ShittyLittleBoots

What killed this match for me was Jericho and his dreadful work on top, and that just happened to cover most of the match. Yeahh. His boring, slow, generic, uninteresting work sucked all the energy & spark out of the match, and played a part in most of Moxley's hope spots/comebacks feeling hollow & cold. I guess Moxley's selling was solid throughout, so there's that at least & the eyepatch-reveal at the end was pretty fun, but this wasn't a good match at all. *1/2

Good match although probably not as good as it could've been. Fun fight with them brawling all over the place and making good use of them gimmicks in the chairs & the table. One slight negative was that I gotta say the way Moxley shrugged off most of Minoru's forearm strikes bothered me -- it was pretty much Minoru who was doing the big selling moments in those exchanges, and that felt a little weird & wrong considering how much more lethal his strikes look (& sound) compared to those of Moxley's. ***1/4

The stalling that started off the match definitely went on for a bit too long, but all in all, this was very good. KENTA delivers when kicking ass on top, and Naito is willing to throw himself around for sure. Especially everything after the ref bump & Switchblade interference was absolutely excellent. Naito definitely rocked that crimson mask well, too. ***3/4

The same ol' song & dance with these two. It's the exact same match they always do, and it has long lost its charm & impact on me -- this time it went on for way too long too, making it all the more forgettable. **

This was absolutely awful. Gargano is a complete nerd w/ how he emotes & acts throughout, and then you got Bálor, who is dull as shit w/ everything he does, a complete robot (with the exception of the finishing stretch, which was actually pretty neat) -- and OF COURSE they go almost 30 minutes. Of course. To go "full Cornette", I'd say that neither guy feels like a pro-wrestler as they have no in-ring presence or charisma -- or at least they showed none here. Easily & by far my least favorite match of the night. *1/4

I wasn't into this as much as I had hoped I would be, but it was definitely a good match. Riddle's hot tag was excellent, O'Reilly was great throughout & actually my favorite moment of the entire match was when he delivered that top rope knee drop to Riddle's knee, followed by a knee-submission for some awesome drama. The finishing stretch was some good stuff as well. ***1/4

Nowhere near as bad (wasn't bad at all in my eyes actually) or ridiculous as I thought it would be. The beginning with Ciampa kicking Cole's ass all over the place was awesome; Ciampa was his usual intense self & it just works in sections like that. Cole getting back into the thing with that sickening Wheelbarrow Suplex was great in all of its brutality -- now Cole sure isn't all that interesting on top, but Ciampa from underneath rules. They do go into the full on bomb-section shortly after, and sure there's too many nearfalls & some bad selling of those said bombs, but comparing this to Cole's matches vs. Gargano for an example, it's nowhere near as silly or bad. Or bad at all, really. The bombs are actually pretty damn awesome & like I implied, while they go into the overkill-zone with them nearfalls, I am just thankful they didn't go into Gargano-levels w/ 'em. Enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. Maybe my 2nd favorite match of the night. ***1/4

The match starts with some matwork & it takes the first 10-minutes or so. It starts off kinda meh, but as they continue going at it with them holds & looking to truly gain control over one another, it gets better as it goes. You can see Hideki's focus is Nakajima's neck & he works over it in quite nice fashion throughout. Now once Nakajima finally gets back into the thing w/ them lethal kicks, the match gets considerably more brawl-y, and they have a damn good fight outside the ring. Once they make it back to the ring, it's still a fun slugfest, but the runtime definitely starts to show itself there, as it does drag by the end, and it does feel like it goes on for some-minutes too long. Definitely a good match all in all -- some bits sure were meh, but some bits were GREAT & most of it was at least good. ***1/4

A quality spotfest. Nothing looks weak or too cute either, everything is actually pretty vicious & explosive all the way through, and I definitely appreciate that. A very good match. ***1/2

A very fun angle-driven match. Wardlow is solid ragdolling Cody around, but Cody definitely is the star of the match w/ that babyface magic. Some very, very good looking PUNCHES by him, and that match-ending Moonsault sure was SOMETHING, as well. ***1/4

