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Makai Club #1

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Everything posted by Makai Club #1

  1. The fans didn't know how to react to Liger at first but they sure caught along quick. Some great displays of counter wrestling and showing off early on, Liger looked great and the crowd started to response to him. The middle portion was a ton of downtime. But the finish was hot. Good stuff.
  2. Considering this is the blow off to a long built feud that began in 1996, this was very, very heatless. Zero hatred or intensity behind the match. Very shallow brawling in that sense. There was a few neat suplexes by Taz and Sabu added his certain ways of doing things but without that depth, it doesn't amount to much. **1/2
  3. Not a bad match. For one, I enjoyed the start of the match. Some of the counters were pretty slick, well, the ones with the chair anyway. The action was well paced and was allowed time to breath, for the most part. However, some of the transition from spot to spot were poorly done. Not creativity to it; one spot, break, another spot, break. So it was a let down from that point. Also, everything after the chair spots lost me. Just got boring from that point on. The crowd didn't seem that into it either, although they chanted "five more minutes" after the time limit expired. I'll be generous and give it **3/4.
  4. One of the most intense, hate driven matches I've seen, and it has a whole side of awesomeness to it as well. There is basically two parts to the match. The first part was the back and forth between Saito and Inoki. Saito keeps going for the Prison Lock (when it's locked on, it looks great - really tight) and using his power to keep Inoki at bay, while Inoki keeps on the defensive and relies on his fury and superior wrestling skills. Th second part is when Inoki has enough of Saito using the ropes to his advantage and has them taken down. That's when this match reaches a whole new level as Saito gets busted open and Inoki punches the life right out of him. It was great. The heat was off the charts, along with the crowd's reaction to it all. The post match angle was done extremity well. All round excellent match with a huge big fight feel to it. Blood and a whole lot of fire. ****1/2
  5. This was wrestling at its absolute best. Call me crazy, but I thought this was top 5 WWE match of all time. The heat, the drama, the fire. Everything was electric. Watching it made me feel euphoric. They made me totally hate Patera, who did a sensational job at beating down Backlund with brutality, and root for Backlund, who sells his butt off, makes incredible comebacks and sends the crowd into a frenzy. This was exciting from start from finish. The brawling was heated, like none other before it. This was excellent. *****
  6. This was tremendous wrestling. At first, I wasn’t fully engaged in what they were doing. Not that I thought this was bad at the start, just lacking but the work was perfectly good in its own way. The match got interesting pretty quickly after a short while. They built to the big tremendously well such as Backlund suplexes Hogan. The crowd was great too. The audio quality wasn’t the best so it’s quite a feat that they came through as well as they did. Another highlight of the match has to be Backlund doing his signature stretch spot that always gets me to pop huge and Backlund changing course after failing to knock down Hogan with a shoulder block which puts over Hogan’s size and stretch as well as his adaptability and wrestling smarts. Great match. Big contender for Hogan’s best match, in my opinion. ****1/4
  7. Good stuff. I think Hogan’s heel work was rather bland but Tito had tons of babyface fire and his punches were pretty great. The match wasn’t outstanding but I liked it to a certain extent and I’d like to see more of it. ***
  8. It takes a lot for me to not being interested in a match involving Bob Backlund, so this was something special. This was so dull and unengaging. Backlund worked on the arm for a long time. Sika held the stomach for ages. None of it with any intensity or heat from the crowd. Backlund made a few brief comebacks and it was really nothing worth remembering. Not a match that I’ll recommended when people ask for Backlund matches, that’s for sure. *
  9. Boring main event and The Bucks match went over my head too but other than that, the show delivered on a big scale. Cody vs Dustin MOTN
  10. Kenny Omega vs Michael Nakazawa - DDT KO-D Openweight Title One Match Box Office [KO-D Openweight Title Match/Last Man Standing Match] Superb overall match. Great underdog performance by Nakazawa, who gives a career performance in the match, in my opinion. And it’s matched by a ruthless and aggressive, dominant champion, Kenny Omega. In the small, intimate building like Shin-Kiba 1st Ring, everything is suddenly intensified, including the stiff chair shots towards the end of the match. The endless barrage of Omega offence Nakazawa received felt even more impactful. And he sold it accordingly. His brief hope spots were tremendously done well too. The pacing was really good for the most part with no much dragging the match which is a hard thing to do given the stipulation but the drama held it together. ****1/2
