WingedEagle

This was a lot of fun. The "blink and you'll miss it" approach to early falls is one thing I really don't care for, so it was great to see the first fall here feature a sustained heel beatdown on Tarzan Boy with blood, antics from Satanico on the outside and a satisfying, non-flash finish. Not so much on the second fall, where after continuing the heat for a bit Tarzan Boy grabs a small package counter that felt very contrived and poorly executed to even thing sup. The blood seemed to come out of nowhere for both men, but natural or otherwise I'm not one to complain about double juice in an isolated brawl and it worked well here, as Bucanero in particular bled a lot. I also really dug his face paint. The Satanico interference is paid off in a final fall that features some nice bombs even if the path there was a little awkward. But again, blood and violence can overcome a lot. Felt like a hot finish for the crowd invested in the promotion. ***1/2

I've been slowly marching through Danielson's career and am in the midst of this ROH run so its really interesting to see him at this stage. What stood out most was just how impressively and naturally both men looked simply moving around the ring, as well presenting a compact match with flow and progression rather than simply hopping from spot to spot. While you can see how raw they are from strikes and the execution, or lack thereof, on certain spots, they seemed confident and at ease at every stage -- quick opening, chops, holds and finally working towards big spots. You can also already see that Kendrick may be a bigger fan of certain showmanship aspects than benefits his character. They bring the crowd with them through to the unsatisfying finish. It'll be fun to see how quickly and notably both develop. **3/4

Nice! Let me know if there are any under the radar matches worth checking out. I tried to hit anything big based on recs from Donsem here and other spots, but there are undoubtedly a lot of blind spots. Still getting my lay of the land as far as the entire roster goes am curious to see how they work in outsiders or other promotions to keep things fresh.

Definitely going to the March MSG house show. As noted previously I had a blast last month and with the return also a Smackdown show (plus Lesnar) it was an easy call. Only question is if I force the wife to join this time.

Very much agree with this. You can quibble quite a bit with how they've booked some things on the undercard, but its the undercard. That's just not driving business or storylines and is there as filler.

If you want to get up to speed quickly but catch the big stuff, I'd recommend: Io Shirai & Mayu Iwatani vs. Meiko Satomura & Kairi Hojo (3/21/2016) Io Shirai vs. Mayu Iwatani (5/15/2016) Io Shirai vs. Kairi Hojo (9/3/2016) -- Legit MOTYC From there go right to the Year End Climax show (12/22/2016), and watch the video packages between matches, particularly the main event. That'll get you into 2017 where I believe you'll only have 2 shows to catch up on. Happy to provide more recs if you'd like but don't want to overwhelm someone right away. Enjoy!

I've now watched all 3 Korakuen Hall shows and each was fun and easy to get through. There are no great matches, but the entire tour feels designed to be fun and light rather than great, if that makes any sense. That being said, nothing is bad as most matches are short. If you skip through pre & post match shenanigans you can easily get through these shows in under two hours, and there are probably a couple matches on each show that aren't your fancy. There's something very charming about watching the New Japan regulars not only mix it up with CMLL, but how much many of them truly enjoy it. It sure seemed like this was an absolute highlight for Okada in particular, as he looked to be having the time of his life dancing and wearing a mask on various nights. Don't go into these looking for classics but rather storyline advancements as they build towards the New Beginning shows and let the roster work like its Arena Mexico for a night. If you're looking for highlights, I'd recommend the Tanahashi & friends vs. LIJ, as well as Okada matches from all 3 nights. Volador & Mistico vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Euforia from night 2, as well as the singles pairings involving these pairings on night 3 are also worth your time.

The 80s seem like an easy call. This decade has a sneaky case based on sheer volume and diversity of promotions around the world.

I'm with Muta Liger that the latest Stardom show didn't live up to the December outing, but that also had a legit MOTYC. The HZK/Wolf/Konami match was a surprisingly good triangle match that was well laid out and worked at a great pace that didn't go too long. Lot of fun there. I'm not as sold on the Nixon/Ray tag team as some others apparently are, but that was also a fun match with some big spots. I'll probably rewatch it this week, but I thought Shirai/Viper was actually pretty great, maybe even ****. Shirai did a great job putting over Viper as a monster and making the size difference an effective part of the match before a strong, decisive finishing run that didn't go on forever as can sometimes be the case in joshi. We'll see what happens when she faces Shayna Baszler in February, as I haven't been impressed by her at all. That might be a challenge. All in all it was still a really fun, fast show that Stardom World makes so easy to watch with the translations and how matches are posted.

If the goal was to keep it a clearly inferior secondary title, as was suggested by comparing it to the WWF/E IC Title, it wouldn't have been put in a position to headline their biggest show of the year. Or any of the subsequent PPV / big shows that it has headlined since then and continues to do so on a regular basis.

