ShittyLittleBoots

What a fantastic performance by ACH! He gave Flip an absolute ass whooping on the offense & sold everything Flip did fantastically. Flip was very good too, he didn't do much of his annoying stuff & all of his FLIPS looked very good. ***1/2

First of all, a big thank you for linking that match! These two are perfect against each other. I saw some reports saying that their matches on this house show run have been "PPV level", and my goodness, based on this match, those reports were 100% correct. What an absolutely fantastic piece of pro wrestling; starts with Bryan getting the better of the feeling out process & owning Miz, which causes Miz to be frustrated & stall in classic heel fashion. His bumping off of Bryan's shine was fantastic & Bryan was equally fantastic on the offense, of course. Eventually the match goes to the outside & Miz gets the control by being a nasty bastard, throwing Bryan face first into the steel post. It's Miz on control for quite a while after that; he is really good at working the heat on Bryan, focusing on the neck & Bryan is a wonderful FIP. Bryan starts mounting a comeback w/ some fantastic punches, but it gets cut off by the Miz very quickly. After that Miz starts targeting Bryan's knee, and he does so in an AWESOME, focused fashion. There's a great spot where Bryan starts mounting a comeback w/ those lovely punches of his again, but Miz once again cuts it off quickly by turning a suplex attempt into a chop block. After working the crap out of the knee, Miz goes for the Figure 4 & it's fantastic drama - after Bryan counters it in the classic Figure-4-counter -fashion, they start trading strikes while on their knees, eventually getting on their feet; Bryan starts getting the better of the exchange, and then BOOM! Miz kicks that worked over knee. Miz is still on the control, but eventually Bryan does finally get his big comeback in; he kicks Miz's ass all over the ring, all over to the outside. He runs wild on Miz for a while & Miz is great selling + bumping for his offense. Bryan does go for the diving headbutt, but Miz moves out of the way, thus gaining the control of the match again. This leads to my favorite moment of the match; with an amazing, cocky asshole smile on his face, Miz starts going for the "IT" kicks - before he started kicking him, I thought to myself "goddamn, Bryan needs to no sell those" - AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! As Miz starts unleashing the first kicks of the sequence, Bryan starts hulking up & then gets up and just stares at Miz for doing that. I can imagine in their future big PPV meeting they'll do that spot again and I can't wait for that. The finishing stretch is full of good drama & momentum swifts aka a fantastic way to cap off a brilliant match. One slight negative is that I thought Bryan could've & should've sold the worked over knee more in his comeback & the finishing run, but it didn't bother me THAT much, because of how they built the whole thing & executed it. I was getting some 80's Flair, Steamboat, Lawler vibes from it. Absolutely can't wait for them to do this thing on a PPV setting. ****1/4

This was very fun. Good stuff early on w/ Liger overwhelming Cody, and Cody only getting the advantage with the help of the greatest manager of all-time, BURNARD the BUSINESS BEAR. Bless. Cody was very good on top & I liked the brief leg psychology they went with. Liger of course rules as a babyface w/ his selling & comebacks. ***1/2

Can't go wrong with these 2 going against each other. This one had such a different dynamic & vibe than their previous indy meetings, in particular the classic stuff from 2016-2017, but as I mentioned, you can't go wrong with Hero vs. ZSJ. They slugged it out at such a good, energetic pace. Very good tournament finals match. ***3/4

Of course this was great. An absolutely amazing spotfest with the SSB being fantastic nasty bastards, the Bucks playing some of their vintage greatest hits & Matt Jackson continuing his hellacious 2018 FIP-run. Pure mark out festival from start to finish. ****1/2

I had pretty high expectations for this one & I am happy to report that it did live up to all of those! Fantastically structured match w/ Ohno being the classic big man bully that he is, beating the crap out of Bate & making fun of him while doing so. Bate was an amazing babyface fighting from underneath to go against that - LOVED his comebacks, in particular that punch flurry he busted out at one point. They built to the big German Suplex spot super well too, which helped build into the finish which was unreal. A motherfucking UFO sighting. What a way to end an absolute banger of a match. ****1/4

