Edwin

On the opposite to the thread title, there's guys loved by their peers and disliked by a lot of "hardcore" fans like HBK. I also always hear Jim Cornette praise guys like Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards and a lot of "hardcore" fans dislike them.

Talk about it here.

Bloodsport -- I originally thought this was GCW's attempt at running a faux ganryujima event, yet it was GCW's version of Antonio Inoki's INOKI BOM-BA-YE event mixing MMA fighters and grapplers with pro-wrestlers in a worked environment. If you liked this, then you have to watch INOKI BOM-BA-YE 2000 which was great (namely Sasuke & Matsui vs. Shoji & Uno, Hashimoto vs. Goodridge and Coleman & Kerr vs. Nagata & iizuka). WALTER/Lawlor was fun. MiSuzuki/Riddle was a lot of fun too. Garrini/KTB, King/Hot Sauce and Thatcher/Gage weren't good. KTB looked entirely lost on the ground and he made Garrini's sweep even look poor and the best he had to offer were his 12 to 9 elbows and Garrini is legit on the ground, but he didn't look too great here. King did not look great. The majority of his strikes looked poorly timed and poorly executed, namely that knee near the end which they got from Nakamura Tokyo Dome matches (see Nakamura vs. Takayma and Nakamura vs. Sakuraba). Hot Sauce's slaps and face kicks were great and his ground work and transitions looked OK, but the highlight of this match was Riddle's work as a cornerman. The MDK Gang Affiliated is basically pro-wrestlings equivalent of the Diaz Brothers Stockton wannabe gangster talk which is sad. MASADA/Stone started out good on the ground with them actually showing some competency and showing signs of grappling basics by exploiting openings without trying to be overly flashy. The slaps on the ground were pretty great too. Unfortunately this fell apart and the ref. botched the finish. Severn/Dickinson was the first match that felt shootie with the gritty matwork between them and Dickinson dropping Severn with kicks and dropping ground and pound on Severn. Some great selling of the gritty grappling during them. Some odd instances as you can see they are both gassed and the horrible ref. stand up while Dickinson was dropping elbows on Severn from the side mount dragged this down. JJSB2 -- PCO vs. WALTER was pretty great. Sasuke was obviously booked for the barrel spot, but he couldn't pull it off here. The rest was exactly what you would expect it to be. Not a bad show by any chance. Also, I don't get the David Starr hype. He seems like an interchangeable thigh slap heavy indy wrestler. I've seen a ton of his stuff everywhere and I've yet seen him put on a great performance. The best I've actually seen him in was his match with WALTER in Beyond where he got wrecked. Not a fan of the Janela series, nor of the Riddle series. I'm sure I've seen his stuff with Gage too and it wasn't memorable. PCO vs. WALTER aside, I thought last years JJSB was better.

This was really fun and it carried somewhat of a big fight feel with it, but that maybe due to Suzuki's presence working the indy scene. I dug how they used the no rope rules to their advantage when setting up submissions. Riddle teasing diving to the floor while Suzuki has his back in the rear naked choke was great and Riddle passing out from the choke and not riding it out for 5 minutes like a lot of guys do before tapping out is the way to go with that move. Good stuff.

SLB, I like you and respect your opinion, but I will admit you have very odd taste as you're calling this junk a religious experience, yet you were so down on Gargano/Ciampa. This was utter garbage. They tried the styles make fights mentality here and it didn't pay off. Thatcher clearly outclassed Gage in the grappling exchanges and Gage bitting him to break free was pretty cool, but aside from that, this did nothing. Gage looked truly awful and seemed like he was playing at being a pro-wrestler instead of actually being a pro-wrestler.

You're free to look at things however you want to, but that's just being silly and overcritical. Do you hate death matches because the guys don't actually die?

This was full on pro-wres and never felt shootie. I was expecting some evenly quality grappling exchanges, but it was mostly one sided and rightfully so with WALTER exploiting Lawlor's previously broken hand. Both guys looked great. WALTER exploiting Lawlor's previously mentioned weakness/injury and bullying him around was fantastic and Lawlor fighting from underneath and working around his injury were great. However, Lawlor and every other MMA fighter transition into pro-wres need to drop the leg kicks. They look really bad 95% of the time as they are afraid to put a little heat behind them. The finish was perfect with WALTER going for the arm assisted choke.

I thought this was OK. KTB looked like a fish out of water when he wasn't throwing strikes and that sweep near the end looked really bad. KTB's best were his 12 to 9 elbows which looked pretty decent. And yeah, this is Garrini's usual style. He's a legit purple in BJJ. I dug how Garrini pulled the submission off his back, but I don't get why KTB will pass out from a triangle armbar as that's more of an armbar than a choke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, this was pretty great, although I've dug other WALTER matches this year more than this one (vs. Thatcher, vs. Mark Davis). PCO made his return to the U.S. indy scene a couple of months ago against Ethan Page at Black Label Pro in Indiana and he looked OK there. Here, however, he looked amazing for a guy his age. Sure the execution of his stuff isn't as smooth, but he more than made up for that with the bumps and beating he absorbed from WALTER. WALTER was great as the cocky young bully laying out a beating by turning PCO's chest into hamburger meat. Brutal stuff. I'd be more than happy to see PCO coming back regularly to the U.S. indy scene to bully around Jr.'s or to go toe-to-toe with big men.

