Impact Wrestling Slammiverary 7/22/18 Cherry Picking

Heard good things about the top three on this show, so I was intrigued to check it out

Tessa Blanchard vs. Allie

ER: This was a letdown. Blanchard has been on fire since coming into Impact, really adding more of a spark to a good division, and even having my favorite Impact match of the year (against Kiera Hogan). But I think she gave Allie way too much here. I get there may be a seniority factor at play, but I don't know if Allie has enough material to be given this much of a match. There's a lot of disconnect or set up to Allie's offense here, a lot of played out modern moves like a backcracker and a code breaker, and she doesn't always seem totally able to pull of some of the moves very well. At least she dropped the high pitch squealing. But Blanchard is nuts and takes some sloppy offense anyway. We get a death valley driver on the floor that looked potentially dangerous, and she eats a huge crossbody from the top to the floor. Blanchard was a bit too generous with how much she gave Allie, but I thought Blanchard looked good, and she's got a lot of personality. She really comes off mean, misses moves big like a real heel (her missed senton looked spine rearranging) and looks explosive with forearms. Tessa hits a flat out brutal rana off the top, which Allie looked like she took it on the top of her head. They should have called an audible and had that be the finish. But this is where we get Tessa's big missed senton, and Allie hits a really great superkick for a good nearfall. Blanchard's trap arm DDT is a nasty finisher, and I like that they snuck in the extra nearfall, but that Frankensteiner was brutal and really should have ended. It's silly to have Josh Mathews screaming "THERE'S NO WAY ALLIE WILL BE KICKING OUT..." as she's kicking out and going back on offense seconds later.

39. LAX (Santana/Ortiz) vs. OGZ (Homicide/Hernandez)

PAS: So I need to check out this entire feud, Konan and Eddie Kingston spouting B-Movie gang nonsense it right up my alley, Konan is going off on how their business are legit now and how he taught Kingston the streets seem like rejected Belly script lines and I loved it. This was a totally fun JAPW style brawl with crazy table bumps, lots of trash can lid shots and everyone looking great. Homicide has really looked rejuvenated in the last year or so, and this was a classic Homicide performance, crazy somersault tope through a table, trying to burn Ortiz with Drano, cursing, selling nerve damage, all of the nutty Homicide shit I fell in love with nearly 20 years ago. Hernandez was a beast too, hitting all of his big spots and strutting around. Both LAX guys were clearly amped to work this match on this stage with these guys and were total superballs just flying all over the ring, I loved their Dead President's face makeup too. Kingston cleaning house post match with a sapper and spray painting the belts was great. I am an unabashed Doghouse mark and this felt like a total throwback to that kind of mania.

ER: I came away a little underwhelmed by this. It came off more like 0.7 JAPW brawl, with light trash can lids and too many instances of guys wobbling on their feet while peaking to see how close someone is to hitting their spot. It felt a little sluggish in spots and didn't have that same chaos that the best of the JAPW brawls have. But I came away really impressed with Santana (and the new LAX in general). Hernandez is older and slower but can still throw guys through tables and still hit that big no hands dive. Homicide brought a lot of selling to this and really stepped back to allow Santana to shine and took a lot of LAX's offense, and I thought Santana made the most of it. Homicide's big moment was that wild flipping tope into Ortiz and through a set up table, really the spot that felt like it finally woke the fans up. Santana was running all over the place during the match, hitting dives, punting Homicide in the face, trying not recommended stuff like leaping off Homicide's back into a crossbody, hitting a great rolling senton onto Hernandez (who was laid out on a ladder) and following that up with a sick Asai moonsault, hits a gorgeous high angle cannonball in the corner, just great energy all around. I wish we got more Kingston involvement, he was far too subdued at ringside. I know Konnan can't actually physically move, so you kind of have to match the energy, but Kingston should have been cheapshotting the hell out of LAX. The tacks finish was unexpected (though another overly long set up), but then Kingston comes in with a slapjack and again just makes me wonder why the hell Kingston wasn't slapping the sap out of these saps all match long.