  11. Matt Hardy gets a big pop from his hometown crowd. Very headlocks heavy early on but what made it different from the usual headlock start was the smugness of the holds applied, from Finlay especially and the struggle to get out of them, even resorting to pulling the nose. The intensity of the match increased gradually with Finlay adding a few vicious slams and strikes to the mix. The crowd, at first wasn't much into Finlay working over Hardy, started to really get invested for their hometown boy. Hardy really shows how good he is with his selling after Finlay works on his injured knee. Not only does his sell the holds, he sells the fatigue of being in pain for a prolonged period of time. Really compelling stuff on his part. The finish was iffy to say the least. Hornswoggle comes in (aw, he has lost his “Little Bastard” name) and distracts Hardy and Finlay nails him in the injured knee with his shillelagh but Hardy gets up and nails for the Twist of Fate for the win. I mean, he sells it well too, but it kinda made the shillelagh shot pointless and the interference too. Great match (great performance yet again by Matt Hardy) but bad finish. ****
  12. If you want a hot crowd and heated/hate brawling then this is for you. They do an excellent job at getting heat for the feud. Larry is a great heel who can’t back up what he started and Bruno is super frustrated and just wants to pound on Zbyszko. ***
  13. Ah, the main prototype for the Student vs Mentor heel turn, at least as far as WWF goes. A match that turns from a respectful one, to one filled with frustration and then hate. This was no better told then Zbyszko simply being outwrestled by Bruno when he was attempting to do a move, only for it to be countered into a bearhug and went nuts as a result, grabbing the chair and busting Bruno up. The crowd reaction for Bruno as so big and they did a good job of transferring that to heat for Larry. I thought it was a totally well done angle from the initial match to the turn. Great storytelling.
  14. There was times where Dean and Eddie seemed unsure of the match, almost like the quiet crowd shook their confidence almost but they stuck to it and eventually won the crowd over with some really nice technical moves and pin attempts. ***3/4
  15. This is the drizzling shits. Awfully boring match. It's filled with boring grappling and aerial stuff from Eddie. None of it was compelling in anyway. It's smooth but who cares when it's so dull? The pacing was bad with everything dragging with a painfully slow pace. The crowd was so bad too. Non stop please don't go chants. Shut up. *
  16. Royta Nakatsu (c) vs Ryuichi Sekine - Union Pro MAX Title Match BASARA is a promotion that always has little bangers that go under the radar because it’s a niche within a niche within a niche, but even this match blew away my expectations. This wouldn’t be out of place in a top-level company. It’s even better than a ton of the matches in those promotions, in my opinion. Ryota Nakatsu doesn’t look like much, a bit of a goofy look but he pulls in a pretty great performance in this match. The work on Sekine’s right arm is so good. The submissions look really nasty, and the other little things he does such as ramming Sekine’s arm into the post are just superb. Not just the work on the arm, but his overall performance was excellent - had tons of aggression in his offence and had a vicious demeanour about him. Sekine’s selling was really good, although it could’ve been sold better as far as arm movements go. But Sekine mostly avoided using the injured arm in offence which is greatly appreciated. The pacing was excellent too, I wouldn’t be able to tell you the match time as it went by so smoothly, helped along by the great transitions. Short snappy grappling early on followed by heated brawling on the outside blended so well into each other. Great match starts to finish. Hardly a dull moment in the match. The finishing stretch as great. The short builds for Sekine’s Combine submission (Elevated Capture Boston Crab) were really well done too. Excellent match. ****1/2
  17. Basic Tairi w/ no signature pants. Awesome! The match, predictability was very good. Both guys were able to blend a showcase of their moves to the ECW crowd to a highly competitive match. Taijiri had some good strikes but his main focus was his quick submission, aerial offence, including a beautiful Asai moonsault. Super Crazy delivered on his end as well. Good stuff. ***1/2
  18. Hansen special check list: Stiff as fuck. Uncontrollable aura of the match. Undying heat. Great selling. This has it all. The brawl to the outside was a great start to the match. And it's Kobashi who instigates it although Hansen makes him pay for it, by slamming him on the hard floor on the outside. Hansen then does some excellent work on top, destroying Kobashi with his nasty offence, who then makes some wicked comebacks. Kobashi gets more of his fair shots in too, proving he is a tough son of a gun and won't go down easily. The selling is great and puts both guys offence over so much, especially Kobashi who is just now being considered on that level. The finish wasn't crazy by any means but it was very genitive. The call itself is pretty famous. ****1/2
