Boss Rock

I really liked Edge as a heel. Sure he was a bad actor and his facials were extreme, but the guy knew how to get heat. He was the sniveling coward who was incredibly resourceful and was seen as dangerous when pushed too far.

Santino Marella winning the IC title in his debut. Literally had no idea what to make of it.

Love this match.

Great match, possibly even better than the last one. Loved how Ishii tried to blitz him early so Omega has to go to drastic measures to stop him. As annoying as Kenny can be in tag matches, he more often than not steps it up in singles matches and proved his worth again. Ishii was also great here, his spots were insane but made perfect sense in the context of the match. ****3/4.

Okada is the only guy I can think of who has consistently put on above-average matches with Fale (with the exception of their Destruction match last year). They just have this really weird chemistry together. The Invasion Attack match is still their best, but they worked a good "big man vs. smaller man" match here. ***1/2.

Didn't really like this match much. Other than Tiger's wicked tombstone, it really seemed like he was holding Volador back by forcing him to work underneath. And the top rope C4 nearly landed on the ref!

I really liked this match, even more so than their first encounter last year. I've found Finn a bit boring in the past but he has very good chemistry with Reigns (whose selling was absolutely tremendous, btw).

This was really good stuff. Their entire feud is proof that you can do fast-paced, spot-heavy matches but still tell a story. These guys hate each other as evidenced by their back-and-forth chopping. They also know how difficult it is to put the other away, hence the death-defying spots. The german suplex spot was a bit ridiculous, but unlike the Scurll-Ospreay match, they actually took the time to sell and show that while both were clearly rocked, they still had enough wherewithal to fight. It almost reminded me of an MMA fight where even though a fighter is rocked and on the verge of unconsciousness, he or she can still take punishment and land that one fight-ending shot (Cheick Kong-Pat Barry specifically comes to mind).

This run he's on is unassailable for sure and the cap on what has been a great career. But the idea that he's some dramatically different wrestler now (not saying you're saying that) is wrong. All the things he's doing now he's been doing for a decade in a half plus. He hit hard in 2003. He could sell his ass off in '05. He could work the mic at the turn of the decade. He was an even more spectacular spot guy back then. He'd been the total package for quite some time. Call it the stink of TNA/better opponents or what have you, but I think alot people's preconceived notions about him were just flat out wrong. He didn't become "NJPW AJ Styles" or "WWE AJ Styles" he just brought AJ styles to those companies. He'd been dragging good matches out of sub shane mcmahon level workers for eons. Glad he's getting his just due finally. That could very well be true. I haven't seen a ton of his later TNA stuff because I had fallen out of the company and wrestling in general around then, but he was always very good, especially 2005.

I really think it's his 2014-present run that catapults him. If we only had the TNA stuff, I'd definitely put him top 100 but probably in the middle or latter half. I feel like his NJPW run to now has been an all-time great run. I have him at number 7 now.

Mat wrestling is admittedly not my cup of tea, but when it's good, it's great.. This was a cool exhibition between two of the masters. Big props to Navarro for being able to go with a guy half his age.

Liked this match a lot. Felt like it fueled the narrative of Tanahashi still thinking he's the man when he's not. That, and Naito still being resentful of Tanahashi "stealing" his WK 8 main event. ****1/4.

He was drawing the highest ratings in 2014. http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_77624.shtml#.WQjpwfnyvct http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_78083.shtml#.WQjqC_nyvct http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_78252.shtml#.WQjqKfnyvct

But are his merch numbers what you want from a top guy? And before Sting and Goldberg, Daniel Bryan was doing killer TV numbers. And the whole selling the brand model is arguably one of the biggest reasons they're having problems with ratings and attendance right now. The company's biggest periods of success are when they had a top guy (who the crowd actually liked) to get behind. Guys like Austin, Hogan, and the Rock. And the company was pretty dang successful when pushing those guys. And the model of a top face used to be who was almost always who was doing the best TV numbers and selling the most tickets, which is when a promotion was always at its most successful.

They never reached the peaks of Austin and Rock sure, but they went back up 2005-2007 after the Reign of Terror and JBL's run.

