January 2017

This was only 8.5 minutes long, but it was an absolute hoot! I actually think that this was better than their much pimped 2009 SmackDown match. This was all action w/ no dull moments - they established quickly that Morrison was working it as a heel, going after Rey's knee, and Rey did his thing, awesome selling - he is so great. Definitely recommended, this was just awesome. ***1/2

This was a hoot. A total brawl, very heated from straight to finish w/ nothing dull or boring about it. ZSJ is so good. ***1/2

So ends the greatest run of Chris Hero's terrific career - only fitting that his final indy match was against the greatest opponent of his late 2013 - early 2017 run in Zack Sabre Jr. Loved the opening with ZSJ showing good fire & going right to work on Hero - that lead to Hero beating the crap out of him, and that's something I always enjoy watching. Hero beating up people = awesome. He was great as always here in doing that & ZSJ was tremendous at sneaking in his hope spots & comebacks. A classic farewell match to one of the all-time greats in independent wrestling. ****1/2

This was a No Holds Barred match, and it was absolutely wild. Chuckie T has always been really good in these, remember really loving the one he had vs. El Generico in 2009, and this one was great. To start it off, Matt Riddle beat the crap out of him, and to get the advantage, DUSTIN had to get chair involved, and from then on, they just went balls to the walls with the no DQ gimmick and worked a hellacious sprint. ****

This was a very well worked match. Lots of people have turned on Thatcher & his reign, and this match got lots of negative reviews, but I enjoyed it very much. I still love Thatcher's in ring style, he is damn good on the mat, which was showcased here, and it's always a blast to see him target someone's arm, which also was on display here. ***1/2

This is the tag title switch that never ended up on WAVE Network for whatever reason. The match itself gets off to a rough start with Ohata no-selling a bunch of Ace Crushers from Miyazaki but one it gets going it turn into a damn good match. They keep a great pace with both teams pulling off some slick double team moves and sequences. The finish is particularly nasty as Miyazaki busts out a moonsault footstomp of all things to finish of Miyazaki. Not at the level of Avid Rival's stuff later in the year with Best Friend but still pretty enjoyable. ***3/4

This was great. The Authors of Pain looked like absolute monsters, they were really great in this one. DIY were fantastic too, it's really funny how Ciampa & Gargano went from shitty PWG performers to one of the absolutely best tag teams in the whole world - they were really great as the babyfaces working from underneath, loved their hope spots & comebacks. Fantastic stuff. ****

This was the best looking match on the card & it was very good. Both guys looked the best they have since joining NXT - Almas was very solid working the heat on Roddy, Roddy's selling was pretty great, I have always loved his selling, he brings true sense of exhaustion every time he is the one selling, I just love it. And every time he was on the offense, it was just a joy to watch. He delivers some of the best looking offense in wrestling today. Very nice match. ***1/2

Figured this deserved it's thread, because it has got some MOTYC talk by quite a few people already. The entrances were awesome, Roode going all '89 Flair was glorious. The actual match though... Not so glorious. The first 10 minutes or so were meh, and once it transitioned into Roode working on top, it became straight up boring. Nakamura's comeback w/ his usual signature moves wasn't interesting, but I did like the moment where he was signaling for Kinshasa & Roode wouldn't get up. That was good. Then some more Roode work on top. Ughhh. And once again, Nakamura's hope spots & comeback weren't any interesting. I did like Shinsuke not being able to pin Roode after…

I'm parachuting in a bit on NXT gimmicks, but I like this role for Eric Young a lot. Solid story for an opener here with Young having trained Dillinger and is now trying to recruit him. And the booking around Dillinger trying to overcome Sanity throughout is well done. ***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcT7KCLKXAU This is Nakamori's first defense of the JWP title that she won at the end of last year. They did a terrific job laying this match out with a veteran like Leon posing enough of a threat to the new champ but not being a clear favourite. It made you actually buy into how close and competitive the match was. The finish is long but that due in a way to the both of them selling the big moves that each of them were hitting on each other. The only thing that keeps this from being a great match is the work isn't as smooth as it should have been. Still, this is a strong, well earned, first defense for Nakamori. ***3/4

Tim Evans selected this match for me for the Match Swap. This is my first time seeing this promotion or Pratt sans mask. The promotion left a lot to be desired. It is in a gym that is devoid of quality sound and not much heat throughout. The announcers were ok I suppose but certainly indie-rific. They also utilize a Los Luchas Cam that is extremely annoying and reminded me of the Reffer Eye in 1991 WCW. The actual in ring work was good. Alexander uses his size to gain control and Pratt is fun working underneath. Pratt has bulked up a lot so it is tougher for someone like him to garner sympathy than in his Amasis days but he is able to emote to convey the struggle. Pra…

I caught a blurry, single angle, fan cam on youtube where the sound cut out for two minutes at the start of the last third of the match. I don't care. It was still great for what it was, which was pretty much exactly what you'd want it to be: two of the best hybrid style luchadores (maybe the best of such of the 00s vs the best of such of the 10s) going at it with tricked out twisty submissions, solid rope running, some nasty shots, and transitions that made sense, even though it was very back and forth and evenly worked. The camera was just far back enough that you lost some of the intricacies of the matwork, but you get the broad brushstrokes. Holds were complex enough …

