Category: Wrestling

Wrestling Review: Lucha Underground (2/18/15)
It’s been awhile since I checked on Lucha Underground in this space, but that train has kept moving just fine. Their finely crafted blend of plot, action, and background has served them well and continues to as they take on new roster members like Texano, former AAA Mega Champion, and Alberto el Patrón, the man formerly known as Alberto Del Rio. They’re well past the stage now where they have to keep explaining what makes their brand different (the luchadores, the rules, the fact that men can fight women) and just keep pressing on. It’s really impressive, seeing what they do with an hour of television every week, and given the storylines that’ve been simmering since Prince Puma won the Lucha Underground Championship, I wouldn’t at all be opposed to something like an NXT Takeover special out of them, to see how Lucha Underground functions as a live show where all the stories converge and resolve.

That won’t be happening anytime soon, though, so it’s best to appreciate what we have. Matt Striker and Vampiro don’t have much time to talk, as the first match is part of a bookended main event, Chavo Guerrero, Jr. finally facing Mil Muertes over Guerrero’s betrayal of the man of 1,000 deaths some months ago. It’s fortunate for Guerrero that it took so long for this match to happen, as Muertes is without Catrina, his second, who has in her possession a stone that is capable of controlling the big luchador in a way that’s similar to The Undertaker’s urn. Where Muertes was a big, bruising destroyer a few months ago, he’s more vulnerable now, and the crafty, youngest Guerrero is able to pick his spots throughout. He spends the majority of the contest working on Muertes’ leg, which is smart little guy vs. big guy strategy, but Muertes, distracted or not, is still a hulk. Something I like about him (about Lucha Underground in particular, as well as NXT), is that something as simple as a punch is still treated with respect. The referee doesn’t reprimand Muertes for using them, but each one he lands on Guerrero is a bomb.

The story of this match is less about what Chavo Guerrero did to Mil Muertes (who once threatened that all of Mexico would be coming for him, a prophecy that is thus far untrue) than it is about Muertes’ seeming aimlessness without Catrina. So she comes out to the ring, carrying Muertes’ stone. He doesn’t notice her for awhile, powering Chavo around the ring, but when he does he can’t look away. This lets Chavo go to his pal, the steel chair, and nail Muertes with it, causing a disqualification. This does not, however, faze Muertes, who now easily dominates his opponent, hitting him with a flatliner on the chair. He wants Catrina to get into the ring to lick Chavo, which was once their post-match ritual (instead of calling it the “kiss of death,” they’ve decided to stick with the much more literal “lick”), but she refuses. This makes Mil Muertes angry enough to grab Catrina by the hair and bring her into the ring, where it looks like he is going to hit her with the flatliner until Fenix rescues her. His reward is a kiss from Catrina. Look at how jazzed he is for that kiss:

That is one hype dude. Matt Striker speculates that “where the tongue goes, the loyalty goes.” And, yeah, that’s the way it looks. Good broadcast journalism, Matt Striker.

Lucha Underground does a fair amount of its storytelling via these backstage vignettes that are filmed in hilariously “grimy” television sets. The Temple itself is a set, but they do a fair enough job of rotating new audience members in and out that the studio setting never feels too distracting, even if nobody in the crowd cares about faces or heels, rudos or technicos. Some of the backstage promos, usually ones featuring Dario Cueto, are pretty good. Some, like the ones featuring a sneaky woman sneaking around the Temple in clothes she lifted from The Matrix, are what they are. Angela Fong, who has yet to be given her official Lucha Underground name, gets two segments tonight. Previously, she has been seen hanging out in the audience. She picks locks. She kicks doors in. She sees a cage rattling and is excited because she swore, as a girl, to kill whatever’s inside. Then she gets bagged by an unseen assailant. Lucha Underground is trying something new here, filming wrestling angles like they’re scenes from a film or a television show. It worked well, I thought, in introducing Prince Puma, but here I’m not so sure. What does shooting from the point-of-view of whatever’s in that cage accomplish, beyond preventing us from seeing it? And what do you do with someone like Fong, who is not a wrestler and is not really an actor and who is being asked to deliver some stilted, Saturday afternoon movie dialog? When the monster debuts, will Striker and Vampiro know about it from watching the show on television later, or is this one of those closed universes that exists entirely outside that plausable realm? And, if that’s the case, then how does Matt Striker know about New Japan Pro Wresting’s Wrestle Kingdom 9 if he’s been locked away in the universe of the Temple? I’m overthinking this, especially since this story has gone nowhere so far, but I think that pondering the implications of a somewhat limited, but open, universe is valuable four months into a show like Lucha Underground, which has recently taken to calling itself a league. What’s the wrestling/film ratio, and how much can the show handle away from the ring before it becomes too much? I’d like to know.

The other backstage segment takes place in Dario Cueto’s office. Evil authority figures are overdone in wrestling, but Cueto is a pretty good one, a man who appears to not care about anything but making money, but who is into some pretty heinous stuff. Case in point, his meeting with The Crew, who now wear matching basketball jerseys with that distinction so that those unfamiliar with the three can tell Cortez Castro, Bael, and Mr. Cisco apart. Cueto is a fan of what they did to Big Ryck a few weeks back, putting out his eye with a cigar. He loved it so much that he’s going to tell his grandchildren about it, when he has grandchildren. Evil stuff. He wants to see The Crew in more main event spots, but feels that they need to prove that blinding Ryck wasn’t a fluke. They’re in the main event tonight, against a trio of “freaks”: Sexy Star, Mascarita Sagrada, and Pimpinela Escarlata. The Temple is open for anybody, but he’s not happy that a woman, a mini, and an exótico are so over with the crowd, and he wants The Crew to take them out. He makes a no-disqualification trios match between those two for later.

In the ring, Ivelisse lectures her boyfriend Son of Havoc for being a loser and figures that they’d be better of if she fought his battles. She’s not wrong, considering Son of Havoc’s abysmal win/loss/draw record. Ivelisse’s opponent is Angélico, a fellow from South Africa who previously defeated Son of Havoc. I’m all for intergender wrestling, and Ivelisse is an impressive woman whose work I’m not as familiar with as I’d like to be, but this kind of intergender contest, where the man makes like he just can’t hit a woman though she’s hitting him pretty goddamn hard, is more problematic to me than those where the man just destroys the woman. Underdog narratives are one thing, but Angélico’s strategy is to work Ivelisse into a series of dance moves, attempting to kiss her. It’s supposed to be cute, but whatever. Once Ivelisse hits him with a springboard rana, that should get Angélico out of the blocks. It almost does, as he pops Ivelisse into the air with a flapjack, but he plays the role of chivalrous man until Son of Havoc kicks him in the jaw. This sends him stumbling head over heels over a recovering Ivelisse, who takes the win from there with a roll-up. Lucha Underground has constantly touted itself as believing in the equality of men and women in the ring, but the action in its intergender matches thus far has shown that it only goes so far. If Angélico’s refusal to engage with Ivelisse resulted in him getting his head kicked in and a clean victory for her, so much the better. But Ivelisse, despite getting 90% of the offense in this match, can’t win without the help of a dude. It’s the same pattern that’s been established in most of Sexy Star’s matches, the difference being that Ivelisse is a rudo. Equality becoming more of a fact than a talking point would be a nice step forward in the coming weeks.

Last week, Alberto el Patrón arrived in The Temple, but his debut was spoiled by Texano, who whipped the stunned AAA champion with his bullrope. Before his match against Super Fly, we’re given more of Texano’s story via a pre-taped interview by Vampiro, where he says that he is here to crush Alberto el Patrón and take back the championship he feels was stolen from him. It’s a good interview, showing off Texano’s intensity. Also, they splice in a good amount of footage from Texano’s time in AAA, where he is shown running roughshod over a number of luchadores, and from his feud against Patron. Most of Lucha Underground’s hispanic viewers are already AAA fans and are familiar with his work and the ongoing issue he has with Patrón, but the interview is very helpful to a stupid American like me, who knows Patrón from his “exile” in the United States and knows of AAA, but doesn’t keep up with it. It’s very well produced, as is much of Lucha Underground’s show. His match against Super Fly is short and to the point, showing off Texano’s size, speed, and agility. He’s an impressive athlete, and he absorbs some solid shots from Super Fly. In the end, though, Super Fly eats Texano’s double neckbreaker combination, whatever momentum he once had now all but lost. This brings out Patrón, who is the best in the world at ripping off a suit jacket and looking real angry. They fight, and it is Patrón who comes out on top, grabbing Texano’s bullrope and whipping his rival with it. Referees and security guards separate the two and Texano takes a powder, so Patrón whips the referees instead. It’s simple, effective wrestling storytelling, and I’m looking forward to seeing Alberto el Patrón wrestle mean against a guy who might be able to match him.

In the office, Dario Cueto takes a meeting with Cage, a big ‘ol white dude who debuted not too long ago, smashing Prince Puma and his championship. He demands to be named the Lucha Underground champion, but Cueto, as impressed as he is with Cage, says that it isn’t that easy. While he’s certainly beaten up Puma in the past, his last match against him ended in defeat. He’ll need to actually beat Puma to prove that he deserves a shot. That’s fine with Cage, so long as Cueto makes a belt that isn’t Aztec garbage. Chavo Guerrero busts into the office next and says that he doesn’t need Lucha Underground anymore; he just wants to go home and be with his family. Cueto wishes him the best in all his future endeavors, which is a line that gets Chavo angry because that’s what WWE puts in all of their press releases when they fire guys, and they have fired Chavo in the past. It’s a good, subtle dig since it’s dickish regardless of the viewer’s knowing that. Cueto tells Chavo that the doors of his Temple are always open, then figures that the gods won’t be happy about what happened to his strap made of leather and Aztec gold. Look at how much they’re able to do there, in that short segment!

The main event is, as promised, a no disqualification match. Interestingly, despite El Ray being a network that plays grindhouse films on Friday nights, the level of violence in no disqualification matches has thus far been below what is presented on WWE’s fairly sanitized product. This match, pitting The Crew against Sexy Star, Mascarita Sagrada, and Pimpinela Escarlata, is really no different, though it works as a good showcase for both the diversity of Mexican lucha libre and the budding star potential of Sexy Star. The Crew work to take out each of their opponents one after the other. The first is Pimpi, who makes the mistake of kissing Cortez Castro. Castro takes Pimpinela Escarlata out with a kendo stick. Mascarita Sagrada does better, but when he dives out onto The Crew, he is quickly swarmed, powerbombed into the ring apron, curbstomped on a chair, and left for dead. That leaves Sexy Star. She finds herself in the ring alone with Mr. Cisco, who takes the opportunity to check her out. Matt Striker uses this as an opportunity to say that he’s not as sexist and misogynistic as Cisco, which is a) debatable and b) not exactly a stirring defense in the face of fan complaint.

Sexy Star is able to outsmart The Crew for much of the match, making it seem like the three made a mistake by leaving her in last. Star is a really compelling character, one of the best in wrestling at the moment. Though she’s a rudo in Mexico, Lucha Underground recognized from the start the value of an equality fighter. Mascarita and Pimpi are great, but they’re more like representatives from very specific niches in lucha libre. Sexy Star, upon her debut, made it clear that wrestling was her life, the thing that saved her when she had no hope, and the thing she continues to fight for. While the results of her matches haven’t exactly propped her up as well as they should, everything up until someone comes to her rescue is usually quite good. Here’s another case in point. After The Crew take out her teammates, Sexy Star takes each one of them out until it’s a one one one match. Bael takes a tornado DDT to the floor. Cortez Castro goes down to a fisherman’s neckbreaker. That leaves Mr. Cisco, the leader of The Crew, and while he’s initially able to stop a super rana, he takes too long with his powerbomb counter and is eventually taken up and over. Sexy Star gets a two count for this and The Crew reassemble, ready to put the evil on her, but that is Big Ryck’s cue to reenter The Temple. Cisco and Castro exit the ring, leaving Bael as easy pickings for Sexy Star, who wins with a roll-up. Again, that pattern. It’s noticeable because I’m no stranger to intergender wrestling, and because of how common this finish seems to be in Lucha Underground. They get away with it because Star was fighting alone and it makes sense for an exhausted Crew to run from a gigantic man whose eye they put out with a cigar, but if the only guy who can lose clean to a woman is El Mariachi Loco, a man whose character is that he quit his dishwashing gig around the corner from The Temple and found a lucha mask, then what does that really say for that aspect of the product?

Results:
1. Mil Muertes def. Chavo Guerrero, Jr. via disqualification. GRADE: B-
2. Ivelisse (w/Son of Havoc) def. Angélico via pinfall. GRADE: C
3. Texano def. Super Fly via pinfall. GRADE: C+
4. Sexy Star, Pimpinela Escarlata, and Mascarita Sagrada def. The Crew (Mr. Cisco, Cortez Castro, and Bael) via pinfall. GRADE: B
February 19, 2015
Wrestling Review: WWE NXT (2/18/15)
After the excellence that was NXT Takeover: Rival, there’s nothing wrong with a show like this, a cooldown effort that exists largely to set the next month or two of storylines up. NXT General Manager William Regal (long may he reign) sets the tone early. Anybody concerned that Sami Zayn was cheated out of the NXT Championship at Rival should know that titles can change hands due to referee stoppage. Kevin Owens is well and truly the man, and tonight is a new era. To launch it, Kevin Owens will fight against the runner up in the NXT Championship #1 Contenders Tournament, Adrian Neville. Neville, still Zayn’s friend, is not happy with the (perfectly legal) way in which Owens won the belt, and is out for revenge. That’s a good match, and one that works with Regal’s declaration of a new era. Neville was the NXT Champion for a long time, from the origin of the WWE Network until Zayn was able to finally take it away. That’s an era. And Owens, whose brutality is unlike anything seen on NXT, represents a step up. Owens says as much when he tells the NXT Universe that Sami Zayn is in the past, and that the future is Finn Bálor. After stating once again that he fights for a better future for his family (what a mean dude!), he tells Bálor that he is ready whenever the #1 contender has a date in mind.

The first representative of NXT’s new era is…Rhyno, a guy who was last seen on WWE television in 2005, on the ECW throwback pay-per-view One Night Stand. Rhyno hasn’t entirely disappeared from wrestling, as his physique shows, but between stints on TNA’s Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and other independent promotions, the shock of his return, unlike the shock of a novelty return during the Royal Rumble, is real. The crowd loses their collective minds when the word RHYNO pops up on the ‘Tron, and the dude acquits himself so well that he is spared the ignominy of a “YOU’VE STILL GOT IT” chant. Beyond a few poorly chosen tattoos, Rhyno looks really good squashing Elias Samson with a belly-to-belly suplex and a Gore, an the fact that he’s going to be around for awhile is quite interesting. The announcers put over how NXT is frequently considered the future of the WWE, but that it might also serve as a proving ground for old warhorses with something left. As Finn Bálor talks about his future opportunity against Kevin Owens, he is interrupted by Rhyno, and I guess that’s a match we’re going to get out of this. I’m all for it. This is subtly a really smart use of an old veteran, as beyond the nostalgia pop he’ll get from the crowd, Rhyno was actually one of the best mid-card performers the WWE had during what may have been their in-ring peak from 2001 to 2003. NXT continues to signal that the future of the main WWE product lies within the boundaries of a wrestling ring, so having somebody who excelled at that working with the next generation can only be a benefit.

The other indicator of a “new era” was the debut of Solomon Crowe, which has been hinted at through various small scale “hackings” of NXT’s promotional videos. He came out of nowhere to attack CJ Parker, the environmentalist character who takes a good beating and is frequently upset with how he is left off of NXT shows. He threatened to hijack NXT, to take over Takeover as it were, and went about stringing caution tape from post to post. Crowe blindsided him, put some of his aggro power moves on poor Parker, then allowed us to get back to our regularly scheduled programming. It was… not the best NXT debut I’ve ever seen? Crowe’s character is that he’s a hacker, and most of the pictures I’ve seen of him since he left the indies had him in a suit, toting around an iPad with a sticker on it. I’m glad that’s not how he looked here (he wore a scuzzy leather and pyramid-stud jacket and caveman singlet), but either Crowe is doing his hacking from a tanning bed and has gone mad from exposure, or somebody else is uploading his goofy graphics for him. Who knows if it will work, is what I’m saying. In front of this crowd? Probably. Beating up CJ Parker tells us absolutely nothing, though, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Squash matches are the order of the evening, as challengers to championships need to be established, and new champions need to establish their reign. The Vaudevillains, once a formidable tag team, are easy pickings for Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady, who are something of a Jersey scumbag upgrade of the New Age Outlaws. Enzo is one of NXT’s more talented smack-talkers (in fact, he once claimed that his Jedi name was “Smacktalker Skywalker”) and Colin Cassady is able backup (though the audience does not like their lady third, Carmella, presumably because attractive women hanging around Enzo and Big Cass doesn’t fit the slashfic headcanon the straight male dudes booing her have authored), but man will it be interesting to see them in a match that’s longer than three minutes. Also, while I’m hardly a fan, it’s worth mentioning that the Vaudevillains have worked pretty hard at establishing their tag team schtick, and that it’s something of a surprise to see them get crushed so handily. Less surprising is the fate of Ol’ Blue Pants, known on the indies as Leva Bates, the surprisingly popular jobber to the stars who pops up so regularly that she has a TitanTron, a theme song (sung by Big Cass), and an entrance. Leva is hardly the most talented woman working the independents, but she’s able enough when required to take a beating, which she does. Sasha takes her out quickly with her knee drop in the corner and the Banks Statement (which is not a good name for anything), then tells the NXT Universe that everybody, especially the women she beat for her title, need to respect her. Based on video testimony from Bayley and Becky Lynch, it appears that they do.

