ShittyLittleBoots

Was very enjoyable seeing these two take it to the mat, great counters & momentum shifts. Also really liked Zack's arm work which Nagata sold well. ZSJ's work on top in general was really great as usual & Nagata fighting from underneath was fantastic w/ him battling in his last ever G1 to get those 2 points. Great match. ****

Thatcher comes out & he is not impressed with the wacky antics of the promotion, he is just all business here. Once the bell rings he tries to go for a big boot right away only for Makabe to duck it & then give him a big punch to the face for a nearfall. Great start. Thatcher is a little stunned after that so Makabe has the control for a short amount of time, but yeah, short amount of time because Thatcher gets the control quickly. And he starts working the crap out of the young local hero. He is brilliant at that, and every time Makabe escapes his submissions or kicks out from his suplex's, his reactions are priceless. Thatcher is without a doubt the best in the world when it comes to selling stuff w/ facial expressions. Daniel Makabe is pushed as a submission specialist, a great technical wrestler so he does lock Thatcher a few times to some nice submissions, but well, Thatcher is one of the best technical wrestlers in the world so he gets out of them pretty quickly. Also gotta mention that Makabe's selling was absolutely perfect - he sold all of Thatcher's offense like death. One of my favorite moments of the match was when Makabe started to slap Thatcher, Thatcher answers to that with slaps of his own, a lariat to the back of the head & then a big German Suplex - which leads to one of the commentators saying "Ladies & Gentlemen, Timothy f'n Thatcher". Great stuff. The commentators overall did an OUTSTANDING job bringing emotion to this as well as the crowd - oh the crowd was absolutely perfect for this match. They were 110% behind their local technician & the boos & screams every time when Thatcher got him locked in some nasty submission were tremendous. Loved Makabe's big comeback once Thatcher had him in the corner & he turned things around - that running dropkick to the corner was beautiful. That was followed by a great looking suplex, which then lead to CATTLE MUTILATION, which I am always happy to see. That once again was a wrong move by Makabe though, as Thatcher got out of it right away. He then tried to follow it with an Octopus Hold, but Thatcher got out of that in no time as well. Another fantastic moment was when Thatcher locked in his signature armbar, which caused the crowd to roar in fear of Makabe tapping & even the commentator screaming "PLEASE DON'T TAP DANIEL!" - then the finish, that absolutely ruled. Thatcher is stunned again after Makabe had escaped his Fujiwara Armbar which lead to them trading 1 nearfall each w/ roll ups, that set Thatcher up in a bad position as he was sitting in the middle of the ring, which lead to Makabe elbowing him, headbutting him on his BACK & then putting him on his finish which is called the Makabe Lock, which is basically like Cattle Mutilation but with the victim of it sitting instead of being down. It was beautiful. Thatcher has no choice but to tap. He did it. The promotion's local young star, Daniel Makabe just beat one of the top indy stars - and not only that, he made him TAP OUT. What a brilliantly crafted story. Thatcher was perfect as the cocky big star invader just beating the crap out of the youngster while not giving shits about the promotion's wacky signature shtick & Daniel Makabe was also absolutely perfect as the local hero underdog going against the bigger, more experienced Thatcher. Also as I mentioned earlier, the commentary & the crowd were also perfect and they added a ton to the match. The post-match was beautiful with Thatcher putting over Makabe - “This scarf says ‘die matte ist hellig’, which in German means ‘this mat is sacred’. And if there is someone here in 3-2-1 BATTLE! that believes this mat is sacred, it is Daniel Makabe." - that brought Makabe to tears. Absolutely beautiful stuff. Pro Wrestling folks. It's the best. ****3/4

This was all about Dijak scouting everything Marufuji did & trying to avoid those deadly chops. Dijak showed great heart in everything he did & I thought Marufuji did a good job selling Dijak's work w/ his facial expressions going like "oh shit, this kid's actually great". Great story of the younger, hungry fella going against the veteran. ****

Excellent match. They quickly established that Keith Lee was a real contender for Callihan, he got the champ in trouble during the early stages of the match - but then Callihan introduces a steel chair into it & things take a turn. He starts mauling Keith's leg w/ that chair & suddenly the champ is in control. From then on Keith was the underdog trying to do everything to put the champ away, but the damage Callihan does to him throughout the match is too much. This was structured so well. ****1/4

Big Keith & Travis were an absolute hit together w/ Keith doing his dominating big man shtick, being excellent at it as always, & Travis being a fantastic underdog fighting from underneath with his fiery, action packed comebacks. An absolutely fantastic PROGRESS debut for Keith Lee. ****1/2

Just a crazy match with Banks & Riddle trading excellent looking, brutal strikes & bombs all the way through. I absolutely loved it. ****1/2

This was your classic Zack Sabre Jr. torture show. He worked all over Naito w/ his submissions & slick transitions - in many ways this was similar to the match ZSJ had vs. YOSHI-HASHI on Day 5 of the tournament (I gave that match ***), the difference is that in that match, it seemed like only ZSJ brought it while YOSHI-HASHI gave a very soulless performance working from underneath as ZSJ tortured the crap out of him with those submissions. That sure wasn't the case with Naito here as he definitely matched Zack's great performance w/ his selling & great comeback flurries. Loved his selling post-match, too. ****

Thought this was a good, pretty much a greatest hits match between the 2. ***

Chad Gable & Rusev are 2 guys who have always got tons of hype, but I've never really been super impressed with their in ring work. That changed here as both of them gave absolutely fantastic performances; you got Gable as the stamina machine, never getting tired, trying to ground Rusev w/ that leg work & then busting out those gorgeous Suplex's - and you also got Rusev as the big Goliath throwing the smaller man around, all the while selling his ass off for him. Great dynamic & great stuff all around. Fantastic match. ****

