paul sosnowski Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 Juice Robinson defends the NJPW United States title. Talk about it here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShittyLittleBoots Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 As far as his punches & general offense go, I don't think Moxley looked THAT much better than he did as Dean Ambrose in his last few years in the WWE, but what I do think is that the match was A LOT more creative AND interesting than anything & everything he did there in the past few years. At first his forearms, knees & that suicide dive all looked pretty bad and super weak, but Juice Robinson sold his motherfucking ass off to make all of them look impactful, to say the least. Bless that man. Moxley's stuff thankfully got better looking as the match went on - he started putting more stank to them forearms once they started brawling in the crowd, and Juice continued to sell like a boss for him. I liked the brief legwork too w/ Mox working over it against the ringpost, and then slapping on a half crab & STF for good measure. It came more into play later on in the match when Juice sold the leg once he hit Mox with a gutbuster. Once again, bless that man. What a badass performance all around. Really liked the classic Bret Hart Figure-4 ringpost spot as well - definitely added to the leg psychology of the thing, and it's an awesome spot anyways. Another good leg psychology bit came in the finishing stretch as Juice was all fired up looking to deliver a big left hand to Mox, but Mox stops him by kicking him right into the worked over knee. Good stuff there & talking bout the finishing stretch, I absolutely LOVED the Dirty Deeds kickout. The way it was followed by a sick smile on Mox's face, which was then followed by him essentially '91ing the move was SO GREAT. Absolutely lovely stuff there, and all in all, I thought the match was pretty damn great. Positively unique for a big NJPW match. You couldn't have asked for a better guy to go against Jon Moxley in his first post-WWE match - Juice put on a tremendous performance, bumping & selling his ass off for everything Moxley did, including his shitty looking offense at the beginning + he sure delivered when it came time to kick some ass on the offense himself. Moxley, as mentioned, looked rough in the beginning, but once their fight got to the crowd, everything he did looked great & did so till the end. Definitely a pretty damn fantastic way to start his post-WWE career. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmartMark15 Posted June 6, 2019 Report Share Posted June 6, 2019 I'm here with Boots in thinking that Mox's opening offense looked a little week. I think it's always been a personal weakness of his, I once heard him on Cabana's podcast saying that he's a big proponent of safe pulled strikes so he might have been too used to overcompensating to keep from hurting Juice. Yeah but once things started going, he worked those punches beautifully, thought they were some of the best punches we've seen all year. Mox was really good here, staying vicious, focused, and giving a lot to Juice in the way of bumping and selling. Which brings me to my next point, Juice looked amazing. This might easily be the match of his career, even better than the Jay White title match last year. Holy cow, from shaving the dreads to his classic Southern territory spaghetti leg selling, I thought he looked absolutely fantastic in this match shitty blade job aside. The crowd bought into him, he provided fire and fighting spirit, and seeing him stumble around from Mox's offense trying to get the upper hand back was some of the best selling I've seen all year. Juice putting in an arguably better performance than Mox here isn't so bad given that Mox went away with the belt. This was just what we needed to bring him back into the wrestling spotlight and I think we can all eagerly await what else is to come. ****1/4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FMKK Posted June 6, 2019 Report Share Posted June 6, 2019 Was the blood a blade job or hardway? I thought it was hardway. Either way, I had great fun with this match and it looked like the participants did too. A nice break from the usual New Japan big match style of elaborate reversal sequences etc. Agree that the crowd brawl was a littler perfunctory but things got going well after that. Moxley dished out a good beating on Robinson and I love how he kept going back to targeting the cut. That suplex through the table looks rough and I loved the release vertical thing Mox did as well. He wasn't exactly known for his strong offence in WWE so it was nice to see him have some rough looking moves as well as stiff lariats to go with the new finish as well. I'm not hugely familiar with Juice but I thought his performance as the resilient babyface was excellent. He sold like hell and bumped hard as well as getting colour. I loved the consistency of the selling too - being dazed and wobbly on his feet throughout after having his head busted. He wasn't just selling the moves in the moment and then getting onto his next spots. He had some nicely timed hope spots too with the spinebuster and later the chair throw. Good fire in the comeback too and some sweet punches to boot. You could tell he was enthusiastic about this match - so much so that he overshot the cannonball through the table towards the end. I think they maybe could've trimmed the fat a little in terms of the crowd brawling at the start and the submission trading towards the end which I don't think added much but as a first match and a mission statement for the new Moxley, this is exactly what it should have been. I'd love to see him bring move of this style to New Japan against a range of opponents but Juice was awesome enough here for me to want to see a rematch as well. Good fun. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makai Club #1 Posted June 6, 2019 Report Share Posted June 6, 2019 Very good match. Moxley definitely proved me wrong. I do think he has something to fix such as the timing of certain holds, the STF which was received with silence for example. But he mostly looked good. His offense looked much better and he did a nice job of beating down Juice as if he wasn't doing that himself. Juice was the star of the match for me though. His selling and bumping were excellent. I loved his willingness to go all out with his attacks too. All the praise will go to Moxley but Juice was the star of the match, in my opinion. The blatant rule breaking made me roll my eyes and the match missed its peak by a few minutes but other than that, this was very good. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted June 6, 2019 Report Share Posted June 6, 2019 It's always refreshing to see such a style of match in a promotion not typically known for brawls. Moxley looked the best he has in years and it's pretty safe to say this was his best singles match in quite some time if ever. I was a bit concerned that we were going to see "Dean Ambrose" with the first few strikes at the beginning, but everything after the first 30 seconds or so looked a lot better. Mox looked like he was potatoing Juice pretty hard with some of those punches and the lariats were really good as well. Juice for his part turned in a great babyface performance and after seeing him have to work with Fale, Owens, and Cody this year, it was a nice reminder of how good he really is. I'm not sure the match needed to be as long as it did as I think it could have ended after the first table bump, but what we got afterwards was still really good. Chaotic, hard-hitting, and violent. An absolute must-watch. ****1/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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