Thanks for waiting on me! If you've followed my blog you know I am easily distracted. I have a real good plan that gets interrupted by something that draws my attention elsewhere. I'm not like this with serious matters but it's something I do with my hobbies. The seasons usually play some part. In the summer, I tend to focus (fixate) on skateboarding. Invariably I'll get hurt or its too damn hot to skate and that's when I make time for other stuff like wrestling. In the winter, I just tend to get burnt out on wrestling and other stuff. Anyhow, enough about me. Let's see what we've got!

OK first thing, I do not have as much available online as I did for 2013. I've got about a handful of matches as opposed to almost as many full shows online. Also the stuff I bought for 2014 is all over the year. We're starting with February and I think the next DVD I have is in September. So my apologies if you were looking for a more comprehensive overview or even a good summary of the year like I did for 2013. This is going to be a healthy sampling instead. I wish I bought a couple more discs but the quality of the seller wasn't up to my standards anymore. Maybe he got better but I'm not messing with it. Lets start with the first show and any online ones I'll tack on at the beginning or end chronology as we go. Its looking to be a four-parter.

02/08/14

Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Soma Takao  - Good all action Junior match to get things started. Soma impressed me and hope I get to see more of him in 2014. I guess he's a DDT guy like many of the non AJ guys here.

Keisuke Ishii vs. Atsushi Aoki - Good for what the guys in the ring did but Kenso & Nagai spoil it to cause Aoki to lose the match. More of an angle than a full match.

KENSO & Mitsuya Nagai vs. Ryuji Hijikata & SUSHI - Nice music for Nagai & KENSO! But yeah they're the new heel team. I like that. This was a good match and really kicked up a notch when Ryuji Hijikata made the hot tag. Definitely want to see more. Not fully developed since it was meant to get over the new heel team.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Hikaru Sato - I like both guys well enough but I wasn't feeling it. It was a bit too much of "I'm tough!" - "No I'm tough!" wrestling. I can get behind that. I enjoyed Eddie Kingston vs Ishii from the free part of the recent AEW PPV. This match wasn't compelling though. It was too guys doing this type of thing for 10 minutes trying to build to a submission win. But it wasn't for me :-/

Akebono, Shigehiro Irie & Yutaka Yoshie vs. Go Shiozaki, Kento Miyahara & Kaji Tomato - Perfect use of Akebono. The focus is on he vs Shiozaki for the belt. Akebono is amused by Go and his attitude. This is a very interesting perspective for him instead of the super serious one he takes. It shows depth personality which he normally lacks. All that said, the highlight of the match was Irie & Yoshie vs Kento and Tomato. And that's was very good stuff! Heck it all was very good. It was a nice twist that Go couldn't seem to hold his own against even Akebono's partners,and he needed help. Kaji Tomato was new to me but the dude can work. He showed 100% effort. Very good match, scratching at a great one if I'm being honest.

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Kotaro Suzuki vs. Ultimo Dragon - Very good junior match! They wisely treated this as a tournament match instead of a title fight or one time dream match. They made a lot of good decisions in what story to tell, when & how to shift momentum and actually incorporated wrestling holds which we haven't seen much of this show. 

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Joe Doering & Suwama vs. Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori - Tag belts on the line. This starts out well enough and is going along at a good pace. It's operating in that ***3/4 range but eventually switched into high gear. The attacks became fierce, the defensive actions got more desperate and everything just felt more urgent. I really know they have a classic match in them. As it is I would say this ends up as a near classic ****1/4 bout. 

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Pretty darn good show and a super easy way to get back into the groove of things. I really like the variety that they have now. After the Wrestle One exodus, the company was pretty much Burning stable vs AJPW...no complaints from a quality perspective but its nice having the mix of styles.