  19. Unreal. You can't deny both guys willingness to take insane bumps.
  20. Both guys are incredibly young at this point in their careers, and you can see that, in Danielson's case more so. Danielson still had some of his excellent grappling that he would gain fame for later and Low Ki only matched that with his STIFF kicks. It's a great dynamic, as it always is, strikes vs grappling. I think the length is a glaring problem. A ton of it could've been condensed and wouldn't miss anything, however I get what they were going for and they achieved that. The selling of both was awesome. The sell of every hold, strike and even exhaustion. An early classic for ROH and both guys. ****1/4
  21. Excellent match. I think it was basically the coming out party that these three guys and the company needed. Low Ki got to show off his striking, Danielson showed off his grappling skills. Daniels with his character work. Great match ****1/4
  22. A masterpiece of wrestling. The heat was off the charts. Mega heat for Idol and his antics. Mega cheers for Jerry. Hot atmosphere. The storytelling was fantastic. So much heat and violence to match the feud and stipulation. Hair vs Hair matches can sometimes be considered joke matches instead of heated affairs and this went in the total opposite direction to that. This had all the components for a blood feud match. The punches were exquisite and the selling was sensational. The finish had interference but it never felt like the match was overbooked. It added to the match in fact. The execution to the fans near rioting with some fans actually trying to jump into the cage. Paul. E showed his class in his managerial role on the outside, getting the occasional shots in and his smug, hateable mannerisms. Excellent match. ****3/4
  23. I liked it for the most part. Loved the last 5 minutes with them heading up to the ramp, referencing where Ciampa turned on Gargano last time in Chicago. Loved Ciampa and everything he did. He was very interest. His mannerisms were great, his offence was very brutal and fit the tone of the match greatly. Loved how he focused a lot of his attack on Gargano? s neck, even if Gargano didn't exactly do a great job at selling it. But it leads to the ending in a way so I can forgive it to an extent. I don't think it needed them to do the brawling into the crowd spot again. It just felt unnecessary and they didn't really do much other than the plant spot anyway. That whipping spot on Ciampa was incredible and a highlight for me. The crowd were actually good for this match. They could have taken some stuff out but overall, this was still a good match. ***3/4
  24. Pretty good match. Both played their roles well. Gargano was a subdued face that the face rallied behind easily. Almas and Vega were great heels. Good stuff. There was a nice tempo for the entire match. Not much downtime. Both guys kept on moving to keep the competitive tone of the match up. The crowd was quiet at first but got really into it by the end. There were a few sequences that looked a bit awkward but it was generally smooth and well set up. I did think that they went slightly too long, missing their peak, and some of the offence felt recycled. ****
  25. The wrestling is tremendous. Great back and forth action with both men struggling for every move, every chop, every hold, every reversal; the never-ending struggle for the win. Steamboat is an uber face but he fit the subtle heel role to a tee here. Also, Steamboat's selling was top notch. His and Osamu Nishimura's selling is very unique because they don't just favour the leg or arm or whatever the main focus of the match is, they sell everything. The damage they took, the fatigue, the pace of the match. It's really simple but clever in many ways. I love it. The finish was great too. The match was a really excellent match. Another classic in the boat of Flair and Steamboat. ****3/4
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