May 23, 20169 yr Author comment_5754268 Also voting yes for Reigns vs. AJ I from Payback and to Nakamura vs. Zayn from NXT TakeOver Dallas. Did you comment on them in the Payback/Takeover threads if not I'm gonna need more on that.
May 23, 20169 yr comment_5754315 Nominating: Tsukasa Fujimoto/Arisa Nakajima vs. Emi Sakura/Nanae Takahasi (Ice Ribbon - 5/4) I'll get a write up done later this week. I don't have internet on my desktop at the moment. Thread right here.
May 24, 20169 yr comment_5754447 Nominate: Crazy, chaotic, bloody brawl kinda reminiscent in parts of those early 90s Onita brawling tags. Cuervo is the star of the show, showing both great selling and great fire. Wacky antics abound towards the end in the best possible way. One of the heels takes a crazy bump into a steel chair and a taser gets involved. Just awesome stuff.
May 24, 20169 yr Author comment_5754468 Where do people stand on Triple H/Owens vs Zayn/Ambrose? If you nominate it I'll probably watch it and do a complete breakdown. Then call you insane for watching that instead of Hashimoto matches.
May 25, 20169 yr Author comment_5754571 Nominating: AJ Styles & Chris Jericho vs Big E & Kofi Kingston (WWE Raw 3/7) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/34412-aj-styles-chris-jericho-vs-big-e-kofi-kingston-wwe-raw-372016/ Dragon Lee vs. Kamaitachi (CMLL 3/4/2016)-YES Shuji Ishikawa vs Hideyoshi Kamitani ( BJW 4/10)-YES Roman Reigns vs AJ Styles (Extreme Rules 5/22)-YES as usual see MDA for comments
June 7, 20169 yr Author comment_5756406 Nominating: HARASHIMA vs Kazusada Higuchi (DDT 4/24/2016) HARASHIMA vs Isami Kodaka (DDT 3/21/2016) Mike Mendoza & El Cuervo vs. La Revolución (WWC 03/06)-YES Meiko Satomura vs. Syuri (Sendai Girls 3/11)-YES Kushida vs. Jushin Liger (NJPW 5/3/2016)-NO see MDA for comments
June 10, 20169 yr comment_5756668 Hideki Suzuki vs. Masato Tanaka (ZERO1, 1/1): YES. Having rewatched it, the Tanaka "schtick" part doesn't bother me at all, and I'm not sure why it ever did in the first place. I love Tanaka; to me he is the personification of a gladiatorial wrestler. It's not "fighting spirit" with him, it's an absolute refusal to die. If he needs to break out a table to beat the guy who's perhaps the best pure wrestler on the planet, he's gotta break out a table.
June 10, 20169 yr comment_5756670 Nominating: American Alpha vs. The Revival (NXT 6/8/ 16) Just a fantastic, fast paced match with innovative spots and a little outside the box of the traditional formula. Surpsrising ending on top of that. Could watch these four guys all day, every day!
June 11, 20169 yr Author comment_5756780 Virus vs. Hechicero (Lucha Memes, 5/15)-YES comment in MDA Nominating: Hideki Suzuki & Yoshihisa Uto vs. Yasufumi Nakanoue & Yuji Okabayashi (BJW 5/30/2016)
July 4, 20169 yr Author comment_5758568 Chris Hero & Tommy End vs Zack Sabre Jr. & Sami Callihan (EVOLVE 53, 1/22)-NO Zach Sabre, Jr./Sami Callihan vs. Drew Gulak/TJ Perkins (EVOLVE 54, 1/23)-NO Tracy Williams vs. Matt Riddle (EVOLVE 55, 1/24/16)-NO Zack Sabre Jr. vs Will Ospreay (EVOLVE 58, 4/1)-YES Matt Riddle vs Zack Sabre Jr. (EVOLVE 59, 4/2)-YES Drew Gulak and Tracy Williams vs. Johnny Gargano and Drew Galloway (EVOLVE 59, 4/2/16)-NO Fred Yehi vs. Chris Hero (EVOLVE 59, 4/2/16)-NO comments in match discussion archive as usual Nominating: Rush, Pierroth & Rey Escorpion vs La Mascara, Shocker & El Terrible (CMLL 5/20)Rush vs Volador Jr. (CMLL 6/27)
July 11, 20169 yr comment_5759047 Nominating: Trevor Lee vs Andrew Everett (CWF Mid Atlantic 6/18) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/34971-trevor-lee-vs-andrew-everett-618-cwf-mid-atlantic/
July 13, 20169 yr comment_5759210 Nomination - Ikuto Hidaka vs. Ryota Nakatsu (BASARA 'Debut Show' 2016/01/28) -- Most of what I had to say about this fantastic match was written here. Nomination - Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa (BJW 2016/03/06) -- A battle of two big mean beefy men. Nomination - Nicole Savoy vs. Heidi Lovelace vs. Candice LeRae (SHIMMER 80 2016/04/02) -- I loved the WrestleMania Women's Title three-way, and obviously thought that it was the better spectacle. But, as far as pure in-ring was concerned, this was probably the best three-way I have seen this year. Heidi Lovelace may have been one of the best babyfaces of Mania Weekend Dallas. YES - Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll (RPW High Stakes 1/16/2016) -- As far as go-go-go matches are concerned, this was elite tier. YES - Will Ospreay vs. KUSHIDA (NJPW Invasion Attack 4/10/2016) YES - KUSHIDA vs. Jushin Liger (NJPW 5/3/2016) -- This was honestly one of the best New Japan matches that I have seen all year. Exciting and engaging from start to finish with KUSHIDA showing more aggression than at any other point at the top of the juniors' division. YES - American Alpha vs The Revival (NXT Takeover: The End 6/8/) -- I actually preferred this to their Dallas match. Everything felt a lot more crisp and American Alpha brought the same intensity that the Revival had in Dallas. YES - Shinsuke Nakamura vs Sami Zayn (NXT Take Over: Dallas, 4/1) -- My second favourite match of the year behind Ospreay/Scurll at present, although I have a lot of catching up to do. YES - Sasha Banks vs Charlotte vs Becky Lynch (WWE WrestleMania, 4/3) -- Most likely the best main roster WWE match that I have seen all year. Banks and Lynch were on fire in particular. YES - Zack Sabre Jr. vs Will Ospreay (EVOLVE 58, 4/1) -- Discussion. NO - Triple H vs Dean Ambrose (WWE Roadblock, 3/12) -- I don't see the appeal here. This legitimately put me to sleep a couple of times and I had to go back and rewatch the match. It felt like the standard Triple H main event, although he did make Ambrose look pretty good in losing. NO - Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose (WWE Fastlane, 2/21) -- A failed attempt at recreating the Rumble '15 magic. NO - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Atsushi Aoki (AJPW 1/3) -- This is probably my worst match of the entire year thus far. I wrote a lot about this here about this here.
