AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/30 - 10/6

MD: Brief note to start. For those who came to the blog through Twitter, yes, I got DMCA'd to oblivion by TV Asahi. I had a few strikes already from when I was first figuring things out, having initially not thought that 40 year old Inoki gifs were going to be an issue, but I had straightened up and was being more careful. What ultimately did me in was a handheld (a fancam, someone's personal recording from a show that has since been disseminated through fan circles) of a 1983 match, which does not seem like something that would be at all claimable. But here we are. I've an e-mail out to them. I am not expecting much. I'll make a call by Thursday on what I'm doing next. I've seen both kindness and indignation from people and both are pushing me towards dusting off and picking back up anew by the end of the week, but we'll see. The good news is that we have a blog and they can't shut me up here. For now, if anyone wants to let people know this week's AEW reviews are up, posting a link couldn't hurt! Thanks. - Matt

(UPDATE: I am over at https://x.com/mattd_sc/ now)

AEW Dynamite 10/2/24

Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada

MD: Believe it or not, I have been accused over the years of reading too much into pro wrestling. I've heard first-hand or second-hand that "they were just listening to the crowd" and no great thought was put into sequence a or match b. The great thing about art is that those things don’t have to matter. You can read into it any number of ways no matter the author's intent. You can dig at subconscious strands and universal themes. You can connect dots that were never meant to be connected. Sometimes that gets you deep into the seas of lore, annoying everyone around you. Sometimes it means your expectations go through the roof when they really shouldn't, ultimately doing yourself and the wrestlers both a disservice.

Some wrestlers are so good and have such a track record that you can walk on air so long as you don't look down. Bryan Danielson is one of those wrestlers. And you know what? I'm going to take a nice casual stroll off a ledge here. Why? Well, look, it's possible that Danielson finds some way to triumph over Jon Moxley and they blow things off in December or even later. It's possible that he's lying to us and he doesn't need surgery. It's possible that he does but he recovers quickly and gets to make a special appearance for a match at one of the big shows early next year. Lots of things are possible. All that's for certain right now is that we have next week's tag and the match vs Moxley. That's it. Even this match was a bonus that felt like it came out of nowhere and existed outside of the Mox vs Danielson storyline. So I'm going to have a little bit of fun with it and will ask for just a bit of your patience.

Let's break down Danielson's reasons for wanting this match. He could attack Moxley at the end of a match, sure. But Moxley isn't just a serial killer or movie monster. He's not just an underhanded jerk who wants money. There's some ideology behind it all. We're only starting to see it. Part of it, however, was to take autonomy away from Danielson, to define his reign as he means to define the fate of the belt henceforth. Danielson, here, decided to push back against that in the most decadent way possible, by naming an opponent here so close to the PPV and having a rubber match against Okada.

The match ended up under Continental rules for the first twenty minutes alone, a way to protect Okada to a degree (as he would smartly retain his title) and put over the different aspect of the belt. And for much of those twenty minutes (after an initial title match feeling out process), Okada wrestled cautiously, defensively. What was interesting to me is that Danielson didn't press nearly as hard as I would have expected him to. It was only in the last minute or so that he pushed, leading to the nice fakeout of him hitting the Knee only for Okada to roll out of the ring as time expired.

Let's play with that. Why didn't he push? Maybe he didn't push because he didn't actually want the Continental Championship. He demanded the match, had his reasons for it, but likely didn't control the stipulations. He knew about the Continental Championship. He had been one of the driving forces behind the creation of the C2 last year. He knew that if he won the Championship, no matter what happened with the World Title and Moxley, he would be obliged to defend it in the grueling tournament later this year. It was never his intention to win the title. He respected the tournament, revered it even, and he wouldn't want to let the fans and the company down, but he also didn't necessarily want the weight of it hanging over him. That would take away his freedom to call his own shots and finish on his own terms. It's a little counter-intuitive and certainly nothing that the announcers picked up upon, but if you watch how he wrestled and how he didn't press, if you squint, you can kind of see it.

If he didn't want the Continental Title, what did he want? He wanted to draw Okada out. He didn't want the underhanded cheater, the coasting heel. He wanted a warrior. He wanted the person who faced him twice so far, not the version of Okada (entertaining as he might be) that we've seen in AEW so far. Okada simply wasn't giving him that for the first twenty minutes of the match; he was too focused on retaining his belt, through hook or crook. At the same time, Danielson couldn't let Okada overly goad him because Bryan DID want to keep his title, because retaining the World Title was the path to fighting Moxley. Therefore, he had to endure Okada's defensive strategy, take the damage that went along with it, and wait things out until he could have the battle he actually wanted. It was only in the last minute of the initial period that he got caught up in the moment and almost accidentally won the Continental Title.

So do I think that was the intent. Nope. Could you read it from the text as presented and the characters as we know them in their current storylines? Absolutely. Is it primarily due to the richness of Bryan Danielson's work that we can do so? Yes. Yes (Yes), it is. Am I going to leave this write up at that? Mostly, I'm around 900 words already, not that anyone's counting, and unlike the service you get from other writers/critics, I don't rate or rank anything. No stars. I'm not even ranking this vs the other two Danielson vs Okada matches. I get to leave it as is... except, I guess I have one more (Columbo-esque) question that I unfortunately can’t leave unasked.

Is what we were actually presented as good as the story that I laid out in the paragraphs above through gluing together some unlikely (but plausible!) and disparate (but existing) dots? Is the match still as good if what I just said wasn't true and if the more likely, more straightforward possibilities/intentions were instead the truth? No. Sorry. That urgency just wasn't there. Danielson didn't get goaded into mistakes made because he was urgent. Okada was wrestling one match. Danielson was wrestling another. It didn't come together in the way it should have.

Unless you squint. If you squint, well then it was a hell of a thing. If we have only two more full-time Danielson matches after this, well, just this once, I'm going to squint and it's okay if you do too.

ROH TV 10/3/24

Dustin Rhodes/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari/Mark Sterling

MD: I wrote a few days ago (and then reposted it here) about how some of the old ways need to come back, and I meant it, and this match was reminiscent of Heenan teaming with his family in 83 AWA for very entertaining matches. And this, I think, was an entertaining match that was worked well. The problem is that Sterling just isn't credible. It's not his fault. He works hard, tries a number of different things, is sufficiently irritating and punchable. He even goes the extra mile with some very well crafted, clever social media videos. But those are only for people that seek them out, basically. 

The bigger issue is that his guys don't win, not even on ROH. On Dark, they won. Nese didn't get big wins over big wrestlers, but he came off as dangerous enough with the shot in the corner and the pumphandle pile driver. He's absolutely selfless in the ring, willing to be one of the rawest, truest heels in the company. Completely unlikable. Theoretically valuable because there's only a handful of people who are willing to stooge. (That's why I'm ok with Saraya sticking around - super solid stooging, even if maybe they should stop using her husband's theme song and think of the optics of everything a bit more. AEW doesn't have as many comparative advantages vs 2024 WWE as it did vs 2019 WWE as the latter was a trash fire, but one that remains is to be more moral and progressive). As noted, Sterling did just about everything right here, but it wasn't getting the reactions it should. The fans only woke up when Dustin worked the corner with big slaps on the turnbuckles. They use the Premier Athletes almost every week. There should really be some way to fix this, even if it's just making Woods seem like more of a protected threat within each match and the other guys be the ones who lose the offense. Like Gordy with the Freebirds maybe? I'm glad they gave Sterling an opportunity in his homestate but for a guy doing everything right in there, this all should have been more heated.

AEW Collision 10/5/24

Darby Allin vs Johnny TV

MD: This was one of Johnny's best matches in his run. I do get the sense that he probably needs the right dance partner. Having seen him in Lucha Underground and given the lack of heels on top, I was confused when WWE brought him back in as Miz's second banana, but I guess neither of us were entirely right there. His issue is more the dissolution of QTV than anything else. They spun it a bit on the idea that he and Taya are "TV-Ready" and maybe they could lean into that a bit more with the new TV deal. Taya's off with her burgeoning faction here and without the stable and without Taya, I'm not entirely sure what Johnny even is right now. 

The backstage Darby/Evil Uno interaction really set up their match and I didn't quite get that here. There were some mitigating factors. Darby was potentially just a little more cautious after being goaded into losing his title opportunity. That explained the early feeling out process and them starting with a test of strength maybe. Darby usually throws himself right at his opponent to start in the best of times. As the match went on, however, they starting showing some of the aggression (or maybe we should call it counter-aggression) that he should be inspiring in everyone he faces right now in the arms war against Moxley and his ideology. 

Things got pretty wild. The Russian Legsweep off the apron was not something you see every day. Likewise Johnny's spinning Splash Mountain Full Nelson Slam or whatever the heck that thing was. Just by his nature Darby opens up opportunities. And the Coffin Drop at the end was to a standing opponent (a Coffin Drop Press) which you never see end a match like this. So it got there, and you can argue away why it didn't start there. This was clearly put together for the challenge at the end though. And while that's ok, story after the fact isn't as good as story before, during, AND after the fact. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/2 - 9/8 Part 1

AEW Collision 9/6/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta/Pac vs. Jack Perry/Kazuchika Okada/Matthew Jackson/Nicholas Jackson

MD: Wrestling seems to be the easiest thing in the world and the hardest thing. It's creating a primal connection with people that touches the core of their humanity, denial and gratification that stimulates the endorphins in the brain. It's building imaginary towers, bigger and bigger, creating more and more emotions. Yet if you try to overcomplicate it in the wrong ways or if you don't control for extraneous bits, you lose people along the way and only end up with a ghost of what you might have otherwise built. Worst case, the entire structure collapses in upon itself. The main thing you're trying to do is build up a credible, believable reality while at the same time creating as few disruptions that hinder suspension of disbelief as possible. Wrestling isn't math, but if there was an equation, you'd have that positive element and that negative element summing up to create as much immersion and emotion as possible.

