Best Matches Seen November 2018 |
AAA GIRA DE CONQUISTA 4/20/18
Arkangel Divino & Black Destiny & Genio del Aire vs. Black Danger & Mirage & Ultimo Maldito 9:01. A 9 minute opener doesn't sound like it would be something to go out of your way to check out, but these guys are so unbelievably fast & packed so much action into the time they had it wound up containing more flashy offense then you'd see on most whole shows. Yes, it was a sprint & a spotfest, but the level of difficulty was incredibly high, and they pulled it off with precision & impeccable timing. This wasn't we'll do a bunch of flips & thus it'll be great, it was how fast & how difficult can we make this ballet & still pull it off without killing each other. If you don't like acrobatic displays then sure, you probably still won't like it, but this wasn't merely an all out effort, it was a beautiful display of mad genius. The overclocked action was sort of just a lengthy finishing sequence, as they were doing their best spots & making saves seemingly from the outset. Divino & Maldito were really the heroes, and if there's room for improvement somewhere it would be swapping some of the others, perhaps Mirage. The early high speed tilt-a-whirl spot with Divino & Maldito had Maldito turning Divino so fast it was unreal, like what those awful fast forwarded martial arts schlockfests would be if they had Bruce Lee instead of no talent hacks that need to be put on 10x speed in a failed attempt to mask their lack of any real skill or ability. These two also did the most insane spot near the end where both were standing on the top & Divino super Frankensteinered Maldito to the floor onto Aire & Danger. Divino then got Mirage on his shoulders on the floor & Destiny hit a doomsday tope. They finished going back to the tilt-a-whirling with Divino hitting his high speed Mistica on Maldito for the win. The match isn't long enough to be match of the year or anything, but it's most definitely at the very high end of how far a short athletic contest can be pushed. ****
AAA World Cruiserweight Title #1 Contendership Four Way Match: Lanzeloth vs. Dinastia vs. Mascara de Bronce vs. El Hijo del Vikingo 6:32. This would have seemed a lot more awesome had it not come after an ever better version of the same thing in the opener. That being said, while this was even shorter, it can't be dismissed. It was probably as spectacular & maybe more thoughtful, though it edged more toward being a collection of crazy stunts than a really intricately timed high speed match. The four way aspect actually really worked well here & gave it some good differentiation from match 1 though, coming off more as a match 1 man survived than something he actually won. They did a nice job of switching between having 2 matches going on at once & having guys interject in the other pairings' action to keep things moving in an unpredictable manner & minimize the contrived aspects that normally mar these kind of matches because two guys wing up just lying around or holding each other waiting for the other two to be finished. Vikingo did a shooting star attack off the apron. Lanzeloth's Spanish fly looked extra good because Bronce really lept into it, leading to a heavy crash landing, though it would have made a lot more sense to have Vikingo follow with his shooting star press onto the guy who took the move rather than having Lanzeloth roll to his back & keep creeping toward the corner so he wasn't too far away for Vikingo to reach. Bronce avenged hitting with a super Spanish fly to take out Vikingo & Dinastia on the floor. This left Bronce & Lanzeloth, but Lanzeloth getting his knees up for Bronce's 450 splash before pinning him with a diving footstomp didn't work quite right. ***
AAA World Tag Team Title Match: El Texano Jr. & Rey Escorpion vs. Aero Star & Drago 11:08. This was the sort of opportunity I was wanting Aero & Drago to get all season of Lucha Underground. They had time, and a great catcher in Escorpion to make all their crazy flying come off perfectly. This was simply an aerial assault from Aero & Drago, really just barraging the opponents with their flying, as soon as one got you the other nailed you, and by then the first one was once again leaping at the rudos. The match felt like a tag title match the way they used to in the '80's when you had tag specialists, as most of what they did was done in tandem and/or unison. Texano was the offensive star for the rudos, tossing them around with his power moves a bit more than Escorpion including a big powerbomb off the 2nd, though again, you had them double press slamming Drago on the announcers tab rather than doing a lot of isolated individual moves. The match wasn't as consistently spectacular as the opener because technico & rudo were very much defined, but Aero & Drago were super explosive with all their flying combined with Escorpion doing flips to make their ranas look that much more impressive. The rudos did a bunch of high impact moves, often on the run, so the pace was pretty fantastic nonetheless, mostly because the rudos refused to slow things down for the usual lame stomps & static brawling. Though Tirantes Jr. was given no reason to be involved throughout the match, the finish was just terrible. I don't care so much that he counted a double pin after an eye gouge & blatant holding of both ropes as that in a match where all the offense was so great they wanted to end with such nonsense, particularly the cradle reversal to Drago's corner sunset flip where Texano had Drago down for literally 13 seconds off no offensive maneuever of his own without Drago even trying to jerk or buck. ***3/4
EVE Bad Ass Bitches From Mars 4/14/18: Kasey Owens vs. Millie McKenzie 13:54. This looked like a lesser show with no Kay Lee Ray, no Jetta on commentary to keep the dull matches interesting with her quick wit, & McKenzie buried in the opener. Though that was the case, luckily McKenzie & Owens didn't care when they came on, giving a main event effort & stealing the show anyway. The announcers said as much, wondering if the other workers were paying attention in the locker room because the bar was being set really high. The technical wrestling early on was a little more deliberate than I'd like after they weren't on the same page on the 1st counter, but they settled in quickly, & the match got good with McKenzie hitting a tope then Owens answering with her own when McKenzie threw her back in the ring. The match had a good sense of desperation & feeling of urgency. They really laid into each other, both with the strikes including Owens nearly breaking McKenzie's jaw with a sick sliding knee & big suplexes. Owens survived a Canadian destroyer, a cutter counter for her boomerang cross body, & a ridiculous amount of German suplexes before knocking McKenzie out. I'm not sure why you go from McKenzie beating Storm in the main event to losing to Owens in the opener, it felt like she should definitely win here given her main event loss to Ray, but it seems like they're content to keep jobbing her all year since she's the youngest. Owens was quite good here as well with her badass shoot strikes, and in any case, the fans were the real winners. ***1/4
ONE 73 Unstoppable Dreams 5/18/18
Muay Thai: Joseph Lasiri vs. Singtongnoi Por Telakun R2 2:36. Singtongnoi is a multiple time Muay Thai world champion. While Lasiri is a WBC Muay Thai Super Bantamweight champ in his own right, and probably still working toward his prime with 37 fights at age 26, this would normally be an obvious mismatch, except that 37-year-old Singtongnoi is returning after a 3 year layoff where he retired due to a slow healing broken rib then survived a life threatening battle with stage 3 nasal cavity cancer. This wasn't the usual slow starting muay thai fight where they began to loosen up in the 3rd round, in fact much of what made it so exciting is they were so aggressive they were practically chasing each other down. The pace was really insane, as there wasn't a consistent aggressor, but rather whenever one fighter stopped pushing forward the other just ate up that space & pushed back as far as they had energy to, with both doing nice damage against the cage. Part of the difference here is they fought 3 rounds with 4 ounce open fingered MMA gloves, and while the lighter gloves didn't have as much effect as you'd think because neither guy focused on their punching, it made Lasiri do everything he could to stay out of Singtongnoi's clinch because being able to use his fingers would make his grip so much better. Singtongnoi knocked Lasiri off his feet with his first kick then scored an actual knockdown with his first arm strike countering Lasiri's left middle kick with a short elbow. Lasiri still attacked frantically, but Singtongnoi was consistently able to time him coming in & land big counters. Lasiri didn't have much choice because Singtongnoi would eat him up mixing the right low kick & left middle kick whenever Lasiri stopped pressuring or just push him back into the cage & work his elbows. The fight was paused to check out a gash over Lasiri's right eye from another big elbow, and when it restarted Singtongnoi dropped him again with a punch combo against the cage. As overmatched as Lasiri was in the 1st, rather than wilting he found some adjustments & had a good start to the 2nd. Lasiri was now ready for Singtongnoi's middle kick, and although he still ate it too often, whether he was able to back away or not, he was sure to launch his own counter attack. Lasiri also did a better job with his positioning, keeping Singtongnoi backed against the octagon, which allowed him to land a regular & spinning back elbow. After another check of Lasiri's worsening cut, the fight turned for the final time as Singtongnoi was able to back Lasiri against the cage & land a couple big elbows that caused Lasiri to go momentarily limp, though he didn't fall because Singtongnoi was trying to get his clinch. Atsushi Onari checked Lasiri out after another blistering middle kick from Singtongnoi, and eventually stopped it for the cut, though that wasn't too clear. Good match.
