Jetlag

Chris Hero and Homicide go 40 minutes in a seedy german nightclub. This was actually quite good when they stuck to matwork and basic stuff. They understood how to make their holds meaningful, and Homicide punishing Hero with stomps, kneedrops, headbutts etc. was pretty damn good. However, some of the reversal sequences they tried came across as sloppy and Hero may have oversold as he was acting dead for much of the 2nd and 3rd fall which reflected poorly on Homicide.

Nominating: Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle, wXw 3/11 Full review: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/37567-timothy-thatcher-vs-matt-riddle-wxw-ambition-311/ I am no expert on current wrestling, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being my 2017 MOTY. This is for all you shootstyle loving weirdos. The matwork looked great and they built a really effective narrative. Riddle the modern MMA douche vs. Thatcher the carny Robinson-trained catch wrestler. Riddle's desperation knees on the ground are the greatest thing.

I remember PCO being really cool when he was working indies, such as IWS. He looked like a class above everyone else. Feels like a guy who flew under the radars.

For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was excellent. Grappling Riddle using his legit ability is so much better than PWG style flopping around Matt Riddle. One could argue that this was a little your-turn-my-turn-ish, but fuck that. This was some real wrestling and I won't say no to that. Riddle as a highly athletic, flexible modern MMA freak vs. the carniness of Thatcher with his nasty facelocks and toeholds was great. They are smart enough to stay on the mat and deliver the focussed, high end grappling you want from a shootstyle main event. Also really liked how they built a really great, edge-of-your-seat-type finishing run while sticking to their strengths and keeping it groundbased. Riddle desperately contorting his body to avoid Thatcher's wristlock and making an awesome comeback using his ground knees is easily the highlight of his career so far. The only problem with the match was that the actual finish looked like crap, but everything up to it was fine fine wrestling.

For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was very good for what it was; WALTER clubbers Cobb, Cobb throws an absolutely hellish suplex and finishes with a nasty neck crank. The problem was that it went 2 minutes. Seriously, screw wXw for that shitty booking because this could have been great. Still, that Cobb suplex has to be seen.

For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was quite good, like you'd expect from these two. The grappling was positively PWFG and had a ton of physicality, and they went to tell a story, with Cobb obviously being the surperior wrestler and just an impossible to move beast on the mat, while Thatcher could win with submissions. I loved all the spots where Thatcher was overwhelmed by Cobb's Cobbness, such as Cobb easily shrugging off his attempts at a butterfly suplex or Thatcher getting squished by a basic waistlock. Also, at one point Cobb just cradled Thatcher into a pretzel. He really should make that move his finisher because it was freakin awesome. The finish was actually exciting and they played off their previous matches in the tournament.

For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once per year. This was surprisingly good. Al-Ani is a talented german guy who can go on the mat, and Thatcher meant business. Al-Ani didn't do anything brilliant, but he could put up a fight against Thatcher, which was enough. Thatcher did all these neat little tricks and nasty holds. Twisting at the ankles, a nasty rolling clutch and a really painful looking grovit that he finished Al-Ani off with. This stayed on the mat and that was the right thing to do.

Dragunov is this schlubby dude whose stuff really doesn't look that good. However, the german fans took a liking to him and thus he gets a big push. This was good. Ilja isn't a spot guy, so they actually build to the spots and generate some drama. Walter just punishes the little guy which is what you want. The match went downhill a little when they did the endless chop exchange, but puro cosplaying comes with the territory I guess. I really liked how Walter just flattened Ilja when he tried to hulk up and the finish, even with Ilja's lacking execution, was good solid pro wrestling charm.

Walter looked good here. For some reason, he is easily the most talented guy to come out of germany/austria recently, but he is rarely put in a position where he can do what he does best. As usual he had to stooge a lot for his smaller opponent, who didn't look all that good. Walter's leg work was pretty great. Fuck knows why a giant austrian farmer boy has to work like Regal, but he does it well. Of course, Riddle no sells aaaaalll of it and just gets his shit in. I was glad when Walter crushed him with the powerbomb. Enjoyable match.

I didn't really like Starr in this. He had all this dweeby offense that didn't look good at all against Walter, and he was far too reliant on Walter feeding into him in convoluted ways, like leap frogging over Walter and all that dumb shit. Also, his Davey Richards-like "intense" facial expressions where really annoying. You are supposed to sell that you are getting the shit beaten out of you first, and not how angry or badass you are. This needed more Walter stomping the shit out of Starr to be good and less Starr popping up to get his shit in against the bigger guy. For example, Starr would just absorb a big spot from Walter like that huge dropkick, and then the next minute just hit a brainbuster type move.

Paul London wrestling in payamas is hilarious. Another moves match. These type of fights are okay once in a while, but when every match on the show is like this things get boring. Well, there was some semblance of a heat section in this, but in the end there were too many random transitions and throwaway moves for me to take this seriously. London hits the SSP for the big 2.99999 moment before Bones pops up and just finishes him. Lame.

