ShittyLittleBoots

The aura that both of these guys have is INCREDIBLE here & it really makes the match feel HUGE. And it should be huge, I mean, it's goddamn Kawada & Hashimoto going at it. I love everything about this - the feeling out process, Hashimoto's targeting of Kawada's leg, Kawada's selling, Kawada going after Hashimoto's shoulder, Hashimoto's AMAZING selling of that, etc. It's just classic stuff. ****3/4

An absolutely lovely, hard hitting, gritty war between two of the best ever to do it. Hash gets busted open in like the first minute of the match, and after that, Regal is like a shark smelling blood. He attacks Hashimoto's busted nose brutally w/ stiff strikes to it. Amazing stuff. Regal gives Hash such an amazing beating overall. Hash of course sells it super well & everytime he was on the offense, he absolutely matched Regal's intensity w/ his own, amazing strikes. I think the ending is a little anti-climatic, but I still dig it. The post-match is also absolutely fantastic with them shaking hands, showing each other respect & then Regal blasting Hash w/ an Elbow, only for Hash to return the favor by striking him back was absolutely wonderful. An all-time classic right here. ****3/4

I think Jericho is one of the most overrated wrestlers ever, and before January 4th, I thought he had had only 3 truly great singles matches in his career. All against much better wrestlers too in Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit & CM Punk. I didn't expect his match vs. Kenny to be good at all, but yeah I think it ended up being a legit classic & the best match + performance of his career.

Definitely will try & be a part of this. Sounds very fun!

Had to get the DDT Universe 1 month free trial just for this match, and it was exactly what I had hoped it would be - an amazing David vs. Goliath battle. Loved the opening w/ Speedball going for those lightning quick kicks right away, he stuns Shuji briefly with those, getting the early advantage. That doesn't last long as Shuji gets the control while Speedball was looking to do a dive on him to the outside. Then BIG SHUJI starts to just throw Speedball around like a baby. It's amazing. Speedball bumps & sells that amazingly. From then on it follows that formula of Shuji having the advantage due to his size, throwing him around, striking him down - but Speedball makes some TERRIFIC comebacks. One slight complaint is that I think by the end they went slightly overboard w/ the nearfalls - had they shaved off a few of those, this could've been an even better match. But yeah, it's just a minor complaint in an otherwise fantastic match. ****1/4

Typical match of it's kind, but I usually always enjoy them, so I ain't complaining. This was very fun. Everybody got their time to shine & it resulted in a very good, fun match. ***1/2

We get a lengthy Rowe FIP segment, and it's awesome. Suzuki-gun do really good work over him, with everytime he was about to tag out, outcomes the rest of the heel team to cut him off. Once he finally makes the hot tag though, he makes it to Big Mike, who delivers an awesome hot tag, indeed. His exchanges against ZSJ were fantastic. After the fantastic Elgin vs. ZSJ section of the match, the thing essentially kicks into the finishing stretch & it remains awesome. Loved Suzuki constantly targeting Tana too, setting up a future singles meeting between them. Lovely match. ***3/4

If I had to predict, I'd say that Ibushi is the next challenger for Okada. Him vs. Cody was a "special singles match" & that pretty much means that the winner becomes the number 1 contender.

A big time dramatic main event epic. I really loved it for the most part - it had some selling issues, but overall I thought it was a really damn good match. ***3/4

Great show overall, but goddamn the result of the ME baffles me.

This blew me away. This was perfectly laid out for the excellent build they had - very intense, heated & unique. I was thinking this could be really bad, mostly because of Chris Jericho, but goddamn his performance was terrific. His best performance ever as far as I am concerned, actually. When the build for this match began & I was discussing it somewhere, I said that there has never been a Chris Jericho performance that has blew me away, but here he did exactly that. He was just ON POINT w/ everything he did. His greatest match & performance without a doubt in my eyes. Kenny was awesome selling his ass off & of course being terrific as usual w/ his offense. Total fireworks from start to finish, an absolute spectacle. A Tokyo Dome Classic. ****3/4

This was FANTASTIC. I love how different it was from your usual big NEVER title match formula - it was all about Minoru unleashing a menacing, badass beating on Goto. Goto sold fantastically & his comebacks were good. The post-match was excellent. ****1/4

Very good show so far. Much better than I imagined it would be. And now the big title matches have begun!

Goddamn this was great. Best Dome Jr. Heavyweight Tag Match that I can remember. AWESOME storytelling w/ YOH hurting his back early on - that became the focus of The Bucks' attack on him, and my goodness, he sold AMAZINGLY. Such a great performance from the man. Matt also hurt his back eventually, and SHO & YOH started to target that as well. Awesome. The hurt back of YOH vs. The hurt back of Matt. The sequence where Nick & SHO are in the middle of the ring, looking at each other while YOH & Matt are on their knees, selling - & then Nick & SHO start just kicking them to their injured backs was really great & solidified this, already a really good match, as a GREAT match in my eyes. ****

This was very good. I never think of TJP as a really good wrestler or anything, but he often has these sneaky good performances. This was one of them. Loved his arm targeting & overall control of Tozawa - he was awesome on the offense. Tozawa was really good selling & fighting from underneath as well. Very good dynamic, very good performances, very good match. ***3/4

Weakest Dome card in YEARS, but I am still pretty intrigued by it. Very interested to see how Jericho vs. Omega plays out.

