March 2018

On a card that seemed very sub par at first glance, this main event seemed to be worth the wait because it delivered nicely. Taven and Scurll started off by having a slowish paced match to kill time, but once the other members of their respective teams started coming in is when things got crazy real quick. So many flips, dives, bodies and tables broken. Even Page Moonsaulting off of a balcony! Great main event to hype up the Anniversary show next week, ****1/2.

A big opportunity for Ben K to finally make a star out of himself in his first ever OTDG title match. In my opinion I think he proved that he is future top guy material because he was great in this match. The chemistry of Mochizuki's striking and experience factor played a great foil against Ben's shocking strength. Also, what I loved in this match was actual selling of a limb! That's right Mochi targeted Ben's arm throughout the match, and guess what? It played into the finish! Another star making title match for Mochizuki in a great title reign so far, ****1/2.

The opening portion of the match does a great job establishing the fact that not only is Murphy the bigger, more powerful of the two, but also the quicker one. Ali establishes that he is no slouch either, he one ups Murphy & mocks his taunt - that lead to a DISGUSTING lariat thrown by Murphy. Great stuff. The match is wrestled with more & more sense of urgency as it goes on - both guys did a TREMENDOUS job doing that. You can feel Ali's desperation as he is pretty much getting outclassed - he gets one big opening though. He does a goddamn NASTY 450 to the arm of Murphy; that was absolutely vicious & Murphy sells it like death. Ali finally got a gameplan going;…

Day 1 of the Strong Climb tournament. After watching these two develop over their young careers, I felt like a proud dad watching this. Daichi starts the match thinking he might pull this of off the strength of him being the champ and Nomura still being below him on the totem pole. But Takuya has had some really tough tests coming into the tournament against Abe and Togo so he has NO TIME for Daichi's laziness, he kicks and bitchslaps Hashimoto like he ain't shit, forcing the champ to take him seriously from the get go. There's a ton to love about this, from the crowd LOVING Nomura from minute zero and craving for an upset to Daichi's selling and portrayal of a legit cham…

Impact Women's Champion Laurel Van Ness vs Allie - Impact 3/8/18 So I didnt know how to make heads or tails of Laurel Van Ness's gimmick (Laurel Van Ness is better known as Chelsea Green fyi). She has smeared lipstick over her mouth. I thought she was trying to do a psychotic valley girl but then I hit up Wikipedia. The backstory is pretty damn good. She was set to marry Allie's shoot husband aka The Blade. Blade left her at the altar for Allie. This caused her to descend into madness. Apparently, she used to wrestle in her tattered wedding dress and come out all boozed up/hungover. Awesome! Then she fell for Grado, a slovenly Scotsman who was looking for a Green Car…

Two bad bulls colliding in an explosive smack/bombfest which was paced masterfully. I liked it way more than their G1 meeting from 2015, actually. ****1/4

Absolutely blown away by this. Felt like a real throwback to the wars legends like Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Roderick Strong & Nigel McGuinness had for that ROH World Championship. The 25+ minutes were spent expertly - they let things breathe & built everything perfectly. Fantastic, physical action. Told the story of the ace of ROH in Jay Lethal making 'a man' out of Dalton Castle. I am confident in saying that what they did there resulted in the best ROH match since the 2012 Ladder War between Generico & Steen. It represented everything those 3 letters, ROH, have stood for in the last 16 years. A classic. Also BOBBY CRUISE! What a man! ****3/4

This was such a positive surprise! And by surprise I mean as in I had absolutely ZERO expectations for it going in. Scurll & Martinez wrestled a fantastically paced sprint. Awesome action from start to finish. ***3/4

There's some sequences where I think the match became a little too "cute", but all in all, this was an absolutely great weapons trios warfare. The SCU lads especially did such a good job selling the gimmick of the thing w/ their viciousness. Great, brutal spot action w/ some really great psychology with the continuity of Matt Jackson's banged up back. ****1/4

The Naito match made Taichi look like a credible Heavyweight contender in New Japan, but this one absolutely established that. Him using all the Kawada signature moves got me FIRED UP & when he hit that Ganso Bomb, this match went from very good to great. Gotta give much credit to Tana, he made Taichi look like a star by giving him much of the match. ****

This is for Yamashita's Princess Of Princess title. I've only been watching TJP for a short time but Kurone has quickly become my favourite. If you look past the cool zombie girl gimmick, she might just be the most fundamentally solid worker in the company while being a pretty good brawler too, which is a rarity in joshi. Miyu has a strong performance her to as she's able to use her power and striking to combat Kurone's brawling and other unorthodox tactics. The finishing stretch could have been longer to build some more drama but that's not so surprising give this isn't main-eventing a major show. Still, this is one of the best matches in TJP so far this year and well w…

This was just absolute fireworks. The atmosphere was unreal w/ Ilja's return & the action was red hot from start to finish; Ilja delivered an excellent underdog performance, taking a hellacious beating from Bad Bones & especially WALTER, Bad Bones played his role of the confident, but still scared champ perfectly & WALTER was WALTER. And WALTER equals awesomeness. ****1/2

This was so good, Casas comes off a broken rib (which has to kill your endurance and effect your breathing) and works a just break neck paced match against some kid young enough to be his grandson. Nothing unusual about oldster luchadores having great matches, but how in the fuck does a 58 year old man work this kind of sprint, Casas looked like 22 year old Juventud Guerrera for shits sake. Aramis is obviously a little green, but I though he was pretty great in this, landing some awesome leglocks, which Casas would counter beautifully, he also breaks out a nutso tope, right into the stantion, and crushing Casas into the seats. Finish was super cool too, with Aramis making…