This was my original thought the first time around. I thought it was a great way to introduce newer fans to Japanese pro-wrestling and that it wasn't that great. I re-watched it a month ago and I totally lost it. I thought it was unbelievable. That's also exactly what I thought when I watched it back then. It was also the first time I saw Joe, so probably not the best introduction. Now that I'm familiar through years of TNA, I wonder if my perception would be different too... Don't give me the urge to go through these "5 stars" matches for the sake of it... Considering my opinion on it changed with a recent re-watch, I'd love to see your take on it upon a re-watch, so...

It's an awesome spectacle of a match, but it is a bit silly how many chops they do (and this is coming from someone who loves even NOAH-era Kobashi). You must really hate Kobashi vs. Kensuke...

This was my original thought the first time around. I thought it was a great way to introduce newer fans to Japanese pro-wrestling and that it wasn't that great. I re-watched it a month ago and I totally lost it. I thought it was unbelievable.

I also get that error and just got this one as I was trying to start a new thread for a match in the April 2005 folder. Don't let this place die, Loss.

I'll stick to my original pick: I rarely ever agree with his opinion so it doesn't really matter to me (I'd most likely rate a ton of old W*ING bloody brawls and Teddy Hart and Homicide JAPW matches where they fish hook and punch each other in the mouth *****), but yeah, that match is pretty average.

Not that I agree with his ratings or anything, but he gave this 5 stars: I'd say that is the most overrated match that he's given full five.

It was about the same. First half was forgettable. The angle stuff was mostly run during the first half. And yeah, they announced Swagger was coming in -- most likely for the next show. The Penta vs. Fenix match was fun, but their first match was better. Strickland vs. Riddle was ridiculously fun live, but I'm not sure how it will come across on video.

Balls! Strickland vs. Riddle was amazing live. Not sure hiw it will come across on video, but it was an amazing experience. Strickland is the new MLW world heavyweight champion. MJF vs. Yehi and Penta vs. Fenix were good too, although the first Penta vs. Fenix match was better. Strickland's first denfense will be against Penta. I hope they make Yehi a regular. He is great. The venue was sold out. Easily the biggest audience they've had. About 500 people.

Court Bauer just said both, Ki and Sydal are injured. Ki will still be at the show, but he won't be cleared to compete.

MLW tonight: MLW World Title Tournament Final: Shane Strickland vs. Matt Riddle Penta el 0M vs. Rey Fénix Joey's Bogus Adventure Match: Joey Janela vs. Jimmy Havoc Sami Callihan vs. MVP ACH vs. Tom Lawlor Fred Yehi vs. MJF Santana Garrett vs. Aerial Monroe Elimination Tag Match: Jimmy Yuta & Jason Cade vs. the Dirty Blondes Priscilla Kelly and Darby Allin are off the card. Priscilla is on tour with DDT in Japan and Darby suffered an injury in PROGRESS during WrestleMania weekend. STOKED!

Sure, but Fujiwara and rarely if anyone worked the schedule Ric worked, so that's not really a fair comparison...

This was OK at best. It's Otani coming in as an invading vet. from ZERO-ONE to take on a young inexperienced homegrown Sekimoto. Otani is pretty fantastic at bullying the young punk around, but that's about it for me. The finish felt rather abrupt to me, also.

This seems overly critical and the bolded part in particular is the exact opposite of what I'd expect to read. I'd expect this deal would be more appreciated and less criticized. While I don't buy this as a MOTYC or anything, I think this is really good. Tajiri's selling and Gedo's armwork are quite excellent and it's refreshing to see Jr.'s work this style instead of going balls to the wall.

This pretty much summarizes what this is, so this isn't really anything mind blowing that you should go out of your way to see.

Not from the 90's, but there was a sleazy indy in the mid 2000's called STYLE-E. If I recall correctly, a lot of the guys were Kiyoshi Tamura trainees. They ran shows at a really small venue and a lot of the guys were U-STYLE workers who would face pro-wres indy guys. Ken Ohka from DDT and Union was a big invading heel there along with Masa Takanashi and Takahiro Abe from DDT when he was just a rookie and Isami Kodaka when he was just isami from Union. Kazuhiro Tamura was their ace for some time and that's where Masashi Takeda, who went on to become a death match worker, got his start from. Kyosuke Sasaki from U-STYLE was one of their open weight champs.

I hadn't seen this in about 7-8 years and I just re-watched it and its still pretty great. I’ve been a big Masao Orihara fan since I first saw him tear up Gosaku Goshogawara in FMW as Gekkou in the 90’s. Here he puts on an amazing show. 
He usually works as a bully Jr. heel in Japanese indies, but here he works entirely different as he mostly takes a pretty nasty beating from Takeru. Takeru drops him with some pretty nasty powerbombs and suplexes and gets busted up pretty badly in the first couple of minutes. This is honestly the Orihara show with Takeru just coming along for the ride even though he more than holds his own. Really good match.