MikeCampbell

This Hangman/Swerve deal has got to be the best "double turn" since Bret and Austin in 1997. Even before the finish, where Swerve wanted to keep going and Hangman peaced out, there were hints about it. Hangman hit the DDT on the guadrail and rolls in and tells the ref to count him out. Swerve hits the Deadeye through the table and then quickly gets Hangman back into the ring so he can win the match the "right" way. I'm loving this BCC/CMLL stuff, although I do wish they didn't rush to get some of the lower card dudes involved quite yet. It just reeks of AEW not wanting to beat any of the BCC guys, but it's not like they can keep the feud hot by always having their guys go over. Danielson is working the NJPW show on 2/11 and the NJ/CMLL tour starts on 2/12. Cubsfan hypothesized that perhaps Hechicero will be in the front row on 2/11 and will have some sort of confrontation with Danielson. I'm beyond happy for Sting, a guy I've been watching since I was six years old (and I just turned 41), getting one last title run before he hangs it up. I just worry that it means we'll get another title run from Matthew and Nicholas, and their neverending parade of bullshit.

In a freaky coincidence, I just happened to watch the match on the date of its 20th Anniversary. It's been the best U-STYLE match I've seen by a fucking mile. There's an undercard match between Kyosuke Sasaki and Crafter M that almost seems to be their attempts to pay homage to Tamura and Kosaka, but that comes off like an exhibition. This feels like a real contest. It's the first time in the history of the company that Tamura has truly looked like himself.

I'm thinking the same thing. And it's actually for the best, IMO. Perry has been gone for so long that any return outside of him being the Devil comes off like a retread. Let him spend a few months in NJPW and then do something to build up to Forbidden Door and cut a scathing promo on how the company did him wrong, and hopefully create a buzz.

I had to work at the crack of dawn on Sunday, so I wasn't able to watch live. I figured I'd watch it after work. Then, I get a text from my father at about 8:00 that morning telling me that Joe was the new champion and that Adam Cole was the devil. And there went all my urgency to watch the show. I did finally watch it this morning. Adam Cole leading a heel stable is a movie that we've all seen before, but I'm still OK with it. With MJF out for a bit, they have feuds with Hangman and the Acclaimed that can be used to fill up some time until Max is ready to come back. When the lights went out, I just rolled my eyes. It's way too overdone at this point. Hell, having the masked guys line up on and the floor and Cole hitting him with the crutch would have been better, and probably gotten a bigger pop.

This just never comes together at all. Takada doesn't seem to be in the mood to do fuckall with Nakano, a far cry from what Yamazaki did with a few weeks before. Nakano hits a huge German and Takada just leaps to his feet and starts blasting him with kicks to show everyone who the man really is. 18 minutes for these two was just way too long, they could have chopped this down to six or seven and probably not lost much.

So the first AEW Triple Crown will be decided between Eddie Kingston, who came up with the concept of the title being a Triple Crown, started the tournament going 0-2, and came back to win his block by beating the same man who proclaimed him to be "a bum." And Jon Moxley, who has a long history with Eddie Kingston, including a feud over the AEW Title, which Eddie never won, and after becoming allies, became rivals again this year. Baba or Chosyu couldn't have booked this any better.

I also had Garcia getting the upset to keep Brody out of the semi's. I was originally thinking that Claudio would upset Bryan and Kingston would beat Andrade to give them all a tie, but your way sounds a lot less chaotic.

Yet another example of the fact how great a worker Yamazaki was at this time. He more or less wrestles himself here, he puts himself into positions for Nakano to do simple counters (such as lower his base to prevent the German so Nakano only needed to shove him down to get a back mount), and he absolutely sells his ass off and makes it seems like Nakano actually has a prayer of winning this match. Of course, he's Kazuo Yamazaki and he knows that he can end it whenever he wants, which he does after a couple of hard kicks and a legbar. But it's a total blast watching him look like Nakano's bitch before that. After this match Maeda faced Funaki and Takada wrestled Suzuki, and both of those matches are surefire insomnia cures.

I really wanted to like this, because they both sell like death when Nagata works the knee and Ishikawa works the ribs, but both body part segments were just filler and had no impact on the finish at all, and their execution was godawful, even Nagata's armbar toward the end looked like he was exerting next to no real pressure on Ishikawada.

This isn't even ten minutes long, but it's a brilliant match. It perfectly plays off of ther earlier tournament matches that Ito and Aoki had that got them to the finals, and the end result is the morality play that pro wrestling is supposed to be. This isn't going to get the attention, or amount of dicussion (for better or worse), that Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns from WrestleMania did. But, unlike Cody, Takanori Ito was able to "finish the story." While I sat in front of my laptop trying to piece together what all I wanted to say about this match, it got me thinking about the mentality of only wanting to see the "best" matches (and for the record I am just as guilty as anyone else of having that mindset), and this is a prime example of why that's a flawed way to look at things. If I was to show this to someone who hadn't seen any of the earlier tournament stuff, they'd probably come away having enjoyed the match (depending on their overall opinion of shootstyle) but they'd miss the context of why a lot of the little things that Aoki and Ito do worked so well.

Wrong year, bruh. Umaga and Cena's match was at the 2007 Royal Rumble. They were both in the actual Rumble match in 2008, which Cena actually won.

This is, without a doubt or any hint of exaggeration, the worst match I've seen this year! Picture Roderick Strong vs. GUNTHER in a chop battle, with nobody bothering to sell, and that's what this looks like. It gets absurd to the point that Ishida does a running boot to the corner (like Sami Zayn's finisher) and T-Hawk just stares back at him, completely unphased. Then it turns into some sort of "tribute" the latter day Misawa/Kobashi matches with them throwing each other with suplexes and popping right back up. Just complete garbage!

I'm making my way through this show to review for my website, and I have to disagree with the part that I bolded above. I'm 5/7 of the way finished, and I'd say it's actually been fairly memorable. Okubo certainly stepped up for both of his matches and the Ueyama/Ito match was a nice affair with some traditional pro-style storytelling and smartly takes advantage of the UWF-style rules by putting over Ito, and doing it in such a way that it doesn't make Ueyama look bad at all. What's most diappointing, with the benefit of hindsight, is that the tournament itself almost feels like a waste when one knows what's going to happen in the next few months. It's clearly designed as a vehicle to get Kyosuke Sasaki over, which it certainly accomplishes, but it could have been done so much better and been made to matter long term. Fujii sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the people involved. There was no reason for him, with his Vader/Albright in UWFI push, to be lumped in with this crew. Replace him with Yoshida or Murahama and let Sasaki win the whole thing and cement him as the next "guy" as far as the Tamura trainees goes. The Tamura vs. Fujii match (which happened in December) could have easily taken place on this show. Hell, after the Tamura match Fujii was done in the company for nearly two years anyway.

Two wrestlers known for their stiffness, and they don't disappoint! The thing that stuck out the most to me was the crowd, epsecially one woman who was super high pitched and vocal in her support of Wahoo. It reminded me of watching a Jay Strongbow match on an old Coliseum Video and the crowd was vocal but a good portion of their support was done through 'war cries' for him. None of that stuff here. Just traditional crowd heat, which I'm very tempted to compare to the 1992 Can Ams vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi classic, wanting to see their guy win.

For whatever it's worth, this is easily one of my favorite Inoki matches (and I've never really been a fan of his work). I can absolutely see the Ikeda/Ishikawa comparisions. This feels "legit" in a way that Inoki's 'different style' fights the faux MMA stuff he did in the 90's and 00's never did to me. The crowd was hot throughout and when Oki's headbutt busted him open, the phrase "unglued" doesn't even do it justice.