NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 Late Review

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 In Tokyo Dome - 04.01.2015

15 Man Battle Royal
Captain New Japan vs. El Desperado vs. Hiro Saito vs. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Manabu Nakanishi vs. Sho Tanaka vs. Taichi vs. TAKA Michinoku vs.Tama Tonga vs. The Great Kabuki vs. Tiger Mask vs. Yohei Komatsu vs. YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Yuji Nagata

It was not good but eh... FUJIWARA BITCH! It was nice to see Saito and Kabuki too. At least the right guy won.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title Four Way Match
reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) (c) vs. Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson), Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov & Rocky Romero), Time Splitters (Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA)

Not a very good version of your classic jr opener spotfest, it somehow felt long at times. Still watchable but let's be honest the first 3 matches are not why you watch this show.
**1/2

BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Jeff Jarrett & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) & Tomoaki Honma

HONMA WINS! AFTER HITTING HIS HEADBUTT!
**********

Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lance Archer, Shelton Benjamin & Takashi Iizuka) vs. TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste), Naomichi Marufuji & Toru Yano

I kwow they did it for the NOAH/NJPW "partnership" but it's the less interesting match on the show. If that means TMDK will be back in NJPW tho, it's all good. Nothing match except the Lance Archer Chokeslam, one of my favorites moves in wrestling right now.

UWFI Rules Match
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Minoru Suzuki

I needed to rewatch it to like it, I didn't expect this. I thought they were going for a full UWFI match and I was really excited for it, I'm a big shoot wrestling fan and I was disappointed. I still that's what they should have done especially with so little time. But to be fair this is a really good match anyway. WHITE SUZUKI ~
***1/2

NEVER Openweight Title Match
Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Togi Makabe

Makabe is now better when is not against brawlers, he really is to slow and it's a little hard to think his elbows can be as devastaing as the ones from Ishii, Shibata, Goto, ... But eh they hit each other hard (that last lariat OUCH), they no-sell a bunch of things, exactly what you'll excpect. Makabe targetting Ishii's shoulder was nice. It's a good match, you just want more from an Ishii title match.
***1/4

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Ryusuke Taguchi (c) vs. Kenny Omega

I don't remember much about this one and I don't really want to watch it again now. The two competitors were bland and it just was not interesting.
**3/4?

IWGP Tag Team Title Match
BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) (c) vs. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata

They had even less time than Suzuki and Sakuraba but they did a lot. Great match, seeing team best friends do all of these double moves was awesome. And it's Shibata winning his first gold! It's shame these two didn't have a long reign (I still hope they will).
****

AJ Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito

Not as good as their G1 Climax match but this was still awesome. They have great chemistry. I hope Naito will challenge for AJ's IWGP, these two could have an all time great match together. Naito escaping the Styles Clash at all cost was amazing. Bonus points for the Rush apron dropkick.
****

IWGP Intercontinental Title Match
Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kota Ibushi

HOLLY SHIT
*****

IWGP Heavyweight Title Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada

Everything that makes their previous matches great + a huge dive, a little more roughness with Okada channelling his inner Claudio Castagnoli, somehow an upset and this fucking post match! If you didn't understand the importance of that match before, there's no doubt possible after.
I see why they did it but I liked that the Rainaker was the killmove no matter what (except when there is arm work and long wait before the cover but that was not the case here). Okada wasn't on the top of his selling game, he was still really good but we know what he's capable of and stronger leg selling at the end could have make it even better. It's probably nitpicking but their series of matches are so great that's what you got to do. Judging by my star rating alone it's not even in their top 3 together, that's pretty crazy. Greatest rivalry of all time? Idk but the question deserves to be asked.
****1/2

So yea(o)h, it was a great show...

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WrestleMania 31 (aka Play Button) Review (aka quick and random thoughts)

WWE WrestleMania 31 - 29.03.2015

Kickoff:  WWE Tag Team Title Fatal Four Way Match
Cesaro & Tyson Kidd (w/Natalya) (c) vs. Los Matadores (Diego & Fernando) (w/El Torito) vs. The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) (w/Xavier Woods) vs. The Usos (Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso) (w/Naomi)

Are they gonna do a 4 way tag every year, Wrestle Kingdom style? Cesaro is awesome. Every managers participating in the action was nice. A fun spotfest, perfect for an opener.

Kickoff: Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal 
Adam Rose vs. Alex Riley vs. Big E vs. Bo Dallas vs. Cesaro vs. Curtis Axel vs. Damien Mizdow vs. Darren Young vs. Diego vs. Erick Rowan vs.Fandango vs. Fernando vs. Goldust vs. Heath Slater vs. Hideo Itami vs. Jack Swagger vs. Jimmy Uso vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Konnor vs. Mark Henry vs. Ryback vs. Sin Cara vs. The Big Show vs. The Miz vs. Titus O'Neil vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Viktor vs. Xavier Woods vs. Zack Ryder

Why not give Mizdow is win, who cares about this trophy? You need to push that newcomer Big Show!
Not bad for a battle royal. I enjoyed it.

Intercontinental Title Seven Way Ladder Match
Bad News Barrett (c) vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Luke Harper vs. R-Truth vs. Stardust

Ok the most important thing first: Stardust custom ladder was awesome. I hate fake wwe ladders but the Ambrose bump was terrifying. I still don't know why R-Truth was in that match. Slightly better than your average modern multi man ladder match. Great punches by Bryan!

Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins (w/Jamie Noble & Joey Mercury)

Your usual Randy Orton match except it was with a shitty random powerbomb no sell and a trully great finish. Not your fake RKO OUTTTA NOWHERE in almost every Orton match. That was in Evan Bourne's level of RKO. Orton marking out for his own finisher was fun.
Wasn't good.

No Disqualification & No Count Out Match
Sting vs. Triple H

Japanese Crow vs Shitty Terminator ~
Why these entrances? Why the first (and possibly only) Sting match in WWE is against HHH? How is this a WCW vs WWE thing? How did it become NWO vs DX?
I'll stop here with a quote from Sting on the last Raw before Mania: "I'm not here to fight for WCW that would be ridiculous at this point"
Wasn't good.

AJ Lee & Paige vs. The Bella Twins (Brie Bella & Nikki Bella)

The new thing is to give time to the divas in the main roster but eh it's Wrestlemania so fuck them, they've got 6 minutes.
Wasn't good.

WWE United States Title Match
Rusev (w/Lana) (c) vs. John Cena

Entrance of the night from Rusev.
So everybody kicks out of the AA except the man who is undefeated for 1 year at Wrestlemian where you have multiple finishers kick outs in every matches. You better not make Rusev a fucking jobber.
Wasn't good.

Ronda vs Stephany needs to happen, plz UFC authorize it. She does not even have to wrestle, a slap turn into a Shinsuke Armbar and it would be the huge wrestlemania moment that WWE wants.


Bray Wyatt vs. The Undertaker

This is my second favorite match of the show but I'm a pretty big Taker mark. Great selling by the old man. It has the spider walk/sit up spot that you want. It also has a Tombstone kick out that you don't really want. And a stupid Wyatt hurting his knee with the stairs by himself.

WWE World Heavyweight Title Triple Threat Match
Brock Lesnar (w/Paul Heyman) (c) vs. Roman Reigns

Shiiiiit that was stiff and it was indeed Suplex City Bitch. The ending wad kind of a cop out, the match was so good it deserved a proper finish. I like him so good for him I guess. It did have too many finishers, like the rest of the show...
****1/4

I liked that show, not great wrestling quality, it did have a lot flaws and it wasn't as good as last year awesome edition but fuck it's still a good show!

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