43. Pentagon Jr. vs. Sami Callihan

PAS: Nifty 2000s indy style garbage brawl, which delivered the gore you want from an apuestas match, Callihan was really leaking and Pentagon had a great ripped mask blade job. I am a low voter on Pentagon, but he is compelling in these kind of gore fest brawls, he is mostly a cool look, but that face paint and mask looks cool as shit with blood dripping down. I really dug the Jimmy Jacobs railroad spike spots (have there been any great Jacobs brawls since he got fired from NXT?) Pentagon banging the spike into Callihan's head with a baseball bat was really violent, and the only good wrestling Frye vs. Takayama spot is Fryeakayaming with railroad spikes. The spot where Callihan throws his cocaine in Pentagon's eyes, and a blinded and high Pentagon breaks the ref's arm was some classic Memphis nonsense. I liked how the finish was decisive and Fenix taking out the Crists was a great set up for the head shaving.

ER: If you're gonna do a throwback indy death match, then sure, go on and do it. Pentagon has become a bigger star over the last few years, and while his popularity creeps steadily up the Y axis, his laziness creeps up there with it. But he's clearly willing to go big when necessary, and Callihan is someone who will not allow somebody to half ass a brawl. They go violent pretty early and TNA/Impact has never really shied away from having their guys basically do death matches. I always think of old Sting working death match spots with Abyss, and this is more in their history of two guys out to murder the other. There's some big stiff shots (Callihan never has a problem leaning into those) and Pentagon always lands nicely on superkicks (which Callihan also leans jaw first into). Their spike spots were fantastic, just super dangerous and disgusting. I loved Pentagon's drawn out spike torture of Callihan, hammering them into his head with Callihan's baseball bat and getting immediate flowing crimson. Pentagon clinking the spikes together before stabbing is like an awesome version of Luther clinking empty bottles in the Warriors. Also loved him tossing Callihan a spike and telling him to bring it. I am a person who is essentially in constant fear of having my eyeglasses broken, so seeing two nutmeats throw hard spike shots inches from their eyeballs just seems not worth it at all, but my god was it a visual. This match is partying like it's 1999 so of course both Crist brothers lean forehead first into Pentagon's chairshots. It's not like we've seen anything bad happen to any of those ECW guys from that era. Things drug on a bit long, but it's an apuestas match so you almost have to go over the top. I did think Callihan's piledriver was just too pretty to kick out of, and the set up was way too much for Pentagon's...and then they go full silly with Callihan kicking out of the package piledriver ON all those set up chairs. It was a crazy spot, but it probably would have been more unexpected to actually have it finish the match. And I appreciate Phil coming up with an entertaining reason for the powder spot, but I think assuming Pentagon went into a 5 second cocaine blackout might be giving them a bit too much credit. Still both guys busted ass and had a memorable mask/hair match filled with the violence you'd want from both guys. Booking a violent hair match when you're starting to thin on top is a smart business strategy, one oddly not capitalized on by WWE and Baron Corbin (they could have had a Viktor/Corbin match end in a double pinfall leading to both getting shaved). It reminds me that in the next year or two I'll have to challenge someone, because it will be a damn shame when I just start buzzing my head again, for no reason. Someone at least gotta cut my head open.

9. Austin Aries vs. Moose

PAS: Really great title match, up there with the best of Aries's ROH title defenses. Loved the early part of this with Aries working like Flair against Road Warrior Hawk. When it got into the big near fall section at the end, we got some absolutely huge near falls. Hadn't seen much Moose before, but he has some fun power moves and a willingness to take some big bumps, I really like his no hands headbutt. I liked how Aries kept using cheapshots to get an advantage, and we had some killer big spots, including Aries getting tossed into the crowd, Moose killing him with a forearm counter to the low tope, Moose missing his dive on the ramp, and Aries going for almost a stinger splash on the outside. The finish was decisive, but still left me wanting to see a rematch. Just great stuff all around, kudos to both guys.

ER: What a fantastic match and I think a legitimate contender for best TNA/Impact match ever. Low-Ki/Sonjay Dutt was fantastic but this felt like a classic, like an modern take on Flair/Luger. Earlier in the year Impact aired a tag match from NOAH featuring Moose, and I thought he looked like a total superstar in that match. And while I've liked his Impact work I've never been quite as impressed in the same way. Well, here I think he turned in one of the finest heavyweight performances of the year. And Aries is arguably the best wrestler in the world who we rarely write about. This will be only the 5th time we've written about Aries, and the first time in 5 years he's shown up on our MOTY List. But I loved this match so much, just a classic big title main event. This hit me in a similar way to the Gargano/Almas match, where things kept building perfectly and the execution from both men was impeccable. The match made Moose look like a guy who should be a big player in wrestling, and it made Aries look like a guy who shouldn't be stuck wrestling other guys around 205 pounds.