Oh, video testimony. At NXT Takeover: Rival, Sami Zayn was knocked out and declared unable to continue the match. It was a good, surprising finish to a great match, with the speculation being that Zayn would be “suffering from a concussion” while Owens made NXT his own. But the lead WWE Physician assures us that everything was fine with Sami after the match, just that things during the match made it seem like he was unable to defend himself. He’s off on the Abu Dhabi tour and will come back fine. That… hmm. I hate to review a wrestling show as if I’m counterbooking it, but saying that Zayn got powerbombed so hard that he pretty much went on vacation is much less effective than saying that he needs time to recover from nearly being beaten to death by a man he once thought of as his best friend. When Zayn comes back and is really angry about what Owens did (which was win a match legally), the question on my mind is going to be why he didn’t skip the Abu Dhabi tour to get him some revenge.

Were it not for the fact that Adrian Neville has reason to be mad at Kevin Owens, the whole revenge angle to this week’s main event would have been shot, too. But Neville had the evil put on him by Kevin Owens two months ago in a match that ended in a draw, and a victory over the newly crowned champion would put him in line for a title shot. In one of his best interviews to date, Neville said that he felt more like a hunter this time around than the hunted, and he puts that old cliché to work as he jumps Owens before the bell. The champion is able to get on track briefly, catching Neville with an early gutbuster, but after a second attempt at the move leads to him getting spiked on his head with a DDT, it’s all Adrian Neville. Owens, try as he might, is unable to put some distance between himself and his opponent, unable to find the time to recover. Neville is on top of his game tonight, too. He’s quick with his strikes. He’s reckless with his high-flying moves to the outside, particularly with a 450 splash from the ring apron to the floor. His ability to lift Owens up and dump him on his head is quite impressive, as he not only scores a quick German suplex with the momentum of the ropes, but manages to deadlift his much heavier opponent from the canvas. Owens is able to get back into the match by throwing his weight at Neville, but for a long time here it looks like he won’t be denied. Neville counters Owens’ corner cannonball into a superkick and a reverse rana, but the ensuing two count and the time it takes to drag the champion into the corner for the Red Arrow allows Owens to roll out of the way. Neville tries to charge in after he recovers from the landing, but Owens catches him with the pop-up powerbomb, and in two weeks Kevin Owens has secured victories over two men who, more than any other, have come to define NXT.

In its pre-taped, one hour iteration, NXT is a very good wrestling show. It has a number of stories to tell and is able to do so quickly and nimbly. But, like this week’s Raw, appreciating the way the pieces move on the board is not the same thing as enjoying the show. Rhyno’s return is worth watching in full, as is the main event. But unless squash matches or the characters in them are your thing, there is a lot about regular, weekly NXT that is inessential. Not that it isn’t good, because it very frequently is. But when a show ends with Kevin Owens thrusting his title in the air over a fallen ex-champion, I find myself wanting NXT to do that more than I want it to bum around with Blue Pants.

Results
1. Rhyno def. Elias Samson via pinfall. GRADE: C+
2. Enzo Amore & Colin Cassady (w/Carmella) def. The Vaudevillains (Simon Gotch & Aiden English) via pinfall. GRADE: C
3. Sasha Banks def. Ol’ Blue Pants via submission. GRADE: C
4. Kevin Owens def. Adrian Neville via pinfall. GRADE: B+
February 19, 2015
Wrestling Review: WWE Raw (2/16/15)
Quietly, the WWE has done a very good job of building up to Fastlane, which they’re billing as a “new pay-per-view concept” though, really, it’s just a regular pay-per-view without the usual February Elimination Chamber main event. The lack of a Chamber match, I think, is the reason why Fastlane is so compelling. The WWE calendar is littered with pay-per-views that are branded by one kind of match or another that the matches themselves, no matter how violent or how good, feel more inevitable than special. Without the crutch of putting six guys in a goofy chain-and-plexiglass rig with the absent WWE Championship on the line, instead what we have is the supposed fast lane on the road to WrestleMania. Considering how slow that road has felt thus far, having a date on the calendar where everything will supposedly get back in gear feels like a blessing. “Quietly” in this case also means “glacially,” especially compared to the stretch between last year’s Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, when nearly every Raw had a standout match or segment. Raw will need to pick up the pace sooner rather than later, but, as the last show before a pay-per-view that looks, on paper, like the strongest card since SummerSlam, the WWE does a good enough job of getting everybody in place.

That includes Rusev, who gets trucked by John Cena in the opening segment. This is not the first time a foreign monster has charged the 15-time WWE Champion with losing a step before Cena Rises Above Hate and proves him wrong. I doubt it will be the last. Since the beginning, it seemed like the endgame for Rusev was going to be a loss to John Cena, who, quite honestly, is going through the motions at the start of Raw. Every John Cena promo from 2007 forward is thrown in the blender. Cena loves the WWE. He loves when fans cheer him. He loves when fans boo him. He hates that there is a monster out there who isn’t from America and who can’t be beaten, and he promises to destroy him. This brings out Rusev and Lana, who are, really, a politicized make-over of the old Armando Estrada/Umaga pairing from 2008, an act that has risen above cartoon parody to become one of the most enjoyable aspects of a show that is frequently hard to enjoy. Lana in particular continues to evolve, relying less and less on the merits of Vladimir Putin and the Raw audience’s hatred of being told to shut up (by a lady who ain’t from here to boot!) and more on the merits of her freakish charge, who I also enjoy on the microphone. Rusev is a blunt object used to smash the opposition, a warhammer who only knows how to kill. John Cena’s gambit is that bringing Rusev down relies on taking the fight to him, which he does by charging up the ramp and hurling the burly Bulgarian into a panel of LED lights. Beyond some shoddy camerawork (really, why would you zoom in and out on bodies in motion?), the physicality of Cena vs. Rusev was quite satisfying. Cena proved his point about his strategy, but wrestling matches don’t work like street fights. Whether or not his plan will work when a referee calls for the bell is the story now, and it’s a good one. Rusev’s mystique isn’t compromised unless he’s pinned or he taps out to the STF. Only an idiot would pull the trigger on that at Fastlane.

The rest of Fastlane‘s undercard was built solidly here, as well, with the exception of the upcoming match between Paige and Nikki Bella. That should be a good match (Nikki Bella is easily the most improved wrestler on the main roster over the past year), but its plot is stuck in the muck and mire of the past ten years of the Diva’s division. It was actually somewhat brilliant when the Bella Twins attacked Paige and spraytanned her, as Paige had been clinging to the frankly stupid notion that simply not looking like a model made her better than all the other Divas. But now we’re in the usual Bella Twin holding pattern where they’re “pranking” (read: assaulting or stealing from) Paige in a variety of ways designed to brag that they look better than her. This week, they steal Paige’s clothes, which forces her to wrestle a match against Summer Rae while dressed in a Rosebud’s clothes. Considering that Paige kills Summer Rae handily, it hardly matters. Women have also factored into the Tag Team Championship storyline between The Usos and Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, as a blown double date between Kidd and Jimmy Uso and their respective wives Natalya and Naomi (sample line: “I’m here trying to respect this dinner”) led to a husband and wife mixed tag team match. The mainstream format of such matches is really dated, but Kidd’s unwillingness to wrestle Uso leads to three good minutes between Natalya and Naomi. Naomi, as is standard in non-title Divas division matches, wins with a roll up, allowing The Usos to celebrate that they got one over on their rivals while continuing to build on the will-they-or-won’t-they saga that is the relationship between Kidd and Natalya. Right now, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Kidd left Nattie and got an apartment uptown with his buddy Cesaro, but I’m probably just authoring mental slash-fiction. Probably. The tag team division has been a long-running quagmire, but the Usos vs. Kidd and Cesaro match looks enticing, and the Prime Time Players reunited when Titus O’Neil stormed to the ring to help his returning buddy Darren Young escape a whooping at the hands of The Ascension. With the Miz/Mizdow team slowly breaking up, The New Day entrenched in the wasteland that is their racist gimmick, and tonight’s official dissolution of the Rhodes Brothers/Stardust and Goldust, a full-time return of the Prime Time Players, who always seemed on the verge of making some noise in the division, is a good thing.

Speaking of Stardust and Goldust, this Raw, like most, was built around promos. There was John Cena’s opening promo, Triple H’s Ric Flair-assisted promo about a confrontation (read: promo) with Sting at Fastlane, and the promise of Dusty Rhodes addressing the problems between his sons (not to mention the usual Seth Rollins interview). Only Dusty didn’t speak much and, of all the interviews, tonight, the one that most stole the show was Stardust’s declaration that Cody Rhodes was dead and never coming back. Dusty Rhodes’ are shoes no man can fill, but Stardust stood there, painted purple and silver and wearing a rubber suit, and delivered fire right in his father’s face. Stardust has, to this point, felt like a needless, pandering rip-off of Goldust, which was unfortunate given their role in the early iteration of the Authority storyline, but on Raw Stardust was given a purpose and a mission. It’s obviously impossible to separate the character from the Rhodes lineage, but it’s good heel motivation coming out of a brother/brother tag team, and this all should culminate in the Rhodes vs. Rhodes match that Goldust has been rather open about wanting to retire on.

Dusty looked (and is) old, but still acquits himself rather well. That’s less true of his lifetime rival Ric Flair, who surprised Triple H mid-speech to remind him that Sting, ancient old man or not, is still Sting and needs to be respected. Flair sounded drunk, but getting drunk and talking about his glory days is pretty much his job now, so he did well enough that Triple H shoving him on his ass felt sad because The Game was disrespecting a legend he openly admires, not because Flair’s condition continues to darken his legacy. Fallout from Sting’s debut at Survivor Series continues to be the theme heading into Fastlane, as Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins seem to be moving into a singles program. Rollins’ promo, unnecessary though it was, signaled that he is being shifted away from the WWE Championship for the time being to focus on the Zigglers, Rybacks, and Rowans of the card. Ziggler continues to be an unconvincing babyface on the microphone, (I’m not interested in white meat, I guess) but an incredible one in the ring. The match between Rollins and Ziggler was good. Not up to the pace they established at Survivor Series, but a good teaser for what the two should be able to do without distraction. They’ll wrestle on SmackDown! in this week’s Raw rematch, though another contest at Fastlane (and perhaps another at WrestleMania) isn’t out of the question.

Beyond Rollins/Ziggler and the main event between Big Show and Daniel Bryan, most of the wrestling on Raw this week as an afterthought. Even a singles match between Dean Ambrose and Luke Harper, while solid, existed more to set-up a later contest than to tell its own story. There were plenty of good spots, but Harper is wandering aimlessly at the moment, and WWE doesn’t do a very good job of protecting big dudes who aren’t in an active storyline. Harper lost clean to Ambrose to establish Ambrose’s credentials against current Intercontinental Champion Bad News Barrett, who beat Damien Mizdow in a match that nudged forward the issue between Mizdow and The Miz. Barrett was fantastic when Ambrose ziptied him to the ringpost and forced him to sign the contract, screaming for a knife to cut himself free and how it wasn’t his signature on the sheet and that the contract wasn’t legal. Had they cut bait on a weird skit where Ambrose “auditioned for Weekend Update,” announcing that he’d make Barrett sign the contract, everything on this front would have been great. Barrett is an effective heel, and, well, if Ambrose is going to be a goofy dude whose popularity the writing team doesn’t understand or know how to harness, he’s best when his goofiness is channeled through a bit of menace, rather than a bad suit. The Intercontinental Championship is always on the verge of meaning something. What matters more than Barrett vs. Ambrose at Fastlane is whether or not the issue continues to build, or if the title reverts to its usual miserable pattern, where the champion loses every non-title match until he is required to defend the title.

The confrontation that will set up Sting vs. Triple H at WrestleMania is an important part of Fastlane. Bray Wyatt’s continued promos that are (vaguely) about The Undertaker (this week he hammered some nails into a coffin) continue to be important. Those are two of the marquee matches at WrestleMania. They are happening. There is no turning back. Less certain is the fate of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, currently held by Brock Lesnar. He’ll be there, defending, but his opponent is yet to be decided. Roman Reigns earned a shot by virtue of winning the Royal Rumble. Daniel Bryan feels that he deserves one because he was stripped of the championship in 2014 without having lost it and, as he points out, made only one fewer defense of the championship. Reigns wrestled Kane and Bryan wrestled Big Show, but the matches and results were secondary to the simmering issue between the two men, which threatens to boil over into something personal in the main event of Fastlane. After an interview where Reigns questioned the manhood of Bryan for going about a championship match by asking for one instead of earning it, Bryan came to ringside for Reigns match and participated on commentary, where he did a very good job of making clear how slighted he felt by Reigns’ assessment of the situation. He thought there was mutual respect between the two, but there clearly wasn’t. When Reigns had an advantage over Kane, Bryan would stand and lead the Orlando crowd in a YES! chant, which succeeded in distracting his man. Reigns won the match, but not in his usual dominant fashion, and Bryan would later say that, if he wants to beat him, Reigns had better get used to the crowd being in Daniel Bryan’s pocket. During the main event match between Big Show and Bryan, Reigns sat at ringside and watched (he didn’t join the commentary team, for good reason). Reigns took to the crowd, signing autographs and giving away t-shirts, and this caused Daniel Bryan no end of distraction. An exchange near the announce table led Big Show to spear Reigns, who would recover and hit Show with the Superman Punch with Daniel Bryan perched on the top rope for a missile dropkick. With the match over, Bryan would instead hit Reigns with the dropkick, sparking a brawl that closed the show.

This sequence was fantastic, a sprint around the ring and through the crowd that ended in a pull-apart with Reigns bleeding from the mouth and Bryan seething. Initially it looked as though they were going to do with Roman Reigns what they did with Batista last year, turning the hand-chosen WrestleMania main event guy into a heel due to the overwhelming popularity of Daniel Bryan, but this year is much more vague than last. Batista was universally despised from the moment it was clear that Daniel Bryan was not in the Royal Rumble, but Reigns plays pretty well in all but the hottest towns in wrestling. And where Batista had little reason to respect Bryan, Reigns has some respect for the former champion, not only for his in-ring accomplishments and what history they had together when The Shield clashed with Team Hell No, but for his resilience in the face of a career ending injury. But both men want to fight Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, and it doesn’t look like there will be an opening for a third man in the main event, so that respect had to give way towards animosity with so much on the line. Daniel Bryan is a master at his craft, so the reemergence of his pre-rise mean streak has been subtle and brilliant. The wrinkle that they’ve added to Reigns’ story, that he’s trying to accomplish something not even the most legendary member of his family could achieve, is the most compelling angle Reigns has had since The Shield folded, and has managed to find some interesting space here, too (the t-shirts he was throwing to the crowd were Uso shirts, after all). What initially seemed like a capitulation on the part of WWE in the face of post-Royal Rumble fan revolt has turned into their best story since the SummerSlam domination of John Cena. The match at Fastlane will be telling in Reigns’ ability to become what the WWE so obviously wants him to be, but for now, the table is set. Sunday night will be an interesting one for a number of reasons, none moreso than this. For the WWE to pull itself out of the rut it has so clearly been stuck in since September, Fastlane is going to need to be that rare February pay-per-view that’s more about wrestling than WrestleMania. For once, the uncertainty surrounding a pay-per-view event feels like a good omen.

Results
1. Dean Ambrose def. Luke Harper via pinfall. GRADE: B-
2. The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods w/Big E) def. Goldust and Stardust via pinfall. GRADE: C+
3. Roman Reigns def. Kane via count out. GRADE: C
4. Paige def. Summer Rae via pinfall. GRADE: C-
5. Dolph Zigger def. Seth Rollins via disqualification when J&J Security interfered. GRADE: B
6. Darren Young & Local Talent vs. The Ascension never officially started. GRADE: N/A
7. Bad News Barrett def. Damien Mizdow (w/The Miz) via pinfall. GRADE: C
8. Jimmy Uso & Naomi (w/Jey Uso) def. Tyson Kidd & Natalya (w/Cesaro) via pinfall. GRADE: C+
9. The Big Show def. Daniel Bryan via disqualification when Roman Reigns interfered. GRADE: B-
February 17, 2015
Wrestling Review: NXT Takeover: Rival (2/12/2015)
When Roman Reigns won the 2015 Royal Rumble and #CancelWWENetwork trended worldwide on Twitter, there seemed to be this hitch in the sentiment, a slight hesitation: There would be a new live NXT special, and it would feature Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens reprising a feud that, for many, ranks as the best in the history of the independents. More than CM Punk’s tumultuous rise and fall, and more than Daniel Bryan’s ascendence to the top of the card, the story of Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens is the most unexpected development in recent WWE history—that a skinnyfat (to steal a line) French Canadian who used to work under a mask and a normalfat French Canadian wrestling in basketball shorts and a tanktop would be deemed “the future of this business” by no less a scion than Triple H, and after the pair had been deemed worthless by former Ring of Honor booker Jim Cornette for being too indie for the most indie of indie feds, is truly incomprehensible. Those who were hoping for this generation’s Guerrero/Benoit WrestleMania XX moment from Punk and Bryan, some verification that the “wrestling” in World Wrestling Entertainment is of ultimate importance, were putting too much weight on what is ultimately an overblown pop-culture novelty that places more emphasis on Mania than anything else. Whatever book that gets written about Triple H’s “book that never ends” begins here, in the only environ that’s more constructed than WrestleMania, The NXT Arena at Full Sail University. If this is the future, then the WWE is in awfully good shape.