Kickboxing: Yodsanklai IWE Fairtex vs. Chris Ngimbi 3R UD. Another Muay Thai great came out of retirement & won today, vanquishing former It's Showtime & SUPERKOMBAT middleweight champion Ngimbi in a competitive toe to toe fight where Ngimbi had his moments, but Fairtex was by far the more solid & consistent fighter. The southpaw Fairtex kept winning the footwork battle, working with his right foot inside Ngimbi's left & landing the 1-2 combo down the middle then sometimes following with the right uppercut or working the left kick to tenderize Ngimbi's forearms. Yodsanklai was looking for the high kick more than the middle kick, not really landing either but just destroying Ngimbi's blocking arm either way, though The African Warrior refused to drop his guard. Ngimbi landed some good right hooks & low kicks in the opener, but Fairtex was getting off first & Ngimbi was just standing in the pocket waiting for him to finish his attack rather than circling out or countering. Ngimbi made a little push late, but it was basically who was getting off first, and that was Fairtex 80% of the time. Ngimbi landed a good right hook counter to Fairtex's left middle kick early in the 2nd that caused Fairtex to stumble, and Ngimbi had a little run, but Fairtex really took over once he regained the inititive & scored a knockdown with what Ngimbi claimed was a gouge, but was likely a punch to the eye. Ngimbi tried to get his famous flying knee going, but was beginning to get wild trying to make something happen given he was about to be down 3 points. Ngimbi started stepping forward in the 3rd to negate Fairtex getting off 1st by smothering his offense, answering Fairtex's attacks with inside leg kicks or right hooks. This was a much better tactic for Ngimbi because he wasn't spending time in the pocket, though Fairtex still caught him with some of his short punches & beat on his welted arms some more. Ngimbi hit his jumping knee in the final 20 seconds & got a good left hook in before the bell. He might have won the last round for what that was worth. Good match.
EVE Kick 'Em In The Stereotypes 2/10/18: Kay Lee Ray & Sammii Jayne vs. Charlie Morgan & Toni Storm 15:21. Jayne replaced Millie McKenzie, which wasn't to the benefit though she wound up giving the best performance in the match. They teased dissention in the ranks since Ray & Jayne aren't mates, but this was a wrestling match not a throwaway to set up the next throwaway, so Ray ultimately saved Jayne from the strong zero twice. This started pretty well with Jayne & Storm trading leverage holds & Ray & Morgan trading kicks then settled into Morgan getting dominated as Jayne tested how Morgan's broken collarbone has recovered, working the shoulder & arm. Morgan didn't seem near the level of the other 3, but she was mostly just selling & doing a few kicks. The match really took off with Storm's hot tag, ducking Jayne's enzuigiri & going into a released German suplex then starting a triple dive sequence where Morgan chickened out because she's still not confident of her health. Morgan then decided to try for a dive after all, but Jayne cut her off & gave Storm a tope. Storm also countered Ray's attempt to boomerang with a big released German. They did a couple more dives, but again Morgan wouldn't join. Instead she taunted Jayne & ran the ropes for a yakuza kick, but Jayne slipped behind her with a released Dragon then won with a fireman's carry driver, which is kind of a lame, toned down version of the Death Valley bomb where she places the opponent on their back rather than dropping them on their head. Not a major main event even by EVE's standards, but they did enough to make it good. Ray didn't contribute as much as normal since it was mostly Jayne, but had her moments put her athleticism to good use, and Storm was at home here because she didn't have to log that much ring time, but got to deliver some big highlights. ***
EVE SHEVOLUTION 3/30/18
Sammii Jayne vs. Kris Wolf 14:21. I really disliked Wolf at the start of her Stardom career because she was all gimmick with a little meaningless action thrown in between her annoying character work. Though the Tanny Wolf character is still present, I'm okay with her getting her tail pulled or putting the wolf face on the opponent since she was wrestling first here, & even these gags were done within the context of gaining & maintaining advantages. Jayne also kept her in check, following Wolf's dive with her own because she stopped to play to the crowd. Jayne looks like a throwback to Moolah's troupe, but she has a good mix of technique to go with her ring control & mind games. Though she's a rudo, she keeps progressing the match & taking it in different directions, taunting the crowd while she's taking the opponent apart rather than slowing things down to do so, and would much rather rely on her skill & cleverness with Wolf actually doing most of the cheating. Jayne can do a lot of styles over the course of a match, but it seems like what she does within a style isn't that vast, so you'll see it stuff match after match. Jayne had a considerable size advantage, so she was tossing Wolf around & winning the strike exchanges, but was just as happy trading flying headscissor variations and enzuigiris. The match was mostly the Sammii show, with Wolf using her speed enough to keep hope alive. Wolf finally made a run with a couple flying moves, but Jayne caught the second attempt at a flying double knee & powerbombed her into the turnbuckle, which quickly led to the finish. The problem with the match is Wolf wasn't really a threat to win it, making the whole non title stipulation a bit silly, but she was very over & the fans love to hate Sammii, so it was a successful reintroduction to EVE (she did 2 matches the year before but has now become a regular). ***
Hardcore Match: Kay Lee Ray vs. DASH Chisako 17:38. They brought a chair with their nicknames - Hardcore Daredevil & Hardcore Queen - so Ray proposed they shake on making it a hardcore match, only to get booted in the gut, which was just classic start to one of the best joshi matches of the year. DASH worked Ray over with the chair on the outside, but when she threw her in & went to reenter herself, Ray caught her with a tope & used the chair on DASH, including a front suplex onto it. This match was certainly top notch, considerably better than anything I've seen from EVE or Senjo so far this year, but given it's the first & so far only match DASH has wrestled for EVE, it's odd that they'd want it to be so weapons oriented. These two are a lot more notable for their skill than for choking the opponent with a ladder, and they've never wrestled each other before, so there's no actual reason to start with such an escalated level of violence, but given neither have wrestled more than a handful of these matches in their career, I guess it's just in their nature like the scorpion. DASH is certainly a spunky badass who incorporates chairs into all her matches, and the more time she gets in singles, the more she resembles the Queen of the Street Fight version of Mayumi Ozaki that was wrestling's most fantastic little bad ass before Chigusa & KAORU taught her to forget how to wrestle & get bailed out by the fuzz, so this is really the next progression forward for DASH's career. I'm dying to see DASH & Ray in a straight match, but it's possible this is actually the better match for them because they're creative enough to do their near-fall laden athletic contest around the gimmick spots, so while it was a bit less sequence & counter oriented than expected before the stipulation was announced, the props gave them more opportunity to add nasty twists to their already impressive arsenal & a reason to do a much more brutal, high impact match. DASH did her diving footstomp onto the chairs, but there was also some less predictable stuff such as Ray ramming DASH into a ladder leaning in the corner then