Aries' strikes (especially those quick and sharp back elbows) looked like something that would hurt any wrestler, and he never let any little attack slide. One of my favorite little moments of the match was when he and Moose were fighting on the floor and with Moose slumped in the railing Aries walks up and whips him with a nasty side kick to the stomach. It's a little thing, but you see guys throw away or space out on those kinds of exchanges all the time, enough that it really stands out when they're not. All of the big spots looked fantastic. I leapt out of my chair when Moose countered Aries' tope. We've seen that spot a lot over the last decade, and we've seen some nasty variations on it (Sasha falling out of the ring onto her head after Asuka kicked her out of the air comes to mind), but this might have been the best executed version of that spot. Aries looked like he flew into a brick wall, body horizontal practically in mid air when Moose countered that low angle tope, like Wile E. Coyote running into a tunnel painted onto a cliffside. When Aries eventually does hit that tope it looks great, really slamming fast into Moose. All of Moose's power offense looks even better against Aries, who is not only smaller but a guy who knows how to take offense. I love press slam spots so a press slam spot with a guy getting thrown into a crowd is just icing. But Moose shows Aries a thing or two about taking nasty spills, wiping out rows of chairs after flying into the crowd, and crashing like an air show disaster on a dive to the entrance ramp. That tumble was really nasty and sprawling, and Aries followed it up with a killer running double knee strike, running down the ramp way to plaster Moose against the ringpost. Moose threw a couple cool headbutt cut-offs, and Aries had great ideas about how to logically come back on offense. This match up went so well that I suddenly want to see much more from both, and they weren't exactly guys who were strangers to my eyes before now. Excellent title match, one of my very favorite matches of the year.

ER: This show definitely delivered, even the matches that we didn't write up were worth checking out. Any show with three matches landing on our MOTY List is notable, and this show really felt like a company worth spending time with. How often have you said that about TNA?

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose

15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12

ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.

PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/25/15 Review

1. Moose vs. A guy with the last name Carter

Silly flipping spear, match over. "What a way to kick off this hour of ROH television." Okay, Kevin Kelly. Elgin comes out after prompted by Stokely Hathaway. and gets in Moose's face. Moose says "we can do this right now". Never before has anybody who said that, actually done something right now. Truth Martini says a bunch of stuff I don't listen to. Any Truth Martini is too much, but it sets up this match...

2. Moose & Michael Elgin vs. Donovan Dijak & J. Diesel

And it's not bad! It's brisk, almost worked tornado style. Everybody except Moose looked good. Moose had these terrible standing headbutts to Diesel's shoulder, and Diesel looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to be selling. Elgin hit a fun somersault senton off the apron, Diesel took an absolutely disgusting spinning back chop to the face from Elgin (that one got a couple rewinds), Dijak takes a crazy Psicosis ropes bump off a lariat, Taeler Hendrix looked like a weird plastic monster, Dijak's 360 pump kick is goofy but resulted in Moose getting kicked in the neck (even though Moose doesn't get that whole selling thing at all). So yeah, this was good. Moose is not good.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Jay Lethal

Damn this was goooood. I strongly dislike most of this Jay Lethal touring heel champ run, as he has terrible offense for a main event heel, the worst finisher in wrestling, and just doesn't have the persona for the style he's trying to work. Strong I like, but wasn't expecting anything when I dislike 50% of the guys in a match. But the match kicked ass. It's probably, easily, the best match from the whole run of shows shown on Destination America. Strong beat Lethal's ass the whole match, tossing out big elbows and nasty chops, really working him over all around the ring.  There was a minor blown spot that I think helped things, where Strong tried to pick Lethal up to drop him with a backbreaker he dropped him. BUT then he muscled him up hardway to redo the spot and planted Lethal over his knee. I'm not usually the biggest fan of immediately redoing spots, but it just made Strong look determined. Least favorite part of the match was Lethal hitting the Lethal Injection only to have Strong kickout. The kickout itself was really well done, nicely placed, made sense in the match, but Lethal made this impossibly goofy face afterwards to express "shock" and the camera just lingered on this awful face. He had half his lip tucked into his mouth and was doing these exaggerated stage breaths, like the community theatre cast of Godspell coming out for a minorly deserved curtain call. His horrible facial expression, with that weird tucked lip and heaving breath, looked like he was doing an impression of Oklahoma doing his impression of JR. I'm not sure what face he thought he was making, but it couldn't have possibly been that face. Lethal did keep going for his bad offense, his wimpy dives, his horrible finisher, but Strong just kept beating ass. His knees are a thing of beauty. He's got the timing down pat, and I've seen few better jumping knees. The finish run was great with Strong throwing every single thing at Lethal, one right after the other, and you knew it was building to something big, like when they shoot up tons of fireworks right at the end of 4th of July, all at once, with Lee Greenwood playing somewhere. Strong hits some big ass knees, a big gutbuster, his running kick, backbreaker, really just stacking up all his offense for one big blowoff. By the time he locked on the Stronghold Lethal tapped almost to just make it stop, which was the proper finish. Really really good match, not just because it exceeded expectations, but because it was legitimately good. And also, because that means less Lethal in big title matches, some distance for Strong and Lethal, and puts everybody in a better place.

