Maciej

I love how Sabre has to work really hard to even get to any holds here; like when he finally gets a sweep and then a heel hook, it really feels like a turning point. Some of Lee's strikes look monstrous here, and him curling Sabre up from his armbar is an amazing strength spot. This is my favorite of their matches, and my favorite of this tournament.

I love how Sabre has to work really hard to even get to any holds here; like when he finally gets a sweep and then a heel hook, it really feels like a turning point. Some of Lee's strikes look especially monstrous, and him curling Sabre up from his armbar is an amazing strength spot. I love both Sabre and Lee, but Sabre's insistence on having bigger people beat the hell out of him and Lee's reliance on overconfidence as his Achilles Heel, respectively, sometimes take me out of their matches a little. Both of those ideas are used perfectly here, though. This is my favorite of their matches, and my favorite match of this tournament.

This was really good in under ten minutes and has me really excited to see what they could do in a title match. Soberano isn't generally noted for his matwork, but Negro's selling and struggle on the mat allows them to work on hold for a minute at the beginning and make it interesting. They go pretty full steam ahead after that, with some really fun back and forth including some unusual running kicks from Soberano that Casas eventually turns into a dragon screw, a very hard looking springboard dropkick by Soberano, and a completely bonkers top rope powerbomb bump that I'd be shocked by a 20 year old taking, never mind someone's Negro's age. Soberano takes much less offense than Negro, but such is the power of the Casita.

I think Sabre is having the best year of any wrestler in the world right now and I loved their PWG match but, while I certainly like this match much more than I dislike it, the story of "Zack thinks he's going to win by, on purpose, taking a bunch of chops from the hardest choppin' man in the business" just isn't super compelling to me. I get that the arrogance of the character in thinking that he can get WALTER to eventually make mistakes is a motivation, but it just doesn't grab me (maybe if there were more examples of WALTER actually paying for those chops somehow?). All that said, WALTER chopping people is fun, Sabre's bumping is terrific, and any matwork that actually takes advantage of the size difference on the mat (as opposed to the more commonly used format where the small guy can wrestle on the mat and the big guy just wants to get back to stand up) is great. I love the pop Sabre gets just by being able to hold the neck bridge early on. It's good, but I don't love it like y'all seem to.

Yeah, I thought this ruled. I don't think Ember's character work is her strong suit, but I think the way she moves in the ring is actually much more distinct than most people. Like, if you put a mask and body suit on her and watched her wrestle I think you could immediately figure out who she was from the way she throws herself into her kicks and stuff like that. That's a weird sentence. Anyways: I like pretty much all the work they do here, I like the selling in the big spots, and, maybe most importantly, this match gave me two things really unique things that also worked as great character moments for Baszler: the Lethal Weapon spot and the the hair grip on the sleeper. One of my fav matches on the card and, therefore, of the year so far.

Buddy Murphy, huh? He definitely puts a little extra juice in his moves for this heavier cruiser role, and they're building him up really well. Kalisto is great here too, springing up the ropes to get out of holds, popping up off his back on the apron for an almost vertical kick, and taking a huge bump on that apron suplex.

This is a big, dramatic tag building to Charlie Morgan's title shot in a few months, with KLR somewhat reluctantly teaming with the heel champ, but being enough of a competitive pro to go all out anyways. I like that they let Sammi Jayne be a big badass here throughout, keeping up with Toni Storm on the mat and then being just a little too tough for Charlie Morgan to deal with. It leaves Charlie room to grow going into the championship match, as does her reluctance to join the dive sequences because of her shoulder injury from last year. That kind of storytelling plus the well-timed big moves made this really fun and definitely one of my fav tag matches of the year so far. I like what EVE is doing right now in general quite a bit.

Cavernario nails both the cartoon silly caveman and the brutal, uncaring caveman characters at the same time, and it's always delightful and weird. He really beats the crap out of Soberano over the first two falls here, and it sets up Soberano's very divey comeback nicely. I love these two.

