NintendoLogic

PWI is reporting that this Friday's Smackdown is being moved to the PC. The dominoes keep falling.

Dave said on Twitter that he was assured there would be a show in some form, which has me intrigued as to what they'll come up with. I can't imagine them running Undertaker/Styles at an empty Performance Center.

I was under the impression that he used to date Hikaru Shida. For what it's worth, Cornette has accused Omega of having an Asian schoolgirl fetish (which, granted, is problematic in itself). He seems to believe that Riho was the 9-year-old girl Omega wrestled in DDT that one time.

The NCAA has announced that the men's and women's basketball tournaments will be played without fans. It looks increasingly unlikely that Wrestlemania will take place as scheduled. Or if it does, it'll be at an empty Full Sail.

Even a 1983 Sportatorium crowd would struggle to make it through a seven hour Wrestlemania.

Are PPV viewing parties no longer a thing? It seems like that'd be an easy way to split the cost. Then again, that may not be a viable option with the wrestling fanbase having shrunk so much and society becoming increasingly atomized. I'd be willing to bet that a substantial number of wrestling fans don't know any other fans who they regularly interact with in person.

I hope they don't cancel Mania, though. I was really looking forward to seeing Allen Jones shoot on Mark Calaway and kill him in the ring.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki (NJPW, 10/8/12) Analyzing matches can be tricky business. I think that if you set out to discover something in a match you want to be there, you’ll more likely than not find it. With that said, I think I’m on to something here. As with everyone else, it was always the lack of nearfalls and dueling limb work (Tanahashi’s arm vs. Suzuki’s leg) that stood out to me. When I rewatched the match for this project, I appreciated all that stuff on an intellectual level, but it didn’t quite connect with me viscerally. However, there did seem to be an additional important aspect to the match. It wasn’t just a contest between wrestlers, it was a clash of wrestling philosophies (traditional catch wrestling vs. modern pro style). I watched the match again with that idea in mind, and it clicked with me much more. Suzuki doesn’t just want to beat Tanahashi and take his title. He wants to embarrass Tanahashi and prove his style is a joke. We see that in the opening minutes when he lands a few cheap shots but never follows up on them. That all changes when Tanahashi applies an abdominal stretch and plays air guitar on Suzuki’s ribcage. Suzuki may not respect Tanahashi, but he won’t tolerate being mocked. That leads to a scramble that allows Suzuki to land an armbar in the ropes. When Suzuki targets Tanahashi’s arm, it’s with legitimate holds like the double wristlock and the cross armbreaker. By contrast, Tanahashi goes after Suzuki’s leg with “fake” moves like dragon screws and low dropkicks. He even applies a figure-four, which is the ultimate fuck-you to a self-styled shooter dating back to the first Mutoh/Takada match during the New Japan/UWFi feud. It’s notable that Suzuki stops going after the arm after the figure-four spot, instead focusing on slapping Tanahashi around and choking him out. It’s as if the figure-four was such a grave insult that it caused him to lose sight of the task at hand. By contrast, Tanahashi kept targeting the leg until the very end, and his superior focus ended up carrying the day. I wish Tanahashi’s selling had been more demonstrative when his arm was being worked over and a few of the holds probably went on for too long, but this was top-class stuff overall. ****1/2 Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW, 4/7/13) I’ve soured somewhat on modern New Japan, but this still holds up as a classic for me. It’s definitely one of the greatest matches the company ever put on from a psychology standpoint. Okada is prepared for the usual Tanahashi strategy of targeting the leg and rebuffs it, so Tanahashi shifts gears and goes after the Rainmaker arm. Slamming Okada’s arm into the mat repeatedly was a cool carny move. It probably didn’t hurt much if at all, but it made a nice loud sound when Okada’s arm hit the mat and got a good reaction from the audience. As with any match centered around body part work, Okada’s selling is what makes it all work. He does all sorts of things both major and minor to put over the damage to his arm. He even sells the impact when he comes down from a dropkick. The way he sold his arm while doing the Rainmaker pose was reminiscent of Rick Rude, which is the highest compliment I can give someone. He makes believable comebacks while using his injured arm as little as possible, only throwing elbows when absolutely necessary. At one point, he switches his elbow pad from his left arm to his right, which gives it some needed protection. It should be noted that he was only able to lock in the Red Ink with the elbow pad on his right arm. The logic is a bit questionable, but I think that was the idea. However, the pad also lessens the impact of his strikes, and he needs a full-force Rainmaker to get the win, so he ends up jettisoning it entirely. Tanahashi not working the leg meant