Okay match. These first round matches have been essentially "cram moves into 5 minutes", so Donovan deserves some credit for actually selling a bit. I don't really like these "lift opponent into a convoluted position and then drop him into a knee strike" moves they did a bunch here and Riddle kind of looked like a feeble little kid against Dijak at times, which is the opposite of what you want from your MMA badass.

This was kind of mediocre. It was kind of like, Kanemoto on a WCW syndicated match vs., I dunno, Alex Wright? There was no real great matwork and Kanemoto didn't really lay in his strikes. I mean, I don't want him to concuss his opponent, but even his chops and slaps looked week. Also, Thatcher did all these goofy "I am evil" faces and Kanemoto seemed to threat the match like a light hearted affair, waving to the crowd and being all big smiles.

God damn that balding spot on Muto. Good match which was interesting due to Muto not yet having turned into the Shining Wizard spammer. Instead he spammed Figure 4 leg locks. Still, Tenryu carried this nicely. The opening technical work was actually good and then Tenryu just beat the hell out of Muto. Loved the spot where Muto tried his handspring move and got just chopped in the neck. Tenryu busted out a few unusual moves like a fucking Spider Suplex and an extra messed up version of his shitty brainbuster to drill Muto into the mat. Should have been a little more reliant on strikes than big moves in the last couple minutes as Tenryu just doesn't have a big enough moveset for that type of stuff, plus I was a little annoyed with Muto's popping up, but they kept things exciting and did the big move extravaganza very well. Extra-nasty finish too and this is easily one of the better Muto singles.

Indy sleaze superstar Orihara comes to NJPW to battle their resident sleazebag! Lots of Face Washes and blocked snapmares ensue. This was a ton of fun. Orihara uses rough tactics and Ohtani is not afraid to retaliate. Orihara looked pretty good, kicking Ohtani in the balls a bunch and laying in stiff chairshots aswell as bringing the highspots and some smart control spots. Ohtani took no crap and bloodied Orihara's nose. Meltzer's rating seems pretty high but this was a very good sub-10 minute match.

I didn't really think the matwork was outstanding or unique from what I've seen in joshi. They did the usual stretching holds and then moved on. They also teased (or should say "pretended") Genki working the back and Ran going for chokes but it didn't lead anywhere at all. The body of the match just struck me as average and not really building very well.

That's a crazy rating. I thought this match wasn't even good. It was above average in parts, but mostly it was just a deathly bland affair that didn't even have much crowd heat and was pretty sloppy in parts, that atrocious blown rollup sticking out the most. After some okay-ish time killing they just moved into the usual big move and 2.999999 trading without much creativity. No transitions or even nice reversals or exchanges, just pop and do the next move. Lousy match.

This was pretty epic for such a minimalist match. The main thing that these guys do is STARES. And these guys are the masters of staring. You get all kinds of awesome moments thanks to their facial expressions. The pacing and build is of the charts too and thus the crowd is on fire for the finish. The story of Hashimoto coming in, taking out Tenryu's leg and then just drilling him repeatedly in his own ring made for a really compelling match as you were wondering how Tenryu could come back. I don't want to glorify overly stiff moves but Tenryu bloodying Hash's nose was good way to remind you he is still Tenryu even when in trouble. The bomb throwing, and subsequently Tenryu pushing ahead to overcome Hashimoto was really great too. Great match.

Minoru Tanaka looked like he was cosplaying Tamura to get a gig in RINGS here. Tanaka actually tried to have a serious match here and went above his usual mediocrity, so this isn't quite "Ishikawa carries someone to his career match for the 3,000th time", but, still... you don't really see Minoru Tanaka matches this good against someone not named Ishikawa. Really good match with no cute stuff, just really good matwork and Ishikawa doing a great job playing outmatched veteran worker against younger athlete.

