January 2018

Midnight match - billed as the first (North American) match of the year. This isn't for everyone, for sure, but I sort of feel like if you can't enjoy this in some way you might be a joyless ogre. This sort of hardcore/weapons/deathmatch-esque stuff is not really my thing, but Starr and Janela went out there and had fun and wrestling is sometimes just fun, ya damn ogres. All kidding aside though, this really was just a bunch of fun to me and it is all about context. Its a midnight match on New Years day where the fans bring the weapons. This is exactly what you would expect, a lot of crazy, cringy spots, blood, and big mark-out moves. Both men got their asses bea…

Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre has made it an annual tradition to present Sin Piedad on January 1st, typically having a standard tag card with a hair match in the main event. This year's was no different. Following a lackluster undercard the Trump supporting, golden-haired, all American Sam Adonis took on lucha libre veteran Negro Casas. Adonis has been a solid hand over the last year for CMLL drawing major heat from the Mexican audience but has yet to really shine as an in-ring talent, typically cheating to take the easy win. Casas is an absolute legend of lucha libre and was an outstanding worker in his prime but he's nearing 58 now. Going into this match, my expect…

After their confrontation last week, a non-title match between Alexa Bliss and Asuka was made for Raw. Alexa wasn't too happy about this and asked Kurt Angle why is he rewarding Asuka for her actions. Angle said if Alexa had a problem with Asuka, they can settle it in the ring. Later on, Alexa tells Nia Jax that she needs her by her side for the match, but Nia leaves as she had to attend to a sick Enzo Amore, much to Alexa's dismay. A nice way to build up the match and Alexa's growing fear of facing Asuka. Alexa's facial expressions were on point. Before the match, she showed a great sense of dread, knowing what's in store for her and putting over Asuka as a big threa…

Last week, the unlikely duo of Jason Jordan and Seth Rollins defeated The Bar (Cesaro and Sheamus) to become the new Raw Tag Team Champions. The Bar came out and interrupted an opening promo by Kurt Angle, saying that his son didn't deserve a championship match and demanded their rematch for the tag titles, which Angle didn't grant. Instead, he made a match between Cesaro and Jordan. The opening minutes of the match had a nice display of Jordan's agility and strength. In particular, Jordan catching Cesaro in mid-air before ramming him into opposite corner a few times. A quick distraction by Sheamus from the outside allowed Cesaro to deliver a chop block to Jordan's le…

What a good match to have in your first day of the year. Samoa Joe is interesting because his pacing is very different than from most wrestlers in WWE, but he compensates by having the presence. Roman, as usual, also brings the fire and the selling, and the stipulation added to the match no only brought some suspense and nice spots, but it kept things fresh. After avoiding the Coquina Clutch, Reigns gets the win - his first one against Samoa Joe - after hitting the Spear. Great stuff.

Man, what started as another tough guy vs tough guy turned into one of the most enjoyable slugfests in recent months. Two monsters giving everything they have to each other, specially Zeus, who looked like a great big underdog here; his strength bombs felt organic, he earned every single one of them. Doering's title reigns started not so well, but here he finally gives a main event performance, being a difficult ladder to climb for the challenger but also being able to look weakened and vulnerable sometimes, when the match required it. Not a MOTYC by any means, but it was worthwile and they earned the crowd's attention and respect. I hope Doering keeps at this level. *** …

Well I'll be damned, this was way better than I expected it to be. The middle portion dragged a little bit as Daichi still has some issues mounting a comeback when it's not a tag match, but everything else was top notch. Probably Kawakami's best singles performance to date, dude was vicious and did an excellent job working on top. Really liked the finished too, certainly worth a watch.