using a 619 on the ladder to knock it into her face. Ray also tried one of her boomerang body attack off the ladder when DASH reversed her whip, but DASH had it scouted so Ray lept into a flying chair. This match was intense, particularly the striking, but one of the reasons it was so good is even in spite of the gimmick spots, they didn't make it about a few stunts & kept their usual high paced style. This was the rare hardcore match where out speeding each other was actually a thing, and they really only pausing to get the table then set it across two chairs for DASH to ultimately superplex Ray through. Granted, the pace was surely at least a half notch off what it would have been in a straight match, but that's still more spots than Naito does in an "active" month. Ray was the harder hitter (aside from DASH's headbutt that would make Shibata proud), putting more on her stikes than usual and really getting some great shots in, but DASH refuses to back down from anyone, and would answer by firing up with her own flurry. There was eventually some great back & forth action of all types, even straight wrestling, but that's not the match they were here to do. This was a really high impact match, and you knew it was going to take more than usual to get the finish, with Ray's Gori bomb on the chair finally doing DASH in. This win helped set up Satomura failing to defend Senjo honor against Ray at Queendom. ****
LU S4 E22 11/7/18 Ultima Lucha Cuatro
2/3 Falls: Fenix vs. Dragon Azteca Jr. 13:45 [2:20, 1:41, 9:45]. This was the match on Ultimo Lucha Cuatro I was really looking forward to because Azteca has looked good all season as a guy who has random highlights in short matches, but hasn't really had the opportunity to have a complete match, and Fenix should be a great opponent for him to excel with. It failed to meet the lofty expectations, but it was still a good match, the best on a show that had a ton of potential but grew lamer & lamer as they continually avoided doing lucha & aspired to be a dumbed down version of CZW. The action got off to a great start with the fast paced, back & forth action we were expecting from these guys. I'm not sure if they edited some of the first two falls because while blowing through them & having a long 3rd fall is hardly uncommon, there was a lot of time after the 2nd with Antonio Cueto hobbling out & turning it into a falls count anywhere match, but instead of picking things up for the stunning conclusion, they were still half dead & the pace was quartered, though again that seemed to be a theme of all the hardcore action, with the extra time these matches got mostly being used to plod after weapons or contemplate using them. The first 2 falls were the closest thing we saw all night to pure lucha athleticism, but the 3rd was a hardcore brawl with the style of the old Fenix giving way to that of the new dark Fenix, though the match actually would have worked better if that was a legit storyline rather than an obvious observation. Fenix starting by cracking Azteca with a chair, and it quickly devolved into the same type of inaction that marred Havoc/Killshot where they just focused on setting up a few big spots & didn't do a whole lot in between, though this was more manipulating the weapons than purely meandering. Azteca gave up wanting to be a nice guy really quickly, and the signature spot saw him Frankensteiner Fenix off the bleachers guard rail through a table. From here they kept trying to break tables, with Fenix failing by overshooting his swanton to the floor a little too much, but Dragon succeeding with a super victory roll that really seemed a lot more impressive due to the inclusion of the prop. Granted that should have just been the finish, but they always have to do their hamfisted melodramatic angles, so the overselling hit it's peak when Azteca then eventually dragged a chair out from under the ring, climbed back in & slammed it into the ring 3 times with Fenix still down then did some windups. A minute had gone by before the lame finish where Melissa tried to stop the chair shot by convincing Azteca they're still friends & the bad Fenix isn't really him only to have Fenix finally get up 30 seconds later & blindside Azteca with a chair then hit a typically unimpressive spear (which looked great compared to Muertes') through a table & finish with the blackbird driver. I thought Azteca really delivered here, but this was the first match where Fenix was hampered by trying to figure out what his new identity entails. ***
Death Match: The Mack vs. Mil Muertes 12:54. Mack wasn't scared of Muertes anymore, which was about the only explanation for this matchup now being really competitive after Muertes had been fairly dominant in the haunted house match on episode 11. His fearlessness was good for the audience though, as it turned an underachieving match into an overachieving one. Muertes brought out a second casket early on, hitting an X factor on it. Mack was using his speed & technique early, advantages he doesn't have over many guys in this league since he's one of the few heavyweights, even if quite an athletic one, but things changed when he opened the casket, which turned out to be filled with weapons. I think teasing big moves & never actually hitting them is a good thing, maybe the outcome would have changed if they managed to pull off this or that big hold, but introducing weapons they clearly aren't going to use properly (nothing was more nonsensical than Tiger Jeet Singh only doing sword spots but having to use the handle only turning a lengthy weapon into a bad version of brass knuckles) because someone would be mutilated or killed, in this case an axe, is just an annoying distraction from all the good & interesting things they are or could be doing. Things degenerated quickly with Mil carving Mack up with an ice pick on Mack & Mack coming back with a coast to coast dropkick with a can on Mil that only reached with one foot. It was good that they got this stuff out of the way in the mid stages then, when both were good & bloody, were able to make their way back to the actual wrestling match this started out as. Mack survived a flatliner then turned the match countering the chokeslam with his stunner. Mil survived another stunner, so Mack broke a brick on his head, flipped him off, then pinned him with the 3rd stunner. Though Muertes won earlier in the season, it was still surprising to see Mack finally get a signature win in Lucha Underground here, especially since he'd made Mil look mortal throughout. Mack did a good job of making Mil look good though, so he deserved it, but apart from this having a much better finish, Fenix/Azteca was a better actual wrestling match. ***
EVE Not Made To Be Subtle 1/13/18, Ladder Match Qualifying Match: Millie McKenzie vs. Toni Storm 12:17. It's odd seeing Storm as the veteran fending off the rising star, but she usually doesn't wrestle girls who aren't old enough to buy a ticket to the show. They did a nice job of playing their roles, with Storm seeming to want to do a British style technical match working the arm, but quickly starting to play heel double crossing Millie on a handshake & turning it into a high impact brawl. McKenzie's intensity is one of her best attributes, and though she was getting dominated early, she started to come to life with a schoolboy counter to Storm's 3rd ass to the face, & got her elbows going as well as hitting a tope and a body attack off the bar. Storm's bouts are almost always so short (12 minutes ranks it as one of her "long" ones) and seem to suffer from the same issue where she just cuts the developing portion off abruptly and goes right to the finishing sequence with the opponent surviving a big move and often the strong zero as was the case today. McKenzie escaped to the floor then back body dropped her way out of an apron version, so Storm set up a chair in the corner & tried to whip McKenzie in, but Millie reversed & countered with her German suplex. Storm made the mistake of trying to match German suplexes with Millie, and Millie not only won the battle, but scored the well deserved upset, which was pretty exciting. All the individual portions of the match were good, but they seemed just that; going from the brawling on the floor to the finishing sequence really left a gap. I enjoyed the match, the actual wrestling was high level, but at the same time it seemed choppy & oddly unsatisfying because the bridge to the finish is absent in Storm's matches so again they jumped to the finishers and just ended after each kicked out of one or two. ***