I wrote about alignment the other day and I'll double down on it a little bit here. The build for Pac vs Ospreay has been all about Pac ambushing the likable chap. Cheapshots, denying the crowd the first Ricochet vs Ospreay interaction, walking around with a chip on his shoulder. Maybe Pac has a point but the way that he's going about it is not buying him any favor with the crowd. Yet due to opportunity or circumstance, he's one third of the trios champs, with a group that he had grievances with just last year after their last attempt to team up. And here he had to be a fiery babyface. Yes, characters can be three dimensional and don't need to follow clear heel/face alignment, but they do need to be presented in consistent ways. Moreover, I have no idea what Pac thinks about his partners or how he feels about working with them. I don't have a great sense how he feels about the Elite right now. Here, it felt like a chink in the armor of the match, something that raised questions that weren't going to get answered, that took people out of the proceedings.

There were both structural positives and negatives as well. I'll get to Perry and his antics in a paragraph or two. Top of the list of positives was the denial and payoff of certain elements: Danielson getting his hands on Perry (an alchemy of its own), and certainly the giant swing, which was teased early and then cut off only to come back for the finish, denial and gratification just like it should be. Also there was a very strong face-in-peril segment on Danielson and co. with the Elite hitting a lot of interesting, dynamic, mean, credible offense in rapid succession. On the other hand, you had the big frog splash on multiple members of the babyface side at once, which probably took too long, and had things like Okada hanging on to the much stronger and not all that damaged Claudio for ages while they set it up. Another crack in the foundation. You can kind of get away with something like that if the babyfaces are doing it to the heels as part of a comeuppance laden comeback because you're expecting the babyfaces to be stronger and the heels to try to (and be unable to) wriggle away, but it doesn't work nearly as well when it's the heels doing it to try to get more heat. It's stuff that looks good on paper, maybe, but that ends up being more of a negative in the equation than the positive.  

And then there was the timing of everything breaking down only to come back together and calm down for the first ten minutes or so of Rampage. A match like this was always going to break down once or twice and probably needed to cover a few extra minutes to keep people engaged for the transition to Rampage. I'll admit that I was kind of ready for everything to go home shortly after the teased Okada dive. If they were going to go a few more minutes, just beating Okada around without major attempts to try to pin him wasn't the most engaging thing in the world. Another round of heat on someone like Yuta leading to a second hot tag and the actual finish would have reset the tension enough to get them over the finish line. I get that they had to get through the first commercial break for Rampage but the crowd was low again after the chaos of everyone hitting big moves in rapid succession and beating on Okada didn't really give them a chance to build up dramatic tension again for the finish.

Speaking of tension, let's talk about stalling. I'm still not quite over the lack of it in MJF vs Ospreay at All In, but that doesn't mean I want him to do it against Garcia at All Out. The situation is different. Vs Ospreay he was the blowhard champ and there was a real opportunity to figure out what the crowd wanted (in this case to see Ospreay do his stuff in a stadium and amass rating stars) and deny it completely while showing a cowardice and hypocrisy relative to what he'd been saying. Against Garcia, Max has a hierarchical advantage and while Garcia wants revenge, it makes sense to go a different route with layout and exactly how to heel. Perry's an interesting case. He claims to have just wanted a chance to prove himself but was benched, to be his own man and not Jungle Boy, that he was a scapegoat when he's really just a standup guy, that it wasn't his fault. But then in ring, he's been taking shortcuts and avoiding confrontation wherever possible. He'll get in when it's easy and hit the floor when it's hard. 

I never wanted stalling for the sake of stalling (I never want anything for the sake of itself!). For MJF vs Ospreay, it would have been purposeful, and I think with Perry, maybe it is as well. The heart of any heel is cognitive dissonance. Just like how comedy works by creating a gap between expectation and reality, heeling does as well. Within that contradiction, animosity can be created within the hearts of the fans. Heels can say one thing and do another and then deny that there's any difference at all. There's heat to be found there.

I think Perry's doing a pretty good job at striking the right balance. The first time he came in, the fans were happy to chant along with his catch phrase. But after he escaped Danielson kicking his head in (and that never did get fully paid off in this one; that's for the PPV), and after he popped in and out for a few cheapshots, they seemed a lot less willing to sing along and more eager to see him take a beating. Good! There's a place for all sorts of things on the card, and if he wants to lay claim to that, and if he can find the slightly shifting balance that really fits his character in different situations against different opponents, there's a real chance that Perry can find that niche after all. But like I said, while it's pure and primal, a burr in the heel of the audience that will drive them to care, it's not always easy. But often times, it's the hardest things that are most worthwhile.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/19 - 8/25 Part 1

MD: No PR this week due to some power issues on the island. Good stuff coming though so stay tuned. Thought I'd get a jump on some AEW since there's a lot coming this weekend.

ROH TV 8/22/24

Dustin Rhodes/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich/Sammy Guevara vs Matt Bennett/Mike Taven/John Silver/Alex Reynolds

MD: If I was in the live crowd, this one would have baffled me a bit. This was taped before the tag title change on Collision so it followed most immediately from the high heat end to the last ROH show. It was a fun, quick-moving, high spirited celebratory match, anchored by a frenetic finishing stretch and from Dustin making the most (as he always does) of being face-in-peril. But in chronological filming order, it had to seem a little offputting to be just so over the top. The crowd had no way of knowing that the emotional beat in the middle would be the action (and interference) packed title change after all.

Watching it on TV, on the other hand, it worked very well for what it was trying to do. That meant the claws came early. It meant Sammy got to take someone's phone and film himself during the shine. It meant Bennett and Silver stooging all over the ring for Dustin. It meant some heel miscommunication before they settled in on the heat. I've said it before but pro wrestling isn't math. Except for sometimes the southern tag formula kind of is. You don't want a heel-in-peril scenario where the shine is way too long. You don't want everything to break down too early so people are rushing in and out for the last half of the match without any structure or trappings. The one thing that can rectify either problem and most other problems, is if you have a really dynamic heat section, even if short. A lot of times that's on the heel team; The Midnight Express could make so much out of just a few minutes, but having a great face-in-peril working from underneath works too and Dustin's the best in the world right now.

So when things did break down, it was ok. Having Silver/Reynolds in there to help direct traffic like the savants they are didn't hurt. Some of the Kingdom's stuff worked right into their wombo combo stuff and it just felt right. And then it all built to a really huge claw/over the shoulder powerslam move by Marshall that we don't actually see that often but that is very impressive. While the tag title match was really how the residency ended, this is our last look at it, and in both cases it ended up on an up note.

AEW Dynamite 8/21/24

Darby Allin/FTR vs The Young Bucks/Jack Perry

MD: I scooted through this quickly the first time and I wasn't going to go back for it; perfect excuse with all the wrestling going on. Hell, I could write about Jarrett vs Daivari or that Big Bill vs Hook match that sounds fascinating instead if I needed another match for a Part 1, right? I might still. But then ol' Joseph rated it 4 stars and I had to admit that I moved through it pretty quickly the first time and... well, let's give it another look.

I really enjoyed the way it stemmed from the Okada vs Claudio match. As I noted in my thoughts on the company the other day, Dynamite does have a tendency to move too quickly from one thing to the other and not let moments resonate. Excalibur is a master of "And now"-ing and "But whatabout"-ing. When it happens organically like this, in that old ECW way, it adds an air of both excitement and connectiveness. There are some tricky bits with that. What does FTR feel about Claudio, for instance? While I understand both the presence that allows for it and the utility of it, the BCC being so mutable is overall problematic. Yuta can't be a shitheel rat boy one day and working from underneath against Swerve sympathetically the next. He just can't. You end up, over time, with 60% gain that you'd otherwise get on both. 60% of Claudio is a lot still, but it's not 100% of Claudio and the company needs 100% of everything they can get. Last note: everyone got the message that if you're going to use time announcements, you have to do it more frequently both within a match and overall, right? No need to reiterate that, I hope. Consistency is everything in pro wrestling.

Ok, on to the actual match; enough stalling. Back to southern tags. This had a very short shine, but one with Darby flying out of the ring twice, heavy brawling, and the double Sharpshooter tease, followed by a great transition with the Doomsday Device kick. Then the heat was on Darby, where if Dustin's #1, Darby might be #2, so that helps. We haven't seen a ton of straight up tags with the Bucks and Perry (it felt like they established the Okada/Bucks combo better) so this felt fresh and dynamic, with a great hot tag and good rousing comeback by FTR.

After that, things broke down a little too early for my liking maybe, but this is a teaser for the weekend and they didn't have a few more minutes to loop into, let's say, a second heat segment on Dax. So it got the job done. Sometimes the job isn't to have the best match possible. Having the Elite try to pack their bags and go got over the bigger picture story better than leaning hard into pure quality for the sake of quality so good on them. Cash's dive was a hell of a thing. I like Dax, the way he thinks about wrestling, how hard he works. But as I think about the necessary moneyball replacement scenario for Bryan Danielson facing AEW in the future (and TK can do moneyball so long as he thinks about it that way), Cash is a guy that almost feels like the middle ground between Mox and Danielson in a way that even at 37 still seems untapped. The last thing he seems to want to do is wrestle singles matches, but in a post Danielson world, maybe people have to be made to stretch (they need to tap into the untapped). Anyway, I always love the Powerplex combined with whatever their partner has, and the Coffin Drop is a great choice there. So yes, this was effective, absolutely got the job done, and hit a lot of positive marks along the way.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/18 - 3/24

AEW Dynamite 3/20/24

Kazuchika Okada vs Eddie Kingston

MD: So here's a fun thing. If you view the blog on the web, you can see tags. If you click on the Kazuchika Okada tag, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and go all the way back to 2015. If you did Kingston, you'd probably just get a few months. What I'm trying to say is that when people were writing about Okada, we weren't. I'll take it a step further: when people were watching Okada, I wasn't. I was watching Houston arena footage daily or figuring out lucha through the obviously very correct lens of 2010 Jon Strongman Andersen vs Hector Garza. I'm not actually super familiar with the guy! I was familiar with Phil and Eric's 2017 take on Omega vs Okada though (http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2017/01/2017-doesnt-make-list-six-star-edition.html and http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2017/01/i-also-watched-omega-vs-okada.html respectively). So I am sort of coming in with an open, beginner's mind as I watch Okada, but also sort of not because there's a reason why I wasn't riding along with everyone on the NJPW train. 

