Edwin

This match is absolute bonkers. As I said last time around, there's few things I like more in wrestling than big Onita Pro tornado tag no rope barbed wire main events as they are absolute chaos. Onita is pro-wrestlings true punk rock icon with his distressed t-shirt and jeans, leather jacket, scar tissue, bandages and water flinging all over a hot wild crowd that rushes to touch their cult hero. Opposite, we have Tenryu who looks like a guy who just walked out of low budget law firm and is on his way to grab a beer with his friends at Chili's the bar after a long day of work with his button up white shirt and yellow and black tie. Both guys just ooze charisma and personality. These two are of course the main focus of this match. Everyone is somewhat replaceable and are just here to take big bumps and bleed. We kick off with a wild brawl early on and the crowd is going absolutely wild as fists are flying everywhere. Tenryu takes a somewhat timid back bump into the barbed wire ropes and he then bypasses a rushing Okumura who just takes a nasty bump out of the ring into the barbed wire. More chaos is ensuing and Onita and Tenryu are just laying on the ring punching each other in the face while Kikuzawa who would then be known as Ebessan in Osaka and Ebetaro later on is taking some gruesome front suplexes on the barbed wire ropes. Onita and Tenryu break away from each other and Onita heads to brawl and bleed all over the crowd in Korakuen Hall with Yaguchi and Tenryu unbuttons his shirt and loosens his tie while he joins Nakamaki in putting a nasty beatdown on Kikuzawa by punching him in the mouth, flinging him into barbed wire and relentlessly throwing ringside chairs at his face. Of course Korakuen tables are uncooperative and we get a somewhat comedic botch between Onita and Nakamaki and some more chair shots and bleeding all over the ring. The comedic table spot botch wasn't going to stop them from smashing the table as Nakamaki still puts in the ring corner and then eats a back bump into and it still doesn't break, so they have to bring it back and use it until it breaks or someone gets broken with it. Tenryu and Nakamaki are finally able to break the table to a big pop with a nasty suplex on Asako through it and they begin to use the remains of it to continue smashing folks. With the tables being uncooperative, they have to improvise and Yaguchi sets up a barbed wire board on to two chairs and then he gets backdropped through it and of course that doesn't cooperate and doesn't break either. Tenryu and Onita fight on the edge of the ring and tease a bump onto barbed wire boards on the outside and Onita takes the bump. Meanwhile Kikuzawa is getting wrapped up in barbed wire by Yaguchi. As this is an Onita Pro show, the crowd is mostly pro Onita and they begin "Onita! Onita!" chants and Tenryu gets fed up with them and he just flings a barbed wire board out of the ring onto the ringside seconds after Onita had kicked out of a powerbomb. The finishing run is on par with the rest of the chaos and Kikuzawa wrapped in barbed wire rushes at Ono before Onita puts him down with his thunder fire bomb. There's a lot of similarities with Onita Pro main events and they may feel repetitive but I love the chaos.

Not a MOTYC or anything by any stretch but a very good undercard PPV match. I believe this is Xia's first TakeOver match and she looked good. Early it on it was all about Xia's kick heavy offense before it backfired and she ended up kicking the ring post and causing the momentum shift in which Mercedes did a fantastic job of taking over hitting some big throws like a butterfly capture suplex, a nasty looking Razor's Edge into a DDT, a big backdrop ringside and some vicious arm captured knees to the face. Xia also added some throws to her offense as she hit Mercedes with a wrist clutch exploder suplex which is something I had never seen her do before. The finish was neat with Xia hitting her wild spin kick to put down Mercedes. Good match to slow things down but it didn't overstay its welcome and didn't drag at any moment.

