U.W.F. Kakutogi Road League Match I 1/7/85

League Match: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 19:59. Intense grappler vs. striker match in the vein of Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger with Fujiwara attacking the arm, while Yamazaki looked to hurt Fujiwara with one big strike so he could go to town on him with a barrage. What made this so good is in all areas they were able to conjure the atmosphere of viciousness to the point where Yamazaki seemed brutal even when his kicks were misfiring. Fujiwara did a lot more selling here then in later years, and did a nice job of seeming vulnerable to his upstart adversary. You figured the veteran would win, but it wasn't wrestled with that obviousness, both wrestlers were often in danger, and the fault was more that they weren't coming as close to finishing as they should have been. Fujiwara was also totally serious here, no goofy headbutt or "fun" spots designed to get a rise from the crowd. The match was excellent from the outset, and never wavered in effort or intensity. Fujiwara controlled the early portion with his armwork, but then Yamazaki found his opening & wouldn't relent, working Fujiwara over in the corner with kicks until he was down then dropping a knee on his forearm & putting the boots to him rather than breaking because Fujiwara was under the ropes in ther corner. This, of course, mostly just riled Fujiwara up, and he came back with a series of punches in the corner, again some missing, but still, even if Yamazaki was the smaller man, he was much better off making this a standup war because Fujiwara is the superior grappler. Once he proved he could take Fujiwara's punishment, and give back a lot more of his own, he really took over the match & had Fujiwara on the defensive, forced to rely on his wily submission escapes & counters to gain an advantage. Yamazaki came back with elbows & leveled Fujiwara with one of those nasty slaps across the face we normally associate with Fujiwara. Increasingly, it was almost one way traffic on their feet, but Yamazaki still didn't avoid the mat, he wisely chose to venture there on his own terms, for instance locking an armbar after stomping Fujiwara several times in the ropes. Still, sooner or later, Fujiwara's ground prowess would wind up ruling the day, in this case he ultimately slammed his way out of a triangle & took over. The match was a bit long for what they were trying to accomplish, and kind of settled into the same narrow pattern of Yamazaki overwhelming Fujiwara with his strikes that should have hurt him a lot more than they somehow did then trying for a submission, but ultimately getting reversed on the mat by the better technician. That's not to say it wasn't all quite good, individually it was pretty much all standout, but after a certain point the sequences weren't so much adding to one another as becoming redundant. I mean, at some point when you've seen them take the most ferocious strikes & survive countless locked in submissions, you began to feel that no one was really even making progress toward the finish, which would probably just happen at some indiscriminate point even though Yamazaki just getting a KO or Fujiwara just winning with some kind of arm lock were painfully obviously logical endings. Certainly the limit on the number of stomps to the head Fujiwara should have been able to survive was exceeded in just the first series of them. They finally worked their way to a nice finish where, after the entire match was kicks & submissions, Yamazaki stunned Fujiwara enough with a series of kicks to pull off a German suplex after a big high kick. The problem is rather than end it there, Fujiwara was inexplicably up first & an unreasonably spent Yamazaki somehow had no defense for his piledriver of all things. Just goofy. Then Fujiwara did the hammerlock twice since Yamazaki made the ropes the first time before finishing it with a completely unrelated crossface. Sure. I wanted to love this match, and apart from the whiffs it was mostly incredibly well done, but it was one of those matches that started great & then kind of just kept repeating itself until it ended, just because. That still puts it well above most matches which never even rise to this level for a sequence, but the match still feels more like an amazing miss than an actual great match. ****

Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda 22:18. Tiger is probably the greatest striker in the history of pro wrestling because he actually strikes as though he's in a real fight rather than someone whose opponent is just letting them do whatever they want. He uses footwork & feints to set things up, and is so far superior in that aspect than even the guys who crossed over from MMA & kickboxing bother to put the effort into being. And man, he is just so quick & explosive. That being said, he is of the go big or go home variety, but he's so far superior to anyone in his era as an athlete that he can mostly get away with all his high & spinning kicks and bombs away knee drops even in this shoot setting. If Yamazaki is a lesser version of Tiger in the previous match, then Maeda is a lesser version of Fujiwara in this match. While the standup is more credible & somewhat more exciting because Tiger is more skilled & diverse at it than Yamazaki, it also severely lacks the all out intensity & grudge match atmosphere that Yamazaki & Fujiwara were able to create from the outset to make up for that. The matwork is nowhere near the same level though, as even a young Maeda isn't particularly active & is much more into a slow, grinding ground game. Though Tiger is a human highlight reel, as you'd expect from Maeda, the match is mostly quick explosions followed by lengthy deliberate controlling segments. It's more a match that has it's moments than Yamazaki/Fujiwara which is fantastically consistent throughout, but as it takes a while to get really good, it does give the illusion of building a lot better than the match where they're just going from start to finish. The finishing sequence is excellent because Maeda finally lets loose & throws caution to the wind, but even then, it's not that long before Tiger takes him out with a headscissors. You could reasonably rank Tiger, Yamazaki, & Fujiwara in any order from 1-3, but Maeda is the clear #4 on this show, and that's why this is nowhere near the level of the semifinal. ***

UFC Fight Night 135 8/25/18

Cory Sandhagen vs. Iuri Alcantara R2 1:01. Alcantara had a big bounce back win over Joe Soto in February, and appeared poised for another early first round victory here over favorite Sandhagen, blitzing him with hooks & dragging him down into an armbar after he stunned Cory with one. Sandhagen's arm was bent at such an awful looking angle that at first I thought Iuri broke it, but the problem was Alcantara was never able to get the outside leg over Sandhagen's face, so even though he had the armbar secured deep under each of his own armpits at various times, it was the much harder to finish triangle armbar. Alcantara was never able to get all the leverage to go against the elbow joint, allowing Sandhagen to keep it slightly turned & bent. Alcantara was working Sandhagen over with hammerfists to open up the moment to adjust it more to his advantage, but meanwhile Sandhagen tried to peel the heel off to break the triangle, and was able to roll to his knees & take over with a barrage of postured up ground punches that more or less lasted the remaining 3 1/2 minutes of the 1st. Alcantara was looking to sweep with a kneebar, but after a minute & a half of getting beaten on he really needed to be switching to actually using a defensive guard rather than just allowing Sandhagen free reign to drop bombs on him at will. Brandon Pfannenstiel gave Alcantara every opportunity to stay in the match, and then 25. I thought it should have been stopped just before the minute mark, but Pfannensteil just let Sandhagen keep dropping bomb after bomb down on Alcantara, never stopping to reinsert Alcantara's mouthpiece because there was never anything going on beyond Sandhagen going to town on his helpless opponent. Alcantara was still moving, the problem wasn't that he stopped defending himself intelligently, it was that he never actually started defending himself in the 1st place. Alcantara was wobbly to start the 2nd, missing a couple wild elbows before going down to his knees & taking another merciless barrage of postured up punches. Sandhagen eventually complained to the ref, basically how many unanswered strikes do you need to see with Alcantara just on his knees holding a hand against his head to absorb some of the damage?. Since the ref again wouldn't stop it, Alcantara was cut during the extra 15 before the ref finally saw enough. Both fighters showed a ton of heart, but Sandhagen had an answer where Alcantara just kept looking for the same sweep Sandhagen was defending until he'd absorbed so many shots he was little more than a punching bag. Good match.

Cortney Casey vs. Angela Hill 3R. Really competitive back & forth standup battle. Hill is the better athlete, the longer she trains with Dominick Cruz the better her footwork gets & the more fluid she looks out there. Casey was pretty stiff early, taking a while to warm up, but for a fight with such a huge differential in movement, Hill really seemed to be having a hard time hitting the more stationary target, with Casey doing a nice job with her upper body movement to get her chin just out of harms way. Statistically though, Hill landed far more impressive 55% to Casey's 34%, it's just that Casey was so much more active that the total strikes were almost identical. Hill was lacking the power to really bother her even when she was attacking on her terms, and as the fight progressed Casey applied a lot more pressure to make the fight more about the power than the speed. Casey had a takedown in the 1st, but Hill spent the next minute trying to take her over into an armbar then landed a knee as they stood against the cage & had the best punch of the subsequent standup exchange with a right hook. Overall though, Hill's takedown defense was much better, as Casey was never able to get her down the rest of the fight despite a takedown attempt after wobbling Hill at the start of the 2nd and a particularly great attempt midway through the second where she ducking into a double leg. Casey came out aggressively in the 2nd, and this pressure was really the difference in the fight because she suckered Hill into exchanging with her rather than working her way in momentarily then getting back out. The exchanges were much more aggressive in the last 2 rounds, with Casey's power advantage being more noticable. Casey's standup attack was almost entirely boxing, while Hill also used low kicks, but was dropping her right hand when she threw them & taking counterfire because of that. The last two rounds were basically just trading shots. I thought Hill probably won the 1st, and Casey the next two, but all these rounds were really close, and pretty much could have gone either way. Casey lost her previous 2 via split decisions to Herrig & Waterson, but finally managed to edge one out here 30-27, 28-29, 29-28. Good match.

