May 2018

Tons of neat little things throughout, nasty strikes and suplexes, blood, finger biting, and zero shits given from the man, Hideki Suzuki. I love how Nomura keeps slapping away Sekimoto's hands as he's trying to reach in...only to then straight up slap Daisuke in the face. When Abe's in there against Suzuki, he's trying to get something on him but Hideki is too big so it's easy to get out. There's an awesome counter out of the armbar by Abe but when he tries for the armbar, Hideki maneuvers up to his feet and stomps Abe's face to break the hold, which may or may not have busted open Abe's lip. Hideki's still a dick from the apron, kicking Abe's foot off the ropes while he…

I thought a good thing to do would be to check out Team DATE's foray into joshi wrestling. Team DATE is a gym comprised exclusively of barely trained fighters and complete psychopaths. For instance, Karen DATE was fighting 30 year olds in sanctioned MMA bouts when she was 12. Pretty cool huh. This match has three of them so it seemed like one of the best starting points. I was pretty disappointed don't work as shooters! One of them no sells a dropkick early on though, which rules. I enjoyed Hamuko Hoshi's comedy strike exchanges. It helped get some life into a match that had felt like people tagging in and out at random so far. Tsukasa Fujimoto is pretty good in this matc…

Omega's bloodied-up curly blond locks may be a throwback to the fiery brawls of the 80's, but there was nothing hellish about this one. Page busts up Omega's face after dropping him on the table and then proceeds to beat him down for the next 10 minutes, with little in the way of heat in the building. One of my main gripes of modern NJPW is that always have to make their big matches go long, even if it's completely unwarranted. This could of been a decent hotfooted brawl if they went for 10 minutes. Soon after Omega makes his comeback, this spills into a typical NJPW finisher teasing main event. There's a few decent transitions here and there, but there's nothing to s…

They hold off the big spots until later into the match. Ibushi is trying to wrestle this one cleanly, while Cody attempts to antagonize him from the get-go. Cody looks like a midcarder trying to cosplay as a main event player. I like him in doses, but I can't buy him at the top of the card. The best part of this match would have to be the foot stomp through the table. That must of stung like hell. After that Kota hits a dive that looks like it hurt him more than his opponent and then it prematurely wraps up. This is one of those matches that has a solid slow burn build-up that ultimately doesn't go very far. It reminds me of Rollins vs Triple H in that regard. ★★¾

This match is from the opening round of the ULTRA U-21 Tag Team Tournament. When you have 3/4th of the awesome Best Friends/Avid Rival fued, there is a strong chance that is going to be great. While Akane Fujita is a significant downgrade from Misaki Ohata, to her credit, she works her butt off here and doesn't drag down the match at all. The match is mostly just another example of Best Friends being the best tag team in the world while having Mizunami to play off of. The whole match is just a continuous flow of action while not sacrificing selling and meaning for pace. Just terrific stuff. ****1/4

I hadn't watched this until just now and it's way better than I expected. The chocolate gimmick is really funny, both of them are super charismatic and Misao fucking dies for Kasai a couple of times. Misao riding the bike down the stairs is something that really gets across how dumb prowres is because it's completely unnecesary and nonsensical but it rules. Misao, of course, has an inspirational backstory for the match. I think that really adds to it but it isn't necessary to go looking for it if that sort of thing bothers you. The whole thing is just a blast, and actually one of my favourite matches of the year.

Despite the number of times these two have fought over the past 6 years (this being the 9th singles match), Okada and Tanahashi managed to have another great match. However, the unofficial "30 minute rule" was in full effect here and the beginning stretch of the match featured your typical NJPW main event padding. Even still, they found cool ways to introduce learned psychology, such as Tanahashi skinning the cat after being hit with the turnbuckle dropkick by Okada. Okada also tried to hit the tombstone multiple times but Tanahashi escaped each time. I was hoping to see Okada be a bit more aggressive considering he was out to kill Tanahashi in pretty much every tag …

Feels very good to see KUSHIDA back in singles action, because it's been way too long since the last time. And of course his performance was absolutely fabulous; loved the way he controlled Ospreay in the beginning & the neck targeting that got more & more brutal as the match went on was AWESOME w/ a big A. Ospreay's selling was pretty good & he was a solid FIP overall, but yeah, it's KUSHIDA on the offense that made this match for me. ***3/4

