donsem43
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Everything posted by donsem43
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[2015-01-06-WWE-Main Event] Nikki Bella vs Paige
donsem43 replied to Superstar Sleeze's topic in January 2015
This is the best out of the dozen or so matches that these two have had this year. I'm not quite on the Nikki bandwagon cause while she does a lot of stuff really well, she struggles to consistently put it together but she does manage to do that here though. Paige looks really great her too as this match is laid out in a similar fashion to her NXT matches which plays to her strengths. I thought Nikki's arm work built really well to the crossarmbreaker, It was just hurt buy the fact that the move isn't over as a general finish in WWE but probably would have worked as a near finish in a lot of other places. To their credit, they actually work to and out of the hold with matwork which is rare in WWE. Agree that the finish came off as awkward, either it was suppose to be done smoother or they were going to do more but it was nothing that took away from the match overall. ***3/4 -
Threads for the Takeover 4-Way for the NXT Women's Title and Paige vs. Sasha from RAW.
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Considering the amount of attention that the Diva's Revolution got at the start, I'm pretty surprised that this match got passed by without much attention. It gets off to an intense start as they lock up and manage to keep it going for awhile, eventually going to the floor. The main part of the match is after the commercial break with Sasha working over Paige. It's not at the level of the Takeover special but Sasha does a terrific job of making Paige earn her comebacks. Paige's selling wonderful here as she puts over Sasha's work and really throws everything into her offensive spurts. The finish seems simple but it works as it rewards the Sasha's strategy during the body of the match as Paige has nothing left to fight out of the Bank Statement. Not quite a hidden gem but still something to check out as this is what they should be do more of on RAW rather than the never ending faction stuff. ***3/4
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I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Really liked how they were able to keep a constant flow of action throughout without having it deteriorate into a spotfest. Also, they were able to work the match in a fairly logical way which is rare for a multiperson free-for-all type match. If any of them were taken out of the match for awhile, it was always as a result of a significant move of some kind. Overall, a very well worked and entertaining match. ****
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That finish was terrible. Poorly planned and executed. What the hell was that top rope "counter"? Why was Charlotte able to get her finish after being slammed hard into apron thirty seconds earlier. Never mind that she completely screwed up applying it anyway. Why not just use a rollup for the finish? Nikki looked way better on Smackdown vs Paige. She just ran Paige into the ground. Actually came off as the asskicker the people think she looked like in this match but without screwing up a single spot.
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I want to know what's on Nikki's YouTube watch history.
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Thread for Thunder Rocks vs. Jumonji Sisters for the Stardom Tag Titles
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This is a really great tag match as the Sisters get a title match after beating the champs on a Sendai Girls show a couple of months earlier. Both of them, especially DASH, channel their bitchy outsider roles which gives them a fresh look from their typical babyface style. They still bring the slick double teams and the level of stiffness that you would expect from Satomura trainees. The two of them manage to get the early advantage by cutting off one member of Thunder Rock and working her over. The champs manage to hang in there till they are able to make a comeback that leads to a fun series of flashy exchanges. The finish is pretty neat as Sachiko goes to whip Shirai into the ropes, only for Io to adjust on the fly to take out DASH with a tope, that allows Iwatani to hit an Otani-ish fake German into a dragon suplex for the win. All of them manage to maintain good structure and execution while keeping the pace up and didn't let the finish go to long. ****1/4
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Well to me it's a minor point but something that I felt needed to be made. I personally don't want put much value on post peak work, especially for joshi workers. If you look at the whole career of someone like say Dynamite Kansai, you realize that she hasn't been a good worker for long time and that sullies a lot the great stuff that she has done. That kind of takes the fun out of it, at least it does for me.
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I'm not saying that your observations in those matches are wrong. I don't think they would bare out over a larger sample size of matches. Based on the Kandori match, you would think that she would be able to have a killer match with Mariko Yoshida, but their 11/25/01 match starts out as a style clash that turns into a no-selling spotfest. In her 9/18/06 match with Azumi Hyuga, she tries to work like she's in her prime but it's clear that she's lost a couple of steps. Never mind that Hyuga had moved on from working that style thus the match wasn't really playing to her strengths. Again, I'm not saying that she wasn't capable of those types of performances every once in a while, my favourite Toyota match is her vs. Kaoru Ito on 8/17/01 which is a similar type of performance. I just feel that she wasn't able to consistently be that type of worker base on what I've seen from the latter part of her career.
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I have to slightly disagree with this. I won't deny that Toyota had a few smart, conservative performance but there have been more times that I've seen Toyota try to recreate her athletic prime to the detriment of the match. This mainly stems from that issue that Toyota was never very adaptive to her opponents. Most often she would force whomever she was working against to work her style of match, whether she had the ability to make that work or not. That's the one thing that keeps Toyota from being in that top tier of female workers, much less overall.