Lucha Underground S4 E3 2/25/18, Three Way To A Grave Elimination Casket Match: Mil Muertes vs. Fenix vs. Jeremiah Crane 20:24. Crazy stunt brawl. It was fun, a lot more interesting than your average gimmick match variety stuntfest, as Fenix is an amazing legit wrestler whereas you usually get the Tommy Dreamers of the world who are doing this because otherwise he'd be doing another one of those Russian leg sweeps where the opponent never actually hits the canvas. At the same time, it was not really safe or consistent, and there were some really frustrating aspects, but the good second half that actually resembled a wrestling match with amped up insanity due to the moves being done onto tables & coffins outweighed the sketchy first half that was mostly b.s garbage brawling on the floor just enough to barely recommend it. Fenix was the strong point by a mile, and apart from barely selling anything, basically sacrificing his body to have a memorable aerial gimmick match with opponents who wouldn't deliver much of note on their own. Crane, in turn, was the weak link by an equal if not greater distance. He can roll out some messy dangerous spots like any generic indy brawler, but I would not want to have a death match with him, or any such similar trainwreck, as he's simply not safe or reliable. Poor Fenix found that out quickly when he did an amazing dive off the Modelo structure only to have Crane essentially just sidestep & allow Muertes, who was expecting help as Fenix dove for the middle, to unknowingly get stuck with trying to brace the whole fall at the last second. Fenix somehow managed to not get too injured & proceeded to take a Hiromu bump down the stairs, which Crane then mirrored. Fenix was just getting started with the insane bumps, trying to Frankensteiner Crane off the top through a table, but Crane instead shot him backwards so Fenix essentially did a diving body press through a table on the floor. Fenix just popped back up again & Crane piledrove him off the top through a table. Fenix finally sold that, & just as Crane was about to eliminate him by shutting the casket, we got a stupid run in as Ivelisse showed up & avenged Crane's hammer attack on her at Ultima Lucha 3, hitting him with it until it broke then getting the elimination. Good riddance, but it just strikes me as extra pro wrestling retarded that you can be eliminated by someone who isn't even in the match. Once Crane was eliminated it turned into more or less an actual wrestling match that took place in an actual wrestling ring, and though the super athletic Fenix & stalking powerhouse Muertes have very disperate styles, they complement each other well as Fenix leaping into Muertes power moves makes them triple impressive & Muertes, while not the most nimble or flexible, is nonetheless a solid base & springboard for flying. Fenix continued to take crazy bumps, with Muertes hitting the Hiromu overhead belly to belly into the corner, except the casket was propped up there! Muertes bent the casket choke slamming Fenix on it then finally entombed him after countering his flying move with a flatliner. Fenix was great, and Muertes really capitalizes on Fenix's athleticism to get himself over as an unstoppable undead force. ***

ROAD FC 48 7/28/18: Michel Pereira vs. Hae Jun Yang 1:48 R3. Pereira is often compared to Anthony Pettis, and I can see that although he's several times crazier or more carefree than even the young, confident WEC version of Showtime. I think he's very much his own entity, but if I had to pick the fighter he reminds me of most, it would be Cung Le because he's just out there doing things out of an action movie, except they somehow work one way or another. Moreso than Le, with Pereira they also don't work, but I think he's fine with that. Everything he does has its place, and while that place may mostly be to entertain, there seems to be some method to his madness as well. Sometimes it seems he's trying to distract the opponent with something he doesn't expect to land just so he overloads their brain with so many options, rendering them unable to defend his simple one-two punch combo. Pereira is a really powerful striker & he uses a lot of footwork to try to open up his big shots. When they land, they do a lot of damage, and even though none of the low percentage stuff really did, he in turn landed a really high percentage of his simply offense. In this fight, he had success with the same few strikes repeatedly, the overhand right & the short range or clinch knee, but it's almost that these bread & butter techniques for him are less obvious because he's throwing in flashy stuff in between rather than trying to press the simple advantages. Granted, even though he's a superior athlete, better opponents would make him pay in a big way, particularly with takedowns when he puts himself in compromising positions leaving his feet. What's interesting is that even though Pereira is dancing & leaping all over the place, trying 360 kicks and rolling kicks, it's Yang that actually tires out more, from taking heavy shots & having to force takedowns but perhaps also just melting down from trying to deal with this unconventional wildman. Yang really doesn't seem to know how to answer the nonsense Pereira is throwing at him, and Pereira could then catch him off guard, anticipating his opponent would come forward to counter his techniques that leave him momentarily prone, and then having a counter ready. When Pereira missed a reverse spinning high kick, Yang stepped forward with a middle kick only to take a left hook to the liver. After a backflip that may or may not have puportedly been some kind of overhead kick, Yang tried to come in with a hook, but took a knee to the midsection then Pereira stumbled out of the pocket & reentered with a flying knee. The obvious question is what can Pereira do when he's taken down, and in addition to simply making that difficult, he passed these tests well in the 2nd, both showing he can get back up quickly & that he can defend well enough to avoid being damaged or threatened. Pereira was much more conventional after the first round due to Yang's takedowns early in the 2nd, coming in with single power shots. He was definitely trying to dig himself out of the deficit to win the round back, but the main reason may have been more that he was trying to get his second wind after expending a lot of energy in grappling defense, as his one spinning kick was much slower. Pereira did a good job of mixing his attacks to the body & to the head, and at the end of the 2nd they really began to take their toll, closing with a big flurry of head punches & body knees that had the announcer saying Yang was saved by the bell. Yang pushed hard for the takedown in the 3rd because it was his only means to not take punishment and perhaps find a path to a finish, but Pereira defended the takedowns then landed big knees on the inside. Yang's hands were too low, and Pereira was now able to simply lead with the big overhand right, which made it a lot easier to then follow to the body. Yang was really getting lit up, with his only answer being to throw wildly to try to stay in the fight, but just missing with everything & taking more big shots. The ref stopped it when Pereira backed Yang into the cage with a couple of knees. This was a pretty big mismatch, but Yang has a really good chin & made it competitive enough that Pereira had to work hard to finish the fight. Very good match.

NJPW FINAL POWER HALL in FUKUOKA DOME 11/2/97

Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger King vs. Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa 14:18. The two anime superhero junior legends had faced each other in singles on the 5/1/94 Fukuoka Dome & in tag on the 5/3/97 Osaka Dome, but here they teamed up for the first time. That's the king of thing people want to see at a big dome show, and Sayama was able to deliver here. It was the best match he had in NJ during his comeback, which makes it more ironic that it was his last match in NJ for 11 years. Though at 40 he was much heavier & lacking the amazing athletic ability he had in his heyday at 25, Tiger worked really hard here to impress with quick explosive bursts, and they were able to get around & cover up the ravages of time for the most part. This still wasn't an amazing match by any means, but while I don't remember often being impressed by Tiger during his comeback, he was definitely one of the positive factors, particularly working a lot harder than the others at the outset (granted he was very much spotted, and was sucking wind on the apron while Liger carried the majority of the workload). Outside of Sayama, this was pretty standard & had too much filler, but one of the reasons the match worked better than much of Sayama's other 90's stuff is he was in with great wrestlers in their prime rather than his peers who were now also past it. This wasn't a weak match for Liger & Koji by any means, but rather that their week in and week out standard was so amazing this was kind of subdued & pedestrian for them, or perhaps since most of the stuff was edited for tv, I just have a false sense of how good their matches were from start to finish? It definitely picked up in a major way in the last five minutes, and there were plenty of good moves and good moments before that, but my feeling during the first half was mostly that I was waiting for it to ignite. The main pairings were logically Tiger vs. Koji, as Koji could do the UWF style with Tiger, and Liger vs. Takaiwa, hard hitting action focusing more on Takaiwa's power style. Liger did work a decent amount with Koji as well since he was logging the most ring time. Tiger did his old spots, with the Tiger spin looking great and some nice spinning kicks. His flying was a little sketchy, but overall, his segments came off really well because he was going hard, and thus his intensity shined through, and he didn't feel like a nostalgia act or at all out of place. I don't want to give Sayama too much credit, in the end the others did their thing & carried the match, but Sayama is what separates this from what we saw every week from them. ***1/4

