March 2017

JR Goldberg's "best lucha matches of 2017 so far" article from Paste Magazine brought this to my attention. Here's a quote of his from that article about this match: "This match is like watching a tag match with four Necro Butchers and two of them are actually evil skeleton creatures hell bent on killing one another." And that is literally the best description for this match. ****1/2

First time I have ever seen either of these guys. This is like the Cara Lucha version of the Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi matches in that is two luchadors going absolutely crazy and killing themselves for the audience. This is in the Cara Lucha concrete arena and after a short indy respect sequence opener these two just flip the switch and start killing themselves with some of the most insane dives and head drops you will see in modern lucha. It's like late 90's AJPW bombfests meet early 2000's US indies head-drops meets 2010's lucha. I mean that in a good way although it has the obvious downsides. I think I use ***3/4 ratings as a way to say "this isn't a classic, b…

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An absolutely awesome, action packed sprint. Really no dull moments, the action remained heated from start to finish. ****

Suzuki's one of the most engaging wrestlers to watch in the ring but works in such a cool-headed, almost nonchalant way, reserving most of his energy to unleash these micro-explosions of offense throughout. There's very little downtime with Suzuki and his spontaneity is incredible. There's a lot of great examples of this throughout, like the small package on a doubled over Sekimoto, the sleeper hold off the pin attempt, and kneeing Sekimoto off when he tries to cover him. And because Suzuki's such a maestro on the mat, I think I underrated him as a striker but he throws great strikes -- some of the best snap elbows and I love the way he lays into his uppercuts.The story w…

I like both guys a lot. Riddle this year seems to be becoming more formula or spotty at times. We get some fun mat work early. The mat work leads to submission attempts. Thatcher after the foot. Riddle gets out only to eat a big gut wrench. Thatcher moves to the arm. Big knee from Riddle sets up Riddle's offense. Thatcher back on the ankle. Riddle counters and in a great revenge spot gets the ankle. Riddle softening up the leg. Both men have leg locks apllied. Thatcher with a knee strike, and sells it a bit. Thatcher counter's a fisherman buster into a rear naked choke. That Riddle counters into the bromission for the win. 3 1/2*

Big Match Io strikes again! This was a great match which saw great struggle in it - Kagetsu looked damn good during her control segments and Io on the offense during her shine & comebacks is always a blast. Really good selling on her part, too. ****

This is for BY Ho's Goddesses of Stardom tag titles as they are challenged by rising star Kyona and veteran freelancer Matsumoto. Like both of her other two title matches from earlier this year, the match is built around making Jungle Kyona look like a major player in the promotion. Again, while there are times where her work isn't smooth and her inexperience shows, she still manages to look like she can hold her own. Hiroyo looked great here too. It shows you how she's a super underrated tag worker she is when she already has two great tag title matches this year with completely different women in both matches. The finish is well done as the match is held in Kyona's home…

This is a competitive squash but it's a damn fun one. SAKI works for LLPW-X which doesn't even get its results reported so she is a real unknown. She looks good in the offense that she does get in but never really pushes Ohata to the point to where she might get the win. Ohata is great here, as while she doesn't have the flashiest offense she definitely knows how to use it effectively. ***1/2

This is for Mizunami's Regina Di WAVE title. To be honest, I avoided watching this match because I think that Haruhi is one of the worst workers in joshi, but got curious because I saw a couple of other people recommend it. To her credit, Haruhi works her butt of here and the crowd gets behind her as a result. The story of this match is more of a traditional Japanese wrestling storyline as it's Mizunami challenging the toughness of Haruhi. Mizunami does such a great job in her selling and pacing in the match that her being off on either one of those things would have greatly effected the quality of the match. Easily the most surprisingly great matches of the year so far a…

Probably the best Cruiserweight match since the division launched back in September. Neville's work on top was good, but what made this match stand out was Jack Gallagher's fantastic babyface performance from underneath - seriously loved the sense of urgency he showcased. ***1/2

Braun standing tall early. This has feel and aura of a UWF hoss fight. Strowman just tossing Roman around. Reigns has no answers for Braun. Strowman is putting pressure on the back of Reigns. Braun continues the heat, until he misses Reigns and hits the post shoulder 1st. Reigns on a comeback. Reigns almost steals the match with a Samoan drop. Braun cuts off the Superman Punch. All Braun again until he misses a big boot and does a turnbuckle bump to the floor. Roman tries to take the monster down only to take a power slam through a table. I thought Reigns recovered from that way too quickly. 2 Supermen punches, and Braun still stands, and cuts off Roman. Super splash fro…

