September 2016

5★STAR GP Finals: Yoko Bito vs. Tessa Blanchard This match is notorious for its dead crowd, and the crowd is indeed dead. From the very start, they clock out of this. They're not buying what Tessa is selling, but I thought it was great! I know heel control segments are meant to engage the crowd, yadda-yadda, but ignoring that and focusing on the performance itself, she did a great job execution-wise. She was taunting and degrading Bito, in between hellish beatings. It's classic 'Merican-style heel work. The bad in this match mostly falls on Bito; she was out of place multiple times, no-selling the legwork and just off in general. It's unfortunate because I like her, b…

Not as good as their classic a couple months ago but still a great hard-hitting fast-paced match. Yuu was nine months into her wrestling career at this point, which is really crazy. There's a couple awkward moments but they don't last long since they're working at such a fast pace, trading big strikes and submission attempts. I think Bati-bati is probably thrown around too much as a comparison but if it actually fits any matches in the last few years, this might be one of them. Despite a number of attempts throughout, Yuu can't get the armbar. She has to survive all of Yamashita's fancy strikes but ends up getting the win with a rear-naked choke. She does a great throw to…

Structurally, this match was pretty messy. The pacing felt disjointed and I think it went a little long past its expiration date, but that only meant we got a great finishing strike-a-thon with a ridiculous Rainmaker headbutt from Ishikawa and a hard-hitting slap fight. I like Higuchi. He’s definitely got all the pieces to make a big superstar but his offensive execution leaves something to be desired. Ishikawa is a strong WOTY candidate and he was great here, in that you get the sense he can’t be bothered by Higuchi. He doesn’t hold back with his shots and I love that he’s smiling through the face slaps in the end. He looked like a true champion, never really letting Hig…

I really enjoyed Elgin's selling of the left leg. I liked that he was going back to it, even when he was on offense, after big moves like the running lariat into the corner. Naito was on point picking that leg apart. Elgin's offense looked super stiff, which I always enjoy. I loved Naito smacking Elgin around on the back of the head until it pissed him off and he fired back at him. The reversing of the Naito's swinging DDT into a powerful falcon arrow was awesome. The interference lost me a little bit, but I was quickly sucked back in during Elgin's comeback with some killer looking lariats. ****1/4

This was better then the more hyped WrestleMania three-way. The main reason being that their was a solid story being worked throughout rather than the constant chaining of spots that was the Mania match. Charlotte is in full on beast mode here. This was the most physical that I've ever seen her work as she just manhandling both Sasha and Bayley. Bayley took the brunt of the attacks from both Charlotte and Sasha to the point were I bought the finish of Charlotte just finishing her off with a kick after she pinballed off of Sasha. The Horsewomen continue their run of having very good, if not great, multiwoman matches. ****

WWE World Tag Team Champions New Day vs The Club - WWE Clash Of The Champions 2016 Holy Shit what a sprint! I came in expecting another mediocre New Day tag and this was awesome! I am pretty indifferent to all four of these guys (used to love Big E, but now he is kinda meh). They came out throwing bombs and never looked back. Gallows decked Big E on the outside and Anderson hit a running Liger Bomb. The Club came to play! Gallows really laid in his punches in the corner. Loved Kofi dropkicking to create separation in doing so he still kept Gallows in between him and his own corner. Everything felt urgent and desperate. Once Big E gets in he just throws muthafuckas aro…

Interesting an enjoyable match, and the first time Jax worked a more "normal" WWE match. As much as I would love her to just squash everyone in her way that's just not going to happen so they're going to have to have her work as a vulnerable monster. And a vulnerable monster is monster that can reach the highest artistic peak in wrestling and a natural progression to what she's been doing. Outside of Jax eating a Jawbreaker on the ropes I thought all of Fox's attempted comebacks made sense and that Jax nailed the amount of selling needed for this type of match and she's already got the presence, cut-offs, offence etc. you'd want from someone in her role. **3/4

It is the weirdest thing that in 2016, the closest thing we have to a Tenryu/Hashimoto style battle of mythical asskickers match is between two tubby japanese girls in a vanity promotion with a ridiculous name. All the people I read who watched this show hated this match. Why do they hate it so much and I like it so much? Maybe I'm just an imbecile without knowing it. I guess they expected fat, old Aja to be little more athletic and Miss "I once shattered the face of a drama actress" Yoshiko to work a good clean no frills technical wrestling match or something. Anyways, I loved big chunks of this. Loved the entire opening section with Yoshiko going right into atte…

Match Link I was pretty hyped up for this match when it was first announced since these two are favourites of mine. This is 20 minutes of war, (well a little less since it's slightly clipped.) Just a terrific mix of hard hitting and big spots. It does go a little flat at the end since it's a draw but that doesn't detract from what went on before it. Both of these women keep adding to their phenomenal years. ****1/4

This is one of the matches that SEAdLINNNG has been teasing for awhile with the inexperienced Yamashita challenging the veteran Takahashi. This match was really physical like a lot of men's big heavyweight matches in Japan but the big difference is that they put over everything with selling. Yamashita showed great fire and kept fighting through to the end. Nanae continued her fantastic run this year with another terrific performance. A bit of a sleeper match that people should really checkout. ****1/4

The first falls were worked just so they'd get out of the way, the "climb on the top rope only for the other wrestler to stand up and do an avalanche move" is CMLL's version of the "bounce of the ropes-eat a move", there was no structure to this other than "let's do a bunch of cool shit", they went overboard with the slap effect strikes and Cavernario botched a dive pretty hard-he even botched the recovery. Those are my reasons for not rating it as a great match. Because the stuff they did REALLY is neat-it's hard to look at something like Volador's big dive and continue being cynical about wrestling. I was also amused at how Maximo and Tirantes were more over than the ac…