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It will be the Sasha Banks show soon enough.
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All I can promise is that I'll work on a ballot. I have no idea if I'll actually get around to sending it in. I prefer to watch wrestling for matches rather than individual performances but we will see how this goes.
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So is Sara Del Ray working with the women on the main roster now? Has Sara Stock took over in NXT? I'm just curious because Stock just finished up her last tours of Mexico and Japan. Also, Nikki Bella and Naomi have looked really good the last couple of weeks, so that's why I'm assuming Del Ray is the main reason for that.
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Has everyone stopped watching Main Event/Superstars or even Smackdown looking for good matches? Nobody is interested in seeing if anyone is a good weekly TV worker anymore?
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More fuel for the Hojo hype-train as she defends her title against former roster member now Chigusa protege Iroha. I actually had high expectations for this as Iroha had a shockingly great title match with Io Shirai last year. Although I was expecting this to more of a highspot/suplex affair, they actually keep it on the mat for most of the match. Iroha focuses on Hojo's back including using a nasty Canadian Backbreaker. Kairi gets her revenge later busting out an equally nasty cross-armed Regal Stretch. Breaking up the matwork are these Hashimoto/Tenryu level chop exchanges that make you question how the hell does a 100 lbs woman hit that hard. The finish is great too, as Iroha is just relentless going after the back with Hojo going into survive mode. They do end with a roll-up out of nowhere but that's a minor blemish on a pretty great match. ****1/4
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If I did a standard play by play description of this match it would come of as the same as a thousand other joshi matches, but what really makes this match work better is the strikes and the big bumps that they take. They start off with a pretty standard lucha sequence but then Iwantani just boots Shirai in the head Hotta-style and they don't really lay off each other for the rest of the match. It also seems like they watched some of the bumps that Sasha Banks took a few hours earlier and thought "Hey, we can top that!" Mayu takes a nasty slam on the apron, then later tries to destroy her kidneys on the apron after getting dropkicked from the top rope. Meanwhile, Io tops that by taking Iwantani's dragon suplex on the floor, which given the way she does the move is a nutty bump in general. Overall, while not quite up there with the high-end women matches this year, it's still well worth going out of your way to see. ****
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They work a 30 minute draw that never drags. While Satomura is terrific, it's Hojo's performance that really makes the match. Early on in the match, Hojo quickly establishes that she not afraid of going toe-to-toe with Meiko. She hits Satomura with a nasty backfist out of the opening collar & elbow, and breaks up a Boston Crab attempt with an even nastier slap. Of course, this doesn't always work out well for Hojo as she running into some nice submission counters and eating some really brutal looking shots. Around the halfway point though, you see Satomura start to get more aggressive. After Hojo rolls out of the ring, Meiko follows her out, drags her to the entrance, and then lands a DVD with a sickening thud. She follows that up great looking backdrop suplex and the best looking sleeper you'll see. Hojo sells all of this beautifully but still manages to keep fighting back. She never just pops up and goes on offense, she seems to slip through a crack in Satomura's attack and get back in control through her own sheer will. Just an amazing must see match. ****1/2
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Great showing for two women working their first main event singles match. I really like how both of them focus on a specific body part in an attempt to neutralize a major part of her opponent's offense. Iwatani goes after Hojo's arm to take away her elbow based offense. Hojo counters by going after Iwatani's abdomen to prevent her from hitting her dragon suplex, which legit KO her in a tag title match earlier in the month. With the way that both women work the selling into the match, it turns into a story of who is willing to work through the pain to hit her finisher first. Iwatani wins that battle but ends up landing too close to the ropes with Hojo rolling outside to recover. Hojo hits her top rope elbow drop but is too hurt to cover. They run through a bunch of desperation rollups but Hojo ended that with a couple of nasty back elbows to setup another top rope elbow for the win. ****1/4
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Two fun teams have a super fun match. The Jumonji Sisters have a bunch of slick double teams and aren't afraid to sell like crazy. Takahashi & Hojo have a nice vet/rookie dynamic with some fun double teams of their own. They also manage to not go too long on the finish. ****
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2/3 falls
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Review thread for Kairi Hojo vs. Takumi Iroha (7/4/15) Stardom.
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Too "my turn/your turn" for my tastes. Super stiff though.
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Don't know why I didn't check sooner, but Cheerleader Melissa had a 30 minute Iron Man match with Courtney Rush on the 4/19/14 NCW Femme Fatales show. I was shocked to find that was the only Iron Man match Melissa has ever done. I was expecting to find that she had done 3 or 4 of them.
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Billie Kay (terrible name) use to be Jessie McKay. She's signed and, according to spoilers, is Asuka's opponent next week. They worked to together in Shimmer so it should be fun.