AstroBoy

This was bunches of fun. Faction warfare with M2K looking very slick in their teamwork while Stalker mixes in some underdog spirit with some comedy. Fuji was solid in enduring an onslaught while throwing some power moves in along the way. Great nearfalls that kept escalating while not overdoing it. This was basically pitch perfect. ****

The comedy stuff is much more palatable thrown into the middle of a match here with time to breathe both before and after it. The work itself was good, though this felt a tad on the long side. A good match and the finish comes off well with Dandy getting the pin. ***

Psicosis is not exactly a hard hitter so while I appreciated him heeling it up, his long offensive onslaught was a bit on the meandering side for me. The extracurricular involvement is a fun diversion along the way. Tiger Mask fires off a nice comeback and gets the pin that came off a bit awkward. Fun enough match that just didn't have much of a hook to it. **1/2

All action especially the brilliant tussles between old Hansen and Tenryu. The striking exchange between Kea and Tenryu mid-match was also fantastic and showed flashes of Kea hanging at that level and proving himself as an aspiring top dog. The interactions between every combination are intense and have the right mixture of stiffness and struggle. The crowd is electric especially for Hansen/Tenryu. Really strong match with Kea hanging tough and putting in a good showing before falling to the powerbomb. ****

I did not care for this at the same level as those above did. The first half of the match was excellent and did a good job establishing Buffalo as the bruising bully that was going to grapple with Murahama and push him around a bit. This was great and Buffalo was solid with Murahama throwing in some dazzling submission chains and transitions here and there. After Murahama's kick to the post it leads to a great dramatic near submit off the figure four but then Murahama just pops up and the match becomes a different match to me. It retains some of the jauntiness and does build off some of what they had laid down but it becomes much more about nearfalls and moves without any regard to the leg or the pacing from before. It didn't ruin the match or anything I just wish it hadn't gone down that breakneck pace at that point for so long. Still liked it. ***1/4

This was all over the place and hard to follow in spots but had some memorable and grisly moments. I never cared for Backseat Boyz back in the day but are better upon revisit. The Blade swanton looked super painful with him taking a ton of the brunt on his tailbone. And then Mondo crashing through the lighttubes and table was even worse. His elbow looked shredded to hell as he wandered around working the rest of the match. The valet table spot comes off clunky but leads to a pretty brutal looking finish for the Backseat Boyz to retain the belts. **1/2

Well they certainly spammed a TON of moves in this one. And after a moderate beginning, things quickly lose sense. After the first dive sequence Rising Son starts making a comeback for a hot tag and I find myself realizing that the referee is doing nothing and the spots are just endless so any sense of struggle or comeback is just meaningless. Super Dragon slipped up on a double team spot and badly botched a space flying tiger drop. TARO looked lost at points and threw pretty weak strikes to break up pins. I liked a few things specifically. Commitment to double team offense was nice, as even though the spots came in droves, at least they worked in some fun double team work. Sadly missed in too many tag matches. And I think Excalibur really shined in this. Of all the guys in there he was the glue keeping so many things together, helping along awkward moments. He gave crisp nice looking offense and took offense well. And he bumped huge for Super Dragon's lariat toward the end of the match. Dragon had the flash and the aura to some extent. But Excalibur looked like the future star here with tons of heel charisma and some good mechanics. **

Eh this was a lot of garbage brawling at a pretty plodding pace. All guys take some hurtful shots with the ladder and fly into the cage with great aplomb but it just sort of drags and stays in the same gear until the big spot with the table to end it. With four guys crammed in to a cage like that it has to be hard to space out and portray real intensity for extended moments but this was just kind of dreary even if the action was consistent. *1/2

Matthews is a polished enough worker here and makes a good FIP while firing off some attempted comebacks that Guido cuts off. Big Sal kills Matthews with a splash into the guardrail that looked painful to take. Guido especially here is great at controlling the pace and leading things along while being a great shit talker and showing some charisma. York has a pretty vanilla hot tag and gets distracted allowing Mamaluke to put him away with a sort of cutthroat inverted DDT. **1/2

What is here is another great vicious beatdown and angle. Villano and Perro going at Pierroth without mercy just doesn't wear thin here and the visual of everyone tending to the injured Mascara added some gravitas to the proceedings. Perro and Villano throw a bloody Pierroth into the CMLL logo at the top of the stage and leave him in a heap. This was great.