There’s a whirlwind of misdirection in this match, with tag partners coming out of nowhere to interfere at an interesting time. There’s also considerable animosity between Ohata and Nakajima. Ohata comes out of nowhere to pull Arisa out of the ring at a certain point and that sets off a great brawling section. Their partners happen to be two of the best wrestlers in the world, so that doesn’t hurt either,

Another Dick Togo match, another collection of little things that make me smile: his boot to the ear to escape the cross armbreaker, his ducking of the slaps as Nomura tries to out of the figure four, his trip and graceful little hop over Nomura’s body to set up the crossface. What a gem of a wrestler. Nomura holds his own for sure.

Sabre is killing it this year., and this is wonderfully laid out. Okada isn’t that good on the mat, but that’s fine, because he doesn’t have to be. He gets some holds in, which makes sense with his lucha training, but Sabre mostly dominating him while he screams in pain is what’s supposed to happen, and boy does it. Sabre knows it’s gonna happen, too, escaping anything with arrogant ease. Just like in the Tanahashi/Sabre final, this is built around the fact that Sabre can control the mat and counter most things (that first dropkick counter whooooo), but the size advantage is such that it makes sense that a few big moves can finish him. And Zack is cocky enough to occasionally get into striking exchanges to set up those openings. He sells the hell out of a big DDT, too, going to his neck and shoulders constantly in the second half of the match and eventually not being able to completely lock things in at the end. Great stuff, and it might not even be my 2nd favorite Zack Sabre Jr. match of the past few weeks.

I think Sabre's best when he has someone physically strong to work against; his mat stuff looks much better with resistance. He gets that from Ibushi here, even early on the mat he has to really yank his arms to get him into place. Throughout the match, how good Ibushi is makes Sabre seem even more impressive. I've seen a moonsault into a hold of some sort a billion times, but Ibushi is so incredibly fast in going up for that moonsault, that getting the counter in feels more special. The intensity as they get more and more desperate to get their big moves and holds in at the end is great, and I'll be shocked if this isn't one of my very fav matches in Japan this year.

A very motivated Ricky Marvin and an excellent-as-usual Keyra kill it here. This starts off with some back and forth before a control segment for Ricky, in which he throws Keyra into a bunch of chairs and does some stretching, while (somewhat awkwardly, ok?) setting up some spots for later. After a bit of that (Keyra's selling is on point, btw) and a comeback, we get a title match-like near fall stretch with some really cool and well-executed moves, and then they move on to some absurd bumps. Even after cubsfan's glowing writeup, this way exceeded my expectations.

I guess I need to start seeking out Fuminori Abe matches cuz shit, this was great. His selling is of Nomura's strikes, even before we get into the wobbly-legged section of the match is terrific; I loved his counters - there's a truly top level dragon screw involved, and his counter elbow hits too; his spinning jump kicks are great. I already knew Nomura was good, and him in a setting where he's slightly bigger and can afford to be kind of a dick is really good for him.

This type of large power wrestler vs. badass matchup is like candy to me, as both Nia and Asuka throw their considerable power into everything and it looks great. A tricky rollup is a great way for Asuka to win; she's not just a badass but also better than everyone else at wrestling, that's part of her gimmick.

This was super fun. Cody is basically a Bret Easton Ellis character at this point (except in a storyline that might actually be good) and it works for him. I cannot stand Scurrl's wrestling, but him as a sadboy actually works emotionally in a way that his cool guy shtick never does. The storyline really helps the desperation in the tags and saves and the crowd is fire. Kenny & Kota are ridiculous as always. Go Golden Lovers!

Unsurprisingly, I absolutely loved this. First of all, the camerawork was spectacular, way more POV horror movie than you'd expect from a lucha handheld, often from behind who ever was doing the chasing in the brawl and, as Phil mentioned, with some brutal closeups. And Demus is just one of my favorites - flying headfirst into a chair for a meaningful transition, using a little single leg trip while bleeding profusely outside of the ring, or not being afraid to basically hug a fan that Fuerza whipped him into. There are some good hard smacks, the in-ring wrestling isn't bad, and those curtain ceiling decorations are classy as hell.

