November 2016

Ever since she regained the ICE Infinity title back in July from Risa Sera, Fujimoto had been running through the Ice Ribbon roster. While Tsukushi is only 19, she has over 6 years experience and isn't that far off from being a player at the top of the promotion. The match gets off to a slow methodical start as they work strike exchanges in between the two of them applying submissions. In fact, they rely a bit too much on strike exchanges as transitions in the early going. The match really picks up around the halfway point and is just fantastic the rest of the way. There are so many fun sequences that they work while still managing to tie them together and not let the mat…

What a superb little match. Creative spots, violence, comedy, the underdog narrative and awesome heel work from Suzuki. Love the dynamic with Suzuki murdering Yano with killer offense while Yano did really basic stuff like hair pulling and grabbing the referee just to stay in the match. I know Yano gets ironic praise on places like reddit but he really is a great foil for Suzuki. The repeated interference from Taichi worked really well and had a nice payoff. Great, great finish. **** 1/4

his was the climax of a long feud between Callihan and Kingston, with Kingston bringing in Homicide and Callihan bringing in the Crists (including pulling Jake out of retirement), This was a six-man with Outlaw Inc. bringing in a surprise partner, and it had to be one of the best actual deliveries of a surprise in wrestling history. Ki comes out in a black suit, looking like video game Hitman and starts fucking dudes up. They have a really fun area tour brawl, throwing each other into the sides of walls, leaping off bars, chucking chairs. Callihan smashes Ki's knee inbetween chairs, and when the match goes into the ring, we have Kingston and Homicide battling the Killer C…

Sometimes you open a video of a match and think "here we go". And there may be a pre-match interview, ok, skip that. Maybe a video package for a preview, ok, skip that. Boring entrances, ok, skip that, Endless introductions, ok, skip that. Then the match starts with something boring and generic like arm wingers and you wonder if it wouldn't be better to just close that youtube window and go do something else. Maybe go watch cat meme videos, reconnect with your childhood friends. Anything else really. And sometimes you see LA Park and Rey Escorpion holding chairs ready to attack each other and think "every decision I've ever made leading up to this moment has been correct"…

Alexis has earned her way into the #1 Contender spot for Becky's title. (I hadn't realize Becky was the first SD Women's Champ - good on ya, Becks.) The Scottish crowd are solidly behind Becky here, and Bliss turns her disdain to 11. She doesn't care one bit for the crowd, the ref, or Becky. Solid 12 min TV match, with Becky looking like she deserves the belt and Bliss looking like she really deserves a title shot. They match up well, and the fighting gets intense. At one point they're trading forearms like this is Japan, just hauling off and walloping the crap out of each other. Seems this is the start of a feud, which includes a cage match. I suspect they're g…

Mil Muertes vs Prince Puma - Lucha Underground 11/9/16 Casket Match Towards the end of the match, we find out that Mil Muertes had stuffed Konnan, Prince Puma's manager, in a casket, which is probably what prompted this match. I thought this match was helluva lot better than the title match from the Season Finale of the first Season. Really awesome brawl that never let up and each man just went for broke. Surprisingly there was no blood and no mask ripping, but this was still pretty awesome. Puma started it off red hot attacking Muertes on the steps and they brawl through the crowd. The advantage does not last long, Mil throws him through a door and the rout is …

Man Cassandra Miyagi does not seem to be very good at wrestling. I don't remember the last time something annoyed me as much as her just inexplicabaly falling down as Hashimoto was about to hit an ipponseoi nage. Then there was a spit spot, her making a great amateur wrestler do shitty crowd brawling and the biggest problem of them all-her controlling so much of the match while doing absolutely nothing interesting on offence. She used like 4 moves (a dropkick, a big boot, a leglock and a backdrop suplex variation) none of which looked particularly good and just hit them over and over and over again and after a while just started busting out bigger moves, there was no mome…

This is your typical throw four big names in a tag match where everyone just does their own thing. Aja showing no interest in Kenta Kobashi's offer of a handshake before the intro's was awesome. I was most impressed with Matsumoto because this was a match based on star power and she managed to project herself as good as anyone else in the match despite being the least known name. Satomura does a nice job of selling getting worked over by her opponents along with solid performances from both Aja and Ayako. Just an all around quality tag match. ***1/2

We got a brilliant dickhead heel performance from Hero here. He mocks Ishii for being short and showboats in the ring while Ishii was laid out on the stage. Ishii brings the fire back as to be expected. Ishii popping up to his feet after taking a stiff Piledriver looked like something out of you would see in a zombie movie. Hero might have been piling on the pounds during this period, but he as agile as ever and I wasn't expecting to see kip ups and the Misawa flip through the ropes from him, which popped both me and the crowd big time. My only complaint about this match is I wished they wrapped it up after the Rolling Elbow, instead of going for a few more minutes before…