that Okada could block the High Fly Flow by putting up his knees and hit the tombstone with no negative effects, which ended up being Tanahashi’s undoing. Okada had figured out how to neutralize Tanahashi’s primary strategy and had progressed to the point where a secondary one wasn’t enough to put him away. Thus began the next stage of their rivalry, although they never matched what they accomplished here. ****3/4 Kazuchika Okada vs. Togi Makabe (NJPW, 6/22/13) I actually prefer this to most of the more widely acclaimed Okada IWGP title matches, largely because I think being an arrogant prick is a much more natural fit for him than whatever his current character is supposed to be. Cocky young pretty boy vs. grizzled veteran brawler is a natural matchup, and they exploit it to the hilt. In the beginning, Okada tries to engage Makabe in a striking battle and gets his ass handed to him. Later on, he tries to do a Hashimoto-style brick wall no-sell of Makabe’s lariats, but he gets dropped by the third one. However, when Makabe goes for a fourth, Okada counters with a dropkick. The idea seems to be that Okada has allowed success to go to his head and fooled himself into thinking he’s a tough guy, and Makabe is just the guy to snap him back to reality. But it doesn’t matter in the end, because Okada is so damn good that he can pull it out by going back to what he does best (neck work and dropkicks). I suppose most New Japan fans get their fix of compact matches from the G1, but I can’t be the only one who wishes they would run more title matches like this to serve as a palate cleanser in between all the lengthy epics. ****1/2 Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW, 8/4/13) I’ve always thought this was better than their Wrestle Kingdom match. I once watched the two matches back-to-back, and they struck me as largely identical. My theory is that most people will prefer whichever one they saw first, and the one at WK happened on a much larger stage. There's also a bit of a nostalgia factor with this being the first Nakamura match I ever saw that I really liked. He’s well into his King of Strong Style persona here, and he acts like sharing the ring with some indy scrub is a massive affront to his dignity. The key is the contrast between Ibushi’s high-risk approach and Nakamura’s straightforward assault. In this match at least, Ibushi has the Rey Mysterio-like ability to make his flashy spots look like realistic counters. He also goes splat several times when going for something spectacular, making the highspots he lands more meaningful. You can’t really call it high-risk if the only actual risk is in the execution. This is pretty great throughout, but it reaches another level near the end when Nakamura, enraged by this DDT joker’s refusal to stay down, viciously stomps Ibushi repeatedly in the corner. Ibushi responds by manning up and leveling Nakamura with palm strikes and punches. Cool finish as Ibushi kicks out of a boma ye at one but collapses and immediately eats a second boma ye for the pin. That’s my favorite kind of fighting spirit kick out. ****1/2 Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk (WWE, 8/18/13) I have to admit that subsequent outside events have somewhat diminished my ability to enjoy this match. After seeing Punk in UFC, I find it difficult to suspend my disbelief enough to buy him as a legitimate threat to Lesnar. Setting that aside, this is close to a perfect 2010s WWE no-DQ match. There’s no blood, but it has everything else you would want in this kind of match. Brock looks like the most dangerous man alive, and Punk wrestles like he’s in the fight of his life. When he wasn’t recklessly throwing himself at Brock or rocking him with knees, he was engaging in desperation biting and low blows. There were no contrived sequences involving someone setting up a chair or a table in the corner, nor were there gimmick weapons like kendo sticks or garbage cans conveniently underneath the ring, so this never lost the feel of a violent fight rather than a cartoon weapons brawl. Other than a couple of blatant restholds in the middle of the match, it’s hard to criticize anything they did in the ring. I suppose you could question why Brock would go for a chair. After all, what the hell does he need a chair for when he could kill us all with his bare hands? But it came across to me like it was a matter of him wanting a chair rather than needing one. He enjoys brutalizing and embarrassing his opponents, and that was just another means for him to do so. It was the same motivation behind him doing the Three Amigos just to be a dick. The only real problem with the match was Heyman’s repeated involvement. I get that they had to shift the focus back to Punk/Heyman since Punk/Lesnar was a one-off, but that could have been accomplished with a single well-timed interference spot near the end. Punk repeatedly turning his back on the grizzly to go after Heyman made him look like an idiot. Regardless, for the past seven-plus years, I’ve gone back and forth between this and Okada/Tanahashi at Invasion Attack for my 2013 MOTY pick. This time around, I give the nod to Punk/Lesnar by the slimmest of margins. Don’t be surprised if I change my mind again in the future, though. ****3/4