Michiko Ohmukai/Yumi Fukawa vs. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino (Twinstar Tag League '99 Semi-Finals, 12/18/99) The Ohmukai/Fukawa team hasn't really set my world on fire so far. You'd think they'd complement eachother or something, but not really. This was clipped and looked like just a bunch of spots. I guess you can't have blood drenched awesome tags all the time. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Aja Kong/Rie Tamada (Twinstar Tag League '99 Semi-Finals, 12/18/99) Another clipped match. These standard LCO matches are pretty crap, altough they have some amusing spots. The LCO double chop has to be one of the laziest spots ever though. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Michiko Ohmukai/Yumi Fukawa (Twinstar Tag League '99 Finals, 12/18/99) More the same. Fuck this go go shit. This only went 6 minutes anyways. There was no real trace of the stuff that made the previous LCO/Fukawa stuff compelling. Ohmukai threw a few punches and Shimoda blows a spot where she is supposed to dodge an Ohmukai kick and gets kicked in the eye pretty badly. LCO win this in shockingly easy fashion and I'm kind of dreading the further LCO push. BONUS MATCH – Yumi Fukawa vs. Mariko Yoshida (9/26) You can call this a mat spotfest if you will, but fuck it. This ruled. This is exactly what makes Arsion so cool. Ultra smooth, tricked out matwork with plenty of freaky Solar-ish submission grabs, dreadful battling on the ground and Fukawa fighting the big bad spider lady like a fiend. Super enjoyable compact bout. So that, uh, ends it on a kind of whatever note for 1999. This year had some pretty great matches but overall was a bit of a step down from the super interesting stuff that was going on in 1998. Dropping the badass quasi shootstyle hurt for sure aswell as the lousy LCO run. Atleast we got a great bloodbath out of it. Best ARSION Matches of 1999 1. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (2/18) 2. Etsuko Mita/Mima Shimoda vs. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino (12/11) 3. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/14) 4. Yumi Fukawa vs. Mariko Yoshida (9/26) 5. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (5/4) 6. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mika Akino (1/17) 7. Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa (5/4) 8. Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong (8/6) 9. Mikiko Futagami vs. Michiko Ohmukai (5/4) 10. Ayako Hamada vs. Mari Apache (7/25) 11. Mari Apache vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25) 12. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Yumi Fukawa/Rie Tamada (7/25) 13. Mika Akino vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25)

This match is a literal riot. St. Clair is your good old clean british technician babyface, but Bond just busts out every single cheating tactic he knows, causing a big fight to break out which was one of the more surreal images you could see on WoS. Bond's work over the midsection and his use of the wrist tape is the stuff of legends. I also really dug his elbow to St. Clair's face and weird rope balancing headlock. Really cool stuff that looks slick, effective and believable. St. Clair was exactly as good as he needed to be in the role he was in and gave Bond enough material to bump and stooge, but this was the Dave Bond Show. Also, Bond's facial expressions and body language were hilarious. However, I loved the abdominal stretch nearfall. Only in World of Sport. The finish was kinda lame, but the spot that lead to it was cool.

Greco/Ishikawa/Hidaka vs. Ikeda/Naniwa/Yone (Elimination Tag, BattlARTS 5/10/1998) When you see "BattlARTS" and "Elimination Tag", you think of that super classic from 2008. This wasn't that epic, but still a great piece of pro wrestling. The elimination stip adds a good deal of character and unpredictability to the match, and everyone here gets to look really good. The Naniwa/Ishikawa interactions are so much fun. Hidaka also looks like the most talented kid here, and not just because of his flying. Dude could really dish out the palm strikes. Of course, Ikeda leads his team as a bastard heel captain and it comes down to Team Greco ending up in a disadvantaged situation. Lots of double teaming and nasty boot scrapes ensue. Eventually Greco ends up being the focus of the match, and let me tell you he was tremendous. His selling and fighting back from underneath was world class. The fact that Greco always looks like he can finish an opponent in 2 seconds also adds a ton. After the match a brawl breaks out with all the jumpsuit kids having to separate the competitors, which you rarely saw in BattlARTS. Match started out fun and got really good towards the end, making you want to see all the potential single matchups especially Greco vs. Ikeda.

Shibata likes to play stiff shooter badass. Fujita is the actul legit shooter who you can hit as hard as physically. Naturally they're a good matchup. Them fooling around on the mat and working for submissions won't blow your mind, but you'll watch this match for Fujita mauling Shibata. Fujita really knows how to go Angry Bear when it counts and he just destroys Shibata with knees and soccer kicks. Crazy match.

This was a bonafide juniors epic. I mean, this is pretty much the match all those PWG nerds dream of having. It works because they put the ECW high spot mania into an AJPW match. RVD only blows about 1/5 of his spots and Kroffat absolutely manhandles him. Kroffat absorbing a series of cute RVD high spots, then making a comeback by nuking RVD with throws was pretty great. Everything Kroffat did looked awesome as if he was a prototype Super Dragon: big fat sentons, yanking by the stupid ponytail, knees to the face etc. The Hokuto(?) style headdrop move off the top was hellish too. Very entertaining match.

This was just a gritty old streetfight. Fujiwara was a total fiend here and him targetting Tenryu with punches aswell as torturing him on the mat was just nasty. I was a little annoyed with Fujiwara no-selling Tenryu so much and some of the uncooperative hard hitting exchanges near the end came across as awkward, altough that was what they were going for and the stubborn rolling kicks were great. Not a super classic but it delivers what you want from Fujiwara vs. Tenryu in spades. Also, I kind of enjoyed the finish mostly because I once heard an old carny german wrestler explain what makes these throat chops so dangerous ("the hyoid breaks, and you choke on your own tongue").