While not as good as their first time limit draw, this match did a lot with very little, putting the emphasis on the struggle of applying and maintain holds, and powering out of a situation. It's a slow and steady burn of classic psychology, where the champ isn't able to manhandle Sekimoto on the ground like everyone else in his title matches. Sekimoto is able to hold his own, using his strength to suppress Hideki. If you don't like Hideki Suzuki going into this match, chances are, you won't like him any more coming out of this match but he really sold well for Sekimoto, making Sekimoto's simple holds look debilitating. I love how Suzuki corners his opponents as a means o…

This match is being hyped as Viper has long named Aja as a personal inspiration and one of the wrestlers she most wants to beat. And it's 2018 so Aja Kong is wrestling in London. We start with some shoulder charges where neither woman is able to really budge the other. Both are used to wrestling much smaller opponents but now they've got a real physical test. Viper stands in the middle of the ring and invites Aja to charge at her. Aja succeeds in knocking Viper back a bit, and says it's your turn. Viper runs to the rope but Aja runs right behind her and cheap shots her and takes her down! Oh Viper. Surely you should know Aja Kong aint gonna play fair. Crowd was chanti…

Kay Lee Ray recently defeated Dash Chisako at a Sendai Girls event, now Meiko Satomura has come all the way to London to avenge her protege's loss. Some really good facial expressions at the start selling that this isn't quite a grudge match, but a lot of professional pride is on the line here. The opening of the match is mainly technical wrestling which Meiko mostly wins out on. Meiko gets a bit too over-confident going for a top rope move when KLR's not been that beaten down yet. Kay Lee pulls her off the top and goes for a Gory Bomb which Meiko escapes from, but KLR trips her and then drags her to the outside. The commentary reminds us that Kay Lee Ray is the h…

Asahi vs. Miyako Matsumoto Miyako's armlock where she grabs all of her opponents limbs to prevent them from moving to the ropes is awesome. I find her matwork to be very compelling. This was lots of fun with a hot crowd rallying behind the rookie. ***3/4

Mabudachi❤Chu2byo卍卍 (Kyuuri & Mio Momono) & Tsukushi vs. Maika Ozaki, Saori Anou & Tae Honma Fantastic trios, there were were wild sequences and great little moments in between. Kyuuri and Maika are normally partners so them getting the closing segment was interesting to see. ****

Nao DATE vs. Risa Sera This was Nao's breakout match, she looked so awesome in control and nailed all of her stuff, and Sera's selling and explosive comebacks were great. Great heavyweight clash. If only Sera had matches like this during her long ICE×∞ reign. ****

This has strangely gone somewhat under the radar, but I think it's by far their best match against one another. Right from the get go Ilja says "fuck that, I am not doing that chopping shit tonight" & goes to work on BOTH of WALTER's hands (eventually his focus swifts to the right hand completely) - Ilja's fantastic on the attack, and WALTER sells greatly, and eventually answers back by giving Ilja's neck an absolutely BRUTAL beating throughout. It's up there w/ Danielson/Hero from 16 Carat '08 as a candidate for the best wXw match ever. ****3/4

I have never seen or heard about Chuck Mambo before, so I had no idea what to expect, but he was going against a man who can have a good match with pretty much anyone & one of my favorite wrestlers in the world, so I was very curious to see what the end result would be & it sure was one damn fun match! Mambo gets to shine in the early stages of the match w/ his highflying move-set, but it's when he goes for the Surfboard that he pisses off the best technical wrestler in the world, which results in ZSJ escaping that said Surfboard in very cool fashion & delivering a nasty, vintage ZSJ-style beating to the lad. Vicious strikes, especially those stomps + nasty su…

Now we're talking! This was absolutely phenomenal. Some very fun back & forth work on the mat to start things off - eventually Zack starts busting out strikes, and Starr is more than happy to answer back w/ some of his own; my GOODNESS did his lariats look absolutely amazing. Zack starts going after his leg(s) in vicious fashion, kicking the crap out of them & Starr does a very good job selling that. I especially liked his sell after he did the Project Ciampa, he sold the damage Zack had done to him very well. Both guys brought it big time in this one, ZSJ w/ that brutal work over Starr & Starr with that awesome babyface performance, very good selling & am…