J-Crown Junior Heavyweight 7 Title Match: Shinjiro Otani vs. Wild Pegasus 15:28. Kawada was one of the only wrestlers who was able to make his matches more compelling by drastically cutting down on the flashy spots he used. The more time Benoit spent wrestling in America, the more he relied on roids & chops & his matches just started blending together because there was so little to differentiate them, but this match that capped the final year where he was sort of still involved in New Japan showed the potential he had to evolve his style in a compelling manner that didn't require as much big offense. Benoit came out just laying into Otani, even though he was in a junior title match on a show with a bunch of legendary heavyweights & martial artists, he was far & away the hardest hitter. Otani obviously couldn't match him in a toe to toe battle, but wound up dominating the first half anyway, landing on his feet for a backdrop & taking out the knee with a dropkick. Otani proceeded to work the knee over on the mat for the next several minutes while Benoit did his best to leverage a submission from the bottom into a transition or sweep. Otani totally played ball control, with Benoit putting on a master class of all the ways possible to sell the knee to the advantage of the match. The first half was building to a real gem, but they lacked the courage to see it through, and instead just delivered their greatest hits in the second half. Of course, this was a great rivalry, and apart from Liger, Pegasus was always the guy who would pull the most out of Otani, but I'd much rather see one whole than two halves, even if both are excellent in their own right. Benoit cames back with four suplexes in a row, selling the knee less with each one as he got the adrenaline flowing, and that was literally the end of it. Benoit wound up unleashing his entire suplex arsenal, including the avalanche style backdrop. Otani kicked & squirmed for dear life to avoid the avalanche style tombstone & was able to land on top of Benoit to stop the second avalanche style backdrop. The second problem is Otani just randomly finished Benoit right after this with his swandive kneel kick & Dragon suplex. The finish was meant to be a fluke to protect Benoit, but I really don't know how to rate this match because while everything they did was really good to fantastic, the 1st half & second half are completely at odds with each other & then they randomly tacked on a lame ending, just because. If Otani would have at least won with a kneebar or something I'd think more of the match, but in the end, they basically got me all invested in a story that had no purpose beyond being a way for Otani to tame the savage for a little while. With a better finish, Otani could have credibly won the match by outsmarting Benoit, as it stands, he got a pen stroke victory because they can't give their titles to a guy that's not going to be around. ***3/4

Pancrase 297 7/1/18, Pancrase Welterweight Title Decision Match: Glaico Franca vs. Takashi Sato 1:15 R4. Franca showed a lot of promise winning TUF Brazil, but got an unwarranted quick axe from the UFC losing to undefeated Gregor Gillespie & top 10 ranked James Vick. He's won his five fights since then & is a finisher, with all but 2 of his wins 18 coming inside the distance. Sato is a striker who started off more as a brawler, but is recently starting to figure things out & become more technically sound. The first round was fought at distance, and southpaw Sato did a nice job of using his step jab to set up the left straight, but his big weapon here was the left elbow. He used it so much I started to wonder if he simply broke his hand & was forced to improvise Urijah Faber style, but Sato was just the quicker fighter & Franca didn't really have an answer for it or Sato getting inside in general, as his best standing offense was distance kicks. This wasn't a striker vs. grappler match by any means, but it was sort of playing out as such, with Sato taking the first round that was all standup then Franca taking the second where he was able to get it to the ground early on landing a right straight & then faking another but dropping down into the takedown. Sato kept getting right up, but couldn't free himself from Franca's waistlock & would just get hauled right back down. Even when Sato would hiptoss Franca, Franca would be right back locking Sato's hips out of the scramble for another takedown. This round was tiring for both, but despite Sato coming on in standup in the final seconds, having to defend the constant takedowns took more out of him than going for them drained Franca. Round 3 was an excellent round as Franca tried to press this advantage coming out quick, but Sato quickly regained control rocking him with an elbow. Sato really put a ton of pressure on Franca looking for the finish by backing him with the jab then closing the distance with the big elbow. Franca was doing a decent job blocking, but Sato realized he wasn't that dangerous because he was in defensive mode from being rocked & would throw in a lead hook or a body shot to get in around the defenses. Franca's takedowns were failing & his nose was leaking blood as Sato threw punches around the back with both on their knees. Sato punched himself out though, and Franca not only took over in the grappling, he quickly went from seemingly out of the fight to a rear naked choke attempt. Franca could never get his arms under the chin though, and Sato turned into guard then got his elbows going on the ground. Sato nearly took Franca's back for a choke attempt in the final seconds, but this time Franca turned out. With Sato up 2-1 & seemingly having the momentum on his side, it looked good for him, but man he seemed to lose energy between rounds rather than recovering a little. Sato just didn't have it anymore in the 4th when it came to footwork, zip on the jab, or generally the energy to fight Franca off. Franca quickly got hold of him against the cage, and Sato doesn't really know how to defend there, always turning his back rather than working for underhooks & trying to turn Franca & disengage. Franca got his hooks in quickly after the takedown & Sato really didn't have the energy to carry his weight, much less take the strikes & fight off the choke attempt. You felt kind of bad for Sato because this was his first 5 round fight, and he pushed so hard in the 3rd he just didn't have anything left for the championship rounds. It's hard to really say that going for the finish was wrong though, as he's finished 10 of his 13 wins, 9 of which were in the 1st round, so this is what has always worked for him. Very good match.

SGPW Joshi Puroresu Big Show 2018 In Niigata 6/16/18: Chihiro Hashimoto & Meiko Satomura vs. DASH Chisako & Io Shirai 18:16. For once you had a tag match with four really strong workers, and it was good from the first moment to the last, with no down time. Although a really good match that was the best Senjo has delivered thusfar in 2018, it had kind of an odd dynamic & didn't really know where it wanted to go, but its strength was its consistency, and that ultimately carried the day. The match was booked before Io gave her 2 weeks notice that she was leaving Stardom high & dry, and was likely made with the idea that it would be the bridge to the always anticipated rematch between Satomura & Io, who were last seen having a very good 20:00 draw on 4/19. Though causing nowhere near the disarray that Io bailing on Stardom did, Ayako Hamada's arrest & subsequent retirement has nonetheless left Senjo in an odd spot because Hashimoto dropped the title to her just before the incarceration, and thus the other big match they were presumably building to was Hashimoto getting another important win over a star from a previous generation, and regaining the title from in the process. They had to audible into Hashimoto vs. DASH for the now vacant title at Jinsei's 25th Anniversary show, which is a much more interesting match given DASH is 25 times the worker overweight Ayako is at this point, and also the opponent that brings out the most in Hashimoto. That being said, DASH doesn't have the name value of Ayako to improve Hashimoto's resume & is the lesser name between these four, so you'd figure she'd get the pin on Hashimoto again here as she did in their 5/13 singles match to boost her credibility & then job in the title match the next week, except she instead just lost to Hashimoto. Things are even more of a mess in joshiville than usual, but nonetheless we got a steady stream of high quality action here. What I like about the DASH vs. Hashimoto program is it's increasingly gotten Hashimoto away from being a slow power wrestler, with DASH instead challenging her to match her in a quick, more kinetic & active counter laden style. Hashimoto started out just being pushed because she had size & an amateur pedigree, but she's really become a far more well rounded wrestler who can hang in any style in the last year rather than someone who lets the opponent do a few things now & then before reverting back to tossing them around. The match started in an action oriented technical style, with more running sequences from DASH vs. Hashimoto & more holds from Satomura vs. Io, but was pretty much a mid paced match in the joshi running style. What hurt the match is while it started strong & didn't then settle into the usual time killing before picking up, it kind of just maintained a fairly even pace throughout & never found the extra gear to go from really good to excellent or hit anything that felt like a finishing sequence. Satomura vs. Io evolved more because early on they did Satomura's style, then Io got her flying going, but overall Io was more in the mode of exchanging strikes with Satomura & picking her spots to be explosive. She showed herself to be a superior athlete with everything she did, highlighted by a nice moonsault to the floor, but DASH vs. Hashimoto was definitely the featured portion, which had its good points in that they worked more toward their max level, but for all she's improved, Hashimoto is still a country mile from the level of any of the other 3. It wasn't so much a tag match as two singles matches that traded off, with DASH working a little more with Satomura than Io did with Hashimoto, but the mixing was merely a matter of how quickly one tagged out once the other tagged in. I really liked Io countering the German suplex with a cradle but releasing & popping right up into a double footstomp rather than going for the flash pin. I thought the double team spots worked really well in general, giving the match some boosts of urgency that it was otherwise kind of lacking. The best one was Io stopping Hashimoto's powerbomb with a swandive missile kick then DASH countering into a huracanrana. Hashimoto rolled through DASH's harumaru finisher though, and hit 2 suisha otoshis into her Albright (high angle German suplex adopted from Gary) for the win. I was surprised the match ended already, as it seemed a long way from reaching any kind of peak, and wound up being 4 minutes shorter than the tag title semifinal with a bunch of below average workers. DASH did make the mistake of exchanging blows with Hashimoto, which lead to her getting flattened & then taken out with the power, but it was still of the NJ someone hit a finisher so we can go home variety. ***1/2

