May 2017

Good matches on random house shows are what's kept me watching through the DDT Universe archives, and this is one of those matches. It's got a clear through line, as HARASHIMA tries to keep the young, crazy high flier MAO grounded. HARASHIMA puts on a really good grappling performance. He starts by keeping MAO in his butterfly guard. MAO tries to get a better position and he fails most of the time, and then whenever MAO gets past the guard, it seems like HARASHIMA immediately gets his back. I really enjoyed all of that. On top of that, Hara is smiling and playing to the crowd through all of this, barely taking MAO seriously. MAO tries to gain an advantage by shenanigans a…

I've liked Bad Luck Fale since I first saw him - I honestly think he is pretty underrated, he does a really good job at being the gaijin monster. Here he had the match of his life. They kept it simple; Fale dominated Okada with his monster work, while Okada made some fiery comebacks. Both parties played their roles extremely well & as a result, we got a rockin' main event match. Liked this better than Okada's matches vs. Kenny & Ibushi this year. ****1/4

So, so, SO much better than their first match. I wasn't a fan of that one, but this rocked my world. The start of the match was amazing with them going full speed right from the get go. The brawl outside the ring was fantastic. Omega's work on top was so good, which I was very happy about because his work on top was what really ruined the New Japan Cup match for me. The way he targeted Ishii's neck throughout the whole match was tremendous. Ishii once again proved why he is one of the best sellers in the biz - amazing selling from him. The whole finishing stretch was just insane with them busting out sick counters & big moves w/ a very nice sense of urgency. Amazing m…

Even though both women have titles at this time, this is a non-title match. The opening to this has some really good matwork as Hojo goes all shootstyle to try and counter Storm's British style. Things take a different turn in the middle of the match when Storm goes after Hojo with her butt attacks so Hojo decides to start working over her butt. This isn't a comedy spot, Hojo legitimately works over Storm's butt like it's her arm or back. It's weird. Still, if you get past that awkwardness, the rest of the match is really well worked. The nearfalls leading up to the draw are well worked but at fifteen minutes it is a bit short. ***1/2

On paper, this looked like one of the best matchups for the block stage of this year's Catch the WAVE tourney and they did not disappoint. Surprisingly, Ohata is able to match the physicality Yamashita with the help of a quick attack at the start. Yamashita manages to make some comebacks but Ohata keeps varying her offense which allows her to keep regaining control of the match. She eventually gets the win with her awesome Skyblue Suplex. ****

This was a great return match for Hideo. It was pretty much perfectly laid out - Kona jumps Hideo right away to get the advantage & does some quite impressive work over him. He laid those strikes in & his work over Hideo overall was really damn good. Reeves impressed me in this one. Hideo makes a badass comeback & starts destroying Kona with those killer strikes of his. This was perfectly laid out for Hideo's first match back. Very much enjoyed it. ***1/2

The power vs. technique dynamic is one of my favorite match types in all of pro-wrestling and Big Japan pulls it off better than most. As much as I like Suzuki's matches against Sekimoto, Okabayashi conveys so much more emotion to his matches. He was fantastic against Suzuki, hossing his way out of Suzuki's fingertips as the champ tries to bend him to his will. Suzuki's armwork was brutal and he does such a good job of staying on it, even with Yuji trying to shake him. One of the best spots of the match came when Yuji puts Suzuki in a camel clutch -- Suzuki is trying to snap his fingers while Okabayashi wrenches back with a one-handed variation. Yuji's able to avoid the d…

You can't ask for a much better opener than this. Fast-paced and concise with a well-established story and terrific selling from Togo. Miyamoto is one of the most underpraised wrestlers today and he unfortunately gets overshadowed by his tag partner Kodaka but he's definitely the more versatile of the two. He's silky smooth and focused on the mat or with his counters and transitions. He works the leg here and Togo really does a lot to add depth to a simple story, like the buckling on the suplex escape or injuring himself on the Pedigree. One of the things that Togo does so well is convey a sense of struggle when he's in a submission hold. He's trying to find a counter or …

It's no coincidence that the amount of attention and praise that Hiroyo Matsumoto has received recently has coincided with the number of high profile opponents that she has had. Here, she takes on Ice Ribbon ace Fujimoto. While this was a pretty good match, it felt like they were previewing a more meaningful match in the future. Still, there was a lot of really good work here making it more than worth your time to watch. ***3/4

Started off with your usual O'Reilly vs. Riddle back & forth action w/ that shoot style inspiration, battling over control w/ a terrific sense of urgency as they traded holds & tried to get that advantage over one another. O'Reilly's eventual control segment was absolutely excellent w/ him working over Riddle's arm & Riddle, in general, in brutal fashion. Riddle is great working from underneath and he was that here too w/ some great selling & that great fire of his. Great stuff. His big comeback when he got all fired up & knocked Kyle the F out w/ that big kick as Kyle was kicking him to the chest was tremendous. The finishing stretch is them looking f…

This is for Queen's Quest's Artists of Stardom Titles. This is yet another match in the line of smoothly worked QQ trios matches that have happened in the last few months. They control the match in the early going with some slick triple teams. The action is fairly quick throughout, even Mimura and AZM do a solid job working the finish. QQ cut off Mimura from the rest of her team and seemingly had the match won but Mimura gets surprise rollup on AZM to get the upset. ***1/2

