Boss Rock

I thought most of if not all of his title matches were must-see. Didn't always get a ton of time in tag matches, but he'd usually do something interesting.

Will need to re-watch that re: after Kawada taking the Tiger Driver. I took it as Misawa just letting Kawada get back up.

It's always difficult to tell who draws for that as the name "Wrestlemania" seems to be the biggest draw for the show. Granted, you could probably credit Goldberg for at least some of Mania 33's success and the announcement of Shane-Taker supposedly moved the most tickets for Mania 32. Can't say for sure it would have been the same for Mania 30, though.

Mask vs. mask match with Ultimo Guerreo from 2015 and mask vs. mask match with La Sombra from 2016. 1984 match with Satanico is also fun but he's super awkward in it.

I hear you on Thatcher, I've always been fascinated by what he does with his arms. He either just holds them straight at his sides with his fists balled or he flails them when taking offense.

That's probably why I would lean more towards Hardy, although Bryan getting hurt in 2014 certainly didn't help even if he was ultimately going to be fed to Brock.

It is, I think, kind of a common problem with a certain kind of young wrestler. Stringing move after move together with a kind of "Look at me! Look how many moves I know!" type of attitude rather than trying to tell any kind of coherent story or develop dramatic tension or whatever. It not just jumpy flippy guys who are spot monkeys. Hopefully they'll grow out of it eventually. One of my favorite talking points over the years is how wrestling is symbolic and everything a wrestler chooses to do, be it matwork, a garbage spot, a high spot, a strike, or even just playing to the crowd, is just a tool, and it's all about how the tools are used (and to a lesser degree how they're executed). The tools, in and of themselves, are not necessarily better or worse, though they may lean more towards your preference or may signify a trend of specific-tools-being-used-better-than-others-historically. I feel like it's never gotten all that much traction. That's an argument I've always leaned towards. Obviously anything can become excessive, but I've always believed that it's HOW you use certain spots rather than the spots themselves. Sort of like how Onita would always build suspense towards the barbed wire explosion or how Rey would weave high-flying moves and acrobatics into his comebacks or early blitzes to catch his opponents off-guard.

When it comes to Sabre, I see him as someone who's offering something different. Now whether or not "different" is good in this case ultimately depends on the viewer and personal preference. Working over one limb is effective storytelling, but not necessarily something I want to see every time. But one of the things I really like about Zack is that even if he's stringing multiple holds together, he's doing it in a way that looks legitimately painful to his opponent. It goes back to my argument that he's playing the long game. Break down his opponent physically in so many different ways that they won't know what to do to stop him. And I can understand the argument that a lot of his matches being longer means that it's tougher to bite on submission attempts early in the match, but by the same token I don't necessarily bite on submission attempts Thatcher and Yehi are working on five minutes into a match. I know that most of the time it's not until the Koji Clutch or Fujiwara that we're going to see a finish.

I could actually see WALTER not going. Same. Guy seems pretty dedicated to training.

Definitely thought it was more likely they would sign Lee first when there was speculation WALTER would sign.

I liked this match, but it really seemed like they didn't know what story they were trying to tell. Obviously it was meant to be Kawada finally getting the job done after years of coming up short against Misawa, but how the route they took felt rather disjointed. First Kawada works over Misawa's leg, which I suppose could have been done to take away Misawa's flying maneuvers and leverage for using the Tiger Driver, but then it gets dropped in favor of working the arm. OK, take away the rolling elbow. But then that gets dropped in favor of going after Misawa's head and neck. This one at least stuck until the end and the finishing stretch is an awesome bombfest. Still, it felt like they took way too many needless detours to get to the finishing stretch. I could buy it if the story was supposed to be that Kawada was so desperate to win he used every strategy he could think of until he found one that worked, but I don't think that's what they were going for. Still a great match but definitely one of the lesser encounters between these two.

Really liked this match and thought they did a good job escalating the action. Like you mentioned, very much an extended game of one-upsmanship.

Gresham is someone I need to check out more of. Have only seen a handful of his matches but one that stood out was this match with Fire Ant. Just absolutely relentless with the knee.

The tournament has been consistently good. Not exactly churning out 4* matches like the G-1 does, but really fun matches throughout.

I think I remember that part. Misawa hit the first Tiger Driver outside the ring and just waited for Kawada to get back up rather than try to put him away. Seemed like a weird strategy. I still think the match is good but it was definitely the moment where the style began to get excessive (as much as I still enjoy those later matches). And I would still rank this match higher than the 5/1/1998 match.

This is super tough. Hardy's top card run 2008-2009 was huge and he was really the only guy who rivaled if not trumped Cena in terms of merch sales. To my knowledge, Bryan wasn't a top merch mover but he was consistently drawing killer TV numbers in 2014 before his injury and his brief return in 2015 saw him draw good numbers when main eventing house shows. You also can't count out the mainstream crossover the Yes! chants had. I might lean Hardy because of his merch sales and the fact that Bryan was out right at the cusp of his popularity.

