AstroBoy

I did like Tenzan working his sort of proto-Anaconda Vice to try to keep Nakanishi down. I also will say I really kind of like Nakanishi's goofy charisma and he feels like a big deal. Other than that, it's fine heavyweight back and forth, but I didn't think they had any real interesting ideas outside of trading strikes and proving who was ultimately tougher. Which, for these two, is perfectly fine. A fun enough slugfest with Nakanishi again snaring the torture rack when Tenzan thinks he is in the clear. **3/4

It's astounding how much of a punchable face Nick Dinsmore has at this point. I'm supposed to be cheering for him and everything about his body language to his facial expressions to his stupid bicep taunt is so unbecoming of a likeable babyface. Damaja here looks pretty wild with his strikes and kind of rough around the edges. Mark Henry, though, is really good here and really helps give the match a nice base to build off of. This was fine but nothing special. **

This is solid junior action. Good pairings and exchanges to start before settling into some nice control segments, including a great spot with Liger applying the surfboard and allowing Kashin and Samurai to rake their forearms across the face for good measure. Samurai and Otani stood out to me in a good way, working nice sequences with one another. Samurai really seizes a good moment to bust out the top rope reverse DDT and escalate this into another gear for the finishing run. Really solid match. ***1/2

My review for Rey Escorpion vs. Super Porky, given to me by Grimmas: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/36192-rey-escorpion-vs-super-porky-cmll-10182013/?p=5827602 I am super happy with how this turned out. If I were kind I'd call myself a budding Lucha fan so this hit the sweet spot of having some familiarity to me while also being a completely new discovery. Such an awesome and unique match with a lot of drama. So glad I was exposed to it. Good pick!

Okay so they start off on the feet and it's quite a sight to see Porky with the mouthpiece in ready to go. Sure enough, Escorpion lays it in and brutalizes Porky for the first fall before choking him out. This was such an awesome statement of a first fall to get over what kind of situation Porky is in, getting over that Rey is viciously ready to take him out, and it opens up important questions. Porky has this kind of mythological quality to him for lack of a better word and I ended the first fall just totally intrigued with how he is going to solve this problem. Because you know that he has to have something up his sleeve. And you know the fans are desperate to see how is this hero going to come back in this type of situation. What will he use to turn the tide and fight back with the stakes so high? Still getting pounded on in the corner so Porky uses his mass to trap Rey and starts ramming him with nasty headbutts to the chin. They scramble and Porky catches a knee to the solar plexus and slams Rey to the mat in huge moment before pounding him out and finishing him quickly with a cross armbreaker. In some ways I wish Rey had been able to control for a bit longer and Porky would have been able to extend his comeback a bit longer but the moment worked so well even for how brief it was. The build to and culmination of him finally taking Rey down after taking such punishment early on was satisfying and then the quick finish puts them back on level ground. Rey's striking in this has looked awesome, for what it's worth, and Porky looks like a tough bastard for taking these shots to the chin. Porky is absolutely on fire in the tercera, leveling Rey with a huge splash in the corner and then an awesome diving splash to the floor before things cool off and sort of reset. They both trade shots and are just beating the hell out of each other until Rey gets Porky down and mercilessly beats him until he's defenseless. Maximo runs in and goes fucking crazy beating on Rey and the referee gives the match to Rey. This was fantastic. Violent and jarring and a beautiful story of Porky digging deep to battle Rey in this environment before ultimately falling. The peripheral stuff with Maximo and the post-match only enhances an already great piece of wrestling. Great stuff.

Grimmas, your match for this round is the television title match of Alex Wright vs Arn Anderson from Slamboree 5/21/95. A personal favorite and I have always had a soft spot for Alex Wright. Let me know what you think.

Hey Grimmas don't worry I will get a match to you by tonight and I am looking forward to your pick! Been very sick these last few days so haven't had lots of energy.

Glad you enjoyed the match C.S. I feel like Sabre has really turned up the nastiness this past year and works with a much greater degree of focus and tenacity than he used to. It's at least helped bridge the gap into making him a more believable threat, especially in a setting like the G-1.

I was not that high on this. Much of this felt very aimless to me, like little more than individual moves or runs of offense traded back and forth without much consequence or build. The strikes were good, the dives were good, and the intensity was there. But I thought Masato was kind of sloppy and there was just no bigger sense of work here than two guys trading back and forth. It was fine but I guess I expected something more substantial. Clever finish to give Masato the win though. **3/4

I wasn't wild about this as a lot of it just felt like a loosely interconnected series of slap exchanges disguising as a match. But the main moments that stand out here are both due to Otani and how he gets things over more than any move or strike exchange could. Otani's reaction to Tanahashi's nearfall, just his look of concern and question to the referee, does more to get Tanahashi over as a threat than any of Tanahashi's offensive exchanges did. The crowd is suddenly into it at another level there. And it's Otani's rabid enthusiasm, trying to encourage Makabe to finish the deal on Kanemoto, that brings the ending stretch an added element of heat. Without his acting there, it wouldn't have come across nearly as well. **3/4

There isn't much here to see, though the leg work looks pretty nice. Iizuka slaps on a rear naked choke and Fujinami is forced to give it up. Would have preferred the opposite result.