I wouldn't be surprised if Vince is so deep in the Trump bubble that he thinks the coronavirus threat is fake news.

I don't think Meltzer is losing his shit at all. If he is, it certainly isn't due to obvious con men like Prichard and Bischoff. He seems to be doing better than ever personally and professionally. However, I am amused by how he abruptly shifted from "Wrestling is about time and place, you can't compare matches from different eras" to "Matches of today are clearly superior to those of the past and here's why."

Minoru Suzuki/Taiyo Kea vs. Suwama/Shuji Kondo (AJPW, 3/14/09) The Pro Wrestling Love era was a dark time for All Japan, but Suzuki’s work in the company was one of the bright spots, and this is one of his standout matches from that period. For one thing, Suzuki and Kea come out to a mashup of Holding Out for a Hero and Kaze Ni Nare, which is obviously too awesome for words. Beyond that, the teamwork they display is quite a sight to see. Suwama is the muscle of his team (although Kondo is no slouch in that department), so Suzuki and Kea avoid engaging him directly. Rather, they provoke him into losing his temper and neutralize him with a spike piledriver on the floor, allowing them to isolate Kondo. When Suwama comes in off the hot tag later in the match, they go nuts with blind tags. They even catch him off guard with a fake blind tag, which I don’t recall seeing anyone else ever do. The one downside of the match is that Suzuki/Kea’s work on top was a bit dry. During this period at least, Suzuki needed a bruiser as his tag partner to provide a contrast to his stretching. However, there was a nifty moment when Suzuki had Kondo in a cross ambreaker and directed the referee to keep an eye on Suwama to keep him from breaking it up. The referee eventually came back to check for a submission, which allowed Suwama to run in for the save, but it gave Suzuki a few extra seconds to work the hold. For those who enjoy this, the two teams worked a match in the same vein at the Destroyer memorial show in 2019. ****1/4 LA Park vs. El Mesias (AAA, 12/5/10) For heavyweight lucha brawling, this is as good as it gets. It naturally begins with the rudo Park getting the jump on the tecnico Mesias, and Park recklessly chucks chairs at Mesias, beats him up in front of a group of women in the front row, and powerbombs him onto a wheeled garbage cart. When a fan dumps a beer on Park in the stands, he takes it out on Mesias with some especially stiff punches. Mesias initiates his comeback by ducking a chairshot, kicking Park in the gut, and stumbling around a bit before standing tall. It was reminiscent of Sangre Chicana/MS-1, which of course is the gold standard of lucha brawls. Mesias came at Park with a shoulder block tope like he was shot out of a cannon. Between the force of the dive and the blood loss, Park being counted out seemed plausible at that point. After a while, this shifts from a pure brawl to a Hokuto/Kandori-style war of attrition. To be honest, that part of the match probably went a few minutes two long, although there was never any spotty selling or easy comebacks. Things picked back up when a ref bump allowed Park to land the dreaded martinete (tombstone piledriver), the most devastating maneuver in lucha libre. I really liked how Mesias spent the rest of the match trying to hold his neck in place. I found Park placing the mask of his recently murdered brother on Mesias and then draping a white sheet over his body to be in rather poor taste, but I suppose it’s small potatoes for a promotion that billed a literal rapist as Love Machine. Great Austin/Rock-style finish as Park lands a low blow and then wipes Mesias out with repeated chairshots. ****1/2 Dick Togo vs. Antonio Honda (DDT, 1/30/11) DDT is quite the strange promotion. They promote matches where ladders win championships and wrestlers face blow-up dolls, but they also promote completely straight title matches like this one. Honda, normally a midcard comedy guy, has the match of his life, while Togo lets it all hang out during his retirement tour (this being pro wrestling, he would unretire a few years later). Honda starts things off by going after Togo’s arm Anderson-style, and Togo emotes like his arm is being fed into a wood chipper. His selling was probably a bit too demonstrative for basic holds like wristlocks and hammerlocks, so it could be argued that he was actually overselling. But the key to body part selling isn’t what you do while the part is under direct assault but what you do in between. In that respect, Togo’s selling in the opening minutes was brilliant. At one point, he goes for a Pedigree but can’t complete the double underhook due to the arm damage, allowing Honda to regain control by going back to the arm. There are even subtle details like only using his good arm when using the ropes to pull himself up. Eventually, the pain becomes too much to bear as Togo has to make the ropes and roll to the outside. Honda tries to press his advantage, but he busts himself open when he tumbles into some chairs at ringside. Once they make it back into the ring, this turns into a Mid-South brawl as Togo works the cut with punches and stomps. He even does a Ted DiBiase-style fist drop. Eventually, Honda drops the strap Lawler-style and explodes with a punch flurry that ends with a massive Popeye uppercut that Togo does a massive Bluto bump for. Honda also apes Inoki down the stretch with his enzuigiris and octopus holds. He stops going after the arm in the second half of the match, but his earlier work creeps up periodically, like when Togo’s arm gives out while applying a crossface. Togo’s frequent Pedigree teases get it over as the most consequential move imaginable, and when he finally fights through