I had pretty high expectations for this one & I am happy to report that it did live up to all of those! Fantastically structured match w/ Ohno being the classic big man bully that he is, beating the crap out of Bate & making fun of him while doing so. Bate was an amazing babyface fighting from underneath to go against that - LOVED his comebacks, in particular that punch flurry he busted out at one point. They built to the big German Suplex spot super well too, which helped build into the finish which was unreal. A motherfucking UFO sighting. What a way to end an absolute banger of a match. ****1/4

I was sort of shocked at how good this was. I have honestly not been a huge fan of Lee lately. It is just a preference and connection thing I think because what he is doing is working for him. I prefer when Lee truly works like a big monster. He did that here in a way that I think made him look bigger, but also made Angelico look bigger. Because Angelico is actually taller than Lee, this winds up feeling like a real clash of titans, larger than life kind of stuff and that is all due to how they build the match up as they go. Lee has to work hard to get those double chops in and once he does they don't over do it. Angelico really works his range when he is getting offense…

This was a fantastic way to open up the tournament here as the technical savvy of Doug Williams faces the brute technical style of Pete Dunne. Something just clicked right here and it was awesome. Them just exchanging holds was a treat. Williams hit a Chaos Theory which Dunne grabbed the ropes and then went for it again and Dunne rolled him up. I say go out of your way to see this as I am giving it **** flat.

This is a Fans Bring The Weapons Match. A really fun match. A fun combination of hardcore wrestling of the ring and creative use of the unique weapons.This also has a really fun crowd wrestling section part. The crowd is energetic. A super, dooper fun match. I have this on my match of the year tracker. A strong recommendation for this match.

WWE Champion AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura -Backlash 2018 Well I see why no thread was created for this. I distinctly remember the WrestleKingdom being great, but this series has been totally heatless. This has been the worst AJ series of his WWE run. This was better than the Mania because at the least last 5 minutes was interesting. AJ worked a grinding style over Nakamura then Nak did the same thing not the best way to open up a grudge match. The chair throw then ricochet into AJ's face was nasty and definitely the most memorable thing about this match. Calf-killer into Triangle Choke was good and reminded me of the good old NJPW days. The ballshot psychology was g…

One thing is for certain after this match: Big Cass is still green as shit in the ring. Now I thought the match was very good, but he offered a very generic performance. I liked some of his throws, but it was Daniel Bryan's amazing bumping that made the match as awesome as it ended up being; an awesome performance by the man as expected, with that fantastic bumping & great offense. Loved the dodge -> kick -> dodge -> kick sequence he did at the start of the match - that's a Danielson David vs. Goliath classic spot, right there. All of his comebacks, fighting from underneath were hype & I absolutely LOVED that finishing LeBell Lock w/ him punching Cass to …

RAW Women's Champion Nia Jax vs Alexa Bliss - Backlash 2018 Nia Jax took some wicked bumps. They found some creative and really compelling ways for Alexa Bliss to get heat on the much bigger Nia. Loved Alexa going for chokes and the knees. Nia was great at steamrolling early. But her anger was her downfall as Alexa catches her with a kick to the head. The head shot was a great way for Alexa to get on offense. Nia had great power hope spots. There was a really weird miscommunication in the corner revolving around a Samoan Drop. Nia Jax took an insane tumble from the top rope to the floor! They did a great job milking this! Jax took another bump off the middle rope! Ca…

A very good, fun, energetic match aka the perfect way to kick off a show! The Miz was good in his control segments, Rollins was very good with those comebacks, the knee psychology was awesome, the two Scull Crushing Finale nearfalls were legitimately amazing, as were the sequences leading to them, full of struggle & desperation. And talking about sequences, that finishing sequence was absolutely fantastic. The Miz & Seth Rollins are 2 guys who I don't think much of in singles action, but gotta give it to them big time here, what a banger of a match! ***3/4