cactus
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Everything posted by cactus
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I actually set the language to German on the last PPV. I can't speak a lick of German, but Cole and Graves were becoming too much for me. -
I doubt I'm going to get through all this tonight. WWE are throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The gimmick matches are going to be awful, but I'm sure WWE will be happy if it gets people talking. Owens and Murphy are having a match on the pre-show. Murphy really wants to be Kenny Omega, doesn't he? He throws a weak V-Trigger. Fun enough indyriffic match.
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Takada throws some strong strikes, but this is the Fujiwara show. He's the crafty veteran who wants to school the new kid on the block. He's like fights like a scrappy pit bull, throwing some stiff headbutts to Takada. He was great at selling fatigue, as it looks like he's starting to struggle to keep up Takada, who has cardio for days. This started to lose me when they spent too long on the mat. It's a stylistic preference, I know, I just prefer to see more strikes and less grappling. ★★★½
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So yeah, this is about to start in half hour. Someone's going to lose a literal eye tonight. Asuka versus Banks should be good. Some of the stipulation matches sound like they could be WCW in 1995 levels of bad. Can't wait to watch this and question my life choices.
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This is what I want out of shoot style. Short, minimal downtime, big strikes and nuclear heat. Nakano and Funaki bring the haterd right out the gate after a simple handshake gets rejected and they start teeing off on each other's faces. Nakano bleeds like a pig after a strike looks to of broken his nose. Nakano acts just as sleazy as he looks and Funaki sells his ass off. Probably the best ever match that clocks in under 10 minutes. ★★★★¼
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Super hot match where everyone gets a chance to shine. There's zero downtime in this match and it well over half an hour. I thought the roof was going to blown off the building when Maeda and Inoki interacted. Inoki is the ace defending the company from those pesky shoot wrestler, while Maeda is the dickhead renegade who has no issue kicking Kimura when he's down to show dominance. Takada throws strikes so quick that I thought my video was running on 1.5 speed. What Hoshino lacks in size, he makes up for with pure heart. We finally get a Fujiwara match to match his consistently awesome performance. Ueda is in this for a grand total of around a minute, but the crowd pop huge whenever he was in the ring. The finish with Inoki cleaning house on the last two wrestler gave me 'John Cena taking out the Nexus by himself at Summerslam 2010' vibes, but don't let that stop you from watching one of the best matches NJPW has ever put out. ★★★★★
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I've seen this described elsewhere as a 90's AJPW heavyweight taking on a NOAH junior and I think that is a great analogy. This is Triple H's best performance. His 1970's NWA Champion cosplay wrestling style worked wonders for this match, keeping the popular Bryan down with crossfaces and chickenwings, all while working on Bryan's injured shoulder too as an added bonus. Bryan bumps like a madman here, that Tiger Suplex spot had me wincing. Bryan kicking out of the Pedigree felt like a huge deal. We are used to seeing the big stars like Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and John Cena kick out of that move, but seeing a guy like Bryan getting a second wind felt shocking. I love, love the finish. Bryan using the momentum from countering H's backdrop to perfectly set himself up to nail his big knee to get the win. ★★★★½
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'Big Fight Feel' might be a cliche because of a certain WWE commentator trying to shoehorn it into every WWE PPV main event, but I don't think I've seen a match that has been as successful as capturing the vibe and atmosphere of a big time boxing match than this one right here. With the classy introductions, the additions of Lou Thesz and Danny Hodge at ringside and both wrestler's national anthems playing, this had A+ presentation. Vader has been wrecking shop in UWFi since he debut for the promotion. What he lacks in pure technical shoot style skill, he makes up for with his brute strength, hard strikes and massive size advantage over the UWFi roster. Takada is the ace of the company and looks like the perfect wrestler to build your shoot style promotion around. He's very lean, good looking and can take near enough anyone out with his wide array of submissions and strikes. Vader overpowers Takada to take him down, but Takada is able to defend himself with some well placed kicks to Vader's leg to gain an advantage. Vader looks a little out of his element (both in a kayfabe and shoot way) trying to stand with Takada, and he hits a surprise spear to try and keep this grounded, but it's not too long until Takada lands a flash submission to make the big man tap. This is my favourite shoot style match. While it lacks the technical exchanges of say a Volk Han match, it more than made up for it with some stellar storytelling. ★★★★½
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It's crazy how much more of a real sex pest Joey Ryan looks now that he's shaved off his moustache. That clip Bix posted is vile. What a smug, nasty prick that man is. I hope he never gets booked again.