If this was the last episode on DA (and I think it was) they at least went out on a nice high note.

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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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Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/29/15 Review

So last week was a real dud of an episode. Let's hope for a wee bit better show this week? I already had a laptop blow up, fiscal year end kicked my butt, and I need a good show here.

1. The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. Corey Hollis & Jonathan Gresham

This was a decent enough extended squash, got over the Kingdom as it intended. Gresham took some nice bumps into the railing, and man is he tiny. I kind of hate how Hollis bumps. I had never seen him before. I'm okay with that. We go through a long awful stretch where Bennett is repeatedly duped by Gresham essentially running back and forth in the ring. Taven on one side, Bennett on the other, Gresham running between them and getting grabbed by Taven, then slipping out with Bennett chasing him back and forth. It looked terrible, just an awful run of cat and mouse. They did it so much it looked like the moment when you noticed HHH set up every single one of his moves with an Irish whip. But, that was just the middle. It was fine. Not fine to the literal dictionary definition; but fine, as it's most commonly used. Which is to say, it was okay.

Destination America regularly pushes a show called "Killing Bigfoot" which...I gotta say I do not understand. Destination America has (no less than) 9 shows dedicated to Bigfoot. A cursory check of some well known science journals confirms that as of this writing we have still discovered zero Bigfoots. But apparently there is an entire show dedicated to killing a Bigfoot. I am looking forward to watching other Destination America programs like "Sanding Down Unicorn Horns" or "Shitting Down the Long Neck of Loch Ness".

2. Caprice Coleman vs. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Silas Young vs. Cheeseburger vs. Moose vs. Dalton Castle

God hearing Kevin Kelly try to explain Silas Young's gimmick is the worst. "He's in a baaaad mood...and...he's angry...and he thinks people like Dalton Castle are what's WRONG with society." Really? That's what you got? This wasn't that good, but really who was expecting it to be with these participants. I liked some of Castle's cut off spots. Coleman had some nice moments like a weird little moonsault to the floor that Bob and Cheeseburger whiffed on catching. Moose is one of those guys like Uhaa Nation who is a large impressive black man who has improbably soft offense. His little flipping spear looks so super gentle (and really to use that as the finish directly after Mike Bennett used his spear to set up the finish, come on). Highlight was pretty easily Castle hitting his hardway German on Moose, really slooooowly lifting him up and over. Really impressive spot. Cheeseburger continued his run of terrible by being way late for a pinfall break-up, so Sinclair had to stop the count for no reason before the 3. Evans had his feet on the ropes, but Cheeseburger was clearly supposed to break up the pin. He was way late, Sinclair just stopped counting the pin. And it was immediately before the finish. Tough spot for Sinclair to be in, and after he tried pretending like he had seen Evans' feet on the ropes, but he clearly stopped while still looking down. Yuck.

Corino and Kelly are so bad during these Whitmer segments. I don't know what they think they're going for when they do reactions shots, but they're failing. Kelly is sub-Tenay when it comes to expressing realistic outrage, and Corino does some sort of weird fake cry/trying not to laugh face.

3. ACH vs. Bobby Fish

Hey this was fun, and pretty easily the best match on a show with zero competition for that title. ACH's apron kick looked great and his handspring moonsault was crazy, also liked a couple of his kicks to Fish's calf. End got a little sloppy with kicks landing when they were supposed to miss and then subsequently not sold because they were supposed to miss, and things getting overall way too cooperative. But, I like Fish and ACH has some fun athletic spots, and for a short little TV match this was much more of what I was hoping for.

