Kadaveri

2023 Observer Awards LOU THESZ/RIC FLAIR AWARD (WRESTLER OF THE YEAR) WILL OSPREAY (302) 1,814 Cody Rhodes (119) 1,330 MJF (80) 927 Roman Reigns (106) 904 Bryan Danielson (49) 590 MIXED MARTIAL ARTS MOST VALUABLE JON JONES (57) 474 Islam Makhachev (51) 472 Leon Edwards (34) 332 Israel Adesanya (33) 224 Sean Strickland (18) 139 MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER WILL OSPREAY (548) 3,086 Bryan Danielson (122) 1,773 Kenny Omega (19) 590 Zack Sabre Jr. (15) 282 Kento Miyahara (11) 185 MOST OUTSTANDING FIGHTER OF THE YEAR ISLAM MAKHACHEV (129) 793 Leon Edwards (26) 367 Sean Strickland (32) 306 Alex Pereira (10) 114 Jon Jones (6) 79 TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR FTR (344) 2,341 Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (106) 1,128 Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi (71) 712 Takuya Nomura & Fuminori Abe (82) 473 Young Bucks (42) 435 BEST ON INTERVIEWS EDDIE KINGSTON (199) 1,483 MJF (140) 1,441 Christian Cage (148) 921 Jon Moxley (50) 705 Cody Rhodes (51) 626 PROMOTION OF THE YEAR WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT (406) 2,359 All Elite Wrestling (194) 1,965 New Japan Pro Wrestling (17) 1,011 CMLL (90) 965 UFC (52) 580 BEST WEEKLY TV SHOW AEW DYNAMITE (430) 2,707 AEW Collision (74) 1,483 WWE Smackdown (128) 1,434 CMLL Super Viernes (67) 518 WWE NXT (3) 309 PRO WRESTLING MATCH OF THE YEAR KENNY OMEGA VS. WILL OSPREAY 1/4 TOKYO (474) 3,018 Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay 6/25 Toronto (116) 1,227 MJF vs. Bryan Danielson 3/5 San Francisco (115) 1,065 Swerve Strickland vs. Adam Page 11/18 Los Angeles (33) 464 FTR vs. White & Robinson (5) 266 MMA FIGHT OF THE YEAR ALEXANDER VOLKANOVSKI VS. ISLAM MAKHACHEV 2/11 PERTH, AUSTRALIA (164) 822 Alexandre Pantoja vs. Brandon Moreno 7/8 Las Vegas (7) 285 Justin Gaethje vs. Rafael Fiziev 3/18 London (2) 171 Geoff Neal vs. Shavkat Rakhimonov 3/4 Las Vegas (3) 91 Jamahal Hill vs. Glover Teixeira 2/21 Rio de Janeiro (8) 83 “CATEGORY B” AWARDS UNITED STATES/CANADA MVP CODY RHODES 268 Bryan Danielson 139 MJF 135 Roman Reigns 109 Jon Moxley 36 JAPAN MVP WILL OSPREAY 434 Kazuchika Okada 243 Tetsuya Naito 80 Kento Miyahara 67 Yuma Aoyagi 30 MEXICO MVP MISTICO 416 El Hijo del Vikingo 314 Rocky Romero 68 Volador Jr. 30 Pentagon Jr. 7 EUROPE MVP WILL OSPREAY 754 Michael Oku 45 Zack Sabre Jr. 26 Spike Trivet 8 **HODGE AWARD/NON-HEAVYWEIGHT MVP EL HIJO DEL VIKINGO 189 Hiromu Takahashi 144 Darby Allin 139 Orange Cassidy 83 Mistico 34 WOMEN’S WRESTLING MVP RHEA RIPLEY 359 Giulia 162 Athena 114 Tam Nakano 65 Becky Lynch 63 WOMEN’S MMA MVP ALEXA GRASSO 147 Zhang Weili 45 Amanda Nunes 20 FEUD OF THE YEAR SAMI ZAYN & KEVIN OWENS VS. BLOODLINE 268 Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland 119 Kento Miyahara vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima 98 Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay 91 Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley 44 BEST BOX OFFICE DRAW MMA JON JONES Israel Adesanya Islam Makhachev BEST BOX OFFICE DRAW PRO WRESTLING ROMAN REIGNS Cody Rhodes John Cena MOST IMPROVED JULIA HART 117 Dominik Mysterio 86 Mariah May 49 Shota Umino 49 Swerve Strickland 47 MOST CHARISMATIC MJF 162 Roman Reigns 88 Kento Miyahara 81 Giulia 57 Cody Rhodes 49 BRYAN DANIELSON AWARD (BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER) BRYAN DANIELSON 549 Zack Sabre Jr. 427 Josh Alexander 17 BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD (BEST BRAWLER) JON MOXLEY 383** Tomohiro Ishii 91 Adam Page 78 Eddie Kingston 74 Gunther 46 BEST FLYING WRESTLER EL HIJO DEL VIKINGO 595 Will Ospreay 52 Rey Fenix 37 Mascara Dorada 36 Komander 28 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR YUMA ANZAI 205 Action Andretti 140 Megan Bayne 65 Oleg Boltin 49 Kelani Jordan 38 BEST NON-WRESTLER DON CALLIS 266 Paul Heyman 198 Prince Nana 175 Renee Paquette 31 RJ City 18 MOST OVERRATED SANADA 114 Roman Reigns 109 CM Punk 63 Tyrus 62 MJF 55 MOST UNDERRATED CHAD GABLE 84 Konosuke Takeshita 80 Daniel Garcia 50 Mike Bailey 49 Yota Tsuji 42 BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER EXCALIBUR 183 Ian Riccaboni 139 Kevin Kelly 137 Nigel McGuinness 133 Chris Charlton 89 WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER BOOKER T 198 Kevin Patrick 162 Jim Ross 90 Michael Cole 48 Corey Graves 42 BEST MAJOR WRESTLING SHOW AEW REVOLUTION 3/5 SAN FRANCISCO 188 AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door 6/25 Toronto 128 AEW All In 8-27 London 111 WWE WrestleMania night one 4/1 Los Angeles 101 AEW All Out 9/3 Chicago 72 WORST MAJOR WRESTLING SHOW WWE CROWN JEWEL 11/4 RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 141 NWA Samhain 10/28 Cleveland 89 AEW Worlds End 12/30 Uniondale, NY 79 WWE Fastlane 10/7 Indianapolis 51 AAA TripleMania 8/12 Mexico City 50 BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER WILL OSPREAY HIDDEN BLADE 139 Will Ospreay stormbreaker 76 Kenny Omega one winged angel 68 El Hijo del Vikingo second rope step up 630 58 Komander ropewalk shooting star 32 MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC WWE ENABLING VINCE MCMAHON AND HIM BEING BACK IN POWER/TKO KEEPING HIM IN POSITION OF POWER 197 WWE Continued relationship with Saudi Arabia 140 NWA cocaine spot on PPV 89 Powerslap and continuing on TV after Dana White slapped his wife 83 AEW signing Ric Flair 49 WORST TELEVISION SHOW 1. NWA POWERR 194 WWE Raw 176 WWE NXT 112 Powerslap: Road to the Title 109 AEW Rampage 80 WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR BRAY WYATT VS. LA KNIGHT 1/28 SAN ANTONIO 105 Tyrus vs. EC 3 8/27 St. Louis 85 Shane McMahon/Snoop Dogg vs. The Miz 4/2 Los Angeles 58 Baron Corbin vs. Gable Steveson 7/30 Cedar Park, TX 47 Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler 8/5 Detroit 44 WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR MJF VS. THE DEVIL 167 Outcasts vs. AEW Originals 114 Tyrus vs. EC 3 74 Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler 57 Adam Cole vs. Chris Jericho 48 WORST PROMOTION OF THE YEAR NWA 456 AAA 88 WWE 61 Control Your Narrative 17 MLW 16 BEST BOOKER PAUL LEVESQUE 360 Tony Khan 146 Juan Manuel Mar 104 Shuji Ishikawa 74 Rossy Ogawa 68 PROMOTER OF THE YEAR NICK KHAN 371 Tony Khan 239 Dana White 146 Chavo Lutteroth III 112 Rossy Ogawa 34 BEST GIMMICK TONI STORM 239 Christian Cage 204 Orange Cassidy 48 Bloodline 38 Brochachos 36 WORST GIMMICK THE DEVIL 76 QTV 72 Toni Storm 49 House of Torture 40 Outcasts 39 BEST PRO WRESTLING BOOK THE LAST REAL WORLD CHAMPION BY TIM HORNBAKER 77 Tod is God by Tod Gordon 50 Ringmaster by Abraham Josephine Riesman 49 Keirn Chronicles by Steve Keirn and Ian Douglass` 39 Wrestling Observer Complete Collection 1989 by Dave Meltzer 22 BEST PRO WRESTLING DOCUMENTARY DARK SIDE OF THE RING: CHRIS AND TAMMY 97 VOW: The Life, career and death of Eddie Gilbert 80 American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes 69 Dark Side of the Ring: Marty Jannetty 65 Dark Side of the Ring: Magnum T.A. 34