Some solid grappling to start things off, but it's when Nakamura slaps Sakuraba that the match gets really good. Sakuraba answers to that by beating the piss out of the King of Strong Style. From that point on, the match remains wonderfully violent & intense w/ Sakuraba locking every hold with extra tightness to them & busting out every strike w/ extra stiffness (that knee.. holy crap). Nakamura's Boma Ye's were superb too - really miss when that move was the most hype move in all of wrestling. Great match. ****

What an awesome way to kick off 2018! Loved the pacing, Joe's work over Reigns was vicious - loved the intensity he brought. Reigns was great as usual selling Joe's awesome work, and the "hit me!" moment was really great. ****

Here's my top-30: 1. Kazuchika Okada vs. Katsuyori Shibata (NJPW Sakura Genesis) 2. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (NJPW G1 Climax 27 - Day 18) 3. AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE Survivor Series) 4. Trevor Lee vs. Chip Day (CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide 04/26) 5. Timothy Thatcher vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (EVOLVE 79) 6. Hideki Suzuki vs. Yuji Okabayashi (BJW Endless Survivor) 7. Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns (WWE Payback) 8. Daniel Makabe vs. Timothy Thatcher (3-2-1 BATTLE! Wet Hot Seattle Summer) 9. Trevor Lee vs. Michael Elgin (CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide 07/05) 10. Trevor Lee vs. Brad Attitude (CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide 01/18) 11. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Lio Rush (EVOLVE 85) 12. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto (NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11) 13. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Matt Riddle (RevPro High Stakes) 14. Chuck Taylor vs. Ricochet (PWG All Star Weekend 13 - Day 2) 15. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW G1 Climax 27 - Day 17) 16. Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler (Stardom Stardom of Champions) 17. Mike Quackenbush vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (CHIKARA Bad Wolf) 18. Chuck Taylor & Trent vs. Marty Scurll & Zack Sabre Jr. (PWG Nice Boys (Don’t Play Rock N’ Roll)) 19. Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW Dominion) 20. Matt Riddle vs. Timothy Thatcher vs. WALTER (PROGRESS Chapter 55: Chase The Sun) 21. David Starr & Jurn Simmons vs. Timothy Thatcher & WALTER (wXw World Tag Team League - Day 3) 22. Bobby Roode vs. Hideo Itami (WWE NXT Takeover: Chicago) 23. Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki (NJPW G1 Climax 27 - Day 16) 24. Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito (NJPW G1 Climax 27 - Day 19) 25. Shuji Ishikawa vs. Kento Miyahara (AJPW 45th Anniversary) 26. Trevor Lee vs. Nick Richards (CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide 07/12) 27. Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE WrestleMania 33) 28. Kazuchika Okada vs. Satoshi Kojima (NJPW G1 Climax 27 - Day 8) 29. LA Park vs. Rush (Baracal Entertainment 03/11) 30. Dante Fox vs. Killshot (Lucha Underground: Season 3, Episode 37) Amazing year for wrestling.

To everybody on this thread I give highest recommendations to Bryan Danielson & Roderick Strong vs. The Bucks from PWG DDT4 2009. Very unlike everything The Bucks have done since. They take a hellacious beating in that match, and sell wonderfully. It's one of my favorite tag matches of all-time, and quite possibly my favorite one of the 2000 - 2009 decade.

This went slightly down on my MOTYC re-watch, but just slightly. It's still an amazing, explosive heavyweight clash of the titans, but after the unreal 1st half, which indeed felt like a 4-men WWE style version of Joe vs. Necro (GREAT comparison), the match loses it's wildness & explosiveness a bit. It's still awesome, but if they had managed to wrestle with the same sense of urgency & explosiveness in the 2nd half as well, this definitely would've been at that ****3/4 level. Still an amazing match though, as I mentioned. ****1/2

An absolute clinic by Styles. Sold his ass off as Jinder worked his ribs throughout the match - loved AJ's early leg targeting too, it all paid off in the end w/ the Calf Killer. ****

This was an absolutely awesome, competitive back & forth contest. Captured the spirit of what ROH, at it's best, is all about. ***3/4

My WOTY list is based on the matches I've rated ***1/2+ this year. Here's what I got in the top-30 at the moment:

WALTER vs. ZSJ was a classic, but goddamn this was even better. The best match of both guys' careers, PWG MOTY, one of the best matches of the year & one of the greatest matches in PWG history. Loved the Student vs. Mentor dynamic w/ the history between Chuckie & Ricochet - they told a terrific story with that. Ricochet's work over the leg of Chuck was awesome & Chuckie sold it like a boss. The 1st half is centered around that leg work quite a bit, and after the restart, the drama goes through the roof. Chuck taking off the top rope was great, that & he in general did a great job selling the desperation of not being able to stop Ricochet. Just an absolute thrill ride of a match. Would honestly say it's a top-5 in PWG's history. ****3/4