Better show than last week, but it would have to be historically bad for that to not be the case.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 6/17/15 Review

Kevin Kelly looks like current Henry Winkler.

1. Colby Corino & Adam Page vs. War Machine (Hanson & Rowe)

This again started with Whitmer graciously giving his spot to Corino, and then War Machine lacing into Corino as Page refused to tag in. I like how this has been presented so far, although I'm not totally sure *where* it's going. Corino won't be able to realistically get much offense in against any of these guys, as man is he scrawny. I do like him showing some spunk, slapping Rowe and going after Hanson right when he tagged in. Rowe's rolling tilt-a-whirl back/chest breakers into a powerbomb looked nasty, and I dug the Steve Corino/Whitmer tease in the postmatch. Still, curious where they're going, how they're gonna get there, and how long the plan is. With those questions I presented, I suppose you can refer to me as a man who is "engaged".

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Moose

A lot of this was problematic, but had some moments. Moose is still really green, and doesn't have great timing on a lot of things. He took a nice ringpost bump and threw a great clothesline, but also showed horrible instincts catching a flip dive, stumbles into place at other times. The bomb trading portion of the match looked really good, which was not what I was expecting. I also liked the screwy finish that costs Moose his first loss, if only because Cedric made the shot with the wrench look really great. It was easily his best strike of the match, making me think of only one thing: "Make it good!" RIP Dusty. I don't think Cedric is very good, so the choice to have him end the Moose streak is curious, but sometimes streaks can be more of a crutch so maybe they just wanted to unburden him with it. Look man, I don't have answers.

3. ACH & Matt Sydal vs. Tetsuya Naito & Hiroshi Tanahashi

Well hey, this was pretty good! I liked ACH more than Sydal in this, which surprised me as Sydal is a guy I like and ACH is a guy I usually do not. But now I'm thinking that's just because I've only seen ACH working long singles, and I should just watch him working more tags. Because tags make more sense for him. Naito is a guy who is...not good...but actually showed some sort of charisma while working as an invading pseudo heel here. He kept doing these weird "wide eyed" mannerisms which read like he was taunting white people. That is officially more personality I've ever seen from him. There was some clunkiness throughout this, but damn if ACH doesn't hit the awesome Aerostar flip dive, we get a cool Tanahashi German suplex with him grabbing Sydal out of the air while Sydal was doing a standing moonsault, and we got a great near fall save from Naito that conceivably could have been the 3. Ending was a little anti-climactic, but overall this was plenty decent.

I'm always a sucker for a contract signing in wrestling. I love the build to the table getting flipped over. Jay Lethal was really good with that, saying "yeah, I could flip this table over, get mad, but I'm not gonna do that." And then Briscoe made him mad and you KNOW that table got flipped the fuck over. Truth Martini makes a contract signing (or anything, really) worse, but even though nothing of note happened here, it did make me more interested in the match.

Better episode this week. I was all dewy eyed and tired after work, so I sat back in the chair and it was that satisfying kind of focus, and I dug what was presented. I'm surprised they didn't push their PPV way more, as they hammered it home during the contact signing, and a little during the Moose match, but it's wild there weren't constant commercials for it. Seems like that's a big deal, right?

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 6/3/15 Review

I'm happy to have more wrestling on my TV. Maybe I'm a luddite - well, I definitely am - but getting to watch something on my large HD TV screen will always win out over watching that same thing on my laptop. I've been mostly out of the ROH loop for the last year or two - there are no Sinclair stations in my area - so let's dive back in and watch, shall we?

I know these aren't filmed exclusively for DA, but it would be cool if this brings them any amount of new fans. And I can't imagine a better introduction to new fans than seeing the hate-filled scowl of Jay Briscoe and caveman insanity of Mark. I love Briscoe promos.

1. Will Ferrara vs. KUSHIDA

I had not seen Ferrara before, and that was probably a good thing. Will Ferrara was definitely a current day indie wrestler. Went through all the motions and movements of a wrestler, no substance whatsoever. There's this certain way a lot of newish indie workers move, this puffed chest/butt out style of movement, and he's got that down pat. He wimps out of his clothesline follow through and seems scared to hit people with his dropkick, but he knows chest puff/butt out style. KUSHIDA has popped up lately on the Friday NJPW show, and he's okay but also has a lot of weenie strikes. His springboard head graze is apparently a signature spot of his (I thought he was working a parody highflyer gimmick against Ricochet), and he throws these real lousy not punches/not forearms where he just kinda hits Ferrara's forehead with his wrist. Imagine the worst version of the way Robert Gibson would throw punches off a hot tag. Ferrara hits an impressive suicide dive tornado DDT but it doesn't really go anywhere. I do love the hoverboard lock as a finisher, looks nasty and Ferrara only briefly held on before wisely tapping. So I liked that, but a lot of this was....not much.