Here is my list. I like to watch things in some context and my viewing of historic stuff tends to be in big chunks of one promotion/era at a time rather than just haphazardly watching random matches. So where you see huge gaps where a promotion just isn't there (e.g. 90s NJPW), it's probably me just having not watched any of that stuff since I started saving my ratings than me saying none of it is worthy. Pre-1980 1. Buddy Rogers vs. Pat O'Connor (NWA - 6/30/61) - 4.75 2. Abdullah The Butcher & The Sheik vs. Dory Funk Jr & Terry Funk (AJPW - 7/15/79) - 4.75 1980s 3. Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen (NJPW - 9/23/81) - 4.75 4. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ric Flair (AJPW - 4/14/83) - 4.75 5. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ric Flair (AJPW - 6/8/83) - 5 6. MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (EMLL - 9/23/83) - 4.75 7. Sgt. Slaughter vs. The Iron Sheik (WWF - 6/16/84) - 4.75 8. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Crane Yu & Dump Matsumoto (AJW - 2/25/85) - 4.75 9. Jaguar Yokota vs. La Galactica (AJW - 2/27/85) - 4.75 10. Jim Duggan vs. Ted Dibiase (MSW - 3/22/85) - 5 11. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Devil Masami (AJW - 8/22/85) - 5 12. Bull Nakano & Dump Matsumoto vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka (AJW - 10/10/85) - 4.75 13. Dump Matsumoto vs. Yukari Omori (AJW - 3/20/86) - 5 14. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (JCP - 7/5/86) - 5 15. Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs. Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels (AWA - 8/30/86) - 4.75 16. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Dump Matsumoto (AJW - 11/7/86) - 5 17. Carlos Colon vs. Stan Hansen (WWC - 3/14/87) - 5 18. Lioness Asuka vs. Yukari Omori (AJW - 4/15/87) - 4.75 19. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW - 10/28/88) - 4.75 20. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (AJPW - 12/16/88) - 5 21. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (WCW - 2/20/89) - 4.75 22. Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (WCW - 4/2/89) - 5 23. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW - 6/5/89) - 5 24. Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (WCW - 7/23/89) - 4.75 1990s 25. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 6/8/90) - 4.75 26. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 9/1/90) - 4.75 27. Akira Taue, Jumbo Tsuruta & Masanobu Fuchi vs. Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 4/20/91) - 4.75 28. Akira Taue & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 11/29/91) - 4.75 29. Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW - 5/25/92) - 5 30. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada (AJW - 11/26/92) - 5 31. Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 2/28/93) - 4.75 32. Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (AJW - 4/2/93) - 5 33. Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (AJPW - 7/29/93) - 5 34. Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Sakie Hasegawa & Takako Inoue vs. Cutie Suzuki, Dynamite Kansai, Hikari Fukuoka & Mayumi Ozaki (JWP - 7/31/93) - 5 35. Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams (AJPW - 8/31/93) - 4.75 36. Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 12/3/93) - 5 37. Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada (AJW - 12/10/93) - 5 38. Aja Kong vs. Yumiko Hotta (AJW - 1/24/94) - 4.75 39. Sakie Hasegawa vs. Toshiyo Yamada (AJW - 3/3/94) - 4.75 40. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (WWF - 3/20/94) - 4.75 41. Aja Kong & Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto & Shinobu Kandori (AJW - 3/27/94) - 5 42. Great Sasuke vs. Jushin Liger (NJPW - 4/16/94) - 4.75 43. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 6/3/94) - 5 44. Bull Nakano vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW - 7/14/94) - 5 45. Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 4/15/95) - 4.75 46. Chigusa Nagayo & Dynamite Kansai vs. Devil Masami & Mayumi Ozaki (GAEA - 4/15/95) - 4.75 47. Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 6/9/95) - 5 48. Manami Toyota vs. Yumiko Hotta (AJW - 9/3/95) - 4.75 49. Combat Toyoda vs. Megumi Kudo (FMW - 5/5/96) - 4.75 50. Mick Foley vs. Shawn Michaels (WWF - 9/22/96) - 4.75 51. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WWF - 11/17/96) - 4.75 52. Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 12/6/96) - 5 53. Kenta Kobashi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW - 1/20/97) - 5 54. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (WWF - 3/23/97) - 5 55. Dustin Rhodes, Ken Shamrock, Road Warrior Animal, Road Warrior Hawk & Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart, Brian Pillman, British Bulldog, Jim Neidhart & Owen Hart (WWF - 7/6/97) - 4.75 56. Toshie Uematsu vs. Yoshiko Tamura (GAEA - 7/19/97) - 4.75 57. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker (WWF - 10/5/97) - 5 2000s 58. Aja Kong vs. Kaoru Maeda (GAEA - 2/13/00) - 4.75 59. Steve Austin vs. Triple H (WWF - 2/25/01) - 5 60. Steve Austin vs. The Rock (WWF - 4/1/01) - 4.75 61. Akira Hokuto vs. Meiko Satomura (GAEA - 4/29/01) - 5 62. Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin (WWF - 8/19/01) - 4.75 63. Kenta Kobashi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (NOAH - 3/1/03) - 4.75 64. Eddie Guerrero vs. John Layfield (WWE - 5/16/04) - 4.75 65. CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe (ROH - 10/16/04) - 4.75 66. CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe (ROH - 12/4/04) - 5 67. Chris Harris & James Storm vs. Christopher Daniels & Elix Skipper (TNA - 12/5/04) - 4.75 68. Necro Butcher vs. Samoa Joe (IWA Mid-South - 6/11/05) - 4.75 69. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe (TNA - 9/11/05) - 4.75 70. Kenta Kobashi vs. Samoa Joe (ROH - 10/1/05) - 5 71. Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness (ROH - 8/12/06) - 4.75 72. John Cena vs. Umaga (WWE - 1/28/07) - 4.75 73. Bryan Danielson vs. Takeshi Morishima (ROH - 8/25/07) - 5 2010s 74. CM Punk vs. John Cena (WWE - 7/17/11) - 5 75. Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena (WWE - 4/29/12) - 5 76. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW - 8/4/13) - 4.75 77. Daniel Bryan vs. John Cena (WWE - 8/18/13) - 4.75 78. Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk (WWE - 8/18/13) - 4.75 79. Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan & Luke Harper vs. Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins (WWE - 2/23/14) - 4.75 80. Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H (WWE - 4/6/14) - 4.75 81. Kota Ibushi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (NJPW - 1/4/15) - 4.75 82. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (WWE - 3/29/15) - 4.75 83. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (NXT - 8/22/15) - 4.75 84. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (NXT - 10/7/15) - 4.75 85. Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (NXT - 4/1/16) - 4.75 86. AJ Styles vs. Roman Reigns (WWE - 5/22/16) - 4.75 87. Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa (NXT - 11/19/16) - 4.75 88. Io Shirai vs. Mayu Iwatani (Stardom - 12/22/16) - 4.75 89. AJ Styles vs. John Cena (WWE - 1/29/17) - 5 90. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW - 4/9/17) - 4.75 91. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito (NJPW - 8/11/17) - 4.75 92. AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE - 11/19/17) - 4.75 93. Andrade Cien Almas vs. Johnny Gargano (NXT - 1/27/18) - 5 94. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (NJPW - 6/9/18) - 4.75 95. Kota Ibushi vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW - 7/28/18) - 4.75 96. Jordan Devlin vs. Walter (OTT - 8/18/18) - 4.75 97. Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston (WWE - 4/7/19) - 4.75 98. Mio Momono vs. Takumi Iroha (Marvelous - 11/3/19) - 4.75 2020s 99. Adam Page vs. Bryan Danielson (AEW - 1/5/22) - 4.75 100. CM Punk vs. Jon Moxley (AEW - 9/4/22) - 4.75 101. Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood vs. Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe (ROH - 12/10/22) - 5 102. Bryan Danielson vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman (AEW - 3/5/23) - 4.75

