donsem43
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Everything posted by donsem43
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The 11/3 Ice Ribbon show is a pretty good top to bottom show. I don't the main isn't quite the MOTYC that some have said, but it's still damn good. While she's only 18, Tsukushi is looking like she's ready to breakout as a top-level worker. Honestly, looking at the promotion as a whole, Ice Ribbon looks a lot more promising than Stardom does over the next year or two, that's even considering the chance that both Io Shirai and Kairi Hojo stay. Ice Ribbon just has a more complete roster with a few younger workers that have great star potential that are ready to break through.
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Match Link The first five minutes of this match are pretty much a squash by Hyuga. She just runs Haruyama right over and anything that Kayoko tries to do to stop or counter her ends up going wrong. Once she finally gets on offense, Haruyama goes all out to even the score. The best thing about the match is that after such a big, fast start neither one of them ever stop selling the effects of it the rest of the match. Towards the finish, Hyuga looks like she is about to wrap up the win until Haruyama hits a dropkick, chopblock style, to Azumi's heavily braced knee. Hyuga's selling of the knee is so good that you know that she would have won had she not been hit on the knee but at the same time Haruyama's huge win felt earned. A beautifully structured and worked match. Easily the most underappreciated joshi matches of all time. ****3/4
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This is the final of Pro Wrestling WAVE's tag league. Good lord, this is like if pro wrestling tried to be a demolition derby, just tonnes of body-on-body contact. There's a spot early on where Hashimoto grabs Yamashita along the ropes but Mizunami hits a clothesline on Rina so hard that Chihiro goes flying to the floor, that the type of match this is. Towards the end, it's hard to till if Mizunami is doing a Grade A sell job or if she is truly feeling beaten down. I know the phrase 'Hoss Fight' gets thrown around loosely but this match might be that in its truest form. ***3/4 -
This match is literally women vs. girls as the Ice Ribbon girls are both still teenagers. I will give them credit as this match is really competitive. It helps that both Tsukushi and Kurumi can hit hard, especially Tsukushi since she is tiny. The story of the match is more that Avid Rival can out last the physicality rather than simply the case of them being veterans. A great match that ends up being different than what you would first think based on appearances. ****
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This was better then the more hyped WrestleMania three-way. The main reason being that their was a solid story being worked throughout rather than the constant chaining of spots that was the Mania match. Charlotte is in full on beast mode here. This was the most physical that I've ever seen her work as she just manhandling both Sasha and Bayley. Bayley took the brunt of the attacks from both Charlotte and Sasha to the point were I bought the finish of Charlotte just finishing her off with a kick after she pinballed off of Sasha. The Horsewomen continue their run of having very good, if not great, multiwoman matches. ****
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[2016-08-21-WWE-Summerslam] Sasha Banks vs Charlotte
donsem43 replied to Microstatistics's topic in August 2016
This match was laid out really well. It did a good job of chaining the spots together although you get the feeling of them working out the steps in their heads at times. Charlotte work on Sasha's back leading up to her Die Hard Kansai attempt was a highlight. The match did lack a sense of drama that the first Sasha win had and a rollup finish didn't help. Overall, it was a pretty good match but nothing that you need to go out of your way to see compare to what else these two have done. ***3/4 -
So this week in the Observer, not only is Hojo reconsidering but Io is to because she would blocked by Asuka. I'm sure it will be different again next week. The Nakajima/Kimura rematch for the JWP Title is up. Found the match to be disappointing. The things that really annoy me about Kimura show up, (shoehorning in her heel shtick, cutting off her opponents comebacks to soon,) plus she works like she just ate too much turkey at holiday meal. Arisa tries, but Kimura isn't as salvageable as Ozaki was earlier in the year
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Match Link This is a match that has been teased since Yoshiko made her return in March. After that match, Arisa Nakajima confronted her and Nanae that started their feud. This starts off with some really chippy matwork where attempted counters are hair pulls more often than not. After that, this turns into the type of match you would expect between these two, a mix of stiff strikes and big moves. Nakajima starts going after Yoshiko's arm in order to limit her main offensive weapon, the lariat, but Yoshiko does some nice 'gut through it' selling. Arisa also does some really great selling of her back while on offense after it gets worked over. The finish has some terrific back and forth with nearfalls for both while also teasing a draw. Another fantastic show from Nakajima plus a nice bounce back from Yoshiko after a disappointing performance against Aja Kong a few weeks earlier. ****1/2
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[2016-08-20-WWE-NXT Takover: Brooklyn II] Asuka vs Bayley
donsem43 replied to GOTNW's topic in August 2016
This was super disappointing as I'm probably the biggest fan of their first match in Dallas. Rough performance from Bayley, the worst since the start of her title push the previous summer. Asuka looked tentative after a strong start, neither her strike not submission looked all that good. Bayley just wasn't able to recapture the magic two years in a row. -
Speaking of Arisa, her vs. Yoshiko on the 10/16 SEAdLINNNG show is pretty great. Better than anything on the 9/28 show.