My perspective on this maybe different as most as I was at the Performance Center live for this and this was an absolute blast. Balls to the wall action starting out with Santos playing the coward heel who wants the title but doesn't want to confront the champ and sending his cronies to do the dirty work. I'm not a big fan of Bronson but to me this is the best he's looked in NXT. He was great using his weight to run over Raúl and Joaquin and they also did the big man fall onto the smaller guy who's trying to slam him. The interactions with Bronson and Santos were also kept to a minimum as this was mostly worked by the tag teams so they will have to plenty to work with when the eventual singles title match comes to fruition. Bronson also only took one big bump which was well prepped up with Santos distracting the ref. and Joaquin giving him a chop block from behind and Santos then hitting with a sick Michinoku driver that seemed like broke his neck. Meanwhile we get more fast paced exchanges between MSK and Raúl and Joaquin before we get a wild breaking barricade pounce from Bronson on Santos in the finishing stretch. This definitely didn't overstay it's welcome as it was under 15 and it was a hot opener to get the crowd going and it didn't have an extensive 2.99 kickout forced facials exchange featuring ridiculous finishing move exchanges or overdone your turn, my turn strike exchanges.

PROGESS was branded "punk rock pro-wrestling," but its really not. Onita Pro is the true "punk rock pro-wrestling, specially the main events. Atsushi Onita is the true punk rock pro-wrestler. He walks out in his typical distressed jeans and t-shirt with his black leather jacket while smoking and with a bottle of water to a rabid Korakuen Hall crowd that loves him. Tenryu walks out in his usual black tights with a white WAR t-shirt and the crowd is still hot but not in his corner as he is the invader. We get quick ring announcements and absolute chaos breaks out with everyone just fighting all over Korakuen early on. Chairs are flying, the crowd is running and going nuts, folks are bleeding and tables are being broken. At one point Tenryu tries to suplex Asako through a table and he nearly botches it and Asako takes a brutal bump on his legs on the table. That obviously didn't stop Tenryu from still trying to takeout the table as he then proceeded to hit a backdrop on Asako through the remains of the table. Of course the table isn't just used to take bumps on or through as you know these lunatics just took the scraps of the table and whacked each other endlessly. Meanwhile Onita gets wrapped up in barbed wire and he just bull rushing folks and they are dropping as a madman Onita is charging at them while being wrapped in barbed wire. Absolute chaos. All of these big Onita main events are the same and this is obviously not for everyone but there are fewer things that I enjoy more than a big chaotic Onita main event.

I was at the PC for this. Great show live. MOTN for me was the opening six man tag. El Legado del Fantasma are really coming together and have been growing on me. Say what you want about the Tian Sha stuff but the crowd ate that up. The match was good as well. Heck, I enjoyed all the matches sans the main event which was way long and honestly featuring a ton of guys who I've already seen do this stuff countless times. I'll revisit the 4 other matches tomorrow to see how they come across on video.

Regardless if I have or haven't, how is it not subjective?

For the most part, it should be. That's subjective.

Stock just went way up. This company keeps failing up, yes, this empire is crumbling.

Han vs. strikers always delivers. Here he's fighting the former Ludvig Borga who's wearing boxing gloves. While not an all-time classic, I will say this is quite the spectacle and visuals of this reminded me of Onita's fights with boxers. Han uses his speed and technique to try and ground the much bigger Finnish fighter. Meanwhile Halme is throwing brutal shots that drop Han to the face and body. The gloves however don't restrict Halme from getting throws in as he's able to hit a pretty big belly-to-back suplex in the finishing run. Han eventually is able to fight off Halme and he catches him with one of his wicked kneebars.

I'm a sucker for Han vs. strikers, namely Dutch kickboxers as his matches with Vrij always deliver. While Nyman doesn't have the personality of Vrij and this isn't on par with the Vrij matches, this is still good. Nyman isn't afraid to throw fire-y flurries with some nasty leg and head kicks and Han commits the mistake of trying to stand with him and he eats some nasty head kicks, with one even him knocking him outside of the ring. Han also tries to get Nyman to gas while trying to dodge his flurries and shooting for takedowns to try and take advantage of his superior grappling. Quality finish with Nyman eventually falling to Han's takedown and a quick submission, although it seemed a bit odd as it seemed like someone was tapping the ring and Han thought Nyman had tapped out and he let the armbar go before he noticed Nyman hadn't tapped and he locked it in again until Nyman actually tapped.