July 14, 20169 yr Author comment_5759214 Not really sure why what's been a signature Fujiwara spot for 20/30 years disgusts you so much.
July 14, 20169 yr comment_5759309 Not really sure why what's been a signature Fujiwara spot for 20/30 years disgusts you so much. I love me some Fujiwara, don't get me wrong. But, in 2016, the idea of a 67 year-old ramming his and Aoki's heads into a ring post with significant force to no reaction on a throw-away spot on an AJPW show is an idiotic one in my view. If those spots got a nostalgia pop perhaps I could see some justification, but they didn't and just came across as excessive, dangerous, out-dated, and frankly pretty stupid.
July 14, 20169 yr comment_5759312 So head trauma is justified if people cheer it? No, definitely not. In fact, I wrote a lot about this for the upcoming Tag Rope coming out soon (this wasn't meant as a cheap plug, but I don't have anything to link to), and I think that good crowd reactions for such spots can be even more damaging as it helps popularize them. I loved Shibata-Ishii from 01/04, but I felt less high on the match afterwards because of some realizations that I had relating to the crazy spots that got big pops, but may have been detrimental to the neurological health of both men. After all, since Shibata's headbutt spots have been getting such great reactions he has been pulling them out more frequently on smaller shows, for example. I don't believe that anyone should be doing these spots anywhere REGARDLESS of crowd response. With that said, at least in the case of the 01/04 match, this brutality garnered some kind of reaction, and so I could at least understand the motivations of Shibata and Ishii in performing the spot. In the case of Fujiwara it just came across as the "this is my spot, and I am going to do it regardless of crowd response, risk to my health, significance to the match, my opponent's health, or anything else" attitude, which from a critical and personal perspective I disagree with to an even greater extent. And, for whatever reason, it came across as pretty sad to me personally.
July 14, 20169 yr Author comment_5759313 Is Fujiwara really risking his health? He's a 67 year old professional wrestler that's STILL ALIVE. And in good shape! I think touring plays a much bigger factor in injuries than doing shoot headbutts (not saying they're harmless, but bumping seems like the true cause of all evil).
July 14, 20169 yr comment_5759316 Is Fujiwara really risking his health? He's a 67 year old professional wrestler that's STILL ALIVE. And in good shape! I think touring plays a much bigger factor in injuries than doing shoot headbutts (not saying they're harmless, but bumping seems like the true cause of all evil). I agree with some of this, but concussion risk increases with each successive concussion, and I bet that Fujiwara has had a lot of them. Also, whilst bumping is probably worse for everyone's overall health, I can't see them being worse than shoot strikes to the head for long term brain health. I would guess that most of WWE's concussions per year are as a result of routine back bumps gone wrong (some are from botched strikes and freak accidents too), but I would bet that most of the concussions someone like Ishii suffers (I doubt most if any are diagnosed) are due to overly stiff headstrikes and huge backdrops, not bumping night after night. Although, working injured for years is also a really bad idea.
July 16, 20169 yr comment_5759533 It's entirely possible that instead of being insane and not caring about concussions (though I'm not denying that possibility), Fujiwara and Ishii could legit have really hard heads like Gino Martino and enjoy shocking people using them. More to the point, if your goal is to protest against high risk moves there's far better opportunities than to give a low rating to an Indy match based on a single spot. There's plenty of WWE and NJPW matches where that sort of thing would be a lot more relevant, especially stuff like MITB that has little going for it other than guys killing themselves and is marketed as such. I've fallen behind a bit on current AJPW but what I've seen of them from the past few years shows them as actually being a pretty progressive promotion in regards to getting fans to pop for a safer style, especially when compared to the old AJPW/NOAH style it's matches often ape.
July 17, 20169 yr comment_5759578 Nominate: Rush vs. LA Park (Elite 7/13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_31g1QCwN0 Just pure insanity in front of the hottest crowd of the year. Can see this being a lot of people's MOTY.
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