April 2018

Jun Akiyama is a wrestling god. As a match built up as two leaders of their companies with intertwining history over Akiyama leaving noah in 2012 (and there many interactions prior) this had some expectations, and I am glad to say they met them. Marufuji as a heavyweight has always been something that is problematic he is way to small and much of his offense is jr rubbish and his selling in 'epics' can be poor to say the least. BUT sometimes this can work really well and it did just that here. His cockiness and speed vs Akiyama's size and general grumpiness was amazing, the crowd was molten and Akiyama wrestled like a man possessed showing yet again why he is a t…

Impact Women's Champion Allie vs Taya Valkyrie - Impact 4/26/18 I have loved the Impact Women's so much that I want to try to watch & review every title defense from 2018 & 2019. They pack a lot of physical, hard-hitting goodness in 4 minutes. This is Taya's best performance so far that I have seen. She was stiff and kicking ass. Jumped Allie at the bell with a clothesline and never relented. Some Kicks of Fear that would make Judy Martin proud. She was kicking through Allie, great choking. LOVED the overhand chops by Taya on Allie. Wicked hard. Check out Allie's neck/shoulder after the match it is bright red. Loved that Allie fired up and hit some vici…

I expected matwork with these two, and while they start in that direction it ends up being a brawl, and a damn good one. There are lots of fun little touches that get the crowd into it during the surprisingly lengthy crowd brawling section, like Yehi doing a ten count smashing Justice’s face into the apron, and Justice stealing Yehi’s taunt before a chop, only to get his comeuppance by Yehi ducking and hip chopping a fridge (really). They also use the somewhat unusual hooks on the outside of the ring posts to get into the now common indie finger damage work. The match eventually gets more into the striking and submission trading you might expect, and that’s cool too, but …

This was so, so much better than the Wrestlemania match and still had some big flaws. The moves actually MEANT something here, even though that they did resort to finishers right out the gate - 4 German Suplexes and 1 F-5, to be precise. Brock bumping for the Superman Punch was indeed good, and so was Heyman actually interfering in the match when Reigns seemed to have things done. The steel chair beatdown was also cool, and for the first time in this whole feud, Roman FINALLY looked like a contender. It's a shame they made that nearly meaningless. However, things like Roman being the first one trying to escape is some baffling booking. It's not really hard to book…

Great match to close out the A Block. Kento can be a dick in his matches, but he was in full babyface mode here (even letting go of the post choke without the ref having to grab his hair!). Kento started off strong and would get in some short bursts of offense before Hino would turn the tide with a huge strike or suplex. Kento would get overpowered for several minutes but as soon as he mounted his comeback, he would be drawn right back into Hino's game whether it be a striking battle or fight on the outside. Hino was incredibly dominant for the entire finishing stretch and looked like he would put Kento away, only for the champ to literally snatch victory from the jaws of…

I feel like by the end this did drag a bit & went a little overboard w/ all the nearfalls, but it was still a damn awesome underdog tale. Shingo finds himself in a very unfamiliar position as his usual bruiser bully like offense isn't working too well against the much bigger Ishikawa - the big dog basically has an answer for every comeback Shingo gets. Both guys put on rockin' performances in their respective roles, and of course when a match like this happens at Korakuen Hall, it's always a little more special than it would be anywhere else. ***3/4

Well, this was a complete waste of time. If you thought Okada being locked 40 minutes in a leglock and still winning after doind his usual offense was bad, you'll hate this even more, as Naito's comebacks were even less earned and his overall performance was lazy and downright bad. If you thought that match against Okada was good, you'll also dislike this because Naito fucked every single hope spot up. It was boring, sloppy, he appears to break MiSu's nose with a slap and almost every single spot he does is too slow, too soft or misses completely. Just shit.

My description of this match just after it finished was 'I have been reduced to a grinning, giggling wreck' this was so due to the incredible stiffness and violence displayed in this match by 6 grumpy macho men. All of them were annoyed that they were not main eventing in the final and they took their issues with that out on each other. While it did have some long back and forth exchanges, particularly the chop exchange between Zeus and Hino it never felt forced, it felt like six pissed off men unloading on one another. Bodyguard did well despite his leg injury obviously slowing him down a great deal. Akiyama has morphed into a early 2000s tenryu level pissed off old…

A fitting final match for a great tournament. It was almost as if the more battle-hardened Marufuji was looking at a younger version of himself. The two are rather similar with their fast-paced offense and reliance on knee strikes. Some really great offensive sequences and inspiring comebacks from Kento, who's as good a babyface as he is a cocky dick. Experience won out for Marufuji, but Kento made him earn it as he survived multiple kicks, knee strikes, an apron piledriver, and even a Shiranui before Marufuji had to resort to the Fisherman Flowsion. Am interested to see the direction this goes in as Marufuji is not quite ready to challenge for the Triple Crown (he ha…