Evil Lucha

ILLM 2015/1/3

Wotam vs. Corsario Negro Jr.

Man, this is life, watching a no-name Mexican indie with two obscure dudes beating bajesus out of each other in a small, abandoned warehouse in front of maybe 50 people. This was nasty as fuck, BTJr’s handheld magic strikes again as you’re able to hear every smack, every chairshot, every chop, every moan, every scream, every heckle from the crowd. Ring noise is off the charts and huge selling point when it comes to BTJr and his stuff.

Anyway, this was a total nonstop helter-skelter brawl, Wotam looked like a demon from hell whose cereal got urinated by big boss Satan so he took an hour off from hell to come on Earth and blow out on a random poor dude from the streets of Mexico. He displayed one of the meanest and most malicious performances I’ve seen in a long ass time, he was just dismantling poor Corsario right, left and centre with super stiff chairshots to the head and leg, he busted him wide open, he was biting him, chopping him, etc. Such a dangerous, wicked, spiteful guy. And on top of all of that, he also had the ref playing for him, so there you go. Huge props to Corsario too, he was taking all these unreal amounts of punishment like a fucking boss, to the point where I couldn’t believe he actually managed to execute his comeback hope spots properly.

Long story short, this was an excellent lucha brawl worth of watching very much. Throw a buck or two to BTJr and enjoy the ride.

****1/2

All Japan 2015/1/3

New Year Wars 2015

(2015/1/3)

1.       Yohei Nakajima, Naoya Nomura, Yuma Aoyagi vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Ultimo Dragon

Fun opener with a peculiar underdog trio led by jobber Nakajima battling against the super experienced trio, they stood no chance and the story went exactly that way.

**3/4

2.       Soma Takao vs. Atsushi Aoki

Killer little match, rough and heavy, Aoki was relentless with attacking Takao’s back and it paid off. There was that one totally fabulous sequence with Aoki shoving Takao into the guardrails repeatedly, smashing shit. Also, the finish was excellent.

***1/2

3.       GAORA TV Championship: Ryuji Hijikata vs. KENSO ©

This was actually passable until the unnecessary ref bump.

bad

4.       Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori, SUSHI vs. Akebono, Shigehiro Irie, Shuji Ishikawa

So cool to see my man Shuji in All Japan, man I wish it could happen more regularly. Anyway, fuck SUSHI, there was too much of him in the match and he brought it down, because that’s what he does best. Fuck SUSHI. Sure, he was the obvious fallman, but still – FUCK HIM.

***1/4

5.       Shingo Takagi & Zeus vs. Suwama & Hikaru Sato

The fallman is obvious here but it didn’t prevent the match from being really good. That’s because they worked smart and didn’t get overambitious. It was cool to see Shingo in All Japan, just like Shuji Ishikawa earlier, hopefully they come back.

***3/4

6.       All Asia Tag Team Championship: Mitsuya Nagai & Takeshi Minamino vs. Kento Miyahara & Kotaro Suzuki ©

This was really awesome until KENSO decided to stick his beak in, and it was all downhill from there.

bad

7.       AJPW Triple Crown Championship: Go Shiozaki vs. Joe Doering ©

Unfortunately, this didn’t live up to the massive hype, as much as it really pains me to say. Good title match, but nowhere near the MOTYC level or something. Also the atmosphere was falsely advertised as “red hot Korakuen”. The pacing was kind of off and some moves/transitions were too botchy and weird, dunno how it got overlooked by the smarks, lol. Go did some things that were awkward and had me scratching my head a lot. Their September slugfest was much, much better. But like I said, good match though, and even though I was disappointed because I expected a bonafide classic, I’m still very happy for Go and have big hopes for his reign. However, All Japan is going produce at least 20 matches in 2015 better than this one, you can put that in the bank.

***1/2

Lucha Underground: Episode 12

Episode 12

aired: 2015/1/28

 Cage is in the gym lifting heavily. Dario is a dick.