Here's hoping he likes Palestinian Chicken.

Sometimes I don't know if you are trolling or not... Naito was pinned like 6 times in all of 2016. When they made the first big push for him (when he won the G1) back 4 years ago, it just didn't work out the way that Okada's push the year prior worked out. Naito has been the most over dude in the company for 2 years. All they've done with him was a token IWGP reign where he did nothing and lost his title right back to Okada, and then stuck him with the secondary title that will never, ever be as important. It's basically like taking Austin in 1998 and sticking him in the IC title feuds all year when he's clearly more popular than everyone on the roster and probably the best guy on the roster. It doesn't sound like there's much to say that'll cause you to reconsider the Naito push, but the IC Title in New Japan has been booked and treated as nearly co-equal to the IWGP Title. They let it headline a Wrestle Kingdom a couple years ago with a fan poll, and to this day it headlines PPVs, such as one of the New Beginning shows in a couple weeks. Its not the company's world title, nor should it be. But it -- and Naito -- have certainly been protected and established as legitimate 1B headliners.

I really enjoyed the recent Omega interview on Jericho's podcast. It was taped pre-WK. so the interview focuses on the development of his career and various stops along the way. Leaving aside what one thinks of him as a worker or WK 11, he came across as someone who is incredibly thoughtful about wrestling.

This thread is fascinating to read with the benefit of looking back at his work over the last few years.

Training techniques, diet, science and technology have changed how athletes and performers develop so much its almost impossible to compare at any baseline. No one today is training like Flair & Steamboat, or Jumbo & Brisco did. Today's athletes have an edge because of so many advancements. If you could strip all of that away there might be some means of comparison, but even cardio training is very different now than in previous generations. Is there any sense whether today's wrestlers come to the industry from more diverse, perhaps non-athletic/sport backgrounds than in prior generations?

If you were a diehard Evolve fan and would grab every show than this is a steal. They just don't present a product at this time that merits that type of investment on my end.

Yeah, that's the other problem. Doesn't pass my value test either, but hopefully it does for enough others.

For another perspective, I like JVK. I enjoy his takes on wrestling and frankly don't find his tone all that inciting or offensive. I also don't always agree with him, but get turned off of discussions when the tone or arguments become particularly hostile and vitriolic. It does seem a little simplistic to single out one individual for this type of environment, but perhaps I'm misreading things.

Not knowing much beyond the surface - that WWE is an investor in Floslam - absolutely nothing that takes place should be upsetting or surprising to those associated with the latter. WWE's priority should be its Network. I can't imagine for a minute that anyone associated with Floslam wouldn't expect WWE to utilize every possible opportunity to maximize the value of its network.

That was definitely the weakest Smackdown in quite some time. Not a bad show as it flowed pretty well for 2 hours, A/Miz was cut short too quickly to develop in to something special, while the rest of the show was a ton of video packages and 2 matches that weren't particularly heated and didn't offer much for the live or TV audiences to get behind. Oh well, not every week can be a home run.

Chihiro/Aja was definitely interesting. The early work wasn't particularly interesting, but necessary for where they took things later. Once they got off the mat and started trading bombs it was exactly what you'd want from them. The escalation was spot on with very good selling down the stretch. Hashimoto is understandably limited at this stage of her career but is generally put in positions that accentuate her strengths and hide her weaknesses -- namely delivering & selling big, impressive offense while staying away from the mat and selling for extended stretches. She has a really bright future when considering that potential along with her already unique skills and presence. Very surprised by the finish and am interested to see what direction they go with Hashimoto and the title. Hopefully Aja is still going strong when Hash is more refined on the mat and able to make this match something even more special.

Not suggesting anything because there's zero reason to think they're calling an audible here and have obviously already started teasing it, but Hunter vs. Rollins feels like the one match they should go out of their way to scrap. Rollins is fairly cold as a babyface and it just doesn't feel like the program has any real heat behind it. Would think they could find better directions for both.

He has an entrance that stands out and certainly a personality and charisma that is very unique for ROH, where characters and acts often seem more muted. Between the ropes, aside from a sneaky athleticism that shows up at times I haven't seen anything that has the look of a top act. When controlling his offense doesn't look particularly dangerous or have any unique flow or timing, while his selling doesn't seem to bring things to a new gear either. He very much comes across as the kind of role player that is important to a show because of his contrast with the roster, but I've yet to see anything suggesting any promise as a top act.

Not to derail things, but it seems like this transitioning from important matches to great matches. Perhaps I have a rather high bar and only a few matches seems truly important, whether for their impact on the business or having an enduring legacy -- two admittedly very distinct conclusions.