2. Silas Young vs. Watanabe

Young's "Last Real Man" persona rings a little hollow with me as I'm always just left wishing he was more of an asskicker. He's got a great 'stache, and a good mug, but doesn't really work stiff and really, just kind of scowls. It needs some work. Watanabe is a pretty low end NJPW guy who throws poor elbow strikes and sells moves by making exaggerated Eddie Murphy-as-Buckwheat faces. Young kicks him in the ear and Watanabe perks his head up, widens his eyes and purses his lips. Maybe it's more of a Church Lady reaction. He does it three different times here. Young takes a couple nice bumps here, bouncing off the apron after a clothesline and flipping over off a suplex on the floor, but Watanabe isn't very good and Young seems like he needs an actual asskicker in there with him to bring out his best.

3. Moose vs. Colby Corino

I'm a fan of a good squash and Corino manned into some stuff admirably here. Corino is scrawny enough that I cringed whenever he would get tossed around. He takes a big time bump into the guardrail, takes a powerbomb on the apron and one on the floor. I dig squashes in wrestling, especially on an ROH card so we don't just see 8 straight matches of do-si-do mirror sequences.

4. Donovan Dijak & J. Diesel vs. The Briscoes

This was a nice extended squash. Diesel works an amusing golden gloves boxing gimmick, Dijak is a guy with some height and not much else. I love all of Mark's strikes and his dropkicks are some of the best in wrestling. Jay is maybe the most intense dude in wrestling today, his scowls are downright mean. I wish I could have seen them work WAR. I love Briscoe matches when they just start going on a rampage, they both know how to ramp things up so damn well.


This was kind of a weird episode to debut to a wider audience. I know they just opted to show the Sinclair episode that already aired this week (which makes sense) but this was not a good episode in the least for new eyeballs. The homegrown guys looked like duds, and the two matches they pushed from the very beginning of the show didn't end up actually happening, which might look odd to new eyes. Not that anybody would have likely been clamoring for BJ Whitmer in a singles match, but it's strange to start a show advertising just two matches, and keep advertising them throughout the show, and then do a bait and switch on both of them. At least the Briscoes were featured, who are no doubt the best guys in the fed, so at least they had that on their side. Still, you have to assume somebody somewhere was seeing this for the first time. And that person just got to watch Will Ferrara.

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Evolve 37 1/10/15 Review

1. Shane Strickland vs. Anthony Nese

ER: So earlier in the week I watched a CZW show from late last year which had a Strickland match (vs. Flip Kendrick) that is one of the worst matches I've seen this decade, just a sloppy, poorly laid out mess. Both guys looked awful. Now Flip Kendrick is a guy I've always enjoyed, and had that been the first match I'd seen him in I would not be excited to see him again. So he had an off night. Maybe Strickland also had an off night and is usually somewhat better? Well, he's still not very good, but he didn't look nearly as bad as in that CZW match. He didn't look great, but better. He basically works like the worst version of CMLL wrestler Titan. Does a few of his spots, but worse. His front flip rana to the floor is impressive in theory, but it's set up a mile away and goes really slow. Some of his stuff can look good, but he's really really bad at going through planned sequences. He cannot make them look more rehearsed. His face just goes completely blank and you can practically see him mouthing the steps. None of the stuff comes off looking natural in the least. Nese is a guy with some polish and some good execution. The match didn't really go in a direction that interested me, but Nese has been around long enough that I can see him having good matches with better opponents.

2. Timothy Thatcher vs. Roderick Strong

PAS: Really enjoyed this, as this was a grittier more violent match then Thatcher often is involved in. The matwork was less trading holds and more really aggressive amateur rolling. They roll to the ground and Strong firemans carries Thatcher and smashes his head into the post. Then you have Strong throwing big bombs and Thatcher, glassy eyed trying to grab holds while he still had his wits about him. It actually felt a little like a Fujiwara performance, down to the cool flash finish.

