GOTNW

That was Maeda's vision at least. It varied from company to company.

Sometimes you open a video of a match and think "here we go". And there may be a pre-match interview, ok, skip that. Maybe a video package for a preview, ok, skip that. Boring entrances, ok, skip that, Endless introductions, ok, skip that. Then the match starts with something boring and generic like arm wingers and you wonder if it wouldn't be better to just close that youtube window and go do something else. Maybe go watch cat meme videos, reconnect with your childhood friends. Anything else really. And sometimes you see LA Park and Rey Escorpion holding chairs ready to attack each other and think "every decision I've ever made leading up to this moment has been correct". Cause that's what you're really here for in the pro wrestling bubble, bandana man and skeleton man pretending to try to kill each other with more than half of the match covered in two control segments. And even when they move away from the garbage wrestling the match is still great because of their tremendous personalities. Escorpion manages to incorporate taking off Park's mask into a Clothesline so smoothly, and he immediately makes sure to cover his base and distract the ref. It's insane that Park is doing the kind of crazy dives he did here when he's that old and fat but it just adds to the chaos. ****

An amazingly chaotic tag match, one of the best of the year. You could replace Xtreme Tiger with pretty much any generic flier luchador and nothing would be lost, Caristico did play a part in the match feeling as big as it did due to him knowing how to rile up the crowd and being a bigger name, and he did show more fire in the comeback. Still this was all about LA Park and Rey Escorpion throughoutly beating the shit out of the tecnicos. The opening had a lot of quick double teams and teasing that would result in stare offs and give the crowd a chance to chant and get into it, they weren't doing much from an action standpoint but from a structural one it was a crucial portion of the match. Then you get the extended rudo beatwdown and it is as wonderful as it gets, Park and Escorpion recklessly beat the shit ouf ot the tecnicos with whatever object they find, whether it be chairs or wooden boards, and of course throw awesome punches too. Rey Escorpion was probably the best actor in the match, him pushing Caristico off after Caristico had repeteadly smashed his head with a board only to get hit with it one more time and fall down was gold, he contemplated Park's shtick perfectly. Of course Park was no slouch either, in particular there was a sequence where he caught a Caristico dive and it resulted in the world's most bizarre pro wrestling dance off, you could make a million GIFs out of this match. They also managed to incorporate the referee in an interesting way, sometimes the referee being biased just detriments to the quality of the match, here it was a quick but fun angle where he took LA Park's belt and started whipping the tecnicos, the visual of that was as ridiculous as it sounds, the tecnicos got their payback and they moved on. There was a pretty ugly Caristico botch at the end but they reacted to it perfectly by taking advantage of a wounded Caristico after he'd sold/laid on the ground because he was hurt for real for a while for an easy win. ****1/4

Cage matches aren't exactly something I associate with lucha but it's something you'd figure LA Park would be great at, and sure enough he is. He totally outclassed Caristico here. LA Park's performance was phenomenal-the level of vioelnce he brough to the table was just something else, as was his character work. He dominated most of the match with long control segments and I am a fan of that classic "rudo beats the shit out of a tecnico for the first ten minutes" structure. Him toying with Caristico, playing with his mask and telling him to look up before instantly knocking him down is something that has to be seen. One advantage of the 2/3 falls structure is that allows there to be a climax when a big spot is done, and this being only one fall resulted in my least favourite spot in the match, which was Caristico's comeback happening immediately after Park Powerbombed him onto chairs. Park did manage to somewhat salvage that as just as Caristico's was firing up, grabbing chairs and all that he just punched him straight in the face and went back in the control. The other huge spot involved Park spearing Caristico into chairs, but that one also had him take damage while executing the move so he couldn't just take advantage of it straight away. Honestly if it were not for the cage dive Caristico wouldn't have done anything of note here, since what he did here was mostly react to Park with payback spots and classic tecnico offence and Caristico pretending to be Park and doing Armdrags is not nearly as cool as Park breaking a chair over Caristico's head. This had the grit, mask ripping and blood you'd want out of it, and a very interesting angle to it as well with Rey Escorpion interfering in the match and trying to cost LA Park the win. Honestly he brought more to the match than Caristico did-his punches are always a joy to watch and he carries himself like a badass. That led to an angle where Caristico refused Escorpion's help and started fighting him and when Park got up he handed the match to Caristico because he cared about punishing Escorpion more. Needed a stronger Caristico performance to be a truly great match but almost reached that level anyway and made me interested in catching up with whatever angles Elite's been running, a Park-Escorpion feud sounds amazing. ***3/4