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I really liked how there was a scrappy feel whenever they would work holds, right from the opening collar-and-elbow to Charlotte attempting the Figure 8 during the finish, which kept a competitive feel throughout the match. The structure felt a bit wonky as the middle of the match felt stretched out while the finish felt compacted, like they weren't sure when they were going to take a commercial break. That kept it from feeling as epic as it probably should have been but both women were able produce memorable performances to provide a memorable moment. ****
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I get the feeling that the Hojo news is going to keep ping-ponging between her going/not going till either Stardom or Kairi herself make an official announcement. I imagine it's a really difficult decision because there is definitely a large risk in her getting another head injury. If that happens then I highly doubt the WWE would make another offer. With Stardom, they have to have Iwatani beat Io now, even if Hojo decides to stay. It won't be nearly as big if you just go from Io to Hojo to Iwatani so there is no real choice to me. Bito should also be the one to beat Hojo for the Wonder of Stardom title. I could see them using a foreigner like Kay Lee Ray or Viper as a transitional champ for either one of those belts. I'm not surprised at Arisa Nakajima going freelance. I was actually expecting it since last year when she dropped the JWP title to Kayoko Haruyama but it didn't happen. I imagine the main reason joshi wrestlers go freelance is because it frees up their schedules. It might hurt their push when it comes to the promotions they work but that might not matter much if there really isn't much more money to be made. I would be very shocked if she showed up in Stardom after how the whole Best Friends/Thunder Rock deal broke down.
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From this year, her ICE Infinity Title win vs. Risa Sera on 7/3 and 7/18 title defense vs. Maya Yukihi were both pretty good. Other than that the double header she did with Arisa Nakajima on 12/28/14, her REINA Title win over Syuri on 11/3/15 and the 12/26/15 title match with Maki Narumiya. I watch the Samurai TV clips of Kyoko Kimura's JWP Title win over Arisa Nakajima and it's a shame we're probably not ever going to see it in full. What they showed looked awesome as Arisa sets up her own demise by recklessly elbowing Kimura on the ringpost till Kyoko slides out of the way causing Nakajima to slam her arm into the post. The rest of the highlights has Kimura going after the arm whenever she is in trouble eventually causing a ref stoppage for the win. Their rematch on 11/3 is now going to be a "Dress-Up Wild Fight" like the well-known Kansai/Ozaki street fights from the 90's.
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The only real goal they have for the Raw women is to get Charlotte as many title wins as her dad, which she's on pace to do in another 3 years. Everything else takes a back seat to her.
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I wonder if they will mess with the order since the Cubs are facing elimination tonight while the World Series has been getting great ratings as a whole.