ER: Really loved this match up. Strong is a guy who I like, who does a lot of stuff that I don't like, a guy who has always done good stuff, in between the stuff I hate. But this right here seems like the best possible version of Strong. He was a real ass kicker in this and I love that it brought out aggression in Thatcher. And as Phil said this was less about transitions and holds and reversals, this was two guys not wanting to let up position on the ground, like a spar that turned real nasty. At one point Strong as a can opener locked on while Thatcher is just forcing his elbow into Strong's jaw. Not elbowing him, put holding one side of Strong's head with his left hand, so he can dig into that jaw with his right elbow. And the whole time Strong kept yanking Thatcher's head more and more forward. Awesome spot. Strong had a few nice knee strikes that Thatcher leaned into, and I'm loving more and more the sudden finishes that can happen with Thatcher, Gulak and Busick. Here Thatcher grabs a sweet arm bar that I didn't see coming for the finish. Excited to see more 2015 Strong.

3. AR Fox vs. Trevor Lee

ER: This finished after just a few minutes because Trevor punts Fox right in the eyeball and legit KOs him, or at minimum concussed him. I was starting to think that Fox was just a real good salesman. Match before that was kind of dorky, but kind of amusing. Both guys do really questionable rope running/reversal/one step ahead of your opponent type of stuff, and sometimes that looks good and other times it looks ridiculous and mapped out for miles. I liked all of their cool early armdrag reversals, with a couple blocked armdrags (which is a spot I love) and some real neat variations. But with those cool spots come a lot of needless flips. One spot saw Fox go for a dive, Lee backflip off the apron while Fox does a Misawa feint to the apron, then Fox backflipping off the ring post to the floor which led to him getting his eye socket punted in by Lee. We also get plenty of ambitious strikes that whiff, and would probably look better if they didn't add a spin to everything. Announcers pushed real hard how Trevor Lee is real "over" in PWG but the fans haven't quite taken to him the same way here, saying they aren't sure what to make of how he acts and how he dresses. Wellllll….color me confused as I have never seen Lee before but he acts totally normal and he was wearing black trunks with black boots/kickpads. It's not like he was wearing crotchless chaps and wrestling on his hands or anything. Until they started babbling about how he looked I never would have thought he looked odd. Am I missing something?

4. Biff Busick vs. Uhaa Nation

ER: Well Uhaa has the best theme song in wrestling. And I loved the announcers going the full Kal Rudman while talking about him. "Just eat a cheeseburger why don't you, get up to 1% body fat. Muscle on top of muscle. Jacked." I love that they're just going for it, looking at Uhaa and getting choked up like John Boehner talking about America. Overall I liked this match, really liked Busick in this and Uhaa had some moments. Uhaa's problem seems to be that he really focuses on the "athletic" portion of his offense, even if the follow through of said offense suffers. You can't go 30 seconds in this match without hearing the dual Rudmanning of Uhaa's athleticism. Every time he left his feet was met with orgasmic moans, followed by more fawning over his abdominal muscles. But he seems way too inside of his athletic self. He'll leap up real high for an elbow drop, but the elbow drop doesn't look very good. He'll get an insane leap on a flying clothesline, but the clothesline itself won't look great. So it's obvious he has impressive leaping ability and looks very light on his feet in general, but when you look at his offense from the angle of what is actually being done to his opponent it does not seem as impressive. But it's very easy to get blinded with the athletic portion of the move and the actual impact portion gets kind of swept under as you're still reacting to "athleticism". I liked how the story began, with Busick working over his ribs, tossing out some of the nastiest knees you've seen (which led to a nice reversal by Uhaa when he did a forward roll over a knee for a roll up) and a nice abdominal stretch, followed by a cool half nelson suplex reversal (which Uhaa popped up for to hit a clothesline, blecch). Busick looked great throughout, always seems to have a good match planned for his opponent. I think he fed into Uhaa nicely, bumping big on suplexes and clotheslines, large bumps but appropriate for what was being done. I love his headlock takeover into a choke submission finisher, and while there were faults to the match this was plenty good.

5. Drew Galloway vs. Ricochet

PAS: Great match, the best I have seen from either guy. Galloway has grabbed the early pole position for wrestler of the year. We start out with some outside of the ring brawling which delivered a couple of crazy athletic spots by Ricochet, he gets thrown in the air, grabs a basketball hoop and twists his way into a rana, it is something Gerald Green and Juventud Guerrera should steal for the dunk contest. Ricochet then tries a wall walk moonsault, gets caught and thrown brutally into a concrete wall. When the match gets back into the ring, Ricochet goes after the finger Galloway injured in his Strong street fight, and Ricochet makes a surprisingly effective Fuchi. Finish was great, Galloways splint comes off and catches Ricochet in the eye, and after waiting a split second Galloway jumps him and hits a couple of big moves for the finish, fun subtle heel turn in the spirit of Tommy Rich v. Bill Dundee in early 80's Memphis.

