GOTNW

I sure as hell won't complain about a much with one control segment, that's how it should be. Bass and Austin just decimated Hutchinson, who played his part well, really leaning into everything whether it be a knee strike or a flapjack on the ropes. Fun squash.

Match started out with basic shine, Morton and Montgomery taking the arm and the heels stooging. Ferris failing to break up the pin was hilarious, couldn't tell if he tripped on the bottom rope or was just completely wasted in general. Montgomery's attempted comeback was terrible, his mannerisms and strikes were embarrassing. Morton played a real good FIP, he totally convinced you a back elbow and a gut kick could kill him. Latham/Ferris may not do much but the matches are structured interestingly enough it doesn't really matter, and their offence is good enough to carry the FIP sections. **3/4

First fall had Morton get some shine with Armdrags, Hiptoss and classic face offence before Ken Wayne hit a nice Elbow Drop for the flash pin. Second fall had Dundee and Morton get some more shine on followed by a long Morton FIP segment, Buddy Wayne wrestles exactly like an old fat parent should, only punching and hitting knees/gut kicks, only gets in the ring when his opponents are down and gets out as soon as he can. He spent the second fall helping his son double team on Morton and running away from Dundee, which was paid off by Dundee laying his hands on him at the end of the fall. Dundee's punches are as great as you'd expect but his Dropkick is amazing as well. Aaaand then the video cut. Well what we got was very good.

What a beatdown. I don't remember ever seeing a US match with a TKO-esque ref stoppage, apparently Boulder later became Brutus Beefcake, and knowing his rep I'm sure there are some people who would gladly watch him get beaten to a pulp, Bass and Austin just completely punched him out here. A fine squash.

The portion of the match we get is pretty much entirely Tyler's shine/comeback, and he looked good, fine punches, a cool corkscrew back elbow and I liked his back body drop, too many wrestlers these days just throw their opponent and let them fall on their own, Tyler brings his own weight onto Bass which makes it look more impactful and dangerous. Fun.

I only watched the finish because a friend pointed out to me that Meltzer was full of shit about not getting involved in the angle. As soon as the match was over he started marking out and talking to his friend about how it's "five stars". The friend then signalled five to the crowd who THEN started chanting five star match. The wrestlers even came to Meltzer and asked him about it.

Why does having opinions equate to sexism? Cesaro hasn't done anything good in forever either. He's just another formulaic wrestler now. Zayn stopped being good when he came back, outside of the Nakamura match his last NXT run didn't have anything. Neville was never some master worker. I for one said all the women in NXT were incredibly overrated and am not gonna act shocked when Meiko Satomura is still pumping out MOTYCS while they're wreckig their bodies because they don't know how (really only about Sasha) to work. Sure, Cesaro's work has degenerated as well, but he was the best wrestler in the world around 2014 while he was on the main roster and every one of the indy guys has had an acclaimed career prior to their WWE life. It's not just "main roster-bad, NXT-good". Getting lazy and coming up with inefficient shtick is widely different than your reputation sinking outside of a plastic environment.

Matt should watch Kobashi vs Masao Inoue from early 2009 , he'll get a lot more out of that than 30 minute epics. Generally I think NOAH would be a lot more up his alley since there's a bigger, more diverse roster, more outsiders brought in, a chance to see wrestlers work in many different contexts and a charm to watching undercard wrestlers that *another long All Japan match* won't have.

Andree seems to be really good at finding creative ways to utilize his size. Him countering Inoki's Headlock by lifting him up with one arm looked amazing. I also loved how he easily brushed off Inoki's Headscissords attempt and how they played off that later in the match by having Fujinami Dropkick Andre in the back to help Inoki take him over in the headscissors. Goulet was there mostly to just get some shine on the faces and looked fine in doing so, but it's hard to judge how good someone is when Fujinami tends to make everyone look great. Inoki sold the threat of Andre magnificently-every time Andre would storm into the ring to try and help Goulet it felt like a train was coming by. Andre kicking out of a double pin after a double bodyslan was also a cool moment, and Goulet managing to frustrate Inoki enough to make him go after him and leave Fujinami alone with Andre was the perfect finish. ***1/4