Marvelous 1/6/18 Review Tae Honma vs. Yuu Yamagata Not much to say about this one. I enjoyed watching Tae get chopped several times across the chest and one on the belly for good measure, but I knew I was getting that. Then Yuu just won quickly. Fine for what it was. *1/2 Miki Tanaka & Mochi Miyagi vs. Rin Kadokura & Takumi Iroha I realised soon enough that I'd seen a clip of this match before but not the whole thing. This might be Miki Tanaka's magnum opus. She starts by being outraged that New-Tra's WAVE Tag Titles are not on the line in this match and demands it be turned into a title match. At least that's what I think was happening I don't understand Japanese. She ends up arguing with Chigusa at the production desk, I think Chigusa was trying to explain to her that these belts belong to another company she can't just sanction a title match on a whim but Miki wasn't having it. After several minutes of her screaming at people it's made an official title match. They do a posing ceremony, with Takumi pulling faces at the camera making a mockery of the whole thing. The match starts with Miki spinning out of the corner and charging at her opponents who double superkick her and pin her to get the win in about 5 seconds. After all that fuss lol. Miki's not gonna give up though and demands the match is restarted. After a bit more arguing we re-run the entire thing again including the posing ceremony with Takumi this time putting two fingers up when getting her photo taken, I guess to make clear this is the 2nd time she's had to do this. We restart the match and the exact same thing happens again but Mochi breaks up the pin on Miki just in time, the first time she's really done anything. After that absurd but pretty funny comedy segment they then go on to have a pretty good match! Well there's still some comedic elements like Miki constantly trying to fight everyone, at one point Mochi just kicks her out of the ring because she's doing more harm than good. This is worth watching if you wanna see some very boisterous comedy, and since I thought it was funny it ups my rating a bit. **3/4 Natsumi Maki vs. Tomoko Watanabe I thought this was an interesting matchup. I soon confirm that this is the period where Natsumi's not quite figured out how to incorporate her very nice looking cartwheels into pro-wrestling, but for the most part this is really well-worked match/better than expected. There's a neat moment where Natsumi messes up a 'walk up your opponent' kind of move, and just as she starts trying to repeat the spot she doesn't get a chance to because Tomoko just nukes her with a lariat. Nice Nabe. Natsumi does some good bumping as well. *** Chikayo Nagashima, KAORU, Megumi Yabushita & Pandita vs. Kyuri, La Rosa Negra, Maruko Nagasaki & Mio Momono This is a ridiculous, joyous, chaotic mess of a match and I enjoyed every minute of it. The running joke is that it's a bunch of 20 year olds (plus Rosa) wrestling a bunch of middle-aged women and their main strategy is to tire the old women out by just running all over the place!!! Outrageous behaviour. But it gives us great sequences like this. Mio and Maruko were the best. Kyuri was kinda irrelevant for 90% of the match although it's possible the camerawork missed her sometimes as there was a lot going on. The Panda didn't do much until towards the end when he tried to do a walk the ropes spot but he's not good enough to walk the top rope so just did the 2nd rope instead but then Kyuri shook the ropes and he still fell off. He later tried to do a frog splash but missed because he couldn't jump far enough. This panda is useless and cost the old women the match. Very fun main event. ***1/4