The action is pretty spectacular in the first 10-or-so-minutes. It's explosive & vicious, just like you'd expect from the two. I liked PAC giving the first fall to Kenny w/ that chairshot -- it's the oldest Iron Man trick in the book, but it usually always works, and it definitely did so here. It created a nice uphill-battle for Kenny to overcome for the rest of the match, as most of the rest of the bout was w/ PAC on top dishing out punishment. And PAC certainly rocked that role excellently -- he had so much intensity & meanness behind every thing he did to Kenny. Made Kenny's big comeback feel all the more rewarding. Both guys def put on some pretty damn great big match performances here, no doubt. Very good stuff all around! I never watched their 2nd meeting, but I'd put this on par w/ the All Out match between the two. Oh & that Kamigoye by Kenneth sure popped me :') ***1/2

Even better than their already-excellent SurSer meeting. A "psychological thriller" in a pro-wrestling ring of sorts, and the kind of a match that I feel like not many could make work, but you just knew the greatest of all-time had to do it again. ****

I think what I love the most about this is the overwhelming feeling of an incoming new champ, and they play that feeling into this match wonderfully. Roddy comes into it with a perfect gameplan & he executes it brilliantly; watching him go to town on Keith's ankle with big focus was a joy. He was like a shark who wouldn't let up, and there's a couple of nice sequences which demonstrate this very nicely, for an example there's a bit where Keith tries desperately to kick him away from the ankle, but Roddy just always gets up and goes straight back to it. It's a great performance from him, and the same could be said about big Keith -- he is in peril for most of the match, and like I implied, Roddy is great at putting the pressure on him, but Keith himself also sells really, really well & every bit of offense he gets in feels truly big & impactful. I think the great finishing sequence sums up the story here almost perfectly with Roddy having Keith in big trouble, but Keith pounds that mat, grits his teeth & catches him into that finishing move of his. To put it in some cliches - Roderick Strong wrestled a hell of a match, a near perfect one even, but he was never gonna get the win here, because this was Keith Lee's night. One of the more slept-on great matches of 2020. ****

This was just outstanding. Mandrews & Webster were terrific babyfaces with their work throughout, and then to counter that, Riddle & Dunne were amazing dishing out the punishment in that vintage Riddle & Dunne fashion. Killer double team moves, fantastic structure from start to finish, great nearfalls -- EVERYTHING about this ruled big time! ****

These two had the best NJPW match of 2019, and while this, their 2nd singles meeting, was nowhere near that level, it was still VERY good. Simple & true, pure heel vs. pure babyface dynamic that works -- White was very good w/ his work on top & Ibushi was Ibushi; he took some mad bumps (unsurprisingly) & of course delivered on the offense. Will always love him entering THE ZONE. The highlight of the entire match was when he did that here & just straight up bullied young Switchblade. ***3/4

There's some moments here that don't feel as heated as they should, but that's something that kinda just comes with KENTA post-WWE. This was a really good match. Not as dramatic as some of the Tokyo Dome NEVER epics of previous years, but it still has plenty of stuff to like. A clear heel vs. babyface dynamic with KENTA delivering a solid performance working mostly on top & Goto brought the fiery passion in his comebacks. ***3/4

Good junior tag action. Nice tag team match structure with the SHO FIP segment being the highlight, as Ishimori & especially El Phantasmo were doing some very compelling scumbag work there. ***

My thoughts as of now are that this is the best Dome main event since the last Tana/Okada, and an instant classic. Slow build like in every big Okada match, but they make every headlock & all feel super compelling, and once the thing explodes & Ibushi goes into that fucking killer mode?? OH BOY. Those damn punches! That finishing stretch was something else too -- that V-Trigger got me good. What a goddamn match. ****1/2

Definitely a bit too lengthy for its own good, but I enjoyed most of it very much. White is very compelling on top, doing the damage & in particular targeting Naito's knee, and Naito, surprisingly, sold pretty damn good for most of it. ***1/2

