donsem43

Watched the first round from the Shimmer Mania weekend show. Thought Savoy/LuFisto had the best moments but ultimately was too awkward/sloppy to be good. Cherry Bomb/LaRae was solid but hurt by a dumb finish. Heidi Lovelace/Veda Scott was the best match which was surprise because I've never seen Veda look good in the ring before. Looking forward to the rest of the show though, the matchups for the semis and the final look promising.

Nakamura working a six-man with Enzo and Cass.

The only person off of my list that I was disappointed with was Asuka. I thought with her showing up in NXT more people would have checked out her stuff in Japan but since she was only on ten ballot, combined with Sasha being on thirteen, I guess people didn't.

TMDK and Nikki Storm showed up a the Performance Center today.

So after not nominating Yoshiko Tamura due to a lack of footage online, about a half dozen big matches of hers have popped up online in the last couple of weeks. Talk about timing...

After a heated rivalry last year, Satomura and Hojo come together to challenge the current tag champs, Thunder Rock. The opening part of this match quick establishes the difference between the two teams. While on paper Satomura and Hojo present a strong challenge, it becomes clear in the early going that they lack the true teamwork of the champs. When they are on the same page though, they are able to chain together some pretty nasty combos. Still, Thunder Rock's ability to keep watch of each other and be able to work together naturally is what ultimately gives them the edge in the end. This match doesn't reach the levels that it potential could have but it still managed to tell a good story of contrasting teamwork. ***3/4

No, but the two are going to be on opposite sides of a tag match next month. Shirai w/ Mayu Iwatani vs. Nakajima w/ Tsukasa Fujimoto, on paper it should be the best joshi match this year.

With that Quackenbush vote I'm fully expecting someone to have CIMA in their top 3.

Look up stardom world on youtube. They have started a streaming service through youtube for 4.99 a month If you go to the Stardom streaming thread and click on the Stardom tag you should have my 2015 women's list pop up plus review threads which some of them should have links to matches themselves. Also Joshi City has a match recommendation page with a bunch of Io matches their as well.

If anyone here is in the Vegas area, Cauliflower Alley Club is running Thunder Rock vs. Hojo/Melissa on April 11. Apparently Io, Hojo, and Iwatani are at the the Lucha Underground tapings also.

How did the high vote for Joe Malenko not come from a DVDVR guy? That just seems weird. While I didn't personally vote for her, very happy that a few people did vote for Io. I thought she was great in the last year.

I'd recommend the first show, the 2/12/16 Nagoya. It does a good job of introducing everyone on the roster and the main event is really good. Once they added subtitles and a second camera the presentation improves a lot. The interview segments are fun too. Hope you enjoy it!

Asuka's twitter had been kinda dull lately, then she had a house show match with Eva Marie...

This is Watanabe's the first single's title challenge and main event of her career so the match is really a showcase for where she is at as a worker at this point. Momo gets off to an aggressive start as she attacks Iwatani during the intro and manages to get a nearfall off while Mayu is still wrapped up in streamers. Iwatani plays the role of arrogant veteran which actually allows them to build up Watanabe for a potential upset as anytime Mayu takes Momo a bit too lightly she pays for it. In fact, during the stretch run they manage to pull off some really convincing nearfalls that get the crowd to buy in. Watanabe lacks that home run finisher though so she can't put Iwatani away, which allows Mayu to comeback and get the win after a nasty dragon suplex. ****

Sasha not being listed yet makes me wonder how Bayley or Kairi Hojo would have done if they had been nominated. I was thinking of nominating them both but backed off after reading the reaction to Sasha. Very happy to see that I wasn't the only Arisa Nakajima voter, and not even the high vote either!

That is from the time that Aja let her hair grow out a bit, '09 I think. It would always go all over the place during matches.

Mine would be Perro Aguayo vs. Jerry Lawler sometime between 83-84. Ric Flair vs. Chigusa Nagayo in 1986. How's that for an intergender match.

I doubt I was the last ballot, but I literally didn't start ranking people till Sunday at 10:30 am MDT.

I have this weird feeling that I'm going to be the high vote for someone who I had absolutely no intention on being the high vote for.

ESPN's Darren Rovell tweeted that they're going to gross $17.3M from this show, up from $12.6M from last year. There's not going to be any pressure from the money side to change anything creatively.

Done, whole thing went a lot smoother than I thought it would.

I still have the main event to watch but Zayn/Nakamura and Bayley/Asuka has to be the best back to back run in the history of WWF/E/NXT. That being said, they really should have put Aries/Corbin in between the two because that match would have been a good way to recharge the crowd. The women's title match was worked different from the previous match, more submission based with a really unpredictable back and forth. Plus you had back to back face vs. face matches which is tough to pull off in front of a WWE crowd, even if NXT fans are 'smart'.

If your interested, the best two joshi matches this year have been the 2/21 Mayu Iwatani vs. Evie and 3/11 Meiko Satomura vs. Syuri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N85-typ-rY This is one of Syuri's last matches as a 'regular', as she's scaling back her wrestling career to focus on MMA. The start is exactly what you would expect from this two, kick exchanges mixed with submission-based matwork. Satomura eventually gets control but Syuri always keeps trying to comeback at her. When Syuri does get back on top, she goes on a great run that leads to some convincing nearfalls. Could have used a bit more variety from Satomura at the finish as she gets a bit too DVD-happy as she's prone to do at times. Other than that, this is a great match. One of the best women's matches so far this year. ****1/4

This is a rematch from Takeover: London plus Asuka's last match leading up to her title match vs. Bayley at Takeover: Dallas. The opening part of this match quickly reestablishes the Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam rivalry between the two with Emma trying to outsmart Asuka but the reverse ends up happening. Emma does eventually gain control and starts to work over Asuka with a variety of holds. Unfortunately, this does take some steam out of the match as Emma doesn't really mix in anything flashy to get a reaction out of the crowd. They do pick it up for the finish though with Emma actually hanging in there with Asuka during a strike exchange, but she ends up costing herself the win when she argues with the ref after he caught Emma with her feet on the ropes during a rollup. One of the better WWE/NXT women's matches of the year so far. ***3/4