donsem43
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Everything posted by donsem43
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This is the main event of the second night of the Catch the WAVE tournament. This match is just a straight forward slobberknocker as these two spend pretty much the entire match going right straight at each other with some nasty shots. Ohka has stepped up the last few months as she has picked up the pace of her matches and relied on hard hitting strikes. Yamashita looked the best that she has in awhile mainly because the match perfectly fit her strengths as a worker. Another strong match for a tournament that has been really good so far. ****
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This is from the second night of the Catch the WAVE tournament. Momono gets a lot of praise for acting like an annoying little shit but I think that she that this is the first time that she really makes it work within the story of the match. Unfortunately for her, Ohata is really good at being a nasty bitch that works her over pretty good when she gets her hands on her. Momono is able to stay in the match by doing a nice job working over Ohata's arm and not just relying on rollups for offense. This is an awesome match that shows Ohata clearly being the best joshi worker so far this year while Momono having potential to be a legit top worker down the line. ****1/2
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Stardom must have some new owners/investors. New belts and dojo. Fuka leaving as GM/Ring Announcer and them no longer using her dojo for training. The fact that they are resetting the company on the April 15 show. A little too much happening at once to not have some significant changes behind the scenes.
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Well, I think that match worked as a spectacle but that's pretty much it. The build to the first bat shot was well done. It was shocking when Kagetsu hit Io with the bat because I was expecting Io to avoid it at least one more time before it hit. I'm not death match expert, but I don't understand how the second bat shot didn't directly lead to the finish. Especially after Natsu sold it like she was done only for everyone else to just start working like it was a finish to a regular tag match. I don't know, I guess just find gifs of the bat shots and that's really all that you need to see. -
Well, I think that match worked as a spectacle but that's pretty much it. The build to the first bat shot was well done. It was shocking when Kagetsu hit Io with the bat because I was expecting Io to avoid it at least one more time before it hit. I'm not death match expert, but I don't understand how the second bat shot didn't directly lead to the finish. Especially after Natsu sold it like she was done only for everyone else to just start working like it was a finish to a regular tag match. I don't know, I guess just find gifs of the bat shots and that's really all that you need to see.
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If you want to watch the Explosion Death Match that happen today, Stardom stated that it will be up on Stardom World tomorrow.
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This is the main event of the opening show for the Catch the WAVE tournament and is the second rematch of a title match from last year. This match was a vast improvement on that one mainly because Nagahama works a quicker pace and shows a lot more fire here. Ohata has yet another high quality performance as able to put together the match in such a way that she is able to control the match but still make Nagahama come off as competitive. That all leads to a nice finish that has Nagahama get the upset a jackknife rollup. ***1/2
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This is another opening match in the Catch the WAVE tournament. The opening matwork in this match is pretty good as Nozaki uses the extra leverage from her lanky body to escape from Mizunami's holds. This turns to more of a exchange of high impact moves, with Nozaki trying to catch Mizunami with her sleeper. The finish has a nice change up as Nozaki debuts a new Dragon Sleeper that completely finishes off Mizunami by knocking her out instantly. An impressive, smart performance from Nozaki, who is becoming one of the more underrated workers in joshi. ***3/4
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This is the first match for both in this year's Catch the WAVE tournament. It a nice follow up to the title match that they had in September of last year. The both of them do what they do best, ASUKA breaking out some nice highspots and Yamashita hitting her big power moves. The finish is really well worked, just a very good back and forth exchange of finishers with Yamashita getting the win with a Splash Mountain. ***1/2
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Yeah, Stardom World is pretty good at getting shows up quickly. Typically, if a show happens on the weekend, they do a match a day so the entire show is up by Friday. If they have multiple shows they usually double up on the undercard to stay on top of it. So it's possible that all of the DreamSlam shows will be up by the end of next weekend. WAVE Network is inconsistent in their uploading in a frustrating way. For example, the last two Korakuen Hall shows have gone up less than a week after they happened, but other shows can take quite awhile. Plus, they might only upload a match or two from a show. So WAVE Network is best used as something you subscribe to for a month or so every once and awhile. I haven't subscribed to either DDT Universe (for Tokyo Joshi Pro) or Marvelous. I believe that the big TJP show are steamed live and the others are uploaded fairly quickly. I've also read that Marvelous shows go up fairly quickly to.
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The tag title match from the 2/12 Ice Ribbon show was pretty great. The best Ice Ribbon match in awhile that didn't involve Tsukasa Fujimoto or a big name outsider. Hopefully we start seeing more matches at this level from a young roster that is loaded with talent.
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This is for Azure Revolution's (Sera & Yukihi) International Ribbon tag titles. I go on about the potential of the younger members of Ice Ribbon's roster a lot, but this match here is one of the first signs that some of them are starting to realize that potential. This really felt like a 90's joshi tag in the sense that it had a constant fast pace but didn't sacrifice a coherent story or selling for it. Everyone put in a strong performance. Kyuri and Maika are quickly becoming one of the best tag teams in joshi and Azure are having a strong start to their tag title run. ****1/4
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Visa issue. I couldn't find the exact tweet, but someone on twitter said that her employer at her other job was behind her work visa and they decided not to renew it. She could come back in the future once she has her non-wrestling life settled but that might be awhile. Still, she has a fair number of indie dates in the foreseeable future so it's not like she will disappear completely.