Now we're talking! This was absolutely phenomenal. Some very fun back & forth work on the mat to start things off - eventually Zack starts busting out strikes, and Starr is more than happy to answer back w/ some of his own; my GOODNESS did his lariats look absolutely amazing. Zack starts going after his leg(s) in vicious fashion, kicking the crap out of them & Starr does a very good job selling that. I especially liked his sell after he did the Project Ciampa, he sold the damage Zack had done to him very well. Both guys brought it big time in this one, ZSJ w/ that brutal work over Starr & Starr with that awesome babyface performance, very good selling & amazing LARIATS. ****1/4

I have never seen or heard about Chuck Mambo before, so I had no idea what to expect, but he was going against a man who can have a good match with pretty much anyone & one of my favorite wrestlers in the world, so I was very curious to see what the end result would be & it sure was one damn fun match! Mambo gets to shine in the early stages of the match w/ his highflying move-set, but it's when he goes for the Surfboard that he pisses off the best technical wrestler in the world, which results in ZSJ escaping that said Surfboard in very cool fashion & delivering a nasty, vintage ZSJ-style beating to the lad. Vicious strikes, especially those stomps + nasty submissions. Mambo gets a couple of big comebacks in, which are good, but it's ZSJ's pretty damn tremendous bumping that are the best part about them & the way he countered Mambo's springboard Frog Splash was awesome. A fantastic, very giving (to say the least) performance by Zack - he certainly made Chuck Mambo look like million bucks in this one. ***3/4

What a lovely way to kick off the tournament! Starts off w/ some nice back & forth technical work, in which Williams gets the upperhand. Williams continues to borderline dominate Dunne with his technical savvy, but eventually Dunne gets sick of it & starts being less respectful & starts being more like the PETER we all know & love by biting his way out of submission holds & manipulating Williams' fingers. Great technical master veteran vs. young superstar match. An absolutely awesome time from start to finish. ****

This has strangely gone somewhat under the radar, but I think it's by far their best match against one another. Right from the get go Ilja says "fuck that, I am not doing that chopping shit tonight" & goes to work on BOTH of WALTER's hands (eventually his focus swifts to the right hand completely) - Ilja's fantastic on the attack, and WALTER sells greatly, and eventually answers back by giving Ilja's neck an absolutely BRUTAL beating throughout. It's up there w/ Danielson/Hero from 16 Carat '08 as a candidate for the best wXw match ever. ****3/4

Their March match is one of my favorite WWE matches of the year, and I am glad to see that the chemistry they showed in that one wasn't a one-off thing, because this was another absolute banger between the two. Murphy is just an absolute bruiser, could watch him on the offense destroying his fellow 205'ers all day long. Ali's bumping goes perfectly w/ Murphy's amazing offense & Ali's offense of his own looked absolutely great as well - while Ali is a bonafide bump machine, I thought Buddy stole the show here in that department; he made Ali look like million bucks with his amazing bumping. Ali's flippy stuff has never looked as brutal as it did here. Awesome all around performances by both men. That big Superkick spot outside the ring was so well timed & done too + that arm psychology in the finishing stretch. Great stuff. ****

Very good match. Awesome selling of the midsection + general FIP'ing by Bryan & Rusev's selling of the arm towards the end was just terrific. ***1/2

One thing is for certain after this match: Big Cass is still green as shit in the ring. Now I thought the match was very good, but he offered a very generic performance. I liked some of his throws, but it was Daniel Bryan's amazing bumping that made the match as awesome as it ended up being; an awesome performance by the man as expected, with that fantastic bumping & great offense. Loved the dodge -> kick -> dodge -> kick sequence he did at the start of the match - that's a Danielson David vs. Goliath classic spot, right there. All of his comebacks, fighting from underneath were hype & I absolutely LOVED that finishing LeBell Lock w/ him punching Cass to keep the hold locked on - that same finishing sequence offered great comedy as well w/ Bryan having to remind Cass in a very "subtle" fashion that he had to block the hold. I suppose I am the highman on this one, but I thought it was a very enjoyable match & a great carryjob from Bryan. ***1/2