All of this, if I'm being honest, has me feeling a little bit on my heels, since I write a lot about this stuff and do so in a fairly aggressive, direct manner. I want to be able to back it up. Ok, here's another thing. Eric and I are very close in many of our opinions. That wasn't really intentional. We read each other's stuff, often after the fact. We communicate, but we don't consult, except for that I have a pretty good sense if he's going to like something and I'll throw it his way. Where I tend to be a little more forgiving than Eric and especially Phil is on execution. 

Wrestling is symbolic. The thought, the narrative, the theory, the consistency matters more than the execution. There are a lot of correct paths to the same destination. Where it becomes an issue is if there's a discrepancy between how something is presented (or perceived by conventional wisdom) and how something looks and feels. It's when it affects suspension of disbelief that we really have a problem. That can happen a lot of ways and most of them are tied to selling. Wrestling doesn't have to be realistic. It does have to be believable within its own reality though. There's lots of ways to accomplish that, as I said. Older Andre can just put his hand out and you'll buy that it could crush a mountain because he's so big and has such presence and has been established over time and in how his opponents react to him. Baba could do a head chop and because the crowd buys into it and the wrestler who he's facing wants his paycheck and sells so big for it, over time a consistency of meaning is created. Or, you know, Terry Funk can just legitimately punch you in the face and that works too. 

I'm walking my own winding road here to say that Okada's stuff really doesn't look so great and it bugged me here. Maybe it bugs me more because he's Okada and he's been put on a pedestal for the last decade and a half? Maybe it bugs me more because he's facing Eddie and because of the people Eddie has faced over the last year? Maybe it bugs me more because I'm comparing it to the other Japanese wrestlers who I've written about recently? Maybe it bugs me because I'm also watching Fujiwara and Choshu go at it on the side? We're just days off from watching Shibata Tenryu Punch Danielson in the face, right? Maybe it bugs me because there's a lot in this match that I actually did like. I don't know how NJPW TV was structured or how much ROH TV Okada worked, but there are different constraints for weekly TV wrestling than for other sorts, and while I imagine it wasn't for everyone, I liked the pacing. I liked the methodological control. I liked the sense that he was dismantling Eddie. I liked his reactions to what was happening and to how the crowd was responding. So much of wrestling isn't about move A or move B but about what happens between A and B, and there was confidence and energy and life in that regard. It just kept leading to things (strikes and especially cutoffs) that I wasn't feeling. He'd throw a knee to the gut or clubber down to try to break a hold, and watching it I sort of ended up making the same face Okada makes when he sells, a perfectly fine expression to express dismay. Eddie is a guy who will absolutely lean into offense, but he won't jump headlong into it. That was what was apparently required here and maybe PAC is a guy to make that happen. I'm ready for Darby to get back and challenge, because he'll make all of this stuff look good without making it look absurdly over the top. 

Okada came off as someone who is very good at all of the most artificial "live theater" elements of pro wrestling (truthfully the elements I love the most) but strangely lacking in that fairly necessary visual element that assists in creating a simulated reality, at least relative to how he's portrayed (again, it's the portrayal that causes the issue in general; more on the issue in specific in a moment). It's like imagining a Jerry Lawler (and this is just an example, not a direct comparison) who could sell, who had his timing, who could connect with the crowd through his expression and body language, but just didn't have that punch that put him over the top and tied it all together by taking your worries and cares away and allowing you to buy into the fantasy of the moment. In some ways, him coming so close and then missing that one crucial element makes it worse, because you end up judging him on the curve of what might have been.

 

I think I had a bigger problem with it here because it was Eddie and it was Eddie losing his title and because I'd love to have been able to write about it as if it was real and focus on the narrative of Eddie's dream of a Triple Crown being torn apart just a few months into it by someone who didn't necessarily represent the Japanese lineage Eddie clings to so vehemently but instead that has a certain flamboyance, that went to the eyes and played dirty, etc. There's a lot to flesh out there, but I just wasn't feeling it in the same way. I wasn't immersed. It's a me thing. It's an Eddie thing. It's a long, stable bridge that had been built by his last many matches and that bridge felt a bit more wobbly here. I'm still curious to see Okada vs other guys on the roster. He's great at emoting but struggled here with immersion. I think he has upside and that the weighty and deliberate artificiality he brings is something the product could use more of. Let's just see him against Darby and Cassidy and Dustin and Garcia and whoever else and maybe not against people who require just a little more physicality like Eddie or Mox or RUSH. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/11 - 3/17

AEW Dynamite 3/13/24

Darby Allin vs. Jay White

MD: Obviously now, a few days after the match we're well aware of the injury that happened very early when Darby hit a dive and hurt his foot. Definitely a strange occurence considering that there was a post match ankle injury angle to write him off. I'm all for guys being written off but it was maybe a little weird considering he was climbing Everest. It should give White plenty of heat doing a "I Broke Darby's Foot" or, alternatively "I Shattered Darby's Dreams" deal. Given the weighty promo Darby made they've been walking a fine line where they admit that it was on the dive but also point out the post match chair shattering. This is rare ground; it's not every day someone gets hurt in the same place that they were supposed to get hurt to be written off screen and put heat on the heels, while also substituting the reason why they were written off for the actual injury. And it's not every day that the reason they were originally written off is due to climbing a dangerous mountain. Wrestling is at its most serene when it's at its most honestly bizarre sometimes, I guess?

Originally, I was going to write about consequence, focusing on the injured/lacerated back and how great a job they did making what happened to Darby against the Bucks resonate. That was present right from the get go. Darby, of course, has a history with headlock takeovers, but the one that White hit him with at the start was made to seem particularly devastating. This is a good thing. If wrestling is trying to create a suspension of disbelief over time, then having consequences last after one match and into the other is not just something to aim and strive for, but also actively helpful in situations like this where you have people of similar hierarchy and want to realistically put one over the other while still protecting the loser. It was presented as valiant (and crazy) that Darby was out there at all. He was bandaged. Every slam or bump or crash into the corner or prone press to the mat for a pin attempt was presented as painful. We'd seen the blood. We see the bandages. We could imagine the pain. Wrestling getting us to imagine pain is a great way to help us to suspend disbelief and more thoroughly immerse ourselves in what we're watching.

What's astounding here is how thoroughly they leaned into it even after the foot injury. Immediately thereafter, Darby hobbled across the ring to hit the tope. He followed it up by eating the half and half into the chair. I think back to Danielson/Okada one and how they adapted with the injury. Here, they didn't, and that felt like the right move since they were still selling the weight of a spot-of-the-year type crash through glass. The overarching story was that Darby was already a step slow. It made sense that as the match went on, he might be two steps slow. One injury creates the possibility of another. Vulnerability begets vulnerability. This is all basic pro wrestling storytelling; it can be done more or less gracefully, but early work on one body part so often opens things up to shift to what the wrestler really wants to work on. It's all a matter of whether it is coherent and compelling. This wasn't quite that as White never targeted the foot/ankle, but after comeback attempts and cutoffs and multiple times dodging the Blade Runner, Darby took too long to hit the coffin drop and then missed entirely when he tried to course correct once White rolled to the apron. That was basically the finish, as Darby valiantly beat the count only to get hit by the Blade Runner. I don't necessarily know if I have a unified thesis here other than the notion that Darby's one of the best in the world at portraying that most important element of pro wrestling, consequence, and here it was multiplied multifold considering the bump through the glass preceding the match, the weight of Everest over their heads, the legitimate injury early on, and the injury angle post match. In that regard, it was an unquestionable counterbalance to...

Eddie Kingston/PENTA/PAC vs. Young Bucks/Kazuchika Okada

MD: Hey, did you guys see the PENTA vs. Action Andretti match from Rampage a week or two ago? It was like there was a metal plate in Andretti's head and a giant magnet in PENTA's boot. He just kept zooming headlong into superkicks. It was the funniest match I've seen in a while. It's amazing when you think about it, that someone trained their body to be strong and fast and supple enough to twist and fly and contort all to the end of crashing into someone else's foot seven times in one match. Pro wrestling is the wackiest thing, really.

AEW Collision 3/16/24

Bryan Danielson vs. Katsuyori Shibata

MD: The biggest red flag in this match is the strike exchange. It's at the end and we're at the beginning, so let's leave it ahead of us for now. There's a sort of comforting, lazy casualness to putting these dream matches on Saturday nights on free TV. They're all X amount of years after they should be (even, arguably, the Hechicero match! We were watching him fight Black Terry in 2014!). The stakes are low. Ultimately, there's a level of pride, the fear that this won't be enough, the worry of injury. On the other side of the scale is perspective; we understand that it's a near-miracle that we're getting these matches at all. And they continue to be interspersed in Danielson's 2024 journey, one where he is finding peace with himself and the path before him.

This match could never give us everything we hoped for. By its very nature, it made us hope for too much. What it did give us, however, was wonderful parallels and, truthfully, so, so much of what we were looking for. It certainly gave us what we needed and only a little that we likely didn't. Considering we were dreading shoot headbutts between the two, the match ended up not just a miracle and a joy but also an absolute relief.

They started out with a feeling out process and some matwork that was tight and gritty and based around opportunities and openings while still feeling tricked out. It felt like it was bordering on shoot style at times, not quite UWF but more UWF in 86 NJPW with that firm pro wrestling patina. Everything felt earned and it was all interesting. They played into the parallels (first on commentary mentioning the head injuries and then in the match itself) with both wrestlers getting bow and arrows.Danielson went to strikes first but that just let Shibata play stoic in the corner. More often than not, it's Danielson going into that well, not his opponent, so this let him play up against a different sort of paragon. Danielson realized he wasn't going to win in a standup at this stage of the match and went to the leg. That opened up the arm and other holds, including him stomping on the elbow. Shibata was able to get him out and hit a PK on the apron though, sending things to the break.

During the break, Shibata pressed the advantage on the floor, but Danielson trapped him in a chair and hit him with a running dropkick. He wasn't able to press it back in the ring, because Shibata, trapped in the corner, turned it around and started throwing these killer pokey Tenryu-esque punches. In his control, he was able to dropkick Danielson in the corner and step on his elbow. Parallels abound.

They went into a false finishing stretch there. Shibata wins matches with the sleeper into the PK and he tried the sleeper here. Danielson fought out and they traded ankle locks, with Danielson turning it into his ankle-hooked German, followed by a Shibata STO. This really felt like a finishing stretch, with both wrestlers down, Shibata recovering for the death valley driver, and Danielson reversing the ripcord forearm attempt into the Busaiku Knee and the LeBell Lock.