We get our annual Twin Towers tag match to kick off the new year and of course, it delivers. Maybe not on the same level as last year's blood-spattering match against Strong BJ, but it was still a “banger”. Sekimoto gets stuck between a rock and a hard place…the rock being Sato’s kicks and elbows and the hard place being…well, Ishikawa’s elbows. When he gets the hot tag to Suzuki, Hideki comes in with a bunch of suplexes, including a big release German that folds the Big Dawg in half, before and Ishikawa take each other out when the knee meets the elbow. Poor Daisuke gets put back between the rock and hard place, as the Twin Towers lay into him with knees and sandwich elb…

The resurgence of Big Japan's deathmatch division over the past year or so has been very interesting. While still always the major draw in the company, most English speaking fans have favored the Strong Division over the Deathmatch one. However, the Srong Division has had trouble establishing new stars, while Masashi Takeda has become an absolute superstar. This is his first title defense of 2018 against Takumi Tsukamoto. They would go on to become tag champions a few weeks later. Takeda has a lot of things going for him. He's incredibly charasmatic, has solid technical skills, knows how to structure his matches and is a madman. Most deathmatches in Big Japan …

This was very good. I never think of TJP as a really good wrestler or anything, but he often has these sneaky good performances. This was one of them. Loved his arm targeting & overall control of Tozawa - he was awesome on the offense. Tozawa was really good selling & fighting from underneath as well. Very good dynamic, very good performances, very good match. ***3/4

This is seemingly just a random 6 man to set up for DDT's round robin tournament, which starts the next day, but it way overperforms, as DDT matches so often do. Favorite things include HARASHIMA's creative takedowns of the much bigger Ishikawa and rope running sequences between Takeshita and Higuchi that actually build to something later in the match. The HARASHIMA/Speedball portions of this match build wonderfully as well, with Bailey hitting a kick initially to make HARASHIMA just tag out immediately, then a big kick exchange in the middle of the match, and then finally the finishing run after a dive sequence that sees Higuchi almost kill himself. Don't miss this one b…

A big time dramatic main event epic. I really loved it for the most part - it had some selling issues, but overall I thought it was a really damn good match. ***3/4

This blew me away. This was perfectly laid out for the excellent build they had - very intense, heated & unique. I was thinking this could be really bad, mostly because of Chris Jericho, but goddamn his performance was terrific. His best performance ever as far as I am concerned, actually. When the build for this match began & I was discussing it somewhere, I said that there has never been a Chris Jericho performance that has blew me away, but here he did exactly that. He was just ON POINT w/ everything he did. His greatest match & performance without a doubt in my eyes. Kenny was awesome selling his ass off & of course being terrific as usual w/ his offen…

This overdelivered BIG, and arguably stole the show. You have four of the best not just junior heavyweights in the world, but some of the best wrestlers in general, so of course this was going to be the crazy spot fest I had hoped for. Scurll and Ospreay were definitely the stars of the match surprisingly as the former played up the heel work very well, and the latter was the one doing all the amazing spots like that fucking insane Moonsault off the scaffolding. Hiromu and KUSHIDA also had time to shine with the former actually getting the least out of all four men. Definitely an upset win for Ospreay, but it was the perfect finish to get his revenge on Scurll, ****3/4.

This was FANTASTIC. I love how different it was from your usual big NEVER title match formula - it was all about Minoru unleashing a menacing, badass beating on Goto. Goto sold fantastically & his comebacks were good. The post-match was excellent. ****1/4

Goddamn this was great. Best Dome Jr. Heavyweight Tag Match that I can remember. AWESOME storytelling w/ YOH hurting his back early on - that became the focus of The Bucks' attack on him, and my goodness, he sold AMAZINGLY. Such a great performance from the man. Matt also hurt his back eventually, and SHO & YOH started to target that as well. Awesome. The hurt back of YOH vs. The hurt back of Matt. The sequence where Nick & SHO are in the middle of the ring, looking at each other while YOH & Matt are on their knees, selling - & then Nick & SHO start just kicking them to their injured backs was really great & solidified this, already a really good m…