A very good, fun, energetic match aka the perfect way to kick off a show! The Miz was good in his control segments, Rollins was very good with those comebacks, the knee psychology was awesome, the two Scull Crushing Finale nearfalls were legitimately amazing, as were the sequences leading to them, full of struggle & desperation. And talking about sequences, that finishing sequence was absolutely fantastic. The Miz & Seth Rollins are 2 guys who I don't think much of in singles action, but gotta give it to them big time here, what a banger of a match! ***3/4

Loved the beginning w/ Tana controlling things with a Headlock. Okada's control segment after that was very enjoyable as well w/ him targeting the neck of Tanahashi. The absolute best moment of the whole match was Tana getting to Okada's face during the Rainmaker pose, which was answered w/ a cocky smile by Okada. Awesome moment there. Lots of positives there, but this also had it's negatives - it did drag quite a bit in some segments (which was to be expected) & there was quite a bit of dull stuff in it, but overall, yeah, this was very good. I was not excited or interested in the match at all on paper & I didn't even feel like watching it in all honesty, but I am glad to see & say that they delivered a very good match. ***1/2

Feels very good to see KUSHIDA back in singles action, because it's been way too long since the last time. And of course his performance was absolutely fabulous; loved the way he controlled Ospreay in the beginning & the neck targeting that got more & more brutal as the match went on was AWESOME w/ a big A. Ospreay's selling was pretty good & he was a solid FIP overall, but yeah, it's KUSHIDA on the offense that made this match for me. ***3/4

Mehhhh. Marufuji's control segment felt like it went on for 2 hours - incredibly dull stuff; his offense looked shitty, especially those godawful vintage Superkicks of his. One positive about this thing is that Kento's selling was pretty damn great throughout it, it's a shame that his opponent didn't offer anything interesting in return. *

As far as spotfests go, this might be the craziest 2-on-2 one to hit the PWG ring since Samuray Del Sol & AR Fox vs. Ricochet & Rich Swann from 2013. Super fun action w/ quite a few genuine "holy shit" -moments in there, in particular by Bandido who looked absolutely unreal with some of the stuff he did. ***3/4

I feel like by the end this did drag a bit & went a little overboard w/ all the nearfalls, but it was still a damn awesome underdog tale. Shingo finds himself in a very unfamiliar position as his usual bruiser bully like offense isn't working too well against the much bigger Ishikawa - the big dog basically has an answer for every comeback Shingo gets. Both guys put on rockin' performances in their respective roles, and of course when a match like this happens at Korakuen Hall, it's always a little more special than it would be anywhere else. ***3/4

Currently have Shadow Explosion blasting on a repeat after watching this one. My biggest takeaway from this match & the CC in general is that it's 2018 and he's 48 years old, but Jun Akiyama might be the best wrestler in all of Japan. His performance here was absolutely flawless; terrific with his cocky body language & even more brutal & focused w/ his work over the neck than usual. Marufuji on the other hand was VERY hit & sadly more of a miss w/ his performance. His selling was spotty & his hope spots were either very meh or very good. Akiyama certainly sold all of them masterfully though. Overall this is a good reminder of Akiyama's all-time greatness & Marufuji's awfulness - it's Akiyama who carried this match to GREAT levels w/ his simply perfect all around performance & it's Marufuji who denied it from ****1/2+ classic status with his spotty performance.. ****1/4

The weakest of their 3 matches, but still a good, fun bombfest. ***

That match between AJ & Nakamura was certainly much better than what they did at Mania.

Starts off in very intense fashion w/ them starting to exchange brutal strikes right away - eventually Zeus gets the upperhand & he has a pretty damn good control segment going for a while. Akiyama comes back though & starts doing what Akiyama does - he goes after the neck of Zeus. Zeus is very explosive with all of his offense, but uncle Jun wasn't gonna have it easy on him this night, as he kept on finding openings to go & attack that neck. Really good match. ***3/4

DAMN this was good. Suwama dominated most of it & he gave Yoshi an absolute mauling on the offense - but Yoshi busted out some absolutely awesome hope spots. Such a well told, very good underdog tale. ***3/4

A very good match. Loved Marufuji showcasing those technical skills of his in the beginning & the Headlock stuff was lovely. I think by the end the match dragged a bit w/ those nearfalls & all, but it didn't hurt it too much, because it was still indeed a very good one. ***1/2