Marvelous 12/25/17 Review This is another one of those Christmas themed shows. They play 'The Nutcracker' as part of the intro to the show. Miki Tanaka & Sakura Hirota vs. Tomoko Watanabe & Yuu Yamagata A strange comedy match that went 12 minutes but would have been good if they kept it to half the length, as some of it was funny. Sakura starts the match dressed up as a Christmas tree. Tomoko gifts her some nappies for Christmas, but it turns out to be a trick and both Sakura and Miki end up with nappies stuck over their heads. Later Tomoko and Miki have a sumo style match for some reason, which Tomoko repeatedly comes out on top in. Eventually Miki manages to trip Tomoko and goes for a cover, but Sakura runs in to break it up despite Miki being on her team! Miki is pissed off and baffled, even Yuu Yamagata comes into the ring to ask Sakura what that was all about but it was just a trick so Miki could sneak up on Yuu and kancho her. Sakura then kisses Tomoko and they all fall down and Miki gets on top of all of them and gets a 3 count to end a ridiculous match. The part described was fun but unfortunately there was a load of boring stuff as well. * Rin Kadokura vs. Natsu Sumire This is very strange because the first 8 minutes of this is just a total one-sided beatdown of Natsu by Rin... Natsu gets literally zero offense. I dunno if this was Rin getting revenge for the shenanigans on the last show but it doesn't really work because her offense isn't strong enough to put on such a prolonged beatdown and it just feels odd hierarchy wise. Natsu does eventually get a bit of comeback when Rin's kicking her ass on the outside when she swings a chair at Rin's head, but it only lasts a minute before Rin's beating her up again. They then drop this and we get what would have been a pretty good 5 minute 50/50 matchup except that feels weird because Natsu's apparently leveled up out of nowhere and... it ends in a 15 minute draw. Ok now I know what Rin's "shine" segment was ridiculously long. *1/2 Kyuri & Maruko Nagasaki vs. La Rosa Negra & Mio Momono Maruko is back and has brought another Ice Ribbon wrestler with her, who is not as good in a distinctively Ice Ribbon way. This was an enjoyable energetic juniors style tag. I liked how there were a few miscommunication spots from Rosa and Mio. I'm not sure if calling them 'spots' is even accurate as sometimes it just seemed Rosa was genuinely not understanding the instructions Mio was shouting at her in Japanese forcing Mio to improvise on Rosa not being where she should be, but in a way that worked. So whether it was planned or not it was still fun. This also ended in a 15 minute draw. At the end of the match they all made human swastika poses but Rosa refused. **3/4 Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Takumi Iroha A bit of a frustrating watch because these two clearly had a better match in them but they weren't going to do it on this show for whatever reason, which kinda makes me wonder why book it in the first place. It was very enjoyable even if it was a bit 'going through the motions' as they're both very good at what they do. Even the chopfest early was entertained me as at least they hit each other with some force and sold it, and didn't do it too long. Chihiro's amateur stuff is always fun to watch and Takumi brought it with the strikes to counter. Wasn't much psychology to any of it though. Then it just ends. Another 15 minute draw. ***1/4 I don't understand why you would book three 15 minute draws on the same show, puts a downer on what otherwise was a fine show.