Well the end of the year is coming so I'll try to not, urgh, completely neglect this as much I have recently Nominating: Katsuyori Shibata vs Go Shiozaki (NOAH 10/23) Tetsuya Naito vs Kenny Omega (NJPW 8/13) Katsuyori Shibata vs EVIL (NJPW 8/13) Canis Lupus vs. Trauma I (IWRG 9/4) Barbaro Cavernario vs Volador Jr. (CMLL 9/30) Meiko Satomura vs. Yoshiko (Sendai Girls 7/30) Ultimo Guerrero vs Rey Escorpion (Elite 8/4)

I'm just at a point in my fandom where a lot of it makes for useful discrimination. When I see someone's favourite wrestling of all time is 90s All Japan, all their opinions correlate with the Meltzer cannon and they don't *get* lucha, I still may respect their opinion for other reasons, but for most it's just a sign for me to not pay attention. Whereas if Jetlag or JimArg pimp something it'll inherently intrigue me more because their tastes correlate to mine more. I get why Grimmas is bothered by this because it is consistent with his political stances, but as I've learned a lot in how the real world operates I frankly see no reason to be bothered by this stuff as long as there are people who enjoy and discuss lucha on its own merits and new people are discovering it. Being popular or equally represented in artistic fields, even in something as dorky as pro wrestling critique, is something that just won't ever happen for many workers that are deemed great by giant dorks that also think Gran Hamada, Kantaro Hoshino, Fuerza Guerrera etc. are all time greats.

Very clever of you. Do people pay to see interviews and talk segments or the fights? Personalities and conflicts just make the fights more realistic. Two kids are more likely to fight because of a disagreement and exchange some insults before they do than they are to just start fighting for no reason.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition. Almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring. Not something to emulate for entertainment purposes. I disagree, and judging by the fact UFC is worth more than the WWE and their public perceptions most people seem to as well. That's got zero to do with the quality of the fights. They've done a better job creating stars in recent years than WWE, although even if WWE did a great job of it they'd never see the same TV money. As long as people continue to pay and enjoy shows they pay insanely high ticket prices and PPV money for your statement that "almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring" simply isn't relevant.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition. Almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring. Not something to emulate for entertainment purposes. I disagree, and judging by the fact UFC is worth more than the WWE and their public perceptions most people seem to as well.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition.

I can't hear you the noise of you praising shitty indy workrate wrestling is drowning out whatever constructive point you could possibly make.