This is much better than their match from the previous week. It's a good big man vs. little man match. Drew uses his big power moves to try to putdown Kofi and Kofi uses his speed and agility to try and putdown Drew. We've gotten Drew vs. bigger guys for most of the year and the matches have been monster truck derbies for the most part, so it's cool seeing him face someone smaller and less physical that is willing to use his speed and agility. That doesn't mean Kofi doesn't bring the intensity though as he catches Drew with a dropkick on the side of his face that leaves a clear visible welt. We saw one of the nastiest bumps of the year here with Drew catching Kofi's trust dive off the top rope to the floor and then tossing him over the guard rail and Kofi landing spine first onto another barricade. Loved Drew catching Kofi and hitting a wild swinging Future Shock. The finish was somewhat odd as Kofi just dived off the top rope for some reason and got caught flush with a Claymore that looked great, but it felt weird seeing just Kofi dive for what seemed like the sake of diving. Good match regardless.

Vrij has shown much more personality in his matches with Han than most of his other opponents. He's not afraid to pander to the crowd while also putting in work. Given Vrij is a natural kickboxer and Han is a samboist, you would expect Han would try to continuously takedown Vrij and try to catch him in a submission, but instead we get Han engaging in a stand up battle and I would easily say this is the best display of stand up Han has demonstrated so far in his career. His stand up is usually on Ronda Rousey's level, so you know it's not great, but here he looks much more fluid and comfortable on the feet and his knees in the clinch look great. The ground work here feels a lot more gritty and a lot less exhibition'ish which tends to be a problem with some of Han's matches. Ultimately Han's own overconfidence in him finding success in the stand up is his downfall. Very good match.

Three way matches usually drag, but this was absolute bonkers from start to finish. These three guys have had quality matches on RAW between each other this year, so I was def. looking forward to this and thought it was good. It was a sub 15 minute pro-wrestling demolition derby. Just three big dudes throwing each other around like madmen. McIntyre's Michinoku Driver is easily one of the most impressive spots of the year and the Claymore Kick counter into a big powerbomb table bump was great. Screwy finish which I don't mind as it allows to build another match with Lashley returning to ringside and tossing McIntyre out of the ring after he had hit Strowman with a Claymore Kick and then taking advantage and hitting Strowman with a spear for the win.

This was way better than anyone expected it to be. The early gritty collar and elbow tie up set the tone for this match. Riddle showed he was the superior grappler early on and Woods used power to hit some vertical drop suplexes on Riddle including a great looking suplex from an arm bar counter. Woods also pulled out an impressive press slam into a gut buster. The highlight though was Riddle dead lifting Woods from the ring apron while he was standing on the second rope and hitting a nasty German suplex that surprising enough didn't end with a neck injury or fractured arm. The finish was pretty clever with Riddle hitting an unexpected RKO. Woods singles match I've ever seen.

I was at the CWC live for this match and thought this was a blast. I'm not super high on El Legado del Fantasma, but I thought they were really good here and this is easily their best match so far as they were taking a nasty beating from Thatcher and Ciampa and then working stiffly when on offense instead of doing their usual Jr. heavyweight routines. Ciampa hit Raúl with a nasty running elbow in the corner and his nose just exploded which I recall going nuts for as it landed flush. Surprised it didn't KO him. There were some odd stoppages to check on Raúl, but luckily those were during commercial breaks so this could continue flowing. The only things I found kind of lame here were the double ankle lock spot and the GYV interference with the weak double team ring apron face plant.

I dug this quite a bit, however this was still underwhelming and obviously not on par with their previous matches. Reigns cutoffs were great, however his offense seemed a bit soft and not as vicious as you'd usually seem from him; even the top rope powerbomb looked gentle. Bryan's arm work was great, unfortunately he didn't focus on it more. His running knee also looked fantastic. Dug the finish with Reigns readjusting the guillotine choke and the ref. stoppage was unique a finish.