the pain to land it, you know it’s a wrap. As you can tell from this writeup, the match employs many elements more common to 1980s territory wrestling than 2010s puro. Although I don’t think they were entirely successful at integrating them into a coherent whole, it’s nice to know that the classics never die. ****1/2 Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus (WWE, 4/29/12) Many high-profile WWE matches from this period are almost as interesting as sociological experiments as they are as wrestling matches. It was around this time that WWE crowds began to revolt against the planned direction to an unprecedented degree, and the company seemed to be at a loss as to how to compel them to react the way they were “supposed” to. Case in point, Bryan was getting over far more than WWE would have liked, so they tried to nip it in the bud by having Sheamus infamously beat him in 18 seconds for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania. As we all know, it backfired spectacularly as Bryan ended up more over than ever, leading to this match as a sort of attempt at a make-good. But it ended up being too little too late, and it marked the beginning of the end of Sheamus being taken seriously as a top guy. That’s a shame, because while he may not be the kind of guy you can build a promotion around, he’s an asset as one of the guys in the mix. He’s a bruiser with an impressive offensive arsenal and a strong enough seller to make smaller opponents look credible, allowing him to work as both a top face and a top heel. I got the impression that a lot of fans were as much into the idea of Bryan as a WWE main eventer as they were into the actual matches, leading to a lot of the matches, particularly the ones with Punk and Cena, being vastly overrated in my view. However, I’ve always thought this match held up really well from an in-ring standpoint. In fact, it was my match of the night when I watched Extreme Rules live, largely because the ending to Cena/Lesnar left such a bad taste in my mouth. This was the closest we got to ROH Danielson in a WWE ring up to this point, as he’s in full-on Best in the World heel mode. He even does the “I have till five” spot. Sheamus goes for a brogue kick early on and makes a “this close” hand gesture when it misses, which shows the biggest problem with Sheamus from a psychology standpoint. If you have a move that is virtually guaranteed to end a match, can be hit out of nowhere, and doesn’t put you at a disadvantage if you miss it, there’s no real reason to not spend the entire match trying to land it. That’s why I’m a strong advocate of wrestlers suffering some sort of penalty when they go for their finishers too early to act as a deterrent. There’s probably no WWE spot more played out than a wrestler going shoulder-first into the ringpost, but they did a great job here of treating it like a move that completely changed the complexion of the match. It exacerbated the damage from Bryan’s earlier arm work and made Sheamus even more vulnerable to the Yes lock. Bryan employs the old Iron Man match heel tactic of getting intentionally disqualified to do further damage, although I would have preferred that he really earn the DQ with a chair or something rather than simply kicking Sheamus in the ropes. Sheamus’ desperation brogue kick at the beginning of the third fall was a fantastic way for him to get back in the match. He was still out of it after having passed out in the Yes lock to end the second fall, so he wasn’t able to immediately cover. Plus, he wasn’t quite able to get all of it, so it ended up looking more like a claymore kick. Whether intentional or not, it provided additional justification for Bryan being able to kick out. The finish was rather abrupt, but I did appreciate Bryan not doing the cliched repeatedly popping up to feed Sheamus’ comeback at the end. WWE would end up winning its war with the fans, leading to the current state of affairs where nobody cares because nothing matters. But that’s a story for another day. ****1/2 John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE, 4/29/12) I don’t know what more needs to be said about this one. It’s a surreal spectacle unlike any other, simultaneously shocking, exhilarating, and baffling. The shooter who comes in to destroy the fake pro wrestlers was well-established in Japanese wrestling, but it was novelty in a major-league American promotion. The fact that Lesnar was a superstar in pro wrestling before joining UFC made him doubly dangerous. Nobody had any real idea of what to expect going in, and Lesnar starting things off by opening Cena up with elbows to the head and flattening him with a clothesline made it clear that any preconceived notions had to be thrown out the window. The chaos and brutality give the match a “this isn’t supposed to be happening” vibe you almost never see in WWE. All the spots that didn’t go according to plan, like Lesnar going over the top rope and nearly blowing out his knee, added to the chaotic atmosphere. I should note that I hate the referee stopping things so the doctors could patch up Cena as much today as I did at the time. Not only did it disrupt the flow of the match, it made no logical sense in a no-DQ bout that featured multiple ref bumps. Thankfully, they learned their lesson from that debacle and actively encouraged the spilling of blood in subsequent Lesnar matches. The ending is of course completely indefensible from a booking standpoint, but it’s far enough in the rear view mirror that I don’t get bent out of shape over it. Also, I’ll admit that Cena making a miracle comeback to win in the end made for a better self-contained match. It helps that I’ve long since given up on expecting WWE to be able to do anything right. ****3/4