It doesn't work though. You see false finishes, but you rarely see a false finishing stretch that feels so fully formed. AEW house style often has a shine/heat/a finisher teased right before they go to the commercial break, but this went further than that. In doing so, it made the strike exchange that was to come more palatable to me. Yes, they'd ultimately be asking to get hit, but it was after they brought the match to a logical conclusion and it simply wouldn't end. Yes, I say this fully understanding why strike exchanges like this happen, the cultural significance, how they played out in the 2010s. I still don't love them. I get that fans want them. I get that they're expected. Later in the show, during the Keith/O'Riley and Claudio/Archer matches, they were even more egregious because this one felt like it was a special moment and it ended up being not even a once-in-the-night (or twice-in-the-night moment; guys were asking their opponent to hit them all night!).

But I won't punish this match for what came later. Here, at least, it did feel special, with Shibata sitting cross-legged first, with the two trading boots after he rolled to his feet, with Danielson dropping down and showing that they were equals, with both cross-legged and firing away. There is no rule of wrestling so universal that there isn't some situation where it makes sense to break it. For strike exchanges where people just ask for it, this was probably it. Danielson won it (when he couldn't earlier) and to me, it was because he had already hit the knee once. That's when they went into the real finish, with Danielson failing on his second knee, Shibata locking the Octopus, and the two going into roll ups. Maybe it was my own expectations. With these two, I was expecting that extra level of excess and we only got the normal level of it, placed at the right point in the right match to make it resonate. If they had worked the whole match that way, it would have frustrated me, but a couple of minutes of the ultimate parallel, the willing strike exchange, in a match built upon the notion of two so equally matched mirror-image wrestlers, well, what can I say? It worked for me.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/23 - 10/29

AEW Dynamite 10/25/23

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli vs Orange Cassidy/Kazuchika Okada

MD: Let's talk about intent though we'll take the long way to get there. I'm bad at lists. I'm bad at ranking things. I'm bad at star ratings. I get that even the C+A version of Skippable/Fun/Great/Epic would probably be useful to people for these AEW matches or what we did with Catch or whatever, but that's just not the way I'm set up. I'm much more into looking for patterns and trying to understand the nuts and bolts of what makes things work. I'm also not as much of an execution guy as some of my esteemed peers. Good execution helps more than bad execution hurts. However, I'll certainly hold it against a wrestler/match if he does something beyond his own physical abilities or beyond the abilities of the wrestlers combined to make feel somehow organic and natural. In a lot of ways, that goes back to theory, to mapping out what will be done, either in the back or in the moment. I imagine Erik might have some controversial things to say about Okada's execution here and that would make for a good article but it's not my lane, not really.

I'm also not one to just hunt for the greatest matches. You learn a lot from the things in the cracks. You learn a lot from matches that are never positioned for that sort of established, star-adorned greatness. I think a lot about purpose and situational understanding. What can you learn from a squash? What can you learn from a ten minute TV match meant to set up something else? What about a house show? A tag vs a trios vs a triple threat? A gimmick match? A match building off of limb damage vs more of a bomb throwing sprint? And yeah, a main event title match too? But we're never all the way in. We never know exactly what we don't know. For instance, I don't know when Bryan Danielson got injured. Was it off of Andrade's back elbow on Collision? Was it off of Okada's pancake that Taz was wincing all over the place on? Was it really somewhere in the Orange Punch/Rainmaker? Did he work the whole match hurt? Was he even hurt at all (he likes to lie, remember)? 

Here's another one we don't know: How long ago was the match planned? Okada's schedule is what it is. Danielson's just coming back from injury and only has so much time left so it makes sense to hotshot matches that might have been held off on otherwise. Cassidy's program with the BCC seemed more or less over until Moxley's injury. Basketball's back so they needed a big base-popping match to try to keep the ratings steady given the competition. This match might have set up Danielson vs Okada at WrestleKingdom. It did set up Claudio vs Cassidy at Dynamite. It's probably a step on the road to Cassidy vs Moxley. 

So there's a lot we don't know. Does that matter to your individual enjoyment of the match? Maybe. Maybe not. For me, the context matters, because I am personally curious just what the circumstances of the match are and how well the wrestlers manage to accomplish their goals. That's a driving force in how I look at a match. The brain doesn't shut off. I'm not ranking anything here. I'm not just thinking of greatness for the sake of greatness. So, even putting aside the potential injury and potential frustration for the matches lost to a future that is quickly slipping away, I'm left to primarily engage with the text itself. That's not unusual for me. A lot of the matches for Found Footage Friday end up like that. Some of the Panama matches do. Most of the Catch matches did. It's one reason I'm so thoroughly enjoying Esteban's putting all of the Puerto Rico matches in context.

There are things we can know from the text. This wasn't Orange Cassidy's match. He was a cog in the machine. It elevated him to be in this spot. It continued his story to a degree. He was there to eat the fall to set up the Claudio match. This was an attraction match, however. It was the local star and Mil Mascaras or Andre the Giant against some of the top heels. In this case, the heels were tweeners who could go either way, but the idea was the same. Moreover, it was set to build to one key exchange at the end, Bryan vs Okada, before giving way to the coda of Claudio vs Cassidy that would set up what was to come. That meant we got Danielson vs Cassidy to start but also that we didn't get much of it. Danielson didn't engage with Cassidy's theatrics. He just went right at him instead. It was almost like we didn't have the interaction between them at all. It wasn't even a tease for what might have been; it was a mauling that defied it but that also didn't deny the possibility that it might some day exist, that if given the time and the space and the opportunity, Cassidy might get under Danielson's skin. It was almost defensive, as if Danielson was afraid to open that door and see what might be behind it. In a tag setting, he was able to get away with that. In a singles setting, things might be different.

It let them tease out Claudio vs Okada, strength and size vs star power and presence. It let them bear down on Cassidy during the commercial break, and it finally built to Danielson and Okada facing off with one another and the pop that went with it. From that hot tag on, they rolled into an extended finishing stretch. They kept quite a few interesting beginning and middle bits for this sort of a match on the table for some other time and built instead to the duel moment of the camera cut outs for Okada and then the hug, before paying off the Punch/Rainmaker combo and the swing and setting things up for next week. As a stop on the road, it was satisfying. As a first encounter between Danielson and Cassidy, it was lacing. As a second 2023 encounter between Danielson and Okada, it was only a tease. As a set up for Claudio vs Cassidy (and potentially for future BCC matches with Okada), it was entirely effective. As a clutch TV main event you could never get anywhere else, it felt special. As a dream match, it was probably lacking. To some degree, every match exists in multiple states in this way. This one, however, just happens to be worse than most.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/19 - 6/25 Part 2

AEW Forbidden Door 6/25/23

Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada

MD: If you've been following the site for any length of time, you know that this isn't a dream match for us. But hey, it's been nice to have Final Countdown stuck in my head for half a week, right? That said, we certainly value Danielson. He's one of five, right? I've personally got nothing against Okada. Heck, if I was actually watching his "grumpy" phase, I might not mind him one bit, and in a world of wrestling that has a tendency to get smaller and smaller as time goes on, the ability to project one's self as a star is no small thing.

Still, this match was a bit snakebit, wasn't it? The crowd was still in shambles from the 40-minute epic that preceded it. Danielson got an injury with ten minutes to go. Some of the choices he made in dealing with that injury had a chilling effect upon the crowd. That said, I probably personally ended up liking what we did get here more than what we would have gotten if all went well. Moreover, I think the Danielson performance that was distilled through adversity was much unique and far more interesting than the channeled perfection we might have gotten otherwise. We're never going to judge "greatest wrestler ever" just from who can go hardest (hit hardest maybe, but not go hardest). You learn so much about a wrestler not when things go right in a perfectly planned match against an ideal opponent, but when things go askew and the wrestler has to adapt, or in moments where things are inherently less than perfect. That's when real wrestling genius shines through and in my mind, at least, that's what we got here.

Here's what made this match fascinating: upon first watch, there was every impression of Danielson selling the damage to the neck by favoring his arm, and committing so thoroughly to the act that he leaned instead on the Knee, that he channeled the Yes chants for the first time in AEW to fire up but only used one arm for them, that he powered through a submission using every limb but the one that was damaged. In this scenario, he was so vulnerable, so off center, that he feigned a seizure-ridden neck injury in order to draw Okada in (which didn't work by the way; Okada went right in for the kill after a few seconds of deliberation). That in and of itself would make the match mirrors within mirrors.

Except for it turned out to be mirrors within mirrors within mirrors, for Danielson's arm really was hurt. Whatever match they did or did not plan became something else in response. I read into it that Okada targeted the neck because Danielson's aggression got him up on points early, but would that have happened otherwise? Would there have been the Yes Chants? Would he have gone to the knee twice? Would he have worked the seizure spot? Would the struggle and uniqueness of the submissions at the end felt so offputting and gnarly and desperate? Probably not. Instead, it was a master whose body was failing him, who was in a match that should never have been possible, one that was denied to him the year prior, pasting together what was meant to be a dream match in front of a dream crowd using old tricks and new and making people feel. The crowd felt things that they wanted to feel, things that they dreaded feeling. Every movement carried with it layers. The calling out for the Yes chant wasn't just a Yes chant. It was one of the first ones in AEW (if not the absolute first; he's consciously not done them). It was half of one with a damaged arm. It was one by a desperate wounded Danielson. It was a ploy by the real man behind the American Dragon mask to engage the crowd despite the match going off the rails. So I don't know about this being a dream match but as a dream performance by a dream performer, it contained multitudes. It's the sort of dream that will linger, the sort that will stay with us in the months and years to come. 