If you love Mio Momono clap your hands♫♫ She is on such a roll at the moment having good matches with absolutely everyone. Watch her 1/7 match against AKINO in Oz Academy for the latest.

Karion Kross & AOP sounds like the dullest stable ever.

Marvelous 12/10/23 Review Ai Houzan vs. Chihiro Hashimoto A pretty well-worked competitive squash. Not a whole lot happens in the first few minutes but it gets a lot more lively after Houzan lands a headbutt, Hashimoto fights back and goes for her rolling senton (which she throws herself into with great explosiveness) but misses. Houzan fires up more and even gets a nearfall with La Magistral, but this only gets Hashimoto to decide to get serious and end this, and she pretty quickly locks Houzan into a really cool looking straightjacket choke like submission for the win. It feels like Houzan has plateued in her development lately so this was nice to see. *3/4 Gigi Rey, Manami & Yurika Oka vs. Makoto, Promise Braxton & Unagi Sayak Mainly felt like a showcase of the American women.I thought Gigi Rey had some pretty cool offense although she didn't show much more than that. Unagi looked a bit awkward at the start, like she attempted this double baseball slide move to knock both opposing tag partners off the apron but did it way too slow, but she seemed to get more into things later on. ** IssI, Leo Isaka & Vinnie Massaro vs. Alpha Zo, Bryan Ishizaka & Viento Before the match we're introduced to a new Marvelous trainee, didn't catch her name. Match was fun for what it was. Alpha Zo hits a super mean lariat in the closing stretch where he and Isaka got to work a more protracted section with everyone else outside, this was the best part of the match ** Mio Momono vs. Tomoko Watanabe (AAAW Singles Title #1 Contender) The amount of camera cuts in these entrances is very obnoxious. Please knock it off. Similar start to her match with Ozaki in that Mio gets jumped at the start by the veteran and doesn't seem prepared for it. The opening minutes of this aren't very interesting with Tomoko just repeatedly hitting Mio with lariats, but it picks up after that when Mio does a well-executed Fujiwara-armbar counter to one of them on the outside. She also does a dive off the stairs balcony to the next row down but seems to miss Tomoko as she's up immediately afterwards, but bad camerawork meant it wasn't clear what happened. Something later I liked was Mio's little nerd-bait leg-selling when moving around after having been in a figure four earlier in the match. The body of the match was quite good, Tomoko being a power wrestler meant she just had to hit the odd big bomb onto a constantly running around Mio to get something enjoyable out of it. One part that I didn't like those is this almost obligatory German suplex no-sell, but it was only one spot out of an otherwise good match. So Tomoko will be Ozaki's next challenger, but Mio appeared to have her shoulder up for an out. *** Chikayo Nagashima & Takumi Iroha vs. Maria & Riko Kawahata (AAAW Tag Team Titles) Riko screwed up the introductions by walking to the middle about to do her pose only for the ring announcer to shout MAAAAAAAARIA! Haha. I like how this opens. First it's Maria vs. Takumi. Maria tries for some of her amateur wrestling stuff (she should do this more really, would make her stand out more as she's better at it than most) and is able to put up a respectable showing against Takumi but eventually succumbs to the superior wrestler. They both tag out so we get Riko vs. Chikayo, but here the gap is more apparent as Chikayo immediately dominates. Maria runs in to bail Riko out of a hold, which succeeds, but they fail to double team Chikayo and Takumi runs in to take out Maria and we're back to Chikayo vs. Riko again. There's your dynamic set up. This one-sided pattern continues for the next few minutes. The moment where Team Magenta manages to turn things around a bit is cool, as Maria manages to hit some offense finally by first countering Chikayo charging her in the corner by booting her in the face. After landing a couple of moves, she quickly tags Riko in to continue the assault. Their comeback comes by effective teamwork isolating the one opponent. Takumi sees Chikayo has lost control, and for the first time does something slightly unsporting by coming out of her tag corner and kicking Riko in the back as she's running the ropes, but in a cool moment, Riko looks pissed off at that and kicks Takumi back! You just felt her Level Up a bit in that moment, especially how Takumi sold it like it never occured to her that Riko would have the audacity to hit back like that. Riko continues the offense, she literally has Chikayo against the ropes, but that serves to be her undoing as Chikayo drags her down with her and uses her smarts to wrap her up in a hold across the ropes and take back control. Riko should have tagged Maria back in really. Now Chikayo's back on offense and there's a mean streak to things now like stamping on Riko's hands and later sitting on her squashing her face into the mat and blatantly using the ropes for leverage until the referee admonishes her. Feels like she's dishing out punishment for the previous embarrassment. Maria thinks about running in to bail Riko out of a hold again, but again similar to the opening Takumi is right in there to stop any of that and then patrols the mat like a guard dog, and thus the champion team have re-established their winning