February 2018

This match was for the FIP Florida Heritage title. Davis has been the champ for almost a year. He doesn't wrestle much anymore but when I've seen him, he's been really good. I liked the story of the match of him just destroying Darby with chops and throwing him all over the place. Darby takes his usual crazy bumps including getting slammed on the stage af the Orpheum. Darby does a crazy dive off a big pole near the roof of the building that has to be seen to believe. I didn't know what to expect from this but it turned out to be one of the better matches I've seen this year. The show is worth watching but this match especially.

This was a disappointment. In the build up to this match miyamoto (a part time deathmatches wrestler part time normal wrestler) had been using some more hardcore gimicks to be able to hurt kenou and even beat him by ref stoppage after a fire thunder driver off the apron through a table that caused a nasty gash on kenou's head. Kenou a grumpy man at the best of times was expected to be ruthless in this match attacking Yuko and going by the match time of just over 15 mins that is what I expected. A 15 mins ghc title match is a godsend after the past few years of every major title match having to go 30+. The first half of this match is exactly what I wanted they…

Rematch from the RWTL. I thought this was slightly better, mainly because I actually cared this time around for the first half of the match. This is mostly 20 minutes of bomb throwing. There's not a lot of subtleties in it and the control section from the champs is really short - which is a good thing because I think Yoshi sucks as a FIP - so Kento can get in and pick up the pace. For what they were going for, this was good, wouldn't call it a MOTYC or anything like it but I was entertained throughout.

I have made an argument that this could be the greatest juniors feud in wrestling history, so it is pretty awesome to see these guys face off fifteen years later. This is worked very differently then their matches in the early 2000s, here Ki is working straight vicious heel, and is this is more like a Tenryu match then Rey Jr. vs. Psicosis. Ki seems to be trying really new things in his big singles matches, the awesome Callihan match had all of the crazy spots around Sami's broken jaw, and this match had a crazy kung-fu battle on a stage. The didn't open with the Wushu, they built to this really cool showdown on a stage which not only had their cool martial arts feints an…

Maybe it's just because both men made names for themselves there, but this match felt like a PWG match with how crazy it got. Surprisingly awesome chemistry between both men, yet I shouldn't be surprised since both men are especially talented. Not your standard big vs small guy as Lee sold really well for Bailey, ****1/2.

A very heated match with a kind of clunky outcome of a match. I say that as a good thing though as the sloppy grappling was very intense with both men throwing their signature strikes here and there too. Zack was especially brutal as he was a man on a mission to declare dominance in OTT for future events later in the show, ****1/4.

TOKYO Princess Tag Team Championship: Miracle Apricots (Yuka Sakazaki & Syoko Nakajima) © vs. NEO Biishiki-gun (Saki-sama & Azusa Christie) Saki-sama's presence is on another level, you can sense the trouble Yuka is in when she's facing her during the closer. Yuka put up one hell of a fight, but Saki-sama was too strong. I thought everyone did great here, even Syoko, who can be hit-or-miss; she took a good beating from Biishiki-gun. Good match. ***3/4

Demus deciding he wanted to leave CMLL to have filthy brawls in warehouses can't be good for his overall life, but it has made mine better. This is a nasty brawl with both guys spurting blood. It is falls count anywhere, while I don't remember any actual pin attempts there is a lot of brawling around this dirty floor with open cuts. There are some real grim visuals like Fuerza biting Demus's bloody head while try to close his nostrils and smother him. The lucha exchanges were a little clunky, which isn't surprising consider how old Fuerza is, but he wasn't afraid to fly into chairs and bleed a bunch. Sleazy lucha indy wrestling at it's best.

This match is for Io's Wonder of Stardom title as she takes on Shimmer champion Nicole Savoy. Savoy hasn't really stood out during this tour but she's not the type of worker that is going to shine in a tag as much as singles. She was fantastic here as she was finally able to show off what she could do in a high profile setting. Savoy's working over Io's arms was great as she would switch which arm she was working over whenever Io would get over defensive on one of them. In response, Io has to take more big risks earlier in the match in order to regain control then takes a shortcut of attacking Savoy's knee, removing her knee brace. I do wish that the finishing stretch was…

I have no clue how Satanico does it. He's nearly sixty now but he honestly doesn't move much differently than he did twenty years ago. It's sort of staggering. Sometimes when the legends are in there with the younger guys (and bare in mind Satanico is pretty much a pensioner) you can tell the latter need to slow it down a little, maybe work at three quarter speed. They have to scale it back a bit, or sell for stuff they maybe wouldn't sell for if it was a peer. You never really get that with Satanico. There were no elements of Hechicero having to sell for old man Baba's ropey chops or pare his own performance back so ninety year old Rusher Kimura wouldn't be killed. It's …

I really don't care if the 205 crowd doesn't give a shit, I loved this match, and it's the best singles match Hideo has had in WWE thus far. I don't think either man should be stuck in the 205 division because their talent is bigger than that, but they still found a way to have a great match without the usual WWE restrictions. In shocking fashion Roddy was able to get the upset, ****1/4.

This was utter chaos. Darby as per usual is the smaller under and Callihan is the stocky bruiser. Darby uses his speed and innovative offense to try and down Callihan and Callihan brutally puts a beating on Darby whenever he catches him. Darby takes a nasty bump on this as he's flung into the balcony of the venue.