Fookin' loved this. A wild fight with Moxley fighting from beneath w/ some badass comeback attacks, and Archer was completely awesome brutalizing him on top. The big table spot was great & I loved the plastic bag suffocating + the spike-HELMET. The lads sure made sure to get good use of the Deathmatch gimmick. ****

@Superstar Sleeze their 04 ROH World Title match is definitely widely praised -- it currently has a 9.18 score out of 10 on Cagematch + I am pretty sure it's in top-10 on ROHWorld's user-voted match list. Most people recognize it as a classic for sure :')

The Fiend (Bray Wyatt) defends the WWE Universal Title The Fiend's matches vs. Rollins were extremely silly, but if there's one person in the entire pro-wrestling industry that can be trusted to make all of that shit work, it's Daniel Bryan. And he sure made all of it more-than-work here. The match starts off fun w/ Bryan immediately rushing Fiend with those kicks & corner dropkicks, but the Fiend takes over quick. His control segment is solid; Wyatt has always had some nice viciousness to his offense, and Bryan sure does his best to make everything lashed out at him look all the more vicious. Then--THEN! the match really picks up when Bryan busts out his big comeback; that ROAR after the Missile Dropkick fired me (& the crowd) the fuck up -- the whole atmosphere after that went from 0 to 100 real quick w/ the Chicago crowd going crazy for Bryan, and that added so much magic to the whole thing. The chants during the YES Kicks & especially the Busaiku Knee corner set-up were amazing. Talking bout amazing stuff -- they definitely did the Fiend no-sell stuff MUCH better here than w/ Seth (wow, what a surprise lmao) -- I actually liked that after each no-sell pop-up, Bryan just went back to it again, each kick sequence more vicious looking & sounding than the one before. Then there's the two AWESOME counters during the finishing stretch; first Bryan countering the Mandible Claw into an Armbar on the ropes, and then the last nearfall w/ the roll-up reversal to a Sister Abigail attempt. A GREAT PIECE OF BUSINESS ALL AROUND w/ the GOAT doing his thing & all. ****

Daniel Bryan, the best wrestler in the world, is unsurprisingly absolutely fantastic in this. Adam Cole on the other hand? Not so much. It's not that he was bad, but I would be lying if I said he contributed anything worthwhile into the match. This truly felt like D-Bry wrestling a broom, and he sure did his best with that said broom, making this a very good, worthwhile match. The best match of that said brooms year, actually. He worked the cocky ace role excellently between his awesome trashtalk, those brutal kicks, which seemed even more vicious than usual & the same could be said for his submission holds. He was really GRUMPY, and my goodness does GRUMPY American Dragon rule. Even Cole and his random shitty & weak kick variations and bad looking headlocks couldn't ruin this one -- and well to be honest, he (thankfully) didn't even get that much offense in. One of my favorite bits was actually when he took over for like a minute or something, he then starts striking Bryan with some super weak looking forearms, which Bryan shakes off & puts Cole down with some actually fantastic looking forearms of his own. That kind of summed up the whole match in some ways. All in all, a very good & welcomed 20-minute Daniel Bryan, aka the GOAT, -show! ***1/2

Great in some small parts, but mostly "just" good. I thought it felt a lot longer than it was. The middle-section of it dragged badly, BUT the positives outweigh the very minor negatives -- the beginning was absolutely awesome, as was Kenny taking over by destroying Fenix's back w/ a couple of big moves, and then the ending few minutes were pretty fantastic. Good match! ***

I kinda knew I was gonna love this. It's a good ol' TV World Championship match with the classic setting of a nasty, confident heel champion defending against a wonderful underdog. Jericho plays his role more-than-well throughout & Darby OF COURSE rocks the shit out every moment in the match with his brilliant never-say-die underdog babyface act. Jericho dishes out pain in very compelling fashion, and Darby is one of the best in the world at getting destroyed, so it's great. Hell yea. ****