ACH/Alberto

ROH Winter Warriors Tour

(2015/1/30)

ACH vs. Alberto el Patron

Super fun little match, ACH is an athletic freak of nature and his style meshed well with Alberto’s lucha/WWE mix, stiff shots were thrown around and all the counters/reversals were quite neat. As far as quality goes, Alberto is 2 out of 2 in ROH, remember the awesome Daniels match.

***3/4

Random Intergender Lucha

Lucha Memes Fest 2014/9/7

Keira vs. Arez

Damn fine intergender violence, you may know Arez as a skinny little indie prick who got his ass obliterated by Pentagon Jr. twice and Keira is someone I’ve never seen before, but judging by this she’s a burly badass lady and is very much into violence, I appreciate that. The mat game from the opening stages was totally acceptable and once they moved onto bomb throwing and heavy smacking the match got awesome. Some of the moves were really dangerous looking, in a true violent lucha manner. Very good match.

***3/4

NJPW on AXS TV: Episode 7

New Japan Pro-Wrestling on AXS TV

Episode 7, February 27th 2015

Naito talks about admiring Tanahashi and being his fan. He mentions the toughness and major struggles to march through the grueling tournament.

G1 Climax 23

(2013/8/11)

G1 Climax 23 - FINAL: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Great match that would’ve been amazing if Naito was a slightly better seller, in both physical and emotional fashion. He sold the damaged leg (mostly) good, although it could’ve been better, but emotionally his displays were kind of empty and dry, his facial expressions left a lot to be desired. Tana took advantage of his right leg and he did it fine, like he always does, Naito sold it very strong at first and then kind of sporadically as the match was moving away, although he did his best to make the selling subtle at times, gotta give him credit for that. He also sold it after the match and backstage, for whatever it’s worth. So yeah, the physical aspect of it was good, but like I said, emotionally I wasn’t feeling him, he did very little to make me emotionally invested into him and his struggles to overcome the Ace of the promotion. The fact he has the punchable rat mug certainly doesn’t help to be honest, so he really has to dig very deep and do his best acting efforts possible to make people love him. Sometimes he pulls it off, sometimes he doesn’t, waddaya gonna do. That’s why Tanahashi has tons and tons of charisma, enough for both, lol. The match had some great moments for sure, such as Tana’s outstanding plancha, the Frankensteiner reversal into Styles Clash, the opening catch game was good enough, etc. The tournament had at least a dozen of better matches, but this one was far from failure, it felt big enough and they got the crowd invested.

****

Tanahashi is shown backstage, he can’t even stand on his own but he says he’s okay and not tired at all. LOL.

Naito is doing the post-victory promo inside the ring and gets emotional talking about returning from the difficult injury. He mentions the heavyweight belt, Okada and Masato Tanaka.

Backstage, Naito is celebrating and then getting emotional again.

To cap off the episode, Naito’s reflecting on the match and talks about having to go through the pain and all that jazz.

Cara/Cesaro and Reigns/Bryan

WWE Main Event 2015/2/10

Sin Cara vs. Cesaro

Pro-wrestling is best when kept simple and logical. Here we have the classic power vs. speed setup playing off the size difference between the competitors, and it’s all good stuff. Cesaro is still great despite being ridiculously underutilized and this was my first time watching Sin Cara II, props to WWE for sticking with the character after the Mistico abomination, because the current guy playing him looks more than capable. The best thing about the match was Cesaro’s growing frustration for not being able to bring the luchador down, also Sin Cara’s hope spots were well placed and executed, and the closing stretch was awesome. Cesaro’s armwork from the beginning led nowhere long term, but it wasn’t anything scary that would take away from this great match. Neat discovery that I loved.

****1/4

WWE Fastlane 2015

(2015/2/22)

Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan

Roman is still sporting the outdated Shield gear, ugh… Well, fuck me sideways, this was an amazing match. Reigns has sucked in every singles competition match I’ve seen from him, but somehow he was excellent here, this wasn’t even a total Daniel Bryan carryjob, Reigns held his own and did a helluva job, the match honestly felt like a redemption for him after weeks of turbulence and fans’ backlash. Bryan has his kicks and trickery, Reigns has the size advantage, power moves and hunger for success. Trust me when I say they played off all of it throughout the match. Some sequences and reversals were totally nifty. Selling was strong, particularly Reigns favoring his stomach after all the kicks he ate. Bryan kept his annoying (to me) YES! crap to a minimum and it certainly helped the match a lot. It was time for some serious business and Bryan sure as hell acted that way.

I can’t stress this enough, I enjoyed the match immensely. Going into it I expected a good main event at best and what I got is one of the best matches of the year and the best WWE effort in a long ass time, think Bryan/Punk from Over the Limit.

****3/4

Lucha Underground: Episode 16

Episode 16

aired: 2015/2/25

 City streets, we see a car cruising around and Black Lotus trapped in the trunk, From Dusk 'Till Dawn style. Fabulous.

