July 2018

Bailey and MAO finally did it! Kind of sucks to see Endo just be a transitional champ, but he still managed to put on a pretty great match here as well. Paulie didn't do much, but his small moments in the match were cool and fit to his style. Bailey and MAO of course were also pretty great with their smooth athleticism. In the end, Bailey and MAO finally get the upset to win the tag belts, ****1/4.

The hype was high for this match, so in that regard it disappointed a bit, but I still thought it was a pretty great match. Now the first 10-15 minutes or so are pretty slow as is in typical DDT main events, but those last 10 minutes are a pretty wild ride. This was not the glorious triumph that we expected Irie to have after finally beating HARASHIMA, but it was still a struggle from start to finish which fit the narrative fine. The last minute surprise challenge from Sammy after the match was cool too, ****1/4.

This was easily match of the night. It took a while to get going, but once it got going, it went hard in classic DG fashion. Big Ben is such a great team of two young guys looking to make their mark. I loved the dynamic of this match being the "future" vs the "present" of Dragon Gate as it embodied everything great about the promotion from big moves, fast speed, great chemistry, and high drama. No one wanted to see Big Ben lose, but losing the titles to two modern DG legends is nothing to be ashamed of, especially since it took everything in YAMATO and Hulk's power to put them down, ****1/2.

A little underwhelming for a Kobe Fest main event, but still a great match on par with their King Of Gate match at least. Shingo was a total beast in this match as he just destroyed Yoshino for most of it. Yoshino on the other hand had very amazing selling as his body would constantly crumble at the beating he was being given. The finish is where I have to show a little disappoint though as Yoshino quickly made his comeback to lock in Shingo for the win, which was anticlimactic after the punishment he had gone through. Still, the story leading up to this match was great at least as it had major repercussions, ****1/4.

Thought this was match of the night and thought it was fantastic how it was able to follow the two crazed brawls before it. This felt very much like an excellent modern day championship match with Moose playing the big babyface against Aries' Flair-esque wily heel. Lots of great false finishes you could really believe in like when Moose nails the Spear at last but Aries gets into the ropes. Then there's Moose tossing Aries into the plants in the crowd for a great visual spot. But I thought the finishing stretch with Aries upping the aggression was by far the best part of the match. Great championship match. ****1/2

This was a lot of fun. It was a hardcore style brawl done very well. Homicide and Hernandez both brought their A-game. The sequence with Hernandez's huge pounce followed by the crazy Homicide tope through the table looked really great. They were able to weave together big spots, high energy and the story all together. I thought it all came together pretty perfectly. ****1/4

When you talk about pairs of wrestlers in 2018 who have the best wrestling chemistry in 2018, Pentagon and Sami have to be up there. This was quite the brutal spectacle as both men just beat and battered each other from start to finish. The stuff with the spikes was absolutely insane to watch. I wouldn't say this was the most extreme match I have seen all year, but this was definitely one of the better ones, and easily the best Impact match in years, ****1/2.

Johnny Impact (Morrison) vs Fenix vs Petey Williams vs Taiji Ishimorii - Impact Slammiversary 2018 I really love the name Johnny Impact. When I did my rewatch of WWE 21st Century, I came away a huge Morrison mark, he is snug, his shit makes sense/looks good, he can make 21st Century Workrate sound. So I dig. Fenix is breath-taking to watch even if like his brother he is has Cero Psicologia! Ishimorii I have seen in one match with KENTAFuji & Ibushi and he is a great spot monkey. Man Johnny Ace and Petey Williams being the two most influential wrestlers on the 21st Century Workrate blows my mind. The match starts with three out of four getting their time to …

Impact Knockouts Champion Su Yung vs Madison Rayne - Slammiversary 2018 Madison Rayne will go down as the great forgotten pre-Women's Revolution worker. She could go! I watched her comeback match against Tessa and was very pleasantly surprised how athletic she is. Great execution and crispness to what she does. Su Yung is MY JAM! What an amazing gimmick! I love that unlike other wrestling monsters her diminutive stature gives the gimmick a lot more versatility. Madison's shine is completely plausible given that Su Yung is if anything a little smaller than her. I have been a big proponent of bringing the Shine back and its importance to wrestling. It did my heart good…

Tessa Blanchard vs Allie - Slammiversary 7/22/18 After this performance, I am completely flummoxed how Allie is not a permanent wrestling fixture on Dynamite. It is 2018 so I do not agree with every choice that was made in this match, BUT in terms of execution, staying true to the character/gimmick and the intensity/passion, this was a home run. Stiff strikes, great use of armdrags early, urgency on the charges, Allie came to play. You got to get up for Tessa Blanchard, who is definitely one of the most intense wrestlers of this era. Everything she does looks great and her mean muggin' is awesome. The contemptuous pieface followed by Allie's right was a great way to …

My goodness this RULED. Fale's arm work was awesome, EVIL's overall babyface work was TREMENDOUS & the whole big LIJ vs. OGBC run-in deal was executed perfectly. MOTN. ***3/4