dynamic from the opening few minutes. Takumi gets in the ring now, and starts kicking the hell out of Riko to get revenge for the apron kick earlier. She tries to turn things into a kicking contest and goads Riko into it mocking how ineffective her kicks are with that patronising swagger, but Riko gets pissed and just slaps Takumi in the face! Bold move again. It didn't look like the most effective offense, but it's more that Takumi was taken aback at Riko's daring to not play by her rules. And then OMFG GOD TAKUMI IS SHOOTING SHE'S FUCKING LOST IT SHE'S GONNA KILL THIS LITTLE BITCH HOLY SHIT DO YOU KNOW WHO I FUCKING AM! Man I wish Takumi would fire up like that a bit more often, maybe it's not her natural demeanour but she can kick some serious ass when something fires her up. Takumi getting all angry might have worked against her a bit later though as she seems to get wrapped up in hitting Riko with some big moves that Riko counters with a superkick as Takumi charges at her (similar to Maria's transition earlier) to take her down, then hits a quick asai moonsault and goes for a pin, Chikayo tries to break it up with a double footstomp but Riko dodges and Takumi gets stomped instead. Unfortunately that sequence was mistimed, looked like Riko was a bit too late to move so everyone stopped awkwardly for half a second, though it wasn't match-destroying or anything just a bit immersion breaking. They get back on track, this was the first time the Champion team had someone run in to bail out the other, and not only does it backfire, but Maria runs in as well and they both hit their tag team offense to take it to the champions while they're on the backfoot, who can have no complaints as Chikayo ran in first. Our next pairing in Maria vs. Takumi. It's entirely about Maria working Takumi's arm with a couple of cool transitions into armbars and she shows great spirit keeping them locked in despite Takumi's attempts to fight out. At one point Chikayo manages to fight off Riko tries to block her and boots Maria in the head, but Maria just rolls through and does not let go of that armbar. Takumi sells the arm and after escaping tags Chikayo in. We get another section of Chikayo establishing control so long as Riko is unable to interfere, she tries at one point only for Takumi to rudely grab her by the head and contemptuously throw her out of the ring like garbage. She does manage to get back in though and it's at this moment where, with a little help, Maria is able to fight Chikayo back and hits her with an Excalibur/Michinoku Driver. It looks like she flubs it the first attempt not being able to lift Chikayo up properly, and then gets her up the second time, but actually her struggling to hit the move fit the psychology of the match so it was almost a plus. Maria and Chikayo struggle over a bunch of rollups while Riko & Takumi scramble around on the ground in the corner, until Riko manages to escape Takumi's grip and hits Chikayo with a quick running kick, which is enough for Maria to get a proper rollup on her for a two-count. Up to this point, every time Magenta manage to 'take the lead', it's either a counter to an opponent charging at them, or it's because they successfully managed to double team. This reverses on them here though, when Riko tags in a foolishly charges right into this Takumi powerbomb. Takumi later goes for a swanton bomb without having hit that much damage on Riko, her moves out of the way. Furthering the narrative that Takumi underestimates Riko to her detriment. I won't go into so much detail for the finishing stretch (I rarely do this it's just this match had so much stuff that furthered the various narrative threads I felt like I had to mention so much), but it largely revolves around Takumi getting increasingly frustrated that Riko won't just die, and being unable to hit enough sustained offense to finish her off as Maria keeps getting in the way at critical moments. This all leads to the finish, oh it's so great. Takumi gets Riko into position for the Running Three and is about to hit it, but again she's underestimated her as she hasn't been damaged enough to hit that move successfully and she's able to wriggle out of it, then right afterwards Maria flies in to kick Takumi in the head, and Riko rolls up Takumi FOR THE THREE COUNT. Oh my God, Takumi got pinned by Riko Kawahata. New tag champs This was an excellently laid out match. I feel like I can play it back in my head because of how organically each segment lead into the other. There are a lot of flaws, mainly on the execution side of things that I there's no need to spend time listing so that does hold it back a bit. I'll also note that the pairing where Maria worked Takumi's arm didn't lead to anything later, but imo it was so brief it doesn't really matter, maybe a lost opportunity at worst. When you have a match with so much narrative to dig your teeth into and so clearly succeeded in its aims of elevating the junior team into a viable main event act, I'm going to lean towards the forgiving side for the occasional execution flub. **** I'll just note at the end that there have been a lot of complaints online about Mio losing her match, but considering the main event was a big elevation of two juniors vs. a veteran team, it seems a bit misplaced to be upset that they didn't do the same kind of thing in literally the preceding match and undercut the impact of their main event. Mio is fine.