I got a chance to re-watch this again as I loved it live and had seen it previously, but forgot to post about it. Anyway, it's a pretty fantastic match between these two. Not sure if I'm more impressed by Cobb ragdolling Riddle or Riddle deadlifting Cobb. The match is worked pretty evenly. It starts out slow with them keeping it clean as they're friends and it eventually breaks down and they go all out on each other. Cobb does a fantastic job throwing Riddle around and cutting off his hulk ups and Riddle is pretty great at deadlift suplexing and hitting Cobb with some brutal strikes, namely with some stiff knees that bust up Cobb. The finish was awesome with Riddle nailin…

A very good, borderline great match. Jonathan Gresham was AWESOME on his attack towards Lethal's arm - he targeted it at every turn he could, including a very simple, yet creative spot where he escaped the usual 2nd rope powerbomb spot by beating the crap out of Lethal's arm. Very neat stuff there. Lethal answered to Gresham's vicious onslaught by going after his knee - and that is where the one negative thing about this came into the play; Gresham's selling of the knee was very spotty. Everything else he did in the match to perfection, but man I wish he had sold the knee more. Lethal sold the arm in superb fashion & if Gresham had done so too, this easily could've re…

After feuding for a few months, Best Friends have reunited again. This time they are taking on another reformed tag team, Seven Star Sisters (Ohata & Matsumoto.) This gets off till an intense start as 3S attack Best Friends just as they are finishing up their entrance. They manage to keep the intensity up for the entire match while keeping a steady pace. The double countout finish might be a letdown, but the match does a good enough job teasing losing control that it makes for a reasonable conclusion to the match. Still, this is one of the top joshi matches early on this year. ****1/2

This is a big, dramatic tag building to Charlie Morgan's title shot in a few months, with KLR somewhat reluctantly teaming with the heel champ, but being enough of a competitive pro to go all out anyways. I like that they let Sammi Jayne be a big badass here throughout, keeping up with Toni Storm on the mat and then being just a little too tough for Charlie Morgan to deal with. It leaves Charlie room to grow going into the championship match, as does her reluctance to join the dive sequences because of her shoulder injury from last year. That kind of storytelling plus the well-timed big moves made this really fun and definitely one of my fav tag matches of the year so far…

WALTER has his new t-shirt on that says "WALTER KILLS". Very fitting, because that was the story of the match. WALTER chops the soul out of Davis who tries his hardest to survive & throws some really good hope spots. A fantastic underdog tale with a hellacious monster performance by WALTER & a really good underdog fighting from underneath performance by Davis. ****1/4

I honestly believe this match is arguably in the top 5 best PROGRESS tag team matches ever because this was pure insanity. Yeah, the match started off a bit comedic, but it progressively got crazier and crazier that it practically became a Kings Road worship match with so many strikes, head drops, and sequences from each man. Though David was the one pinned, he sure proved he isn't a weak link. Also, Matt Riddle vs Pete Dunne in PROGRESS fucking when, ****1/2.

Bate tried to match ZSJ's ground game & for a while he did get some good stuff going there, but eventually it became clear that he was getting outclassed by the best technical wrestler in the world; Zack had a counter for EVERYTHING Bate tried to do. After that it's "the usual" ZSJ torture show & as always, it's a joy to watch. Bate did a great job being the FIP; his facial expressions & selling were very good. Bate starts to wrestle with more urgency as he abandons the initial ground plan he had going, he starts to go with his high impact power moves & those sure are a lot more successful against Zack than the ground game he tried to get going. Very good …

This is for Azure Revolution's (Sera & Yukihi) International Ribbon tag titles. I go on about the potential of the younger members of Ice Ribbon's roster a lot, but this match here is one of the first signs that some of them are starting to realize that potential. This really felt like a 90's joshi tag in the sense that it had a constant fast pace but didn't sacrifice a coherent story or selling for it. Everyone put in a strong performance. Kyuri and Maika are quickly becoming one of the best tag teams in joshi and Azure are having a strong start to their tag title run. ****1/4

This is a a rematch from the previous month's SEAdLINNNG show and is for Ohata's Regina di WAVE title. The tone for this match is the complete opposite from the one before. It's as intense and chippy as you would have expected from these two after watching the Best Friends/Avid Rival series last August. Just a back and forth fight the entire way. Very happy to see Arisa have a big title match because that has been her bread and butter throughout her career. Just an excellent match. ****1/2

Loved this. Sasha's character work in her matches in the past few weeks has been super enjoyable to watch & it was exactly that here, as well. She was very heelish w/ her cockiness & general attitude towards Bayley. Loved her going after her taped up shoulder too, that added some very nice psychology to the match & I loved Sasha's facial expressions during the attack towards it. Bayley's selling was very good. The crowd response was amazing as well w/ them actually booing Sasha at times, responding to the story they were telling w/ her character! Very good stuff. ***3/4

This RULED big time. Nese got lots of time to shine w/ his high impact, fast paced offense - he looked very good overall, but goddamn, is Drew Gulak amazing or what?! What a terrific performance from the man! His facial expressions were superb & all of his offense, my goodness. So gritty w/ those strikes & limb targeting. Right from his first offensive move of the match I knew he was gonna own the thing - he really cranked on that Chinlock. It was absolutely lovely. The ending with him completely destroying Nese by throwing him right to the announce table, followed by throwing him back to the ring to finish him off with a nasty looking Lariat, a couple of Powerbom…

Started off with a really good control segment by Dunne - loved all the arm work he did throughout the match & Roddy's selling of it was good. Once they're on the outside Roddy gets back into things by dumping Dunne back first to the steel steps, and after that, the match essentially becomes a bombfest - a great one at that. ****

Personally, my favorite match between the the Limitless one and the Bro. Maybe it was the Reseda crowd that put this match more over than it actually was, but this was still a pretty insane match. I’d liken it to the Lee/Dijak match from BOLA the previous year as they both had lots of big man athleticism, and tons of no selling and finisher kick outs. If I’m being honest though, I prefer this Riddle/Lee match just because of how much better the flow was. After it was all said and done, it took all of Lee’s finishing moves to finally put down Riddle, ****3/4.