I think the difference between Cena and Roman is that Cena was able to do good business relatively quickly as top guy despite being booed where Roman has not. Other than being a decent merch seller (and not what you want from a top guy), he's really made no meaningful impact on TV ratings or ticket sales.

I think I'm in the same boat. If it's getting consistently worked on for the majority of the match and then the wrestler goes "Nope, I'm fine!", it can be a bit annoying. But like Loss said, I like to focus on the things a match got right rather than wrong. If limb selling gets ignored but the comeback/finish is enough to keep my interest, then it tends not to bother me as much. Although I do have a great appreciation for those who can make the match interesting while still selling a limb. I don't think there's an end-all be-all when it comes to limb selling and really depends on the match and story being told.

If Austin, one of the best minds in wrestling, is calling for a heel turn I think it's worth doing.

Thought this was a very good match, but obviously a bit flawed. Okada getting in some of his normal offense was weird, but I think they did a great job of making Suzuki looking like an absolute monster while Okada did all he could to persevere and pull victory from out of the jaws of defeat. One of my favorite spots was Suzuki just laying into Okada with slaps and yet he just walks him down like "Yeah, I know I'm getting my ass kicked but I don't care. I'm not backing down". Still too long and there should have been more with the offensive selling, but I still bought the ending of Okada digging down REALLY deep. ****1/4.

Great match, in my top 10 so far this year. Not quite MOTYC because there was just too much that could have been cut out and the first 2/3 of the match was largely the Kenny Omega show without much from Okada. Finishing stretch however, was one of the most insane things I've ever seen. Both guys really delivered in the end. Wasn't perfect, but still a really good wrestling match. ****1/2.

Loved this match. I'm actually a very big fan of Okada even he does deserve criticism for his strikes and spotty offensive selling. Still, really great story of Okada being obsessed with trying to prove he could beat Shibata at his own game but could not, relying on his endurance and unreal ability to absorb punishment to keep hanging on. Felt the ending was a bit weird where Okada was finally able to just kick Shibata enough times to hit the Rainmaker, but before then this match was damn near flawless. ****3/4, Okada's best since King of Pro Wrestling 2013 and if not Shibata's best, then a close second to his G1 match with Ishii.

• Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu and Riki Choshu (AJPW, February 1, 1986) • Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy vs. Genichiro Tenryu and Toshiaki Kawada (Real World Tag League Day 22, 1988) • Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair (Chi-Town Rumble 1989) • Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (Great American Bash 1989) • Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (Clash of the Champions IX) • Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, and Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue, and Masanobu Fuchi (AJPW, October 19, 1990) • El Dandy vs. El Satanico (EMLL, December 14, 1990) • Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, and Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue, and Masanobu Fuchi (AJPW, April 20, 1991) • Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta and Akira Taue (AJPW Summer Action Series II, September 4, 1991) • Kenta Kobashi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat (AJPW Super Power Series Day 8, 1992) • Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Excite Series, February 28, 1993) • Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, July 29, 1993) • Akira Hokuto and Shinobu Kandori vs. Aja Kong and Bull Nakano (Queendom II, March 27, 1994) • Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, June 3, 1994) • Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, June 9, 1995) • Mitsuharu Misawa and Jun Akiyama vs. Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Super Power Series Day 5, 1996) • Mitsuharu Misawa and Jun Akiyama vs. Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Real World Tag League Day 16, 1996) • Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, January 20, 1997) • Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Bret Hart (WrestleMania 13) • Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker (Badd Blood 1997) • America’s Most Wanted vs. Triple X (Turning Point 2004) • Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinnes (ROH Unified 2006) • Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki (King of Pro Wrestling 2012) • Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii (G1 Climax, August 3, 2013) • Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (King of Pro Wrestling 2013) • Kota Ibushi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (Wrestle Kingdom 9 2015) • Seth Rollins vs. John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar (Royal Rumble 2015) • Tetsuya Naito vs. Kenny Omega (G1 Climax 26 Day 18, 2016) • A.J. Styles vs. John Cena (Royal Rumble 2017) • Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (Dominion 6.11 2017) • Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii (G1 Special in USA) • Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (G1 Climax, August 12) • Tetsuya Naito vs. Kenny Omega (G1 Climax, August 13) • Golden Lovers vs. Young Bucks (Strong Style Evolved, March 25, 2018) • Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano (NXT Takeover: New Orleans)