GLORY 56 8/10/18

Chris Camozzi vs. John King R2 2:48. Camozzi isn't particularly athletic or technical, so it's not surprising he's decided to move up a weight class to light heavyweight as his chance is to keep things ugly & win a slobberknocker over other fighters who aren't overwhelmingly skilled or conditioned. King got off to a great start because Camozzi was staying in the pocket with his hands low & his chin up, and King was able to follow pretty much whatever with the overhand right as Camozzi's hands dipped even lower after the 1st shot. Even an accidental headbutt to the chin followed by a right hook wasn't slowing King down early, and he continued to dominate this brawl after the restart with all his power punches to Camozzi's open chin. Camozzi started to fight more technically, if anything in this brawl qualifies, kicking the leg & moving a little on the outside & using the clinch on the inside. Camozzi was cut over the right eye & on the right cheek late in the 1st, but Camozzi is used to the altitude fighting out of Colorado, and King was slowing down a lot more having pushed hard for the 1st round finish. Camozzi pressed forward with bombs in the 2nd & used clinch knees once he got inside. He was warned for holding, but he hurt King in the exchange, with King being doubled over while the ref separated them & scolded Camozzi. King never seemed to recover, only able to throw a random wild right hook after this. He was pinned in the corner on the restart, taking some big punches & knees, as he made no effort to clinch or find a way to move out. As Camozzi did earlier, he just tried to slug his way out of trouble. Camozzi was tiring, but still had energy for a spinning backfist, whereas King was fading fast by the second. Camozzi landed another knee to the head after ducking one of King's overhand rights, and King basically just went down from exhaustion with some help from Camozzi's hand on the back of his neck guiding him to the canvas. King did manage to will himself to continue, but was no more than a punching bag after this, struggling to even stand upright despite leaning on the ropes. Camozzi ran out of gas too, but King never moved his feet again & no longer had the will to continue after a second knockdown was called with King doubled over against the ropes. Good match.

Justin Houghton vs. Troy Sheridan 3R. There's aggressive pressure fighters, but Houghton consistently crosses the line into reckless, closing a lot of distance with wide power punches then trying to finish combos with floating knees. Sheridan's strategy was to stay patient & find the openings for the counter, but while Houghton is a very offense first fighter, he's also a lot better athlete than Sheridan, so picking him apart wasn't as easy as it may have seemed with Houghton beating him to the punch & having the reflexes to evade. Houghton really covers a lot of distance in a short amount of time, and seems to just be gliding out there, leaving his feet regularly but maintaining balance & the ability to adjust if he needs to. While this high risk style leads to exciting fights, obviously it doesn't always work as planned, and sometimes leads to very unusual situations, such as Houghton trying a jumping knee while they were clinching against the ropes but Sheridan tossing him over to the outside (no tope attempt though). Houghton took a left high kick to the neck, but Sheridan just stood in front of him a little too long before starting his left hook, and Houghton was able to get his right cross there a little quicker for the knockdown just before the end of the 1st. Early in the 2nd, Houghton backed Sheridan into the ropes with punches & landed a right straight as Sheridan was on 1 leg trying a front kick that was rightfully called a slip even though it was a clean shot & the ropes kept Sheridan up. Houghton slowed down midway through the 2nd, and Sheridan was able to get his offense going, using the jab to set up the overhand right. Sheridan actually outlanded Houghton 32-24 in this round, but Houghton did enough in the 1st half before fatigue set in to win it. Houghton continued to be a lot more flatfooted in the 3rd, and at this pace Sheridan had the time to take advantage of being the more technical fighter. Sheridan got his low kick going, and although it was late for that, Sheridan was trying to use it as another way to set up the big right hand. Sheridan wasn't leaving his comfort zone to press for the knockout, but Houghton was pretty much just standing in front of him with his hands low slugging it out. Houghton landed some nice rights down the middle, but Sheridan finally clipped him with the overhand right with 45 seconds left. Houghton finally started moving backward after this, but in addition to looking to survive to get the decision, was luring Sheridan in so he could land another right straight. Houghton won a unanimous decision 29-27, 29-27, 30-26. Very good match.

Simon Marcus vs. Jason Wilnis 3R. Based on the way the two title matches were scored, it's hard to see how Wilnis didn't win this fight, though in reality, him even getting it on one card was surprising. Though Marcus & Ilunga didn't fight the same exact style, Marcus relying on his movement first to maintain distance & evade while Ilunga relying on his timing to hold his ground & land the counter, the end result was very similar in that the opponent was the aggressor, but they were just stepping forward all night without throwing or especially landing much because the opponent ensured the attacks weren't there for the taking. I felt Wilnis started this fight with more or less the right idea of landing low kicks because Marcus was constantly circling away, but he was only throwing inside kicks & wasn't throwing them with as much conviction as I would have liked. I thought trying to be proactive & cutting Marcus off with the right outside leg kick to Marcus's left leg would have been worth a try because Marcus was mostly circling left & Wilnis was never really able to stop that pattern to create the moment to unleash the aggressive punches he's known for, but before long, Wilnis pretty much abandoned kicking entirely, throwing 109 punches to 19 kicks throughout the fight. Marcus did a great job sticking & moving to control the distance, stopping to push Wilnis back with the front kick &/or the straight punches then going back to making Wilnis chase him. When Wilnis got into mid range, if Marcus didn't go back to extending the range, he would also press forward with a knee & clinch so he was inside Wilnis' power punching range. Marcus had some success using the left knee when Wilnis was chasing him left, but I wanted him to throw his left kick lower, as too many of the left middle kicks were right onto the forearms of Wilnis' high guard without Wilnis ever having to bring it down to actually defend them, so they were neither landing to the body nor actually opening up the high kick by forcing him to drop his guard. Wilnis was basically just headhunting, so his best success came with uppercuts & short hooks since Marcus would move forward to take away his extension. On the restart after a slip late in the 2nd, Marcus knocked Wilnis mouthpiece halfway across the ring with a beautiful front kick to the mouth. This woke Wilnis up a bit & he began to close the distance a lot more aggressively so he could trap Marcus on the ropes & let his hands go, though Marcus landed some good shots here as well. Their last two fights have been 5 rounds, which is an advantage to Wilnis because he's able to more successfully pressure Marcus as Marcus slows down a bit. Wilnis didn't really adjust to the 3 round fight though, and Marcus wasn't getting beat on or really feeling stressed by overwhelming pressure, which helped him to maintain the same level of movement throughout the 3 rounds. Wilnis did carry the sense of urgency we saw at the end of the 2nd into the 3rd round, and he caught Marcus with a right hook at the end of a combination & also landed a nice left uppercut off the jab. Marcus grew more defensive after this, assuming he was up 2 rounds, he concentrated more on not allowing Wilnis to somehow steal the fight than getting his own offense in. This was a Wilnis round, but you felt if he didn't wait until the final seconds of the 2nd to close the distance more aggressively he might have won the fight. Marcus won a split decision 29-28, 28-29, 30-27 to go up 3-1 in the rivalry. Good match.