Yeah I wasn't nearly as caught up in the inner whirlwind of the GWE project but I look at that time fondly and consider it a time when I really started enjoying more wrestling. I also think it was rich in great discussion and there was no point in ever letting it cause any personal anxiety about how anybody else went about it. That said, I hope people just have fun and good discussion over this and I hope lots of people drop in at least for discussion purposes

Looks fun. I'll get involved regardless of where it's hosted. Kudos for the work setting it up.

C.S. assigned me the Kamala vs Andre the Giant steel cage match from 10/21/84 and I went ahead and wrote up a review for the MDA. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/40772-andre-the-giant-vs-kamala-wwf-102184/ It's well worth a watch for those who haven't seen it.

So this was a really awesome Andre performance, first and foremost. The amount of sympathy that he garners while making Kamala look like a dangerous killer is astonishing. Here you have this giant of a man that the crowd loves and he takes Kamala's chops and bites and stumbles and staggers around the ring, carrying himself like some brittle big target that's being beaten down. There is a part in the match where Kamala goes for the door to escape and Andre uses all his strength to go after him and stop him, selling the entire time, slumping into the ropes after he's made the save. Kamala is always fun to watch and his wildness adds to the match. What he lacks in physicality is made up for in his presentation and the moments where he resorts to biting and slapping his belly and getting confused by the rules kind of enhance the element of danger. We also get some really fun Andre hip attacks and he comes off the top rope with a sitting splash for a really emphatic ending. This was a lot of fun, and a really good example of Andre working as a sympathetic underdog to great effect.

Sasaki asserts his position going over Kido relatively easily. Almost kind of refreshing to see something devoid of so many nearfalls and underdog drama. Should be some good matchups coming up to look forward to.

Nishimura with another awesome outing. He brings such a sense of pace and desire to win, it feels like a real competition and he's always either actively surviving or actively finding a way to try to win the match. The octopus provides such a good counter that doesn't require him to just blow off exhaustion or pain but instead allows him to sneak in a desperation move and try to assert his advantage. And after a nearfall he just goes right to the corner and follows up with a missile dropkick. Always looking to win, always moving the match along in some way. Some of these G-1 matches seem like a collection of nearfalls out of context but they really did bring the crowd to their feet for an insane ovation when Nishimura wins on a great pinning combination after surviving some burly lariats.

Smothers looked pretty spry and he's so easy to get behind here. His dropkick was beautiful. Krush carries himself pretty well and all, but I've never been able to get much into him. Okay TV match though that leads to Viscera getting involved for the cheap finish. *1/2

It's always nice to see Regal just keeping the distance close, applying pressure, getting in his opponent's face. And this is a match where a guy like Schultz benefits from Regal leading him to a nice little match. Schultz didn't offer a ton but was perfectly serviceable and a good notch for Regal. **

I'm not buying into Cade. He comes across so stilted and fake to me. He puts forth such a minimum effort to garner sympathy from the crowd while Reckless has him in a chinlock. And he just doesn't seem confident moving around the ring. Reckless did a fine job working around that and they had a decent match but I thought Reckless was leading the way here. **1/4

Little Hollywood has some nice spots to steal the match. Spanky and Dragon seem eager to get some good stuff in and they make the most of their limited time. Spanky really dumped Rocker right on his head with the German suplex, that was nasty. The booking here is just atrocious. 1/2*

This was a little more fun than I thought it would be. Money and Hamrick looked good, Hamrick especially was all over the place. Dreamer may have been the biggest star but I had no real use for him here. Matthews has played a really good babyface throughout the year and he was solid again here working with Money. Short and sweet and a good little match. **1/2

Big Sal takes a fan's beer and tosses it onto another fan in the front row. Awesome. I thought this was pretty good but not a super standout performance. As much as I love him, I really thought Tajiri worked half speed and kind of lackadaisical early on with Guido. Really I came away pretty impressed by Mamaluke and Whipwreck out of the four. These four obviously mesh well and are developing more chemistry as a matchup and this was a nice spreading of the wings to move toward better things. ***

Shane acquitted himself well here. Maybe he was a little too concerned with constantly jawing to the crowd and he didn't have any offense really but he fit in fine. Psicosis executes his highspots well and they work enough of a simple story to make the crowd wait for his big moves. Fun house show match and a good outing from Shane. **1/2

This was interminable. Even the pre-match was just endless and pointless and awful. Then the match itself is just mindless wandering and a few hardcore spots with no investment at all. Lobo comes out and it's another convoluted ending followed by even more post-match stuff that seems to go on and on. This was dreadful. 1/2*