Hopefully they'll make Bryan/Gulak the opener and we can all turn it off immediately afterward.

I can't buy into Okada as a GOAT candidate because he never comes across as a dangerous tough guy. With just about every other ace, there was a sense that they could snap and fuck someone up if pushed far enough. I never get that with Okada. The match with Jay White at Wrestle Kingdom might be the most egregious example. With the way it had been built up, he should have been at White's throat from the get-go. Instead, he came out and had a normal Okada match with no real sense of urgency or aggression.

I looked at the card, and yikes. There's not a single announced match that looks like an acceptable PPV main event. I guess the women's Chamber match would be the pick by default. Shayna seems like the obvious choice to win, but she's not exactly Vince's type. And he's already changed his mind once about pushing her (she was the original pick to win the Rumble), so I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up pulling the plug completely after her first match on Raw went over like a lead balloon.

Yuji Nagata vs. Togi Makabe (NJPW, 7/6/07) They ran an IWGP title match at Korakuen, so it was clear New Japan had fallen on hard times. Nevertheless, this is a blast. It’s basically the best possible Dump Matsumoto match with lots of weapons, interference, and brawling all over the place. Makabe clocks Nagata with a chair, stabs him with scissors, and strangles him with a chain. His GBH stablemates also interfere liberally. Oh, for the days when Toru Yano was a serious heel. I find the use of stabbing implements as weapons in pro wrestling to be inherently distasteful, but the fact that Makabe used safety scissors makes it unintentionally hilarious rather than macabre. The fact that all this occurred in plain view of the referee was a bit off-putting. I understand the mindset of showing some leniency so the match can be decided in the ring by the wrestlers, but the ref has to maintain some semblance of authority. When the heels are running roughshod to this degree with no repercussions, that authority is completely undermined. Refusing to count a couple of pins after weapon-assisted moves was as far as he went in enforcing the rules. I don’t need wrestling to always be presented as pure sport, but I’d rather it not be this much of a circus. As a one-off, though, this worked as a morality play by showing that cheaters never prosper. And Nagata snapping and opening Makabe up with elbows that made Orton/Lesnar look like a paper cut was a great ace moment. This is a bit rough around the edges to say the least, but it’s neat to occasionally see something so far outside the box. ****1/4 Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Mistico (CMLL, 7/27/07) Due to stricter adherence to weight classes in Mexico and luchadores being on the smaller side in general, a high-profile singles match like this with a significant size disparity between the competitors in a Mexican promotion really stands out. Wagner here looks like the coolest and most badass wrestler on Earth. He gives a cameraman a too sweet on the way to the ring, beats Mistico from pillar to post, and terrorizes a group of female Mistico fans in the front row. Much of his offensive repertoire is standard New Japan junior offense, but it looks devastating in a lucha libre context, even more so due to Mistico’s strong selling and bumping. There’s a pose-off at the beginning of the third fall that nearly killed the match for me, but they got back to business shortly afterward. One important detail is that for most of the match’s pin attempts, the wrestler being pinned makes a continuous effort to kick out the entire time. That makes the pins where the wrestler lies motionless before kicking out at the last second even more impactful. That sort of progression in nearfalls is sorely missed in modern wrestling. Wagner powerbombing Mistico on the floor in front of his female fans at the end was both amusing and shockingly brutal. It wasn’t a Hansen-style release powerbomb, either. It was a full-on Vader/Cactus Jack powerbomb, the kind that usually results in a stretcher job. It was actually believable that the referee and ringside doctor would be so concerned with checking on Mistico that they wouldn’t notice the Ultimo Guerrero run-in. ****1/2 Bryan Danielson vs. Takeshi Morishima (ROH, 8/25/07) Danielson is considered to be the greatest of all time or close to it by many fans, while Morishima is considered to be the greatest of all time or close to it by nobody. So when there’s a match between the two that’s received close to universal praise, it’s natural to focus on Danielson’s performance. I’ve even seen this described as a Danielson carry job, which is ludicrous. Make no mistake, Danielson delivers an outstanding performance in every respect and is the key driver of the action. But Morishima more than holds up his end. Watching this so soon after watching a few of his matches in NOAH pre-excursion caused me to view his performance in a new light. He starts out calm and collected, not a runaway freight train like in the NOAH matches. It’s as if earlier in his career, he wanted to take his opponents out as quickly as possible because he was afraid of being taken into deep water. Now that he’s grown as a wrestler, he’s not afraid to let the opponent dictate