Moonsault Marvin

It doesn't make any sense, other than they need the money badly. They only have the roster to do 1 hour of decent tv, and they are burning through their matchups on the 2 hour show now. Bloat is killing wrestling for me. The extra hour of NXT has killed that show, stretching it out with meaningless matches. The wrestling organizations seem intent on squeezing all they can out of the hardcore fans like there is no tomorrow, and don't worry about the long term consequences of adding more low quality content.

I was expecting Crazy Sheik to be a poor ripoff of the Sheik, but he threw decent punches. Watching young Honma move so quickly is always jarring compared to current day Honma. I liked how they used the barbed wire boards. Honma put the Crazy Sheik in camel clutch to push him into the wire, and Sheik pulled Honma over to the board while using a waist hold. Sheik went to the nerve hold repetitively when once was enough, but otherwise, this was an okay match.

Wifebeater using the weed eater on Shadow WX was funny. The match seemed quite comedic with all the pouring of salt and squeezing of lemons in their wounds. They finished it off with a superplex into some flaming tables, which one of broke. This match was goofy, but fun.

Danielson starts with a nice heel promo. The match was mechanically fine, but the pacing lacked variation, causing the match to become tiring as it went on. Bryan needed to heel it up more, since Cade wasn't terribly compelling as a face. Bryan continues to show improvement, and I liked his finding different ways to work Cade's arm. Average match.

This match was boring. They bled plenty from the barbed wire and the light bulb pieces, but it lacked any sense of drama. The multiple ref bumps were silly, and Blaze's small package on Rotten was awkward. A long match to sit through for a fast count finish.

This was supposed to be a lumberjack light bulb match, but their match psychology didn't make sense. Instead of teasing and building to the guy being thrown out of the ring to be assaulted by the lumberjacks, they brought the light bulbs into the ring early on, taking away all the impact of the stipulation. The spots took way too long to set up, and often the bulbs didn't break. I hate the way they cut the foreheads in these matches and the other guy doesn't even put his hands up to fight back at all. Other than the large pile of glass pieces left in the ring, this match didn't have much going for it.

This started off like it was a comedy match with the spots involving the referee. American Kickboxer liked to smack talk the crowd and had a funny spot where he grabbed the Suicide Kid's nipples and dragged him into the chairs. They went into the parking lot, which wasn't captured by the cameras. The match went downhill from there as Suicide Kid didn't sell much, and the roll up after being superplexed was a bad ending.

Uneventful battle royal. The match was nothing spectacular, but it was interrupted with a ref bump. This led to Lance Jade getting involved. Wolfie D's shin guard isn't exactly an intimidating weapon, but they did bring out the fork at the end. We didn't get to see any bloodshed with the show going off the air.

Styles had some nice bumps like turning inside out from the clothesline. The match was solid until the awkward ref bump. The facebuster off the ropes looked horrible. Styles turned heel. It will be interesting to see how young Styles adapts his style to being a bad guy.

Lots of interesting triple teams in the first fall including Casas taking one dropkick after another. They take a fast pace in the second, and I thought Bucanero taking the hip toss over the ropes was cool. The fake low blows paid off in the end with Casas giving Ultimo Guerrero what he deserved. Good match.

Wagner and Panther go after the little furball. Rudos dominate the first fall with Black Warrior getting some high speed on his dive. The technicos make their comeback, and Tarzan Boy gets a nice powerbomb on Black Warrior. Alushe provides the comedy as he gets his revenge on Wagner. In the third, Wagner gives Alushe the big splash, and I guess he gets disqualified for it. Fun match.