The early stages of the match saw Ishii be an arrogant bully to Nagata - that created a nice little story for this to go with them just beating the crap out of each other. I loved Nagata gaining the control over Ishii & Ishii selling those deadly kicks. The last third of them just busting out big bombs for those nearfalls was great - Ishii's facial expressions & body language when Nagata kicked out of his big stuff were so amazing. Sold the frustration perfectly. Great match. ****

I thought this was a really good back & forth match that flowed super well. ***1/2

Yeah, this RULED. Loved the early stuff with Ibushi unleashing those deadly kicks on Fale - the big man countered those by just MAULING Ibushi's leg down. I really liked all of Fale's work on the leg, even if it didn't really lead to anything. Ibushi did what he usually does - he stopped selling it once it was time to get his shit in, but I can forgive that because the leg work was forgotten by Fale as well. It wasn't a huge part of the match. The rest of the match is just kickass David vs. Goliath action with Ibushi bumping his ass off for Fale. Great, great stuff. ****

Another movezfest that goes on for way too long. Yawn. The Burning Hammer finish was at least cool. *

This was absolutely fantastic. Loved everything about it - right from the get go the crowd was like 90% behind Cozy & Okada was rallying them to cheer him even more with his sarcastic claps. He goes right after Kojima in very unusual fashion for him - he showed that he has no respect for the veteran this time & I loved it. Eventually they go outside the ring, and after the DDT spot, the crowd is booing Okada even more than during the start of the match & just because of that, Okada goes and attacks Tenzan. Brilliant. He laughs at the pissed off Tenzan in the ring then. More brilliance. Then that sarcastic applause he gave to Kojima once Kojima barely made it to the ring before the ref counted him out. So great. Kojima tries to get back into things, slowly getting up & facing Okada who is like "come on now grandpa, get up" - once Kojima falls down, Okada just STOMPS him in dickish fashion. I love it. Then comes the cocky pin pose w/ one foot on top of Kojima. What a dick! Some shit talking to Tenzan, even making fun of his signature "SHH!" thing, which leads to a goddamn epic comeback where Kojima goes for the MONGOLIAN CHOPS! So awesome. Another standout moment in a match that was full of them was Okada doing the Rainmaker pose while the crowd boos him like he was Shawn Michaels in Montreal. I love it so much. Okada answers to that with the biggest cocky smile I have seen on that face. Then that finishing stretch; my goodness. The Lariat attempt by Kojima -> German by Okada -> Rainmaker attempt -> Lariat to the back of the head, another Rainmaker attempt which lead to Kojima taking Okada's head off w/ a Lariat, then that 3rd one with Kojima answering with an elbow. So, so, so great. What an amazing match. Quite possibly my favorite Okada performance ever (so far). ****1/2

Oh man, I love Juice. What a great professional wrestler he has become - Tama Tonga is someone who sure hasn't impressed me in singles action during his G1 runs, but here Juice brought out the best in him. I liked his aggressive onslaught on Juice & Juice's selling of that was just great - the energy, fire & charisma he brought was superb. The standing ovation after the match was very well deserved. ***3/4

Oh this was so good. Naito was disrespectful as usual with his antics & Nagata made him pay for it with those sweet Suplexes & those awesome kicks. Really good match, borderline great. ***3/4

Just a really good smackfest between two wrestlers with some really great looking offense. ***1/2

This was very much a big move -> big move -> big move match w/ a great atmosphere, and I thought it was good, but it never really reached the ***1/2+ very good to great level in my eyes. ***

This was real good. Lots of big counters & smooth wrestling all around - SANADA put the champ in real big trouble, definitely one of those cases where even though Okada won, SANADA also looked super strong in defeat. The drama during the finishing stretch w/ the Skull End submission was tremendous. ***1/2

This was outstanding. Suzuki gave Juice a brilliant, hellacious beating, worked the crap out of that leg & Juice sold his ass off - how good is he as the sympathetic babyface fighting from underneath?! So damn good. His eventual big comeback with those tremendous looking punches & that beautiful Spinebuster was really great. Both guys played their roles to perfection. Amazing match. ****1/2

Thought that this was a legitimately super entertaining comedy match. Very fun! ***1/2

This was one of the matches I was most looking forward to in the tournament due to it being Nagata's final G1 & because there is so much history between him & Tanahashi. Their possible final meeting ever in singles action did not disappoint as they might have put on the best match they've had together. Loved Tana heeling it up a bit, the atmosphere was great with the crowd booing him & being behind Nagata - Tanahashi on control was awesome, loved the work over the leg & for the most part, Nagata's selling was really good. ALL of Nagata's big moves were amazing because they were done in such dramatic fashion to make people people believe that he could do it, he could beat the Ace right there, in that moment. Oh & that slap exchange - super badass. Loved it. Great match. ****

Ibushi's deadly strikes vs. Zack's deadly ground game. Great styles clash resulted in a really good, borderline great match. ***3/4

It's not the kind of a match that gets universal praise from your usual New Japan reviews I'd say, and I can definitely understand why people didn't love it as much as I did, but I thought they worked it pretty much perfectly & I seriously loved the dynamic there. I am definitely not trolling even if you seriously feel like it lol.

'Awesome match' but then you only give it 3 1/2 stars? A 1/4 star more than a match you thought went on too long? I still don't get your star ratings and the way you review and rate things I'm afraid. As far as I am concerned, ***1/2 is very good, and very good is awesome. Really don't see what's the problem here mate.