They were really wrenching in the holds down the stretch, particularly Yuki with the ankle pick. Ishikawa's selling is so nuanced as he tries to wade through shots to find an opening for a takedown. So believable late in the match getting rocked by strikes and sort of coming in and out of consciousness to try to beat the count. It builds to real peril and inevitable outcome with Katsumi landing some finishing blows before choking him out. Good stuff. ***1/4

Nice gradually building match featuring a grapple-heavy opening with lots of matwork before escalating into some strike exchanges in the ending stretch. Loved the thrown in cross body toward the finish and liked Taira's spin kicks to the head. Finishing submission is very painful looking as well. ***1/4

I thought this was plodding. The violence was good. The focused attack by Pierroth is good, the involvement of the seconds is good, and it builds well to a La Parka comeback that has the crowd going nuts throwing bottles. It's just a little plodding on the way to it and kind of bloated when the comeback comes. Some of the spots with Parka and the seconds came across not super smooth -- not bad -- just kind of like a mechanical feeling of people going through a slapstick routine. That said, Parka bleeds and gains some sympathy and his final overcoming of the odds is a good moment. **3/4

I thought Gran Apache and Oscar Sevilla were fantastic in this. Apache is just so smooth and also brings appropriate aggression as evidenced by one of the most beautiful right hands you will ever see on Sevilla. Also his angry post-match attack throwing around Fleisch. Apache and Sevilla have a mesmerizing and beautiful exchange of complex arm drags in the middle of the match that was great. Genki looked like he had a pretty good base set of skills in this while Fleisch was pretty green but still showed great athleticism. A match like a good enjoyable snack. ***1/2

The match was fun but it's weird somehow to see Onryo with his look and everything going so back and forth in a competitive match. It's slightly jarring and sometimes incongruous but it works well enough here. Onryo's dive to the outside was actually pretty spectacular and both guys bust out slick pinning combinations. Sasuke finally puts him down and then gets jumped after the match. **1/2

Reil has nice charisma and has a lot of character. He is believable in the way he carries himself. Mark Reil comes out after a nice tease of Marcus Bagwell and proceeds to pretty quickly botch a springboard. He mostly just takes Ki's offense and Ki doesn't hold back at all really roughing him up with some kicks and a Krush Rush. Nick Berk is solid enough here and really takes a nasty looking dropkick to the knee followed by a dragon screw that seemed like it should have torn his ACL. Berk somehow reminds me of a paler, heavier, Super Crazy with his attire. I don't know. **1/4

Kickass trios match, one of my favorites of the month so far. The dedication to dismantling Pierroth is awesome and Villano III is at the forefront just brutalizing him with kicks to the skull and headbutts. And Pierroth sells throughout the match as a legit victim of a mugging, just kind of lying around motionless, twitching now and then but mostly taking a massive bloodthirsty beating. The intensity of the armbar to get the DQ was also nice along with Bestia and Scorpio's reactions to all this going on. The VCR spot is a tremendous visual and the aftermath with Bestia and Scorpio acting triumphant was nice. ***3/4

Mochizuki was really killing Ishii with those kicks and this tells a fine story with Mochizuki really effectively dominating and controlling Ishii for an extended amount of time leading to a very rewarding comeback when Ishii fires off a german suplex. Both guys strikes were incredible and Ishii specifically inhabits the area of looking strong while portraying a sensible vulnerability. This was good stuff. ***1/4

Yeah the action was okay but kind of falls away as this devolves into a kind of comedy spectacle. I am not averse to comedy in wrestling at all it just didn't click for me in this instance with so much going on. Hard to accurately gauge as a match then.

Every single person was good in this. Malenko looked like he really relished his role early on with Rikishi. Benoit and Rikishi had a nice physical interaction that put both guys over. Rock was on fire in his comeback and the crowd could not have been more molten for all of it. Saturn got in some nice stuff including the kick to Rock. I loved X-Pac getting paid back by the Rock's big clothesline and then taking the leg drop from Sexay and his subsequent selling of dazedness before making the tag. Totally lives up to all the hype you would hear about it and exceeds it. A great mixture of intermingling feuds and putting over strong newcomers with a clean finish packaged with a great post-match to make everyone happy. ****1/4

I liked the action a good deal before all the ref stuff at the end. I thought both guys looked solid with Flash seeming more big league in terms of charisma and presence. They do get some good nearfalls before it really becomes overkill. Flash finally uses a ton of tricks to escape with the win and the belt. **1/4

This starts off with the crowd just red hot. And the opening mat standoffs only stoke the fires, amping up the hype level and animosity between the two. Where the match succeeds I think is that it moves from there and escalates to the action outside the ring after Psicosis takes his insane post bump. The dive to the seats is crazy as well. Back in they go at it and Tajiri's stunner to snap kick combo was great looking. From there we get bigger bombs and Tajiri kicks out of the leg drop before destroying Psicosis with kicks. The spinning kick to the face in particular was gruesome looking. What a great game of back and forth with enough to keep it from being mindless or wandering. ***3/4

Looks like Rhino and Mikey have good chemistry. I liked this quite a bit with Whipwreck kind of keeping this moving and Rhino keeping up well with him and looking game. Mikey can call on his savvy and crowd connection to get a lot out of what they put together. The finish came off perfectly and Rhino is booked excellently on the line between slight vulnerability and dismissive dominance. **3/4

Scorpio Jr. feels like he's the glue guy here in the early goings. Atlantis is fantastic taking out the rudos, bouncing between all of them with his offensive attack in the second fall. Niebla has a fun charismatic way about him. And then Lizmark lands super awkward and I didn't even catch it until the repeated replays. That was nasty. They finish it pretty much the best they can. This was fine outside of the nasty injury. **