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After feuding for a few months, Best Friends have reunited again. This time they are taking on another reformed tag team, Seven Star Sisters (Ohata & Matsumoto.) This gets off till an intense start as 3S attack Best Friends just as they are finishing up their entrance. They manage to keep the intensity up for the entire match while keeping a steady pace. The double countout finish might be a letdown, but the match does a good enough job teasing losing control that it makes for a reasonable conclusion to the match. Still, this is one of the top joshi matches early on this year. ****1/2
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This is for Queen's Quest's Artists of Stardom titles. As someone who was never enjoyed this feud, I was surprised that I ended up liking this as much as I did. This was one of the rare times that Oedo Tai's heel shtick worked well within a match. They also manage to work some nice sequences and pulled off some nice double teams. QQ were also able to give their typical trios level performance because they weren't weighed down by Oedo Tai's antics. A much better match than the overrated elimination match from the week before. ***3/4
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This is a rematch from the previous month when Ohka beat Ohata to win the Regina di WAVE title. Right from the start, this match is super physical. A mix between big moves and nasty strikes. It's similar to the Satomura/Hamada match that happened earlier in the month in Sendai Girls but I feel that this match was better at being coherent. The exchange of big moves during the finishing run was done in a logical fashion. A very entertaining title match. ***3/4
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This is Iwatani's return match after injuring her arm and losing the World of Stardom title. Iwatani looked great here, not showing any signs of ring rust at all or any limitations with her arm. This was also a strong performance from the always inconsistent Ellering, complete opposite of her disappointing performance against Io Shirai. The match had a nice simple story of Iwatani having to overcome Ellering's work on her injured arm. Great stuff. ****
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I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but Best Friends vs. Seven Star Sisters from the 2/9 SEAdLINNNG show was awesome! Definitely must watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdW5vc6EqEM
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Different person. Finished watching the first night of Catch the WAVE and it was a good show as a whole. None of the matches were out of this world but ASUKA/Yamashita, Mizunami/Nozaki, and Ohata/Nagahama were all pretty good. Well worth going out of your way to watch. Ayako/Arisa was a disappointment, it had some really amazing moments but fell apart on the back end of the match. I've seen some praise for Shida/Momono but I've seen too many young, undersized, vet versus star veteran matches and this one didn't do anything to standout.
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I should know better than to go off of posters since they almost never have the official blocks. Anyway, here are the actual blocks: Crasy Block: Yumi Ohka, Ryo Mizunami, Rina Yamashita, ASUKA, Nagisa Nozaki, and Miyuki Takase Violence Block: Misaki Ohata, Hikaru Shida, Ayako Hamada, Arisa Nakajima, Hiroe Nagahama, and Mio Momono Catch the WAVE usually has two people from each block making it so I'm sure ASUKA is at least making the semis and is a smart pick to win. She has just as much experience as Yamashita when she won last year. The other block seems wide open. Typical political joshi booking would Arisa making the semis but, again, the other spots seems wide open. Ayako would make story line sense but WAVE never been that strong of a story line promotion. Ohata is also the first WAVE champ to be in the tournament in a while as well.
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This was billed as a dream match with the legend Satomura against the current World of Stardom champion Storm. I had muted expectations for this match since this wasn't a main event title match and neither of these two had really impressed me lately. With that said, I absolutely loved the first half of this match! It's just nothing but matwork. A hybrid of shoot style, UK style, and traditional pro style. I honestly could have watched them do just that for twenty minutes. Things aren't quite as good when they get in to *Big Moves* mode but the match doesn't lose that much. At least things didn't get egregious like they did in the Meiko/Ayako match from January. A great match that's done in a way that you wouldn't expect. ****
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This is a a rematch from the previous month's SEAdLINNNG show and is for Ohata's Regina di WAVE title. The tone for this match is the complete opposite from the one before. It's as intense and chippy as you would have expected from these two after watching the Best Friends/Avid Rival series last August. Just a back and forth fight the entire way. Very happy to see Arisa have a big title match because that has been her bread and butter throughout her career. Just an excellent match. ****1/2
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[2018-01-14-SEAdLINNNG] Arisa Nakajima vs Misaki Ohata
donsem43 replied to aguakun's topic in January 2018
This wasn't what you would expect after the BF/AR series last summer. This feels like a touring match between to U.S. indie stars that happens at a random wannabe super-indie. It's far from a bad match, the execution is pretty good and it's well built structurally. The issue is that it just completely lacks the emotional intensity that these two had built up before hand. Mainly worth checking out if you don't have WAVE Network because Ohata doesn't make tape much outside of there. ***1/2 -
[2018-02-18-Stardom] Io Shirai vs Momo Watanabe
donsem43 replied to Tenese Sarwieh's topic in February 2018
This is for Io's Wonder of Stardom title where she is challenged by one of her QQ teammates, Momo Watanabe. Before this match, one of Watanabe's main issues was her lack of big bombs on offense that would make you believe that she could take down one of the top players in Stardom. This ends up being the main theme of the match as she debuts a lot of different moves that could make up her signature offense in the future, starting off with a nasty tornado DDT that looks like it gave Io a nasty stinger in her neck. Another highlight for Momo was using an Asuka Lock to build up to her hitting a beautiful Tequila Sunrise suplex on Io for an amazing near-fall. The one thing that keeps this from being a MOTYC is similar to the thing with Io/Savoy from a couple of weeks earlier, Io's comeback is a little to sudden and easy. You really wish that Momo had gone down with more of a fight after such a strong performance. Still, a very strong match and hopefully a sign of things to come with Momo Watanabe. ****1/4