Boss Rock

Completely agree. While I think it's good to have one "top act", utilizing those 3-4 in the top spots would easily be the best thing they can do. And I still firmly believe Bryan could be the ace.

Really liked this show up until the end. Main event was a colossal waste of time and an even more baffling decision than having Okada go over Naito, even if the latter was objectively a worse call from a business standpoint.

Well said. The number of ballots certainly meant more votes were going to go to WWE and NJPW folks, but there were only four-five picks who I really strongly disagreed on in regards to placement (Brock, Suzuki, Joe, Seth). And even then all four made my ballot in some capacity. And even if some niche wrestlers who I thought had tremendous years fell lower than I would have hoped, the fact that Chichiro, Hidezki, Gage, Takeshita, and Strong BJ made the top 100 (and top 50 in Hideki and Gage's case) was pretty impressive.

Welp, THAT happened! Most confusing finish to a match in recent memory.

That's pretty sad, because that's what pro-wrestling was about. Watch who gets over and push the hell out of them. Rusev could be a hot act. Braun should be the Monster Champ. Honestly, this all is a product of the monopoly. With WCW kicking their tale, there's no way WWE spends three Mania main events in a row on Reigns "becoming the Ace". This is my biggest thing when it comes to Reigns. I don't love the guy, but I think he's a great wrestler and has improved as a promo by leaps and bounds. But so rarely does any wrestling promotion go with the hot hand or stray from the plan. There's no telling what they could have done with Braun if they made him the guy.

I actually had Riddle higher this year than I did last year. That being said I watched loads more of his stuff this year as opposed to last year which was just primarily Evolve. Don't think he had any real MOTYC's that you usually want out of a number 1 pick, but he certainly had volumes in spades.

The 30-minute rule is indeed a bit of a double-edged sword. Some guys can pull it off really well, others just fill time until the 10 minute mark. I really liked the SANADA and Ospreay matches against Okada, but both would have been even better with a 5-10 minute shaving. You also know not to expect a finish too soon. And a lot of the great NJPW matches from the last few years were under the 30 minute mark. Styles-Suzuki, Ibushi-Nakamura, heck I watched a Naito-Ishii match from 2014 that was under 20 and was an absolute banger.

I mean, they could touch on that but Ospreay and Scurll went 30 minutes and the Bucks vs Lovers tag went 40 so I think it's just the house style now Agreed. It's all about excess now. Too many dangerous spot, too many moves, too many finisher kick-outs, too many minutes. It's the Pornhub generation of pro-wrestling, they can't just have fun sex for 15 minutes, they need a giant gang-bang that lasts an hour with a hundred money shots and double anals and whatnot to be able to come, or so they seem to think. As much as that cracks me up, I don't think Okada/ZSJ fits that profile other than length. I don't recall any particularly dangerous spots. There was certainly some work down the stretch around countering finishers, given Sabre's run in the NJ Cup getting so many submissions via arm work that was exactly the right direction. I'm unabashedly a fan of the style at the top of the card so while I don't necessarily agree with some of the criticisms of the main event picture, I can certainly understand where its coming from as they're now routinely 30+ minute affairs and often do feature a plethora of double anal spots along the way. Just not on this night. This match seemed very logical and compact in that you had an opening segment with Sabre using his work on the mat against the champ to seek out an opening, a middle portion that focused on arm work to raise doubt about the Rainmaker, and a finishing stretch with ZSJ looking for the kill while answering the question about whether Okada could still end things with the Rainmaker. Other thoughts on the show: I'm usually a fan of the Bucks when they work Japan and almost never a fan when they work domestically. That was the case here, as even against Yujiro (who may not be awful, but brings absolutely nothing to the table) and Chase Owens they worked a solid tag to continue establishing them as heavyweights. What a horrific waste of Tomohiro Ishii. I know any kind of meaningful push is unlikely and I'm not clamoring for it. But unless you tell me these outings are necessary to preserve his body its just a tease. The Tanahashi and Naito/Suzuki 6 man tags were solid and brisk, even if I thought both iterations of these multi-man matches from Korakuen were better. But they did good job furthering feuds building for the upcoming round of shows, and Tana winning should've been a sign that his match was coming sooner than Dominion. Junior tag titles was a waste. It seems like all 3 teams could be put to better use. It looks like these feuds will be more focused on the April/May shows, so hopefully that's borne out in the ring. I'm not a Will Ospreay guy. At all. Its also not clear if I care less for him or Marty Scurll. But this match was fantastic. Marty's work on the neck was vicious and focused, while Will's selling was consistent and meaningful. He even seemed to curb down the screaming and cursing that are usually staples of his act. There was also less flying to reflect how they were working and as a result the big spots meant even more. The Spanish Fly off the apron was absolutely bonkers and the botch & resulting blood made the finish that much stronger. Golden Lovers vs. Cody & Page was solid. Its amazing to see how effective a heel Cody has become on this run, as well as how NJPW big matches are booked to further an ROH PPV main event. Strong booking here with the Bucks showing up but keeping a slow burn and saving big angles to play out down the road. I'm curious where this eventually leads. It seems like they're subtly teasing a Bucks split, and while I could see that happening for purposes of a short term angle or match, there's no way that's a result of this feud. Presumably Omega/Ibushi in a big singles outing is an eventual destination, but I'm not sure what other matches are interim goals. I loved Ospreay/Scurll and Okada/Sabre and had both at ****1/2. No complaints about a show that top heavy. The lineups for end of April/early May look pretty great. I thought they'd load up the Naito/Suzuki and Okada/Tana shows, but are putting NEVER and US Title matches on Korakuens. Should be fun. You described this better than I could. Really liked Sakura Genesis. I know the 30 minute main event style isn't everyone's cup of tea and with good reason (as much as I love the style a lot of times the first 5-10 minutes are pointless), but Okada and ZSJ did a great job with it. Same with Ospreay-Scurll. Normally these two tend to bring out the worst in each other with million miles an hour action where almost everything becomes meaningless. Instead, it was an extremely violent affair with excellent selling from Will and Scurll exchanging the wing flapping hamminess for a mean streak and nasty killer instinct. This version of Marty Scurll is a good wrestler. Cody/Page vs. Lovers was also really good. Will probably never love Cody as an in-ring worker but his character work and heeling is phenomenal.