Goddamn it, Aerostar/Drago was a total action movie spotfest, loved it. Short and sweet. Great finish, intelligent. They're 1-1 now, here comes Dario and makes it Best of 5, the winner gets one of his famous "unique opportunities". Good luck.

A video dedicated to Cuerno's diving abilities aired.

Cage/Puma was a fantastic match, the best this promotion has done so far. Cage was simply a merciless unstoppable beast, the finish was well done and I can't wait until they meet again. Konnan is back, of course. Vamp and especially Striker were losing their shit on commentary, can't recall the last time Striker being this excited.

Konnan and Puma are shown backstage, Konnan is konnaning.

Sexy Star is in Dario's office, she wants a piece of The Crew, but so does Big Ryck. The match is booked for next week. Per Sexy's wishes, no man will come to help her.

Massaro/Pentagon was another sumptuous Pentagon squash. Pentagon is life.

Cuerno/Mundo was not a good match, but as the whole actual angle it was very well executed, the post-match brawl was rough and awesome, and it saved the match. They fought all over the place. The feud is far from over. The bell-to-bell match had Cuerno hitting three fantastic dives and Mundo being terrible at selling the leg.

To cap off the show, we see the car from the beginning cruising again, then we see a msyterious masked man opening the trunk and telling Black Lotus to come with him.

1. Aerostar vs. Drago ***3/4
2. Cage vs. Prince Puma ****1/2
3. Vinny Massaro vs. Pentagon Jr. N/A (squash!)
4. King Cuerno vs. Johnny Mundo ***

NJPW on AXS TV: Episode 6

New Japan Pro-Wrestling on AXS TV

Episode 6, February 20th 2015

They’re airing three matches from the fourth day of G1 23, which is one of the greatest wrestling events ever, with plethora of great matches. Everyone has heard of Shibata/Ishii and Ibushi/Nakamura. The latter is the center of this episode, but we’re not getting former which aired in the previous episode I think, but that one didn’t get picked by AXS TV. Shame. But still, we got the clipped version of Anderson/Tenzan and full version of DBSJ/Kojima. Anderson/Tenzan was a good 10 match that was trimmed down to five minutes, and I don’t see the purpose of it. This way the viewers might get an impression it’s just an ordinary match with few neat counter attacks, but no, it was much more. Both guys brought it and it was so enjoyable watching Tenzan climbing the mountain again. ***1/2

DBSJ/Kojima was fucking awesome, much better than remembered, and I gotta thank TV Asahi and AXS TV for this “discovery”, the match truly rocked. Davey Boy sporting his badass powerhouse abilities and Kojima’s mix of lariats and elbow strikes made this match one super fun clash with everything executed down to a T. All the reversals and counters were nifty in front of amazing Osaka people. The finish was amazing. Probably the best DBSJ match ever. ****1/4

Somewhere in the production room, Swagsuke is talking about the Kota Ibushi match and the novelty of facing a Junior Heavyweight in the G1. He also mentions having to go after Shibata/Ishii, which is one helluva tough task.

G1 Climax 23

(2013/8/4)

Block B: Kota Ibushi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Mauro Ranallo calls Ibushi a speed demon. That’s awesome. For some reason I gave this match only ****1/2 eighteen months ago. Blasphemy, total blasphemy. I guess I was burnt out or something. Because, this match is fucking amazing and the definite MOTD contender. Everything about this was impeccable, Shinsuke was extra aggressive here going after an indie high flyer who also happened to be – a Junior Heavyweight. Shinsuke was throwing some seriously vile blasts at Kota who sold it like a motherfucker, I can’t imagine the pain he suffered from all the rough knees, stomps, etc. Shinsuke was a gnarly, surly motherfucker going after Kota’s scalp. The moment where he lost his cool and proceeded to annihilate Kota with all the vicious strikes was glorious. Then Kota got pissed off and went all in on him with some awesome looking palm strikes. Magnificent. Then that kickout at 1 happened, and it’s probably the greatest kickout at 1 in pro-wrestling history. Everyone and their mothers know Kota is done but this motherfucker still has some instincts left inside him. Another Boma Ye and he’s finished. Amazing match-up to cap off the amazing show, and I think this classic might be even better than Shibata/Ishii.

*****

Ibushi is shown backstage, he can’t even stand on his own. He looks like being hit by a truck. He’s not done with Shinsuke. He says he gave everything he had and it still wasn’t enough, because Shinsuke is just on a whole different level.

Nakamura is also shown backstage, he doesn’t look good and is breathing heavily. He praises Ibushi for good fighting.

Back in the production room, Nakamura’s talking about the match and let me tell you something, his stream of thoughts is rather fascinating. He’s praising Ibushi and all that jazz, but does it in a far more clever fashion than what we’re used to.