Glory Light Heavyweight Title: Artem Vakhitov vs. Danyo Ilunga 5R UD. Another weekend, another series of history altering dreadful decisions. In the previous title match, 95-3 Meksen, who won the title via bad decision, somehow managed to have the title robbed from her by a 28-1 underdog who a judge & Bazooka Joe gave exactly 0 rounds. I thought Menezes won the 2nd, but it was marginal. Now in the main event, Ilunga, who was won of the best fighters in the world at the start of the decade & was still the It's Showtime 95kg champion when the promotion folded & was absorbed by GLORY, wrote one of the best comeback stories in the history of combat sports, turning things around from a 7 fight losing streak that more than doubled the number of losses he had in his entire career & sent him into a brief retirement to win 3 in a row & regain his crown, except despite outlanding Vakhitov in each and every round, being the more powerful striker, & not getting hurt or knocked down, he managed to lose a unanimous decision. I'm not going to say there weren't a lot of reasonably close rounds here after Ilunga ran away with the first, but Ilunga was at his most disciplined best, sticking to the game plan & fighting a consistently effective fight while Vakhitov was nowhere near top form, still trying to avoid using the right hand that he's broke two fights in a row. GLORY was starting to do things better with most shows having 5 judges & a shift to open scoring, but we haven't seen that in the last few shows, and it was a miserable turn for the worse. The consistency in the judges misdeeds is they valued the fighter moving forward even though they were moving forward into a bunch of blows that were way more effective than anything they led with or used once they got inside. Menezes was much more active than Vakhitov, throwing a high volume of somewhat robotic shots once she got inside while taking the much cleaner shots in return after Meksen avoided taking anything cleanly. Ilunga, on the other hand, didn't allow Vakhitov to get any rhythm, using his jab, step knee, and low kick to push Vakhitov back once he got inside. What Ilunga did really well here was let Vakhitov make the first move & then just counter him right away before that move actually had benefits. So you had Vakhitov either closing the distance without throwing, and just getting pushed back because Ilunga would then throw or Vakhitov leading but Ilunga knocking him back with the counters. Vakhitov had a moment midway through the 2nd where he landed a high kick & actually used his right hand for a hook and an uppercut. At the end of the round, he also had a nice left hook to the body then the head & a low kick that Ilunga slipped on. For the most part though, Ilunga just countered Vakhitov whenever he tried to apply the pressure, so Vakhitov was stuck shelling up or trying to use his had movement to avoid, neither of which allowed him to get into any offensive flow. Vakhitov tried to switch to southpaw to capitalize on his left hand & hide his right, but he didn't have the defense & Ilunga started landing much more consistently with his right hooks to the head. Joe had Ilunga pitching a shutout after 3 rounds, with giving Vakhitov the 2nd seemingly being the only other reasonable scoring alternative, but Vakhitov was just never able to maintain the offensive or establish any semblance of consistency to anything he was doing beyond walking forward (only to get pushed right back). Even if it's not an official scoring criteria, you're supposed to be scoring based on who is imposing their will, who is thwarting who, and that was very very obviously Ilunga, who had Vakhitov out of his comfort zone all night. If Vakhitov knocked him down then sure, but otherwise a random good shot, and believe me things like Vakhitov's high kick in the 4th were random, should be no means trump the consistent stiffling attack of Ilunga. Vakhitov had the advantage in the 4th because Ilunga slowed down temporarily after the high kick that cut him above the eye, but we still saw more of the same from Vakhitov, pressuring with his movement but just waiting & waiting to actually throw anything. He probably let Ilunga off the hook here, and Ilunga eventually finished the round with more of what he was doing for the 1st 3 because Vakhitov didn't do anything to change the narrative of the fight. Both fighters conditioning held up & they stepped it up in the 5th. Again, Vakhitov landed a decent shot here or there, but Ilunga just threw so many more that it was hard to see it any other way. Ilunga wasn't nearly as accurate, but he outlanded Vakhitov by 40. As with the DJ vs. Cejudo fight, one guy could have won all 5 rounds, the other could only possibly have won 3 (2, 4, & 5 in this case), so it's hard to imagine the decision going to the guy with only 3 options. Maybe you could see Ilunga only getting a split decision with everyone having it 48-47, but these clowns came up with 49-46, 48-47, 48-47 Vakhitov. Vakhitov has obviously been a very good fighter, but anyone seeing him for the first time tonight would literally have no idea why because Ilunga's immediate countering negated the flow that gives him the confidence & allows him the time & space to be creative & dangerous. Good match.

wXw 16 Carat Gold 2008 #1 3/7/08

16 Carat Gold Tournament 2008 First Round Match: El Generico vs. Taiji Ishimori 14:50. Ishimori matches are always going to be up & down because he's great when he's on the move, but mediocre when he's doing any kind of striking, brawling, or grappling. Luckily, this was long before NJPW got a hold of him & minimized the fantastic aspects so he could be as generic as all their other middling rudos. Generico is more well rounded, but while not really the guy to carry Ishimori to anything beyond a spotfest. With Ishimori being one of the best athletes in the sport, that's basically what you want from him though, and Generico was more than happy to have an opponent who could do at least as many flashy things as he can to do something not generic with. The highs were very high as both men were looking to show off, & the lows were mostly relegated to the filler in the early portion. Highlights included Ishimori hitting a moonsault to the floor, rope hanging moonsault, climb up Frankensteiner off the top, & Generico scooping a charging Ishimori into the Michinoku driver II. Generico accidentally busted Ishimori's nose open either with a dropkick counter to the superstar elbow or the subsequent Yakuza kick. Generico also countered the superstar elbow by catching Ishimori, but before he could suplex him, Ishimori switched to a cradle. Then he got Ishimori in the nose again with a dropkick after countering a sunset flip powerbomb by backflipping off the top. Generico tried to finish with his turnbuckle brainbuster, but Ishimori stood on the top rope & hit a nutso swinging DDT off then followed with a reverse Frankensteiner. Generico somehow recovered quick enough to cut Ishimori off on the top with a dropkick & finish him with the turnbuckle brainbuster. I'm not sure whether I should be screaming oy or ole to that finish, but this wasn't a match ruled by logic, it was one ruled by spectacle with plus athletes who do the moves a lot more impressively than most others. ***1/4

16 Carat Gold Tournament 2008 First Round Match: Bryan Danielson vs. Mike Quackenbush 24:01. A strategic battle between the two most talented American wrestlers of their generation which would have made for a great final, but somehow Quackenbush, who did hold wXw's heavyweight title for 2 weeks, never managed to generate the kind of awe factor for himself that his talents clearly warranted. I'll never forget sitting in the stands watching Quack lose to B-Boy in the quarterfinals of the '04 Jersey J Cup, as for me it was one of those seminal there's something wrong here moments. These two put on a clinic on how to get a lot out of a little. Given it was a long match wrestled at a high level, it wasn't particularly dangerous, they just worked really smartly, focusing on the story & the psychology, which allowed really basic locks & any sort of flash pin to be credible finishers. Quack was the big fan favorite here, as the fans absolutely hated Danielson & were really just being disrespectful pricks, ripping him for everything he did from the first lock to the last even though he was putting on an excellent match. Danielson injured his knee taking Quack's tope con giro, which prompted a lengthy "pussy Dragon" chant as he checked his knee to put over the injury. The other major theme was, amidst Byran's limping around, Danielson injured Quack's left arm, taunting the fans by throwing their "same old shit" chants back at them as he took the appendage apart. Though both were "injured", Danielson was able to dominate the technical match by making it a slow, stationary affair, taking his knee out of the equation as much as possible by keeping it on the mat while Quack couldn't effectively trade lock for lock with one arm, which put Quack in the role of making brief go for broke standing/running comebacks such as the kneecap dropkick into la magistral. Quack never tried to maintain the advanage per se, instead his strategy was to hurt Danielson enough with one big move to then pin him while he was still recovering. The transitions were all based on the injuries, with Danielson doing more damage to the knee missing a diving headbutt, but Quack's arm being too weak to hold up to his Irish whip attempt so he could capitalize. They went back & forth until Danielson finally caught Quack in the cattle mutilation, which was too much for the bad arm. Perhaps the individual parts here were not that outstanding, but this was a whole rather than random pieces, and they did such a great job of elevating every little move to the level where the next second was the most crucial of the match. A lot of it was fairly basic classic WOS stuff to be certain, but it was really dramatic, a masterful piece of storytelling that was the best match of the weekend by a wide margin. ****

wXw 16 Carat Gold 2008 #2 3/8/08

16 Carat Gold Tournament 2008 Quarter Final Match: Bryan Danielson vs. Naomichi Marufuji 19:23. Two of the elite wrestlers in the world in their prime should have delivered the match of the tournament, but were instead shown up by subsequent matches featuring a 67-year-old man & a guy in his next to last match. They did a nice match, but one that lacked the effort from Marufuji to reach the expected levels. There was nothing particularly wrong with the match in and of itself, it's rather nifty in fact, but it lacked the story that Danielson vs. Quackenbush had to elevate the good work, to mold it into a whole that pulled you in & kept building momentum. The early portion was a form of parity, with Danielson generally gaining the advantage, but Marufuji possessing the counters to negate it. Still, Danielson was a step ahead, partly because he was willing to be dastardly & cheap, until Marufuji injured his neck brainbustering him on the apron. Marufuji showed he could be aggressive & ruthless as well, doing a good job of working over the neck, but the urgency & intensity was never there to make you believe Danielson's time was short, and even though Marufuji's finisher involves the neck, the feeling was more that they just moved on from this theme before long. Danielson did manage to give us a very different match than the night before, though this seemed to go over the heads of the fans, who just blindly chanted "Same old shit." They finally kicked into gear with a great sequence beginning with Marufuji landing on his feet for a Dragon suplex, but only maintained the level briefly, going to the terrible finish of Danielson avoiding the shiranui then pulling the ref in front so Marufuji had to stop his superkick, with Danielson scoring the flash pin after Marufuji pushed the ref out of the way. These cheap flash pins would be a theme for Danielson throughout the rest of the tournament, but the problem is the injuries that were the story of the individual matches somehow recovered in 24 hours or 24 minutes. ***1/4