CM Punk vs. Satoshi Kojima

MD: I liked MJF vs Tanahashi a lot, much more than the Swerve match from Collision, but that was MJF doing his best 1990 Flair vs JYD match. Tanahashi was limited but charismatic and MJF used that to the fullest. This was not dissimilar in some ways, as Punk leaned hard into the crowd reaction and wrestled big, but Kojima came off like an old vet leaping from the bench with fire still in his heart wanting one more swing for glory. Both wrestlers realized that they had a special crowd and a special opportunity and even though it likely came as a surprise to Kojima, he made the most of it. If Tanahashi is a star that has been treated like a star even as he became more limited, Kojima met this moment with a great reawakening, and Punk was right there to join him. The dueling pec popping might be what I remember from this show as much as anything else, really, but what I probably enjoyed the most in this match in specific was the way Punk chose to work it. He was as disrespectful as possible as a character, playing to his own ego by making callouts to Gabe and shouting along in Japanese to the ten count and doing the Hogan legdrop but at the same time being as respectful as possible as a human being working with the guy by throwing his whole body back for every Kojima strike and being incredibly wary of his lariat almost to the level of Buddy Rose stooging for Stan Stasiak's iron claw.

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Matches from NJPW G1 Climax 7/6/19

I didn't really plan to write this up, and likely won't write this up in full, but there are a couple intriguing on-paper match-ups that I might give dashed off live style reviews to.

Jeff Cobb/Ren Narita vs. Tomohiro Ishii/Shota Umino

ER: I don't think I've seen either Young Lion, but thought they were fine. Narita threw an unexpectedly nice belly to belly. Are Young Lions still only allowed to do dropkicks and elbows and boston crabs? It felt like these two did a lot more than that. Ishii looks really small here, and Cobb looks bigger than he's been. Ishii looks a little softer too, and it wouldn't be too shocking to find out he's got a zillion built up injuries that make intense workouts tough. Cobb's stop motion reverse back suplex is one of the most spectacular moves in wrestling. A lot of this doesn't quite work as Cobb/Ishii do several of their "we're standing and hitting each other hard" moments and Ishii just doesn't look like a guy hitting hard. This would have been more fun as two singles, give the young guys each a 5 minute match against a vet.

Lance Archer vs. Will Ospreay

ER: Archer is now cosplaying Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and his decades old bad lower back tattoo is slowly but surely morphing into just a full black backpiece. This match would have made for a really exciting series of GIFs, but I sadly had to watch the thing in real time. Archer is apparently a guy who moved tickets in the Dallas area, so this is his showcase match, and he showed me that he's still a guy who is really awful at getting into position for offense and still just stands their motionless waiting to receive offense. This happened the entire match, and it looked awful each time. There were a lot of cool moments, Ospreay is always going to have cool moments. But a ton of the moments required Archer to suddenly not be selling any kind of big move that he had just taken, just a constant stream of Archer popping up from a big move right away only to then stand still in place waiting for the next move. The timing is all sorts of wonky. Archer hit a boss chokeslam through a ringside table (killer height by Ospreay), there were a cool Ospreay code red in the aisle, Ospreay's springboard dropkick to Archer's face as Archer crawled back into the ring was awesome, and that's the thing: a lot of these moves looked awesome as long as you forced yourself to not think of the inorganic set-up. It would make for a sick 2 minute YouTube comp, if people still make those. Included in that compilation would be Ospreay making the dumbest "He kicked out at 2!?!?!? G-G-G-G-Ghostssssssssss!" face. What a goober. Archer won with a claw in Texas, and I will give them credit for that being cool. But I don't think even the claw is cool enough to make Archer look cool.

Bad Luck Fale vs. EVIL

ER: I am arguably the biggest fat guy wrestler torch bearers on the internet, but Fale is really a guy I struggle with. He is a not as good Kareem Muhammad, just an impossibly boring big fat guy. Here he's a giant fat guy who tries to win by count out (which is an amusing giant guy heel tactic) and tries to use chairs, while being the third most important and interesting person in the match. When you're less interesting than Marty Asami and EVIL, you done messed up. Asami is weirdly the focus of the entire match, as every spot is merely a set up for him to do some big bump across the ring, on the floor, or to the floor. Asami even refs the very next match, and doesn't oversell any of these actual attacks the way most refs do, so it literally just felt like a showcase for some of the big bumps Asami learned. EVIL hits a bunch of nice hard lariats and a cool headbutt, but Fale kind of only knows how to sell lariats by standing there and lightly swaying like a less impressive Giant Gonzalez. Not great.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. SANADA

ER: Sanada is a NJ guy I really liked 2-3 years ago, whose stock has fallen the higher he moves up the card. He's a guy I liked in multimans and a guy I like much less in singles. But this one still jumped out on paper for me. It just didn't really live up to whatever hype I had for it. I think I fell for Sanada when I saw him in more multimans, when he came off like a throwback big bumping UPW wrestler. A guy without much offense but could take a couple bumps that looked heavier than they actually were. This was just him doing a bunch of mirror sequences with Sabre while Sabre mocked him in between mirror sequences. Don't get me wrong, I laughed several times at Sabre mocking him. But that's because Sanada looked like someone that should be mocked. The only interesting part of this was one of the stand and trade sections, where I thought all of the "fighting out of a straitjacket" submission stuff looked really great. The rest felt like Sabre leading Sanada through the same sequences that look better with other opponents. There were a couple cool reversals (I like uppercuts reversed into backslides, and I like backslides a lot in general), but the subs never went anywhere interesting and the finish felt like Sanada fell into a victory. Sabre was funny throughout the match, I liked him waiting to roll back into the ring at the 19 count, but it made Sanada like like a punk and the match didn't have enough good to override that.

KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi

ER: KENTA is not the guy people remembered from 10 years ago, and he was a flawed wrestler 10 years ago. Now he's a step slower and could still act like a dick, but he's never going to come off cool like Masa Fuchi, he's just going to come off like a junior who isn't as good at doing his same set of moves. KENTA looked out of shape and slow, and that's not a super interesting thing to see. Ibushi had some real nice sells of KENTA's stuff, he can really class up a Go 2 Sleep, but KENTA seems totally washed to me. There's still upside to a lazy asshole gimmick, but his needs work. He did stomp an big old hole in Ibushi's guts, really didn't seem to pull back in any way off the top, and that's something. A lot of fans are really hyped that "KENTA is back", the problem being this guy was never the guy they thought he was even in his prime, and that prime is looking streets behind at this point.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

ER: I can never quite put my finger on it, but something about Okada always reads "water polo dick". I didn't watch this. I later saw a GIF of Tanahashi's high fly flow to the floor, and those always look great. I hope the people who watched this got what they wanted out of it.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Sabre vs. Okada

64. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Kazuchika Okada NJPW 4/1

ER: Jim Ross mentions Negro Navarro early, as Sabre's MMA trainer, and I have to rewind to make sure I heard that right. It's weird to me to think that JR might have watched a Negro Navarro match at some recent point. And I really liked this match, it was a brisk 35 minutes with a super strong Sabre showing, and Okada stepping it up nicely for their first singles together. I don't know if this was as good as any of the Tanahashi/Sabre series, but this was real good. Okada is a guy with usually bad execution on simple strikes and transitions, a guy who is mentally focused on the "big move" of a sequence so glosses over the stomach kicks and offense that's meant to missed, going on autopilot at times. Here he's really present, really facially sells that Sabre is tearing him apart, and really laces in some strikes like isn't always guaranteed. And I really liked the build to this, with them stressing that Okada had only tapped once (to Nakamura) and here you have Sabre who's been a submission spider monkey for the last 6 months. It's a classic, simple story: X is tough to beat a certain way, Y is the best at doing that certain way. And Sabre was awesome, really vicious with leg submissions. At one point he had his weight leaned so far back on a half crab that it looked like he was trying to rip Okada's leg out from the hip joint. I love when he works these nasty leg grapevines and we got some cool ones, and in one of the more vicious things I've ever seen him do, he does a standing twist with Okada's leg wedged between his legs. It looked really swift and violent. He even turned a dropkick into an STF in a pretty cool moment. Okada worked meaner than usual, throwing his forearms like he was Laettner coming down from a layup. They had a good brawl on the floor, with Sabre taking a couple great hard bumps on his hip, really making Okada's offense seem more dangerous than it felt, falling hard into the front row, really feigning a good asskicking. I still can't decide how I feel about the back half of the fight. Sabre wisely switched up his attack to Okada's arm, which is some more classic "weaken the champ's biggest weapon" stuff, but by the end it felt like he did so much nasty stuff to the arm, and it didn't once stop Okada from attempting to still use that arm. If Okada wins every match with the Rainmaker, and a submission guy who has been tapping everyone works on that Rainmaker arm for 10 minutes, and it doesn't weaken it one bit? That essentially makes Okada out to be the Terminator, which makes things a lot less fun. Okada hasn't lost in 2 years, and I think Sabre would have been an awesome mega asshole to break that streak. I thought the arm submissions were great, some arm scissors, armbar caught from an elbow drop, dodging that Rainmaker into more armbars, and a tight triangle that really felt like the finish. But then Okada started dropping clotheslines anyway and it felt like it didn't matter. I did think Sabre kicking out of them felt big, and the tombstone dropped Sabre right on his dome, so I can't deny the brutality of that finish...But I also kind of resented that finish. This match review has taken me all evening to finish because I can't decide whether this was really damn good or really good but flawed.

PAS: Sabre is a fun guy to watch, he works a pretty unique style and does it well. He is a guy I turned around pretty big over the last couple of years, and I think he stepped up and really performed well in the biggest match of his career. Okada really doesn't it do it for me though, and I though for the most part his performance was pretty bad here. Okada was originally a T2P guy and he was fine if a bit tentative in the early llave style first part of this match. I especially loved all of Sabre's octopus variations, he was climbing all over Okada like a jungle gym, and seemed to be inventing new twists and turns on the fly.  When Okada started breaking out his regular offense this fell apart a bit, his basic stuff looks so bad, there was a point in this match where he threw two comically bad back elbows and a no contact kick to the stomach to set up a DDT, he looked like one of those semi-trained fitness models that Johnny Ace used to hire to try to fuck. When Sabre was in control it was fine, when Okada took over it looked bad (selling isn't really Sabre's forte anyway, he does a bit of the OTT arm shaking and fish flopping which is de rigueur with the Davey Richards indy generation) Not only did Okada shrug off the arm work to keep hitting clotheslines, that clothesline that finished the match looked terrible, not a ton of impact and he hit him in the chest. Cool performance by Sabre marred by Okada being on his bullshit.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NJPW G1 Special in USA - Night 1 24 Hrs Later Not Live Blog

Even if I'm not very interested in the New Japan product, it's inarguable that it's the hot trend among our niche online wrestling culture. Even though I rarely match up with the popular opinions on New Japan, the appeal kind of fascinates me because I don't totally understand it. A lot of things that I see and think "Wow this looks terrible!", and it's still oddly jarring to see plenty of people see the exact opposite. Still, I think it's cool they're giving the US some shows, and I think it's cool they got broadcast live. We were out all day yesterday, and against my instincts - and without knowing much about the card or the results - I figured I would waste some time on a Sunday checking it out.


