jax for no reason the next week because she knew last week's jobber in high school or whatever.

Fun little teacher vs. student match-up. Hashimoto doesn't hold back with anything and Nomura is quick to answer him with hard shots of his own. You can see where he gets some of that spunky energy from. Nomura's getting more comfortable on the mat and his control is improving, adding a few new touches here and there. That shotgun-style PK from Hash was pretty great.

Another 5*GP match. Here, Storm is in first place while Nikita is midpack after dominating the younger girls but coming up short against the top women. This was a nice, solid match. Nikita isn't a spectacular worker, she does a reverse rana that looks pedestrian, but she executes everything well while mixing in some good heel work. Storm is her usual shelf here. Nothing that will blow you away but still very entertaining. ***1/2

I'm not sure how good this actually was, but there's something about Fuerza Guerrera bleeding all over the place and hand-walking Octagon through a mano a mano bout in 2016 that I can't help but enjoy. This isn't 1992, so Fuerza can't hit it all the way out the park like he could then. He can still do Fuerza things, though, and sometimes that's enough (well, it's enough for me). Octagon wasn't all that good even in '92 and he's borderline atrocious now. He moves at half-speed, his mask torn open in three places, dazed and confused like a pensioner who's just been mugged for his shoes. There was one bit where he tried to throw a kick in the corner and I assume he thought F…

This is a really fun match for the OZ tag titles. Unlike most matches in OZ Academy, they kept the action in the ring. Shida and Syuri do an effective job in the early going of cutting the ring off on Yoneyama and working her over. Yoneyama especially looked good here, bumping and putting over her opponents offense while making fiery comebacks. Kuragaki was the same while playing the powerhouse of the team. Shida and Syuri have been a bit underwhelming as a regular team so far but they were good here with hopefully some more good matches during this title run. ***3/4

This match takes place on the final night of the Block stage of the 5*GP. Iwatani was already eliminated but Storm still had a chance if she won but would need a tie-breaker in order to advance. The opening of the match is great as you have the contrast of Iwatani's quick pace and flashy offense verses the matwork and strikes of Storm. The match eventually builds to an exchange of strikes and big moves. The finish is a bit weird as Storm hits Iwatani with an Air Raid Crash but Iwatani instantly gets up and hits her dragon suplex only for both women to not be able to answer the 10 count afterwards. Even with that this is still an entertaining match and hopefully we get to …

I know that Stardom has too many belts as is, but after watching this match it really made me wish that they a title specifically for their younger wrestlers. Unfortunately, this is just a match for pride as both Watanabe and Kyona were both out of contention at this point. Momo had one of her best performances of the year here. She puts in her usual quality technical performance but also showed a very strong emotional side. Inversely, Kyona's biggest strength has been her ring presence, but in this match she also showed some pretty solid work in terms of execution. Great to see the less experienced Stardom girls get a chance to show what they can do in a longer match. **…

Watched to see whether "let's go jobber" chants were really a thing now (they are-but aren't nearly as funny as one would hope. the chant inflation has made it hard for something to them to be funny as a novelty, let alone as a staple of a character). I was actually impressed with Bo in this match, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've liked anything he's done. Simple, snug work, good looking body shots, knee strikes and slams/gutbusters, it made for a fine squash match. Not sure exactly what the hell his new character is supposed to be and I doubt it'll get over but we shall see.

Marty "The Moth" Martinez vs Killshot - Lucha Underground 9/14/16 TLC Match Matt Striker sucks but out of all his insufferable, obnoxious performances this has to be the most insufferable and obnoxious of them all. You see this is a "Weapons of Mass Destruction" match, which is basically a TLC match that you win by pinfall. Oh the references, oh the horrible, horrible references. Killshot is Isiah "Swerve" Scott from NXT and Marty The Moth, I did some research into him doesnt like he has done much else. I will say Marty The Moth is the one who impressed me more. Killshot looked like your generic create-a-X-Division wrestler and wrestled as such. Marty The Moth has a …

Early on Perkins avoided Ibushi's kicks by checking them, countering them with a Dragon Screw and so on, did a lot of matwork, really leaving an impression he had come prepared to face Ibushi, as in Ibushi's last two matches were him just surviving insane bomb throwing. But with them showcasing Ibushi as the favourite to win the tournament, it'd only make sense that it almost didn't matter if Perkins did all that and went to the trouble of cutting off Ibushi's dive, Ibushi was gonna get it in anyway. Whereas that dive cut-off felt like a big- elaborate counter-move from Perkins Ibushi doing something like staying on the apron and hitting a Springboard Dropkick after Perki…