I just wanted a post an example of Chigusa's stagger selling & her version of Hulking up. I really think she's one of the best ever at it, strikes the perfect balance between being animated/selling for all four sides of the crowd but without coming across as goofy. I also love the way she spreads her shoulders out as she's squaring up to Kai, makes her look all cool and tough. Chigusa Hulks Up.mp4

Davienne & Kyoko Kimura vs. Mio Momono & Renee Michelle - Marvelous USA 2/13/16 Just a little bonus since it's on YouTube and this is actually Mio Momono's debut. Strange that her first match was on New York of all places, but it's one hell of a debut. Does nothing but sell and work for a hot tag for the first half of the match. Kyoko Kimura is really mean grabbing her by the hair and viciously chucking her all over the place. It's good enough work that the local crowd actually get into it. Renee Michelle tags in and totally messes up a 619 by just whacking herself into ropes, but partially makes up for it by hitting a nice moonsault instead. This match is all about Kyoko vs. Mio though the other two mainly contributed by battling over the pinfall breakups. There's a lot of sloppiness and awkward stuff in here but just watch it as the impressive debut of a future great. **

Marvelous 12/16/17 Review This will be a short one. I had a bad feeling when I saw how tiny the crowd was and that they were doing some kind of Christmas themed show, and was certainly vindicated. Aki Shizuku vs. Kenichiro Arai Aki's back to her "beating male wrestlers" gimmick, which I'm not into. * Megumi Yabushita vs. Yuu Yamagata (No DQ) Not sure what really the point of making it No DQ is when Megumi's W-Fix buddies interfere all the time anyway. The highlight of this match was Megumi starting a chop exchange, or trying to, but Yuu lifted up her shirt and chopped her on the belly to Megumi's horror. She'd lift up her shirt and give her belly a rub a couple of times later on. Yuu does a lot of bad obvious thigh-slapping and the interference from the W-Fix crew felt pretty lethargic. *3/4 Pandita vs. Tomoko Watanabe (Current Blast Tinsel Ropes Death Match) I also don't really know how to review this other than it was very bizarre. They wrestled it like it was a No Ropes Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match except it was just tinsel... Tomoko took some harder bumps than I was expecting and pulled out a bazooka to shoot Pandita (who is a Panda) in the face with some kind of rocket propelled tinsel munition. Bizarre Chikayo Nagashima & KAORU vs. La Rosa Negra & Mio Momono I enjoyed this though nothing I haven't seen before. Lots of good Mio selling for the first 5 minutes before tagging Rosa in. There was an interesting moment where Rosa had Mio stick her foot out to ram KAORU's head into it while she had her in the DVD position, only for Mio to fall off the apron (I'm not sure if that was deliberate or not) but she was soon back up and running over the ring to block Chikayo from breaking up a pin attempt, and then got kicked out of the ring at the other side where Megumi Yabushita was standing around, so Mio started fighting her as well! Nice bit of work. There were a bunch of neat breakups in the finish stretch in an otherwise very cookie cooker but fine match. **3/4 Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru, Miki Tanaka & Sakura Hirota vs. Natsu Sumire, Rin Kadokura & Takumi Iroha Urgh what a dreadful main event. Well NEW-TRA's entrance was quite fun as they looked very disapproving of Natsu getting into their routine. But the match was just dumb comedy for 26 minutes, the kind of stuff you expect to only last about 2 minutes before they go back to having a proper match, but they did it the whole match and it was really long! I would have been so disappointed if I bought at ticket to this show. DUD

Marvelous 11/25/17 Review The gimmick of this show is it's a High Spurt 600, i.e. all matches have a 10 minute (or 600 second) time limit. KAORU vs. Megumi Yabushita Stupid match. The match ends in 30 seconds when KAORU knocks Yabushita down with her board and goes for a moonsault but misses and Yabushita puts her in an armbar and taps her out. Well I wasn't really looking forward to this one so got my hopes up that was it, but Chigusa intervenes and restarts the match for some reason. They brawl a bit on the outside then come back in and KAORU throws Yabushita back in the ring, actually hits the moonsault this time, only for Yabushita to kick out at 2, roll her up in La Magistral and get the win, and then KAORU laughs. Well that was confusing and terrible. I will give it a quarter star for KAORU's moonsaults being pretty but that's it. 1/4* Tomoko Watanabe vs. Yuu Yamagata Silly no-effort comedy match. Nothing redeeming this one. DUD Miki Tanaka vs. Sakura Hirota This wasn't really the place in the show where you want to see another comedy match like this one obviously will be. But at least this one was kinda funny. I did laugh at Sakura tricking Miki into falling over some trip wire she'd sneaking tied up. *1/4 We then have a nice segment where Chigusa brings La Rosa Negra out to thank her for her Marvelous run and tells the crowd Rosa has a special person in Puerto Rico. She then says they have a Christmas present for Rosa, and it's an invitation for her and her daughter to come have a holiday in Japan. Rosa looks genuinely delighted and cries. Aww. Aki Shizuku vs. La Rosa Negra Rosa is alright in this but Aki is such a lumbering nothing. Again she does a good chokeslam but that's it. It's odd because she bumps just fine, it's just other than that she moves around like she's The Great Khali. If it's a deliberate attempt to come across as imposing it fails badly and she has no presence. *3/4 Rin Kadokura vs. Takumi Iroha For the first time Rin's out of the swimsuit and in her proper gear! The match starts with Takumi missing a dropkick, which I thought was an interesting choice as usually that's a rookie kind of mistake but I guess it's more them working the 10 minute time limit gimmick. They do work the match really fast, but that probably hurts it overall as it's really just them taking turns to do a bunch of stuff before Takumi inevitably wins. ** Maruko Nagasaki vs. Mio Momono Well the main event is a pleasant surprise after such a bad show. It's so impressive how good Mio is this early on, she's already has her own stylistic quirks pretty figured out. Late on in the match there's a nice set of rollup reversals that people would later associate with Marvelous' house style in later years but Mio's the only one working like that at this point. Everything looked decent-good without many noticeable hesitations and the fast pace actually worked a lot better in this match as there were a lot less impact moves and more struggling for holds, so there wasn't much no-selling happening. I could have done without the forearm Chuckle Brothers exchange but it was a short one. This is worth checking out. ***1/4

