July 2017

This is a match up of a pair of indie vets who have been all over the place. Logan (formerly Crazy Mary Dobson) looked great here. All of her offense hit well and had a degree of polish that she lacked on the indies. Yim worked a more calculated, slower pace than she usually does. It was weird to not see her bust out a couple of big highspots. Still, I though her kick combos looked good and built well to the finish. A fun first round TV match. ***1/2

Akane Fujita vs. Ryo Mizunami Ryo's a hard-hitter, Akane is a wrestler who knows how to take hard hits. This is a fine match-up, and they deliver a solid performance. I love that Akane's been taking bookings outside of Ice Ribbon lately. ***1/2

Mima Shimoda vs. Yoshiko Yoshiko is a true pro, who can put on an entertaining match against just about anyone. Shimoda is not the performer she used to be, but she is in great shape and I thought she did a fine job here, albeit some awkwardness. There's outside brawling, chair shots to the head; Yoshiko drives Shimoda through one of the venue doors at full speed. This was a fun match. ***1/4

This is a rematch from a show that happened in early May. This gets off to a hot start and keeps the action going through most of the match. There are some iffy moments as they go a little too fast in a sequence or get a bit too ambitious with a move. Sareee is a standout here as she comes off strong against both members of Best Friends. The Nanae/Tsukka sequences looked strong too as they keep building up their personal feud. The match does lose momentum toward the finish as they go a little too long. Still, this is yet another quality match from the best joshi group out there right now. ***3/4

Before this, I only knew Bianca Belair from some gifs I had seen on twitter, so I had no idea what to expect. Damn did her performance really blow me away; the match saw her really dominate Kairi until Kairi made her big comeback & won the thing. Kairi was obviously awesome, selling her ass off & her comebacks were really great, but goddamn, Bianca stole the show. Her work over Kairi was so great - all of her offense came off as very violent, I loved it. She laid all of her stuff in like a veteran. That hair gimmick was AWESOME. I also thought that she gave a very strong character performance - at first she was really cocky because she was dominating the tournamen…

This match was super physical. My favourite thing about this match was how Kai sold the impact of everything that Ripley did to her. To go with her power, Ripley has surprisingly good agility and quickness for a woman her size. She has the potential to be a female Brock Lesnar. Really good match. ***1/2

I have mixed feelings about this match. I thought the work here was really good but it lacked a real narrative hook to get you invested in what was going on. Pairing up two women who are strong faces in a WWE environment had a lot to do with that. Still, both women had strong performances. Especially Kai, whose selling was terrific and she really made her offense count. Very enjoyable but not something that I'd be going out of my way to see again anytime soon. ***1/2

I liked the work in this match. While it did lack a big narrative hook, they did a very nice job of progressively building up the offense in the match as they went along. There was a couple of nasty spots where Sane was off but they covered up for it in a way that didn't cause the match to lose momentum. Really entertaining even if it was a bit run of the mill for these two. ***1/2

I really like how the prematch promo built up the respect that these two had for each other, then they played off of that in the early parts of the match. Baszler being tentative in the early going and Mercedes taking full advantage of that. Even when Baszler tries to get over aggressive Martinez takes full advantage of that too. When Shayna does get the right level of focus though she makes the most of it, blocking Martinez's finisher and countering with her own at the end. A very well put together match. ***3/4

This was a damn good short sprint. Baszler catching LeRae with a quick knee at the start and makes it seem like she's is going to have her way with Candice. But Baszler gets caught in the ropes allowing LeRae to quickly fire off a run of big offense to tease the upset. Baszler's size and power ends up being too much though and she counters LeRae's finisher into a choke for the win.

The layout for this match was great. Yim trying to go head to head with Baszler then quickly realizing that was a bad idea so she goes to a big spots and a quicker pace. That works for her for the most part but Baszler always is one big strike or smart counter away from being back in control. The finishing stretch was the best one of the tournament so far as the back and forth really made it look like either one could win. Fantastic stuff. ***3/4

This is a rematch of the SWA title match that these two had in Stardom earlier this year. I didn't care for that match because it got too cute with "look at Viper do World of Sport stuff" and never felt like a title match. Here, they keep it to the opening sequence and nothing after that. What they did end up doing was super physical with both women taking some big bumps. Niven actually pinballed around really well for a woman her size. Didn't particularly care for Piper showing remorse during the finish after having no problem crushing her throughout the match. Still a very good match. ***1/2

Excellent match. They quickly established that Keith Lee was a real contender for Callihan, he got the champ in trouble during the early stages of the match - but then Callihan introduces a steel chair into it & things take a turn. He starts mauling Keith's leg w/ that chair & suddenly the champ is in control. From then on Keith was the underdog trying to do everything to put the champ away, but the damage Callihan does to him throughout the match is too much. This was structured so well. ****1/4

Aja Kong, Meiko Satomura & Nanae Takahashi vs. Mika Shirahime, Mio Momono & Rin Kadokura The segments between Satomura and Hime were fantastic, especially the one in the finishing stretch. Mika is just a god of body language and emoting. All of the rookie desperation spots and the veteran punishes were great too. Kong DEVASTATES Mio with this backdrop. Good generation struggle match. ***3/4

