Park/Wagner: Ever Seen a 100 Year Old High-Flying Ref?

Llaves y Candados 20??/?/?

SUPER LIBRE: La Parka (original) vs. Dr. Wagner Jr.

I got this match from a torrent site, have no idea when it happened, although the commentators kept referring to Park as “La Parka”, which means this has to be around 2003, because that’s when the legal war between Park and Pena started. The venue is famous Arena Coliseo in Monterrey, and my god, that place loves rigged refs, overbooking and massive screwjobs. But hey, that’s the charm, and let me tell you something, it’s more fun than frustrating, most of time. Honestly, Park and Wagner have one of the greatest chemistries together, they work immensely with each other. Of course this was a stiff brawl with your classic lucha ingredients, and when you add your vintage Monterrey antics such as high-flying 100 year old refs, lethal board shots, interferences and some comedy, then you get a fun match. However, this is the place where just about everything clicked, and considering it’s Park and Wagner, the shit is fantastic.

  

****1/2

All Japan 8/30: King's Road Lives!

Summer Impact 2014

(2014/8/30)

1.       SUSHI vs. Yohei Nakajima

By far the best SUSHI match I’ve ever seen, strong storytelling and action all around. This current Yohei Nakajima arc is very enjoyable, it’s always fun to witness someone’s road to recognition and growth as a pro-wrestler.

***3/4

2.       Masashi Aoyagi & Ryuji Hijikata vs. Masanobu Fuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru

Aoyagi is an old karate dude, and considering that even older Fuchi stood on the other side, I thought this match would be somewhat comedy heavy, but no, they worked a “proper” match instead, and I have to say it was such a pleasant surprise, shockingly good, especially with Kanemaru and Hijikata in there.

***

3.       KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship: Dark Kingdom (KENSO, Mitsuya Nagai, Kengo Mashimo) vs. Team Drift (Shigehiro Irie, Keisuke Ishii, Soma Takao) ©

The DK trio arrived in a huge ass limo, nice touch from KENSO there. The match was fine, done by-the-book with a nice FIP workover on Takao and hot tag on Irie, things were going smashing. But then Mashimo’s turn happened, and it was random as fuck, taking away from the match. In the end, it’s still a good shit but could’ve been borderline great.

***

4.       Zeus & Brother YASSHI vs. Suwama & Hikaru Sato

Decent match, not good. Not that anyone was bad, it’s just that no one stood out, and the lack of heat hurt things. Suwama/Zeus looks like a promising match for down the road.

**3/4

5.       AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Kotaro Suzuki vs. Atsushi Aoki ©

Totally untypical Junior match, especially for modern puro standards. There was a plethora of heavyweight inspired struggle, with shoot style admixtures. Good shit right there, borderline great.

***3/4

6.       AJPW World Tag Team Championship: Go Shiozaki & Kento Miyahara vs. Burning Wild (Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori) ©

Words cannot do this justice. Phenomenal tag match with a perfect King’s Road structure, it had a little bit of everything: old grudges, new grudges, a young promising underdog and his rough, painful road to glory, heavy smacks, lethal head-dropping and spine-bending throws, impeccable timing… Glorious stuff, comparable to the good shit from them old days.

****1/2

7.       AJPW Triple Crown Championship: Akebono vs. Joe Doering ©

Akebono’s had three good TC defenses earlier in the year when he was the champion (Omori, Shiozaki, Miyahara), he had to hand over the title due to injury, while Doering is a rock solid tag team wrestler who shocked the promotion recently by beating Suwama in his V1 defense. Naturally and all things considered, there was a beef surrounding the match and it was logical to expect good shit, but unfortunately – they flopped. The match was structured wrong, IMO, instead of a vivid hate fueled brawl they worked a more methodical pace which worked in the previous Akebono title matches mentioned, but the problem here is that Doering is not only the champion, but also a rather large fella himself, so there was no room for an underdog story. Shit was boring, it’s that simple. Technically, they did good, but emotionally? Yikes. There goes another opportunity for Joe to explode as a legit main event performer. The clock is ticking, brother.

bad

G1 Climax 24 - Day 10

G1 Climax 24

(2014/8/6)

1.      Block A: Tomoaki Honma vs. Satoshi Kojima

This could’ve been a bust, but some stories never get old, and Honma did try to refresh things, so kudos there, good opener. That lariat at the end was absolutely devastating.

***1/4

2.      Block A: Bad Luck Fale vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.

Unlike Gallows/Fale, this was a totally decent big man clash. Nice pacing, timing and all that stuff, solid match overall.

**3/4

3.      Block B: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan

Tenzan’s final match of the tournament, and maybe even the final G1 match ever, so he’s ready to put up a fight, he’s not going down easily. Very good match, borderline great even, MOTN. Tenzan’s road of redemption might be the nicest story of this year’s G1.

***3/4

4.      Block B: Karl Anderson vs. Minoru Suzuki

In the end, this turned out to be a good match, but like with few other MiSu matches from this G1 (Archer, Naito…), could’ve been way better if MiSu faced a more inspired wrestler with a better sense for physical selling, a la AJ Styles. Here, Karl did a solid job in that department, but not solid enough. MiSu was awesome yet again, but you already knew that, obviously.

***

5.      Block B: Toru Yano vs. Togi Makabe

Sure, it was very short, and worked in the typical YTR fashion, but somehow I didn’t enjoy this. Plus, that roll-up did not look compelling. Nothing to see here.

bad

6.      Block B: Yujiro Takahashi vs. AJ Styles

The first half with Yujiro on offense, controlling pace and stuff, was very mediocre. Eventually, things got better when AJ took charge with his blistering offense and big pro-wrestling IQ. The final chapter was very good, and all things considered, the match was satisfying.