1. Bullet Club (Young Bucks/Bad Luck Fale/Marty Scurll/Yujiro Takahashi) vs. CHAOS (Briscoes/Will Ospreay/Roppongi Vice)

30 seconds of Scurll and I'm already kind of regretting this decision. His act feels composed entirely of movements that you've seen before, done better. But the Briscoes make me feel better about this decision. We get a great double team jab/chop combo, Mark hits a nice dive, Jays hits a dynamite baseball slide and then a crazy blockbuster to the floor, and this is getting good. The Bucks collapse a ring barrier on a dive and Ospreay hits the most gorgeous possible springboard SSP. That Scurll finger breaking spot is one of those things you flip for the first time, and at a certain point you realize how completely stupid it is to expect any wrestler to sell broken fingers 2 minutes into a match. Mark Briscoe is looking great though, flying in with a great rana and leaning deep into a Bucks superkick, and this whole thing is really good whenever it's not Scurll in the ring. Fale seems really out of place in this 10 man, doesn't look very plausible taking Romero offense. This whole thing was quicker than it should have been, and they easily could have dropped a few guys and made it into a better 6 or 8 man, but I assume they're trying to get as many guys on the card as possible. Matt Jackson: "I can't lose on TV, I got a deal with Hot Topic!"

2. Hiromu Takahashi//SANADA/EVIL/BUSHI vs. Jushin Liger/Dragon Lee/Titan/Volador Jr.

Weird they would frontload all these multiman matches, seems like they would be better served having them between tournament matches. Liger seems slower than the last time I saw him. I think he's better now in singles, that don't require the go go pace of an 8 man. SANADA takes a high bump to the floor and a sharp back elbow. Lee and Takahashi are guys whose match-up benefits from a multiman, because they don't have to kick out of absurd moves, but instead come in for some lightning in 15 second bursts. Takahashi whips himself into a German faster than anybody, it's nuts. SANADA mans up and catches Titan on a nutso dive, and suddenly this match is making me really want more SANADA. Titan ups the crazy by sprawling spectacularly into the buckles on a bump and eating a chairshot. Another short match, really feels like a major waste of some of the guys involved. I both appreciate them not making this a 6 hour card, while being disappointed in the match lengths so far.

3. Hangman Page vs. Jay Lethal

These flimsy ring barriers have already made a couple of nice spots look spectacular, I think we've had a barrier get knocked over every match so far. Here a nice Lethal dive looks devastating as Page gets plastered right through it. This just in: Page's shooting star shoulder block STILL the most "indy" move in wrestling. I say that, of course, before remembering that the Lethal Injection is somehow considered a finisher. I think I really like Lethal, except for that move's glaring stupidity. But considering matches often build to that move, it's a major problem. His rolling elbow and enziguiri look nice here, he eats a big clothesline, but we keep going back to that stupid slow handspring. When he finally hits it, he totally whiffs on it and Page sells it the same anyway. My god the move is the worst. And we get a 4th attempt and it lands short, but thankfully Page leaps forward right into it. If he literally just used any other boring finisher, his matches would be so much better, as all his in between stuff looked really great: great variety of kicks, elbows that land heavy, nice punches, but when so much of the match is built around something that stupid...

4. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Juice Robinson

I think every match has featured someone with a strike combo that ends in a standing senton. I shouldn't complain as the senton is one of the most logical moves in wrestling, just dropping your body on a guy's ribs, but it's weird how many of these guys just aim to wrestle so similarly. Heel Sabre is wonderful as he has a great mug for smug showoff shit, and has a nice arsenal of cocky spots. There's mocking stuff like the dreadlocks cravat, but meatier stuff like nasty wrist bends, and subtler stuff like stepping on Juice's hand before applying a hold. People who discredit him as someone who just puts on "holds exhibitions" don't give him credit for cool stuff like that, distracting his opponent with one bit of pain before applying something more dangerous right after. Juice is good at setting up Sabre's nastiest stuff, and the powerbomb out of a triangle was a nice comeback spot. The match ending octopus hold was sick, and I love the set up with Sabre kicking Juice's bad wing, Juice instinctively punching him but doing further damage to the arm in the process, and leaving himself open to be stretched to submission. Really satisfying 10 minute match.

5. Yohei Komatsu/Sho Tanaka/Yoshi Tatsu/Billy Gunn vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi/David Finlay/Jay White/KUSHIDA

Boy this feels like a lopsided match-up. I don't know if Tempura Boyz are actually any good. I really loved a Komatsu/Liger match from a couple years ago, but I think I more loved the structure of vet vs. rookie than his actual ring work. I do love the heat Gunn is getting. He knows he's as out of place on this card as the ticket buyers think he is, so I love him going in there and just soaking it up. His lightly hurt face after his 1999 Suck It draws boos was perfectly done. People dump on Tatsu but he's got the Toecutter hair, gets dumped on his dome by Jay White, hits a fast low angle spinkick, and has no problem getting suplexed into the buckles. Finlay works like 2005 Roderick Strong mixed with current Barbaro Cavernario. His dad needs to teach him how to stomp hands and headbutt chests. Tanahashi's slingblade looked like crap against Gunn, and I don't think it was Gunn's fault. Overall, this wasn't much.

6. War Machine vs. Guerrillas of Destiny

I don't think I actually knew Camacho was Meng's kid when he was in WWE. They make this No DQ, but that just means they use some flimsy trash can lid shots, when their normal match strikes look better. I'd rather see them headbutting War Machine in the nose than hitting them in their meaty backs with a lid. I hate how "agile" Hanson tries to wrestle. Rowe embraces the hoss and is better for it. Hanson has too many spots that get too cute. But him getting powerslammed off a springboard is an impressively nutty spot to take. Tanga hits a nasty diving headbutt, and diving headbutts are still a thing guys are doing in 2017. Rowe eats a powerbomb through chairs, and probably lucky for him he parts them instead of bending through them with his kidneys. Hanson uses his cartwheel smarter than normal, organically using it to dodge a charge. It usually feels so much more planned out. And his dive is always impressive. But, I will say, the few times Stan Hansen did it in All Japan are so much more memorable because of how seldom he did it. The powerbomb/legdrop through the table was impeccably timed.

7. Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii

This is fine but I'm kind of numb to Ishii's masochistic style at this point. Naito doesn't work as stiff a style as other guys who he's just endlessly stood and exchanged with, so it rings a little hollow to see him selling thigh slaps more than he sells say Shibata elbowing him in the throat. Naito makes amusing faces while eating gross chops, and I like a few of the cockier touches that he brings, like wiping his boots on the back of Ishii's head. His spit spot is always stupid and gross, but we ramp up to a whole new level when he spits blood in Ishii's face, and it actually makes me cheer when Ishii clobbers him with a vicious headbutt and snaps him with a folding powerbomb. I can't actually tell if Naito just botched running up the ropes a couple times in trying to the tornado DDT, but if they did then they expertly covered it and made it seem like Ishii was just pulling him away from the ropes to block. Either way, it made the DDT mean a lot more. They lost me a little bit with each guy showing how they can get dropped on different parts of their dome, but the 15 minute run time was far more satisfying than if this same match was in the Dome. I imagine it would go 25 and the pinfall here would just be the beginning. This was fine but felt a bit too much like they ramped up to "we're having an epic".

8. Michael Elgin vs. Kenny Omega

Elgin has a great shoulderblock and back elbow, and Omega has no problem leaning into a huge shoulderblock. Taking offense is obviously not Omega's problem. Love powerslam spots and Elgin always has a nice one. I would love it if he did more, really. JR talks about how they're starting "slow" but we've already gotten a powerslam, a shoulderblock dive off the top, and a brainbuster. Omega nails the leg lariat on the concrete and he actually hits it, usually he just leaps all the way over his opponent and they take a faceplant. Omega always has really weak looking chinlocks, and his backpack sleeper was even worse. His arm didn't even look like it was touching Elgin's neck. It was barely touching his beard. Elgin always has a lot of great looking slams, but it's the same problem as Angle letting everybody reverse his ankle lock, it just makes his own moves look weak. They all look spine crushing, but they're all treated like early match bodyslams. Like, holy shit, here's this German suplex on the freaking apron, followed by a freaking crucifix power bomb off the middle buckle, and Omega kicks out of it the EXACT same way he kicked out of the brainbuster 4 minutes into the match. The previous match ENDED with a brainbuster, and here it was nothing. But we now know that apron German and crucifix bomb are not much either. Elgin lays Omega out with the burliest clothesline on this show by far, but Omega still kicks out all the same. Seriously, he only knows how to kick out one specific way, always at the exact same time, every count. Every move *almost* puts me away, but no moves actually finish me! After Omega gets the back of his head blasted into the mat a few times, that unlocks the "do all your offense in a row" part of his brain, so we get a bunch of running knees (some looked great, some looked like femur bruising slaps). I admire Omega's restraint to not drop Elgin vertically on the clutch tombstone, and he eventually does all the right dance steps in the right order to unlock his finisher.

