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Steamboat pretty much controls the whole first half of the match. He even gets the better of Roberts when things spill to the outside. Jake finally manages to get on the offensive when he reverses a whip in the corner with Steamboat bouncing over the top to the floor. He aggressively follows up on the floor topping out with a slingshot into the post causing Steamboat to bleed. Unfortunately the finishing stretch was weird as there is only a quick tease of the DDT that Steamboat blocks but then Roberts hits a gutbuster only to get pinned himself when he goes for the cover. This was pretty good but the finish was fairly deflating.

Decided to check this out because I've never seen the much hyped Kendal Grey. What I have watched of Lola Vice has been a mixed bag. Sometimes she look promising, other times just awful. This match not only has a surprising amount of matwork for a WWE-style match but, unlike most modern matches, they keep going there throughout the match. It ends up giving the matwork value rather than a time-killing throwaway. Grey seems to be the type of wrestler that people in these circles wished Kurt Angle would have been as see has a nice mix of amatuer matwork mixed with some athletic spots. Vice has the best performance that I've ever seen her have. Her submissions looked tight and her strikes looked good outside of that quick kick combo that she really needs to drop. I like the idea behind the finish but I thought the execution took away from the quality of the work before it. Still, worth checking out for it being a bit off the beaten path for a WWE match.

I wish there was more matches like this in modern pro wrestling where both wrestlers have a designed set of strengths and weakness with the whole match being built around those attributes. Roberts takes a defensive approach using reach and leverage at the start but is relentless when he gets the opportunity to go after Steamboat's hand after he misses a chop. Steamboat has a clear advantage when it comes to speed and striking. He also makes sure to stay on Roberts while making his comeback. This is a rare time that a ref bump helps the finish because it's Roberts desperation in shoving Steamboat into the ref that ended up costing him the win not only when he has Steamboat pinned but causing him to be vulnerable to get pinned he tries to revive the ref. Very rewarding match to watch.

I imagine there might be a more recent update on the discord or bluesky.

Great opening fire from Steamboat with him dominating. Jake falls into an opportunity to regain his whits when Steamboat knocks him into ropes, tying up his arms. The ref gives Roberts space to work his way out then Jake catches Steamboat with a big right to gain control. A really nice, logical transition that is followed by Roberts offense being very sharp and measure. Unfortunately, the match loses momentum after Jake grabs a chinlock. While the move itself set up Steamboat to make a big comeback, the actual comeback lacked the fire that the opening had. The finish would have worked if a stronger comeback had caused the action to spill out of the ring but Roberts ended up sneaking back in before the count of 10, still a very enjoyable match though.

This starts with a nice play off of the SNME angle as Steamboat enters first so he can't be ambushed by Roberts. Jake tries to counter that by baiting Steamboat to come after out of the ring eventually attempting to grab his leg but Steamboat blocks it by stomping on his hand. Once the match gets going it is surprisingly one sided as Roberts is continuously in control although Steamboat does get enough hope spots to keep the crowd engaged. The best one of those being Jake teasing the DDT on the floor again but Steamboat slips out to grab Roberts and hurl him head first into the guard rail. The ref is also giving the pro wrestling equivalent of a "Ump Show" in baseball with Roberts repeatedly using it to get out of trouble. Eventually this lead the ref spazzing out when Steamboat push-kicks Jake into the ref leading to a double DQ and post match shmoz. Good first match at a start of a fued.

It's fun to watch this knowing it happened in a WWF ring in January 1998 when it wouldn't look out of place in today's wrestling.

Made a playlist of as much of Iyo's matches that I could find on YouTube. All of the WWE/NXT stuff is from official channels. I'm not going through all of those channels that break matches up into parts. Also scraped together whatever Stardom/Sendai Girls/Marigold I could find. I highly recommend the February 22, 2015 match vs. Koguma but that's a Dailymotion link.

Not to one up you, but I had the day off so I went and made a playlist of every Rey match that was uploaded individually to YouTube on all of WWE's official channels. Everything is in chronological order. No Rumbles and I might have missed some multi-man tags. There was a 3+ hour stream that I put at the end that had a bunch of duplicate matches but there were a few on there that didn't have an individual upload yet.

Enjoyed how Perfect sold his early beating from Piper all the way to the finishing stretch. His attack on Piper after he got control had a real mean streak to it. Piper does everything that he does well here. Only big knock against this match is Hebner's atrocious, nonsensical reffing, which rightly got roasted by Gorilla and Alfred. A super fun brawl.

Tamura vs. Hyuga - December 24, 2006 (60 minute draw): Two matches of Tamura vs. Kana: May 31, 2009 November 1, 2009

Comp of Tamura's run in NEO: Matchlist: Yoshiko Tamura vs Azumi Hyuga 5/5/03 Yoshiko Tamura vs Momoe Nakanishi 14/3/04 Yoshiko Tamura vs Genki Misae 19/12/04 Matchlist: Yoshiko Tamura vs. Kayoko Haruyama 17/7/06 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Mariko Yoshida 3/11/06 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Ayako Hamada 18/2/07 Matchlist: Yoshiko Tamura vs. Emi Sakura 3/5/07 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Emi Sakura 5/5/09 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Nanae Takahashi 20/9/09 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Meiko Satomura 14/3/10 Matchlist: Street fight: Yoshiko Tamura vs. Kyoko Kimura 6/11/10 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Emi Sakura 21/11/10 Yoshiko Tamura vs. Ayumi Kurihara 31/12/10

The first comp tape style video that the Vault has uploaded, hopefully this does well enough for more like this down the line. Especially like how their using all the TV rather than just PPVs, Clashes and Saturday Night.

It's not fitting to link a nearly sixteen year old match in a current wrestling thread but it amazes me how Ayumi Kurihara, who was the It Girl of joshi wrestling during the "Dark Ages", has managed to slip through the cracks of current fandom. Basically she was Sareee before Sareee. Tomoka Nakagawa wasn't too bad either.

Linking this because it has a couple of matches that got some praise from Loss in recent issues of Wrestling Playlists: From Issue #892: RICK MARTEL vs HAKU (08/22/1987; WWF MSG; 00:16:17) The story here is that the partners are at ringside early but the ref ejects them before the match. Martel works incredibly hard here and Haku looks good too, but the talk of Strike Force never being as over as the CanAms is pretty true watching this. It’s a bit sad to see Martel work so hard and, similar to the Philly match, not get the reaction the work deserved. But this is a nonstop bombfest from these two, an abridged and all-action version of the Philly match that is excellent. Martel’s work ethic is pretty amazing. 3 3/4* From Issue #902: ISLANDERS vs STRIKE FORCE (09/21/1987; WWF MSG; 00:16:19) This feud has been something I’ve been excited about starting, and now we’re here! They’re off to a hell of a start with a fantastic match! This is textbook tag team wrestling executed with an energy and excitement that we haven’t seen from a Crockett tag in months. Tama is a fearless bumper and Haku even takes a few chances on offense you wouldn’t normally see from him. I like that they do all the milking of the big Hot Tag like you’d get in classic tag team wrestling, then the Islanders cheat their way out of the momentum shift and you think they’re doing a double heat but they take a different route with it. This is great for both delivering an exciting match in the moment and making clear that there’s more where this came from. 4 1/4*