You know a match is good when it has a Canadian Destroyer spot in it that isn't bad! I was ready to not feel this match at all, because YOSHI-HASHI is such a boring performer, but damn he brought it here. Showed most personality he has ever shown in a match; good fire & those slaps. Great stuff. Ibushi was great as usual w/ his deadly offense & sick bumping. Very good stuff. ***1/2

Just as good as their G1 meeting from last year. A complete ZSJ torture show w/ him breaking Naito down, limb by limb. When Naito was mounting a comeback in the end, getting ready to hit that Destino, I was ready to say he was getting too much offense in, but then ZSJ countered that & the match ended! Just at the perfect time. Great match. ****

This is the first match for both in this year's Catch the WAVE tournament. It a nice follow up to the title match that they had in September of last year. The both of them do what they do best, ASUKA breaking out some nice highspots and Yamashita hitting her big power moves. The finish is really well worked, just a very good back and forth exchange of finishers with Yamashita getting the win with a Splash Mountain. ***1/2

This is the main event of the opening show for the Catch the WAVE tournament and is the second rematch of a title match from last year. This match was a vast improvement on that one mainly because Nagahama works a quicker pace and shows a lot more fire here. Ohata has yet another high quality performance as able to put together the match in such a way that she is able to control the match but still make Nagahama come off as competitive. That all leads to a nice finish that has Nagahama get the upset a jackknife rollup. ***1/2

This is another opening match in the Catch the WAVE tournament. The opening matwork in this match is pretty good as Nozaki uses the extra leverage from her lanky body to escape from Mizunami's holds. This turns to more of a exchange of high impact moves, with Nozaki trying to catch Mizunami with her sleeper. The finish has a nice change up as Nozaki debuts a new Dragon Sleeper that completely finishes off Mizunami by knocking her out instantly. An impressive, smart performance from Nozaki, who is becoming one of the more underrated workers in joshi. ***3/4

An absolutely epic finals match to a great tournament. Absolute Andy & David Starr are 2 characters who's stories were told perfectly throughout the 16 Carat '18 - you got the underdog babyface Starr trying his hardest to achieve what is his biggest goal & then you got the grizzled veteran in Andy who cheat his way to the finals by using cheap tactics in every match that he had. A perfect characters clash, right there. Starr's babyface performance in this is absolutely phenomenal - if it wasn't for Johnny Gargano pulling out that magic at Takeover vs. Andrade Almas, what Starr did here would be my pick for the best babyface performance in quite a while. His sellin…

Absolute Andy cheats all the way through this one, going against the "the mat is sacred" Thatcher. Such a great, fun dynamic. It created for some nice drama & they told the story of it perfectly. Great match. ****1/4

A very "standard" tag match in structure, but it's so well executed. Starts off with a big shine for Team Ringkampf - WALTER & Thatcher completely own RISE there by beating the crap out of them, in particular Da Mack. Eventually Da Mack & Bad Bones get an opening though, which leads to a FIP segment with Thatcher. I've said it at least a million times while writing about Ringkampf's tag matches, but I'll say it again; Thatcher is the best FIP in the business. It's an absolute pleasure watching him sell his ass off, he could make anyone look good. Da Mack's offense isn't exactly very good looking, but damn, Thatcher's selling made it look like million bucks. At thi…

Before the match, Big E and Jimmy cut some fantastic promos, mentioning how they don't have their friends & family beside them due to the actions of the Bludgeon Brothers. This feels like a huge deal, and it actually would fit as the main event of a non-big four PPV. Before BB can hit the ring, Langston and Uso are quick to hit them as much as they can, and they actually get steel chairs to make things even, as the heels have actual mallets with them. And holy shit, they actually swing that shit! This feels like the best of blood feuds and I am loving everything. As for the match itself, while nothing really special, even though the flurry of offense the faces…

Ashino's guy who looks like a million bucks but he often comes off as cosplaying a "technical wrestler" and lacked the edge that fit his throwback aesthetic. While I enjoyed his match against Soya from last year, his performance didn't quite connect with me on the level I was expecting. That being said, his rematch with Soya from last month checked most of my pro-wrestling boxes. Here, Ashino played the self-assured badass champ, and Soya the loveable Manabu Nakanishi underdog. Ashino's aggressive armwork was great as he tried to neutralize Soya's lariat while still teasing his signature ankle lock, which he's used to win all of his previous matches. Soya's selling was r…

Adam Cole has his stablemates at ring side and it's established straight away that they will try and interfere with the match. Dunne hits one of his beefiest elbows minutes into this and then proceeds to wreck havoc on Cole's digits. The tide of this match shifts when Cole shoves a distracted Dunne of the turnbuckle, catching his knee as he hangs off the ringpost. It's a cool idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired. There's a few spots in this match where I thought Cole would win this. One of them being when he catches Dunne with a superkick after Dunne is done dealing with O'Reilly & Fish. Any DQ finish in a title match is almost always a tad irritating, but…

I think Sabre's best when he has someone physically strong to work against; his mat stuff looks much better with resistance. He gets that from Ibushi here, even early on the mat he has to really yank his arms to get him into place. Throughout the match, how good Ibushi is makes Sabre seem even more impressive. I've seen a moonsault into a hold of some sort a billion times, but Ibushi is so incredibly fast in going up for that moonsault, that getting the counter in feels more special. The intensity as they get more and more desperate to get their big moves and holds in at the end is great, and I'll be shocked if this isn't one of my very fav matches in Japan this year.