donsem43

The '95 Weekly Pro Tokyo Dome show.

In the last few years, how many women have quit after having a notable run on TV? AJ is not the first, probably won't be the last. That being said I actually liked AJ. Her PPV match with Kaitlyn from was good, and she showed some potential there. Unfortunately, being a woman on the WWE main roster is probably the worst place to try to develop as a worker in all of wrestling.

The Matthews vs. Nakagawa title match from the Shimmer show should be good. Nakagawa is retiring in a few weeks so she will probably go all out here. Melissa vs Havok looks good on paper but they probably do a tribute to the Melissa vs Wesna matches from a few years ago. Those matches were a real chore to watch.

http://dai.ly/x2hvhwe : Traditional Japanese music, moody blue lighting, and a gold Batman costume!!! If your interested there's also a wrestling match too.

http://youtu.be/hgji0As6Wbo FYI, this is a title unification match for the World of Stardom title and the JWP Openweight title. The matwork at the start of this is really awesome like a faster version of BattlArts matwork. It doesn't feel like they're killing time at all because it has a fierce, competitive edge to it the entire time. Then the two of them start pulling out some cool highspots. Shirai starts out with a dive that only finds the front row of chairs, she does manage to follow up later springboard plancha were she goes over the corner of the ring onto Nakajima. Meanwhile, Arisa breaks out a jumping DDT on the apron and a footstomp from the top rope to the floor. After that is when the match starts to fall apart though. They seem to fall out of sync with each other as Nakajima can't seem to figure out how to bump for an Implant Buster, while Shirai struggles to get into the right position for suplexes and rollups. This should have been a MOTYC, it was well on its way to be one but it just ended up flat at the finish. Definitely worth checking out for the first 2/3rds of it just be prepared to be let down by the finish. ****

I think it works both ways depending on a person opinion of the promotion/style. For me, I really enjoyed Nakamura vs Ibushi from this year's Dome show but what kept it form being a MOYTC for me were problems that I have with New Japan's style in general rather than the performance of either worker. I've read some criticize tag matches for not fitting a "Southern Tag" style, while any match from Dragon's Gate would need a ridiculous amount of hype to get some people to watch it.

A couple notes about this match. First, it's a High Speed Title match, which is usually work more like an MPro or DG style match than a usual joshi one. Second, the ref is wearing a GoPro camera strapped to his head, while this looks goofy it actually catches some good shots. For the match itself, it starts out as your typical vet/rookie match with Io controlling things. Koguma does manage to get control with a pretty awesome chain of spots. She gets knocked out to the floor and Shirai tries to follow up with a moonsault to the floor but Koguma grabs her ankle and yanks her down with Io smacking her head on the floor. She then follows that up with a tornado DDT off the apron and a plancha. After that, the match stays fairly competitive while still keeping the experience dynamic. Even when Koguma pulls off the upset it feels like she legitimately earned it rather than it coming of as a fluke win. Definitely a MOTYC that people should check out. ****1/2

This was really good. I was surprised to see Kagetsu break out so many highspots as she usually sticks to the mat, but that double stomp to Kuragaki's arm was great. Kuragaki was pretty bullish with her power moves which lead to some nice looking bumps from Kagetsu. Just under MOTYC level for me but definitely something worth watching. ***3/4

Io Shirai vs. Koguma - 2/22/15 - Stardom High Speed Title: Koguma, 17 with 15 months experience, brings a nice mix of highspots. Most of what she does is simple, but when she does bust out something flashy it stands out. Io was just phenomenal here. She played a great base for Koguma while mixing in her own stuff.

Apparently the two had some sort of legit heat, and Yoshiko thought the best course of action would be to go after her eye she's partly blind in and shatter her orbital bone. This is now up and it's about as weird as it is disturbing. Looks like they tried to turn a major back stage issue into an angle but it blew up in their faces in the worst possible way. I want to feel bad for the younger girls because some of them have really improved in the last year but most of them were in Yoshiko's corner and did nothing to stop it. Even Act had multiple opportunities to stop the match but ended up having to be forced to the back.

Overrated - Late 80's WWF tag teams. Sure there was a lot of talent, but it sure didn't produce much. It got better once the Rockers and Brainbusters got there but if you compare it to what was happening Crockett at the same time there's it is night/day in terms of match quality. Underrated - Recent Joshi - I sure a lot of people thought joshi fell into a black hole in the mid-'00, but there has actually quite a few good workers still around. Yoshiko Tamura, Azumi Hyuga and Meiko Satomura are debatable top 10 GFOAT. There's also a bunch of really good young workers like Arisa Nakajima, Kana, and Hiroyo Matsumoto now.

WWF/E didn't encourage their fans to speak their minds as much as they do now. Was there ever a face that got booed back then? Maybe it's an apple/orange type comparison due to the change in culture, but I just don't see Cena being booed when he's at the legend stage of his career.

You don't think that the kids that cheer him now won't cheer for him when they are older. I am sure a lot of the people who boo him now cheered for Hogan and Warrior when they were kids.

Wasn't there a tape dealer who had a website listing a ton of 80's AJW, but every description was super creepy. When I was a kid, my uncle would tape PPVs for me and usually put cartoons to fill up the rest, but there was one time that he forgot which was when he used one of his old porn tapes. Let's just say my mom wasn't impressed.

Dump & company were good at the "hide the foreign object" game, as well as just bullying in general.

I'm not sure where he would fit all time wise, but Mark Henry has been the best big man since prime Vader.

I personally think that the whole "Changing Standards/Modern Eyes" argument is just a mask for people who don't want to state what they truly like in wrestling. On Meltzer, I'd respect him if he just said "That's what I thought of that match when I saw it and I either don't have the time or the interest to go back to rewatch it." For others, it's probably fear that they'll get roasted for simply saying, "I love matches with big flashy moves and don't really put much value in context." It just seems like they are trying to make their opinions have more thought behind them.

Any sort of sloppiness or blown spot that hurts the momentum of a match. I can go from being completely into a match until somebody misses something at a key moment, then I just want the match to be over.

Another difference is that if someone is on TV for NXT, there's a reason for that person to be there. There are some weeks that the WWE struggles to find reasons for their main-eventers to show up on Raw, much less the rest of the roster.

Io Shirai vs. Natsuki*Taiyo - 1/26/14 - Stardom - Tokyo Korakuen Hall Io Shirai vs. Cheerleader Melissa - 3/16/14 - Stardom - Tokyo Korakuen Hall

Well Del Ray has a bit of size advantage, but they don't work the match she's a monster more like her size gives just enough of an advantage in that area. Other than that, it's a Kana match.

A question on copyright stuff. If a promotion posts a match on it's official Youtube channel are we able to link to it here or is there still a problem? There's a fair bit of good stuff on the WWE's channel but I'm not sure if it's okay to mention any of it.

I haven't seen the Chikara match, but the one they had in Shimmer (10/1/11) is pretty good. There were a couple awkward moments but nothing that really ruined the flow of the match. A good story of Kana using her matwork to counter the power and striking of Del Ray.

This is bush league Kardashian stuff. Kris Jenner wouldn't let anything like this get out.

My name is Don. I've been an on/off wrestling fan for 25+ years now. I use to post at Smarkschoice and Chris Coey's board whenever those boards were popular. Decided to try this place because I've wasted some weekend afternoons sifting threw the match archives and I might be able to add something to them.