World Of Sport Rules Match: Johnny Saint vs. Mike Quackenbush 5R. Wrestling is a young man's game, especially in the lighter weights. I'm not a big fan of wrestlers going on forever, but Saint has stayed agile & nimble enough in his old age that he's far from embarrassing himself despite being a senior citizen. Saint obviously doesn't have the same speed & isn't doing the sort of tumbling he did in his heyday, but he can do his gymnastic rolls when he needs to & maintains enough skill that he can still be entertaining without putting too much stress on his body. While not a classic compared to Saint in his prime, this was a lot more than mere nostalgia, and had that x factor that Danielson vs. Marufuji was lacking that got you so wrapped up in the match you were focused on what they were doing rather than what they could or should be doing. Quackenbush is one of Saint's biggest fans, and although Saint has one of the most unique styles in the history of wrestling based on having an escape for every hold that shifts the leverage into his favor, Quackenbush probably understands that style & is capable of working it better than more or less any of the modern day wrestlers they could have matched Saint with, especially if we are talking a non UK guy. Quackenbush was fantastic all weekend, doing Saint's match expertly as well as carefully, telling the story of Saint being constantly a step ahead of him because the student never knows all the tricks of the master. The match was rather low impact, but you don't watch Saint to see guys pounding on each other, you watch for the smooth & fluid technical wrestling where they could be locked up the entire night & just twist, turn, roll, whatever into the counter for the counter for the counter. One of the most impressive aspects of the match was the length. Billy Robinson & Nick Bockwinkle had a really strong exhibition match on the 5/8/92 UWF-I show, which was 6 years after Robinson retired, but it was 10 minutes. Saint originally retired in 1996, and 12 years later, in his second comeback he put on a match that was slightly longer than what Quack did with Danielson the night before. Saint got the benefit of going against a great wrestler in his prime, but it never felt like Quack was carrying Saint or guiding him through, it's more that he was actually going along with and reacting to whatever magic Saint pulled out of his hat. Saint got the first pin in round 3, but some of the drama was lost by the production with the graphics for the rounds always being wrong and the announcers (who at least correct this) being so wrapped up in marking out for the match they forget to ever explain the rules, so the viewer wasn't quite feeling the urgency for Quack to get the fall back in the 5th or the full excitement of him tying it up at the last second with the alligator clutch. Overall, this match was a huge success, probably a historic one for a match of this kind, with the audience going nuts for the duration. ***1/2

wXw World Heavyweight Title Relaxed Rules Match: Alex Pain vs. Steve Douglas 37:10. This battle of long time tag partners turned bitter enemies seemed to be a bloody brawl built around big gimmick spots, but it was actually a good wrestling match for the most part that used them early on to accentuate the rivaly before fully switching over to a traditional epic world title match. Pain, who had a lot of injury problems & sadly only wrestled one more match after dropping his title here, really carried the day & closed his wXw career on an extremely high note. He was really the talent here, and pulled out so many stops that it Douglas being a rather ordinary athlete & performer whose main strength is his effort didn't hamper the match. Though ultimately a fun spotfest, they wanted so desperately to have a memorable match that they willed themselves to a high level. The match was insanely long, but it neither dragged nor felt like stunt show. Though the crazy spots were obviously the key, they usually didn't feel frivolous & they never slowed down in between, consistently doing interesting moves & progressing the bout. This was one of those rivalry matches where neither were willing to give in & crippling the opponent & thus leaving the victor was their basic methodology. There were some major highlights such as Pain hitting an overhead belly to belly through an obviously cut table, an avalanche style death valley bomb, & an emerald flowsion, while Douglas delivered an angel's wings on the floor & an avalanche style German suplex. My favorite insane spot had Pain jumping off the apron onto a divas pole to try to Frankensteiner Douglas off the stage, but Douglas countered with a powerbomb onto the stage. Douglas captured the title here for the first of two times. ***1/2

wXw 16 Carat Gold 2008 #3 3/9/08

16 Carat Gold Tournament 2008 Semifinal Match: Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Hero 36:47. I'm a fan of long matches when they are long for a reason, but nothing is more annoying than a match that's long because they just endlessly padded the time before actually getting started. There was a lot to like here, and if the match was 15 minutes shorter it might have been excellent, but it was so ridiculously elongated playing to a crowd that's more concerned with their own shtick than the wrestlers. The 1st 15 minutes were basically just Danielson riling up the obnoxious, idiotic fans who endlessly chant inane nonsense such as "you can't wrestle" by hanging out in the ropes & using them for escapes when a wrestling match actually broke out. Hero attacked Danielson's arm, and there was a truly grotesque spot after the idiots kept chanting "break his arm" where Hero says listen to this & there's a horrid snap as he quick jerks the overextended finger. Danielson fights the rest of the match using the injured arm as little as possible, busting open Hero's nose for the 3rd night in a row & digging his knuckles in to get revenged for the arm work. There's some really mean & nasty stuff here from two guys who were being violent because they could, but there was also enough downtime to make Naito proud. The workrate was negligible, but the focus was excellent, and it was a nice story match until it ended & the story was forgotten. Things got pretty brutal in the final 10 minutes as they actually started going at it & amped up the striking considerably in the process. There wass a nice touch where Hero used the cattle mutilation on Danielson. The screw job finish was a big exchange of helacious strikes capped by Danielson hitting a jumping headbutt that took the ref out as Hero hit him while he was falling back into the ropes, which allowed the hated, sinister Danielson to low blow Hero before the ref recovered& pin him in a small package. ***

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Mike Quackenbush 15:48. Marufuji wasn't in the mood to beat up his body too much on the German tour, which made Quack the ideal opponent for him because rather than Marufuji's typical m.o. of toning things down by giving the minimal effort, they could instead do a very active low impact technical match countering each other back & forth on the mat with WOS grappling & in standup with lucha sequences. It was the exact opposite of the Alex Pain vs. Steve Douglas match where they were pulling out all the stops & didn't care about their bodies, instead this was a very sustainable match where they weren't taking crazy risks or killing each other, but even though this may not have been more than 50% of what they might have been capable of were we lucky enough to get this as a Budokan main event, that can still be pretty amazing when you have two gifted performers who are blessed with the speed, quickness, athleticism, and are driven to see all the various things they can do with it. Quackenbush's uncommon offense put Marufuji even more into the mode of being creative than he usually is, and while I'm not always sure all the holds worked out as intended, we definitely saw a number of moves that aren't part of the standard wrestling lexicon. I really liked the spot where Marufuji turned his own doublearm suplex into a reverse neckbreaker in midair. Marufuji suddenly doing a heel sequence using various boot scrapes was kind of cheesy & not in the spirit of the match this counterfest they were otherwise having. They really picked things up in the final few minutes to show the counters they had for each others favorite moves though. I knew Quackenbush wasn't going to win this either, as he ultimately fell to the shiranui, but it's always frustrating when the best performer of the weekend comes away with nothing to show for it. ***1/2

16 Carat Gold Tournament 2008 Final Match: Bad Bones vs. Bryan Danielson 20:42. Danielson was at his most arrogant here, taking his focus on making the crowd hate him more than they already did to the next several levels. He jumped the local hero with a dropkick during the ring announcement & used the microphone on him, leading to an early cattle mutilation. Bones only offense was a dive over the top, but Danielson piledrove him on the floor with Bones taking so long to blade that Danielson was in the ring making yawn signs. The story they told where the much more experienced & highly rated foreigner made a fool of the up and coming 23-year-old native only to wind up sustaining a major upset was good in and of itself, as it should really make a hero of Bones becoming the first German to win the 16 Carat Gold. The problem is this wasn't a standalone match, and we just saw Hero maim Danielson's arm two hours earlier. Danielson should have been a shell of the guy we saw the previous two days, and battling himself and his bad knee & arm as much as Bones to try to pull this out somehow. Bones had also run through all the other competition with his bull in a china shop style, so it was odd seeing the force of nature be so easily schooled by the wily veteran. Bones finally took Danielson out of midair with a spear for an apparently not so patented double axe handle. Bones almost had the upset with an avalance style exploder, but since the wXw ring is hardly bigger than a sandbox, Danielson was able to get his foot on the ropes near the opposite corner. They teased a variation on the Hero finish where Danielson landed on his feet for the shadow driver & nearly won with a small package after a foul that the ref now had no excuse for missing. Danielson had two more cattle mutilation attempts, and instead of the obvious arm injury being the reason for failing, it was because Bones has the stronger arms. Danielson literally threw all he had at Bones & then some, only to have Bones finally hit 3 moves to finish him clean. I liked this way more than any of the other Bones matches where he just mauled the opponents, as Danielson actually made a match of it & spotted him well, and I think in and of itself it was better than the Hero match because they actually wrestled more or less throughout instead of half the time, but the match really didn't make any sense within the context of what we saw from both men earlier in the tournament, & especially in the semifinals. It's hard to fault Danielson too much when he was out there for almost an hour & had two quality matches, but for a guy who prides himself on his storytelling, which is normally excellent, it's pretty baffling that they never took the opportunities to continue the arm story. ***