Your mileage may vary here depending on how much you like house show shenanigans as the entire match was built around the referee having double standards and Aoki and the crowd protesting about it as well as them screwing around with each other's merch. I found it fun, it didn't overstay its welcome and the finish was creative and fitting to what they established in the match earlier. **3/4

Big portions of this match were built around Bobby Fish dominating and working over Shibata's neck and back, I remember there was a story circulating weeks before this match that Shibata has a neck injury and decided to work through it, and even if that was true the way they structued this match didn't really take advantage of it, Shibata took a bunch of bumps for Fish who was almost Brock Lesnar working a house show-like in how meaningless and mundane he made them. There were some quality exchanges once they moved past that, and you can always count for Shibata for some nice violence, but this felt like a missed opportunity. Also Fish's vocal selling sounded childish and…

This is a match for the AJPW junior title, which Takao won from Hikaru Sato at Sumo Hall. That match was good but Sato, as great he is, is a really awkward fit with Takao. I think I might've actually liked this match more. Hirata doesn't do the dancing, which is fun but I'd say would feel really out of place in a match for an AJPW title. I do think at the core of his shtick is a genuine connection to the crowd based on him being a good underdog, which really shines here in a more serious context. In that way Hirata is like older DDT comedy wrestlers like Honda or Takanashi. On the other hand, Takao is someone who can execute things very smoothly but is kind of bland overa…

This is a really good house show match between these two. There is some entertaining back and forth throughout the match as opposed to the domination that you get in Asuka's TV matches. The transitions where well done, and Ember gets a nice run of offense before going down. ***1/2

I heard this was a horrible trainwreck so I was hyped beyond words for this. But actually it was just a really good match. What I loathed about Suwama is his tendency to venture into dumb as fuck modern puro nonsense, his matches vs. Sekimoto a few years ago were some of the most disappointing pimped matches I've ever watched, they'd have like 15 yes votes on the DVDVR voting threads but weren't any good at all, just two guys standing in the middle of the ring making dumb faces, exchangis weak chops with some bad looking long boston crab spots thrown in there. Kashin kind of negates all of that and brings actual psychology into the match. Before the match even starts he's…

Super fun little match. You've got a fired up Nomura with the crowd behind him, a fed up Sekimoto trying to extinguish the flame by working the back to set up the finish. Nomura's strikes looked great, his slap counters are always fun, and he really threw his weight into the elbows during the final exchange. Cool Rock Bottom-style backbreaker by Sekimoto into his shitty Sharpshooter but I liked that Nomura held out for a bit before the ref called for the bell.

This is for Best Friends' International Ribbon tag titles as they are challenged by the teenage duo of Tsukushi (18) and Kurumi (16.) This is quite the old-school joshi sprint which is freaky since neither of the challengers were alive during that period. It's easy to write off the Tsukushi and Kurumi do to their age but when you factor in that the both of them have more than 5+ years of experience each they are more than competent opponents. That point comes through strong in the match as both girls manage to create their own opportunities throughout the match in a realistic way. As a result, their big win here comes off as a hard earned victory rather than a fluky upset…

Strowman, Jax, Emma and now Bo Dallas, I think we can safely say "become more aggressive and kill jobbers" is a winning formula. Bo hits a mean back elbow (which is an underrated move) and throws some nice punches and knees before taking care of business with a move that is essentially a Cross Rhodes and the argument against it being a Cross Rhodes would sound a lot like Bret Hart talking about how the Sharpshooter and the Scorpion Deatlock are different moves because they're wrapped around a different leg.

Strowman worked a little more vulnerable here too, and I'm not surprised to see him getting it as well, one of the first things that impressed me back when he just debuted was how good he was at selling without pretty much ever bumping and thus putting over his dominance, and the message here is clear-C level talent like Sin Cara and Alicia Fox may be superior to the random local guy they found but they're still not nearly good enough to pose a threat to Strowman and Jax. If that kind of booking continued consistently you'd actuallly get a sense of hierarchy in WWE. Enjoyed him barely selling the suicide dive before going over and the spot where Sin Cara tried some kind o…

Hot damn, this was Nomura bringing the fire and not backing down a bit, even when he's getting bullied by Strong BJ. His mentor/trainer Suzuki takes a backseat in this, although he and Sekimoto have a fun little exchange and throw some suplexes. Loved Nomura lighting up Yuji with kicks, elbows, headbutts, and taking the boss hoss by surprise. He gets control of the situation and tags out as if he's had enough of Nomura's spunk. For a kid that's been wrestling less than six months, he does a lot of little things right. Like when he's trying to get the armbar locked in on Sekimoto and he's slapping at his hands to release. He's defintely the best/most interesting Big Japan …