This has been a talking point for a while so have at it. Continuing from here : This was actually going to be my next point. Flair vs Garvin isn't much different than Wahoo vs Jimmy Valentine-not as good but has the same basic idea. The issue of authenticity doesn't really come up when wrestlers stick to basics but when they overreach and people argue whether they've come up with characters that are distinctive enough on their own as well as when they appropriate just because it looks cool, not considering the context of what made it as efficient as it was originally. If you look at how no-sells are used in Akiyama vs Kobashi 7/24/98 or Akiyama-Misawa 2/27/00 and then compare that to Kevin Owens vs Seth Rollins there's a world of difference. What you saw first probably also makes a difference-is people checking out Kawada and Misawa after seeing Samoa Joe use their any different than people watching Wahoo and Ray Stevens matches because Flair talked about how great they were? You encounter a different experience when you've followed the original and have to judge those influenced by them.

That point isn't really relevant for chop matches. If Flair vs Garvin is authentic so is Sekimoto vs Okabayashi or whatever random puro match built around basic strike exchanges. Low Ki stole a bunch of 90s spots, mixed them to create creoles and even created some on his own. I rather like the persona and the worker he became but that doesn't really have to do anything with the match in question.

Hey! I never shit on them! In fact I enjoyed the ones I watched. Just questioned the idea they're all time great brawls, mainly due to hundreds of modern japanese and US indy matches I've seen that use pretty much the same idea of Chopman 1 vs Chopman 2 that I don't think it differed from that much. Maybe you'd think all of them are all time great matches like the Evolve tag

Eddie Guerrero died of a heart attack 11 years ago aged 38. As I started watching this match I sat there and wondered. Wondered what they planned for this occassion. As I give these matches a chance time and time again and conclude I get way more out of Emma and Nia Jax roughing someone up for three minutes, I wonder whether THIS time is the one they got it. Think back to the good match(es) they had in NXT. Think about how the longer build for this match could mean there was more planning for it. Maybe a better structure. More practice. No clumsiness. Maybe the big spots can look dangerous without verging into "she's gonna break her neck soon too". And so the match started with Charlotte taking Sasha out with a cheapshot. This was great. Came totally out of nowhere, took me out of my seat. Perfect way to start the match off. Them stopping the cell while it was moving down because Sasha would've been crushed underneath it otherwise? Perfect. And so the match starts, and they immediately go into quasi-brawling, and I'm not really sure what some of the strikes they're throwing are supposed to be, but that's really no different from any WWE crowd brawling ever, even the AJ-Reigns match from Extreme Rules had some of that, whatever. The table spot happens. Not good. The "babyface fights of a stretcher" spot almost never looks good. You have Sasha being put in a neckbrace and then she fights off and has twenty more minutes to wrestle. There's just no way that's going to work. Charlotte does some solid heeling inbetween, gettin on your nerves with some repetitiveness. The stretcher spot only works when you have a heel like Finlay fake it or when Trauma 1 sells it like he actually can't move his neck. But, whatever, some questionable psychology, I sat through Rollins-Owens, my skin is thicker than that. Then the match starts again, and, well, I'm not really sure what to make of it. Charlotte attacked Sasha's back time