Beyond Lucha Underground, there is no televised wrestling show that is more competently, completely booked than NXT. NXT Takeover: Rival featured five matches, and all five of them, regardless of their quality, had a reason for being on that show. Hideo Itami and Tyler Breeze, who opened the show, were in something of a battle of runner-ups in the NXT Championship #1 Contender’s Tournament. Baron Corbin and Bull Dempsey have been bullying each other for awhile now in an effort to establish themselves as the baddest big man in town. The Lucha Dragons were trying to avenge an upset loss of their NXT Tag Team Championships to the upstart tandem of Team Thick. And then there were the co-main events, a fatal four way for the NXT Women’s Championship and a one-on-one contest between Zayn and Owens for the NXT Title. Both feuds have long, extensive histories behind them, equally impressive in terms of what NXT’s writers are willing to do both with extra-WWE history (Zayn and Owens) and a women’s division whose championship feuds aren’t contested largely on grounds of petty jealousy, body-shaming, or the “bitches be crazy” mode of storytelling that is, depressingly, the one button the team writing Raw and SmackDown! know how to push. On “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast, Triple H said that writing that third hour of Raw is the most difficult creative task in WWE. While I hardly think that cutting that hour would fix all the problems, the NXT Takeover specials have proven to be a model for the kind of storytelling a compressed timeframe necessitates. With no time for a 30-minute speech to set up the night’s events, we’re given a dramatic recap video that’s as good as anything produced for the main event feuds on the main shows, our hellos from the announce team (Rich Brennan, Corey Graves, and Jason Albert), and head straight for the ring.

The first contest will likely be the least buzzed about in the months that follow, but Hideo Itami vs. Tyler Breeze is proof that the NXT system is working in more ways than one, both in developing “WWE guys” (Breeze) and in working out the kinks of wrestlers who are coming in from different systems (Itami). Hideo Itami was one of the most respected professional wrestlers in Japan, where he competed as KENTA, but his initial transition to the WWE and its in-ring style has been somewhat of a non-starter. His debut was the platform from which Finn Bálor launched himself, and, beyond a few flashes of brilliance, he’s yet to really have a signature match. Of the group including him, Bálor, Adrien Neville, Sami Zayn, and Kevin Owens, Itami faces the hardest transition, both in terms of style and culture. As for Breeze, he was the star of the main event of NXT Takeover: Fatal Four-Way, but saw his position on the card slip as more renowned talent from the independents and Japan made their debuts. He’s a tremendous talent who works his gimmick (“part man/all model” as the theme song goes) so well that it would actually be a shame to see him transition over to Raw, where 15,000 fans and three disinterested announcers wouldn’t give it the time of day. Here in NXT, things like a fuzzy selfie stick and a screaming ladyfan getting too grabby are worthwhile touches to an already masterful piece of characterwork. Itami tries to start out by kicking the pretty out of Breeze in retaliation for an attack backstage, but Breeze maneuvers his way behind the referee and uses that diversion to take advantage early. Avoiding Itami’s kicks is Breeze’s angle here, but he can’t hope to do so as Itami is at least as quick as Prince Pretty, if not quicker. Before long, Itami has Breeze on the mat and lights him up with a scintillating kick to the chest—either Itami is putting extra oomph into them in his first live singles match or he’s figured out how to slap his knee, as is the fashion. Whatever. Some things are still magic to me. The sound of flesh slapping on flesh, for instance. Breeze, meanwhile, does a superhuman job of selling those kicks and Itami’s momentum. His character has also undergone a very subtle change in ring, moving from a psychological need to preserve his looks to a desire to finally clinch the NXT championship. As such, his wrestling is much meaner than it used to be, the way he takes advantage more wily than in the past. Hideo Itami has more experience than Tyler Breeze, but Breeze has more experience in the WWE style, which, in NXT, is paramount. The resulting match isn’t a clash of two styles, but a story of one hugely hyped international prospect finally figuring out the learning curve against a guy who feels like he’s been looked over in favor of shiny new signings. That’s a solid foundation for a wrestling match, and what they build on top of it is really quite impressive.

The rest of the first half is not good. NXT is frequently great, but it is still an extension of WWE’s development program, an effort to get their young workers camera ready while simulating the pressure of a main roster show. Some guys, like Bull Dempsey, are competent enough but just have nothing going for them. Others, like Baron Corbin, have a long way to go before they’re camera-ready, but are there because of their size. Dempsey was formerly the bully of the roster, taking down chumps left and right in “impressive” fashion, but then Baron Corbin hit the scene with his height, his ability to brood, and a fake biker/wolfman aesthetic, and now its his job to beat people in less than a minute. That got Dempsey envious enough to cost Corbin in the #1 Contender’s Tournament after two decisive losses, setting up this no-disqualification match. Corbin is terrible, pretty much all size, so it’s on Dempsey to lead the match. He does a capable job until its Corbin’s turn to take over, blowing a spot so badly that the happy-go-lucky, mostly self-involved NXT Universe actually boo them. Corbin can barely lift Dempsey for his finishing move, The End of Days, which, in addition to being a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, is also a terrible-looking thing to do in a wrestling ring. Following that is a match for the NXT Tag Team Championships between The Lucha Dragons, who have the worst official tag team name in wrestling, and Buddy Murphy and Wesley Blake, who, having once been called “Team Thick,” have the worst unofficial tag team name in wrestling. Kalisto and Sin Cara, the Dragons, are both capable high fliers, but both men are off tonight, and Murphy and Blake—two ex-cowboys who retired their cowboy hats when they heard about this new dubstep thing everybody seems to like—aren’t able to help them. The two teams keep exchanging moves, reversals, and blown, awkward spots with one another until it’s over. I can’t tell if the two teams were working too fast or if they were trying to work to fast and just couldn’t hit the pace they were looking for, but there was very little to like about this beyond the closing sequence. If there’s one thing that’s consistent across every WWE brand, it’s the irrelevance of the tag team division. Whether or not they’re able to build something around these two teams remains to be seen.

After that, though, this NXT Takeover special is hot fire for about 90 minutes. It never stops. It never lets up. The first contest is simplicity itself, a match to determine who the next challenger for the NXT Championship will be. Finn Bálor and Adrian Neville went through an eight-man single elimination tournament to get here. They also have a history against each other in Japan and bring an extensive knowledge of each other’s game with them to the NXT arena.Kevin Owens weaseled his way into a championship match, but after him there were no clear contenders. Neville had his chance to regain the gold. Bálor, like Owens, is too new to the scene to demand that he has a shot. But the tournament has established that the two are in a different class. Better than Baron Corbin. More “ready” than Hideo Itami. The NXT Championship feels like one of the most important titles in wrestling because of simple, effective storytelling like this, an undercard that is constantly gunning to be the top man on the best wrestling show in North America. On the live specials, Bálor takes it to the next level with his entrance, putting on body paint and Predator dreads and really soaking in the adulation of the crowd. It worked really well in New Japan Pro Wrestling and will probably work really well on WWE pay-per-views, but his special entrance really makes the arena look small, and, in front of the same people who see it every few weeks or so, less special than it should be. I was more into the show Adrian Neville made of putting in his mouthguard, even if mouthguards are, like protective cups, the antithesis of professional wrestling. The two really take their time in building this match up from its entrances to its finish. At first, much is made about how both are wrestling a slower match than anticipated, as both are known for their flying finishing moves, but it’s not so much a “race to the top rope” as it is a test of will an conditioning. Bálor actually hits a double stomp to the back of Neville’s head really early, a killing blow in most matches, but not all plans are fated for success. Once Neville hits one of his big moves (a corkscrew splash from the second turnbuckle, which is unreal), he shows his frustration by taking out his mouthguard and hurling it to the canvas. But that lets Bálor get back into the match with a slingblade clothesline (to the mouth!), which is why you wear your mouthguard. Nice bit of in-match storytelling. The finishing sequence is absolutely breathtaking, with Bálor countering the Red Arrow with knees to the gut, which he transitions into a small package. Bálor follows with his dropkick into the corner, which is being built as the dropkick to end all dropkicks, and crushes Neville with a double stomp to the gut. If this match is indicative of what it means to be in line for a shot at the NXT Championship, then it follows that any match for the NXT Championship should/must be better. In a WWE ring, though, it doesn’t get much better.

The NXT Women’s Championship match was built entirely upon in-WWE history, a fairly complex weaving of characters and storylines that is unlike anything the company has ever done with any permutation of a women’s championship. On Raw and SmackDown!, feuds for the Diva’s Championship, a hideous panoply of rhinestones and butterflies and reproductive organs, feuds are normally based on looks (“Look at Mickie James—she is so fat!” or “I don’t look like a typical diva, so I’m better than all of them!”), romantic ties to men, or the “bitches be crazy” school of thinking that it’s tempting to say that the people in charge of that show, despite the strong game they talk about having strong female role models, don’t see women as individuals worthy of much attention. I remember when the women’s spot at WrestleMania 29 was cut, the argument being “Well, would you have a Bella Twins match at WrestleMania at the expense of seven or eight minutes of John Cena vs. The Rock?” Maybe not, but there’s probably always room for women’s wrestling on a card that features a mini-concert by Puff Daddy. That’s how women are treated on the WWE cards that everybody sees. In NXT, they get this rich tapestry where the Women’s Championship is about on par with the NXT Championship. Charlotte, the daughter of Ric Flair, is the dominant champion of the division. Sasha Banks has been nipping at her heels since the dissolution of their stable, gaining confidence in herself (and her character) with the passage of time. Becky Lynch joined up with Sasha Banks, feeling that she needed a change of attitude in order to be successful, but isn’t the obedient foot soldier Banks demands. Bayley, having come up short in her effort to capture the championship, has realized that success is more important than being friends with people who constantly take advantage of her, and has been more aggressive in chasing her dream without compromising who she is. She’s the dark horse in this match, talking about “having her Sami Zayn moment” where she redeems herself by finally winning the big one, and she has something of a Sami Zayn moment in this match when she slides under the turnbuckles to land a kick on Becky Lynch. Before that, though, there’s a lot of storytelling to get through. Lynch and Banks team up, dividing and conquering Bayley and Charlotte. They eliminate Charlotte from the match for awhile by throwing her into the side of the ring, where one of the dumb LED panels that have no place on a wrestling ring blinks off to signify how brutal the impact was. I’m not a fan of that kind of stuff. Wrestlers are good enough at selling pain to do it without special effects. But it’s a minor thing, because Charlotte gets back into the match without the usual big production of ringside physicians and stretchers and all that.

This is a very good match, full of impressive double and triple team moves that look brutal. Bayley, whose character has always grated on me, was particularly impressive. There was a Fatal Four Way match on an earlier NXT Takeover special where Tyler Breeze, goofy supermodel, surprised a lot of people by being the star of the match. That’s where I was here with Bayley, person who likes to hug everybody. She doesn’t wrestle mean (like Breeze did), but she wrestles like she’s determined to win, less for the fans and more for her. It’s this nice, subtle character arc that should pay off even bigger in a singles match. But the story here is Sasha Banks, who has been blowaway fantastic, and her quest to prove that she is better than Charlotte, who is probably the best product yet produced entirely by the WWE Performance Center. Charlotte is wrestling from behind after getting thrown against the ring, humanizing her somewhat, and the element of chaos added by two other competitors is too much for her. Sasha Banks is never without a plan, zeroing in on Charlotte’s ribs, making it hard for the champion to breathe. When the crossface she has Charlotte in doesn’t work and she finds the champ inching towards the ropes to break the hold, she’s got enough faith in the damage she’s done to transition her submission into a roll-up, which secures the victory. It’s this big, emotional moment for Banks, showing that the seemingly evil “Bo$$” of NXT has a heart, but she largely proved her point, beating the champion and her two top contenders in one fell swoop. She shoos away Charlotte after the former champion hugs her, less interested in a supposed passing of the torch than she is in relishing in her moment. This is the best women’s match on a WWE show since the division was largely imported talent from Japan. It’s also either the best fatal four way match or second best depending on how you feel about the other NXT go at this format, which is usually a boring, convoluted mess. There has always been the potential for a good story here. Finally, away from the bright(er) lights and big(ger) arenas of the WWE’s touring act, they’ve figured out how to tell them.

The main event, too, has a nice story to it, both in the way WWE is telling it (fourteen years of friendship for nothing) and in the reality of the situation, which is that Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have been inextricably linked throughout their professional lives as partners and as rivals. Even without that past history in the mind, the story leading up to this match made it clear that it was going to be unlike any Sami Zayn match thus far, that all of the fun of his rise was out the window, and that his post as the defender of NXT from the likes of Curtis Axel and Titus O’Neil was all for naught, as Kevin Owens doesn’t care about fun and he doesn’t care about NXT. He’s such a weird, engaging presence as a heel on this program, as he says that he’s been working his entire life to get to this point and that winning the championship means a better life for his wife and children. It’s Sami in the promo videos who sounds like the bad guy, saying that Kevin “changed” when he got married. But in the ring, Owens is a brutalizer, a man whose only desire is to punish whoever is set in front of him, and if it’s a guy who he figures bailed on their plans to make it into WWE together, so much the better. Owens is, in an odd way, being built as the Brock Lesnar of NXT. A cold, relentless throwback to an era that would have laughed at the concept of “sports entertainment.” Here’s a dude who nearly had his nose shoved into his brain in his debut match, who still has that scar, who looks like he wouldn’t mind bleeding some more. He should be set across from Bruiser Brody or Terry Funk or Abdullah the Butcher, but he’s there with Sami Zayn, god help the poor champion, with fourteen years of history and fourteen years of being told that the WWE wouldn’t want a chubby dude in basketball shorts and a tank top.

The announce team compares this match early to the tone of John Cena and Brock Lesnar’s main event at SummerSlam, as it’s all Owens dominating Zayn. But where Lesnar took Cena apart piece by piece, suplex by suplex, there was nothing personal about it. Even with their history, Lesnar was just there to win a title and sit upon his throne of human skulls. Owens takes it to Zayn with strikes. Punches. Kicks. Chops that issue with the concussive force of a shotgun blast. Zayn is the absolute best in the world when it comes to selling, so even Owens’ most basic stuff seems deadly. When he cranks it up, man, it’s like nothing I’ve seen in the WWE in years, even in a Brock Lesnar match. With Lesnar, it’s a matter-of-fact brutality, a neanderthal man overwhelming his opponent through sheer natural ability. Kevin Owens, on the other hand, learned how to be this way, how to turn his girth and his ambition and his spite into weapons. Brock Lesnar is a hateful man. Kevin Owens has hate in his heart. And Sami Zayn isn’t John Cena, who is himself a test-tube freak. Zayn fought and bled and sweat for fourteen years, too, only his experience made him resilient. It taught him to love wrestling and the people who love it. It makes these two perfect foils, Owens as the monstrous bully and Zayn as the heartbroken babyface who refuses to die as a personal point of pride. All Zayn needs is an opening and he can catch Owens with his suplexes and kicks, which are too fast for anybody to stop. Zayn’s offense, to that point, is beautiful. There’s a Rey Mysterio Jr. over-the-referee dive to the outside, a slower, meaner Blue Thunder Bomb, big suplexes. Every time he counters one of Owens’ bombs or kicks out, it feels huge. But he is the victim of circumstance, banging his head on the entrance ramp after catching Owens with a springboard moonsault. Zayn, from that point, is (storyline) concussed. He loses his footing going for a clinching Helluva Kick, and Owens takes over. He is not shy about punching his defenseless “friend” in the head as many times as it takes, nor does he spare him any powerbombs. But Zayn keeps kicking out, won’t quit. Doctors come to the ring to check on Zayn, but it’s Owens who wants to end the match, so he keeps powerbombing Zayn until the referee calls for the bell, stopping the match on account of the champion’s inability to defend himself.