ER: Well this match was great. I loved loved loved all of this. The early spots that Phil mentioned were insane. Ricochet getting tossed into the hoop and then fluidly swinging back with a rana is something that could easily come off like an overused winking Human Tornado kind of spot, but here it almost comes off organic, as if Galloway tossed him into a wall not knowing there was a hoop there and Ricochet pulled off the ultimate ad lib. It's like when a guy goes through a table that wasn't actually set up by his opponent, just so much more satisfying when you don't see the spot coming. The run-up-the-wall moonsault, caught by Galloway and ending with Galloway chucking him into the wall was flat out brutal, Ricochet's body splayed out in a fantastic thud. Back in and Ricochet gets all Finlay on us by ripping off Galloway's finger splint and ripping apart at his fingers. He even does amusing indy spots like a standing moonsault onto the bad hand. Ricochet bumps like wild on Drew's comebacks, not just that earlier spot getting tossed into a wall. He gets suplexed into the corner, leans into strikes, and then the spot of the match with Drew obliterating Rico with literally the greatest top top clothesline in the history of this great sport. I've wracked my brain trying to think of a better one. I remember Ikeda hitting a great one off the top in NOAH. But this one. This was the best. Drew's follow through was immaculate and the way Ricochet imploded was perfection. Wrestling spot of the year? Most possibly. They really could have done anything after that spot and I would have given it 8 stars, but the rest of the match is perfectly fine, and the finish is great as Drew accidentally catches Rico in the eye with his splint, and looks genuinely apologetic with the apologies. I bought them. Then sprints out of the corner to blast him with a kick for the pin. Awesome. Great match-up.

6. Johnny Gargano, Rich Swann & Chuck Taylor vs. The Bravado Brothers & Moose

ER: Well, this was...okay? But not really my cup of tea. One of those matches where for every thing I like about it, there's something that takes me out of it. None of these 6 are guys who I will actively seek out, or get excited about if they're an opponent of somebody I like. But 6 mans can be a kind of magic for average wrestlers, where they can hide all their flaws and come out the other end with a nice tidy 15 minutes of pro wrestling. And this wasn't not that...on a base level the match was fine. No silly overkill and plenty of fun moments. By the end it just didn't add up to much. It's the kind of match that seems fine if you're watching it with buddies, half paying attention to the match and half focusing on chatting about movies you've seen recently or how you can't believe you love Bates Motel as much as you do. But actually watching the match, you see cracks. Dives that whiff, eyeballs trying to remember sequences instead of looking natural, people timing out their steps tap dance style. Gargano is a guy who is pushed hard by Evolve, and even the announcers put over as "the face of Evolve", which just seems wild to me as there are few guys on the Evolve roster who I usually remember less about than Gargano. He's a guy I've rarely been offended by, and has rarely impressed me. Swann I probably like the most of these 6, he adds the most little details to his flash. He can throw in little struggles like he and Harlem fighting over a suplex that he ends up eventually reversing to a small package, and comes off the most natural in rope running exchanges. The Bravados have improved in the last few years and look good when working team spots, less so separately. Lance seems like the clear better one to me. I actually liked some of his punches during brawling portions, and Bravados were never guys I thought "nice punches!" about. Moose is your large Kofi Kingston, doing athletically impressive spots that don't really hit very well, or is dependent on big bumpers. His standing clothesline looked good, or was it Swann leaning into it? His duel fallaway slam/samoan drop looked impressive, but it also required Swann to find a plausible way to set it up. But none of this overstayed its welcome and that counts for a lot, finding the right time to end things is a big deal that a lot of indy wrestling doesn't understand. This match was all perfectly acceptable wrestling, just as equally as it was perfectly forgettable wrestling.


Overall this was a real good card. Two MOTYC on one card will do that. Outside of the excellent Drew/Ricochet and Thatcher/Strong, I dug the Busick match and nothing else was offensive. Definitely going to be doing more Evolve reviews. Linked below is our 2015 MOTY list, since both the Galloway and Thatcher matches were easy inclusions to that:


2015 MASTER LIST

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