EVE SHEroes! 3/10/18
Viper vs. Jordynne Grace 10:17. Grace is something of a shorter version of Reggie Bennett before she blew up, but is a much better athlete. A better in ring comparison would be Chihiro Hashimoto as she can use all the power moves she needs to hang with a giant like Viper or to dominate normal sized athletes, but at the same time she can bump, pull out cartwheels, and generally do sequences with the smaller more athletic girls where she's more than just a base for their flying because she has good agility & body control. Viper has never been one of my favorites, she's imprecise, & while she gives an effort & tries to do impressive things for her size, she just doesn't have much grace or finesse. Grace really worked hard & pulled a good match out of her. It helped that Grace has enough size & strength that Viper had to respect her & put her over, as well as enough athleticism that the contest seemed somewhat flashy & skillful even regardless of their size. Viper's offense was still hit & miss, but Grace did a great job working circles around her, whether it be countering her with athletic moves or even powerbombing her, and Viper had to go out of her comfort zone & keep trying to step her game so as not to be completely shown up by the outsider. Viper pulled out a high cross body & something that was supposed to be a dive to match Grace's tope. Viper gave a good effort & kept her workrate up. The match was building well, but then just ended when Viper broke Grace's bearhug with a series of headbutts & hit a Michinoku driver II. ***
Kay Lee Ray vs. Millie McKenzie 16:15. McKenzie is one of the most promising wrestlers on the planet. Debuting at 16 under the tutelege of Pete Dunne & Travis Banks, she's already one of the better women two years later, and is virtually the only wrestler who will do a spear as an actual flying tackle that looks like it's doing something useful. Ray has been the standard bearer in the UK for a while even though she's still on the ascendancy, and while she has a striking game she can use on any slug, it's much better to now have someone who she can really work with to develop a counter laden match. These two gave a big show main event performance, just throwing bombs & beating the hell out of each other from start to finish. The action was pretty fast paced except on the floor because the venue is so tiny they don't bother with seats, and the wrestlers kind of need the fans to part and huddle together in order to have 5 feet to work with. Ray set up her reverse Gori special bomb near the bar, and just jerked back to ram Millie's head into the counter, while Millie hit her Canadian destroyer on the apron before they got down to Millie's killer suplexes in the ring. Ray eventually answered with her superkicks, but McKenzie caught one & climbed up Ray's back into a reverse Frankensteiner, which wasn't their best transition. Sometimes it could have been a little more fluid, I think we'll see that as they get more used to each other & continue to grow, and they could have told a better story with the offense they were using, but it was a great effort with heavy artillery from start to finish. Millie had an avalanche style German suplexes after hitting 6 almost uninterrupted regular versions earlier. Ray finally hit her Gori bomb & went back to her senton atomico, which would have been fine as the finish except she almost completely overshot McKenzie. ***1/2
PURE-J 1st ANNIVERSARY 8/11/18
Arisa Nakajima vs. Command Bolshoi 15:00. Bolshoi's career is finally winding down after 27 years due to spine problems, but apparently she's still got a few good matches in her, and she really wanted to go for it here with the announcement of her impending retirement. She didn't look that great in the last few overlong, we'll do a bunch of things to no real purpose eventually tag title matches I saw her in, but this was some of her best work, partly because against the promotions former ace Nakajima, returning for the 2nd time since she left at the end of 2016, Bolshoi was able to do a far more technical match. Nakajima isn't as skilled on the mat as Bolshoi, but she's one of the most well rounded female wrestlers, and moves quickly & fluidly no matter what she's doing. Part of the beauty of the match is rather than simply go along with what her old boss was trying to do, she tried to make it more of an action oriented lucha style match, but Bolshoi was able to counter into submissions & they created a really fun tension between the styles. These are two of the smallest women around, but they've gotten over that through hard work, and that was a real theme here, with both refusing to give in to the other. Nakajima just has so much willpower & fighting spirit that she adds drama to the match almost just by pressing forward. The highlight was a great sequence in the middle of the match where Bolshoi countered the German suplex rolling into a kneebar, but Arisa rolled through into the German suplex only to have Bolshoi twist into a Kimura. Nakajima eventually stood out & hit a bridging fallaway slam, but Bolshoi never released the arm, and again turned into pressure then switched to a wakigatame only to have Nakajima roll into a reverse bodylock & hoist her up for another German suplex. Bolshoi kept gaining traction here because she was dangerous when Nakajima was on the run, which is when Nakajima is at her best, but Nakajima wasn't stopping Bolshoi's running offense at nearly the same rate. Bolshoi eventually took her out with a shining wizard & threw a series of mount punches after Nakajima kicked out only to have Tommy Ran pull her off & give her a down count, which just seems so nonsensical in 2018, you either stop it or force her to defend herself. Nakajima, of course, lived on, and answered Bolshoi's elbows with a series of her own until she layed Bolshoi out with one. Bolshoi feebly lifted an arm at the last second for the most unconvincing kickout she could muster, so Nakajima avenged with mount punches until Ran pulled her off & threw her into the corner. Ran gave Bolshoi all the time she needed to recover until Nakajima shoved her out of the way & kept kneeing Bolshoi until she answered with what was probably supposed to be a Mariko spike. Nakajima really did a good job of continually escalating the tension here. She wasn't striking early on, but she wasn't going to be out done, and really put some good shots in on Bolshoi in the 2nd half. On one hand, this being half an MMA oriented match & half a junior style spotfest was at odds, but Nakajima hitting a moonsault is a lot more credible after she's nearly knocked Bolshoi out a few times. Bolshoi got her legs up for the 2nd moonsault, and with time about to expire made a super clown comeback with a couple more shining wizards, but Nakajima wasn't going to get finished off now, and the match ended with a frantic elbow exchange. I'm not a huge fan of 15 minute draws, but the length was about right for the style they were wrestling & they did a good job of telling the refuse to be defeated storyline. I loved the effort & creativity here, and while a couple things could have been done better, Bolshoi's 1st 619 was particularly lame, they really hit it out of the park here just constantly answering & one upping the other in a manner where they actually made you care about what they were doing. ****