I often find myself unable to engage with NXT as much as I would like. The wrestling is great, world-beating even, and the storylines and writing are frequently so good that it’s hard to believe that the same company behind NXT does such a poor job with Raw and SmackDown! for roughly three-quarters of the calendar year, but I am, generally speaking, not for the “bubble universe” that filming shows in the same venue every single show engenders on a globally-televised product. It’s easy to tell when a crowd that has sat through four tapings of wrestling has become tired and cranky, sick of even their own inside jokes, and when an audience cheers for everything, it’s hard to get an idea of what will actually work on the main WWE stage. The live specials mitigate that somewhat, though chanting things like “HUG IT OUT” at Finn Bálor and Adrian Neville during a tense post-match showdown, or “Z-PAK” while doctors are checking Sami Zayn for a concussion makes me wonder if the people who get to see this stuff live are there for the wrestling or if they are Smart Internet Fans Who Listen to Podcasts and are there just to chant. I want NXT to tour in the worst way. I think that’s the next phase of this experiment, to test out how a guy like Sami Zayn will do in Iowa or North Dakota, where there are independent wrestling fans but not an arena full of them, all in a constant state of orgasm. When I watch NXT, I’m watching to see if these supremely talented men and women can rise above an audience trying its damnedest to turn every match into an instant classic, or if the studio audience is something of a crutch. NXT Takeover: Rival was an event where the majority of the card rose above the noise which so frequently reminds me that, in 2015, it is not possible to watch wrestling without also watching how others watch wrestling. With the exception of two very underwhelming matches, Rival was an instant classic show from the opening bell, capped by a match that rose to the challenge of meeting and exceeding not only a long, storied history of contests between its participants, but by a year that is already heavy with great professional wrestling. Those Smart Internet Fans reacted to Kevin Owens destroying Sami Zayn and the NXT Universe as if they had just seen The Undertaker lose at WrestleMania. People were crying. And Kevin Owens, once told that he didn’t fit the mould, stifled his own tears long enough to hold his newly won championship triumphantly over the corpse of a man he called a friend. Wrestling, especially at its most brutal, is beautiful.

Results
1. Hideo Itami def. Tyler Breeze via pinfall. Grade: B+
2. No Disqualification Match: Baron Corbin def. Bull Dempsey via pinfall. Grade: C-
3. NXT Tag Team Championships: Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy (champions) def. The Lucha Dragons (Sin Cara and Kalisto) via pinfall. Grade: C-
4. Finals of the Tournament to Decide the #1 Contender for the NXT Championship: Finn Bálor def. Adrian Neville via pinfall. GRADE: A
5. NXT Women’s Championship: Sasha Banks def. Charlotte (champion), Bayley, and Becky Lynch via pinfall to win the championship. GRADE: A
6. NXT Championship: Kevin Owens def. Sami Zayn (champion) via referee’s decision to win the championship. GRADE: A+
February 16, 2015
Wrestling Review: NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 (1/4/15)

I’ve dabbled in New Japan Pro Wrestling since the dawn of streaming video websites. Though nobody who documents the internet will give credit where its due, the success of sites like YouTube and Dailymotion, at least back when the Internet was the Wild West, had at least a little to do with the sheer amount of Japanese professional wrestling uploaded to those services, thirty years of content long relegated to video tapes and DVDs swapped endlessly through the mail now available to anybody with a working connection and a little bit of patience. Japanese wrestling promotions like NJPW and NOAH were slow to capitalize on American demand for their product, which is fair considering how most acquired access to it illegally—hardly how one wants to gauge a potential audience—but now, as NJPW is in the middle of a ridiculously successful period, the proliferation of online streaming technology has made it possible not only for the promotion to launch their own WWE Network-like online site, but for nebulous, ill-defined groups like Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling to offer English-speaking fans a chance to watch the show with the benefit of an English broadcast. NJPW is reaching out with Wrestle Kingdom 9, and it’ll be very interesting to see how their first real foray into the American market fares.

I’m hardly a Japanophile—pretty much all of the Japanese I know is actually English words for wrestling maneuvers, made Japanese through pronunciation—but I’ve always liked the Japanese broadcasts. Though I can’t understand much of what is being said, wrestling itself is a universal language, and the story the announcers are telling is modulated through the way they yell for big spots or get really quiet when a popular grappler appears to be fading in a submission move. But Global Force Wrestling’s big card was the signing of WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross to serve as play-by-play for the event, and Ross is a favorite of mine, really my idol given my brief stint in the industry. Of less interest (really a detriment, if you ask me) was their bringing in Matt Striker, a former WWE color commentator, to serve as Ross’ second. Striker has always been an annoyance, a dude who makes up facts and hideous nicknames and talks over the other announcers, usually while slipping in bits and pieces of lame right-wing propaganda to his commentary, but he somehow has a cult following among folks who’ve grown tired of the Michael Cole/JBL/Jerry Lawler desk and he’s good enough at feigning knowledge, so he’s here to lead the audience of supposed newbies through their first NJPW show.

This is the broadcast I’ve chosen to go with. NJPW will soon be debuting a television show in the United States, and this version of Wrestle Kingdom 9, I figure, is a good preview for how that show will be presented. The footage I was able to procure is without the pre-show battle royal (a shame, because I’d love to hear Jim Ross call The Great Kabuki in 2015) and the opening ceremonies of the event. If I am able to get that footage later, I’ll be sure to add it to this post, which, I’ll warn you right now, is going to run long. Pack a lunch, folks.

IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP: ReDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish, champions) def. The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson), Forever Hooligans (Alex Kozlov and Rocky Romero), and Time Splitters (Alex Shelly and KUSHIDA) via pinfall. GRADE: B.

The first match is a four team sprint for the most exciting championship in professional wrestling, and features four of the best tag teams in the world today. The Young Bucks are probably the most popular tag team on the American independent scene. ReDRagon are one of the best elements of Ring of Honor, a pairing that completely redefined what most thought of O’Reilly and Fish. Time Splitters and Forever Hooligans are both former champions and perennial contenders for these titles. The only man team in the match at a potential disadvantage here is the Time Splitters, as KUSHIDA doesn’t travel to the United States with his partner Alex Shelly, and thus hasn’t seen as much of ReDRagon as the Young Bucks, Forever Hooligans (who spent a little time in ROH over the past two years), and Shelly. During introductions, Matt Striker says that the Young Bucks have “only” been wrestling 10 or 11 years but are “already” revolutionizing tag team wrestling, which is weird. He also says that the Forever Hooligans are great, communism aside. Ugh. Jim Ross says that, as an old Oakie, he’s going to stick with calling the International Wrestling Grand Prix (the fake governing body of NJPW’s championships) just plain ol’ IWGP. That’s what everybody does, so it’s okay, Jim.

Right away, it’s kind of cool to hear Jim Ross and Matt Striker talking about Ring of Honor. It brings back the idea of wrestling as a global entertainment, which was something frequently emphasized by all of the major American wrestling promotions during different times in the 1990s. WCW in particular worked in tandem with NJPW frequently, mentioning results from “Egg Dome” shows and allowing their championships to be defended on huge New Japan cards, tracing back a lot of their Cruiserweight Championship lineage to their “When Worlds Collide” show from AAA in Mexico. ROH and NJPW have a much younger working relationship (ROH used to work with NOAH, when that was the promotion ROH’s fans preferred), but ReDRagon holding the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight and ROH World Tag Team Championships makes them the best pound-for-pound team in the world according to Striker and Ross, and that’s hard to argue. Also hard to argue: Bobby Fish has the best facial hair in professional wrestling.

KUSHIDA starts off against Bobby Fish. Normal tag team rules apply, first team to score a pinfall or a submission win the titles. KUSHIDA begins by outwrestling Bobby Fish, his MMA background and quickness allowing him to outmaneuver Fish’s technical wrestling ability. The two go for dropkicks at the same time and KUSHIDA is back to his feet first, so his second dropkick connects. That brings in Kyle O’Reilly, who comes in without a tag. This confuses Ross a little, as the referee doesn’t seem to care too much, and Striker says that “wrestling is what triumphs,” which, I guess, means you can do whatever you want so long as you’re wrestling. The referee is motioning to the corner, telling O’Reilly to get out of there, but whatever. O’Reilly kicks KUSHIDA into the ropes and whips him across, but Shelly has tagged in without the champion noticing. Shelly punches him in the gut and KUSHIDA follows up with a knee strike to the side of the head.

That brings the Young Bucks in, and the Bullet Club members quickly go to the eyes of Shelly and Kushida, give each other nWo too sweets, give the Time Splitters the DX crotch chop, and are promptly back body dropped out of the ring. Shelly goes back to Fish, wrings the arm and tags in KUSHIDA. He wrings the arm and tags in Shelly, who wrings the arm and tags in KUSHIDA, and they are officially SPLITTING TIME. Or Bobby Fish’s arm. Fish gets tired of that business and shoves KUSHIDA into Shelly, knocking Shelly off the apron onto the floor. Fish whips KUSHIDA into the ropes. Alex Kozlov tags in off the whip. Fish goes down for a back body drop and gets kicked in the mush by KUSHIDA, who goes to follow up but is sent out of the ring by the referee, who looks to make up for earlier by being overzealous on the tag, which he saw, and which matters because tagging in and out is a part of tag team wrestling, which is what triumphs.

Kozlov ducks a strike by Fish and runs off the ropes. Fish goes for a side slam but Kozlov’s momentum allows him to catch the champion in a spinning head scissors. Kozlov scores with a dropkick and calls for his Cossack hat, which he puts on so that he can dance around the ring, kicking Fish in the head. Oh yes. He double stomps Fish’s head to the ground and goes for the cover on Fish, who has been in the ring for a long time now, but Fish kicks out at two. Kozlov ends up in ReDRagon’s corner and can’t fight his way out. Fish sneaks to the outside and sweeps Kozlov’s leg, which allows O’Reilly to drop a knee on him. Ross, noticing the lack of a tag, brings up that old announcer standby of maybe having two referees out there to keep track of things like tags, and that’s one of my favorite announcer suggestions, so I’ll let it stand. The referee, for his part, is like, “Oh, hey, Kyle O’Reilly, did you make the tag?” and O’Reilly is like “Whatever, dad” before kicking Kozlov in the back and wagging his finger at the world, so he is now the legal man, at least until he tags Fish back in, negating his unfairly gained advantage.

Fish runs off the ropes and dives at Kozlov, hitting him with a flying double forearm and landing with an impact that sounds like a cannon being fired in an arena. He hooks Kozlov’s leg on the cover and gets a near fall. Alex Shelly keeps coming in to break up the pinfall, which hasn’t needed breaking up, and this is what has the referee so distracted. O’Reilly picks Kozlov off but gets punched. This sends him staggering into the corner of Matt and Nick Jackson, who both tag in. This is illegal and they know it, but they’re in the Bullet Club and are thus not nice people, so they get into the ring at the same time and clear the apron of the other five men in the match. They aren’t just innovative, according to Matt Striker. They’re “uniquely innovative.”

The Bucks are alone in the ring with Alex Kozlov. They go for a double team back suplex, but Kozlov lands on his feet. He fights one out of the ring, but that allows him to get tripped up as he runs at the other. Matt Jackson holds Kozlov on the outside while Nick runs at him, but Kozlov ducks, and the kick meant for him smacks off the face of Matt Jackson. Kozlov gets back into the ring and tries to tag out, but Nick Jackson keeps him out of a corner. Kozlov ducks a spinning roundhouse kick but runs into a back elbow. Nick goes for a superkick, but Kozlov moves and ends up hitting a spinning kick of his own! Kozlov tags out to Rocky Romero, who hits a springboard dropkick on an encroaching ReDRagon. He tries to kick Nick Jackson in the gut, but Jackson catches the leg. Romero misses an enziguri but recovers to kick Jackson in the face anyhow. With four men in four turnbuckles, Romero begins charging around the ring like a raging bull, hitting a series of clotheslines in succession. Just when the Young Bucks think they’ve escaped Romero’s clothesline fury, they’re caught with a double clothesline that has both of them spun inside out! Romero and Kozlov are in the ring now and do some double team work on Matt Jackson, who kness out of a double suplex attempt. KUSHIDA tags himself into the match and clears the ring of his opposition, rallying the fans behind the Time Splitters.

Romero tries to attack KUSHIDA but is sent over the top rope. KUSHIDA directs traffic, and Alex Shelly leaps off the apron with a knee strike to Romero. Time Splitters have the advantage as everything breaks down, with Shelly outside the ring hitting a superkick. KUSHIDA looks to start a dive but is stopped by Rocky Romero, who finishes KUSHIDA’s thought by diving onto Shelly and O’Reilly. His partner Alex Kozlov soon follows with a tope con hilo onto the pile. Matt Jackson dives through the ropes and dropkicks everybody but skins the cat, showing off his athletic ability while his brother dives over him with a corkscrew plancha to the floor. Striker mentions how innovative the Young Bucks are for the seventh or eighth time, bringing WWE-style overstatement to the Tokyo Dome at last. KUSHIDA finally gets to dive now, going Swanton off the top rope and to the floor. Legal man no longer matters as the Time Splitters work over the Young Bucks. Their Outta Time neckbreaker/moonsault combination gets a two count before it is broken up, so they go into their double team routine. Forever Hooligans break this up initiating a sequence of strikes that ends up with the Young Bucks throwing superkicks around. Matt saves Nick from a doomsday device, but not for long as Shelly and Kozlov join up, just this once, to put the Bucks down. They put the brothers up on their shoulders as Alex Kozlov flies off for a double clothesline, which connects, but the Bucks land on their feet! Superkicks all around, and then the Bucks hit the Meltzer Driver!

That gets a two count, as everybody is in to break it up. Lots of bodies in the ring now as Fish and O’Reilly try in vain to slow things down. They get a handspring back elbow from KUSHIDA for their trouble, and he gets a double superkick for his. The Bucks go for their More Back For Your Buck finish, but ReDRagon break it up, and Kyle O’Reilly officially tags in. He and Fish take over on Alex Shelly, hitting a backbreaker/knee drop combination, then a double arm DDT/wheelbarrow suplex combo. Fish executes a top rope falcon arrow. O’Reilly picks Kozlov up for a suplex but gets small packaged for a two. O’Reilly gets some payback with a couple of hard strikes on Kozlov, who is quickly taken over with a Bobby Fish exploder suplex. O’Reilly picks Kozlov up into suplex position and Fish kicks the Hooligan in the back of the head before his partner finishes with a brainbuster. That’s their finisher, and Alex Shelly is too late jumping into the ring to break it up.

A great match in terms of the number of cool-looking sequences, but that’s really all this was. The Jr. Heavyweight tag team division is used here to establish a quick pace and up-beat mood for these big shows, and that’s perfectly fine. I prefer matches to have something more going for them then just moves, but that’s probably just me.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, and Tomoki Honma def. Jeff Jarrett, Bad Luck Fale, and Yujiro Takahashi via pinfall. GRADE: C.

I groaned mightily when old bro Jeff Jarrett, wrestling cockroach, debuted in New Japan as part of the reformulated Bullet Club, which needed Double J and AJ Styles to compensate for Fergal Devitt’s departure for World Wrestling Entertainment. His sad sack TNA entrance music plays, which is at least better than Kid Rock’s “Cowboy,” or any number of mock country & western shitkickers he was saddled with a dog’s age ago. I guess Scott D’Amore is also in Bullet Club. He must have bought his Bullet Club blazer from Pro Wrestling Tees. Bad Luck Fale is a big ol’ Tongan, which wrestling doesn’t have enough of in 2014, and Takahashi is a dirtier, Japanese Val Venis, which rules.

Their opponents are a crew of New Japan stalwarts. Tenzan was my least favorite NJPW representative who frequently moonlighted in WCW as a member of nWo Japan, but I was a dumb child, so what did I know. Kojima has been kicking around New Japan forever, as well, and Honma is making his name after spending a lot of time on the Japanese independent circuit. Formerly a deathmatch wrestler, his tights now say HONMANIA on them in Hulkamania font, which is amazing. I hope he pops Jeff Jarrett with some light tubes before dropping the big leg. Six man tag team matches often feel like they’re just a way of getting folks on a card, but who knows. The Bullet Club angle doesn’t feel as hot or magical as it did to me when Devitt was its leader, but it’s still a big deal, and if this is part of New Japan reasserting the honor and purity of professional wrestling in the face of a billion crotch chops, then I’m on board.

The match begins with Karen Jarrett shoving Honma, which isn’t the best way to begin things. The Bullet Club starts brawling immediately. Jarrett is on Honma, Takahashi on Tenzan, and Fale on Kojima. Tenzan and Kojima fight back and lift the massive Fale for a double suplex. Striker says that Fale is the hoss of the team, “hoss” being a word that needs to be stricken from wrestling’s dictionary unless Ross is saying it. Jarrett brawls with Honma on the outside while Ross puts some of the spotlight on referee Tiger Hatori, which is a cool thing to do. Kojima gets Takahashi in the corner and chops him a dozen times while the Tokyo Dome crowd HEYs along with each one. He whips Takahashi across the ring and follows in with a leaping forearm. Ross calls Kojima’s Ace Crusher both the RKO and Diamond Cutter, and now I’m kinda sad because “ACE CRUSHAAAAAA” is one of my favorite things to hear on a Japanese broadcast. Kojima takes too much time to rally the fans and gets crushed by a charging Bad Luck Fale. Hatori sends him out of the ring while Takahaski tags in Double J. He comes in kicking and punching and gets a two count off of a clothesline. Striker praises Jarrett for holding over 70 championships, many of them as prestigious as the 120 held by Jerry “The King” Lawler.