This match is fairly similar to Kodakura's previous match with Misaki Ohata. Yamashita spends most of the match working her over while Kodakura still manages to pick her spots to stay competitive. Yamashita seems to be on her way to a win but runs out of time. Still, this is another impressive performance for Kodakura. ***3/4

Awesome performance by Pete Dunne. Loved his targeting of Seven's taped up shoulder all the way through the whole thing - his work over that shoulder was nasty. Loved it. Trent got a bit too no-selly with it at times, but for the most part I thought he did a really good job selling the arm & playing the face in peril, in general. Really good match. ***3/4

They start this match with a lot of chain wrestling. Mark Andrews is no Jack Gallagher, but Tyler Bates squeezes something decent out of him during the opening exchanges. Andrews eventually uses his high flying to try and neutralize him, but it's to no avail as Bate can match him in that department too. We see a lot of sequences that look like they are straight from that BOSJ Ospreay vs Ricochet match. Eventually, this breaks down into a full on spotfest. There's plenty of tip-top spots here, even if they do have a tad too much downtime in between some of them. These guys don't have the best chemistry and it shows. There's a couple of moments where they both look lost…

Not many matches from Toryumon/DG have clean starts. Don't love that. Shingo looks like he wants Mochi to come to the floor and brawl early on, probably wise not to take the bait. For a short time it looks like this could be really good with an arm vs. leg battle. I liked Mochi struggling to get power on kicks due to using the wrong leg even if it didn't last. Some of the no-sells in the middle-to late-middle portion were good, blow off a kick/lariat to hit something then sell. Those work with both getting up at relatively the same time. Shingo's offense hasn't impressed me in the few matches I've seen. It's all lariats and power moves that look like they should b…

This was one of the most anticipated matches during the block stage of this year's Catch the WAVE tournament, as it pitted two of joshi's top young rising stars. This gets off to an intense start, as you would expect with these two. Yamashita manages to gain control by getting a Scorpion Death Lock on Sareee that does a number on her back. Sareee tries to fight back but realizes that a smarter strategy would be to go after Yamashita's arm. To counter back, Yamashita starts going for a sleeper in the hopes to cut down Sareee's feistiness. The draw does come out of nowhere but it seems fitting give that these two were going at each other so hard that they never even noticed…

This was an outstanding, physical violent battle w/ a great sense of competition. Both guys were fantastic in their control segments w/ their terrific looking offense. The transitions were great. I watched their ROH match from 2006 recently & this was on the same level as that one in my eyes. ****1/2

This ruled. Both guys had their working boots on - loved Cole's work on top, definitely one of his best performances when it comes to working the heat on his opponent. Tana was great working from underneath, sold his ass off & all of his comebacks were tremendous. If this truly is it for Adam Cole in ROH, then he went out with a bang. He more than held his own against one of the greatest in ring talents of all-time & delivered one of the best matches of his career. ****

A really awesome, non-stop action brawl. Easily the best one the Bully + Briscoes trio has had so far. ***3/4

A sprint spotfest through & through. They went all out in this one - I feel like if they had gone even 5 minutes longer this could've reached the overkill status, but thankfully they didn't do that & as a result this was very good. ***1/2

OZ Academy Openweight Championship #1 Contendership (Special Referee: POLICE): Hikaru Shida vs. Mayumi Ozaki This was a cascade of fuckery, with a bias official, shinai, chains, and constant outside interference. It wasn't the sequel to their awesome 2013 brawl that I was hoping for, but it was an entertaining roadblock in Shida's path to the Openweight Championship. I thought it did a good job conveying the hopelessness of Shida's situation with the corrupt official, and they find a creative way for her to go over in this seemingly unwinnable situation. ***

The finish was absolute dogshit, but it didn't take anything away from this incredible match. They went for an indy epic w/ lots of big moves, counters + nearfalls & they sure delivered one - all the while not going overkill. Fantastic stuff. ****1/4

Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) vs. Nanae Takahashi & Sareee This was fast, furious hard-hitting tag team action, and what the glorious sparkling D is all about! ****1/2

This is for Io's World of Stardom title. I really liked the first half of this. They paced it so well and managed to work in a few good nearfalls too. The early matwork was great with Io using some shootstyle matwork to counter Storm's British style but then Toni mixes it further by working in some shootstyle of her own. The early second half of the match does drag but that's the only time that you feel that they are working towards a draw. The finishing run is interesting as they do something similar to Io's match with Shayna Baszler as the ref halts the match after Io gets KO'd by a nasty Storm piledriver. Unfortunately, Io does come back a little too soon which wasn't …

This is for Hojo's Wonder of Stardom title. Wow, there are a lot of streamers thrown during the intros. Probably the most for a non-retirement match that I've seen in a while. The match itself gets off to a rough start, quite a few awkward moments along with a forced crowd brawl that they only do so that Hojo can do a diving elbow off the back entrance. Things get much better when they start doing more focused body part work with Iwatani getting her back worked over and Hojo with her arm. In fact, the finish is great with Mayu trying to hit her finisher with a bad back. A solid last big title match for Hojo in Stardom. ***1/2