UFC 227 8/4/18

Pedro Munhoz vs. Brett Johns 3R. An insane high paced, all action war. Munhoz had a massive advantage on the ground if the fight even went there, but Johns kept the pressure on, luring Munhoz into his kind of slugfest. Johns took an unreal amount of punishment in the process, especially to the legs since he didn't bother to check the kicks until they were jelly, and also the body once he had to switch stances because his legs were finished. Both of these areas were seemingly done time & time again, but Johns has never been finished in 17 fights, and it's easy to see why when he keeps reanimating himself every time he should be done. When Johns could battle his way instead, Munhoz would just exchanging hooks with him at close quarters even though this was really Johns only chance. Johns would usually get the first punch in closing the distance, but Munhoz was winning many of the exchanges with his counters, though not winning them nearly as decisively & without taking damage himself as he was in the other aspects of the fight. Johns was switching stances & trying to hide the damage from the low kicks for a little over a round, but then his leg began to give out with each one. Munhoz actually dropped Johns with a right kick where the toes caught the liver & followed with a massive piston pumping flurry of rights & lefts then kept trying for the choke, but Johns somehow just kept absorbing punishment & pushing forward, defending the submissions & going for a takedown. Munhoz soon dropped Johns with another leg kick then went into a heel hook, but again Johns got right back up. Johns was going half down with every leg kick, and switching stances didn't help him because that made it easier for Munhoz to drill his body with the middle kick, but Johns managed to force another big boxing exchange where he got his uppercut going. This was just awesome action, but you had to wonder why Munhoz didn't just reestablish distance & finish chopping down the tree. Munhoz switched to the high kick late in round 2 for a delayed knockdown, and again he tried to flurry Johns out, but Johns was having none of it. Early in the 3rd, Munhoz dropped Johns again with the kick to the liver & tried to roll into a guillotine, but Johns kept Munhoz from securing body control. Munhoz finally tried for some sustained ground fighting, and the irony was that since Johns submission defense was excellent, Munhoz probably would have had a better chance to finish Johns if he let him back up. Then again, I say that, but how many times should Johns have already been done & he wasn't. In any case, this was a awesome slugfest that was only held back by Munhoz being the far superior fighter. If Johns had defended better early, and thus had the legs to keep forcing the dirty boxing throughout, it would have been an absolute classic, but on the other hand, if Johns didn't have so much willpower & determination, the fight wouldn't have been memorable because Munhoz would just have finished him early in the second after a good round of action. There were definitely diminishing returns when it came to the fight still being competitive, I thought the judges were very generous to Johns, not that it mattered, as this could easily have been 30-25 Munhoz. Munhoz won a unanimous decision 30-26, 29-28, 29-27. Excellent match.

Thiago Santos vs. Kevin Holland 3R. It would be hard to put together a matchup of more different fighters in terms of their approach & style. Santos is an all business killer who throws everything full power, while Holland is a very loose & relaxed entertainer who does things for fun & because he can. Santos leaned on his massive kicks & body hooks, but the more telling aspect of the fight was revealed early when he wet for a takedown & Holland decided to try a flying omoplata, which I'm not sure if I've seen before. This didn't work, but Holland had a legitimate chance at an armbar before Santos broke free & started hammering with huge punches, hammerfists, & elbows. Holland had good movement, so he avoided a lot of these shots, but there's only so much you can do when you let your opponent spends most of the round postured up dropping bombs down on you, and eventually Holland suffered an eye injury & was cut. Santos was dominating the 2nd in the same manner, and that was to be expected given he's a ranked fighter in his 15th UFC fight taking on a guy making his UFC debut, but Holland is a really game opponent who is diverse & has a lot of answers. Holland's moment came when he countered a takedown late rolling into a Kimura then dropped some big elbows from side mount. Santos might have deserved the round for winning 4/5th, but Holland was really working when he had the chance, trying to pass, trying to get the guillotine, using the top position for actual scoring techniques that could lead to a finish, so I don't mind that Holland got it. The fight finally slowed down 2 minutes into the 3rd, with the fans inexplicably booing as Santos tried to secure an arm triangle. Santos then postured up & landed a series of mount punches until Holland kicked off the cage & snuck out the back door. Santos landed some really vicious left hands in this round, and Holland wound up trying a takedown just because he was getting lit up, but Santos stuffed it & wound up mounting again. This time they weren't stuck against the cage, so Santos was able to get the arm triangle secured, but Holland showed another great escape rolling to his knees. Santos won a unanimous decision 29-27, 29-27, 29-26. Good match.