Marvelous 11/19/17 Review This is an odd show as it's not even on Cagematch, it's just a single hardcam and appears to be taking place at some sort of outdoor dog show. You can hear dog noises all through the thing and they wrestlers take dogs to the ring as part of their entrances. I'm not going to be expecting much effort at this kind of show but I'm gonna watch it. Rin Kadokura vs. Tomoko Watanabe The first half of this was a load of nonsense but it was pretty entertaining. Early on Mio Momono on the outside grabs Tomoko's ankles on a rope run and trips her up. Tomoko gets mad and chases her all around the venue trying to hit her with a fan (for cooling yourself down I mean!), at one point she misses and accidentally hits someone in the audience with it haha. We have a bunch of comedy spots revolving around this fan including the ref hitting both Tomoko and Rin with it and Rin getting her hands on it and getting revenge on Tomoko. Then they start having a normal match and it's not very good. Rin's stomps in particular just looked really weak. *3/4 KAORU vs. Takumi Iroha This is surprisingly good for the first few minutes, they treat it like a serious match at least. That doesn't last long though until it turns into KAORU doing her outside brawling stuff with a bit of goofing off. I did like the spot where KAORU does her usual dropping her board onto Takumi's prone on the mat, only for Takumi to catch it and KAORU is stunned that her evil plan backfired! **1/2 La Rosa Negra vs. Miki Tanaka Dumb comedy. Not funny. 1/2* Mio Momono vs. ???Act Suzuki??? Aki Shizuku I have no idea who Mio's opponent is here, I just tried to make out the name by ear.* Anyway she's a big stiff who does a decent chokeslam at least but this was mainly Mio just running circles around her working hard and selling well. Maybe trying a bit too hard though. Decent enough. ** *Nevermind I later worked out it's Aki Shizuku.

Some of his best WWE matches have been on TV. The series with Chad Gable has been fantastic.

Unless I misunderstood him Dave says he's adding Jerry McDevitt to the ballot next year and I don't know what to think anymore.

No "misused by WWE" guy has vindicated his fans in AEW more than Christian.

I'm kinda interested in Dave putting Beauty Pair on the ballot as really that should be a total slam dunk, especially considering Jackie Sato is already in as an individual when her post Beauty Pair career adds almost nothing to her case. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada also being on the ballot is funny considering their whole act as a tag team follows the template Beauty Pair created but they weren't 1/10th as successful or influential.

Yeah for all the infamy that tirade got it probably would have been forgotten about within a month if it didn't result in a fight minutes later. I remember watching it back a few months ago just to remind myself what was said and was kinda surprised at how 'not that huge a deal' it was.

It should also be noted that that promo was approved by Tony Khan. The Voices of Wrestling guys were saying they'd been told the exact line in advance before the show started.

Yeah there's a silly amount of over-thinking going on here when the most simple explanation for this is perfectly adequate. It's just a power struggle between the original authorities in the company (i.e. The Elite and their allies) and a new guy who threatened to become a new centre of power in the company. There doesn't need to be any real ideological or moral dimension included for that to adequately explain things, and you don't run into awkward things like having to explain why, if CM Punk vs. Young Hip Ideas was the root of the issue, were so many of the guys Punk got into conflict with old guys like Chris Jericho.

The most significant different is the Young Bucks are EVPs. Company management gloating in front of fans that the company's biggest draw has been fired shows a very inappropriate sense of priorities. If AEW wants to come out of this relatively unscathed they need to retain those fans who're more into the CM Punk style of wrestling, Tony's solemn statement talking about how he didn't want to fire Punk but his actions just couldn't be tolerated any more was the correct tone for someone putting the company first even if they were happy Punk was gone. The Bucks however come across like they these fans as the enemy and want to drive them off.

Loss made a comment on Twitter about how the chosen framing of the various stories in this saga can significantly affect how they're perceived. Like what some people on here are describing as Punk "getting his own show" can also be framed as "AEW banned their top star from appearing on its flagship TV show."

If Punk isn't on the All Out card then this obviously is not a work.

If people are referring to THAT podcast, Punk was actually complaining about beating Roman Reigns. The story was Punk was told he was going to defeat the Shield by himself in a 1 vs. 3 handicap match but he needed to make Roman look strong. Punk said if it's so important Roman looks strong why not just have him beat me but he was told no, we want you to beat 3 guys by yourself, but make Roman look really strong!

They're only supposed to be suspending "pending investigation" it's officially not a punishment. So just do the investigation sharpish and put them on the PPV. I don't see what about this incident could possibly require take than a week to investigate. It's not like there's some forensic tests that need to be done. Just interview the witnesses, look at any relevant footage and do whatever needs doing.

Hulk Hogan has upped the ante on his wrestling in Wembley Stadium story, now the kid died in the stadium and Hogan was the one who alerted everyone due to literally smelling there was something wrong. https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1694680957247246458