Jarrett tags in Fale, who bullies Kojima back to the canvas before tagging Takahashi back in. He slaps Kojima around and challenges him to fight back. Kojima does, hitting the cocky young adult film star with a forearm. Takahashi knows he doesn’t want to be involved in a slugfest, so he rakes the eyes. Matt Striker claims that the Japanese are unfamiliar with disrespect in professional wrestling. Considering that New Japan invented the nWo and ran their own version of it longer and more successfully than WCW way before Bullet Club, not to mention the long and tremendous history of really mean American wrestlers coming in and attacking fans at ringside, this is another thing Matt Striker is making up. Kojima hits his ace crusher and tags in Honma. Honma takes Bullet Club out before returning his attention to Takahashi, body slamming him to the canvas. In the corner, Takahashi eats a diving elbow and a bulldog. Honma psyches himself up and goes for a headbutt, but he misses. Takahashi follows up with a suplex that verges pretty close to a brainbuster, and gets a two count on his stunned foe. Takahashi continues to press his advantage until he charges at Honma, who gets his headbutt in.

Karen Jarrett distracts Tiger Hatori, so Jeff Jarrett enters the ring with his guitar. Honma blocks Jarrett’s attempted el-kabong, but Takahashi enters the ring and holds Honma up. Jarrett swings and Honma moves, so Takahashi eats Jarrett’s wood while Striker chuckles about it because that’s what you do when calling a wrestling match where a man hits another man with a guitar. Tenzan and Kojima come in and hit Jarrett with a double back suplex and take care of Fale by clotheslining him over the top rope. Striker calls this a “lariato” because he was watching the same YouTube matches I was 10 years ago, I guess, or to make himself seem more authentic to any potential Japanese girlfriends.

Takahashi eats a double team Ace Crusher, and Jim Ross is an adorable American wrestling fan for calling it the 3D and asking where the Dudley Boys are. Honma calls for his top rope headbutt and hits it without much of a problem and scores the pinfall. Nothing wrong there, just a solid six man tag with a good prospect in Honma being given the gift of a victory on the biggest show of the year by two of its most respected wrestlers. I think this qualifies as the first Jeff Jarrett match I’ve enjoyed since his feud with Booker T 15 years ago, so congratulations Jeff Jarrett.

Toru Yano, Naomichi Marufuji, Mikey Nicholls, and Shane Haste def. Takashi Iizuka, Shelton “X” Benjamin, Lance Archer, and Davey Boy Smith Jr. via pinfall. GRADE: C+

Jim Ross doesn’t have a chance to catch his breath, as the next match starts just as soon as Honma, Tenzan, and Kojima take their celebration to the entrance ramp. Iizuka, Benjamin, Archer, and Smith are all members of a huge, all-encompassing stable led by to the ring by TAKA Michinoku, who is ageless and wonderful and also not wrestling tonight. Iizuka, who I have not seen much of at all, looks like a total crazyman. I already love him. He used to partner with Toru Yano, but he stabbed him in the back to join Suzukigun, and Yano went to Pro Wrestling NOAH for the three men who will team with him for this match. I’ve not kept track of NOAH at all and am thus only familiar with Marufuji, who is really good. Really good. Like, really good, guys. He is the GHC Heavyweight Champion, which is a big deal even if you’ve never heard of it. Nicholls and Haste are the team known as TMDK, The Mighty Don’t Kill. Yano has a staple gun, so I guess he, too, is a crazyman, though less of a Bruiser Brody crazyman and more of a deathmatch crazyman. I’m kind of at a loss here because I like the idea of NOAH guys more than I like the idea of WWE guys, but I like ugly beards and weird faces more than I like staple guns. LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

What happens is a brawl, which, you know, there are eight people in the ring, so why not. Yano and Iizuka end up in the ring together. Yano hits Iizuka with a BRAIN CHOP, which is my favorite wrestling move without question, but Iizuka is unfazed and takes the fight to his former partner. He goes to strangle Yano with a piece of rope, but Yano ducks it and pulls on the beard. The referee breaks this up, which gets Iizuka angry because his beard got tugged harder, and while Iizuka is doing a crazyman stumble, Yano takes of the turnbuckle covering, which, in Japan, exposes all three turnbuckles at once. Iizuka picks up the turnbuckle pad and smashes Yano with it, which is like hitting somebody with a body pillow. Yano goes down hard, because this is a pillow fight with hate.

Iizuka tags in Shelton Benjamin, who was a fine wrestler at the Intercontinental Championship level in WWE, capable of great matches but never possessing much in the way of character. Thankfully, that’s not much of a problem in NJPW. He immediately hits Yano with one of his trademark maneuvers, a swinging kick to the mouth, and tags in Lance Archer. I haven’t seen much of Archer in NJPW because I usually skip his matches, but when he was a member of WWE’s ECW roster, he was a boring dude with a hideous lower back tattoo. Here he enters the ring with his partner Davey Boy Smith Jr., son of the British Bulldog and tag team specialist, and the two hit Yano with a Hart Attack, patterned off of Davey Boy’s uncles Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart. Archer can’t maintain the advantage for long, though, and Yano soon tags out to one member of TMDK, which brings them both in to work on Archer. That brings in Davey Boy Smith Jr., and it’s TMDK vs. KES, with both teams looking pretty evenly matched. Lance Archer can’t hit the chokeslam he’s looking for until he does, and when he does, man does he get some good height on it. Jim Ross, who has seen a billion chokeslams, digs this one, so you know it’s pretty good.

Iizuka is tagged back in, but Marufuji is in this match for the first time now, and he is a house of fire, which is wrestlingspeak for well-rested and ready to go. Iizuka whips Marufuji into the turnbuckles but is stopped by a kick, then is stopped by many kicks. The crowd welcomes Marufuji back into the auspices of NJPW while he gets a two count on Iizuka. Marufuji goes for Sliced Bread #2 but is posted, allowing Shelton Benjamin to leap up after him and belly-to-belly suplex him all the way across the goddamn ring! With TAKA and co. running interference outside the ring, Iizuka dons the most ridiculous pair of brass knuckles I’ve ever seen and misses when he takes a swing at Marufuji. The GHC Champion takes care of an interfering El Desperado on the ring apron, but gets caught with an Iizuka Manhattan drop. Iizuka goes into his tights and retrieves a piece of rope, which he uses to strangle NOAH’s ace. As soon as Iizuka lets go, though, Marufuji recovers and catches him under the chin with a wicked knee lift. Marufuji calls in his TMDK teammates, who tandem gorilla press Iizuka to the lights. They swing him down hard to the canvas and pick him up for Marufuji, who is calling the shots. He crushes Iizuka with another knee lift, and that is the end of Iizuka.

The camerawork never quite picked up on the constant ringside interference of Suzukigun on the outside, so this never quite felt like an upset or come from behind victory. Oddly for a match with betrayal at its center, Marufuji and TMDK are the conquering heroes of this match, mostly relegating Yano to the sidelines. I’ve got no idea if that means they’re sticking around for awhile, but I wouldn’t mind it. I continue to really enjoy Marufuji’s work and was impressed by what I saw out of Haste and Nicholls. Matt Striker continues to congratulate the winners of the match, which is my least favorite thing about his commentary. Coming from a quasi-heel color guy, it seems suspiciously hollow. Stop it, dude.

Minoru Suzuki def. Kazushi Sakuaba via referee stoppage. GRADE: B+

Jim Ross gets serious, as “this match has been a lifetime in the making.” Both men are protégés of Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, which is as wrestling as wrestling gets. Ross calls them their finest students, which is pretty goddamn high praise. Striker goes over Suzuki’s history as a mixed martial artist, which is vast and deep, and in Japan the two artforms, wrestling and MMA, have always had an easier time of commingling. Striker says that this contest is being fought under UWF-I rules, which I did not know about going in. That is very exciting to me, because pretty much the only MMA I ever got into was Noboshoku Takada’s long-defunct shoot promotion. Volk Han, baby. Lou Thesz’s original World’s Heavyweight Championship, brother. Very serious and regal stuff. Beautiful, elegant carnage. The rules here: You can only win by submission, knockout, or referee stoppage. Ross puts Suzuki over as a legit psychopath. Sakuaba hits the ring next to his crazy dance megamix of a theme song. He’s the greatest MMA fighter in the history of Japan, has beaten a bunch of Gracies, etc. Striker figures that if there’s ever going to be a real MMA hall of fame, these men are the first two that need to be inducted. That’s great, but I’m sick and tired of this hall of fame junk being a talking point in combat sports, sports entertainment, or anything, really. I just want blood.

The fans are into this before the bell rings, as they should be: It’s the first one-on-one match between the two. They circle , and Sakuaba goes behind Suzuki with a waistlock. They exchange go-behinds and hit the mat. Suzuki tries to gain control, but Sakuaba sweeps the leg, and both men get back to their feet. Applause from the crowd. Knuckle lock, quickly broken by Sakuaba, who goes for a single leg takedown. Suzuki widens his base to block it, then walks Sakuaba around and tries to sit out on him, but Sakuaba is able to roll through. Suzuki is in guard and Sakuaba kicks at his leg before leaping over Suzuki, which is a tactical error because he almost ends up in a kneebar. He stands, though, and goes for a sharpshooter (or the power lock, as it’s known in Japan), but it’s way too early for that and Suzuki turns out of it. They roll into the ropes and the referee calls for a break, but neither man wants to give it.

Finally, they do, but rather than returning to a neutral position, Suzuki rolls out of the ring. Sakuaba kicks at him through the ropes and Suzuki responds with some open hand strikes. They keep fighting in the ropes until Suzuki catches an arm and goes into a triangle chokes over the ropes. Suzuki breaks and drops to the floor, dragging Sakuaba out after him. We’re transitioning out of MMA and into pro wrestling now, as Suzuki walks Sakuaba out onto the walkway and snapmares the PANCRASE founder onto it. Suzuki puts Sakuaba into a seated position and walks up the ramp, presumably to charge his opponent, but Sakuaba is up quickly and catches Suzuki with a roundhouse kick. They’re exchanging strikes on the ramp. There is no countout, so they can fight there all they want. A few of Sakuaba’s kicks find their mark, and he sinks in a kimura on the ramp. The match can only end in the ring, but hey, if you break a dude’s forearm or wrist, you’re probably going to win the match. The referee successfully convinces Sakuaba to release the kimura and go back to the ring. Suzuki is going to have to deal with his arm for the rest of the match.

Once the two are back in the ring, Sakuaba continues to assault Suzuki with a series of hard kicks to the chest. The referee backs Sakuaba off and begins a standing 10 count. Suzuki’s facial expression is pure murder as he gets to his feet. He shrugs off some kicks and lands a hard shot to Sakuaba’s jaw! They palm strike each other simultaneously, but it’s clear that Suzuki has the power here, and he knocks Sakuaba to the canvas! Suzuki backs off for the 10 count, but Sakuaba is back to his feet and back to throwing kicks. Suzuki shouts them off, so Sakuaba goes back to the arm, rolling through his own key lock attempt into a potential cross armbreaker. Suzuki locks his hands, though and nearly counters it, but Sakuaba stays on it and breaks Suzuki’s grip! Suzuki is in serious pain now, but is close enough to the ropes that he can hook them with his foot, earning a break.

Sakuaba kicks at Suzuki’s arm, invites him to his feet, then kicks him in the arm some more. He gets some old-fashioned wrestling stomps in and then calls for the standing 10 count. Suzuki is feeling it, he looks a bit shaken, and what was once murder has turned, perhaps, to fear, but he’s up at nine. Sakuaba returns to his kicks, but Suzuki isn’t having any of them. He lands another palm strike. They exchange kicks and palm strikes. Suzuki invites Sakuaba to kick his injured arm and just takes it, continuing to counter with palm strikes. He catches a kick and lands another strike, then knocks Sakuaba to the canvas with one and follows up by kicking his face in. He could ask for a 10 count, but no. Sakuaba is defenseless, and Suzuki puts him in a rear-naked choke. He turns his hips and slings Sakuaba over, still in the choke! He wants to end this match now, and this is his best shot. Sakuaba says no, waving the referee off, but Suzuki will not let go. Sakuaba goes limp, and the referee calls for the bell.

I love worked shoot wrestling; I think it is one of the best things that ever happened to professional wrestling. This wasn’t a classic, I don’t think, as the ramp fighting was a bit gratuitous and I could have gone for more fighting, but the closing sequence was nasty, and Suzuki’s rear-naked choke a thing of beauty. Sakuaba wakes up a bit stunned while everybody is iced down. Matt Striker is sad that there aren’t men like Suzuki or Sakuaba around anymore. Matt Striker is not a man like Suzuki or Sakuaba and should probably shut up. Sakuaba offers his hand and Suzuki takes it. Everybody is super happy about it, as they should be. On his way out of the arena, Suzuki takes off his ice pack because he doesn’t give a damn.

Jim Ross loves that NJPW doesn’t screw around and keep people waiting, and neither do I. Led Zep’s “Immigrant Song” starts playing, which, ha, how goddamn rad, and it’s time for our next match.

NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Togi Makabe def. Tomohiro Ishii (champion) via pinfall. GRADE: A-

NEVER, if you’re wondering, stands for New Blood, Evolution, Valiantly, Eternal, and Radical. But what the acronym stands for and what the division actually is are two different things, as NJPW’s NEVER division shut down right as they crowned the first champion, and all of its champions have been established talent. Pretty much, it’s open to anybody, but the matches tend to favor big, bruising tanks. Togi Makabe is out first. He was once an IWGP Heavyweight Champion and winner of the G1 Climax, meaning he was one of the most talented wrestlers in the world, but now he prefers a brutal brawling style and goes by the name “Unchained Gorilla,” which is the best. Tomohiro Ishii is the “Stone Pitbull,” and this is a battle of the best nicknames in the world. He is stocky and thick and mean looking, three great things for a wrestler to be. Ishii’s shoulder is taped, as he separated it during the G1 Climax. He finished the tournament with a dead arm. Striker says that Ishii’s quest is to raise the status of the NEVER Openweight Championship, and defending it here would be a good way of doing that.

The bell rings and the two charge at one another, trading clotheslines and forearms. All of these are shrugged off, the initial salvos in a battle between two unsinkable ships. Makabe looks to run off the ropes for an advantage, but he is followed by Ishii, who hits him with a running forearm. Having staggered Makabe, Ishii runs off the ropes. He ducks a lariat and just runs into Makabe, who bounces off the ropes and runs into Makabe! The two exchange shoulder tackles, neither giving an inch. Makabe runs at Ishii one more time, but gets powerslammed! Off their feet for the first time, Makabe and Ishii get back to a standing base, and now it’s Makabe who powerslams the champion! They stagger each other with simultaneous clotheslines, and it looks like Ishii and Makabe are human after all. Ishii switches to chops now, Makabe favoring large overhand right hands. Ishii chops Makabe in the throat, and that puts the challenger down. Now that he has the high ground, Ishii headbutts his challenger. He follows with a second headbutt and a third, then just kicks at Makabe.

The Unchained Gorilla takes this as a sign of disrespect and gets back to his feet, challenging the champion to take his best shot. He withstands several of them and punches the Stone Pitbull into the corner. He hits two running lariats and an American 10-punch, the crowd counting along. Ross really likes Makabe, who is a devotee of Bruiser Brody. Ishii is less impressed though, as he slaps his challenger. They trade slaps, then progress to punches. These are heavy blows, uglier than hell, and I love them. He lands a Northern Lights Suplex, the first thing resembling a wrestling hold in this match, and gets a two count.

Undaunted, Makabe continues his offensive. Ishii is fading in the corner while Makabe lays in forearms. But that has a way of waking up gigantic monsters, and Ishii makes his way back to consciousness and lays into Makabe with a forearm of his own. With Makabe in the corner now, Ishii puts his challenger on the top turnbuckle and goes for a superplex. Ishii deadlifts Makabe and both men go crashing to the canvas. Ishii powerbombs Makabe and holds him for a pin, but Makabe kicks out. The two go into a big guy exchange where hitting one guy’s arm as they go for a lariat is enough to spin him around, and it’s Makabe who comes out of it with the advantage, finally hitting Ishii with a lariat. Makabe with a kneeling powerbomb now, which he holds for a pin, but Ishii is able to roll his shoulder up from the mat.

Makabe waistlocks Ishii, who tries to elbow his way out, but Makabe will not be denied and takes the champion over with a German suplex. That’s a two. The replay shows that Makabe shifted Ishii so that he would land on his injured shoulder, which is the kind of subtlety you don’t often see in wrestling. Makabe is in complete control now, whipping Ishii into the turnbuckles and following him in with a clothesline to the back of the head. He seats Ishii on the top rope and goes for a German suplex from there, but Ishii’s elbows work this time and he turns around and tries to headbutt Makabe off. It almost works, but Makabe’s leg strength is too much—he does a hanging sit-up back to the turnbuckle and takes a big swing at the champion, stunning him. Using the middle rope as his base, Makabe puts Ishii on his shoulders and brings him down with an ugly Samoan drop. Ross seems legitimately surprised that Ishii kicked out.