What an outstanding tag match. Started off with Ringkampf working over TJ Cooper, and I truly enjoyed that - Axel Dieter Jr. looked very impressive. Once we we're done with that, SPPT got the control by their heel tactics and they worked over Axel Dieter Jr. in great fashion, and then my god, it was time for WALTER to come in and wreck shit up! Then they basically went balls to the walls PWG style without going overboard & the match remained fantastic till the end. So far the best tag match I've seen this year. ****1/4

This is yet another Queen's Quest trios match, not that I'm complaining as they are usually pretty good. The main goal here is to setup the High Speed title match between Iwatani and Watanabe, which unfortunately was for not as Momo hurt her ACL a few days after this. That's a real shame as the work between her and Iwatani here was a highlight. Mimura gets in a fair bit of offense to and it's nice to see that she adding more moves beyond her various rollups. She also puts up a gutsy fight at the finish until she accidentally gets hit by her teammates making her easy fodder for QQ to finish her off. Yet another super fun Stardom/QQ trios match. ***1/2

This is for the Wonder of Stardom title and also Newell's only single's match during this tour. Like Ray/Kyona, I thought this would also be a styles clash as what I had seen of Newell before this she was more about a fast pace and highspots. She seemed like a better matchup for Io or Iwatani than Hojo. I was glad I was wrong, because this turned out to be much different than what I was expecting and it was damn good too. They get to the main story of the match right away as Newell blocks an early Sliding D attempt from Hojo by kicking at her elbow. Newell then focuses on the arm in a nice Finlayesque fashion by wrenching and stomping on it. Hojo manages to counter the ar…

This is a match for Kay Lee Ray's ICW Women's title and it's also Kyona's first notable title match. When this match was first announced, I thought that it would end up being a styles clash but I was quite surprised at how well this two worked together. This the first time that I've seen Kyona work some elaborate sequences that come off being very smooth. She also works in her power offense really well with some top notch selling. KLR had maybe her best performance in Stardom here. All of her offense hit right on point and she did a terrific job of putting over Jungle's offense to the point that you believe that she had a real chance to pull off the upset. The first surpr…

This has a big match feel and atmosphere. I don't think I've seen Cena looking as intense as he did when he was setting AJ up for those lariats. Cena is approaching Kurt Angle levels of exposing and spamming his finish. Even the top rope AA he hits didn't feel like like a match ender, there was no build-up for it. Another Cena trope I don't like is him pulling out a new move every big match, less equals more and all that, but man, I love that variant of Canadian Destroyer that he started using as a result of this trope coming around. Highly entertaining match, mainly as I went in spoiler-free and I cared about who would win, but I doubt this will hold up on repeat…

Awesome match! Both Charlotte & Bayley were absolutely on point here - Charlotte working the heat on Bayley was wonderful, loved the trash talk, and her work on top was overall very good. Bayley's selling was good. She is such an awesome babyface wrestler. That Macho Elbow was very nice. All in all, this was some very solid rasslin! ***1/2

I thought this had more of a dangerous vibe than your standard WWE match. Owens's splash from the top rope through Roman outside on a table looked devastating (still surprised Roman didn't break his nose or get busted open). They pretty much exhaust the No DQ stip and I felt the ending started really strong: Owens sold the tumble through the stacked chairs perfectly and the table powerbomb looked great. Honestly it made little sense for Reigns to wait in the corner for him to stand up for a spear since he was KO'd (no pun intended). He looked like a goof there after a pretty good brawl and battle. Interference ending has a nasty table bump for Roman before Strowman puts h…

A little disappointed by this one, Jax's biggest strength is using her size and throwing people around and beating them up, Banks' biggest strength is her willingness to take dumb bumps, they could've had a much better match though it's hard to blame them for not going all out on a pre-show match. Jax had some nice offence in her lariat-like smashes, Sasha didn't really look good, I legitimately started laughing out loud at how bad her chest slaps to set up the lucha armdrag attempt were. Too much of the match was Jax attempting something, Jax stopping her mid-air and then just gently laying her down before a shove or a push into the corner. Decent but forgettable. **1/2

Well, I thought that this was pretty great. Some fun moments such as Jack Gallagher coming in & going out w/ his umbrella, Braun destroying people, Tye Dillinger actually coming out at #10, Ellsworth was used in a solid way, Cesaro swinging everyone, Harper coming in & wrecking his stablemates, Brock destroying Enzo, Reigns with the fantastic "this is my yard now" line. I understand being disappointed with this if you were expecting big surprises like Kurt Angle or Samoa Joe, but I thought this was a pretty damn well structured Rumble. Definitely way better than the 2016, 2015 & 2014 ones, so that automatically makes it the best one since 2013, at least. ***1/…

This told a good story of Dean Ambrose being in control for majority of the match, until he got distracted in the end by the fight between Corbin & Miz, and that ended up costing him the match. Very good stuff. ***1/2

Loved this. Great shine by Harper, great FIP segment w/ Cena & the whole finishing stretch with the Bray/Harper/Orton story was awesome. ***1/2