and time again, Sasha didn't really sell it any differently than she sells anything ever. I mean I'm not a fan of Sasha looking like she's about to cry in *every match* but, if that's what she does, and you're telling the narrative of how she's seriously injured, she needs to sell even more. The only signs of her selling her back happen near the end of the match when she collapses on a Powerbomb attempt. But we'll get to that later. The Powerbomb spot was also stupid because, just in the two HIAC matches earlier, there were what feels like 15 tables broken. And in the case of Rollins/Owens the Powerbomb looked even more dangerous than the one in Sasha/Charlotte. It didn't feel like big enough of a spot to warrant that angle. Is a Powerbomb through a table not being a big enough spot for that angle a problem in the current WWE style? I don't really have an answer right now, but it's how things are and that's how it needs to be addressed. Nothing encapsulated this match as much as the fans booing the spot where they didn't properly break the table. YOU HAVE TO BREAK THE TABLE! Why? Because the fans care about the idea of the table than they do about the performers or the match. There's no doubt the work was gritty and violent-but it felt like white noise to me. I just grew numb to it. If they're not smart enough to milk Sasha's finishers in a meaningful way (I really like the spot where a wrestler escapes the way Charlotte did here, it's particularly great in Last Man Standing matches-but it was a transitional spot and it got zero reaction, which isn't how you should use such a big move obviously). Another moment that really resonated with me was when Charlotte put Sasha into the Figure 8 and, it just wasn't a beliavable finish. Why? Because there was a table ready to be broken near her. You can't end the match before you break the table. We know that. I actually did like the finish-it was the first time Sasha really sold the back and Charlotte repeteadly throwing Sasha into the table before putting her away was a cool visual. Put it comes as no surprise many people didn't like it-they've been conditioned you need to finish such a big match with so much violence in a bigger way. And also break the table. Cause that's what really matters. Lastly-I'm not really sure how they wanted me to react. I mean-I KNOW that they wanted me to think Sasha-great babyface hero queen and Charlotte-evil person booooooooo, and they used some basic psychology in the match with the injury angle and all that, but beyond that they didn't really bother. Am I supposed to be amazed at the violent spectacle like I'm watching Ikeda-Ishikawa? That's not how it was presented. Am I supposed to get behind Sasha like shes' Kikuchi? Why is she getting so much offence in then? And why won't she sell the back? Or is that in 2016 a lot of wrestlers simply don't know how to work and their idea of a great match is "I'm gonna do a Meteora of the cell it's gonna look so cool" but they've also been brainwashed with an idea of psychology in the performance center (heels do this, faces do that) yet when they're asked to connect those two the end result is failure. That's what this was. And that the faux-historic first women's PPV main event happened on a lesser show with the decision made last minute shows just how important women are to WWE. Best you can hope for is that they go back to the midcard with a respectful presentation like they've in NXT. I hope the opening line of this post isn't how Sasha Banks is going to be talked about when wrestlers of future generations talk about how much she inspired them. I don't know how to rate this. My instinctive reaction is to call it average-but my reaction to it wasn't average. I don't usually respond to **1/2 matches with this much text. It will have to sink in.