Ishii might still be in the match, but just barely. Makabe lariats him so hard that the champion spits, and Striker, who usually giggles at this kind of thing, lets out a stunned “Oh” instead. Makabe does it again, waking up the monster. Ishii goes for an enziguri, but Makabe easily blocks it. He follows up with a straight murderous lariat, but Ishii kicks out at one! Matt Striker calls it a “lariato” again and makes plans to snuggle with his body pillow after the show. The referee checks on Ishii, who is conscious, but just barely. Makabe goes for a clothesline, but Ishii ducks and hits a release German suplex. Makabe is up first and charges the champion, but is clotheslined down! Makabe goes into the lateral press immediately but only gets a one count. Matt Striker wants Jim Ross to scream “Lariato” now, because there’s nothing better than western men making fun of the way the Japanese pronounce English words. Ross laughs uncomfortably, then says the word with disdain because he wants to enjoy this match without some asshole demanding he be cute.

Back to their feet, it’s looking like Makabe is the fresher man, but they meet once again with a pair of clotheslines that could fell a tree, and neither man has an edge. It’s a clothesline battle for a hot moment, then Makabe starts chopping Ishii’s shoulder, which Ishii replies to with a brutal headbutt. Makabe sits up and eats a sliding lariat from Ishii for a near fall. Ishii goes for a suplex, but Makabe counters into one of his own. Ishii slips it and hits the enziguri, aka the back brain kick. It’s an incredibly common move now, but when a gigantic man is performing it without all the fancy filigree, just a leap and a kick to the back of the head, it’s as dangerous as ever. Makabe falls to the canvas and Ishii jackknifes the legs for a pin, but Makabe kicks out. More clotheslines, this time with Makabe coming out ahead. He gets behind Ishii and locks the arms, taking his man over with a dragon suplex, but it’s not enough!

More forearms now, both men stopping to talk trash. Ross wishes he could speak Japanese, and I do, too. Ishii gets ahead on forearms and headbutts his challenger again. Makabe stumbles back, out on his feet, but when you’re out on your feet you’re dumb enough to respond to a headbutt with one of your own. He follows with a sledgehammer blow to Ishii’s taped shoulder. Ishii returns fire, but another Makabe sledgehammer puts him down. Ishii gets up and is immediately put down by another sledgehammer, but this time he gets a one count. Ishii makes it to his feet and is gifted an utterly disgusting clothesline. That’s a two count. Ishii doesn’t get up though, so Makabe goes to the top turnbuckle and drops a knee on the back of Ishii’s head, Bruiser Brody’s King Kong knee drop. The referee counts to three, and this one, mercifully, is over.

Giant dudes dishing out giant punishment. This has become a capital-T Thing for many pro wrestling fans over the past year or two, with plenty of chatter of an unofficial “Hoss Division” in the WWE ranks and a Hoss Division Championship in promotions like Absolute Intense Wrestling. If ever there was a hoss fight, though, this is it. Two impossible human beings surviving lethal strikes and suplexes, both men seemingly mirror images of each other, until something gave. Here it was Ishii, but considering that his shoulder (and his knee) were taped up, the fact that he survived as long as he did was a miracle. Makabe gets a cheap shot in on Ishii and flips off the heavens because that’s the kind of man he is. I want a rematch the moment Ishii isn’t hindered by an injury. I want a rematch now. I want a rematch every day.

IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: Kenny Omega def. Ryusuke Taguchi (Champion) via pinfall. GRADE: B

Kenny Omega is the “cleaner” of the Bullet Club, their big new recruit of 2014. Omega has been wrestling in Japan for a long time now, long enough that he is fluent in Japanese, but when he signed with NJPW and joined the Bullet Club, he refused to speak anything but English, which is a great heel move. Jim Ross compares Omega to Brian Pillman, which, coming from Jim Ross, is very, very high praise. Omega is followed to the ring by his Bullet Club buddies, and he’s doing the Scott Hall toothpick routine. Matt Striker says that Omega swerved the fans and Jim Ross says that he doesn’t know what “swerve” means because he is my hero. Ryusuke Taguchi, the Funky Weapon, was Fergal Devitt’s tag team partner until Devitt turned on him and formed the Bullet Club, who he has been fighting ever since. Omega doesn’t look impressed with the funkiness of Taguchi’s weapon at all. Omega completes the Scott Hall toothpick routine by throwing it in the referee’s face, and we’re off.

Omega and Taguchi wrestle into the ropes and Omega breaks, slapping the champion lightly and giving him a John Cena A-OK sign. They tie up again and Taguchi backs Omega into the corner and disrespects him coming out of the ropes. Omega doesn’t like this and slaps the Funky Weapon, who has his dander up now. The two exchange leapfrogs and drop downs until Taguchi gets the advantage and sends Omega over with an armdrag. Omega is up first and runs off the ropes, but Taguchi meets him with a leaping hip check and gets funky, utilizing it a few more times on a seated Omega. Taguchi rams Omega into the turnbuckle. He sends him across the ring and pursues, but Omega does an impossible leap over Taguchi and rolls out of the corner. Omega comes back and goes for a hurricanrana, but Taguchi catches him in an ankle lock and drags him to the center of the ring!

Omega rolls over and kicks out of the ankle lock, but gets taken over with another armdrag. Taguchi with a nice back elbow sends Omega into the ropes and clotheslines him over. The Young Bucks get involved, distracting the referee, which allows Kenny Omega to grab a can of cold spray from under the ring. Taguchi goes to deal with Omega and gets sprayed right in the eyes. Omega sprays himself down with the stuff like a frat bro overapplying AXE and gets back into the ring. Omega is completely in control, chopping Taguchi into the corner, then charging in at incredible speed and crushing the champion in the corner. Two count. Taguchi is still blind, and Omega is still in control, fighting dirty and choking Taguchi in the corner. Omega goes for a suplex on Taguchi, who tries to fight his way out. Omega, however, is strong enough to keep Taguchi in the air to finish the suplex. Omega wanders around the ring wasting time, pulling an invisible chainsaw and making “VRIMMMM-NIM-NIM-NIM” noises. This is a dude WWE let slip through their goddamn fingers. Chainsaw fully revved up, he proceeds to rake his forearm over the eyes and forehead of the champion. Striker says that Omega shaved his arms a few days ago and that he has stubble growing in so that the move, already illegal, is more annoying, which is a good bit of psychology.

The referee pulls Omega off of Taguchi and gets shoved for doing his job. Taguchi is still not at 100% after the cold spray attack, but he ducks an Omega leaping roundhouse and gets his leg grabbed by the Young Bucks at ringside. Ross can’t fathom why the referee doesn’t do something about it, which is a pretty good point I guess, but man is he belaboring it. Omega runs at Taguchi, who is able to backdrop the champion over the ropes and onto his cohort. With the Bullet Clubon the floor, Taguchi executes a beautiful tope con hilo. He gets Omega back in the ring and hits a springboard missile dropkick for two. Taguchi gets Omega up and hits two suplexes in sequence, but before he can do a third, Omega knees him on top of the head and starts to slap him on the back of the neck. Omega grabs the waistlock, but Taguchi executes a go behind. Omega escapes with some elbows to the head and runs at Taguchi, using his blistering speed to redirect himself and confuse the champion before kicking out his knee. Omega leapfrogs into a facecrusher, executes a lazy pin, and gets a two count.

Omega continues to wear out his opponent with chops and stomps, then goes for a running Liger bomb. But Taguchi counters this, using a hurricanrana to send Omega hurtling into the turnbuckles. Taguchi with a sit out powerbomb of his own, but he can’t get much pressure on the pin attempt and gets a two. Taguchi goes up the turnbuckles but is met by Omega. The challenger falls off, but the champion isn’t quich enough to capitalize. Omega is punched off again and Taguchi leaps off, only to be dropkicked on the chin. Omega deadlifts Taguchi into a gutwrench powerbomb and gets a two. Now he picks Taguchi up onto his shoulder, but the champion gets out and tries for a tiger suplex. Omega rolls through and gets a two count. Omega gets up and turns into a knee to the jaw. Taguchi chickenwings the arms and lifts Omega, drives him down into a facebuster, and Omega kicks out!

Taguchi returns to the ankle lock, but the Bucks get involved again. It’s to no avail though, as Taguchi moves out of an Omega flying knee and hits a tiger lungblower. Omega somehow kicks out. The Funky Weapon feels that he has the match in hand and tries to lift Omega. Omega fights out of a torture rack and catches the champion trying another hip check, snapping him down with his trademark brutal German suplex. Omega follows with a running knee drive, puts Taguchi into electric chair position, then drives Taguchi to the mat with the One Winged Angel. Three seconds later, we have a new champion.

Ross compared Omega to Brian Pillman early on, and that comparison may be apt. I’m so far behind on NJPW that I haven’t seen much of his work in Bullet Club, but he wrestles with an incredibly weird charisma in this heel persona, staggering around in an imitation of drunken boxing. It’s the charisma of Pillman’s Loose Cannon persona with the talent of his early days as Flyin’ Bryan. Omega is already a great wrestler, but if he stays healthy, he might just become a legend.

IWGP TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP:Meiyu Tag (Hiroki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata) def. Bullet Club (Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, champions) via pinfall. GRADE: B

Bullet Club have been champions for one full revolution around the sun. Meiyu Tag, however, have a non-title victory over Gallows and Anderson, so the Americans are looking vulnerable going into this contest. Jim Ross loves that the champions come to the ring last. Gallows has his face painted and reminds Ross of gaijin bruisers like Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy. Karl Anderson reminds Jim Ross of Arn Anderson, which is amazing. Matt Striker is really into Amber O’Neil, and I hope the second time he says the phrase “Bullet Babe” is his last. Striker calls Gallows a “good bruther” because he listens to Colt Cabana’s podcast. Meiyu Tag wait around while the Bullet Club two sweet each other, and it’s former partners Anderson and Goto who start things off.

Goto gains the advantage by outwrestling and outslugging Anderson, but he is kicked in the back by Gallows and the champions take over. Anderson runs off the ropes, and Shibata takes a page out of the Bullet Club handbook, catching Anderson in a sleeper hold. He transitions to holding Anderson for his partner, but Machine Gun is able to get out of the way and Goto clotheslines Shibata off the apron. He turns around into a huge superkick from Doc Gallows, who is in the ring illegally. Bullet Club take over, Anderson with a Senton and Gallows with a leg drop. That gets a two count. Anderson gets another two count off of a leg lariat. A series of near falls, actually, as he won’t let go of the cover. He tags Doc Gallows in, and the mood changes with the entry of the big brawler.

Jim Ross doesn’t know anything about the Bullet Babe, but suspects that “she’ll earn her money tonight.” Gallows hammers away at Goto in the corner. Goto tries to lift Gallows but can’t, so they exchange clotheslines until Goto’s speed advantage allows him to take Gallows off his feet with one. Goto rolls over and tags in his partner. Shiabata enters the ring, kicks Anderson off the apron, and gets leveled by a Gallows forearm. Undeterred, Shiabata returns to his feet and soon has Gallows grounded in the corner, grinding away at him with repeated forearm shots. Shiabata creates some separation so he can charge at the huge American, but Gallows is back up and catches his challenger with a huge lariat, swallowing Shiabata’s head whole and taking him down to the canvas. Gallows whips Shiabata into the ropes, misses with a clothesline, and gets dropkicked. Anderson runs in and finds himself in an octopus stretch, but that leaves Shiabata open to an attack by Doc Gallows, who clubs him in the back. All four men are in the ring now, and the referee is just letting things happen. Meiyu Tag finally take control of the match with a pair of seated dropkicks to Gallows and Anderson. They hit Gallows with a double back suplex and get a two count.

They try to continue the double teaming, but Anderson cuts Goto off and Bullet Club begin abusing Shibata. A backbreaker/elbow drop combination that looks particularly nasty gets the pair a two count before Goto reenters the ring to break up the fall. Gallows picks Goto up and Anderson kicks him in the head before Gallows spins him out to the mat. A double team cutter gets Bullet Club another two, but Shiabata will not be denied. Meiyu Tag get Gallows out of the ring, and Goto and Anderson deny each other their finishers until Goto gets Gallows to the mat, where Shibata drills him with a penalty kick. They don’t see Gallows coming, though, and are double clotheslined. Shibata eats a chokebomb, but gets his shoulder up at two. Bodyslam from Gallows, who goes up top. Big dudes don’t belong up there, though, and Meiyu Tag recover in time to double up on him, slamming him to the mat. Gallows breaks up a double team and goes for his chokebomb on Goto, but Goto denies him with a headbutt. Shibata holds Gallows, Goto clotheslines, him, and Gallows falls back into a Shibata sleeper hold. He lets go to take care of Anderson, who is trying to get back into the ring, and Goto brings Gallows to his feet. Goto lifts the massive frame of Doc Gallows and tosses him to his partner, who kicks him. With Gallows stunned, Shiabata takes his head off with another penalty kick, and we’ve got new tag team champions.

Good tag team match, with the two childhood friends overcoming the American interlopers. New Japan, beyond the Junior Heavyweight Division, seems to have Bullet Club completely under control at this point, having wrested all but one championship away from the stable. But the big boss of Bullet Club is still out there, and he happens to be next.

AJ Styles def. Tetsuya Naito via pinfall. GRADE: A-

I do not like AJ Styles. I never have and suspect I never will, but I also have gone out of my way to avoid his New Japan stuff after years of annoyance at his tendency to fill matches with unnecessary spots, so all I really know about him is that his Styles Clash finisher has broken a neck or two in Japan but he still uses it, which is dangerous and unsafe but is now part of his gimmick. I’ve heard a lot of good things about his run in Japan from plenty of folks whose opinion I trust and respect, so I’ve got as open a mind as is possible, given 10 years of distaste. Speaking of time, Striker says that the Styles Clash is “quickly” becoming feared and respected, though that has been AJ’s finish, oh, for as long as he’s been somebody worth paying attention to. Sure, it just recently broke two necks with the move, but when most of your major wins have come via the move, it’s already feared and respected. Styles is a member of Bullet Club, the true replacement for Devitt. Striker is still going on about this Westernization thing, which I don’t get. Tetsuya Naito comes out in an absolutely amazing ring jacket. He is the “Stardust Genius,” which, no offense to STONE PITBULL or UNCHAINED GORILLA, is my pick for best nickname in wrestling.

AJ Styles is on Naito before the bell rings, going for the Styles Clash early. Naito counters out, and we’ve got ourselves a brawl. Styles goes for it again, but Naito picks the former IWGP Champion up and puts him on the apron. He runs after Styles, who back body drops him over the ropes. AJ Styles goes for a moonsault press off the ring apron, but Naito moves and Styles lands on his feet. Naito scores with an elbow, climbs onto an apron, and lands a running dropkick, the first high impact move of the match. Naito continues to go with the dropkick until Styles interrupts a corner combination by grabbing Naito’s leg and snapping it over his shoulder. Styles continues to work the leg, elbow dropping Naito several times and dropping his knee on it. Styles lets Naito back to his feet, only to kick the leg out from under him. Back on the canvas, Styles locks Naito in a deathlock variation. The submission gives Striker and Ross some time to talk about Styles as the greatest thing TNA developed, which is actually true, and for Striker to claim that this is a boom period in wrestling, which is not. There’s a lot of choice in wrestling if you’re an American fan who knows that there’s a world beyond the WWE’s main roster, but New Japan is likely one of the only promotions in the world that’s actually enjoying a period of sustained creative and financial success, and there’s no such thing as a one promotion boom. Ross says that it would be cool to see one of these men as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble, and now I’m less into the “wrestling as a global form of entertainment” thing than I was two hours ago.

Styles scores with a tornado DDT on Naito, who may be the least likely to enter the Royal Rumble, but Naito gets up and fights back, taking Styles over with a biiiiig hip toss, which he follows with a dropkick and a senton. Styles tries to kick at a charging Naito in the corner, but Naito catches Styles’ legs and swings them through the ropes, catching a compromised Styles with a hanging neckbreaker. That gets a two count, and Naito tries to work some feeling into his knees. He puts Styles on the top rope and follows him up. Styles puts him off with a few headbutts, which allows AJ to eventually land a springboard forearm. A series of suplex attempts leads to Styles hitting Naito with a gross-looking neckbreaker, which Naito kicks out of it. Styles goes for a German suplex and nails it. He goes for another, but Naito rolls through and gets a two count. He hits a German suplex of his own and scores another near fall.

