May 2017

Saki-sama vs. Rika Tatsumi Tatsumi has brought a doctor to prove that Saki-sama's maid Martha is actually a man in diguise and should not be allowed to compete in a women's wrestling promotion. Saki-sama was vicious here, knocking the wind out of the little vampire with hard kicks. The PK while Tatsumi was helplessly trapped in Paradise Lock-position was sadistic stuff. I loved it. Tatsumi's sympathetic selling and bumping is wonderful, although I thought her comebacks were on the soft side. Good match with a fun angle attached to it that led to a shocking twist ending. ***1/2

Good early back & forth stuff, which then lead to O'Reilly controlling things with a headlock. That was seriously great. Tyson Dux managed to start working on Kyle's leg, which was great. KOR answered that by getting way more intense as he started to target Dux's arm. Great battle of strategies. Really the only thing holding this from being ****+ is that Kyle's selling of the leg was super spotty - but other than that, this was really awesome. ***3/4

I would honestly call this match a carryjob from Reigns, and hot damn, best carryjob I've seen all year long. What a terrific performance by the Big Dog - Finn's offense looked super weak, I did like the idea of him going after Reigns' injury, but as I said, the offense looked weak - what made it work extremely well though is that Roman f'n Reigns sold his ass off for him. He sold Finn's weak offense like death. And of course Reigns' offense looked killer, as usual. What a fantastic professional wrestler he is. Great match & an amazing performance by Reigns. ****1/4

If you are familiar with their rivalry, you know what you get here. They just destroyed each other. I thought it was their best match against each other yet. ****1/2

What an amazing match to kick off this year's BOSJ with! A kickass 8 minute sprint with a fantastic sense of urgency & drama. ****

Marty's NJPW debut so you get a bit more character and fan interaction as he looks to get his gimmick over. And it works for the most part; fans were whooping before he even appeared. These two have wrestled a ton, and I, again, enjoyed these guys and their chemistry. I liked their ROH match from last year better - the rating there being dependent on how much Ospreay sells (not much if at all here). I did like how they at least set the shoulder up and it did play into the finish. A new stage for Scurll and thought he acclimated himself fine. ***3/4

This was really, really, really damn good. The match was mostly dominated by the veteran in Tiger Mask - he did a great job doing that. Volador got his highflying, high impact comebacks in & all of them were really enjoyable. ***3/4

Definitely my most awaited match up of the whole tournament (alongside KUSHIDA/Taguchi) & they delivered just like I knew they would. The opening was super great & set up the pace for rest of the match - loved Liger's work on top, it's always a pleasure to see him do his thing & Hiromu sold + bumped his ass off for him. The transitions were also really great; loved Hiromu getting the advantage by using his quickness & then going for that big apron powerbomb. Him working the heat on Liger was terrific & Liger's big comeback was obviously superb. The nearfalls towards the end w/ Liger almost getting the W were amazing as well. Just a really damn good mat…

I had originally watched this one a little disjointedly and, predictably, I though the match was disjointed and didn't enjoy the first half. Watching awake and alert, I liked this a ton more than at first. Marty even got the "Chicken wing!" thing over with the crowd. Man Dragon's tope con hilo skies over Scurll on the outside. Creative stuff by Marty tying Dragon's mask to the rope and laying in the strikes (and kind of the arm - he was hit or miss with that here, but he never got the CFCW on anyway). Last shot by Scurll too, that's the biggest kickout. Nice Spanish fly - corner finish off a headbutt->corner stomp. Perfectly fine. ***1/4

Nobody wants to talk about this one? A much different match than their most famous one from a year ago, but still excellent in every way. I loved it. 4 1/2****

One of my favorite offense wrestlers kicking the ass of one of my favorite FIP's in the biz. Great offense, comebacks, selling. ****1/4

Ah, Dragon Gate, we meet again. I've always said Dragon Gate was fucking boring, and there wasn't a ton exciting about this match as they move through each section in very obvious fashion, but in total it wasn't half bad at all. I'm kinda surprised this match doesn't seem to have much hype to it, because it had all the ingredients of a modern classic, and did a better job at it than the praised NJPW main eventers. Heck, it may be better than the Dunne/Bate match from the same month that got a bit of talk, because unlike that match it made me actually get into on of the characters. The work here is really solid: all the moves look good and some even have a nice snap to it.…

I thought this was a level above their BOLA match from last year which I had at ****1/4. This one was more intense w/ them going full faux-MMA style with it. If you like these 2 & like that kind of stuff, I am sure you'll find a lot of enjoyment in this one. I sure did. ****1/2