PURE-J Openweight Title Match: Hanako Nakamori vs. Manami Katsu 20:30. This had no hope of following the previous match, but Katsu has improved since their title match last October to the point that a decent match has become a good one. Katsu is the best of the four remaining wrestlers who debuted for JWP this decade, very much molded after her mentor & former tag partner Kayoko Haruyama. She's been wrestling 7 years, although that is deceiving given she was retired from 7/14-4/16. She's short & not super athletic, but with the added weight she's able to bang with Nakamori. She's still not someone to get excited about, but her maximum effort resulted in a good performance. It would be nice if Azumi Hyuga or Dynamite Kansai were still around & in their prime, but while there's no all-time greats in the league anymore, Bolshoi has ensured this title, like it's JWP predescessor, is contested in high effort, no nonsense, 20 minute matches where they actual wrestle the whole time. These two like to go big, and have similar enough styles they work better together because they almost naturally mirrored & tried to top each other. This was a high impact match, but it wasn't the usual thoughtless flatfooted exchanges, they were mostly on the move & taking the opponent down with one big shot or occasionally a combination from Nakamori. I thought Katsu was doing a high cross body early, but she just floored Nakamori with a knee to the head instead. Nakamori doesn't appear to be returning to her idol days, now sporting blonde hair combed back like Mr. Gannosuke. She didn't so much carry the match as give a good confident performance that was a little cleaner than what Katsu brought. She is comfortable in this ace role now, and willing to do enough to get the job done. Nakamori hit a fisherman buster on the floor, but Katsu answered with a German suplex. This wasn't a match that had much in the way of stories or themes. Nakamori did work on the neck to aid her destiny hammer, including draping Katsu on the second & legdropping her, but Katsu avoided the guillotine legdrop after taking a tombstone & they somewhat moved on. There was a big double sell spot where all the seconds were pounding the canvas when Nakamori headbutted her way out of a German suplex, but then charged into a Michinoku driver II. They did a good job of making it seem like Katsu could win, and she wrestled well enough that it may not have been a bad idea. Nakamori came back though, and got the pin with the second Chinkonka driver. ***
Lucha Underground S4 E18 10/10/18 Spiders vs. Skeletons
Tornado Match: Fenix & Mil Muertes vs. Dragon Azteca Jr. & The Mack 9:51. Good short spotfest setting up the respective singles matches for the season finale. Fenix/Azteca was not surprisingly the best, but all the pairings were quite good & I suppose what made the match was how well the power guys worked well with the speed guys because there were no shifts from style to style, it was all fireworks and never slowed down. Mack's offense bridges the gap anyway, so while Muertes is the only true outlier, he is usually willing to take as much as he gives in the bigger matches, and is a lot better base for flying than he looks like he'd be. I liked the tornado match better than a 4 way because they could still do the spots that required 3 or 4 wrestlers, but could also just have 1 on 1 without the other 2 guys lying on the outside picking their noses until their next turn. I also liked that although Fenix & Mil have been enemies for years & are one of the most unlikely pairings in Lucha Underground, they didn't use the moldy old script where where something backfired & they either turned on one another or caused their old rival to get pinned. Fenix is the most spectacular, but the highlights were pretty much everything. The favorites Fenix & Mil scored simultaneous pins on their rivals, which seems to point to an upset or two at Ultimo Lucha Cuatro. ***
Pentagon Dark vs. Reklusa 9:43. This companion to last week's Marty vs. Mariposa followed the same bad script where the woman just got her ass kicked the whole time. I can midly recommend this one though because the wrestling was maybe an 8/10 as opposed to a 2/10. Also, though Chelsea was only treated as a grade above jobber, she gave a far better than expected performance, hitting really impressive moves when she actually got to do something with a rana off the top to the floor, a tope into a swinging DDT, and a Canadian destroyer & selling well the rest of the time. Penta didn't go easy on her in the least, while he seemed to be toying with her a bit to draw out Marty, mostly drilling her with hellacious hamstring kicks, eventually he was ready to put her away & she kicked out even after the package piledriver on the apron. Penta changed his mind about breaking Reklusa's arm, instead dumping a bag of thumbtacks & setting her up for the piledriver, but Marty came out & used a barbed wire bat on him & they went to black with him supposedly lighting Pentagon on fire. Overall, this match is way overrated, but at the same time a lot better than it had the right to be given the lack of time and more importantly that it was an ill conceived throwaway to hokily advance the main angle. ***
Pure-J Climax 2017 12/17/17, PURE-J Openweight Title Hair vs. Hair Match: Hanako Nakamori vs. DASH Chisako 21:24. It's odd to just jump to a hair match after a couple of random tags, their previous singles match was a 15:00 draw on 5/3/16, but these two came out bombing after Nakamori gave the high hat to DASH's offer of a pre match handshake & they wrestled like there was an epic rivalry. It's really a shame DASH was been pidgeonholed as a tag wrestler from the outset, especially since she lacks an even semi half-assed partner since her sister retired, as this was everything you want from a big singles match, intensity throughout with a lot of diversity & fantastic effort. DASH is always a ball of fire, but usually she's wrestling on and off for 6 or 8 minutes in a tag. This was 3 times that, but she still never slowed down or stalled. Nakamori isn't going to make a match, but DASH gave one of her best performances, and Nakamori was able to insert her kicks & power moves around what DASH was doing & her big effort far outweighed her shortcomings. They kept bouncing between styles, striking, flying, brawling, etc, but the fast paced action flowed naturally from one to the next. Nakamori isn't the most graceful worker, but she was good here, and DASH cleaned things up as much as she could. The action often spilled to the floor, but more to do a couple chair shots and a big move such as Nakamori's destiny hammer and stunner off the apron or DASH's footstomp off the bleachers than some tedious, aimless roving. They put every spot they could think of into the match to make it the epic end to the Pure-J year. The highlight was DASH hitting an Ace crusher with both standing on the top. DASH finally won with her harumaru, capturing the first singles title of her career after being tag champ 8 times. DASH got to clip some hair before they quickly sheered off all the long locks leaving Nakamori with a Sinead. ***3/4