Kevin and Don would actually be a really strong commentary team if they dropped the insider terms and star ratings. They actually care about the product and are fairly knowledgeable, which you can't say about JR (at this stage in his career) or Barnett.

Chosen Bros tags are fun to watch. Yeah, I've seen a few and he shines a lot in those.

Anything with the New Day. One of the best tag feuds in recent memory. Battleground, Summerslam, Hell in a Cell, and a street fight on SDL.

I've always preferred listening to the Japanese commentary anyway (I don't speak a lick of Japanese, btw), but I'm all about commentators from yesteryear who were prone to over-excitement or hyperbole making a comeback in 2018 by just chilling and calling the action straight. Tony Schiavone was on the MLW show I watched recently and I had no idea he was doing pro-wrestling commentary these days, but there was something about him being there that just felt RIGHT. I'll absolutely check out more MLW this year and it honestly has a lot to do with Schiavone calling things. I watched the show in Japanese because I heard they were really bad. I also thought they were bad last year as JR sounded like he didn't care and didn't know at least half the guys' names. Josh is also pretty useless. I will co-sign on Schiavone in MLW, though. Only saw one of their shows but thought he did a good job of just trying to have fun, which ended up working really well for him.

As for Sakura Genesis, I think the main event has the potential to be great if they stick with the formula Zack used for the NJ Cup and not what Suzuki used at New Beginning last year. Very tired of Marty getting these title matches but he and Ospreay have good chemistry even if their matches tend to get out of hand. And the Golden Lovers stuff has been fire thus far so I expect the match with Cody and Page to be good.

Thought most of the show was skippable but there were still some good matches. I could watch LIJ and Taguchi Japan fight all day. Those are the kind of multi-man tags I want to see: balls-to-the-wall, fast-paced action. Ospreay vs. Liger was good and proof that Liger needs a gold watch championship run of some kind. Dude is still great. Ishii and Suzuki were incredible in the tag match with Okada and Zack and the main event might be my favorite match this year despite how hokey the acting got.

The "Benoit never connected with the crowd" thing always confused me. I only really saw his WWE run but he was clearly a wrestler who fans were drawn to. I would argue Eddie had a bigger connection to the crowd, but Benoit was a very popular wrestler who could pull a crowd into what he was doing.

I haven't been too impressed with Cobb's indie work prior to LU, but I admittedly didn't see a ton of his stuff this year. Really hope he turned it around because outside of LU (where he's usually great), he's a guy I always WANTED to like.

Misawa and A.J. over Bret and Shawn, and I actually think they're both pretty similar in a lot ways. Both had awesome offense, great execution, and were overall just excellent jack-of-all-trades.

Really had a ton of fun doing this.

One of the issues was that the test that discovered the lesion really had no standard to compare to as it was still experimental and another doctor told Bryan that "lesion" is a vague term and doesn't necessarily mean it's dangerous. All the other doctors prior had cleared him and it was only until the lesion test that WWE told him he needed to retire.

Pretty much. Especially considering when he suffered that last concussion, they didn't pull him off the road right away.

I am so happy. Bryan was the guy who got me back into wrestling when my fandom had really waned. His Wrestlemania 30 story was the most invested I've ever been in a story. And I missed out twice on seeing him live. Can't wait!

Mark Henry is the next inductee.

I know the HOF doens't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I'm still hoping the Regal rumor was true.

Probably the best NJPW match this year, for sure. The Cup has overall been really good with Archer-Fale and Tanahashi-Taichi arguably being the only two skippable matches.

I think the Usos were pretty clearly the best tag team of the year. The New Day matches alone were fantastic and the Cell match was an arguable low-end match of the year contender. And even before New Day, they had really good stuff with American Alpha and fun work with Breezango. As for the Bucks, I thought they had some good stuff against Roppongi Vice.