As far as modern New Japan workrate matches go this was worked about as smartly and well as it gets. Early on they established clear mini narratives instead of just wasting time by doing insignificant "small" holds to fill time-Naito would mocks Omega and evade his lock ups which caused Omega to go off on him and start spitting at him, Naito had a long control segment based on attacking Omega's leg, Omega worked over Naito's neck and so on. It was worked pretty back and forth but with solidly long control segments that meant something AND memorable transitions. The legwork provided Naito an easy means of effectively cutting Omega off when he'd attempt a comeback or when he was already in control-Naito attempting his Fireman's Carry/Moonsault combination only to stop because his leg work was a great use of that. Naito selling the damage of a Neckbreaker he executed on Omega may not have fed into a transition but it was a cool detail that further hooked me in. A common criticism I have of the style is that they simply get lazy and rely on lazy cliches-the workrate isn't impressive because you can tell everything that's going to happen. It's not like I loved Naito running into an Omega Clothesline but him successfully hitting running dropkicks on Omega's leg served as an explanation of why he would do that and leave himself open to a counter. A lot of the strikes they did early-mid way on looked lazy, not as good as those of C level Memphis workers. Now you can say that those strikes weren't really the focal point of the match and that's a fair point, but if you're arguing that modern New Japan is the peak of workrate wrestling an All Japan fanatic can simply point to something like those weak strikes and say "that didn't happen in All Japan". The match will mostly be remembered for all the insane violence and drama that the finishing stretch brought. Naito is a complete lunatic, and was willing to take INSANE bumps to put Omega and the match over. Omega repaid him with similar recklessness. As far as the nerfall heavy finish goes, what seperated it from the usual New Japan match for me is that they worked it how I basically want this type of match to be worked. The moves should look convincing and dangerous. You should believe the wrestlers have a reason to attempt them. The execution should be convincing. It takes a lot of effort and creativity but they nailed it here, and credit to them-they didn't insist on getting all their shit in for the sake of doing so. Once he got cut off Omega never went for the Moonsault again. For the counters themselves...they were just well worked. They were set up in a way you thought the match was going to end-Omega would hit a big knee and lift Naito on his shoulder, and as he's about to do the one Winged Angel Naito somehow turns it around into a Destino, which I doubt anyone thought was physhically possible until it was done. There was also the brilliant use of Naito's Flying Forearm-it's a move Naito uses commonly, and it often gets countered too, but here it was already countered earlier on, and once that happens and Naito went for it again you'd think it would have to hit because that's just how New Japan has programmed me to view their matches. And Naito eating a big knee while going for it again is an effective play on that cliche. It's fair to question the existence of those cliches in the first place, how they've hurt the quality of the ringwork and how it could (and for some wrestlers has) lead to just everything becoming too meta and too counter heavy to work. But props to them-it did here. ****

Some no brainers there would be: Aja Kong vs Yumiko Hotta (AJW 1/24) Nobuhiko Takada vs Vader (UWFi 8/18) Shinya Hashimoto vs Jushin Liger (NJPW 2/24) Shinya Hashimoto vs Hiroshi Hase (NJPW 12/13) Vader vs Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFi 6/10) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Steve Williams (AJPW 7/28) Blue Panther vs El Mariachi (AAA 10/30) Then it becomes a issue of me not having clear ratings for a bunch of matches I've seen (pretty sure at least one of the Dynamite Kansai/Aja matches would top it among others) and needing to rewatch some stuff. For instance I thought the Owen/Bret match was a ***** classic last time I watched it, but that was at least five years ago and my taste is on another planet now.

It wouldn't make my top ten, probably would have it even lower.

I don't really care about Hero's weight and and all the tired debates about body positivity in WWE and whatnot but am interested in how he will adapt to the WWE style since the last time he did the results were mostly nothing special.

You gotta love the insane ideas Vince McMahon comes up with. Having shoot submission wrestling matches on a 2004 Smackdown is brilliant. Angle is obviously a more skilled wrestler and it showed, but the drama and the question are based on the double wristlock Puder pulled. I heard Angle say in an inteview submissions were legal but that there was only supposed to be a one count for pins, and Puder did pin himself on the submission. Angle losing it after getting hooked and getting in Puder's face was neat, you could feel the roid rage talking out of him.

Not sure why it took me so long to watch this but it was every bit as horrifiyingly amazing as I expected. Classifying it as anything other than pro wrestling would be unjust. There's a pro wrestling angle before the match. There are irish whips during the match. As a viewing experience, I loved it. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable rating it due to all the whining that could ensue about rewarding unprofessional behavior, but I am not one to really talk about morality in pro wrestling. The match starts with a creepy minute long staredown. They get into each other's face, after which Act punches Yoshiko in the face. Then the fighting starts-they both throw hands but Yoshiko easily overpowers Act and takes her down. At points it seems Yoshiko doesn't even care to fight, as she stops Act and stares at her as if to stay "I've proved my point. we can go back to working now, I don't even care". Every chance she gets Act jumps on her only to get beaten up more, which makes the irish whips look that much weirder. Act's stablemate (I assume) goes after Yoshiko post-match, yelling "you're not a real champion, this is pro wrestling , wrestle" and so on. The visuals of Act's broken nose and swollen eye were as chilling as it gets, if you have the stomach for something like this it's quite the experience.