wXw 10/6/18, World Tag Team League 2018 Block A Match: Timothy Thatcher & WALTER [3] vs. Penta El Zero M & Rey Fenix [3] 15:50. A clash of styles, so again the Lucha Bros found themselves mostly striking with the bigger team. Penta went toe to toe even with Walter, but the smaller Fenix struggled here as while he had the answers to Thatcher's technical wrestling, Thatcher had the answers to his flying, for instance countering his double jump armdrag by yanking him off the top rope for his own arm drag. They stretched Fenix & tossed him around until Penta finally made the hot tag. Though Lucha Bros were often playing from behind, it felt like a big match, and one either team could win though Ringkampf getting eliminated on night 2 obviously seemed far fetched. Thatcher came close with the wakigatame on Penta earlier, and went back to it when he knocked him out of the air with a European uppercut for a reverse diving body attack. Fenix tried to save, but Walter caught him midair & transitioned until he had an STF, with Fenix tapping at the same time as Thatcher pinned Penta. Minute for minute, I liked Lucha Bros vs. Okami better because Lucha Bros got to do their thing more & Okami did the power striking style with a lot more explosiveness & vigor, but this was a lot more substantial match with a better atmosphere. ***
UFC Fight Night 139 11/10/18: Yair Rodríguez vs. Chan Sung Jung R5 4:59. I was looking forward to the original main event not at all, as with most UFC main events this year, but Yair sounded like a great match because he's long & infinitely creative like Zombie's signature opponent Cub Swanson. Thankfully Frankie Edgar got injured, sparing us another 5 rounds of bind & grind & allowing Rodriguez to step in on short notice & save the show with this classic war. Yair is the kind of fighter Korean Zombie should be fighting in the first place, someone who is going to strike with him and allow him to awe us with his power & perseverance. Rodriguez was ousted from the promotion because that's the kind of thing Dana White does when the guys he doesn't care about (ie anyone other than Chicken McNugget & maybe Lesnaroid) have other things in mind beyond jumping to do his biding, but was later rehired & took this fight on short notice, which is doubly difficult given it's a 5 rounder at altitude. Rodriguez is a master kicker, and he got off to a strong start working over Zombie's legs when he had space & when Zombie stepped in, as well as responding to Zombie's punch combos with high kicks, but broke one foot in the 1st round, and injured the other one later. He was able to disguise this & push forward, but once the fight was over he needed help to simply stand. Yair could back Zombie with a front kick, but Zombie is not a fighter you can slow down or keep out of your grill. He plods forward, and when he's in range, he mixes his strikes well & has a lot of pop on them. When he's not in range, he can be had, but he's pretty much always working toward range, so you have to do it when he's coming in. Rodriguez definitely had the speed advantage, but being primarily a kicker, he wants to be planted, & against a guy who is always pressuring, that often doesn't leave him the space he needs. Yair did a good job though of holding his ground & circling when he needed to rather than being pushed back & forced into retreat, taking a step or two back to avoid but then firing back with his legs so Jung didn't simply suck up that newfound space. Midway through the 2nd, Yair countered Zombie's 1-2 with a spinning back elbow, but Zombie still got the clinch. Toward the end, Yair hit a jumping switch knee but Zombie just avoided his subsequent high kick. Zombie responded with a couple big hooks, but got a couple scrapes between the nose & lip, perhaps from Yair's back elbow. Both fighters have been out of the octagon for a year & a half, but Zombie has a more predictable style & was doing his thing from the get go whereas it too Rodriguez until the 3rd to really loosen up & find his rhythm with his flashy kicks. Rodriguez was beating up Zombie's midsection with his middle kicks, but Zombie would respond pressing forward with his straights, and Yair's nose was getting pretty mashed. Jung hurt Yair midway through the 3rd following an overhand right with a left straight. The action picked up quite a bit in the 2nd half of the round, but it was Jung's jab that was ruling the day, and Rodriguez's mouth was now pretty bloody & he seemed pretty winded by the end of the round. With Yair tiring, Zombie was increasingly landing his straights in rather than having Yair step to avoid them. Jung hurt Yair with an overhand right 3 minutes into the 4th. At the end of the round, Rodriguez landed another middle kick then tried to roll into a trip or kneebar, but Zombie avoided. This was the sort of main event that is what martial arts was supposed to be about before UFC turned it into a pro wrestling oriented side show, with honor & great sportsmanship as both combatants hugged to start the 5th in a show of respect. Rodriguez hurt Jung midway through the 5th switching stances & missing the jab but landing the overhand right. Zombie was recovered so quickly though that Rodriguez just high fived him & called for the crowd to applaud rather than trying to capitalize on an advantage he knew had already subsided. Rodriguez landed a question mark kick, but Jung fired back hurting him with a left straight. Neither fighter was moving any more than they had to at this point, but because they were just standing in front of each other, there were even more big moments, and Yair resting gave him the energy to summon another spinning kick or off the wall maneuver. Zombie was doing more damage late because his bread & butter punches were more accurate. If it was a 3 round fight it would have been good, but not a classic, but the heart & guts these guys showed in the 2nd half forcing themselves to bang onward even though they were tired, injured, & wounded really made the difference. I thought Yair had the edge early, but as his body foresake him, he was increasingly forced to fight Zombie's fight, and Zombie had the activity as well as the harder blows & few damaging shots. The fight was very difficult to score though, with each round being super close. Often it was a matter of whether you liked Yair's flashy striking or Zombie's pressure & more powerful shots. It turns out that Zombie had the fight won because he was up 39-37 on two scorecards with 1 judge giving Yair the 3rd, another giving him the 1st, and the judge who had it even gave Yair the 2nd & 3rd, so the only concensus round was Zombie winning the 4th. I thought Zombie was up in the 5th so Yair stopping with 13 seconds left & raising his hands for applause and another hand slap was a bit puzzling, and the fans booed rather than cheered. I'm not sure if he knew if he was regrouping for the final push or content to just have it finally be over with so he could collapse, but Yair decided to step in for one last attack missing with a couple of hooks. Zombie then pushed forward rather than sitting on what may have been his lead because that's what Zombies do, & Yair leaned back as far as he could to avoid Zombie's long punch. Yair has been training spins forever, and the trick is to make the opponent react to your reaction. Zombie kept charging forward because Yair's reaction told him Yair was in retreat, and he came so hard that when Yair ducked Zombie's momentum took him forward, and granted he had no reason to fear anything from that position, but Yair reacted, and it was just beautiful. His reaction was coming up with a back elbow to the chin as Jung was leaning right over to top of him, and it put Jung out cold. This was such a crazy move & so out of nowhere that I didn't know what happened or if it was going to even count because there was so little time left until I saw the replay. In the end, it's likely the most memorable use of wild improvision & the greatest finish in UFC history as not only did Yair win with a second left, he did so in a fight he was about to lose rather than the GOAT Mouse getting the finish over Kyoji Horiguchi with a second left in a fight where he'd typically won every round anyway. Apparently Yair saw Cerrone training this move, but it's not a situation you see really ever in an actual fight, it's just one of those cases where you have a creative genius, and when he's forced to push himself beyond the max of his ability & exhaustion, sometimes the rabbit comes out of the hat. Excellent match.