Sendai Girls Tag Team Championship: Hikaru Shida & Syuri © vs. Cassandra Miyagi & DASH Chisako Good match; felt like it went longer than it needed to be, but the action never slowed down. This mini Shida-Miyagi rivalry is great, and I enjoy how Shida sells Miyagi's fuckery. Chisako spent most of the match getting bumped around and worked over, but she makes a surly comeback. Syuri had just signed dat UFC contract so the finish protected her a bit. ***1/2

Sendai Girls World Championship: Hiroyo Matsumoto © vs. Chihiro Hashimoto Chihiro is something else. She's like a sturdy wall of meat. This was definitely the weaker of the Chihiro matches from this year. It didn't have the sense of danger that her previous big matches did, and boiled down to an exchange of moves and the two using one another's finisher, and while all of this looked great, there wasn't much else going on here. ***1/4

Very solid sprint. Lots of intensity from Saiki, which matches Yuu's style perfectly. Right before the finish, Saiki just screams for 30 seconds straight after hitting a lariat, on some roid rage shit. I hadn't noticed the length so the finish caught me off-guard but they really do hit each other incredibly hard for however long this lasts. Yuu's grappling comes across as a real threat once again, with some nice throws and applying a really tight kimura halfway through the match.

This was definitely the bright spot on an otherwise 'meh' show, with the Osaka fans heating up for the local vets bullying DDT's youngsters. Ace Takeshita sold big time for the Osaka Pro bruisers, coming back from a triple team beatdown to pin Black Buffalo with his pretty trap German suplex hold. Buffalo's such a good heel brawler, swinging chairs and smashing plastic tubs, and Big Boss MA-G-MA is still the same stubby-armed shitkicker, flying around the ring, splashing Takeshita through a table, throwing lariats, suplexes and powerbombs. Early on in the match, Irie gores himself with a headbutt to Buffalo and he's leaking blood throughout the match but manages to make s…

Never really reaches the same heights as their crazy title bout from 2016, which is a shame, but it's still a good heavyweight match despite being pretty short in length, with some stiff strikes and big throws. Higuchi's selling veers close to blowing off Ishikawa's offense at times but I like it as him trying to go on despite catching a beatdown from Ishikawa. He's good at selling punches and other strikes, he'll stand up and try to keep fighting on rubbery legs. Ishikawa is really good at everything he does here, as usual in the past couple of years.

I'm not familiar with Takuya Wada or Tadashi Matsumoto but these guys were the highlights of this match. Of course, Fujiwara still showed that he's the wiliest old man around, grabbing limbs and cranking guillotines when and where he can, ultimately picking up the token submission with the haragatame. Iwamoto looked pretty good here in this setting, utilizing some neat takedowns, including his judo throw. When Matsumoto and Wada were in there grappling, it was awesome. Matsumoto rolling around on the mat, trapping body parts while Wada showed his strength with some throws. Just lots of cool takedowns and reversals. It's always a treat to see Fujiwara on the mat and the ot…

Aja Kong vs. Hikaru Shida It was an uphill battle for Shida, and she had to use whatever openings she could find, and seize the opportunity with shinai strikes and knees to head. Lots of back and forth bomb throwing in this, and Aja Kong looking like an immovable force. It didn't reach the violence of their past encounters, with the blood and what have you, and the double KO ending hurts, but I thought this was otherwise an awesome brawl. ***3/4

Hiroyo Matsumoto's awesome 2017 run continues. This might be the most impressive performance from this year as she working a non-title match on an OZ Academy b-show against the always underachieving AKINO. Somehow, Hiroyo is able to awaken old Arsion era AKINO as she has the best performance that she's had in a long time. AKINO shows off the wonderful mix of highspots and matwork that made her a marvel to watch early on in her career. She even busts out a Spider Twist in a nice nod to the trainer of both women, Mariko Yoshida. Hiroyo is at her peak here with her mix of power, selling and charisma. Terrific match that shouldn't be skipped over. ****

World of Stardom Championship: Mayu Iwatani © vs. Yoko Bito I wanted to like this more, but there was just too much awkwardness, and during key, tide-turning spots too. They were trading heavy strikes; Mayu's legwork and the way Bito sold it was great. It had an intense feel, but the big moments they built to would have been so much more effective if they weren't so sloppy in execution. Bito just seemed off her game. ***

This match felt like a more condensed version of their CC match from earlier this year, that was short in itself at around 12m. This match goes eight and a half and is hot all the way through with a great sold out crowd fully behind Joe. The story is, much like the CC match, about Joe working kento's back via clubbing blows, Boston crabs and some of the best Irish whips you will see all year into the corner. Kento sells this work really well but here is where the problem with the short time comes in. He has been worked over but then makes a quick comeback around 5 mins in, they do a few counters before kento wins with the shutdown German. Him coming back so quickly f…

This show aired on a two week delay, the same day the show took place (July 17th) bjw held their biggest show of the year in sumo hall. On that show Ishikawa showed up to do colour commentary for the second half of the show he had a huge amount of damage to his right eye that made the wait for this show and match even more agonising. The match as expected was super stiff and really heated. There was a split crowd as these two monsters clobbered each other for 19 1/2 minutes for our enjoyment. The work all the way through was snug and visceral. Finishing with the incredible sight of ishikawa doing a splash mountain powerbomb on suwama and the giant slam. This match al…