This is the most ingenious thing that could be classified as a wrestling match you could possibly watch. Inoki is fighting some J-pop idol with Yoshiaki Fujiwara playing a biased official, Inoki blasts this poor kid with slaps and punches, and every time he does Fujiwara steps in, even using himself as a human shield to protect the kid, he pulls him out of Inoki's hold and of course screws Inoki by counting a pin too fast. You also get shots of Takizawa's fangirls screaming in horror every time Inoki smacks him. *** but so much more in entertainment value.

A nostalgia match, but a very interestingly worked one. In 1997 New Japan was already bringing in Naoya Ogawa and Don Frye and moving towards the "Inokiism", and some sequences here look like they were straight out of a sparring session-Sayama takes Inoki's back, rolls him over into an Armbar, Inoki blocks it with his leg and so on. They also work some pro-style holds into it by doing stuff like Inoki turning a battle over leglocks into an Indian Deathlock. Sayama blasts Inoki with some brutal kicks and Inoki's facial expressions of dread he conveys every time Sayama knocks him down are something else. They also work in some junior moves like the Tiger Feint Kick and Sayama's pattented hammerlock snapmare counter to pop the crowd and set up the finish. So basically a Battlarts match. ***1/4

Slingblade is like saying Roaring Elbow. It's Sliding Blade. Don't be a fucking weaboo Michael Cole. God this match sucked. Two terrible quasi cool heels whose acting looks like they're cosplaying Wile E. Coyote and whose trash talk wouldn't impress kindergatners. Rollins' pentaly kick was one of the most cringeworthy things I've seen in a wrestling. "I hate you so much I'm gonna do a.....Corkscrew Neckbreaker! Yeah! Take that!" They even did a no sell sequence! They must have loved this match on reddit. Between Owens' looking how to set up a table for two minutes and "accidentally" spraying the ref with a fire extinguisher this is coming off like a self conscious trainwreck. Maybe if Jericho came in earlier he could've carried this to a three star match. I'm seeing people chained and Powerbombed through two tables and thinking there's no way they'll win. Where did it all go wrong? The Overdrive was a finisher when I started watching it wasn't THAT long ago Jesus. How many Superkicks and Powerbombs do they need to hit before they end this? Rollins fighting back against both Jericho and Owens was less believable than anything Cena's ever done during his ace run. What a mess. *

There seems to be some resemblance of hype around a WWE show for the first time in forever so I guess I'll cherry pick my way through it. Lacerated can't be a world real people say in normal conversations. Rusev's strikes have improved-Reigns' are still better but that's expectable. I liked that the match felt like a hate filled brawl inside a cell instead of them just working the prototype HIAC match just for the sake of doing so-mainly consisting of them shoving one another into the cell, onto the steps etc. instead of elaborate gimmick stuff. And when they went for the more elaborate weapons by searching for them under the ring like the table and the kendo stick they quickly cut each other off. Rusev breaking the kendo stick when the crowd was ready to chant with him for the ten count was perfect heeling and the visual of the steel steps flying off after Reigns smashes into them was great. Stilll for a match that was worked with so many many exchanges of control segments, with the crowd heat being what it was and the brawling and violence not being on the level that a great match of this type should have, it could only go so far. You could tell the counter for the Spear, the Camel Clutch counter and the Spear off the stairs were coming, but they all looked cool enough that it didn't really bother me. ***1/4

The opening is fascinating-Fujinami's leg is injured and Inoki goed to check on him. You could interpret is as Inoki being worried about his dear student, kicking him to test the strength of his leg, seeing he cannot fight Andre as he is and bravely stepping up and challenging Andre. You could also interpret it as him further injuring Fujinami, stealing his apotlight and conning everyone into cheering him by successfully BSing them. Talk about art imitating life. This was worked differently than their 1976 match and played to Andre's strengths more (and I have to say matches like this one are making me appreciate him a lot more). The match starts with Andre just mauling Inoki, using his size abd clubbibg flows to punish him. Inoki goes after Andre's legs because really what else is he gonna do? This match serves as a great example of what Andre could do-he doesn't really need to take a Back Body Drop, a Sunset Flip and a Backslide. Yet they manage to believably work all of them in AND all of them look good and fluid! Andre's acting here was great-I loved his evil laugh when he took Inoki down, as if he'd finally figured out how to stop him, him telling the referee Inoki's leaning onto the ropes in his Back Suplex attempt only to cheapshot Inoki as soon as the ref was out of position, and more than anything the moment where he became frustrated the crowd was cheering for Inoki and left the ring and went into the crowd. Seeing the people flee from a giant was surreal, like something out of a Godzilla film. But Inoki deserves a lot of credit too cause I doubt anyone else could push Andre to all of that and react to him as perfectly as Inoki did. When Andre leaves the ring OF COURSE Inoki is going to start stomping on him and go all out. And when Andre pushes him against the ropes he'll use them for these amazingly athletic counters and kicks that are hard to even properly describe. Andre also did a Bow and Arrow and a Surboard/Romero Special which just shows you how preposterous this match was-but when he did the bow arrow Inoki followed it up with picture perfect selling-his body language conveyed a giant man doing a back focused submission as good as humanly possible. And when Andre overreached with the surfboard Inoki urgently climbed to the top rope knowing how rare of a opportunity he has. Even the non-finish has Hansen coming in and them having a really fun brawl. Great match. ****

Man this wasn't any good. Nothing match that consisted of them just spamming moves. There was some glimpse of character work-but it was more of "this is stuff I usually do so I better get it in" than a case of them bothering to properly construct a match with anything interesting. Grab an armlock, hold it for a while, move on to a hammerlock, hold it for a while, and so forth. Red botched a Headscissors and looked sucky in general, Inoki was better but this was one of his worst showings. Crowd didn't seem to care much. **