9. Cody vs. Kazuchika Okada

I will never not love when a heel postpones the opening bell so that he can go and kiss his attractive spouse. And Cody's shiny America tights and stars n stripe boots are glorious. HOWEVER, not using red/white/blue kinesio tape is that little touch to detail that shows that Cody JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT. He gets it...but doesn't totally GET it. But then Brandi is wearing a fucking sequined American flag cocktail dress and he obviously fucking gets it. That dress would boost the ticket sales to any fucking USO show out there. I could be completely crazy, but has anybody else noticed the AXS cameras specifically focusing on couples in the crowd? 80% of the up close camera shots are of two slender, charming couples, chanting for their favorites and occasionally smiling at each other. Were they given a directive of "hey, no fattie neckbeards, okay? We gotta make this look like it's worth 4 hours of schedule." Okada having to find a way to get his opponent on the buckles so he can dropkick them off, yet always doing it the same way, is just as stupid as "you can't powerbomb Kidman" or somebody trying to sunset flip Super Porky or Rikishi. It needs to be said. Okada is a prettier face, conditioned haired, Billy Kidman except without all the deathwish bumps. Okay, they just showed a couple guys in the crowd who didn't APPEAR to be a couple, but one of the guys looked kinda like between-shoot-body Dan Stevens, so they may have thought they were showing a celebrity. Okada calls for the Rainmaker which just shows he's never heard of Albert Hammond Sr. before. Cody is the only guy in New Japan who understands how to use slaps. You mockingly smack a guy to muss his hair, or you do one after wide-eyed shit talking, or you use them to allow your opponent to get angry enough to justify their transition to offense. Cody gets - and uses - all three of them. You just don't stand and trade them. Cody understands the best way to use the Rainmaker is to make scared fans think that Cody was somehow going to get the title. When I wanted Brian Kendrick to desperately win the CWC and he got that one great nearfall on Ibushi? That joy I felt is tantamount to the fear these fans felt when they thought Okada would lose. Okada, however, does not lose.


You know, this could have been an absolute disaster of an idea. But this was a nice high floor low ceiling show. No blowaway great matches, but nothing that made me want to lean on the FF. A lot of the best stuff were the matches that hit the proper time, that money 10-15 minute zone. So it was nice to see this NJ style that I dislike, worked slightly toned down (I say toned down only because only one guy dumped himself on his head 3+ times, and nobody lost feeling in the right side of their body from a shoot strike on a nearfall). I liked tons of individual performances on the show, thought Cody looked great in the main, thought Sabre and Juice complemented each other well, SANADA looked like a guy I would actually request recommended matches from (any SANADA matches that would make our MOTY List from the last few years?), so it was a breezy view. I drank good coffee, played with my cat son Tacos, goofed off on Twitter, and watched some decent wrestling. It's a quality Sunday.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Shibata, Okada, Brain Trauma

7. Katsuyori Shibata v. Kazuchika Okada NJPW 4/9

ER: Yes, this is the infamous likely/hopefully last match of Shibata's career, as he's a super tough man who coconut clonks other tough men in the head as hard as possible, and because of that almost became a vegetable. But overall I thought it was his greatest career performance, at times masterful, and we also got the best Okada performance I've seen. Were there still problems? Yes, but the peaks far outweighed and made for some pretty great moments. Shibata works this like he's the Terminator, and Okada makes for a game Sarah Connor. Every strike Okada would throw at him, Shibata would emotionlessly brush it off as Okada's eyes would widen in disbelief. We start with some fun and engaging matwork, with Shibata almost always a step ahead but not wanting to finish, worked as if he just wanted Okada to realize how he could snap him if he wanted to. Shibata looks like he's hardly breathing and Okada looks like he's barely hanging on, Shibata easily maneuvering into chokes and an armbar, and later working over Okada's knee. I've been a consistent critic of Okada's convenient selling and poor placement of damaging moves, but I thought his selling was good here. There were still moments where he had to get his shit in, but even on his omnipresent dropkicks it's not like he would be hopping up afterwards, usually he would act like he immediately regretted doing a dropkick, and as the match wore on he wasn't able to throw out moves at full strength, allowing Shibata to stay standing through a couple of rainmakers lariats. I wish he hadn't done a pop up dropkick after the devastating sleeper suplex spot. I'm so over the pop up fighting spirit, and that suplex was such a colossal spot, Shibata choking the life out of him and then tossing his body away like trash. It should have been a bigger moment.

Shibata's attitude carried the bulk of this match. He wasn't just going along and having an Okada match, his smug attitude made all rote strike exchanges feel different, getting inside Okada's head by showing him how much more effective his strikes were. I have no clue how Okada's face and neck weren't bruised and swollen by the end. Shibata was great throwing out these condescending punts, not going for the kill, but swatting at Okada's spine, smacking him in the back of the head with a boot, just picking away at him in painfully annoying fashion. The headbutt is what it is. It's no grosser than any clonking headbutt you've seen Ikeda or Kikuchi throw, but it is admittedly troubling knowing what we know happened to Shibata post match. If you found out several tape submitters died of testicular cancer from ball shots, you probably would have laughed a little less at those episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos. The headbutt is gross, made somewhat better by Shibata finishing the final 5 minutes of the match, locking on sick octopus holds on Okada, but never able to put him away. I do think they had Okada take a bit too much damage, as it didn't seem like Shibata took enough to go down for the count (if we only knew how badly damaged his body was...), but I liked how Okada was able to convey his fading strength through his weakening rainmakers, and I think this is the best conceived version of a "main event New Japan style" match that I have seen. Shame about the effects of that style, though.

PAS: I was actively irritated at Eric for making me watch this, I have no desire to watch New Japan main event wrestling, and as someone who played high school football, college rugby and boxed in the golden gloves I am a little squeamish about brain injury (I am sure my brain scan looks like a bunch of old hot dog buns). Still I enjoyed this and Shibata sure went out on a hell of performance. Really dominant Shibata match which forced Okada to work from the bottom, which is where someone of his questionable offense belongs. Shibata also works better as a merciless killer, then as a guy doing 50/50 forearm exchanges. I loved Shibata tooling him on the mat, breaking out shootstyle submissions, and even British stuff from his Progress tours. This forces Okada to be the first guy to throw hands, and man does Okada get tooled. I loved the part where Shibata throws thirty or so short punches right to the jaw, and the kicks to the brain stem were grotesque. That headbutt was actually a great bit of wrestling drama, although man it is hard to watch with hindsight. I did like how Okada stepped it up with his shots, his forearms looked mostly good and that final rainmaker is the first time I have actually liked that move. I hated the no sell, and Okada's elbow drop is more CM Punk then Macho Man, but this was still about as much as I am going to like a 2017 Okada match.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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I Also Watched Omega vs. Okada

So this has pretty easily been the most talked about wrestling match of the new year, with some wildly divergent opinions. Phil watched it last week and didn't like it, and he and I tend to match up on opinion 80+% of the time. But since so many are talking about this match I just had to see it for myself. Also, I wanted to see if I would get one of those giant cardboard checks for being the one millionth person to write an opinion on this match on the internet.

And I ended up liking this match more than I expected to. Also, I hated this match more than I expected to. Instead of writing a couple of supergraphs going over match analysis, I figure I'll just toss out some shorter observations in no order of importance.

Omega put on an athletically freakish performance, the type of performance we may be able to look back on and pinpoint exact moments where his body started to die. His bumps were insane, and not just the epic backdrop through a table, but all of his bumps off of almost any Okada strike. Now, what's really absurd, is the VAST disconnect between Omega's bumps, and Okada's shitty, shitty strikes. Okada's the champ, he's the man, sure. But Omega bumps for him as if Okada were Stan Hansen. Not just a Stan Hansen, but a Stan Hansen who was an astronaut, whose body was rebuilt with bionic parts by OSI. I guess it would have been easier to make a Stone Cold Steve Austin joke right there. ANYWAY, by the end this started to feel like the Hulk Hogan/Shawn Michaels match, with one guy throwing a shitty back elbow while the other guy launches himself 10 feet across the ring, lands on the back of his neck, flips into the ropes and then rebounds off the ropes. It's like Omega was fighting against fucking Iron Man. All of Okada's offense is built around his opponent making it look good. It NEVER looks good otherwise. He needs guys to take dangerous bumps off the top rope from a floaty whispery dropkick, needs guys to dump themselves on their head after a lariat, needs guys to sell for his awful strikes. And Omega's bumping was so damn violent the whole match, that it looked almost comical when you watched what was supposedly causing him to get bumped like that. Standard dropkick? Fly backwards as fast as you can into the corner! Omega was killing himself out there, while Okada looked like a guy who would have gotten his jaw kicked in on a WAR undercard.

The 6 star rating is going to mean it gets compared instantly with matches like Misawa/Kawada, which isn't going to do any favors to Omega/Okada. When you essentially call a match "better than perfect" you're practically begging people to look for imperfections, which isn't really fair. And I did not try to do that. But one major thing I noticed about this match was just how often a guy did something only so his opponent could do a move. There were so many moments of Omega running at Okada, only to get hit with a backbreaker or elbow...but Omega had nothing planned himself. Was he just planning on running into Okada? They weren't even attempting to make these things look like a reversal, even though the whole match was built around reversals. It's sloppy move planning, something you never saw in Misawa/Kawada. If Kawada was going to run into an elbow, he wouldn't just run full steam across the ring with his arms at his sides.

For a match built around two guys obsessively trying to hit their finishers, goddamn do they have two of the most convoluted finishers in wrestling. Okada just can't lariat his opponent, he has to do a 7 step polka before doing so; Omega can't just do a Michinoku driver, he has to bury his head up Okada's ass to lift him up on his shoulders in a seated position, fumble around to lock a couple of arms, drape his leg a certain way, it's absurd. This isn't Misawa dropping to a knee and doing everything he could to sandbag a folding powerbomb, this was two guys working together to perform needlessly complicated moves. Do you know how hard it would be to get someone seated on your shoulders, if that person even slightly didn't want to? If my 19 lb. cat doesn't feel like being picked up, it's really hard to pick him up! And this is just talking their awful finisher set up, there are plenty of other moves that you'd really have to think hard to figure out who performed a move, and who was supposed to be impacted by the move. The worst offender was Omega hitting some sort of large leaping leg lariat/bulldog, but just leapfrogging over Okada's head while Okada just kind of fell on his face. I have no clue what it was supposed to be, but apparently it hurt one of them?

We don't need to go into how fucking terrible Red Shoes is. He turned in another all time worst performance in this one. His mannerisms are so distracting. I don't understand them. Omega takes a move and both men are lying on the mat, and he just gets right in between them and waves his arms toward Omega, like he's just saying "Cover him! Cover him! Cover him! Okada! Cover Omega! Omega is on the mat! Cover him! Now! On the mat!" just waving his arms like he's trying to fan away the biggest fart. He gives these hand directions the entire match. "Pick him up! Lift him! Do a move!" He's the absolute worst.