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Some good stuff coming up in the next few weeks. 11/3 has JWP is running Korakuen Hall with the Kyoko Kimura vs. Arisa Nakajima rematch, (hopefully Nanae Takahashi challenging Arisa after the match.) Plus, Ice Ribbon is running the same day with Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Tsukushi for the ICE Infinity Title, while Avid Rival vs. Azure Revolution for the tag titles on the same show. Then OZ Academy is running a title match with Sonoko Kato vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto on 11/13.
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This is a really fun match for the OZ tag titles. Unlike most matches in OZ Academy, they kept the action in the ring. Shida and Syuri do an effective job in the early going of cutting the ring off on Yoneyama and working her over. Yoneyama especially looked good here, bumping and putting over her opponents offense while making fiery comebacks. Kuragaki was the same while playing the powerhouse of the team. Shida and Syuri have been a bit underwhelming as a regular team so far but they were good here with hopefully some more good matches during this title run. ***3/4
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This is the last go around for these two as Kansai is retiring in December. I might be overrating this because of nostalgia but I don't care as this was fun to watch. They go at a slow pace but they make up for it by making every move matter. Kansai does a nice job of mixing up her strikes and matwork keeping Aja on her heels most of the match. Although, in a nice call back to their 90's feud, Aja's Uraken ends up being the great equalizer allowing her to get the win. ***1/2
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The women's tournament is a wild card in this. Who the WWE bring in for that, plus how they handle the aftermath will tell whether they have really changed in what they look for from women in-ring. It's a great chance to show off that women can do different stuff from what is shown on typical WWE TV. I had read that intergender was a big no-no with WWE, but then at the last tryout there was Heidi and Kimber Lee, who both made their name with intergender. Su Yung was there to and the only thing of note that she did in her first run in developmental was date Jerry Lawler. For Stardom recs, I'd start at the 'World of Stardom Championship History' page. That has Hojo's, Satomura's, and Io's title wins from last year. After that click on the Stardom tag under the title of this thread. That will have a bunch of matches that I've reviewed in the Match Discussion Archive but note that Stardom hasn't reupped many shows from February to May that were on the YouTube page. Also, I guess 2ch is adding Hikaru Shida, Makoto, and Hiroyo Matsumoto to the list of joshi workers talking to WWE. The first two are buddies of Asuka's so that's not a surprise. Hiroyo had a tryout in 2014 but blew out her knee not long after.
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Io is a much better fit for the WWE than people think. Her English is getting better and she's great at carrying herself as a star. At this point, Stardom is basically the women's Evolve. The number of Indie women who work both Stardom and NXT tapings close together is fairly notable.
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I caught the last two matches. Didn't care for the tag match. To OZ Academy like with all of the weapon shots and listless brawling. I want to rewatch the main before I have a firm opinion on it, but on first watch it was fine for what it was. Hashimoto was good but still looked like a rookie. Satomura also relied on using no-selling as a transition a couple of times. Plus, the finish seemed a little too matter of fact, not really putting over how significant a win this was. It was like Hashimoto's win came a little too easy considering who she beat.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOLTkNu5LJ8 This is a match that had be building for a few years since Satomura first showed up in Stardom back in 2012. The opening is great as Satomura is in full beast mode at the start. This makes Yoshiko have to muscle her way back into the match. The middle portion is a nice war with the two exchanging hard shots. Finish is nice as Meiko switches off from DVDs to a sleeper depending on what opening Yoshiko gives her. A really well worked match. ****
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This is a really good house show match between these two. There is some entertaining back and forth throughout the match as opposed to the domination that you get in Asuka's TV matches. The transitions where well done, and Ember gets a nice run of offense before going down. ***1/2
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Preview of Charlotte/Sasha HIAC:
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Hojo vs. Sasha Banks is a personal dream match but I'm not sure someone who has had two documented concussions in the last year would be able to pass a WWE medical. Fyi, i figured out how to embed videos here so if you've had trouble finding any of the matches that I've reviewed then recheck the match discussion archive because they might be there.