Boss Rock

These guys always have great chemistry together and this was no exception. Love how the common thread in these matches has been Sabre going after Ishii's arm or arms and Ishii being forced to adapt. Liked that he used the other arm for most of his trademark offense and even managed to hold his own against Sabre in the early grappling exchanges. As fun as it is to watch Ishii clobber people, it's sometimes even better to watch him as the resilient underdog giving his opponent favored to win absolute hell. And the pop-up headbutt to the sternum was just fantastic. ****1/4.

I liked this a lot and I think it really highlights SANADA's development as a singles wrestler. As someone who never really got the hype surrounding him other than having a good look, he's consistently delivered this year and proven he can hang at a main event level with the company's best.

Well holy crap this was something. The no-selling on some of the suplexes was a bit ridiculous, but props to these guys for making it more believable than anyone else in the world could. It's a credit to Tomohiro Ishii's ability to make you think he really is the toughest motherfucker around and that Ibushi has some sort of magic deep down inside him. Some wonderfully outrageous spots and absolutely sick striking exchanges (goddamn throat punches!) make this easily one of the standout matches of the tournament. ****1/2.

Liked this a lot even if it wasn't as good as their 2016 matches. Goto has done pretty well for himself this after a thoroughly disappointing 2017, but this might have been his best match this year. Thought the crowd brawling worked well and added something a bit different to their prior encounters and Goto getting a bit more aggressive really fit their history as well. Really fun match and one of my favorites of the tournament thus far. ****1/4.

Season 4 episode 5, aka holy shit is Vibora good. Seriously, imagine if THIS guy had feuded with Bryan instead of Cass! Cool debut for Dezmond Xavier. It should seem weird that London lost after this recent transformation but questioning who wins and who loses seems to be a moot point right now. As much as I enjoy the wrestling and the characters, the booking is just insane at times. Further dissension between Mil and Catrina it seems. Seriously, watch Vibora-Mundo. It's good stuff. Although the Reptile Tribe acting as the babyfaces I guess is weird. I have no clue. The cutaway felt like classic "We're out of time!" from the Monday Night wars though. While it seems cheesy, I'm super down with psycho doll Ricky. Pentagon-Cage was even better than Vibora-Mundo and is easily the second best match of the season so far. All in all, really good episode from an in-ring standpoint.

I agree on waiting too long on Pentagon. Why they did a redemption angle in season 2 only for him to lose I'll never know. I'll take what I can get now though, ha.

This was fine and actually better than what I expected. Still, it just very much felt like a match with a handful of cool moments surrounded by a bunch of nothing. The cool moments were certainly good and the striking in particular looked really stiff, but there was just so much that just felt "there". It also didn't help that they went nearly 20 minutes. Elgin hasn't been an interesting wrestler for over a year and Page is just extremely average to me. Still, they could have done a lot worse.

Jay White continues to acquit himself well this tournament. He seems to have a better idea of working heat segments rather than just aimlessly chop and do saitos (instead using the latter as sort of a turning point move). Went a bit longer than it needed to and the ref bumps and shenanigans were a bit much (I usually only have patience for one), but it was a HUGE step-up from their Wrestle Kingdom 12 clunker. It's just a shame the crowd still hasn't really bought into White yet.

This was a really fun match and worked to Makabe's strengths as a brawler. I agree that the continuing trend seems to be that Suzuki is a glass cannon and it adds a nice layer of vulnerability to his normal killer character.

Exactly. They should have just had him win right then and there but I would have forgiven it had he won it at WK 13. Although the theory I've seen is that they're waiting to do Okada-Naito at WK 14 when January 4th is on a Saturday and try to sell out the dome. But I dunno how much longer you can hold off on Naito winning and still sell out in a year and-a-half.

If Okada ends up winning the tournament, that's pretty much it for Naito main-eventing WK next year.

Yano tends to be a pretty polarizing wrestler but count me among those who love his antics and G1 sprints. That being said, I was expecting a decent match and nothing more. How wrong I was. Yano's declaration that he would not cheat this entire tournament led to one of the most creative and fun NJPW matches I've seen in some time. Yano stays true to his word from the beginning by trading forearms with Ishii and even getting the better of him by relying on his rarely-used grappling skills. He even no-sold a German suplex! Still, Ishii being tougher and stronger would force Yano's hand as he found himself straying back to his old ways (eye rakes and using the exposed turnbuckle). Still, he avoided the low blow and chair and on at least five separate occasions had Ishii nearly beat with tight pinning combinations. The finish to the match ended up being a brilliant bit of poetic justice. You couldn't ask for a better match to start off the second day.

The first half of this was sort of just whatever but man did they absolutely kill it in the finishing stretch. Though counters on top of counters is pretty typical for a NJPW finishing stretch, this stuff felt even more urgent than usual with Goto doing everything in his power to escape the Skull End and SANADA desperately trying to avoid the GTR. That urgency and desperation is what made an average a good match.

