donsem43

So Rhea out, Kay Lee Ray, Jazzy Gabert, and Viper in? I wonder since Triple H keeps talking about NXT being a third brand do they specifically keep the ex-indie, big name guys in NXT and try to directly go after the same audience that AEW is likely to have.

I actually liked their SHIMMER 100 match a little bit more, a real high-end performance from Eagles there. The title match on Vol. 34 vs. Ayumi Kurihara (remember her) was, imo, the best women's match in the U.S. till the Horsewomen run in NXT.

Go watch this! Madison Eagles is the best wrestler you've never heard off, much less seen.

My top joshi matches for 2018. Still need to catch up on some WAVE and Ice Ribbon while waiting for the year-end shows to get uploaded: Io Shirai vs. Momo Watanabe - Stardom (5/23) Meiko Satomura vs. Io Shirai - Sendai Girls (4/19) Misaki Ohata vs. Mio Momono - WAVE (3/18) Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Misaki Ohata & Hiroyo Matsumoto - SEAdLINNNG (2/9) Misaki Ohata vs. Arisa Nakajima - WAVE (2/12) Risa Sera & Maya Yukihi vs. Kyuri & Maika Ozaki - Ice Ribbon (2/12) Kagetsu vs. Utami Hayashishita - Stardom (9/1) Momo Watanabe vs. Jungle Kyona - Stardom (6/17) Command Bolshoi vs. Arisa Nakajima - PURE J (8/11) Jungle Kyona vs. Utami Hayashishita - Stardom (9/9) Riho vs. Shoko Nakajima - Tokyo Joshi Pro (8/25) Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora vs. Momo Watanabe & Utami Hayashishita - Stardom (11/23) Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Ayako Hamada - Sendai Girls (4/19) Io Shirai vs. Momo Watanabe - Stardom (2/18) Jungle Kyona vs. Konami - Stardom (8/26) Yoshiko & Rina Yamashita vs. Arisa Nakajima & Ayame Sasamura - SEAdLINNNG (9/5) Mayu Iwatani vs. Utami Hayashishita - Stardom (9/24) Arisa Nakajima vs. Rina Yamashita - SEAdLINNNG (10/3) Ayako Hamada vs. Mio Momono - WAVE (3/25) Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujinami vs. Ryo Mizunami & Akane Fujita - SEAdLINNNG (5/3) Io Shirai vs. Nicole Savoy - Stardom (2/4) Kagetsu vs. Konami - Stardom (8/18) Viper vs. Jungle Kyona - Stardom (4/1) Misaki Ohata vs. Rina Yamashita - WAVE (6/3) Misaki Ohata, Ryo Mizunami, & ASUKA vs. Rina Yamashita, Takumi Iroha, & Rin Kadokura - WAVE (6/17)

This is a battle between to J.A.N. (Jungle Assault Nation) teammates with Tora questioning her future in the unit. This story runs throughout this match with Tora looking to prove herself as someone who can hang with Jungle. Even when this match ends in a draw Tora doesn't seem like she's found any of the answers that she's looking for. An overall outstanding performance Tora in what is the best performance of her career so far. Jungle is amazing here to, which is something considering the year she is having. While it's not one of the best matches of the year, it's definitely one of my favourites. ****

Rhea Ripley/Deonna Purrazzo is a nice end cap to Rhea Ripley's early NXT UK run. Her matches vs. Dakota Kai, Toni Storm, and Isla Dawn were all worth watching, Hyped to watch her rematch with Toni at Takeover.

They could move Candace LaRae into the feud given her past issues with Baszler.

So do they add Kairi Sane to the Women's Title match because I don't see them doing heel vs. heel at a Takeover.

Another women in New Japan "debate"...

This is for Jungle's and Tora's Goddesses of Stardom tag titles. The main story throughout this match is the continuation of the Jungle/Utami feud. Every interaction between these two is fantastic. Natsuko Tora had possibly the best performance of her career in her first Korakuen Hall main event. Not crazy about the booking here but with that said this match could be the precursor to a run of very strong tag matches in 2019 for Stardom. ****1/4

This is for Watanabe's Wonder of Stardom title and the match that Iwatani asked for after winning the 5* Grand Prix the previous match. This is pretty much a slugfest from beginning to end. These two lay into each other while mixing in some big spots. Not quite the great match that you would expect between these two but very enjoyable none the less. ***3/4

This was Kagetsu's second title defense of the day as she takes on Shimmer champ Nicole Savoy. Savoy actually controls the opening part with a mix of matwork and power forcing Kagetsu to use more of her high-risk offense. I really liked the matwork here a lot. It's not smooth looking but the roughness of it made everything come off as earned. Savoy going back and forth between matwork and throws worked well because you felt like she was keeping Kagetsu off balance. The finish keeps this from being great as Kagetsu sprays mists in Savoy's face right in front of the ref leading to the end. Still, a entertaining match that will hopefully led to Savoy coming back to Stardom assuming that she doesn't sign some where. ***3/4

Misaki Ohata has been far and away the best woman in the world this year, which is bittersweet since she is retiring at the end of the year. Just a great mix of high-end singles and tag matches with a variety of opponents in both WAVE and SEAdLINNNG.