the pace because he knows he can weather the storm. Danielson employs the same strategy that Kiyoshi Tamura tried against Vader: go after the leg and have him so worried about protecting it that it opens him up for potential knockout blows. However, just as in Tamura/Vader, the fatal flaw of that strategy is that being close enough to do damage to the big man means that he’s close enough to do damage to you. That damage comes a little more than four minutes in when Danielson suffers a detached retina. Morishima then starts teeing off on Danielson’s face even more, and many of the shots are undoubtedly wince-inducing. But as much as I hate to say it, the match wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable without them. If Morishima had shied away from Danielson’s eye, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb and probably brought the match down. Morishima’s selling of the leg work is more understated than some might like, but that makes it even more epic when his leg finally buckles and he collapses like a demolished skyscraper. Danielson tries to finish him off with a back superplex, but Morishima reverses into a crossbody and comes down on Danielson’s head. Danielson still has some fight left, but that’s a wrap as far as there being any doubt over the outcome. ****1/2 John Cena vs. Randy Orton (WWE, 8/26/07) To think, there was a time when this was a never-before-seen dream match. I remember hearing that in the wake of the Benoit tragedy, WWE made a conscious effort to re-educate the fans to accept slower-paced matches with fewer high-risk maneuvers. And when you need to slow things down, of course you turn to Orton. But in all seriousness, this is actually pretty spectacular, like a WWE version of Tenryu/Hashimoto or Choshu/Hashimoto. There’s nothing fancy, but their absolute commitment to getting every hold and strike over as meaningful makes this more than the sum of its parts. There’s even a big beefy lock-up at the beginning. Cena thrives on momentum, so Orton’s gameplan is to slow things to a crawl and shut Cena down whenever he tries to pick up the pace. I’ll concede that a match built largely around chinlocks has a pretty hard ceiling, but if this match doesn’t reach that ceiling, it comes close. For one thing, Orton works his chinlocks like he’s trying to rip his opponent’s head off. In addition, he had RKOed Cena onto a chair on Saturday Night’s Main Event eight days beforehand, so he had extra reason to target the head region. Cena’s selling is amazing, particularly of Orton’s punches. It’s not just the stumbling around, it’s the look on his face that gives the impression that he’s been genuinely knocked loopy. Just when it seems that Cena is on his last legs, Orton can’t help himself from going for the punt. He had gotten to that point by playing small ball, and swinging for the fences ends up costing him when Cena reverses into an STFU (a move name that sounded stupid at the time and is positively embarrassing today). Orton makes the ropes and lands an RKO when Cena tries to press the advantage. But he can’t cover immediately due to the damage to his leg (which the STF also targets). Moreover, he can’t execute a proper cover and simply drapes his arm over Cena’s body, enabling Cena to barely get his shoulder up. Amazing how that one risk by Orton ended up backfiring on multiple levels. That’s the kind of subtle nuanced storytelling you hardly ever see in WWE. Orton’s completely thrown off his game at this point and makes the cardinal mistake of trying to pull Cena to his feet, allowing him to hit the FU out of nowhere. This match probably deserved a better ending, but it seemed to be intended to set up a Cena/Orton gimmick match that we never got due to Cena’s injury. Thanks a lot, Mr. Kennedy. ****1/4 Kensuke Sasaki vs. KENTA (NOAH, 7/18/08) This is like a thinking man’s version of Ishii/Shibata, which sense because Sasaki and Ishii are both disciples of the Choshu/Tenryu style and KENTA was a huge influence on Shibata. You know, KENTA deserves more recognition as one of the most influential wrestlers of the modern era. Pretty much every smaller wrestler who throws kicks draws from him to a degree. Hell, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan in WWE were practically KENTA cosplayers. This particular match has all the high-impact action of a typical NEVER Openweight title match without any of the dumb shit like endless forearm exchanges and popping up to trade German suplexes. Plus, the junior vs. heavy aspect gives it an extra dimension. To put it in boxing terms, KENTA is a swarmer while Sasaki is a slugger. As such, Sasaki mostly dominates (at one point, he simply picks KENTA up and bullrushes him into the corner), but KENTA gets to show enough to look credible. He even has his finisher somewhat protected. It looked like he didn’t quite hit the GTS flush, so it ended up being a great near sports-style nearfall. Sasaki was being built up for a GHC title match, so the outcome is never really in doubt, but it still manages to be a hell of a ride. ****1/2

Allow me to present a play in three acts. Act I: https://www.webisjericho.com/michelle-mccool-upset-after-being-left-out-of-wwe-com-greatest-women-champions-gallery/ Act II: Act III: Some intern is about to get fired for not paying Taker's wife the proper respect on some stupid listicle. Mean Mark, indeed.

Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles (TNA, 12/11/05) Most people who don’t share my visceral hatred of triple threat matches would probably rank the triple threat at Unbreakable as the greatest match in TNA history, but this will always be my pick. At the very least, it’s the greatest singles match in the history of the company. It’s unfortunate that Joe’s rampage through the X Division coincided with all the Planet Jarrett bullshit, because that was the closest TNA ever came to being legitimately good. AJ’s Fosbury flop to Joe on the outside is an iconic spot, and justifiably so, but it’s the storytelling that makes this match tick. This is close to perfect big vs. little action with AJ’s high-risk approach contrasted with the straightforward brutality of Joe. AJ ends up with a bloody mouth along with almost getting dropped on his head on a powerslam, and seeing him crash and burn repeatedly makes it even more rewarding when he’s able to get anything going on offense. He’s so out of it that even when he lands the Styles Clash, he’s not able to execute a proper pin, which ends up costing him. When he rolls Joe over for the double leg cradle, he doesn’t drape his right leg over Joe’s left arm, and Joe ends up lifting his left shoulder. Shortly afterward, Joe resorts to shortcuts by shoving the ref into the ropes to knock AJ off the top turnbuckle and getting AJ in the coquina clutch by pulling on his trunks. Joe is still a dominant force, but those two spots keep AJ credible in defeat. ****3/4 Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Takeshi Morishima (NOAH, 3/5/06) For my money, this is Misawa’s last bona fide MOTYC. Given how unimaginably broken down he was at this point, it’s a miracle he was even ambulatory, let alone able to participate in a match this hard-hitting. This ends up being largely carried by Morishima, who in this match at least looks like the best superheavyweight to come down the pike in ages. He looked like a runaway freight train when he was throwing lariats. He’s also a tremendously giving bumper and seller, even taking a Tiger Driver from the apron to the floor. This isn’t a squash by any means, but it consists largely of Misawa being obliterated with lariats, clubbing forearms, and backdrops before making his final comeback. This match shows that just as an awesome finishing run can elevate all but the very worst matches, an underwhelming finish can deflate all but the very best. As cool as it was to see Misawa snap and murder an opponent with elbows, an epic extended comeback would have taken this to another level. This may not have anywhere near the depth of Misawa’s most storied matches, but the physicality is something else. ****1/4 Yoshihiro Takayama/Minoru Suzuki vs. Yuji Nagata/Naofumi Yamamoto (NJPW, 10/9/06) Believe it or not, the future Yoshi Tatsu was involved in a classic match. And he wasn’t just along for the ride, either. First of all, the tagline for this match is TACTICS VS. TYRANT, which alone is almost sufficient to make it a MOTYC. On top of that, it combines veterans disrespecting a young lion, outsiders disrespecting the home promotion, and shooters disrespecting pro wrestling. Somewhat surprisingly given their history together, Nagata/Takayama is by far the least important pairing. Rather, the centerpiece of the match is Suzuki and Takayama delivering a sickening beatdown to Yamamoto. The young boy whose role in a tag match is to get his ass kicked and then eat the pin is a time-honored puro trope, but even by that standard, this is an extreme beating. What makes it unique is the way they mix in comedy with all the violence. Suzuki shows a mischievous side throughout, like tagging in to boot Yamamoto off the apron and immediately tagging back out and counting along when the referee gives Nagata a five-count to return to his corner. But when he casually sidesteps Yamamoto’s strike flurries before unloading with knees, he makes it clear that it’s not all fun and games. Like the Joker or Freddy Krueger, he can have you laughing at his antics one moment and horrified at his brutality the next. Yamamoto’s selling is sublime, and his persistence in the face of overwhelming odds is admirable. Nagata doesn’t have much to do before the hot tag, but he provides some amusement when he breaks up a Takayama/Suzuki double submission and then stomps on Yamamoto to encourage him to fight back. Nagata and Suzuki trying to out-feint each other was entertaining as well. Takayama mainly serves as cleanup hitter, which was probably the best use of him post-stroke. To top it all off, Takayama and Suzuki settle who starts the match with a game of RPS, although Yamamoto jumps them before the bell to render it a moot point. ****3/4 John Cena vs. Umaga (WWE, 1/28/07) It’s amazing how much things can change in a little over a decade because there’s absolutely no way the Umaga gimmick would fly today. But him being a jungle savage who needed direction from Armando Alejandro Estrada actually worked to the betterment of the match because it meant that he focused on simply demolishing Cena rather than setting up the pointlessly convoluted spots you usually see in WWE gimmick matches. The most complicated spot he set up was placing the ring steps in the corner. I’ve said before that Cena’s two greatest strengths are selling and bleeding, and he does plenty of both in this match. He’s also probably the only person who can make picking up the ring steps seem like a genuine feat of Herculean strength. What makes this such a great babyface champion vs. monster heel match is that Cena ends up eating shit whenever he tries a standard comeback. Perhaps most notably, he punches his bloody forehead to fire himself up and then runs right into a Samoan drop. It’s only by using Umaga’s size and momentum against him, like the Samoan wrecking ball into the steps and the splash through the announce table, that he’s able to get anything going. Cena’s tough as nails, but he’s not invincible, so he has to rely on his wits to survive. Some might wonder why Estrada undid the turnbuckle at the end rather than simply giving Umaga the wrench to use as a spike, but anyone who has seen the 1992 Wargames match knows how much damage the turnbuckle connecting rod can do. Flawless big vs. little psychology and the lack of overly contrived spots means that for my tastes, this is not only the greatest WWE gimmick match of all time, it’s the best possible WWE gimmick match. It should be noted, though, that the referee’s count for Umaga was clearly faster than the one he gave Cena. Estrada should have filed a formal complaint. ****3/4 Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Yuji Nagata (NJPW, 4/13/07) This is Nagata’s first title shot since the end of his first reign in 2003, and he delivers a superbly constructed and worked title bout. This is a match where knowledge of their previous history helps immensely. They had met in the New Japan Cup in each of the previous years, with Nagata destroying Tanahashi before getting disqualified in 2005 and beating Tanahashi in 2006. This year, Tanahashi isn’t in the Cup due to being IWGP champion, and Nagata earns a shot at the belt by winning the tournament. In each of those matches, Nagata targeted Tanahashi’s arm with kicks and submissions. Also in each of those matches, Tanahashi countered Nagata’s kicks with dragon screws, but only to give himself a breather rather than a setup to leg work. Since that last meeting, Tanahashi has adopted the High Fly Flow as his finisher. He thus has extra incentive to go after the leg since the most obvious counter is to put the knees up. In fact, I believe this is the first instance of Tanahashi incorporating heavy leg work into a match. Tanahashi knows that Nagata will go after the arm, and he also knows that Nagata can be baited into catching his leg on the top rope. So after making the ropes on an armbar, he sets the trap by rolling to the apron. He then lands a dragon screw and begins a full-fledged assault on Nagata’s leg. With a new finisher and a more focused attack, it appears that Tanahashi may have finally solved the puzzle. But although Nagata sells the leg impeccably, he's still more than capable of fighting back with a bad wheel. Tanahashi can’t help himself from getting into a strike battle, and Nagata ends up taking his head off with a kick from his good leg. Cool finish as Nagata performs a bridging backdrop with a unique bridge that takes the pressure off his injured leg. ****1/2