The first fall was all back and forth matwork and holds and was really tremendous. The big dive with both guys going over the barrier was awesome. After Ultimo Vampiro got cheated in the second by the referee not seeing his feet in the ropes, I was hoping he would get more aggressive in the third, but that wasn't where they took the match. I felt like they ran out of steam in the third, as some of the rope running was looking slow and the high flying a bit awkward, but overall, this match was very good. ***1/2

I liked all the double teaming by Mega and Super Mega. The double teaming ended up being their undoing as it got them disqualified in the first fall. Their arguing with their teammates worked against them and cost them the match, giving a nice storyline to this match. Fun match. **3/4

They should have used a mini to play R2-D2. This was slow. You could tell Arai and Mochizuki wanted to speed things up, but the luchadores couldn't keep up. The crowd even looked bored. The ending was stupid with Mochizuki pulling Galaxia up when Arai had already been pinned and he needed to beat both guys. Bad stuff.

Sort of a slow beginning to this one and not very exciting for the first half. Usuda gets the figure four and it sounded like the Japanese commentator was saying Ric Flair. I liked that Tanaka's bad strategy of continuing with kicks even though he had a hurt leg cost him in the end. ***

Otsuka's tights always are unique looking. Lots of fun back and forth on the mat in this one. Taira didn't always come across as intimidating except for when kicking, but Otsuka did a good job of selling to balance it out. I liked the spot where Otsuka pulled Taira off the turnbuckle to powerbomb him. Very good match. ***1/2

This seemed to be about the big dives and not much else. The hold by Safari at the end of the first fall was interesting looking. Neutron looked hurt after the moonsault at the end. **

Murahama comes out with Ratt as his theme music. Super Delphin's beak looks smaller than usual. Delphin just goes for it in the beginning, overwhelming Murahama on the mat. He is able to counter everything Murahama does for the first two rounds by taking it to the mat. In the third round, after Murahama goes after the eyes, he starts connecting with his strikes and knocks out Delphin. Short, but intense match that contrasted the strengths and weaknesses of the two competitors well. One of the best Super Delphin performances I have seen. ****

This had a super fast pace, but compared to the Toryumon guys, it lacked the character elements that make their matches so much fun. No real memorable moments in the match, but it was solid throughout. **3/4

I had not noticed how many cameras they had been using for this show. They had 3 camera people around the ring plus the hard camera. That seems like excess for such a small production. The match felt like it was in fast forward, as they had to work fast for the short amount of time given. They should have given it the time from that awful Regulators match. The big spot at the end made up for the rushing. **1/2

Moondog Spot looked bad as everything he did was soft and in slow motion. I thought Jim Cornette must have taken over when the referees started fighting. Not much of a match.

The Cartel attacks before the match, so all the wrestlers are supposedly locked out of the building. Ali has injured ribs, but he goes on the attack in the beginning. He took a long time to set up the desk spot, so it was good that Wolfie D moved and didn't end up looking stupid lying there. Wolfie D effectively used a variety of attacks to work over Ali's ribs. Ali made a comeback and was on the verge of winning when the lights went out and Koko B. Ware jumped him. I knew the interference was coming because of the stipulation, but the match was good, so I was hoping it wasn't going to happen. **3/4

Reckless Youth looks so small up against Regal that it's hard to buy into him being able to grapple with Regal. He should stick with quick strikes or something else instead. This is super short and ends in a disqualification, even though it's a "I Quit" match. Neither guy looked good and it didn't advance the story. *

When they forgot it was a ladder match the second time, I knew this match didn't have a chance. If they would have ended it after 10 minutes, it would have been better, but they kept going. They broke the ladder, and the spare ladder was a tall straight ladder they couldn't really use for spots and the referee had to hold it for them to climb. Two guys came out to interfere, but they just got the manager out of handcuffs instead of attacking Homicide. What was the manager going to do that they couldn't? A mess of a match. *

Lots of walking around in the beginning and this wasn't the good kind of stalling to build heat. The match took a nosedive everytime Frantz came in. He missed moves, didn't sell when he was hit, etc. This turned into a proto-Young Bucks type of match with one huge move after another with very little meaningful selling and just shuffling to the next big move. Bad match. *