The opener was a perfect feud advancer, such a neat power vs. speed showcase with lots of good shit in only 4 minutes. The finish was excellent. We're gonna see more of these two. Catrina is hot, of course.

Cage vignette is glorious and why I love this show so much.

The 6-man tag was super sweet, loved it. Totally fast paced and logical, Aerostar shined the most, and the match in general was a great contrast of styles, I love the Crew's thug style, they worked very well as a badass unit. I'm so happy for B-Boy.

Vampiro's sitdown interview with Konnan and Puma was good TV. Puma is still on the mute, they teased the Konnan/Vampiro feud.

Cage/Puma was good but not better than the 6-man tag, and I can't even say it was better than Muertes/Fenix despite lasting 3x longer. They were countering each other a lot, maybe even too much sometimes. I know Prince Puma is a fucking puma, but still, I feel like Cage needed an extra or two workover sessions to elevate the match, Puma was too counterish. However, when you look at the finish, it makes sense, so I forgive them.

Oh look, Konnan bled. Is this the first juice on this show?

Mystery Asian chick finally spoke, to Dario. Magnificent campy segment, ten stars.

1. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix ***1/2
2. Aerostar, Super Fly, Argenis vs. The Crew (Cortez Castro, Mr. Cisco, Bael) ****
3. Lucha Underground Championship: Cage vs. Prince Puma (c) ***1/2

Around the World, Vol. 2 (Lazy Edition)

Vol. 1

• Summer Fight Series 1983/7/7: Dick Murdoch vs. Abdullah the Butcher ***3/4

• G1 Climax 1998/8/2 - FINALE: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Shinya Hashimoto ****3/4

• Strong Energy 1999/5/3 – Heavyweight Title: Genichiro Tenryu vs. Keiji Muto © ***3/4

•  G1 Climax 2012/8/5 – Block B: Kazuchika Okada vs. Shinsuke Nakamura ****1/2

• The New Beginning 2013/2/10: Minoru Suzuki vs. Kazuchika Okada ****

NJPW on AXS TV: Episode 3

New Japan Pro-Wrestling on AXS TV

Episode 3, January 23rd 2015

We’re with Okada in the studio talking about his unsuccessful start of 2013 and the big losses (Tanahashi and Suzuki) from January and February, and how New Japan Cup came at the perfect moment for him to rebuild and earn another title shot at Tana. He said he felt the fans wanted the Tanahashi era to end and he was the right guy for it.

Invasion Attack 2013

(2013/4/7)

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi ©

Sometimes in life certain moments happen that make you so happy you cannot describe them with words, because it would feel like a desecration. That’s why I’m not even going to bother talking about this masterpiece, one of the greatest matches I have ever seen, instead he’s some Batman for you, cheers:

*****

After this truly incredible match Gedo gets the mic and invites Minoru Suzuki to the ring, he says Okada wants his revenge and is willing to put his freshly won heavyweight strap on the line. Of course MiSu accepts it and he also slaps both Okada and Gedo in the process. Badass. Okada then says Suzuki will have the privilege of being a tiny part of the new history written by him.

Backstage we see Tanahashi being carried by KUSHIDA and Captain New Japan, dude could barely walk. Details like that tell the entire story about how insanely physical the match was.

Finally, Okada speaks some more in the studio, he talks about the match and how the arm hurt like hell, how he fought through the pain and how the match would’ve ended sooner if he had avoided Tana’s strategy. He talks about the warm reception the fans in Ryogoku gave him and how Tanahashi knows he’ll never be able to beat him again.

Shit man, this was honestly one of the best wrestling weeklies ever, this show is just amazingly produced and presented, the sound technicians did an amazing job with Ranallo and Barnett, making it look like they’re live in Ryogoku with all the ring noise and stuff. Simple, effective, cool and respectable, this show is fucking awesome, some of the best presentation you’ll ever see from your TV wrestling.