Great sequel to their terrific NJ Cup match. Very interesting "strike vs. submission" battle with Ibushi getting the better of Sabre in the striking exchanges but Sabre having a reversal or counter for most of Ibushi's trademark stuff. Ibushi's leg selling is pretty typical: good but didn't affect the outcome of the match. Stuff like Sabre attacking the legs to counter the Kami Goye was great though. Definitely one of the best if not the best match of the tournament thus far.

Another great match between these two. Loved the early character work with both men trying to big league the other before going into the bombfest we came to expect. Lots of high-impact offense and great selling from both guys. Not quite as "epic" as their first two but this still a pretty terrific match. ****1/2-****3/4.

A worthy sequel to their very good match at Dominion. It helps that the Bucks have toned down their more annoying tendencies by focusing on long-term selling and escalating their more creative offense. EVIL and SANADA have also gotten really good at mastering the art of the finishing stretch as a team. My only complaint was that the Bucks still appeared to be too overpowered. They survived a Magic Killer AND a Meltzer Driver to a chair only to put LIJ away with just one Meltzer Driver of their own. Other than that, a very good tag match between two teams with good chemistry. ****

Really great tag match with with some excellent fundamental tag work. The heel team cuts off the ring and works over the face in peril's leg before the hot tag. And hoo boy what a hot tag this was. Trent's selling here was absolutely phenomenal and Tyler laying out Roddy and Kyle was great. Tyler not breaking up the submission because he wanted to follow the rules seemed like an odd choice, but I guess they're just that good of sportsmen. And I felt like the final submission went on way too long to the point of being unbelievable that Trent could still hang on. But still, this was easily one of the best tag matches of the year. ****1/4.

This very much just felt like a match that happened. Not bad mind you and the finish was really cool, but just felt very typical for both guys. Hard-hitting and chair spots from EVIL, you know what to expect. There was also some decent arm work that was sort of just forgotten. Again, not bad. Just not really essential. **3/4.

I thought the Okada match was very good and when you see his matches against Juice and Finlay, he might start turning it around.

Really good match and great sequel to the New Beginning match. I thought Tanahashi's time in the leg submissions went a bit too long and it didn't affect his ability to hit his normal offense, but it wasn't particularly egregious and his selling was still pretty good. Loved how Suzuki tried to blitz him early with slaps and then continued to do so the longer Tanahashi hung in there. The vicious dragon screw was a tremendous turning point and really looked like it almost snapped Suzuki's leg in half. Simple exercise in booking to wrestlers' strengths: Suzuki as the sadistic heel and Tanahashi as the resilient, never-say-die babyface. ****

Well, this was fantastic. Simple, yet effective story of the seasoned and prickish Nakajima and Kitamiya trying to take out the valiant underdogs in Kamitani and Nomura. Nakajima in particular really shined in this role, relishing in the violence in a laid-back, douchey sort of way. That was a great contrast to the absolutely vicious kicks he was throwing. Kamitani and especially Nomura were great in their comebacks and really came off as being on the former tag champs' level. Nomura smirking right before he smacks Nakajima across the face was brilliant. The heels then realize that they've let the faces come closer than they should have and absolutely brutalize them. The last five minutes here was some of the most violent of the year as Nakajima repeatedly slaps and ground-and-pounds Nomura into oblivion before finishing him off with the KO. Not just one of the best tag matches this year, but purely one of the best overall. ****3/4.

I liked this match more than most but I agree that the ladder stuff really hurt the pace and disrupted what was until then a perfectly solid bout (although the superplex was admittedly cool). I think the reasoning was that they know Cody isn't the kind of guy who is good at wrestling these kinds of matches and they needed a bit of smoke and mirrors to compensate. But really, they should have just shortened the match rather than meet the obligatory 30-minute rule. The finishing stretch was perfectly fine though as Kenny's offense is always pretty impressive, but overall it was just more fluffed-up than what it needed to be. Like G. Badger said, keep it simple stupid. Still, I thought that this was a pretty good match that unfortunately sandwiched an illogical spot that kept it from becoming better than what it was.

Jay White all of a sudden becoming a good heel against anyone other than David Finlay is indeed one of the strangest developments of 2018. Very good match between these two as the more cut-loose Okada tried to mess around and big league Jay only for the latter to brush it off and dominate. Rather than just aimlessly chop and do saitos like he used to, Jay instead frequently targeted the midsection and neck of Okada, trying to take the air out of him (the aforementioned ring skirt spot was great). Okada was fired-up with his comebacks, clearly angered by Jay's disrespect and hit a bit harder than he usually does. The finish also worked perfectly in establishing Jay as a heel and protecting Okada in defeat. ****-****1/4.

Cage-Mil Muertes was just as good as you would expect it to be, but I couldn't help but feel they should have gotten more time. And without going into too much detail for those who haven't seen it yet, the finish of the match and the immediate aftermath didn't really make much sense at all.

I was going with the theory that he took the Solomon Crowe name and replaced the first name with a different Biblical figure and replaced the last name with a different kind of bird, heh. And he's definitely much better in LU than his recent indie stuff. Cuts out a lot of the schtick and gets right to kicking people in the face.