I'm guessing it's an angle. If Ricochet thinks this is going to get him over, someone needs to smarten him up.

Kenta Kobashi/Go Shiozaki vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Jun Akiyama (NOAH, 4/24/05) Somebody must have pissed in Tenryu’s Cheerios that morning, because he’s even grumpier than usual. When he wasn’t roughing up the rookie Shiozaki, he was going out of his way to pick fights with Kobashi. He starts off by chucking a table at Kobashi and then throws a water bottle at him when both men were in their respective corners. Throughout the match, Kobashi has a “What the hell is this guy’s problem?” expression on his face. Once Kobashi gets his hands on Tenryu, he sells the machine gun chops in hilarious fashion, even blading his chest to put them over. There’s a great subtle moment after Tenryu breaks up a Kobashi pin on Akiyama. Tenryu and Kobashi start trading chops, but once the referee turns away to check on Akiyama, Tenryu starts throwing punches. Shiozaki shows plenty of spunk throughout, but he’s obviously in way over his head here, so the outcome is never in doubt. But in a match like this, it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. In his role as mentor, Kobashi mainly hangs back and exhorts Shiozaki to keep fighting, only intervening directly to break up a double-team on the outside. My only real complaint is Akiyama’s lack of assertiveness. Unlike the other three wrestlers, who have clearly defined roles and play them to perfection, Akiyama’s part could have been played by just about anybody. He’s never bad, but he’s mostly just kind of there, which is par for the course for him. He was in plenty of all-star dream match tags during this period and didn’t stand out in any of them. It seemed like his role was to eat up time and then take a back seat while the real stars went at it. Watching this match, it’s obvious why Tenryu is a legend and Akiyama never reached that level despite being far more gifted technically and athletically. ****1/2 John Cena vs. JBL (WWE, 5/22/05) This might be the ultimate example of the stars aligning and two wrestlers producing something far beyond their normal capabilities. Cena would eventually become a fine worker, but at this stage of his career, he was terrible at pretty much everything except selling and bleeding. And JBL was always limited and reliant on smoke and mirrors to produce decent matches. Stick the two of them in a match with a gimmick that accentuates both of their strengths and you end up with something shockingly great. The first few minutes are a bit dodgy (some crappy mat wrestling followed by some crappy crowd brawling), but it picks up after JBL tries to strangle Cena with the timekeeper’s belt. I always mark out for heels using the belts of ringside officials as weapons. You know, Cena might actually be the best of all time at selling being strangled. I don’t think anyone coughs and wheezes quite like him. Cena bleeds an absolute gusher after getting hit with a chair, and JBL kicking and stomping a bloody Cena was easily the highlight of the match in my book. I also really liked JBL’s use of Krav Maga tactics like low blows and thumbs to the eye to cut off Cena’s comebacks. The last third or so of this match is Austin/Dude Love-style brawling through props, but I thought it felt far more organic than is typical for that style. I even thought the I Quit stipulation added to the match. It's important to note that Cena never asked JBL to quit. Rather, he did it of his own volition. It got the babyface over as a total badass and the heel over as a total coward when the chips are down, which is the ideal outcome for this kind of match. If Cena had worked more matches like this during his first reign, crowds never would have turned on him. ****1/4 Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE, 6/23/05) I remember there was a time when some would argue this was as good or better than their Halloween Havoc match. That’s obviously nowhere near the consensus today, but this is still their best WWE match. The opening matwork is solid if rather incongruous with where their feud was at that point. Rey hits a plancha and Michael Cole asks if he can keep it rolling right before going to commercial, so WWE has been doing that crap for even longer than I thought. Shoving Rey off the top turnbuckle to the floor off a rope break was a fantastic transition to Eddie in control. The Eddie beatdown probably could have been a few minutes shorter, but Eddie’s impressive variety of offense along with Rey’s brilliant selling meant that it never dragged. It reminded me of Rey/Ultimo at WW3 in that regard. Mockingly slapping Rey on the ground and then unloading with stiff kicks when he tried throwing kicks from his back was a classic rudo bully move. Rey countering a camel clutch by dumping Eddie out of the ring only for Eddie to roll right back in and drop a Greg Valentine elbow on Rey’s back was another great sequence. All of the 619 teases and cutoffs were really well done. Toward the end of the match, Rey went for a pin after Eddie missed a frog splash. Rey’s overly theatrical “NOOOOO~!” after Eddie kicked out was an unfortunate precursor to the modern shocked face after a kickout, so that’s another terrible WWE trope that goes back even longer than you might think. Regardless, I’d say this is easily the best match in the history of Smackdown. ****1/2 KENTA vs. SUWA (NOAH, 9/18/05) Misawa had thought that the traditional All Japan booking style had become stagnant, so when he formed NOAH, he tried to open things up with more American-style angles. This match is a particularly extreme example. For reasons I’ve never seen explained, SUWA thinks the match is bullshit and wants no part of the proceedings. He brings an AV equipment case with him to the ring and tears up the parchment the figurehead authority figure (in this case, legendary former referee Joe Higuchi) reads from. Once the match begins, he clobbers KENTA with the ring bell and then the case, forcing the ref to call for the DQ. It’s practically impossible to get disqualified in a puro match, which pretty well indicates how far out of bounds SUWA’s behavior was. He celebrates like he managed to pull one over on NOAH, but Higuchi won’t allow him to get away with such blatant disrespect and orders the match to be restarted. I thought it was a neat way for a Japanese authority figure to do something other than deliver the proclamation before title matches without going full WWE. SUWA is all the way down the entrance ramp by this point, but KENTA drags him back to the ringside area. Once the match restarts, SUWA goes out of his way to get into it with Higuchi and KENTA’s second Kikuchi, but he tries to be a bit more subtle with the cheating. He turns away from the referee while strangling KENTA with his wrist tape, and he tries to make it look like an accident when he shoves the ref into the ropes to block a KENTA springboard dropkick. After a while, things settle down and it becomes a more conventional juniors match. I think the idea is that SUWA started wrestling more on the level because he sensed he might actually win. It’s a nice idea, but I didn’t find the action nearly as compelling as the earlier heel clinic. I like KENTA much more when he’s an underdog against heavyweights than when he’s trading highspots with guys his size or smaller. The two of them trying to knock each other out with shoot punches at the end was tremendous, though. I'd probably appreciate the match more if I knew the backstory, but even without that knowledge, SUWA’s heel work is easy enough to appreciate. ****1/2 Genichiro Tenryu vs. KENTA (NOAH, 10/8/05) A fiery young junior who loves to take it to heavyweights vs. a surly veteran who loves to put young punks in their place is a match made in heaven, so you better believe this delivers. There’s an obvious comparison to be made with KENTA/Takayama since both matches are worked in a similar style, are of similar length, and have similar outcomes. As much as I enjoy Takayama’s straightforward assault, I was more entertained by Tenryu’s more varied and chaotic offense, beginning when KENTA tries to jump Tenryu at the opening bell and walks right into a goo punch. In addition to his usual punches, chops, and kicks to the head, Tenryu employs chairs, the timekeeper’s table, and the ring bell hammer. There’s also some surprising subtle psychology. Tenryu temporarily stops throwing punches and chops because his hand hurts from throwing so many, which gives KENTA an opening to make a comeback. With all that said, it’s a bit too one-sided, so I found it slightly less satisfying than the Takayama match. However, Tenryu’s offensive tour de force makes it well worth watching. Tenryu tossing KENTA a water bottle to wash the blood out of his mouth was an amusing moment after the match. ****1/4

Jun Akiyama will be a guest coach at the Performance Center in May. If this is a precursor to AJPW becoming NXT Japan, this truly is the worst of all possible worlds.

I have a better idea. The Fiend is basically a shitty Doink, so replace him with Matt Borne. Yes, I'm aware that Borne has been dead for years. He'd still be better than Bray.

Just think. A decade from now, Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt will be the legends WWE brings back to add star power to big shows. And the main event of Wrestlemania will be Aurora Rose Levesque pinning Simone Johnson clean with one Pedigree after kicking out of three Rock Bottoms.

That match was a bunch of smoke and mirrors and not much else. The thing about Cody is that he's great at the big picture stuff but not so great at the little things that take it to the next level.

Why is Cody doing an elaborate HHH jerkoff entrance for a grudge match?

Oh, geez. A wrestler, especially a babyface, forcing himself on a woman is not a good look in 2020. Especially for a promotion that goes out of its way to present itself as woke and inclusive.