Meltzer is reporting that Ohno/Riddle will not be on TakeOver but taped for TV before the live show starts. Apparently due to the four matches already on the card will take up all of the allotted time.

This match is for the Beyond the SEA tag titles held by BORDERLESS (Yoshiko and Yamashita.) I hadn't been impressed at all with BORDERLESS so far as a team but they really clicked here and this was by far their best match so far. It doesn't hurt that Arisa puts in a tremendous performance here as she is slowly starting to put together another run of top quality performances. Sasamura is a K-Dojo trainee that showed some promise. Hopefully, she starts making tape on a regular basis. This is just a great main-event tag. ****1/4

This turned out to be the most surprisingly great matches in joshi this year. The lineup wasn't too inspiring mainly because Takase, while promising, is a rookie and Kizuki is pretty bad. It's seem like SEAdLINNNG has become the place where mediocre workers go to have good matches because Kizuki worked hard and stayed out of the way when she needed to. This actually turned out to be a traditional 1/4 vs 2/3 type of Japanese tag with everyone filling their specific role incredibly well. I hope Takase gets a chance to shine somewhere, whether it be Actwres girl'Z or somewhere else, because she can more than hang in there when paired up with veteran stars like Nanae and Mizunami. A fantastic tag that you should make sure not to skip over. ****

This match is from the opening round of the ULTRA U-21 Tag Team Tournament. When you have 3/4th of the awesome Best Friends/Avid Rival fued, there is a strong chance that is going to be great. While Akane Fujita is a significant downgrade from Misaki Ohata, to her credit, she works her butt off here and doesn't drag down the match at all. The match is mostly just another example of Best Friends being the best tag team in the world while having Mizunami to play off of. The whole match is just a continuous flow of action while not sacrificing selling and meaning for pace. Just terrific stuff. ****1/4

This is a match for both the World of Stardom title and the Wonder of Stardom title with the winner taking both belts. This match gets off to a fairly methodical start but it never feels like its killing time as they always seem to keep things moving along. They do manage to slowly, but naturally, increase the pace along the way to point that you don't suddenly notice that they are in the finishing run. A very well laid out title match. ****

Has there ever been a bad Pete Dunne match in NXT/NXTUK? The match with Danny Burch for the UK title was really, really good. This week's NXT proper episode had a lot of stuff for the women. Dakota Kai/Taynara Conti was a nice match (Kai/Storm from NXTUK was good to,) plus they set up three other matches for the future: Candice/Nikki Cross, Bianca Belair/Mia Yim, and a 2/3 falls rematch between Shayna Baszler and Kairi Sane at TakeOver. All of them should be at least good. Dream/Lars was a super fun TV main with some nutty bumps from Dream.

Utami was actually a little less than six weeks in to her career at this point. The thing with her is that she isn't technically that much better than some other joshi rookies out there but it's more of the fact that Utami is being pushed as a main-eventer right away and she fits the role. She doesn't look out of her league at all. The match itself is great. I like how Mayu tried to rough up the rookie but had enough respect for her as a threat to not go out of her way to embarrass her like she usually would in situations like these. She did a nice job bumping and selling the work done to her arm. Utami has another smart performance here, just like she has had throughout this tournament. It's amazing how she never tries to over do anything and just works smart. A fantastic final to end a very strong tournament. ****1/4

This match was awesome until the finish. The opening was great as Kairi clearly has the Kirifuda Clutch figured out so Shayna switches it up by going after Kairi's arm. Kairi's selling of her arm was terrific, especially when she made sure to work around it while on offense. The finish did feel like it was pasted on though. I wouldn't have had a problem with it had Shayna won with an armbar or if they worked it from an angle that didn't leave the ref in a bad spot. Still, this was the best match that these two have had and I have no problem with this feud continuing since these two probably have an even better match in them. ****

Ronda's run of inexplicably good matches continues here. Although, I thought Nikki was fantastic here. Veteran who holds the match together isn't a phrase that I'd thought I would use to describe a Nikki Bella performance but that's what happened here. Even Brie, after being pretty awful since coming back, did a very nice job here working as a second. I really liked how Ronda kept herself vulnerable by being too cocky at times thus leaving herself open to cheap shots from the Bellas. She still had a few bad moments as she took too long to set up some of the bigger spots and she's clearly using constant trash talk to cover up obvious spot calling. In the end though, this match worked much better as a main event than it looked like on paper and it definitely should be commended for that. ***3/4

I want to say this match was great but there's just too much goofy stuff going on here. It was clearly at it best when these two went straight at each other but then something goofy like the tossing of chairs into the ring or Becky trying to walk off in a LWS match would hurt the momentum. Charlotte has been terrible this year but she actually did come through here, mostly because she took a bunch of incredibly nasty bumps. Irregardless of the new floor mats, the powerbomb to the floor bump at the finish had to suck. I didn't care for Becky's inconsistent character work, is she suppose to be a badass that disregards the rules or a coward who cheats to get by, that seemed to change every few minutes. Still, as a whole, the match was entertaining but if they just cut out the dopey stuff they would have had something special. ***1/2

Wow, they threw up Ronda/Nikki up on YouTube:

I haven't seen one single mention of Sarah Stock in the Evolution build up.