This was a weird one. Dirtbike Kid takes most of the match with vanilla junior heavyweight offence, just hitting spot after spot, which Sasuke reacts to by just kicking out at one. Kid misses a splash and then Sasuke just kicks the shit out of him and Guillotines Him for the finish. This was a mask tournament, and apparently Dirtbike Kid threw a fit about jobbing in the opening round and unmasked himself before the entrance because of that, with Sasuke responding the way he did. Definitely worth watching if you're a fan of 2 minute matches that turn into real fights.

Decided to check this out since I heard it was 8 minutes long and relatively one sided but was disappointed to find out it was nowhere near as good as it was hyped to be. Ok, so you have Riddle blindsight Ospreay with an amazing knee strike before the bell rings. That ruled. Then he starts slamming him around-and the throws he does look great, the Fisherman Buster in particular looked like he decapitated Ospreay. What he does inbetween the slams isn't very good-his chops are eye rolling and for most of his strikes he still hasn't managed to figure out how to make it look good without hitting full force. I find the overreacting incredibly annoying-good for the crowd and the commentator for enjoying themselves, but screaming at every single spot they do every two seconds is a bit much, especially if you've watched, ahem, any Riddle and Ospreay match before, ever. Ospreay was surprisingly tolerable here-his flippy nonsense is much better as a means of a comeback. If they worked it like that instead of just having Ospreay do on a moves spray maybe the match could've been good. But between the ridiculous New Japan cosplay no selling strike exchanges, sound effect kicks and the overreliance on constant pop-ups and countering in the finishing stretch this one felt like a missed opportunity more than anything. **1/2

Was wondering if there was any follow up to their angle in the Porky/Escorpion match, and, well, this was six minutes of good workrate with some good character work mixed in, but not exactly something I will swoon over. The opening sequence was great, perfect one-upping with them countering every hold and move the other one did. I think in a vacuum it may not be that much different than New Japan finishing stretches, except here it follow a certain tradition of luca libre holds and moves that they opt to use whilst Okada matches use a bunch of US indy moves. I also vastly prefer when sequences like that are done at the beginning of a match instead of finishing with them. Escorpion selling the threat of Maximo's kiss was cool and Maximo has one of the greatest Tope Suicidas of all time, the way he just slams head first is unreal, but I can only like a match so far when you have them exchange Sitout Powerbombs and a bunch of roll-ups just to get stuff in. ***

It's kind of fascinating how many hyped matches in 2016 are that aren't any good and yet there's a huge amount of really good stuff in Mexico that virtually no one talks about. I absolutely loved the first half of this one as it was basically one control segment of Escorpion beating the shit out of Ultimo Guerrero, laying in vicious punches, chops and back elbows as well as executing beautiful head stomps (which are an underrated lucha brawl trademark). Ultimo Guerrero's facial expressions were on point and really spoke to the crowd-if there's one thing you can't blame him for it's not understanding them. They built a nice mini angle over the ref holding Ultimo's arm and them arguing over whether he was punching or not, and when Ultimo finally got his hands on Escorpion the place went wild, it was deafening. The match eventually became a little too back and forth for my taste although the workrate was on a high level with them hitting great dives and whatnot. Still as badass as Ultimo Guerrero's Dropkick off the apron is I will remember the spot where he jumped on the top rope after an Escorpion irish whip and Escorpion just looked at him and contemplated whether he should go after him for about five seconds more. ***1/2

A hair vs hair match under Super Libre rules. This is basically worked as a faux MMA match-they work in a Porky quasi-dive, but that's about it in terms of "clasic" lucha. Falls are won by shooty submissions instead of the theatrical ones you're used to in lucha matches. The crowd was molten for this one, heavily behind Porky. It's hard to describe exactly what this feels like-it isn't like a Danielson/Ki match that you can compare to Battlarts, if not in direct influence than in the conclusions they came to in how to construct a match. This feels uniquely mexican-it's not that far removed from the classic brawls. You can imagine Sangre Chicana working something like this if he was aware of MMA. It's not like there's some RINGS level matwork-much of it is boxing plus basic wrestling and punching on the ground, but there's a constant struggle to everything they do and it lacks the classic feeding lucha matches have that give matches a certain smoothness. One might be bother by the finish not being clean but Escorpion beating Porky so much it infuriated Maximo and caused him to snap and attack Escorpion was perfectly logical and felt like a satisfying finish, and the real "finish" of a hair vs hair match is the head shaving anyway. It's hard to compare Escorpion choking Porky by Headscissorsing him onto the ropes while simultaneously punching him to any other type of wrestling-he seems like a very creative wrestler, hopefully he'll get a platform to display that more often. ***3/4