Styles lands a combination of strikes but misses the killing blow, allowing Naito to land an enziguri. Styles reverses an Irish Whip, but Naito uses the momentum to land a leaping forearm shot. He goes to the top rope for his Stardust Press but takes too long to find his footing, allowing AJ to get back into it by taking out Naito’s legs. Styles goes for a back suplex off the top rope, but Naito flips out and tries to land on his feet. That doesn’t quite work, as his leg is injured, but Styles took the worst of that fall. Naito charges at Styles, who rolls through and locks in his calf killer submission. Naito scrambles, looking for the ropes, but the calf killer takes away half of his body, and his leg is already weak. Styles moves his hands up to the toe of Naito’s boot so he can exert more pressure, which is fantastic, and reaches back with one to swat Naito’s arm away from the ropes, which is also a really, really good psychological touch. Naito pushes back on his leg, trying to find some relief, looks to smother Styles with his arm, does everything he can. He presses up and looks ready to tap out, but that gives him enough space to dive for the ropes, which he makes. Tremendous submission sequence, but that leg is done and most of Naito’s offense is gone with it.

Styles picks the leg, and Naito fights him off. Styles picks it again and gets enziguried for going back to the well, then Naito takes him over with a uranage suplex. Naito waistlocks Styles back to his feet, maybe for a German suplex, but Styles has more energy and breaks the hold, only for Naito to go under his arms and carry his opponent over with a dragon suplex! That’s a two count. Naito gets Styles in a pumphandle, but AJ muscles out of it and lands a glancing blow with his Pele Kick. Styles hits a double-underhook impaler DDT, the Bloody Sunday, which belonged to former Bullet Club leader Fergal Devitt, and Naito is out. Styles signals for the Styles Clash, but Naito counters by back dropping Styles up and falling back until Styles flies out of the ring to the floor. Styles is back in at 19, giving Naito some time to recover. Naito just kinda wanders back into the corner, where Styles uses the tights to ram his opponent into the turnbuckle. From there, though, Naito trips the leader of the Bullet Club and lands the swinging dropkick that got him in trouble in the opening moments of the match. Naito goes for a hurricanrana off the top rope, but Styles catches him. Naito is in perfect position for AJ Styles to set up for the Styles Clash, which he lands from the second rope, and ain’t nobody getting up from that.

Very smartly worked contest that leads me to believe Styles has gotten much better since the glory days of the X Division, where he got insane praise for matches where he was breaking up chokeholds with stupid springboard 720 splashes. The best wrestlers in the world do get smarter as they get older, and if you’ve got a lot of talent and aren’t trading in on WWE fame (which Styles isn’t), going to a place like New Japan and working all of the top guys will make you that much better. Striker and Ross made a big deal out of Naito’s inability to win a match at Wrestle Kingdom, as this was his fourth attempt and fourth loss. But he wrestled so much of this match on a gimpy leg and was only put away with a super-version of a move that legit has a reputation as one of the most dangerous in wrestling, so he’s going to be fine.

IWGP INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP: Shinsuke Nakamura (champion) def. Kota Ibushi via pinfall. GRADE: A+

For most American fans, this here is the one. Nakamura has a cult following among American fans who follow Japanese wrestling, as does Kota Ibushi. Their feud, documented in the pre-match promotional video, has been lengthy and intense. Though they’re around the same age, Ibushi’s road to New Japan Pro Wrestling was hard and long, and he’s still pretty much a rookie in the promotion compared to Nakamura, who has been here for some time and, along with Tanahashi and Okada, is one of NJPW’s ace wrestlers. A win over Nakamura at a Dome show puts Ibushi right up there with them, as the “Golden Star” quickly graduated from the Jr. Heavyweight ranks due to his unrivaled popularity within that division. To beat Nakamura, though, he’s going to have to bring something extra to the table, proving that he’s not the supremely talented guy who goofed around fighting blow-up dolls on the indies. He returns to the scene of his greatest triumph, Wrestle Kingdom, where in 2014 he defeated Fergal Devitt for the Jr. Heavyweight Championship. He’s out first, leaping out from beneath the stage like Rey Mysterio Jr. Nakamura comes out in a crown and a robe, because he is the King of Strong Style. Ross talks about how he loves Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury, but is still a badass. This entrance really sells that point, man. It is something.

The two begin by circling each other, each man testing the other with hard kicks to the legs. Nakamura eventually closes in on Ibushi, getting a waistlock. He backs Ibushi into the ropes and breaks clean, but Ibushi slaps him on the back of the head. Nakamura shoots in with a knee and whips Ibushi into the ropes, but Ibushi reverses. Nakamura grabs the ropes, putting the breaks on, and manages to avoid Ibushi’s attempted dropkick. Ibushi crashes to the canvas but avoids a stomp. He’s back to his feet already, kicking again at Nakamura’s legs. He blocks two of Nakamura’s knee strikes, and the two back off into opposing corners. Jim Ross talks about how children have Shinsuke Nakamura’s haircut. Nobody has Kota Ibushi’s, because, as my friend Robert Newsome frequently points out, he has your Aunt Diane’s hairstyle. Nakamura offers his hand to Ibushi as a show of respect and Ibushi foolishly takes it, opening himself up to a short-arm knee strike, followed by an axe kick. Nakamura goes for the BomaYe early but Ibushi is too fast and avoids it, following with a dropkick to Nakamura’s shoulder.

In the corner, Ibushi lets loose with a few strikes before washing Nakamura’s face with his boot, which is a Nakamura signature. Shinsuke Nakamura looks none too impressed with this, while Kota Ibushi stands back, telling the champion to bring it. Nakamura gets up and invites Ibushi to take a running start, which he does. Nakamura lands a knee, then throws Ibushi into the turnbuckles, where he stomps a mudhole in the Golden Star. Nakamura bridges Ibushi across the top ropes in the corner and blasts his helpless foe with a running knee right to the ribs. Ibushi falls to the ring apron, where Nakamura follows with a pair of knee strikes, the first one running on the floor, the second leaping from the apron. Ibushi is dazed on the floor while the referee starts his 20 count, failing to get into the ring on his first try, but he’s in at eight. Nakamura takes control with the cravate, snapmaring Ibushi over before dropping another knee, this time to Ibushi’s forehead. Ibushi kicks out of a showy cover and sinks in a chinlock. Nakamura leverages that into several cradle attempts, but Ibushi kicks out of them all and makes his way to the ropes for a break.

Ibushi gets up and forearms Nakamura, who brushes it off. Ibushi goes for a second, and Nakamura brushes that off, too. This has Kota Ibushi mad, but his third forearm goes nowhere, and Nakamura cuts him off with a few forearms of his own. He bends Ibushi over and slaps him in the face until he crumbles to the mat, where he goes for a roundhouse kick and misses. Ibushi is back to his feet, firing slaps and chops of his own, and the two go nose to nose. Ibushi misses with a shot, and Nakamura capitalizes with a backstabber. Ibushi flips out of a back suplex, though, and takes Nakamura over with a Frankensteiner. Nakamura’s on the apron now, but is swiftly dropkicked off. Alone in the ring and with room to run, Ibushi leaps onto the turnbuckles and uses those to propel himself into a moonsault press to the floor, where Nakamura is standing! Ibushi rolls through and sticks the landing, because that’s how good he is. Ibushi rams Nakamura into the ring apron and sends him back into the ring, where he drills Nakamura with a springboard dropkick. His German suplex is dropped, but Ibushi is too fast for Nakamura on this exchange, hitting him with slaps and kicks, finishing with a hard roundhouse kick to the sternum. Ibushi’s standing shooting star press nets him a near fall.

Nakamura makes his way to the corner, where he’s able to back drop Ibushi to the apron. He goes to suplex Ibushi in, but is kneed in the top of the head. Nakamura staggers away, allowing Ibushi to springbord into the ring, but Nakamura catches him with a one-legged dropkick to the chin. Ibushi gets to his feet and ducks one kick, but Nakamura keeps his momentum going and lands another to Ibushi’s jaw. He takes Ibushi down with a classic front suplex and moves immediately into a succession of knee strikes. Ibushi is making his return from a concussion, so knees to the head is the way to go. Nakamura charges in for the BomaYe, but Ibushi sidesteps it and the champion rushes headlong into the turnbuckles. Ibushi an’t take advantage right away, but Nakamura tries going upstairs, where the challenger stops him with a slap to the chest. Nakamura fights Ibushi off, sending him to the ring apron. Ibushi gets a shot in, stunning Nakamura, and this lets Ibushi connect with a springboard hurricanrana off the top turnbuckle! He scrambles over for the cover, hooks the leg, and only gets two.

Ibushi gets Nakamura in a full nelson, looking for a dragon suplex, but Nakamura breaks it. He looks for an elbow, but Ibushi sees it coming and scores with a quick-release dragon suplex, dumping Nakamura on his head. He misses a kick, but lands a standing corkscrew splash, and that’s a two count, too. Ibushi looks to crank up the nastiness a bit, going for a piledriver, but Nakamura has his leg and hangs on for dear life. So Ibushi kicks him in the head and goes for it again, only this time Nakamura’s counter is a back body drop. Ibushi hangs on to the waistlock and is able to roll through with a sunset flip, scoring another near fall. He scores with a roundhouse kick to the back of Nakamura’s skull as both men get to their feet and follows that with a sit-out super powerbomb. He has both of Nakamura’s legs locked, but the champion is able to kick out because Ibushi gets confident and starts counting along with the referee! Ibushi goes for his Phoenix Splash but Nakamura moves and he eats the canvas. Nakamura follows up with the BomaYe, right to the back of Ibushi’s head! He’s still dazed from the powerbomb, however, and can’t follow up with an attempt at a pinfall, so with Ibushi trying to use the ropes to get back to his feet, Nakamura gets up and starts stomping away at the challenger, kicking him hard on the back of his head and to the side of the face, but Ibushi is smiling as the referee drags the champion off!

He turns around and drills Nakamura with a few palm strikes, transitioning quickly into just straight up punches, which are rare and indicative of true hatred. The referee gets between the two to admonish Ibushi, and Nakamura shoves the official, charging in and destroying Ibushi with a straight fist of his own. Ibushi ducks another one and goes for a shot of his own, but Nakamura catches the ball of Ibushi’s fist and uses the challenger’s momentum to carry them both through into a cross armbreaker! Ibushi is able to lock his hands, though, stands, and gets out of the hold by kicking Nakamura right in the goddamn face. Nakamura is down on the canvas, and Ibushi continues to kick him, hard and mean. He’s wrestling like a prick, and it is wonderful. He brings Nakamura up and takes him over with a dirty half and half suplex. He crushes Nakamura with a BomaYe, but that only gets a one count! Ibushi doesn’t sit around and wonder what it’s going to take, oh no. He gets up and starts punching Nakamura in the back of the head. This is a completely new look for Nakamura, this grit and intensity when his pretty flips and strikes aren’t getting it done, and I like it a lot. Nakamura wakes up a bit, though, and push-kicks Ibushi away, into the turnbuckles. Now it’s Nakamura with the ugly kicks and stomps, Ibushi literally tasting leather at one point, as his tongue is out and Nakamura grinds the toe of his boot into it.

The two are back to their feet, trading brutal-sounding strikes. Nakamura gains the advantage temporarily and tries to make something out of it, running off the ropes, but Ibushi hits him with a double stomp, taking the champion down! Double stomps are becoming so common it’s hard to care about them, but this one was really, really beautiful, and Nakamura’s facial expression really goes a long way in selling the effectiveness of the move. Both men are winded, having wrestled at a breakneck pace for awhile now, but Ibushi has Nakamura dead to rights. He lifts the wounded champion up on the apron, leaps onto the top rope, and brings him back into the ring with a dragon suplex from the top rope! It’s hideous and breathtaking at the same time, and again Ibushi’s celebrating the count as it happens is what allows Nakamura to kick out. Ibushi knows he still has the match in hand, though, so he reasserts his control, going for another powerbomb. Nakamura headbuts his way out of it though, and captures Ibushi, elbowing the bejesus out of him before hitting a BomaYe from the second turnbuckle! But Ibushi is back up! The two charge at each other, but they have the same idea, kicking each other in the leg. Ibushi recovers first, but Nakamura sees him coming, lifts him into a fireman’s carry, then drives him down to the mat. Ibushi stands, and Nakamura kills him with another BomaYe knee. This one is too much for Ibushi to recover from, however, and the referee counts to three.

This is it. This is the best wrestling match of the year, and it took place four days into it. WWE may match or equal it in terms of pomp and circumstance at WrestleMania and put on one of its classic sports entertainment contests in front of a larger, international crowd, but this was a beautifully wrestled contest, a perfect merger of two unique, inscrutable styles. If you like New Japan and have Shinsuke Nakamura as the best wrestler in the world, Kota Ibushi has to be your second best after this. If you’ve been following Ibushi’s career and have a soft spot for the guy, then Nakamura is right up there with him. This isn’t Ibushi’s crowning moment, he didn’t go home with the Intercontinental Championship, but he is undeniably a star after this match, one of the biggest NJPW has, which makes him one of the most important professional wrestlers in the world. Nakamura celebrates with his championship while Matt Striker marks out like an adult trying to act like a child, and Nakamura shows his challenger some respect, checking to see if he’s okay after the BomaYe and giving him a fist bump. One of the young boys at ringside puts the belt around Nakamura’s waist while Ibushi looks on, cradling his head. It’s a magnificent shot from the closing moments of a magnificent match:

Jim Ross spent some time in this match praising New Japan for managing to make each of their championships rank equally in terms of importance, and that truly is a unique accomplishment that few promotions have been able to do, let alone maintain. The NWA managed to do it for awhile in the 1980s, when the Four Horsemen held all the gold and each title was significant, and the WWF had a good thing going when the World and Intercontinental titles were all they had, but it was always very clear that the World Heavyweight Championship was the end goal that all aspired to. In New Japan, it’s arguable. The IWGP Heavyweight Championship has the weight of history behind it, but the Intercontinental Championship has Nakamura, the most popular wrestler in the country, and it has matches like this. It’s a young title, but one of the three most important championships in the world. This match further bolsters its reputation, and the reputation of the men who fought for it on this night. Nakamura calls Ibushi the best, which he may very well be, and Nakamura calls it a night. Jim Ross says that being able to call this match made it worthwhile to celebrate his birthday away from his family. He’s still the best in the world when it comes to conveying how important the spectacle of professional wrestling is, at least in my eyes.

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Hiroshi Tanahashi (champion) def. Kazuchika Okada via pinfall. GRADE: A

I don’t have a translation of the promo video that played before this match, but the tone of this one is that Tanahashi is NJPW’s ace, and Okada his cocky usurper. Tanahashi hangs out with fans and high fives children while Okada stands in front of his mansion, wearing suits and feeling fine. Tanahashi lives for NJPW, Okada for himself. But they’re both very popular, so it’s all good. Okada comes out in a robe that’s half Savage, half Flair, and all man. He takes it off to reveal his usual rad duster. Tanahashi’s entrance promo claims that he is the Ace of the Universe, and so long as he’s the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, that’s true. Tanahashi plays air guitar down to the ring while Ross talks about Tanahashi’s credentials as a fan and a wrestler. Tanahashi is Mr. Tokyo Dome, having main evented the venue nine times. This is the seventh encounter between Tanahashi and Okada, with their matches being talked about in the same hushed tones as Ric Flair and Rickey Steamboat’s epic, decades-spanning rivalry. Ross mentions that, along with Brisco/Funk, Rock/Austin, and Michaels/Undertaker.

They tie up and begin by wrestling, Tanahashi outworking the other until Okada takes control of the arm. They exchange arm holds, but Tanahashi works Okada into a drop toe hold and grabs a side headlock. Okada slips it and grabs one of his own. Okada keeps it on for awhile, hitting a shoulder block with Tanahashi shoots him into the ropes. Okada shoots Tanahashi into the ropes and has his knee taken out from under him by the champion, who slides out of the ring and back in to regain control with another headlock. Ross loves Okada’s dropkick. He wants to see it. Tanahashi maintains the headlock until Okada shoots him into the ropes, then he gets the shoulder block. Tanahashi does a side headlock takeover, but Okada counters with a headscissors, and we’re at a stalemate.

Okada and Tanahashi wrestle each other into the corner now, exchanging positions because neither wants to be the man who needs a break. Finally, Okada makes like he is going to give Tanahashi a break, only to nail him with a forearm in the corner. Tanahashi fires back with a few of his own, and we’re in a slugfest, forearms and uppercuts, no punches thrown. Tanahashi bodyslams Okada and climbs to the middle rope, but Okada is up before Tanahashi can leap, hitting him with a sprinting uppercut that sends Tanahashi tumbling to the Tokyo Dome floor. Okada pursues the champion, kicking him over the guardrail that surrounds the ring. He then drags Okada over the railing and hits a hanging DDT. Okada stops the referee from continuing his count and starts taking Tanahashi out onto the Tokyo Dome ramp. He goes for a tombstone piledriver, but Tanahashi deadweights and refuses to go. He fights Okada off and hits him with a jawbreaker before air guitaring his way up the ramp. Nakamura sprints down the ramp at Okada, who lifts the champion up onto his shoulders and hits an Attitude Adjustment on the ramp. The difference between Okada and John Cena, though, is that The Rainmaker’s AA is snug and harsh-looking.