***1/4

7.      Block B: Lance Archer vs. Kazuchika Okada

A clunky moment here and there, but overall, good match, with Archer being really rough on offense, and Okada working from beneath was compelling and logical, both dudes sold very well, but I wasn’t a big fan of how the match ended, it was kind of too formulaic, but that’s just a small gripe.

***1/4

8.      Block A: Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Really fine match, and I’d rate it higher, but man, I just can’t go over Nagata’s total lack of struggle during that match-ending cradle from Tanahashi, I just can’t. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but it most certainly didn’t help what was otherwise quite a smart way to end the match. Before the finish, things were mostly really good.

***

9.      Block A: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii

These two bruisers met twice last year, first time during the G1 when they created that five star cult classic, and then in a rematch two months later, which wasn’t as good as the original, but still great. Obviously, you can only work a match like the original one once, so they had a massive chip on their shoulders. They did some things here that would totally suck in every other match, but considering their mutual past, it worked here, to some degree at least. Callbacks are always appreciated. Coming into this match, Ishii’s shoulder was heavily taped, but Shibata kind of didn’t was to be a huge dick and smash it in pieces. I wish he did, though, would’ve made for a lot better slugfest. Good match, with few insane gifworthy moments, but not even close to the first two, obviously.

***1/4

10.  Block A: Doc Gallows vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

The same story like in Doc’s main event against Tanahashi, which means the big, evil gaijin brawler taking on one of dem homeboys, controlling the most of the match, with Nakamura working from behind and hitting hope spots in order to tame the beast. One of the oldest pro-wrestling stories, and it always works if you have a good ass-kicking aggressor, and a babyface willing to sell for him. Very good main event.

***3/4

Here we go, the first show with no great matches on it, but still, there was a plethora of solid/good wrestling.

G1 Climax 24 - Day 8

G1 Climax 24

(2014/8/3)

1.      Block A: Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Tomohiro Ishii

The winning crowd pleasing Gedo & Jado formula of booking Ishii in opening matches to warm up the crowds is fruitful, as this was another damn good opener. An Ishii sprint, through and through. Oh, and Davey Boy wasn’t bad either, credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, Ishii dislocated his shoulder here, hopefully he’s okay.

***3/4

2.      Block B: Toru Yano vs. vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan

Similar to Yano/Archer, where Yano’s cheating tactics backfired in a fun fashion. Not as good, but still passable, and Tenzan winning by submission made me a very happy camper. Go Tenzan!

**

3.      Block A: Shelton Benjamin vs. Yuji Nagata

These two had a borderline great match last year, and this one was no exception. Awesome mixture of heavy smacking and gnarly holds, I really dug it, not to mention this was a second match in a row ending by submission, fuck yes. That poor commentator (Iizuka’s regular victim) went nuts on commentary, by the way.

***3/4

4.      Block A: Doc Gallows vs. Satoshi Kojima

Basic, simple, fast, good, with a cool finish… joy everywhere. From what I see around the web, I’m one of the rare people liking Doc’s G1 work. What’s wrong with everyone? Dude’s good, he was also really good here, I’m very into his rough traditional American brawling style. Check this match.

***1/2

5.      Block B: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hirooki Goto

Very good match, worked mostly in back-and-forth pace, everything was smooth and slick except for that one clunky Goto moment (hey, what else is new?), the crowd was into the match, with a split support, but only until Naito decided to enter the Tanahashi mode by not giving Goto a clean break and heeling up for awhile. Sweet stuff all around.

***1/2

6.      Block B: AJ Styles vs. Lance Archer

AJ’s glorious G1 run continues with this very good match. What was so good about this is that they never abandoned the big guy vs. small guy story, you could feel throughout entire match you’re watching power vs. speed, and it was so sweet. Nice legwork by AJ, his strategy was to ground Archer, because there’s no way he hits him with the Styles Clash, and it had a nice, effective payoff at the very end. I really dug this.

***3/4

7.      Block B: Minoru Suzuki vs. Togi Makabe

I’ll be honest here, I didn’t really feel or get the match on the first viewing, but then I decided to give it some fresh eyes, and it’s bloody great. It starts off as a solid brawl, but then it goes in the limbwork zone down the road, and gets better, and better, and better. Watching Makabe kneading Suzuki’s leg was kind of surreal, such an interesting twist that was, and it led to yet another excellent finishing stretch by MiSu, fuck yes, this was great.

****

8.      Block A: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomoaki Honma

Eh, you know it already, fantastic match, yada-yada-yada… rough as fuck, etc. Not as high-end as Shibata/Ishii, but close enough. Honma’s babyface/underdog aura is just majestic, and Shibata was knocking the shit out of him, smashing stuff. Seriously though, he was basically throwing kitchen sinks at him for 10+ minutes.

****1/2

9.      Block B: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada

Yujiro is the guy who betrayed Okada, CHAOS and entire puroresu in Fukuoka three months ago when he cost Okada the title and joined Bullet Club, he also interfered into his matches few more times. Naturally, this was supposed to be a heated, full throttle war, but it wasn’t. I mean, it was, by not on the epic scale I was expecting. Okada got his partial revenge, he beat Yujiro, but I don’t know… I guess I wanted more mayhem and punishment. Don’t get me wrong, the match was good, but needed to be better. Funny thing about Yujiro, he seems to be better in matches against wrestlers with whom he has no direct beef with, huh.

***1/4

10.  Block A: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Hot crowd, nice callbacks to the previous matches, teases, taunts, tremendous pacing, natural and organic flow, charisma galore, clever finish… Just another day in office for these two, they make it seem so easy, it was a beautiful match.

****1/2

It has become a very redundant and repetitive thing to say, but this was another really fun show.