RPW Undisputed British Championship As one would expect, this match is worked super stiff. However, they start things off with Shibata working over the left arm of Hero. When they start getting into the elbow and chops, Hero leans his forehead onto Shibata's daring him to come at him hard. Shibata delivers some stiff blows, then Hero gives him a nice/quick slap in the face. Loved it. Then it's Hero's turn, which he takes with a big boot knocking Shibata to the outside. We get some nice back and forth hard-hitting action on the outside. Hero is more dominant here, leaving Shibata to fight from underneath. Shibata then goes into Terminator mode taking each shot,…

Wild bloody brawl with the Boricua Four Horsemen trying to murder each other. The match starts with Cide (in old school Natural Born Killaz jumpsuit) and Ki (in his Hitman suit) coming out and getting jumped in the aisle by the Hit Squad. We have a bit of really great crowd brawling, including Homicide busting open Maff with Harley Race style knuckle punches (the camera really focused on Maff and Cide, but in the corner of your eye you could see Ki and Mack brutalizing each other, I really wish I had the alternate view as well). Homicide takes a big bump into the stairs and stays down, while Hit Squad throws Ki into the cage and double teams him. Joker comes out from the …

While their August match is a great **** affair, this was on another level. Felt like a hybrid between DreamRush and a Midnight Express-RnR bout. They escalated the intensity and drama well and brilliantly played off their previous match. Iconic finish too. **** 1/4

This ruled. The atmosphere was great with the crowd being red hot for Goldberg and chanting for him even before the match started, making it feel every bit as special as they'd hyped it up to be. The match was executed pretty much flawlessly-Goldberg shrugging off Lesnar's shove was a magical moment, and the big transition was as picture perfect as it gets. You just can't time Spears any better than Goldberg did here. It's impossibly. Usually you get at least a second or two for a wrestler to get in position and either stand there and eat a move or set up a counter but here Goldberg just took Lesnar down right away and it looked amazing. I don't feel comfortable slapping …

Some thoughts on this match: Larger arena and card than the Champ. Carnival matches from 2016. Very nice to see AJPW in a venue of this size. Its nice to have SUWAMA back as the roster is kinda sparce. On to the match: Great heelish tactics from SUWAMA. Strong focus on the sleeper hold and trying to damage Kento's neck. Fantastic strike exchanges and selling by both but, esp. Miyahara as the babyface champ. Glad to see zero flip bumps taken from a lariat. Miyahara finally looked like a world champ here and felt the torch has been passed in this match. Rather than "put the belt on the young handsome babyface." Traditional puro with little flash or g…

On paper, this looks like your typical vets vs. youngster match, but the big difference is Yamashita and Yoshiko work like a Hokuto/Kandori type team. The story is that they are competitive when they work together but the dislike for one another keeps that from happening as much as it should. Both Ayako and Nanae are pretty nasty with their working over of their opponents. I've enjoyed the bitchy vet version of Ayako that showed up earlier in the year. There are some slow spots here since they work a half hour draw, but when the match is really going it's some fantastic stuff. ****

Decided to check this out since I heard it was 8 minutes long and relatively one sided but was disappointed to find out it was nowhere near as good as it was hyped to be. Ok, so you have Riddle blindsight Ospreay with an amazing knee strike before the bell rings. That ruled. Then he starts slamming him around-and the throws he does look great, the Fisherman Buster in particular looked like he decapitated Ospreay. What he does inbetween the slams isn't very good-his chops are eye rolling and for most of his strikes he still hasn't managed to figure out how to make it look good without hitting full force. I find the overreacting incredibly annoying-good for the crowd and th…

Somebody explain to me where this match came from and why it was so good. It is a mascara against mascara of two wrestlers that I have never seen in a singles until now. The first fall is not too much, although it serves to establish Galactar as rudo, there is a fairly good chain wrestling sequence sequence and the final submission is great. I prefer apuestas with longer primeras, but whatever. The second starts with Delta looking to equate things quickly, making a ridiculous spot (although quite cool in its ridiculousness, being honest) to get a quick comeback. He wins the fall with another cool submission. To this moment I liked what I had seen, but I wasn't c…

There's a real feeling of contempt and anger in this match that is so badly lacking in modern WWE. Just little things like their facial expressions and their yells when they hit each other make it all feel like a vicious fight. I liked a Twitter take saying replace the kendo stick with a beer cooler and this feels like a lucha brawl. It's a shame the TV has such bad writing for the promo segments coz there's actually a coherent story being told in these matches of Charlotte fighting to force Sasha to respect her as a deserving champion, like actually pleading "Respect me... I'm the champ" to her. The only time this story element is ever touched on outside the matches is C…