AstroBoy

Yeah this was right at the level of the March match. Valentine's selling when Tito fires away at him is so great. The way he takes just one shot to the jaw and milks it and finds that line between begging off and finding that sneak opening to assert control again. Valentine hits a nasty short punch after grabbing a headlock, later slingshots Tito's neck into the bottom rope and that looked painful too. In these first two matches there is a feeling of inevitability that Valentine is going to find a way to exploit that one major mistake or injury from Tito and grab the belt. Here Tito takes a ridiculous bump just flying out of control over the top rope to the floor off a missed flying forearm. I thought maybe they would go for a countout but they do the DQ with Valentine crotching Tito on the rope. So again we get a non-clean finish but one that keeps Valentine looking strong when the match ends. ****

Valentine was so awesome in control here. The elbow to cut off Tito's comeback. The methodical wearing down of Tito. His look when he realizes Tito's knee is hurt after he delivered the atomic drop. All their interactions come across like Tito passionately fighting back and posing a huge threat but Greg always weathering that storm through smarts or good timing. The finish was a surprise to me with Valentine seemingly closing in on the belt but this left a good taste in my mouth as I'm starting to work my way through this feud. ***3/4

Spoiler really makes the claw work in a theatrical way. He maximizes it and draws as much out of a simple hold as he can. His reaction to Ox catching his claw attempt is fantastic with him looking at his hand in disbelief. He does a great splay-armed sell falling back into the ropes off a simple strike that plays big. Ox didn't show much here but helped fire up the crowd a ton by bashing himself with a chair and sort of kicking the match into a more urgent space. The ropes are really loose here midway through the match but it doesn't seem to affect what they do too much. I wasn't super keen on the match overall but Spoiler did show some of those really nice moments.

Mosca seemed like a pretty big dud here and he and Brody were terribly uninteresting for large swatches of this. Have to echo all thoughts of this just mostly being there. Nobody seemed to have much fire or kick it into a different gear. They work to a schmozz finish and this was okay for what it was I guess. **1/2

The breaking of the full nelson with the flex was a brilliant piece of taunting. Really basic stuff and Hogan looks utterly ridiculous in the ring against this guy. By the numbers squash.

Boy it was weird seeing Dusty as a babyface just slapping on a rear chinlock for control in the early parts of the match. Dusty has a good feel for the moment here and draws as much as he can out of landing some shots on Graham but honestly I felt like this was pretty lackluster and Graham really didn't add much. There is a pretty ugly criss-cross spot at one point that ends with a Dusty kick that misses by a mile and both guys had loose moments like that. And the interminable bearhug spot just isn't the most compelling thing. Predictably shady finish. **1/2

Not getting a chance to go this year but really excited to see how it turns out, especially from a booking perspective as I'm sure the matches will deliver. If they do it right I think Joey Lynch is the right choice to go through and win the finals.

It's astounding how quickly they could run all these Vampiro shenanigans into the ground. This match is humming along okay even though Jarrett is just so bland as an ace and Sting really doesn't feel like a main event star at this point. The ending pretty much tarnishes the whole thing but this was okay while it lasted. **

Awesome looked particularly bad and uninspired here. I don't know why I keep getting surprised when these turn out to be more angles than matches. The Kim/Page angle should be effective in theory but it's honestly just kind of unpleasant and uncomfortable. Awesome gets the win and Page is left lying. I will say that Page is at least good here evoking some semblance of sympathy but the whole angle is just so negative and one-sided.

It was well laid-out. The story they told made sense. It was ambitious and timed to draw out the maximum impact from the falls and shifts in momentum. Triple H was really strong in this and Rock was solid. So in some respects it feels like it should have approached some kind of classic status but it just. . . didn't reach that for me. It was a good story told in the best way possible and not screwed up in any way. But it just didn't break past that barrier and I think that's why I'm having a hard time finding more to say about this match. How far does two guys doing the best they can in this type of situation go when it doesn't leave any kind of lasting impact? It's a feather in their caps for pulling off what they did but more in the way that I admire what they did. Not in a way that I just can't wait to go back and watch it again or think that it's something nobody else could have pulled off. ***3/4

They cut a good pace here and it was pretty pleasantly surprising to see Venis working a good straight match with Benoit here. I thought this was pretty gritty and there were some nice moments of focus on Benoit's hurt knee and Val's back. It was going nicely here but didn't really have a chance to peak or resolve itself before Holly came out and wrecked both guys. Those chairshots were pretty horrific. Venis looked solid here but Benoit provided a lot of little detail and just the right amount of intensity to stand out again. **3/4

Pretty rote action here until the closing moments with the ref bump kind of waking things up. The crowd goes wild for the table tease on Tori but X-Pac breaks it up, we get a screwy finish, and this was just kind of there. Post-match is a crowd pleaser and it's wild how over the Dudleys are, particularly Bubba Ray. Good on Briscoe to take a painful looking table bump. **1/2

I really really liked this. These guys were really lacing into each with some brutal sequences especially the chop sequence in the corner. Both were extra snug in applying holds and they really worked this much more aggressively than I might have thought. You think submission match and Jericho's generally floaty kind of offense and you don't expect to see these guys just dogging each other and looking for openings to hurt each other. The work around the knee brace is really smart and well-woven into the match which leads directly into the finish. The wrenching of the Crossface was nasty and this was supremely satisfying. Benoit was great and Jericho stepped up. A notch in both men's belts. ***3/4