World of Stardom Championship: Kagetsu (c) vs. Viper Viper's looking so great lately with her offense, much of what I enjoyed of this was her clobbering and squashing Kagetsu around the ring. The Cobra clutch that she transitions into a number of power moves was used to great effect here. Viper worked as a subtle heel, Kagetsu showed fire as the crowd rallied behind her while still retaining those cool heel elements. ****

This is for Mayu and Saki's Goddesses of Stardom tag titles as they take on the new ass-kicking duo of Momo and Konami. Wow, do those two beat the ever-living crap out of Saki in the early going. Ever since she became a contracted wrestler with Stardom, Konami has just become a much more vicious wrestler and it's so fun to watch. Mayu had one of her best performances in a while as she got a good working over to from the challengers as well and put it over with strong selling even while she was on offense. The quick rollup finish here worked because during the finishing run Saki kept getting good counters on Momo which setup her getting the pin. Still, this seemed like a t…

This match rocked. It had all the strong points of their previous encounter, and got rid of a plodding 1st half, going straight to the bombs right out of the gate. Bobby Lashley using a FULL NELSON as a legit submission maneuver in 2018 and busting out inverted STOs into headlock submissions was not something I antecipated. They did a nice job of calling back to Extreme Rules spots, and Roman Reigns being the greatest kick-out artist ever surely helps with the suspense. This was just amazing.

Ciampa is just a remarkable bastard, isn't he? The guy just goes out of his way to embody as much of what being a heel is as possible. Not only does he play dirty and aggressive, but he's also a coward. Not only will try to DDT you onto concrete, he'll also grab the tights. And let's not forget GRABBING THE TOP ROPE ON AN ABDOMINAL STRETCH. That's the kind of classic old school heel heat that I can really get behind. It's a spot I don't even see that often anymore which makes it stand out all the more brightly. Black for his part played a decent babyface champion walloping the dastardly heel with some great kicks. Enjoyed his back selling in the early half of the match bu…

An awesome encounter between two very athletic and handsome men. This was as fast and spotty as one would've hoped this match would be. While neither man did anything too crazy, they both still showed off their amazing athleticism, and showed a great chemistry between each other. SANADA working Ibushi's leg early on was kind of funny because everyone knew Ibushi was going to stop selling it a few moments later, and he did. Besides that though this was a great main event with SANADA picking up the hometown win, ****1/2.

Ishii vs. Sabre Jr. is one of the best pairings in all of pro-wrestling, and here they delivered yet another outstanding match. Zack's control over Ishii was brutal as usual; he focused on the arm(s), and Ishii's selling was simply fantastic. LOVED Ishii's countering of the things by going after the leg of Zack, too - such an unique twist, and something I certainly wasn't expecting out of the Stone Pitbull. The way Rocky Romero & Kevin Kelly built up the "Ishii might pass out, but he will NEVER tap out!" -issue was terrific as well, and really added to the finish when ZSJ locked in one of his most brutal looking submissions ever. ****1/4

I decided to rewatch this match as the rating I gave this match was probably a bit lower than I really thought it was because it was on the same show as Ibushi vs Ishii, so of course I was going to compare the quality in the two matches. With time passed though, I can safely say that this match is actually quite better on the rewatch. It isn't as athletically amazing as the SANADA vs Ibushi match, but I can still feel that SANADA and Kenny had a different yet still very good chemistry in their own match. They had a match last year that I thought was very good, but didn't exactly live up to standards. This year though they definitely killed it in an awesome G1 main event. …

Another absurdly insane classic from Ibushi and Ishii. These guys have had some crazy matches before, but this particular G1 match was just out of this world insane. Ibushi was just on another plane of madness as he brought the intensity and violence to Ishii making the latter's offense look like childs play at points. Lots of tropey stuff too like no selling moves and spamming suplexes, but it was all fun. Easily one of the best matches of the tournament, ****3/4.

This was the end of a 3 year long chase for Zeus when he finally wins the triple crown title in his home town in front of his family in a major arena. The moment when he won the belt and the post match was beautiful celebrating in the ring with his tag partner after finally winning the belt and defeating the ace. As incredible as that moment was the match before it was a little disappointing. There was a lot to like, the two men have good chemistry and Kento playing more and more heel as the match went on changing the crowd from 60-40 to Zeus over to 90-10 in favor of Zeus. The repeated attempts for the shutdown German from Kento was great he went for it around 6 tim…

Talk about it here

Elgin has easily been one of the worst wrestlers in the tournament, so kudos to Okada for getting something pretty good out of him. Granted, the first half of this match was reeeeaaaalllly slow and ultimately saved by a super-hot finishing stretch (although the opening minutes of Okada trying to big league Elgin were entertaining). Amidst all the criticisms of Okada's leg selling when it comes to mounting his comebacks, I feel like selling is one of the most underrated facets of his game. He does a tremendous job of letting his opponent just beat the crap out of him to the point where you think maybe, just MAYBE they can pull it off. The reason this match (mainly the fini…