Okada gets Tanahashi back into the ring and hits him with a fast, low dropkick. Okada misses a leaping forearm smash in the corner but gets his boot up on an oncoming Tanahashi, bodyslams him, and misses a senton. Tanahashi lands some strikes, punctuated by a diving forearm off the ropes. He climbs to the middle turnbuckle and lands a somersault senton for two. Tanahashi springs off the ropes and gets flapjacked by his challenger. Tanahashi scores with a back elbow, though, and misses with a crossbody. Okada looks for a roll-up, but instead locks Tanahashi in a crucifix submission. The champion scoots forward and grabs the ropes to break the submission. Thus indisposed, however, Okada easily lands a slingshot senton over the ropes, and scores a near fall. Okada challenges Tanahashi to get back into things, but the champion’s forearms aren’t doing it. Okada’s, however, have their desired effect. Eventually, champion and challenger have each other by the hair, and Tanahashi takes over with an uppercut. Okada replies with a trio of uppercuts and tries to kick Tanahashi, who is telegraphing his back body drop, but Tanahashi traps the leg and slams his elbow down on the kneecap. Okada, however, still manages to level Tanahashi with a dropkick, sending the champion into the corner.

Okada goes for another fireman’s carry slam, but Tanahashi catches Okada’s neck and brings him down by it. That’s a two count. Okada puts Tanahashi on the top rope and struggles up the turnbuckles to meet him. The champion elbows his way off of Okada’s shoulders and knocks him off. Okada’s in position for the High Fly Flow frog splash, but Okada moves and drills Tanahashi with a driving uppercut as he’s trying to get back to his feet. That’s a two count. Okada picks Tanahashi up in another fireman’s carry and brings Tanahashi’s neck and shoulders down across his knee. Another near fall. Okada takes his time and executes a top rope elbow drop on Tanahashi, hitting his pose. The camera zooms waaaaaaaay out, and Okada goes for his Rainmaker lariat, but the champion counters into a roll up, getting a near fall. The two exchange counters, Tanahashi catching Okada’s boot and bringing it down, where he executes a dragon screw leg whip.

Tanahashi begins working the leg, as that, according to Striker, is where he gets the drive for his lariat. Good call. Tanahashi dropkicks the knee, and Jim Ross starts getting sad because he wants to see Okada’s drop kick. Okada sends Tanahashi into the guardrail and follows after him, but Tanahashi moves out of the way and the challenger takes a header over the railing and onto the concrete floor. Tanahashi climbs onto the top turnbuckle in the ring and considers his options, leaps, and lands a High Fly Flow (really more of a cross body since Okada is standing), clearing a lot of distance in the process!

Tanahashi struggles to get Okada back to the ring, but gets the job done. He climbs to the top rope and manages to avoid crashing and burning when Okada ducks him, and turns the Rainmaker lariat into his Slingblade, a set up for the High Fly Flow. He goes up top and hits it while Okada is standing, but the Rainmaker rolls through and stands with Takada gripped for the Tombstone, which is an amazing feat of strength and body control. Tanahashi reverses it in the classic style, flipping it over and going for one of his own, which he lands! It is a heavy, nasty tombstone from a dude who doesn’t use the move often, if ever, and thus looks particularly devastating. Rather than cover his man, Tanahashi ascends the turnbuckles once more and sticks the High Fly Flow on Okada’s back. He rolls Okada over and goes up top once more. He lands the move a second time, has Okada covered, but the challenger kicks out!

Ross can’t believe how many High Fly Flows Tanahashi has used in such a brief span, and, well, it is actually pretty unusual for a wrestler to use their finish as frequently as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion does. Tanahashi goes for the Texas Cloverleaf, but is kicked away by Okada. Tanahashi tries to regain control, but Okada fires back with an uppercut. Tanahashi gets one of his own in and lands another Slingblade before doing a Rainmaker pose of his own. Tanahashi goes for the Rainmaker lariat, but Okada ducks and rips Tanahashi back into his own Rainmaker, which lands the champion nastily on his head. Okada goes for the cover, but Tanahashi kicks out, which is something nobody, Tanahashi included, has done before.

Okada and Tanahashi struggle to their knees, where they begin exchanging forearms once more. They forearm each other back to a standing position, and Okada manages to get Tanahashi into tombstone position. The champion, however, has other plans, and scores with a roll-up. Okada kicks out, but just barely. Tanahashi catches Okada’s leg on a kick and dropkicks the one planted on the mat. Tanahashi starts slapping Okada, who falls to his knees. Tanahashi brings him back up and tries for another open hand strike, but Okada ducks and goes for the backslide. That gets a two count. Okada goes for another Rainmaker, but Tanahashi ducks and goes for a dragon suplex. Okada breaks the arms, though, only for Tanahashi to straightjacket them and take him over with a German suplex that nearly ends the contest.

Okada slips another attempt at the dragon suplex and hits a beautiful bridging German of his own for two. Tanahashi gets out of a second and hits his dragon suplex, but that doesn’t end it, either. Tanahashi goes off the ropes, but Okada hits his dropkick, which Ross calls like he just saw Jeff Hardy fall off a ladder. He is into this match, and, even after the brilliance of Ibushi/Nakamura, it is hard not to be right there with him. Okada misses another Rainmaker, and Tanahashi makes him pay with another dragon screw. Tanahashi does another one, this one over the ropes, and that’s going to take away the power of the Rainmaker for sure. Okada’s leg is limp and he’s having trouble getting it out of the ropes, so Tanahashi takes advantage, climbing the turnbuckles and landing an incredible High Fly Flow, sandwiching Okada into the mat! Hardly finished, Tanahashi hits the dragon screw from a fourth position and hits another High Fly Flow, this time while Okada is seated. Okada is out, done, and Tanahashi goes up top once more, turning his body mid-air for the High Fly Flow, his third in a row, and the one that ends it.

Both men are spent on the canvas, the Ace of the Universe and the Rainmaker. Okada put in one hell of an effort, but Tanahashi’s game plan was resplendent. Even if the dragon screws didn’t deter Okada from attempting the Rainmaker, they slowed the younger man down and enabled the champion to avoid him. Later, those dragon screws incapacitated Okada to the point that Tanahashi was able to land three High Fly Flows, each one more impressive than the last. Even if Okada had managed to kick out of the last one, Okada was done, a Texas Cloverleaf away from giving the match to Tanahash regardless of whatever grit he had left.

Tanahashi accepts his championship and raises his hand in victory. Okada, meanwhile, is led back to the locker room, openly weeping. Man. Even at the end this match’s story is compelling. Okada obviously has nothing to be ashamed of, but he came into this match as the slight favorite and was bested. Tanahashi tells the 27-year-old challenger that he wasn’t ready to be New Japan’s ace yet, which is some salt in the wounds for sure. Tanahashi closes the show by playing air guitar, because that’s his Hogan pose, and Hogan always closes with a pose, brother.

Overall, this was an incredible wrestling event, featuring something for everybody. . As far as the presentation goes, this was just the regular New Japan feed with different commentary. Matt Striker, when he wasn’t trying too hard to be an über-fan, was great, though his tendency to shout out podcasts and t-shirts and shamelessly drop insider terms for no reason irked the hell out of me. Everybody’s mileage varies on the guy, and if he’s the color commentator on NJPW’s eventual American TV show, it’s not like I’m going to skip watching it because he’s on commentary. Jim Ross knows his shortcomings when it comes to pronunciation of Japanese names and is forthcoming about them, and if he seems “off,” then it’s because he’s less shouty here than he was late in his WWE tenure. I thought he did a tremendous job, particularly during the biggest matches of the night, where his reverence for the performers and their skills felt genuine, which I suspect it was. I love the old guy and his foibles, agree with a lot of his takes on the tiny, presentational aspects of the game, and don’t mind that he doesn’t think Freddie Mercury was a badass. If the company feels the need to go with a big, “name” announce team, there probably aren’t many out there who can top this one. Announcing is something of a lost art in wrestling, so it’s good to have a guy like Jim Ross out there, still practicing it.

There are, I think, four matches worth going out of your way to see from this card, and perhaps two more depending on how much you like Kenny Omega and/or the work-shoot style of pro wrestling. That is a lot of great wrestling stretched out over four hours, and whether you’re seeing New Japan through a service like Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling or through NJPWWorld, this event appears to be the ground floor for a promotion that currently knows no ceiling, whose roster is at an artistic peak, and whose audience continues to expand.

January 6, 2015
Sara Del Rey vs. Cassandro (9/27/08)

This match is from the second round of the 2008 Ted Petty Invitational Tournament, which is IWA Mid-South’s annual weekend blowout of indie wrestling dream matches designed to determine who the best wrestler on the indies is. For a long time, the TPI tournaments, held in honor of “Flyboy” Rocco Rock of ECW fame, had the reputation of being the best, weirdest, most innovative shows of the year, with the 2004 tournament in particular held by many as the best in the history of independent wrestling. Though I was once involved on the independents, my knowledge of IWA-MS and the scene in general before 2011 is sketchy at best. I’d seen some Ring of Honor shows and things like CM Punk vs. Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. (also from an IWA-MS show), and while I respected the skill and craft of the wrestlers themselves, something about the presentation—the announcing, the incredibly hostile crowds, the shock of seeing 60 or 100 people in a crowd after a lifetime of packed arenas—always scared me away. I still think that is the biggest barrier of entry for the world beyond WWE and “sports-entertainment,” or for the fan of a promotion like CHIKARA who wants to check out their favorite wrestlers more than once or twice a month. But this match is an example of what a fan might be rewarded with if they can get past all that. A match between Cassandro and Sara Del Rey is only possible in independent professional wrestling, and, for a long time, was the exclusive province of a company like IWA Mid-South, which was experimental enough to look upon a meeting between a female wrestler and a Mexican exótico as a dream match.

Del Rey, as I’ve written before, is my favorite wrestler. According to the announcers she’s just starting to pattern her mannerisms and methodical approach to wrestling after the thick, domineering women of Japanese wrestling, but she will one day be hired as the head female trainer at the WWE Performance Center without having ever wrestled a match for Vince McMahon. Cassandro is one of my favorite wrestlers of whom I’ve seen very little from, the undisputed king of the exóticos. Exóticos as performers are something else, a sub-genre of Mexican lucha libre where men wrestle in drag. Some, like Cassandro, are openly gay. Others, like Máximo, are straight, and homosexuality is their drag. The best exóticos are hugely popular, world-traveled, and frequently wrestle for important championships in Mexico’s largest promotions. Cassandro is probably the most well-known exótico in the United States, as he was the subject of an exceptional profile in The New Yorker, has appeared on Colt Cabana’s The Art of Wrestling podcast, and often wrestles on American lucha libre shows. The crowd here is very respectful towards both competitors and remain engaged with the contest throughout. Intergender wrestling is hotly contested territory for fans of indie wrestling, but Del Rey and Cassandro are both masters of the niche, and the usual man vs. woman tropes never come into play. This is just a wrestling match: Two wrestlers wrestle; the best one wins.

To that end, Del Rey is having none of Cassandro’s fun and games; as soon as the exótico turns towards her, she slaps the gum out of his mouth. Cassandro isn’t taking any of that, though, and he responds with a slap of his own. Having disrespected each other, the two tie up and jockey for position, neither wrestler giving an inch as they hit the ropes and turnbuckles, where they separate. Cassandro’s years of experience come into play as he outwrestles Del Rey, sending her to the canvas with a hip toss. From there, he flows into a beautiful-looking key lock variation that Del Rey tries to bridge out from, only to have Cassandro sweep one of her legs. Del Rey rolls out and takes control, dragging her opponent over by both of his arms. Back to their feat, Cassandro offers a test of strength but takes Del Rey into a full-arm drag and twist, instead. He twists again and goes into another hammerlock. Del Rey hook her arm around Cassandro’s head, and he tries to use this position to suplex her, but she has the leverage and scores a headlock takeover. Having settled down from the opening exchange of slaps, what’s clear is that both wrestlers are very evenly matched. Cassandro kicks out of an odd pin attempt, then bridges up. Del Rey tries to bring him up by the arms, maybe to put him in a double chickenwing (the vaunted hold that Rickey Steamboat developed to defeat Ric Flair), but Cassandro manages to bring her over. It’s a nice spot, something you don’t see in every bit of chain wrestling.

From there, Cassandro works on his opponent’s arm, but there’s hatred in his eyes, and he starts pulling Del Rey’s hair. I hate comparing things to WWE, but there’s a lot of hair pulling in WWE’s women’s division, and this isn’t that. Cassandro is yanking Del Rey’s hair, and this pisses the woman known as Death Rey off. She battles up to her feet and takes Cassandro over with an arm drag. Now she gets a key lock, but Cassandro rolls her over and gets a two count. Del Rey tries to reassert her advantage but can’t; Cassandro takes control of her arms and leads her back to a standing position. Del Rey attempts to wrestle out, but Cassandro keeps and arm hooked and leverages her back to the canvas with an arm drag. They reset and go for a test of strength again. This time, Cassandro kicks Del Rey in the gut and puts her in the Gory Special, that most excellent of lucha libre submissions. He transitions it into a pinning predicament for Del Rey, who has to keep kicking out while Cassandro tries to keep her shoulders to the mat. After a succession of near falls, Del Rey pulls herself up and onto Cassandro’s shoulders and rolls into a sunset flip!

Cassandro kicks out and Del Rey takes control with a headlock. Cassandro sweeps Del Rey’s leg, though, and takes her down to the canvas. Del Rey isn’t compromised for long, though, as she takes Cassandro down with a drop toe hold. Before she can sink in a chinlock or a rear naked choke, Cassandro grabs the ropes. Del Rey brings him up to his feet and snapmares him over to a seated position, where she gets a sleeper hold. Cassandro gets to his feet, though, and the two start wrestling again. Del Rey takes Cassandro to the mat, where they go through the see-saw routine, and Del Rey scores a near fall. Cassandro tries to reassert himself, but Del Rey cuts him off with a knee to the gut and another armdrag. They both get to their feet and stand off. Del Rey’s the first to move, but Cassandro blocks her punch, interlaces his fingers with hers, then takes her out with an arm drag from the top rope. Del Rey gets up and gets kicked in the stomach, and Cassandro moves away from her to climb up the turnbuckles. This is the first tactical mistake of the match, and Del Rey takes advantage, kicking Cassandro from behind, which sends him spilling to the hardwood floor below. Del Rey follows up with a senton off the apron onto a dazed Cassandro. She rolls him back into the ring and drops a knee on his head, but Cassandro is soon back to his feet, hammering away at Del Rey. He gets a headlock in, but Del Rey shoots him into the ropes and drops down, which is when this happens…

Sara Del Rey is frustrated now, and now she charges in with a kick to the chest. She whips Cassandro across the ring to the other turnbuckles, but Cassandro evades Del Rey by jumping onto the ring apron, hitting her with a shoulder block to the stomach, then leaping from the top ropes, where he grabs her by the head and sends her out of the ring. Del Rey takes a breather in the front row while the fans get out of the way. Cassandro’s not about to give Del Rey a time out though, and just as soon as she’s sitting down, he’s through the ropes with a tope suicida that takes his opponent and the front row!

Del Rey recovers and rolls into the ring, where Cassandro kicks her in the face. He takes Del Rey up with a butterfly and drops her with a facebuster. He gets a two count and checks with the referee to make sure it wasn’t a three. It wasn’t, so he takes Del Rey back down to the mat with a trip, deathlocks her legs, and wraps her in an interesting pinning combination for another two count. Del Rey ducks a clothesline and picks Cassandro up for an atomic drop but just throws him on his ass. She follows quickly with a body scissors, which she rolls over into a pinning combination for a near fall of her own. Cassandro rolls out, but Del Rey takes him over to the other side for another two. He rolls back to a seated base, and Del Rey pulls his hair, getting revenge from earlier. She pulls him up to his feet by the hair and then throws him across the ring! Cassandro fights back by headbutting Del Rey in the stomach, which sends her staggering back to the turnbuckles. She moves out of a charging Cassandro’s way and he ends up shouldering the ring post. Del Rey follows in with a cross armbreaker, and Cassandro has no choice but to submit!

This is a really good match. Not quite as good as the announce team’s constant refrain that we’re seeing is awesome with several os, but beyond the occasional transition that’s not as snug as possible, there’s so much to like here. Neither wrestler is working as a heel here, but Cassandro works the entire match like he’s pissed off about Del Rey’s opening slap. He is always in Del Rey’s hair, always pleased with himself. And the match-long focus on the arms of both competitors pays off in the end with the finishing sequence, Cassandro hurting his own shoulder with the missed attack in the corner, and Del Rey pouncing on it with the cross armbreaker. For ten minutes, Del Rey and Cassandro wrestled as equals in a match where a minor mistake would end it. That’s what happened in the end, and what could have been a novelty match was instead a very good, very smart contest that’s just as engaging the fourth or fifth time as it was the first.

This match was found for free on Highspots.com and uploaded to YouTube to make it embeddable on this website for critical purposes. Support IWA-MS by subscribing to their YouTube channel or buying a show from SmartMark Video.

January 1, 2015