UFC Flyweight Title: Demetrious Johnson vs. Henry Cejudo 5R. Bad decisions happen virtually every show, and while the extra 2 rounds of a title fight help prevent some by giving the combatants more opportunity to decide things on their own, title fights are no less prone to the judges being wrong once they get involved. Certainly you don't have to go back any further than 2 weeks ago to see where Jinh Yu Frey vs. Minna Grusander was one of the most clueless decisions of the year, I was rooting for Frey & thinking, as I usually do when I know my fighter has obviously lost, maybe this will be one of the times when they get it wrong in my favor, then I'm seeing Frey's hand raised as I shake my head in disbelief. I accept most bad decisions as just an honest flaw of sports that are forced to rely on them, the fights that really irk me are ones like this, Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo Alvarez, or Megumi Fujii vs. Zoila Frauto where the judges altered the course of history by casting blatant theivery on the legacy of one of the true legends of the game, and I say this as someone who considers myself a fan of Cejudo, Alvarez, & Frausto. After comprehensively dominating foe after foe, year after year, you just feel Mighty Mouse deserves a lot more respect than to have the belt torn from his waist at the first sign of a somewhat competitive fight. This was a fight where he was in control roughly 4/5 of the time, had the only dominant round, & could easily have won 4 of the 5 rounds, which usually means you get 3 even if you aren't a legendary fighter that's supposed to win. My introduction to combat sports came through ESPN's regular telecasts of PKA full contact karate in the days where the long forgotten "Bad" Brad Hefton ruled the roost. It was mostly a souped up version of boxing because kicking below the belt was illegal, which made it so difficult to actually land many kicks they had a minimum kicks attempted per round to keep it from just being boxing where kicks happened to not be banned. Though I'm sure I randomly saw a full rules fight now & then, the first time I remember low kicks being a thing was ironically in UWF-I, where they did a great job of explaining just how deadly kicks were in general, claiming to have measured the impact of Nobuhiko Takada's blasts & found they were comparable to being hit with a baseball bat. Granted, "shoot wrestling, it's real" was actually not, & thus more than prone to a bit of hyperbole, but anyone who has ever taken a low kick & then felt every step, every shift of weight, and/or had difficulty functioning because you don't have enough length in your muscle now that your calf cramped up can attest that they suck, and it's a suck that just gets worse as the adrenaline wears off & you realize you can't walk at all or are hobbling around into the next day. Meanwhile, ground control in and of itself is literally just whatever, sure it usually tires the fighter on the bottom out more, but unless they are truly gassed, which neither fighter was here, both fighters are in the same health when they get back up as they were when they hit the canvas. Beyond judges not understanding how to score low kicks, as Johnson said after the fight, and still giving way to much credit to takedowns as if they hurt the opponent & as if simply laying on someone spending all your effort trying to keep them from getting back up was compromising them in some way even though the rules have been specifically changed to prevent this mistake, it's just hard to understand what went on here. As explained in this great USA Today article that specifically explains how DJ got screwed based on the actual scoring criteria, "according to ABC, the goal of the 2016 changes was 'To evolve Mixed Martial Arts Judging Criteria to focus on the result of action (versus action itself).' Simply landing a takedown should no longer be enough to steal a round," I'm really at a loss as to how they could blow this beyond the fact that Johnson has been so dominant his last 13 fights, barely losing a round or being tested for any length of time, that perhaps they simply marked out for Cejudo merely competing with the GOAT. Sure, this was a competitive fight because their skills negated each other to the point there wasn't much diversity & no one was having signature moments. Johnson hurt Cejudo in the 1st & that was the only dominant round of the fight, the rest were intense, but it was much more of a chess match, Johnson chipping away & Cejudo looking to counter with a punch or especially a takedown. The thing is, even when Cejudo did counter with a bunch, Johnson still connected with his shot, so for the most part Cejudo's standup highlights were little more than 1 for 1's. Despite being an Olympic gold medal wrestler, Cejudo has mainly relied on his boxing to win his MMA fights, but for the most part his fists were nowhere to be found today, as Johnson was simply too quick & too technical to get caught more than on the random occasion. Johnson normally dominates every aspect of the fight & just gets better & better as it progresses & he adjusts to everything the opponent is trying to make them suffer more, but here his only weapon was his kicks. I don't think Johnson fought anything resembling a good fight by his immortal standards. He was increasingly content to point fight, but that being said, he controlled the fight by dictating his distance for something like 20 of the 25 minutes. The key to this fight was totally the range it was contested at, and Johnson assured that was kicking range. As long as Johnson did that, and didn't get caught when he chose to close distance, beyond the incompetence we saw on the scorecards, there was literally no way for him to lose. He was out there hitting Cejudo with his baseball bat 30 times a round, while Cejudo was mostly just left to watch, as he couldn't reach him with his punches & when he did manage to take DJ down, he had to expend all his energy to simply hold him there for a brief period if he even progressed that far, so he had almost no opportunity to do any of the grappling that the judges are supposed to score. Cejudo never had Johnson in any kind of danger, he had 0 submission attempts, hardly threw more than a random strike on the ground, and wasn't advancing position. Yes, Cejudo had some time on top, but that was time spent defending position. The irony of this fight was that Cejudo won for octagon control when Johnson was actually the one who owned that department. This shouldn't have been a fight that was about whether or not Johnson could stay on his feet, if you actually pay attention to the bout, the narrative is Cejudo had to do something to avoid the total one way traffic Johnson forced in his favor by maintaining a range where he was the only one who could do any damage unless he chose to close the distance because he felt it was advantageous to take a chance. The fight started off as though it was going to be the usual Mighty Mouse walk over. One of the reasons it's amazing the judges didn't understand the severity of the low kicks is DJ had Cejudo in trouble with them literally 30 seconds into the fight from just the 3rd low kick. Cejudo seemed to have some numbness where he couldn't support his weight on the left leg, and thus he'd keep rolling the left ankle when he stepped. After rolling the ankle 3 times, it began to recover, and it was just shaky/unstable. It looked like the fight could be over almost as soon as it began, as was the case with their first match, but aside from a lot of redness & bruising in and around the left knee, things seemed more or less back to normal functionality a minute later. Johnson landed a head kick, but didn't press the issue, being careful when he chose to close the distance because those were the only times he was even eligible for counterfire. Beating on the leg had already forced Cejudo to switch to stances. Cejudo caught a high kick late in the round & had DJ off his feet for a second then landed one good shot after DJ got back up. UFC's statistics claim Johnson outlanded Cejudo 14-7 total, but it seemed like a much wider gap as all Johnson's shots were clean & solid & Cejudo really only had 1, maybe 2 shots that weren't grazing or blocked. Fight Metric lists 21-4 in significant strikes (I don't see round by round total), which seems a lot more reasonable. This round doesn't feel like a 10-8 round, but it was all one way traffic. The reason I hate round scoring is this was say 90-10 Johnson whereas round 5 was maybe 50.5-49.5 Cejudo. There needs to more even rounds and/or variance in the scoring, so round 1 would be 10-8, round 5 would be 10-10, and a round where a guy is really in trouble & taking a beating would be 10-7 or even 10-6. Cejudo switched back to orthodox, but Johnson landed a punishing kick above the knee early that bent Cejudo sideways early in the 2nd. Johnson was trying to be more aggressive & diverse, but Cejudo stuffed his takedown, and was sometimes able to land a quick counter hook before DJ could exit. Cejudo ducked a right straight & was able to land a knee that opened up the trip with a little more than a minute left after Johnson had defended his initial double leg. Cejudo just held DJ close to keep him from getting right back up, and DJ was still able to get to his knees before long. Cejudo didn't actually even try any offense until the final seconds when he threw a handful of knees to the shoulder, which did literally nothing if any even connected. With Johnson outlanding Cejudo by a cool 30-15, including a couple that obviously damaged the already weakened leg, this was another clear DJ round. Before I had any idea that it might matter, when Rogan said he thought Cejudo won the round, I was thinking he needs to at least lay off the drugs on fight nights. Johnson upped the pressure to start the 3rd, looking to follow Matt Hume's advice & fake the punch to get Cejudo to duck then land the knee up the middle, but Cejudo's strength in this fight is he reacted really quickly either with his fists or his forward explosions into the clinch when DJ pushed forward into the short range, keeping the adjustments DJ wanted to make from ever materializing or being advantageous compared to just hanging back & digging into the legs or midsection. Round 3 was the best round of the fight as they were mixing it up more & Cejudo was able to land some good counter punches & get a couple flash takedowns. Johnson was still beating up the leg, but Cejudo thinking leg was increasingly opened up the body kick. Cejudo was also cut under the left eye. In the end, it was the same story as all the previous rounds, with Johnson being the aggressor, the far more active fighter, the far more accurate fighter, building up an early lead & ultimately doubling Cejudo up in striking department. It's nice that this was a fight, and I was entertained a lot more than the usual DJ match where he's amazing to watch, but ultimately he's so amazing that it's a jobber match even if the opponent would most likely beat more or less anyone else in the world. Let's be honest though, this should already have been game, set, match on the scorecards barring something miraculous from Cejudo. One major problem though was that Cejudo countered DJ's knee down the middle with a double leg, and when Johnson did his roll to get back to his feet their legs became entangled & he went over his ankle awkwardly. You can see Johnson momentarily limp as he gets back to his feet, and after the fight he said he thought he tore his LCL. Hume encouraged DJ to use his boxing, but Cejudo had more forward pressure in the 4th, which made him have to angle sideways so the body kick was occasionally there, but Cejudo dropped into the eventual takedown when Johnson tried to cut the angle & come forward with the right hand. Even though this was the only clear Cejudo round as DJ only had a 1 strike edge but Cejudo spent almost half the round on top, it exemplified the basic reason Cejudo didn't win the fight in that Johnson is so good at getting back up that Cejudo could never mount any sort of offensive on the ground. The second Cejudo gave him space, Johnson was progressing toward getting up, so all Cejudo could do was try to adjust to hold him close. If that worked, he still had to keep trying to resecure position once he started to think about offense because Johnson would always better his position. That being said, Cejudo really needed to be the one pushing forward, and it seemed like the biggest reason DJ was taking chances closing the distance was the more he pressured Cejudo, the more he kept him from having the energy to pressure DJ instead. Cormier explained at the start of the 5th that DJ had a claim to all 4 rounds & Cejudo had a claim to 2, with DJ getting up in every round but then Cejudo making his mark if he could secure a takedown. I felt the 5th was the most disappointing round because, while the most competitive, both corners approached the round as if it could decide the fight & tried to motivate their fighters to go seize it, yet it was more of a let's not make a mistake kind of round until the very very end when both pressed to make a last second impression but just missed their reckless swings. DJ thought he broke his foot kicking Cejudo, so between that & the LCL, he may simply not have been capable of too much at this point, though it seemed like adrenaline was pushing him forward enough that he didn't really change his style beyond arguably a little less movement & bouncing. Johnson landed one nice middle kick, but just as Rogan said he finally built up an advantage, Cejudo got hold of him. Johnson reversed, but tried to throw knees instead of disengaging, and Cejudo was able to get a flash takedown with an inside trip. Johnson partially landed a high kick, but Cejudo landed a couple knees while Johnson was defending a takedown at the very end and then a punch on the break. Honestly, I can't see any compelling reason to give this round to either fighter. Both tried, but just had a couple moments each that they were unable to capitalize on or sustain. If you really believe the fight was somehow even going in, it seems calling it a draw is the only reasonable result of this final stanza as the margins are way closer here than anywhere else. Overall, the telling stats were that Johnson had a 40 strike advantage and landed somewhere between a ridiculous 62% & 70% of his strikes depending upon whose numbers you want to use. Without being too simplistic, if you are landing whenever you throw, your strikes are the more punishing ones, you are at least as active, and the opponent never hurts you, that should virtually always be enough. Somehow, Cejudo won a split decision 48-47, 47-48, 48-47. To pile on more of the usual disrespect from Dana White, he won't even commit to giving DJ an immediate rematch because what, having your title stolen after 6 years might not rate compared to, I don't know, maybe Tim Elliott can beat some more cans on a reality show or we can manifest a challenger from the vaunted Contender Series? Yeah, we should definitely keep our options open & hold out hope, especially in a division that's been cleared out year after year. If ever in the history of MMA there was a need for an immediate rematch of a fight that wasn't by virtue of a foul or ref blunder, it's this fight. Good match.

NJPW 7/25/17: G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Michael Elgin [2] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 13:09. Kind of an odd match because Elgin was trying to impress, and Kojima responded to that, but they still seemed to be on different pages. Not that they didn't work well together, it was an energetic hard hitting match that was never dull, but Elgin was trying to construct a high quality match with Kojima where they set things up & played off one another, while Kojima seemed to not so much be doing a match with Elgin as just running through his routine, trying to get pops for his same old greatest hits package. The effort was there from both, but their mentality was just completely different. It still came together just well enough though. The highlight was Kojima elbowing his way out of a German suplex on the apron & hitting a DDT then Elgin avoiding a plancha & avenging with a powerbombing onto the apron. ***

BACK TO QUEBRADA REVIEWS

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web quebrada.net

* Puroresu, MMA, & Kickboxing Reviews Copyright 2018 Quebrada *