To end on a more positive note, I really liked Omega's kneelifts and knee strikes. Knee attacks can be a tough sell, and Omega's looked as good as Chris Hero's best. They certainly looked more devastating than anything Okada did. Also, for a 45 minute match, I must say it didn't feel nearly that long. I think that's a major compliment. Despite how flawed I thought the match and execution were, the time flew by. That's not necessarily what I look for when watching wrestling ("This thing I watch for fun didn't feel like a chore to sit through!") but it's a definite feather in the cap for the match. 45 minutes of wrestling CAN be a chore, and this wasn't.

I would love to see Omega work someone who could tone him down, as he has a lot of things I could really like about him. And for his own sake, he should tone down the bumps, for his own health and from a match psychology standpoint. Once you bump huge for every move big and small it starts going down that "everybody reverses the Angle lock 5 times in a match" path. Once you're flying across the ring and landing on your neck for shitty Okada strikes, it makes the actual big moves in a match look less important and less dangerous by comparison.

I'm glad I watched it, glad that I saw for myself what was getting all of this hype. I'm excited to see just how much is still memorable to me by the end of the year.

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2017 Doesn't Make the List: Six Star Edition

Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada NJ 1/3/17

I certainly had no plans to watch this, but I figure someone at SC should weigh in on the canonized best match in wrestling history before we go back to reviewing Black Terry Jr. HH's or Tamon Honda matches.

I am really burned out on both long matches and 2010s style CrossFit wrestling, so two guys doing the ultimate CrossFit endurance match for 45 minutes wasn't going to do it for me. By CrossFit style, I mean a wrestling match where it seems like the goal is to pound out one more set of kettlebells to show how tough you are, rather then any sort of sensible progression or story, every match is a show of endurance. It is what Volador is doing in CMLL,  Seth Rollins in the WWE, tons of people do in indies I don't watch and what a lot of NJ main events devolve into. Even taking away the problems I have with this style, I didn't think this match was particularly close to the apex of that style.

For one thing I am really surprised at how bad both guys basic execution was. Big spots looked great for the most part, but Okada is throwing missed clotheslines that fly a foot over Omega's head, they exchange Ethan Pagian forearm smashes and wrestling school level kicks to the stomach. Okada's top rope elbow is a big move of his and he clearly takes all of the impact on his hip before gingerly placing his elbow on Omega's chest. The match is all wild drum solos, but the back beat is off.

The match was also way too long, these guys don't have 40+ minutes of a match in them. They either can't or won't do matwork, so instead it was basically a 20 minute house show workrate match, followed by a 20 minute big show workrate match. It's like Finn Balor v. Seth Rollins on RAW, followed immediately by Finn Balor v. Seth Rollins at Payback.

The match did have a couple of awesome huge spots: Omega's bump of the year into the table and the top rope Dragon suplex. That table bump was fucking lunatic, maybe the greatest table bump I can remember seeing. Omega got truly insane height and he landed like a V2 rocket on the table, I honestly don't know how he didn't lacerate his spleen. Still that move was 20 minutes into a 40 minute match and didn't play into the finish at all. Basically the next offensive move either guy executed was Omega hitting Okada with a super nasty top rope dragon suplex, which again didn't play into the finish at all or really get a compelling near fall. If either move led directly into a finish run it would have really made the match make more sense. Instead the finish run was a lot of dancy reversals around Okada's silly clothesline finisher.

Omega is a guy with great athleticism, and big holy fuck spots. There was a moment during the finish run where he whips off a dragon suplex that looked like it was in x2 speed, and I really liked some of his desperation running knees. If someone could tone down some of his bad tendencies and craft a match around what he does well it could be really awesome. Okada isn't that dude, and I don't think that guy is in NJ (or the WWE for that matter, I actually don't know who that guy is, maybe if Finlay gets fired again?)

Our 2017 MOTY list will be filled with random small US indy matches, CMLL trios and Kurisu matches on Rutube, and honestly this match probably had enough good to make it objectively better than some of those. But I didn't enjoy it, and it was the poster boy of the type of wrestling I hate. Hard Pass.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/30/15 & 10/7/15 Review

9/30/15

1. Matt Sydal vs. KUSHIDA

Well this was pretty unlikeable. This was that perfect combination of uninteresting ringwork combined with constant crowd chanting. Crowd is chanting This is Awesome as the match begins, because you see, they're in on the gag. We jerk off with some bad matwork with one guy holding still so the other can do stuff, and then doing stuff while the other guy holds still. The strike exchanges were weak and the moves were really poorly set up. KUSHIDA has some slow motion handspring offense that doesn't look good if and when it connects, and requires Sydal to either stand there while a man does a handstand, or run face first into a man doing a handstand. KUSHIDA hits a decent flip dive at one point. Sydal still has a pretty shooting star press. Boy I did not like this.

2. Adam Page vs. Will Ferrara vs. Watanabe vs. Moose

Boy we are not doing well tonight. This was a rushed 4 way, starting out clunky then burning through some suplexes leading to the early finish. Page was a standout and this was probably the best I've seen him, showing some personality and setting up offense for others nicely. He also had a really great fallaway slam on Ferrara at one point. Ferrara has terrible strikes but is game to take a bump. Moose is always disappointing. There is still plenty of potential there, and he throws a nice back elbow here, but there's just always tons lacking. Watanabe is from Japan, LAND OF WORKRATE and thus he is awesome and we must all throw streamers at him. He never looks very good. Everybody threw suplexes. Colby Corino took a decent bump from the apron at one point, but he leaned way out of a Moose kick to get to that bump. Steve Corino continues to miss every emotional note, woodenly saying "Colby. Nooooooo. Get off of the apron." At least it was short?

3. Adam Cole vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Well this was disappointing. Cole is not great, and Nak really didn't try too hard. We had Cole doing a bunch of fairly engaging leg work, leading to Nak not caring much at all about the leg work. Some of Cole's superkicks to Nak's leg were alright. I especially liked one to the back of Nak's leg. But almost immediately after the legwork stopped, Nak was back up, throwing knees, doing suplexes, jumping around, being generally just fine. My time felt wasted.


Eh, Rachel was on the phone with her sister and she didn't want me to watch You're the Worst or The League without her, so what else was I going to do. But this show was three matches that could have been good, but none of them were.

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10/7/15

Oh man this show is filmed at MCU Park in Brooklyn and it already looks so awesome. This needs to be done more often. Such a great venue and it reads super cool on TV.

1. Time Splitters vs. Briscoe Bros.

The Time Splitters...are not a team I would like to see again very soon. KUSHIDA is just really bad. Their comedy doesn't work, most of their actual ring work doesn't work, they just don't work. Shelley can at least throw a halfway decent punch. KUSHIDA is one of those guys who has really bad trademark offense, but it's made even worse because he doesn't make any of it look good. He's the one who picked this offense. You'd think he would know more than anyone that he has a shaky handstand and a bad looking jab. But then he goes and does bad handspring offense and just a terrible left jab combo. We get a too long super silly arm wringer segment which I'm sure is amusing to the live crowd and all but I'd rather see Briscoes kicking the hell out of them. And we do get that, we do. We just get so much KUSHIDA. Too much. He's junk. I'd rather just watch the Briscoes fight each other.

2. Watanabe vs. Cedric Alexander

Well hey this was the best I've seen Watanabe look! The match was JIP so who knows what kind of mess we missed, but Watanabe looked like a guy I would actually want to see here! Stiff senton, nice strikes (actual painful elbows! Funny how NJPW main event style always has interminable elbow exchanges, yet most of their guys have lousy elbow strikes), a couple of headbutts I didn't expect. Cedric knows how to miss big and I dug his thrust headbutt. Veda Scott is always amusing at ringside. Maybe Watanabe just likes working in the outdoors more? I had a copy (like a photocopy) of Farmer Burns' old "Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture" and it recommends to always do your calisthenics in an outdoor setting or at least next to an open window. It also recommended eating your daily steak next to an open window. And to use soothing syrups made from only the finest heroin. But still, I have seen many indoor Watanabe matches that were terrible. And now 100% of the outdoor Watanabe matches I've seen have been good. Science.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Kazuchika Okada

For a guy nicknamed Mr. ROH you think they would just spell his name ROHderick. Okada is very much not good but there were moments in this I enjoyed. Instead of their usual guardrail with metal signs on it, the infield had these flimsy plastic barriers (I guarantee there were some people upset that they paid for front row and were denied flat metal to slap their palms on) and at one point Roddy backdropped Okada onto a barrier, overshot a bit and dumped Okada on his head into the crowd. But man the way Okada builds matches is just annoying. He has no clue how to go back on offense. He just gets hit with a move for a nearfall, both men sell, then Okada just does his own move. We get a few strike exchanges, and Strong's strikes completely smoke Okada's, so Strong always gets the better of him, and then every time Strong then turns to run the ropes that's when Okada greets him with a dropkick or something else. This shit happens in every. single. Okada match. It's just lazy structure, and it's why I get sucked out of his way-too-long matches at the halfway point. At a certain point it switches into "opponent does shit until Okada just does his signature shit". Nothing means anything after awhile. Strong gets a nice nearfall with his running kick, people in the crowd can't believe it, thought it was over. But then Okada just gets up at the same time as Strong and hits a tombstone. Story of the match, story of the wrestler. Yuck.

Not a bad show, although I have now officially seen too many Okada matches. I don't like him. BUT I loved the outdoor setting of the tapings. Gives the show a nice fresh look and looks like they got a bunch of people there. Funny as I hated the look of WMIX, but grew to enjoy the look of outdoor shows more and more. I wonder what moment turned me. It could have been Onita riding in a boat to get to a ring. Or a WCW Spring break show with somebody falling into a pool. It may have been CW Anderson riding on the back of a tractor to a ring in the middle of a cornfield. Yeah. It was probably that one. But whatever it was, I love the outdoor show vibe. So, excellent marks for presentation.

Also, A+ on the sound mixing. Kelly and Corino were mixed WAY down so I could hardly hear them, making them so easy to tune out. I don't know if this was Destination America or ROH themselves, but mixing those two dunderheads down is just an excellent move all around. Great job gang!

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