TOKYO Princess Tag Team Championship: Miracle Apricots (Yuka Sakazaki & Syoko Nakajima) © vs. Mizuki & Riho Riho in TJPW! I feel like this could have been so much better, but I probably had unrealistic expectations for it. It was still really good. They created great moments even though the execution could be spotty, and the high speed exchanges between Riho and Syoko were easily the highlight. ***1/4

TOKYO Princess of Princess Championship: Reika Saiki © vs. Miyu Yamashita This was everything you'd want from a match between these two and more, a spirited back and forth with beautiful kick exchanges. It doesn't reach the dramatic heights of Reika's previous defenses, but it still was very good. I hope to see these two clash again in the future. ***3/4

Jiro gives an incredible, optimistic babyface performance here, and the crowd eats it up (as did I). He pulls out some fun stuff on the mat, and his commitment to his jacket is my favorite love story in wrestling. The last few minutes here might seem like overkill, but just when it seems like the typical finish where the underdog has busted out everything he can to no avail, we get a twist, so I think that overkill kind of works. I'm probably in the minority here but I liked it even better than the also quite good Bailey/Ishikawa match on the same card. ****

Had to get the DDT Universe 1 month free trial just for this match, and it was exactly what I had hoped it would be - an amazing David vs. Goliath battle. Loved the opening w/ Speedball going for those lightning quick kicks right away, he stuns Shuji briefly with those, getting the early advantage. That doesn't last long as Shuji gets the control while Speedball was looking to do a dive on him to the outside. Then BIG SHUJI starts to just throw Speedball around like a baby. It's amazing. Speedball bumps & sells that amazingly. From then on it follows that formula of Shuji having the advantage due to his size, throwing him around, striking him down - but Speedball make…

Typical match of it's kind, but I usually always enjoy them, so I ain't complaining. This was very fun. Everybody got their time to shine & it resulted in a very good, fun match. ***1/2

We get a lengthy Rowe FIP segment, and it's awesome. Suzuki-gun do really good work over him, with everytime he was about to tag out, outcomes the rest of the heel team to cut him off. Once he finally makes the hot tag though, he makes it to Big Mike, who delivers an awesome hot tag, indeed. His exchanges against ZSJ were fantastic. After the fantastic Elgin vs. ZSJ section of the match, the thing essentially kicks into the finishing stretch & it remains awesome. Loved Suzuki constantly targeting Tana too, setting up a future singles meeting between them. Lovely match. ***3/4

AZM vs. Kagetsu What a great match, easily the best AZM singles performance so far. Kagetsu doesn't take AZM seriously, until AZM shows that she can be a threat. AZM's selling and offense were top notch - I didn't see that corner springboard coming! The juji gatame finish was unexpected too. Good stuff. ***

Really good match wrestled at a breakneck pace. Sasaki comes out and immediately throws a running knee at Sakaguchi and tries to choke him out. Sakaguchi survives but Sasaki takes it outside. They trade control back and forth really quickly but there's almost always a real sense of struggle. For instance, Sakaguchi gets drop kicked, which seems to set up Sasaki's tope suicida, but Sakaguchi regains his wits, climbs back in the ring and gets an armbar. Sasaki gets out of the armbar by stacking and then stepping on Sakaguchi's face. Sasaki going for the arm trap crossface but Sakaguchi escaping to get a rea-naked choke was another moment I liked a lot. Sakaguchi is at his b…

Takeshita has really grown from beautiful wrestling prodigy into a bully role seamlessly, and he decides early on to try and destroy Endo's brain. His STF is really great too. Tetsuya works pretty much pure babyface, which, though he's historically great at being a dick, is obviously a great use of his athleticism. If I had to criticize, there's a point this gets to where Endo is selling his brain damage so well, that returning to kind of a traditional big move-trading structure for the last part of the match seems a little wasteful, but that's just nitpicking. This is well worth everyone's time. ****1/4 That's three Takeshita matches I have at 4 plus stars in 5 days.…