Crash 9/8/18
Hechicero vs. Daga 19:15. It's amazing this was a lower midcard match, as it really felt like the kind of effort & seriousness that's reserved for mask or title matches. That being said, one of the reasons it stood out so much is it was Lucha Libre for people who prefer European or Japanese wrestling. There were lucha bits here and there, and really something for everyone, but it wasn't contrived or overly choreographed and dramatized. Mainly they combined leverage oriented technical wrestling early & hard hitting moves & strike exchanges later. I really liked the potential of the grappling here, and kind of wanted them to fully flesh that out rather than picking it up with some dives & suplexes, though it wound up being a well built, nicely rounded match. The intensity was good no matter what they were doing, and the fans were really responding. Hechicero did a good job of playing to the crowd without stalling the match, particularly on the outside when he suplexed Daga on the stage & started whipping him with a camera cable just to be a dick. Hechicero pulled a lot out of Daga, and Daga really stepped it up. Daga hit a Canadian destroyer & missed his corner dropkick, but he was using his speed & athleticism more for hard hitting moves such as the enzuigiri & charging lariat rather than taking too many chances. Finally, he tried a frog spash, but with a lot of help, Hechicero slowly turned it into the magia negra for the win. ***3/4
CIMA & T-Hawk vs. Soberano Jr. & Rey Horus. A mix of fast paced action & brawling where they started & finished hot & did enough to keep it entertaining in between. The frantic nature kind of made it seem like an important match even though they weren't trying for anything extraordinary. It was actually your basic Dragon Gate stuff with Strong Hearts pushing a high pace even though they were the rough housers. Horus was the star of the match, getting most of the big flying spots, with even Soberano's no touch setting up Horus's tornillo. There was a cool spot toward the end where CIMA ducked Horus' corner charge, but Horus actually leaped over him for a no touch tope con giro onto T-Hawk instead. Soberano was a little off in general, but the chemistry between these teams was quite impressive despite the lack of familiarity. ***
LLB/Lucha Memes 9/16/18: Daga vs. Hechicero. If their previous match had all the elements, this rematch is where they put them all together. All the styles they were showing on 9/8 were impressive individually, but they incorporated them better here, doing very active matwork that would lead into brief exchanges or big moves when someone made it back to his feet. This was less of a New Japan looking match than the others, using more WOS & Lucha but all with a keener eye on realism. I mean, it was less realistic than their previous in terms of the offense they actually used, but they did a great job of knowing what to use when, so it came off as the most believable of the three even though it was actually the most flashy by a wide margin. Daga had trouble finding openings for his higher risk moves in the previous match, but this time he was more aggressive, and made Hechicero keep coming up with answers whether they were simple such as getting back in the ring before Daga could dive at him or more surprising such as picking the leg on the leapfrog ala Sabre. Hechicero had the edge once he got it to the ground, but Daga was rolling around for all he was worth to alleviate the pressure & work his way out of the submissions. The match always seemed to be on Hechicero's terms, and he did as much flying and big moves as Daga because he kept taking the initiative & putting Daga on the defensive. There was a lot less striking this time, but they replaced that with opportunistic high spots, which is a plus in my book. There was a great spot where Daga had the right arm & had transitioned to working for an armbar when his crossface had failed, but Hechicero just deadlifted him into something of a backdrop. The match just kept getting better & better, and perhaps could have been a great match if it had a real finish. I could have lived with Daga stopping Hechicero's superplex by knocking him off the top & hitting his frog splash for the win even though Hechicero seemed to have a lot left, but them using this as the finish with the ref somehow missing that Hechicero obviously kicked out was the usual real turn off. Still a hell of a match though, and one of the reasons it was their best is Daga was up to Hechicero's level & really adding a lot even though he was the follower. ****
Crash 10/6/18: 30 Minute Iron Man Match: Hechicero vs. Daga 21:10 of "30:00". One of the keys to booking is finding the sweet spot where the performers have enough time to tell their story without having too much time so they wind up just meandering. Their 9/8 match resembled a New Japan match in the best way, but this third match resembles New Japan at it's Gedo helmed worst, as not only did the extra 11 minutes just create a bunch of stalling, but they were so busy trying to fill all that extra time that they lost the intensity of the previous matches & never really found their lane until crunch time. They once again showed their diversity, but it seemed like they were just trying to survive the first half, and there wasn't a lot of juice or oomph until they finally got down to business. There was quite a bit of good offense to be certain, but what made their 9/16 match so good is they were pouncing on every opportunity they got, whereas today most of the escapes led to a restart when they were good and ready. The match was a lot more the sum of the highlights, whereas the others had a sweep to them where it didn't so much matter what they were doing because they were always struggling; they had that sense of urgency & were pouring their heart into whatever they were trying. Part of the problem here is while the other two were professionally shot, this was a long shot handheld & had really bad editing that seemed to leave in the dead time but cut some of the matwork, which was a strength in their previous encounters & clearly a big focal point here, & the brawling from the ring to the stage & back. Some of the emotion was definitely lost to the footage we have to work with, but certainly they also weren't going as hard or maintaining near the workrate. The camera does pick up that the time started counting down long before the opening bell actually rang, so the match was actually something like 28:17. One thing that hurt the match for me is in a lot of ways an iron man match is the one that requires the most desperation given it's not a push to a single fall, it's defending that fall until time expires & when you can't, finding a way to regroup & score another. Hechicero was the one in that role, scoring the 1st & 3rd falls. Given he's the rudo, it obviously would have worked a lot better if he was the one trying to stall out his lead while Daga was theoretically always trying to go, rather than neither showing desperation & both taking turns arguing with the ref & whatnot, but that wasn't the story they told. The falls were even for most of the match with Hechicero scoring the 1st about 13 minutes in & not scoring what would be the deciding fall until there was about 45 something seconds left. This was a lot more strike oriented than the previous encounter, and they did do a good job of both turning up the heat down the stretch as they fought to get their second fall, selling the fatigue and wear & tear well while pushing through it. The final 1/4 was at the level of their other matches with the ref seeing Hechicero kick out of the frog splash this time & a big exchange of released German suplexes before Hechicero got his 2nd fall. Daga had Hechicero trapped in a headscissors working the arm for something of keylock for the final 20 seconds, but Hechicero sucked it up & time expired before Daga was able to even the match. Even if this is the least of their matches, it's amazing how good Daga is when actually given a chance to do a real match as opposed to on Lucha Underground where he's involed in some 7 minute 6 man so they can spare 2 minutes for Jack Swagger to give his same old terrible robotic cartoon performance. ***1/4