A very strong opener. Joe looked great working on top & Zayn was awesome as usual working from underneath. Very good stuff. ***1/2

When Ryusuke Taguchi delivers, he delivers big booty-style. There was a lot to like about this match, from Taguchi chasing after Hiromu's injured ankle and Takahashi tenderizing the small of Taguchi's back, to Taguchi finally reaching his breaking point. Taguchi's selling isn't a strong point and he more or less blows off Hiromu's good lower back work to land a few hip attacks. And this match still has Takahashi's signature sloppiness -- I'm still not quite sure what they were going for off the top rope but it looked bad. But once Taguchi snaps on Takahashi with those slaps, the match settles in for a roller coaster ride of offense down the stretch, with Taguchi still tar…

This was a very impressive New Japan debut for ZSJ. He got to showcase his wrestling style, and he seemed to get pretty over with the fans right away. Shibata gave him A LOT in this match, he truly helped make Zack look like million bucks. Probably the weakest of their 3 matches, but still very good. They have a really good chemistry with each other. ***1/2

Okada vs. Tiger Mask W was one of those New Japan matches where nothing interesting happened until the 2nd half kicked in. Once Okada started to lay those stomps & slaps on W to get him fired up - that's when things got FANTASTIC. Seriously awesome freakin' stuff - enough for me to rate this pretty highly, but the dull first half prevents me from going even higher. ***3/4

This was fantastic. I have only seen few of his matches, but I so far really like TK Cooper's sleazy heel act w/ Dahlia Black. It's pretty tremendous. Then you of course got one of my favorite wrestlers in the world, Matt Riddle who is an absolute ass-kicker, and here he sure gave that sleazy dickhead heel an ass-kicking. Absolutely LOVED the early portions of the match where it was just Riddle beating the shit out of Cooper - Cooper sold it so well, and the way they transitioned that amazing ass-kicking into TK getting to work the heat on Riddle by having Dahlia interfere felt natural & came off super well. Great transition between the 2 segments. TK was really solid…

Fantastic match w/ a fantastic AJ Styles performance. He wrestled it with such a sense of desperation, and as a result we got what is the best Randy Orton match since his February 2014 match vs. Daniel Bryan. Really just loved everything about this - the finish was absolutely incredible, reminded me of Liger vs. Sasuke. Easily my favorite finish of a match in recent memory. ****1/4

This was pretty great. Started off with them trying to outswag each other, loved the mind games w/ the taunt stealing. Then TJP started targeting that knee of Shinsuke's - that's when things got REAL good. Loved TJP's work over the knee, and Shinsuke did a really good job selling it while showing that it isn't injured anymore - they clearly wanted to establish that he is now back with a good knee & all. Really good match. ***3/4

This was just a total blast from start to finish. Loved the pre-match stuff w/ Io getting a big video package showcasing her evolution as a wrestler, and then the big streamer treatment she got. The match didn't tell an elite story or anything - but it was just so goddamn fun to watch. All women looked great w/ their great looking offense + Io & Mayu did some great selling as well. An absolute blast. ****

In a promo before the match, Storm says that Hiroyo is a dream opponent for her. They don't try to do anything epic here, but they still go out an have a really fun match. The whole match is back and forth between the two of them, neither one of them is in control for too long. In fact, they must have lost track of the time because they don't really build to a finish as the time limit just ends which felt different if unintended. A very fun match. ***1/2

I thought that Cole played his role pretty much perfectly. The cocky, younger heel champ. Talking shit & dominating most of the match. I wish that Daniels had shown more emotion, thinking of something like what Lio Rush showed in his match vs. Marty Scurll, then this could've been ****1/2+ easily. I still enjoyed this tremendously, and when ol' Todd counted to 3 I got goosebumps. Gonna be hard to beat that moment this year. ***3/4

A really good back & forth match. Loved Fish's offense with him just kicking the shit out of Lethal - the match had some really cool moments such as him doing that early on, and then I totally popped for the desperation Cutter Lethal pulled off. Bobby's work over Lethal's leg was really good too, some of the counters he did when Lethal went for something & then he countered it into him working the leg - awesome stuff. Loved this. ***3/4

A super fun 6-Man Mayhem. Really well laid out spotfest with everyone getting to do their big spots. ***1/2

I liked their 2 out of 3 falls match from last month, and this was A LOT better than that one. This goddamn ruled - loved the sense of urgency & emotion shown by Lio Rush, he is such an impressive wrestler. Marty was damn good too, his work over Lio was awesome, and the ending with him just destroying him was so awesome. Absolutely loved this. Fantastic match. ****