Baby face BUSHI! Desperado's is right back with the chair here, but Bushi comes out like a house of fire with two big dropkicks. He uses his shirt, but Desperado takes advantage of the ref's distraction and plasters Bushi with a chair to the face on his dive through the ropes. I really do enjoy the frantic ring announcer telling the crowd to move - it's quite tense. Desperado throws him in the chairs, but he avoids the countout. Now we move to knee work on BUSHI, and this is fairly well done and the selling is there. You especially see this with a charge into the corner by BUSHI where he's limited and doesn't get much of the double knees. Springboard rana to the outside l…

Fun little match with KUSHIDA working on top to set up the hover lock. This had an extra level at the end where you presumed the match was over, but we get a dramatic submission attempt that Tiger Mask escapes from. He plays off KUSHIDA doing the handspring back elbow earlier by kicking out his knee the second time and then hitting the tiger bomb (for 2) and then the Tiger Driver for the win (!). Worth checking out from day3. ***1/4

This is kind of two matches for the price of one as it starts out with the listed matchup but after a double countout, Konami asks for everyone to switch partners which leads to Hojo/Io vs. Konami/HZK. In that sense, the match does have a house show main event feel but the work here is still of high quality. Even after the partner switch up, both teams still work really well together. Nice to see that the novelty of the match produced a couple of quality matchups. ***3/4

This rocked my world. I was super excited for it because I am such a Hideo fanboy & I've been watching lots of his stuff recently - I didn't have too high hopes for the match though as Roode doesn't impress me at all. Thought his matches vs. Nakamura were absolute shite. But here, goddamn. The man gave such a great performance. The beginning w/ him going for the Glorious taunt only for Hideo to attempt the ultimate murder-death-kill machine that is GTS was, pun intended, glorious. Loved Hideo being one step ahead during the early stages of the match - real good stuff. Once it was time for Roode to get the advantage & work the heat on Hideo, I thought the match cou…

From the 2017 MOTY Thread: 5 star moment: the slugfest.

Had I not been spoiled by the result prior to watching, this would've been extra special. That being said, this was still a great Triple Crown match -- probably the best of the year. This was Shuji Ishikawa at his best and the first time in a long time that Kento looked like he was up against a true monster challenge. His "in the moment" selling is good and he has such terrific facial expressions throughout as Shuji keeps beating him down. I liked the early backwork from Ishikawa, which is hard enough to sell well, but the final half of the match was big time offense and the champ grasping at straws with his desperate knee strikes. Really liked the rana counter to the Spl…

I've been going through this year's DDT recently, cherry picking interesting-looking things here and there and I haven't been watching every single one of these slightly different tag matches, but I figured I'd check this one because it's for the vacant titles and good god-damn am I glad I did. Higuchi is especially good here, as he gets his arm worked over and sells it really nicely throughout. There's an especially nice subtle spot where he catches Takeshita with a powerslam of sorts but has to let go with one of the arms midway through. The go all out on a fast, intense finishing stretch, including both Irie and Higuchi diving onto Takeshita to try and incapacitate him…

I love me some one sided matches & this was exactly that - just one of my favorite offensive wrestlers in ZSJ torturing the shit out of Lio Rush, who happens to be one of the best babyfaces in peril in the world today. That is a recipe for success. ****3/4

A good comedy/shtick match built around Liger's arm, which he sold magnificently throughout - all in a setup to the final chicken wing. Scurll was even able to block the palm strike due to the injured arm also. Liger broke out two different spots than he had in the BOSJ so far: the top rope rana and the top rope superplex. An enjoyable *** bout.

This is, maybe somewhat predictably, very very good and worked like a true main event (perhaps unlike some of the other BOSJ matches). There's a flub early with a huge whiff on a kick, but what a dive from Ricochet after that. Hiromu takes a high german suplex on his head too here, yikes. Powerful finish for Ricochet too as he runs through his big stuff and gets the win. Hiromu is either at 4 or near 4 stars for me on his first three outings of the BOSJ. ***3/4

The 2nd half was absolutely wonderful w/ the focus being on AJ's injured leg; AJ played a wonderful face in peril while KO did some quality work over him. What prevents me from going ****+ on this is that the first half was an absolute bore w/ them doing your usual 50/50 boring movez action. ***3/4

Holy shit! Randy Orton & Jinder Mahal having a WWE Championship PPV main event match in 2017 is already crazy to think about - and then you combine that w/ the match actually being AWESOME, and the whole thing gets even crazier. Loved the beginning w/ Orton showing great fire when brawling w/ Jinder all over the place. Great house of fire from him, most motivated he has looked in the ring in ages. Jinder's control segment came about very organically, with him eventually getting the advantage as they were brawling outside the ring. Him working the heat on Orton was goddamn great. He targeted Orton's shoulder every chance he got & it ruled. Orton sold it very well t…