Yeah I really liked the early portions of this with Big Show throwing Shane around. At one point he hits a really nasty kick and lariat but then this kind of descends into a methodical parade of interference with Show only overcoming it for so long. The finish comes across as pretty nasty but the tone was just wrong here. Shane should've gotten his ass kicked and Show just isn't in the right spot as sympathetic babyface being taken out here. Especially since he doesn't actually overcome the odds despite how huge he is. *3/4

It just felt like they were trying to fit too much into such a clunky multi-man match at the beginning of the card. There was a lack of any real flow or build and it just came off as a lot of flat spots. Eddy clearly is the only one over to any sort of degree here too and that didn't really help matters. Still a fine use of some midcard guys. **1/2

This was a real fun opener with a great mix of midcard personalities. Nothing blowaway but a well-worked basic six-man that let the crowd start the show on a high note. Rikishi was mega over here and this was just very pleasant to watch. ***

I really love Scott Hudson exclaiming "They just broke the wall of the Hardcore Hell" as if it has any kind of reference point or precedent. Mark Madden has been terrible constantly but I really dislike Hudson too. The idea here is just so silly. They are scaling this thing to get to a "guitar room" and you know what, I understand it. They are weaving the storyline and the characters involved into a match curated specifically for them in a lot of ways. Also the movie tie-in. But when does a match become something that doesn't even resemble a wrestling match? Okay with that out of the way this is kind of fun. Jarrett and Page both bleed and work hard to get the stip over and really lay into each other. The table bump in the middle tier looked painful as hell. And honestly it takes a lot of guts to even be involved in this. The view from the top of the third cage is just insane and vertigo-inducing. Jarrett's one-handed afterthought guitar shot on the already crushed DDP made me laugh for some reason. As a wildly overbooked match I kind of liked this slightly better than Kidman/Hogan if only because it was so WILDLY over the top by comparison. **3/4

This is so overbooked it's hard to even evaluate it as a match. Hogan does have a nice edge to him that was much-needed. Kidman is working hard here and this feels like it would have been better if Hogan had given Kidman just a tad more. All the fixings are here with the plunder and referee shenanigans but I just feel like it became a bit too much. The crowd was right there with them and way into it but I don't think Kidman got enough of a close nearfall. As matches like this go I liked it and gonna say **1/2. It just didn't feel very conclusive of the story they had set up. At least not when it came to elevating Kidman in any meaningful way.

Lucha is still somewhat of a more recent undertaking for me and lucha title matches built largely around matwork are a subsection of that that I'm even more unfamiliar with. I absolutely loved this. The gradual build, the graceful and beautiful matwork that was very easy to appreciate and follow. I was surprised to see some focused limbwork and the attack on the arm by Panther as well as the selling by Santo were both pretty sublime. The build to the final fall is really a fun ride with the couple of occasions along the way where the referee takes issue with Santo and gets physical. This builds to the controversial and dirty ending to a brilliant match. Great divide between the characters of the two. Masterful matwork. A burner of a story that peaks and concludes with juice left for more. Fantastic. ****1/4

When Hashimoto hits that spinning leg sweep and starts going ballistic there is legitimate drama, danger, chaos, and emotion during his onslaught. Hash is so squat and it makes him torquing his bodyweight into those kicks look so much more brutal. I love the way Ogawa ragdolls his body on the DDT on the apron and this becomes one of those heavyweight UFC fights where both guys are gassed but looking for a big shot to end it. The struggle over the STO and Hash's DDT counter are phenomenal and I want to give credit to Ogawa here. He gave a fantastic performance as the guy who should win but still finds himself thinking "what the fuck is wrong with my opponent, why can't I get away from him, why can't I finish him?" The finish run of STOs truly got more brutal and brutal and then it is finished in spectacular fashion. Without caring about any of the extraneous circumstances surrounding the match I will just say that this was fantastic. ****1/4

Not only was the match really lackluster but I actually had to rewind the finish and watch it again just to wrap my head around what was supposed to have happened. Such a badly executed ending and of course a throwaway world title change for no reason. Yippee.

Both of these guys looked not so hot, getting crossed up trying to run through spots, not being smooth enough to pull off what they were going for. Punk's dive botch was truly horrendous but I guess you can see some of the foundation here for what Punk could eventually become. But what he eventually became was not about how smooth or graceful he was in the ring.

I watched this right after Ohtani vs. Kojima and just. . . what's the point? Liger being made to look like such an underdog here just undermines how he's been presented in every other situation. I love how Liger fires up after his initial flurry fails but after that this largely settles in to the same sort of tropes that Ohtani/Kojima had. Liger shows some hope, runs through some of his big moves, Sasaki shrugs it off and just pins him. Fine. This was disappointing. **1/2

This felt like a borderline comedy match in that Ohtani's attempts to take down Kojima were met with relative indifference and a bored Kojima performance. Ohtani puts together a crafty opening around working the arm and Kojima can't be bothered to really sell or alter any of his offense. Even when Ohtani gets disrespectful and really lays it in, it's treated like a near jobber guy trying to step up to the big man and Kojima essentially shrugs off any threat. Ohtani works in a really different and awesome take on the 1-count before his stretch run and goes through a series of big moves but falls short in a pretty good match. ***