Having loved WALTER's matches with Ciampa and Rampage Brown later on in the year, I decided to give this a rewatch and upon a rewatch, I enjoyed this more than the first time around. Dug how A-Kid was going after WALTER legs to try and chop him down. However, I feel WALTER gave him a bit too much offense which seems to be somewhat norm in a couple of WALTER matches where I feel he gives smaller and lesser ranked opponents more offense than he should and it feels like he overbumps for them at times. I would have preferred if they had finished this with the powerbomb pin and not continued, but that didn't drag this down that much though and I still ended up enjoying it.

This was soooo good. I was tempted to call this a Darby carry job as he does such an incredible job of bumping around for Miro (who's facials are the worse), but I feel you got to give Miro some props as was good at bullying Darby. That German suplex on the floor is one of the most brutal bumps of the year as Darby landed on his head. Darby's speedball offense with him just launching his body is so great. That finish with Miro pulling a deep camel clutch was great. Far better match than the Brian Cage match from earlier this year.

Oof, that segment with the beer bath and milk bath with the champagne was sad. They had to run to the corner to get hit by it because the pressure wasn't there and it looked weaker and goofier than the originals. I know we say this week after week, but the production and execution of somethings on this show is sad.

I don't think you're getting the point entirely... WWE has done a much better job when producing those (for the most part, at least) with the wide shots, etc. and they are usually not as obvious or low budget as this one. Also, WWE gets clowned all the time when they do ridiculous stuff as well (Rey's eye, the puppet Fiend burning, etc.), stop trying to play it off as if everyone was trying to pick apart AEW always as that happens everywhere.

Yeah, the crash pad was visible before the match as someone who was there live tweeted a photo of it and it was noticeable it was a crash pad and a bit of a spoiler that someone was taking a bump off the cage onto it. They are really struggling with these production blunders in big stipulation matches and of course they overshadow the matches themselves and it's not like they don't have the budget to improve it. Edit: The off camera stuff needs to be planned out better as well. The Shaq ambulance disappearance comes to mind, for example. And yes, Jericho needs to go away for a while.

You're missing the point. It's not about it being safe, it's about it being embarrassingly fake. You have these guys bleeding all over the place and sell the brutality of it and then pull off a whoopee cushion comedy bump for a grand finish and try to sell it as death on concrete. Same thing they did in the exploding barb wire death match.

Fed Bad! Yes, just because you have a coworker being a jackass means you're automatically one as well and it deprives you being able to poke fun at something embarrassing and poorly planned elsewhere. Edit: And yes, it's cool seeing the AEW fans on here are as overly sensitive and defensive as the ones elsewhere.

Oof. That bump. AEW and meme endings to big stipulation matches.

Much better than the Satomura title match with KLR. Stiff veteran vs. up and comer match. At this point I'm convinced anyone can have a quality match with Meiko as long as they are willing to let her call the match and are willing to let her lay in her brutal offense while also being willing to dish it back out. Meiko's early flash armdrags are a thing of beauty as they are rapid and impactful. Her strikes of course are stiff and connect as you can hear the thud of them landing on Aoife. That head kick was particularly quite nasty. Aoife's selling and facial aren't anything to write home about, but she was willing to let Meiko lay them in on her and her overhead kick maybe one of the most stiffest overhead kicks I've ever seen anyone land. Loved her getting overconfident on offense and committing the rookie mistake of going to well one too many times and it eventually backfiring on her. The finish with Meiko hitting the one big axe kick and ending it was a perfect way to call it. Meiko joins Gulak in being the workhorses on WWE TV shows barely anyone watches, but who still manage to put on under the radar quality matches with diverse opponents. I highly doubt either one gets lengthy main roster runs, but I wouldn't mind seeing either of them getting them and seeing them paired up with some of the bigger names there.