Inoki doesn't seem anywhere near as over as he was in the Schultz match. Basic match with Fulton controlling the bout with heatholds and average strikes before Inoki's comeback. Inoki had a nice hammerlock escape and I liked the way he blocked one of Fulton's strikes thereby setting up his comeback. **1/2-**3/4

Another very interesting match. The heat for it is off the charts-the chants for Hogan and especially Inoki are just insanely loud before the match even starts. Andre is in the first row so you know what kind of BS finish we're getting here. The matwork consists of the most you can get out of Hogan-basic leg holds, headlocks etc. but it looks fine enough. What impressed me most here were the little things Inoki did-he'd go for a Figure 4 attempt, and Hogan would kind of stand up and shift his weight, but it's Inoki's facial expression and the way he put Hogan's feet back on the floor that *sell* the idea he was putting up any kind of defence. Inoki kicking Hogan when he grabs his leg may not sound like some amazing spot but in an environment when it's the last thing you're expecting it it really is. I also liked the way Inoki feinted before kicking Hogan's leg, he manages to fool the viewer very convincingly. They work two big count-out spots after hitting big moves-first one after an Axe Bomber, then another one after Inoki evades another Axe Bomber by sliding under (which someone needs to steal it's way cooler than the limbo Nagata used to evade Okada's Lariat) and hitting an Enzuigiri. Respect is shown and then forgotten about when it's tome to get in some solid brawling, finish is a mess as Andre interferes for no reason, then Inoki and Hogan team up to lay him out, then Andre gets up and scares them out of the ring. I swear the only difference between pre-UWF booking and today's is that the old ways served as a way to get everyone to not lose while today's serves as a way to get everyone wins. ***

That's what you get for doing a project realistic enough to actually be finalized instead of watching everything that made tape everywhere ever

Schultz is the guy that slaped a reporter once right? Seems fitting he'd be challenging Inoki for the World's Martial Arts title. This was fun-Schultz controlled the match with basic holds but Inoki's comebacks were really good-he went after Schultz with nice slaps and awesome looking punches. Schultz also executed a Suplex by dropping Inoki more on his head/neck which was....not exactly what I excpected out of 1984 WWF. **3/4

I wish I liked this one as much as seemingly everyone else did. It had the structure of a classic lucha brawl-first fall is a beatdown, second one has the continuation of it and a comeback, third fall is a fight to death. I liked Lupus' beatdowns-nasty chops and slaps, but nowhere near it being an all time classic. Trauma's comeback was fine. The finishing stretch wasn't that much different from a modern CMLL match-there were moments were they would desperately go after each other with punches and headbutts and THOSE ruled. And the insane amount of blood ruled. But the chairshot sequence wasn't any different than modern puro suplex no sell sequences and strike exchanges as far as logic goes. I loved how they set up the Tombstone nearfall but the outcome was obvious due to how close to the ropes they were. Angle with the box y lucha comissioner ruled too and Trauma desperately grabbing onto Canis was beautiful. The atmosphere was insane-and together with the insane post-match is what made me comfortable rating it as high as I do. Proposing after losing a mask has to be up there in terms of crazy lucha things. Maybe it's my fault since I expected a diferent match-one with more punching and less nearfalls. ****1/4

The first falls were worked just so they'd get out of the way, the "climb on the top rope only for the other wrestler to stand up and do an avalanche move" is CMLL's version of the "bounce of the ropes-eat a move", there was no structure to this other than "let's do a bunch of cool shit", they went overboard with the slap effect strikes and Cavernario botched a dive pretty hard-he even botched the recovery. Those are my reasons for not rating it as a great match. Because the stuff they did REALLY is neat-it's hard to look at something like Volador's big dive and continue being cynical about wrestling. I was also amused at how Maximo and Tirantes were more over than the actual competitors. If you ever feel like just wanting to watch a bunch of awesome looking dives and highspots this is it right here. I'm not going to post a million GIFs or descrive a bunch of spots they did-but trust me. It's good workrate with enough *basic* psychology and quality feeding for it to work, even if Volador will play to the crowd when he should be selling. ***1/2