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I've always been cautious of rewatching this as I don't think it would ever live up to my first viewing and boy, was I wrong! Kobashi is shocked by how crazy the crowd is for him and you can tell it by the bewildered look he has in his eyes as he comes through the curtain. It's his first in the US and he had no idea what to expect. Kobashi is pretty banged up here, but he gives the crowd what they want by chopping Joe's chest into oblivion. This isn't Kobashi's best performance from a strict workrate perspective, but he brings out his greatest hits and that's all this crowd needed to see. I don't think Joe could of gotten a better rub by looking like Kobashi's equal here, even if he did lose the match. The atmosphere is like nothing else and the audience is molten hot throughout the entirety of this 23 minute match. This felt like the best ever game of Fire Pro ever! ★★★★★
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Feels like you standard big heavyweight title bout until Takayama violently drags by his leg and kicks the shit out of his leg. He decides on taking out Kobashi's chopping arm. Kobashi sells his hurt arm well and is an excellent fiery babyface. Kobashi has to adapt and use his other arm to dish out the chops. This has a red hot finishing stretch with Kobashi landing one of his scariest moonsaults ever. This was great, but not as great as I remembered it being. I don't think I enjoy matches with big, epic closing stretches as much as I did when I discovered puro eight years ago. ★★★★
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This was simple pro wrestling psychology done exceptionally well with some added violence to sweeten the deal. Bryan has a game plan and he sticks with it and it eventually pays off big time. At first it seems that his leg kicks have little effect on Morishima, but Bryan can sense Morishima's frustration building (Bryan having a smirk on his face as he Morishima got more pissed was a small detail that I appreciated a lot), so he sticks with his game plan. It might be a cliche, but this was like a chess match. ★★★★¼
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This has a crazy pace which rarely slows down that makes this an absolute treat to watch. Everyone brought something unique to the table. Cena is the powerhouse babyface, Rollins is the sneaky high flyer who will try and steal a victory and Lesnar is the video game end boss. Lesnar and Cena are great as always, but I thought this was breakout performance for Rollins. He uses his insane atheism to make this mostly hoss fight stand out. He successfully pulls off that counter to the AA that made CM Punk fall on his arse on MITB 2011 and I think he hits the first ever phoenix splash in a WWE ring. The match loses some steam after Lesnar is taken out by the sick announce table spot, but this is still a classic between three of the best wrestlers of the 2010's. ★★★★½
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Considering this was the third TLC match that they had done in 9 months, I thought they did a great job in keeping this feeling fresh. Whilst it's not on the levels of the first two, this has it's own thing going for it, and that's not just because of the addition of Chris Jericho & Chris Benoit being added to the mix. There's some new and innovative spots here, such as the 3D off the ladder and Jeff Hardy's iconic leapfrog legdrop getting a scary upgrade. ★★★★¼
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Just when you think you are sick of seeing these two fight each other, they deliver a match like this! This has a fairly subdued start, with the crowd not really looking interested and the sole highlight was Owens trash talking and mock chanting the pro-Zayn chants. I'm not sure if that springboard moonsault spot was an intentional choice or a botch, but it added to the drama to the match as Owens starts to work on Zayn's shoulder straight after. This has a big movez finishing stretch with a satisfying climax when Zayn boots Owen's head twice, just to make sure that's he's not kicking out. ★★★★½
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What I love about this one the most was the pace. It was non-stop from bell to bell, but it never went too quick and started to feel like your run of the mill spotfest. There's plenty of storytelling to help justify the high end action. This is a stable versus stable match where it feels that every stablemate plays a role. Reigns and Wyatt are the leaders of their respective teams, Ambrose is the unhinged madman, Rollins is the calculated high flyer and Rowan and Harper serving as the heavies for the Wyatt Family. Reigns trying to fight off the entire Wyatt Family by himself was a great way of having him look strong, even in defeat. ★★★★¾
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This was two bloodied up southern men throwing some of the best punches you're going to ever see in a wrestling ring. They sell them well and this was a good example of having a match with the most basic of moves and making the most of them. This went into 'epic' territory when Lawler hulked up and the Mid South Coliseum came unglued, one of the best comebacks I've ever seen. ★★★★¾