I imagine it's the (grand)kids that he's really worried about. Vince's mother is still alive so it's feasible he could live another 20/25 years-and by then they'll all probably have finished college. With him having an option of keeping the business in the family I doubt Vince is going to give up so easily and let a non-McMahon surname rule the fed.

Better than their first match, mostly due to a superior match structure that played to both of their strengths well. A better crowd here too. Less stupid spots were done-there was a rope running no-sell sequence with Hero doing Big Boots and Riddle hitting knes I could've done without, and a stupid exchange where it wasn't clear whether Riddle was Headbutting Hero's arm or Hero was elbowing Riddle in the head (it looked like the former but was sold as the latter). But beyond that, this was a quality match. Hero's cheeky insults (often followed by a strike sold as a big moment) will only ever go so far in generating actual heat, but carrying control segments is definitely one of his strengths as a worker. Riddle's character of an eternally content stoned caveman makes his absurdist use of bro when he's firing up inexplicaply endearing. There are less transitions here than in their first match, they're done similarly better even in a vacuum-and the structure only makes the gap in quality between the first match and this one bigger. The difference in striking ability between Hero and Riddle is also played up better and more clearly-while Riddle can cause some damage to Hero if he sticks to for too long it opens up chances for Hero to get back in control. While Riddle Gutwrench Suplexing Hero is something that would've been lost in the noise in the previous match it was a big momentum shift here. Him Fisherman Suplexing Hero would've been just a spot after a previous match-here it was a big hope spot because it was after a big Hero punch that you'd expect would bring Hero back into control and make him continue to display his dominance. I liked Riddle's final rush because I have quite the affinity for "cut off no sell attempts" spots and the finish smartly played up the way their previous match ended. I appreciated the intent behind his head stomping in the corner but it only reminded me he isn't as good as Kazunari Murakami. Not a match I'd call great but one where I can definitely see the reasoning for the hype behind it. ***1/4

Crowd was just awful here, chanting stupid shit the whole time, really letting it sink in they care more about yelling for the sake of yelling and "clever" observations than the match and the people in it. The opening matwork was ok, not the type of stuff you want Riddle to do yet precisely the kind of masturbatory work I'd expect out of Hero-him locking Riddle in a headlock with his hands behind him sounds and looked like a cool spot, but it got no reaction, lasted for two seconds and didn't mean anything-so is there really any point to it? Riddle might do a nice headscissors, but Hero then does the stupid delayed kip-up that I'd expect out of Marufuji. The majority of the match has them exchange strikes and moves and it isn't really that interesting or good-you get some nice violence, but Chris Hero can't even shake hands without sound effects. The transitions are what absolutely kills any chance of this reaching greatness-it's so predictable, everything comes from them either countering a move attempt or no-selling, i.e. Chris Hero does three big moves> Riddle hits him with a Fisherman suplex immediately after, the dreaded rope running counters. You get control segments but there aren't any significant momentum shifts and the match is full of artificial moments like Hero acting surprised how come one big Elbow didn't knock Riddle out when it takes him 50 of them to beat anyone, and him taking ten seconds just to lock hands for a Gotch Style Piledriver looked stupid too. There was no struggle there-just Hero taking his time to lock hands so the crowd could "aaaaaaaaaa" to it. Riddle's strikes didn't look very good. The finishing counter was great-and yeah there were some stuff in this match that was good and would make for nice GIFs like the aforementioned finish, violence (Hero's strikes and kicks are always on point) and footwork that Hero did (how clever of him to attack Riddle's feet. he doesn't wear shoes! it's smart! and yeah-it looked good too. but then was promptly forgotten about two minutes later) but that only goes so far when the workers are lacking in creativity and understanding of how to structure a match beyond the short-sightedness of "this is cool in the moment". An overrated match between overrated workers in an overrated promotion. **3/4