Atlantis has always been one of my favorite luchadors. Arguably the best big match worker in lucha history and tremendous longevity.

I like Harry, but any variation of this makes him look bad. I understand wanting to defend your dead father's honor. But Jake is not the only person saying these things about the Bulldogs. If I recall Bret himself has said some rather unsavory things about them.

In what way?

Do you mean the match from last week's SDL? Yeah, that ruled.

Yep, loved that Suwama tried to attack him after the bell and Jun was raring to go for another round. Saw a pic from the Zeus-Marufuji match where he's wearing long pants. Guess his leg must be pretty banged up.

Technical wrestling and mat work has admittedly never been my favorite style (I've always been partial to brawls and bombfests). However, there are a lot of technical wrestlers today that I've come to admire and enjoy the more and more I see of their work. At its best, technical wrestling is almost like a science and there are many different ways to approach it. So I thought it might be interesting to analyze and break down some of the best technical wrestlers in the world today. Zack Sabre Jr: Sabre is a rather polarizing wrestler. There's been a lot of criticism thrown his way about only doing flashy stuff, killing time for the first half of the match, only making stuff matter in the second half, etc. I understand those criticisms but personally I disagree with them. I view Zack as someone who will break his opponent down over the course of an entire match both physically and mentally. Rather than focus on one limb or method of attack, he busts out as many holds and submissions as possible to wear his opponent down and finish them off when the time is right. Basically, he's playing the long game. This was the story of his winning the New Japan Cup. He imposed his will early and consistently, working over any body part he could grab a hold of until they could simply take no more. And with how smooth and flashy his mat work is combined with his ability to counter almost any move with another hold, he's like a magician rather than a professor like Fred Yehi. And like a lot of magicians, not many seem to know his secrets. Going back to his flashiness, as a face or heel, Zack has always had a dickish vibe about him. He thinks he's the coolest thing around because he can do almost anything to punish an opponent. So taking his character into consideration, it makes sense that his offense would have a "Hey, look at me!" vibe. Fred Yehi: Like I mentioned above, Yehi is more of a professor compared to Sabre as a magician. He's much more of a nitty-gritty technician who grinds his opponents down in logical yet ingenious ways. The way he'll attack an arm or stop on a hand for foot, he constantly finds new ways to hurt his opponent that are in plain sight but constantly make you go "Geez, why didn't anyone else think of that?" I've seen several comparisons to a young William Regal. And even though he's not as flashy as Sabre, he'll still throw in a few neat moves like the Liu Kang chest kick. I can see why some might prefer Yehi over Sabre, but I think they're both somewhat similar in trying to break their opponents down over the course of an entire match. They just have different ways going about it. Sabre takes his time, Yehi is a bit more aggressive. Hideki Suzuki: Given that he's bigger and stronger than a lot of his opponents and contemporaries, Suzuki is much more visceral. He's a heavy hitter who mixes powerful strikes and suplexes with limb-punishing submissions. I saw someone describe his BJW title reign as being like a "final boss" and that sums up Hideki fairly well. He's willing to stand and trade strikes, but why go to that trouble when you can first decimate your opponent's limbs in the most violent way possible? If you're going to fight back, he's going to make you earn it because he's not willing to give up one inch. And while he's not exactly flashy like Sabre, there's a certain finesse in how he dissects opponents. His game is to establish his complete and unquestionable dominance, but he'll enthrall you in the way he does it. Instead of a magician or professor, Suzuki is more like a doctor at his most benevolent and an executioner at his most malevolent. Timothy Thatcher: Similar to Suzuki, Thatcher is bigger than a lot of his opponents and takes a sort of bruiser approach. Though the latter end of his Evolve title run saw his work get increasingly dry and bare bones, he's seemingly become more and more aggressive. To Timothy Thatcher, wrestling is serious business and he has no time for those he deems unworthy of sharing the ring with him. He can be very nitty-gritty like Yehi but also punishing and visceral like Suzuki, even if he doesn't quite have the latter's finesse. And while Suzuki is more powerful with his strikes, Thatcher is more aggressive and angry. He's out to punish his opponents whether it be just business or a perceived slight at daring to challenge him. If there was a profession to describe Thatcher, it would be a butcher.

Great match and awesome way to do a title change. It certainly helps that I'm a big fan of Sabre, but it really felt like someone had finally overcome and beat him at his own game. I get the criticisms of Sabre doing flashy stuff just because he can, but I've always seen it as Sabre imposing his will early and doing as many things as he can to break his opponent down over the course of the match (which was instrumental in him winning the New Japan Cup). And even as a face he's kind of a dick, so it makes sense that he would have that "Hey, look how cool I am!" air to him. Loved the finish of Riddle tying up Sabre like Sabre had done to so many opponents before with no way of escaping. One of the best matches I've seen this year and my pick for Evolve MOTY so far.

This is probably the best take I've seen on this.

Ishikawa-Nomura was really good. Also loved Jun-Suwama and Kento-Ishikawa.