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I don't want to take away from Kofi's monumental victory, but this wouldn't of been half as good if Kofi was facing someone else. Bryan was a ring general here, intentionally slowing the pace down so that Kofi can't use his speed and athleticism to get the better of him. Bryan some how made a goddamn waist lock captivating in the year of 2019! Bryan might be universally loved by all fans, but I don't think a single person wanted Kofi to lose. This was Kofi's best singles performance. He was so over during this period and he uses all his big moves at just the right time. A gripping technical title fight with a feel good ending. Seeing Xavier Woods tear up over his best friend winning the title on the biggest show of the year choked me right up. ★★★★½
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I'm not quite seeing what most of you see in this if I'm honest. This was a good brawl, but I feel that the Dibiase/Duggan matches smoke this. Sawyer gets his head violently thrown into the barricade a number of times. I liked that Sawyer will happily get himself counted out if it means that he has a chance to blindside Duggan, shows what a nasty bastard Sawyer was. Simplistic brawl with a super hot crowd. ★★★¼
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I'm starting to feel like Mick Foley might be a better worker than Shawn Michaels. Shawn beats on Mankind's leg for a solid ten minutes and never once do I feel like that I'm meant to be rooting for the psychotic Mankind. He puts himself through hell and only he could make it work because of his gimmick. I'd find any other wrestler getting up from the damage that Mankind takes here would take me out of the match. That table bump might be one of the best ever as it felt organic and not forced. Even the run-in finish couldn't sour this for me. I remember this being great, but I shocked by how brilliant this was. A serious contender for best WWE match ever. ★★★★★
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Any time Foley has a big weapons match with a younger guy, he ends up kick starting their ascension to the main event. It happened with Triple H and Randy Orton and on this night, Edge would be taken seriously as a main eventer. They felt like they were going through the greatest hits of Mick Foley's hardcore spots and they upped the ante with the flaming table spot. Edge takes a nasty bump onto thumbtacks and brings some harrowing facials to the mix, Lita played her role as an interfering valet well and Foley continues to gross me out whenever he takes a steel stairs spot knees first. This was a compact hardcore match which blew me away the first time I saw it. ★★★★
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JBL might not be the best wrestler in the world, but his character work sure is brilliant. He's not playing a heel for cool points, he's just a right bastard. Sadly he's not all that interesting when he's working down Eddie, slapping on long headlocks and bearhugs. I found myself wishing for the referee to get taken out so that they could move on to the infamous spot where JBL splits open Eddie's head with a disgustingly loud chairshot. I don't think I have seen a more sickening bladejob in all of wrestling. He paints the ring like a canvas with his crimson mask. Eddie's eventual comeback is a good example of why he was so well loved. JBL brings in Eddie's championship belt to use, but Eddie gets hold of it and nails JBL causing a disqualification. I thought finish was weak, but the post match brawling more than made up for it. Man, you could never see a match like this these days. ★★★★½
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It's crazy to think what other great matches that these two had that have been lost to time. It's a godsend that someone filmed this, as it shows that these two go full on regardless if it's a PPV, TV show or just a live event. The chops here look just as hard as the ones they do during the Chi-Town Rumble match. This was worked slower than their last match, opening the match with some house show stalling. I thought Steamboat's selling was great, he wobbles all over the place and Flair's work is clearly having an effect on him. There's a lot of borrowed spots from Chi-Town. Steamboat having a comeback that solely consisted of dropping elbows onto to Flair's leg was a neat spot that paid off from all the leg work that Flair had been doing to Steamboat. The finish wasn't as perfectly executed at their last match, but you can't win them all. ★★★★½
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Gave this a rewatch. Going to go ahead and give it the full five. I sometime overthink things when I'm watching a critically acclaimed match like this or Steamboat/Savage. I feel like I have to like it, but truth be told, it's as good as it's repetition suggests. It's simple pro-wrestling storytelling done to perfection. The high roller yuppie versus the humble family man. ★★★★★
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I checked this out as it was getting a lot of praise online, saying it was one of Jericho's best singles since joining AEW. This was probably the straightest that Orange Cassidy has ever played it. He does his pockets spot at the start of the match and he fakes out Jericho by starting his shin kicks shtick, before nailing him with a surprise superkick. OC is a decent babyface, he takes some nasty bumps into the barrier and get some decent-ish hope spots, with the best one being when he kicks out of the Codebreaker. This is a match that would benefited greatly by having an actual live crowd, as a lot of the reactions here sounded forced and inorganic. ★★★¼