It's kind of weird watching two wrestlers I've seen have two of the best matches in WWE history having a match that I'm certain is not going to be nearly at that level, but once I recalibrated, yeah, this is totally really good, just as both of their batches against Asuka in the past few weeks have been. These two against each other do more little stompy, limb-pully things that I like than most other WWE wrestlers. I loved the sequence after the early Banks Statement attempt at the beginning, that's what really got me into the match. Bailey's clothesline reversal out of the corner was also quite good. I'm glad they let them have a finish before the Nia wreckage, and It'd be great if they let them have an actual feud again at some point and not just bury them in the background as they build Asuka/Alexa. ****

This certainly has enough Suzuki limb work and good Tanahashi selling to be entertaining at times, but also I kinda feel like if you told me Suzuki and Tanahashi went half an hour in January 2018 I could have predicted pretty much this exact match? Obviously execution is important, and they execute the moves and holds and facial expressions as well as expected, but this did bore the hell out of me for long stretches. I do think that if I had more of an established emotional connection to Tanahashi this would've been more up my alley.

Who woulda thunk I would be this excited about Kyle O'Reilly vs. Razar shootstyle openings? And Akam delivering the most Stan Hansen-esque Lariat I've seen in quite some time to Bobby Fish? Giving the Authors some more room to breathe and work in their individual talents is proving a very good thing. The random Akam injury storyline is a smart way to do this match, I think, and ReDragon as efficient veterans who can take apart the younger giants when presented with an opportunity totally works for me. ****1/4

Even like a year ago I still wasn't sold on Johnny Gargano as a singles star and, in retrospect, that seems completely blind. The charisma and big match selling are just so undoubtedly there in his face, and, in these Almas matches at least, the cute indie parts of his offense that I didn't love get integrated perfectly. This starts off with a lot of energy because the crowd loves Johnny so much, and it really seems like the guys are both putting a little extra effort in on the mat to keep that energy going even with a structurally traditional beginning. After that it’s just an amazing show of big spots pulled off in ways that have them make sense in the context of the match. That double moonsault by Almas for example, is something that could be a cheap throwaway in a million juniors matches but is so unexpected and wonderful here. And Almas dials up the hard hits, whether it’s slaps or that huge back elbow, at the exact right times. The Zelena/Candace stuff works wonderfully, built off their last few matches. The finish is actually sad, like good art can be sad. Not “I can’t believe they booked it that way” sad but actually affecting because Gargano sells the damage and emotion and Almas is just an enemy he can’t overcome. And credit to Almas’ selling too, because while it isn’t as important to the overarching story it does just as much to make the drama work on a moment to moment basis. I can’t wait to watch this again.

For the most part, this is an ok match with Roman and Miz and the Miztourage doing more or less what you would expect, which are all things I like. It's noteworthy, though, because heels cheating is basically always done in dramatic irony these days, with the ref and/or opponent blind but the audience in on it and protesting loudly. So, while I know that the finish here, where nobody realizes that the cheating happened until afterwards, is for sure not the first of its kind, it really feels fresh and elevates this match to something easily recommendable. ***1/2

This ends up being the de facto block final, and it is very hype. I love a battle of two big guys where one is slightly bigger and slightly higher rated and they actively play into that. The striking towards the end here actually feels like a slugfest - two brawlers trying to win a fight, not just trading shots to see who has the most fighting spirit or whatever. I might be the biggest Higuchi fan around, but his selling ability and athleticism are always impressive as the big man in a match, and in a rare opportunity as the smaller man they really shine. This is my favorite match in the excellent group stage of this tournament. ****1/2

I'm definitely a person that gets more excited about keeping up with new stuff and the potential for pushing the artform forward (whether it's wrestling or music or movies), and when you combine that with all the wonderful wrestling from the past that I haven't seen yet, it's option 1 for me and it's not remotely close.

They get a surprising amount of intensity from this match, starting with Roddy's awesome dropkick through the ropes. I wouldn't have thought he would be the hot tag with Black the face in peril but that works great too, starting with Aleister taking a really nice apron bump off a Fish leg-sweep and ending with Roddy coming in super hot. I don't like the ending, with Aleister, who in the preceding months couldn't have his focus broken enough to say a dudes name, looking like a complete buffoon. The journey to get there was fun though. ***1/2