SEAdLINNNG 2/9/18: Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Misaki Ohata 18:12. All four can go when they want to, and the strongest aspect was simply that they did so from start to finish. Seven Star Sisters attacked before the bell, and the match was off to the races only to pick up steam. Matsumoto is the only power house, but she's also the best wrestler of the bunch & has improved a lot over the years at doing high pace matches even though it's not her natural style. Although her offense is considerably different than the other 3, it was incorporated really well & it didn't seem like the match was changing when she took over as it would have earlier in her career. She's also become a lot better base, and here it was just frantic action where they were countering back & forth, with Nakajima & Fujimoto trying to avoid the powerbombs with huracanranas. Matsumoto sold for them enough that it didn't seem like their only chance was to pick on the Blue Fairy, though the Best Friends often had to gang up on Hiroyo. There was a funny spot where Tsukasa tried to stop Hiroyo from powerbombing Nakajima out of the corner, but Matsumoto was "so strong" that she just took Tsukasa along for the ride (Nakajima superplexed Fujimoto as Matsumoto was powerbombing her). Another cute spot saw Nakajima hit her super fast Cuty special on Ohata only to have Matsumoto break up the pin by powerbombing Tsukasa onto her. Nakajima is the other big performer in the match, always underrated since JWP wasn't at the top of people's watch lists. Stylistically she's not all that different from Fujimoto or Ohata here, but she has a wider variety of things she can do & she's more likely to execute them cleanly. Everyone was good though, and they did a nice job of playing up the rivalry & giving the match intensity & urgency without slowing it down or adding a lot of nonsensical histrionics. There was a lot of fighting on the outside, and the wild encounter finally broke down after Nakajima failed to DDT Ohata to the floor. The cheesy double countout was definitely the primary negative of the match, and perhaps the answer to why this wasn't the main event. I did like that Matsumoto was about to make it in the ring, but Nakajima was able to throw a chair several feet to pick her off. ***1/2
RPW/NJPW Global Wars 2018 10/14/18
Chris Ridgeway vs. Will Ospreay 14:35. As with last year's Global Wars main event vs. Sabre, Ospreay did an intricate counter laden technical contest that was much more toward his opponent's match than his own. While it wasn't match of the year this time, it was excellent while it lasted, again showing what Ospreay can do when he isn't pidgeonholed into simply being a flippy guy. That's not to say his athleticism wasn't crucial to the match, but it was applied in many different areas, sometimes enhancing his opponent's shoot style, sometimes being a stark contrast to it. Ridgeway is really coming into his own, and did a nice job with his throwback shooter style that has some functional updates such as incorporating low kicks & combinations. He was really impressive here as well, and the match was interesting both when Ospreay was Ridgeway's style, and when Ospreay was actively defying it by taking his openings for showy high flying counters that Ridgeway, in story, doesn't approve of. Ospreay's flying looked even more super impressive than usual here because it was so much faster & more explosive than anything else that was being done it was almost unbelievable in a good way. In this context, it had that where did that come from & how did he do that kind of vibe that you wouldn't get in something like Ospreay vs. Ricochet where the match is ostensibly just a series of these kind of stunts. The match built well from Ospreay hanging with Ridgeway in a technical match to beating his technique with his flying out of nowhere to Ridgeway finding answers & showing his style was the more reliable one. There was a great double sell spot where Ospreay backflipped to avoid a rainmaker & hit a Ligerbomb, but Ridgeway popped up & nailed him with a soccer kick. Ridgeway was too damaged to capitalize, but he was winning the striking sequences & making progress toward getting a submission victory. Unfortunately, when Ospreay rammed backwards into the corner to break a rear naked choke he didn't gauge his distance right on his subsequent overhead kick & wound up whiffing & injuring his ribs on the landing. Ospreay knew something was wrong, and they went to what I assume was the planned finish. Ospreay still hit a float over superplex, but then Ridgeway countered his attempt to turn Ridgeway's suplex into a cutter by leaping into another rear naked choke. This was actually a great surprise finish that was a fitting closing to the match. Obviously, it would have been better if they didn't cut out however many minutes they had planned between the injury & that finish, but what they got in stands up really well on its own. What was annoying is rather than allowing Ridgeway's huge upset sink in, they instead had a stupid angle where Bodom took him out & stole his glory. ****
RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Title Match: Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii 24:06. You know what an Ishii match is going to be, except against Suzuki, who can just take over a match so completely that everything revolves around him & is on his terms. His control & mastery is more apparent without his useless henchmen around, as he has to work a little to manipulate the situation to his advantage. There was a big exchange early that was too fast so they were actually missing with a lot of the elbows, and it eventually came back to a better version of that that when Suzuki got frustrated after failing to get Ishii up for his Gotch piledriver & woke Ishii up, but for the most part it was Suzuki dominating with his heel tactics, especially on the outside, & shoot style techniques & was just being a step or three ahead of Ishii & far too cunning. Suzuki had to win with the Gotch piledriver though, and while it worked when he took the title from Ishii on 7/1/18, he finally outsmarted himself here trying to force it too hard rather than stick to what was working, which was essentially everything else. The heel & face roles were really clearly defined here, and RPW takes Ishii a lot more seriously as a star than NJ is willing to do despite how over Ishii is everywhere for his hard work & dedication to delivering excellent matches, so ultimately it was a feel good match with Ishii finally regaining the strap even though Ishii was largely dominated & was only even when it came to striking. The match was fine, but it was more Suzuki's general mastery than any kind of a special match, with Ishii seeming jetlagged as he usually does in the UK & lacking his trademark energy & next level stiffness. Ishii's big push to the finish at the end seemed like something special, but up until that it was more a quality match than a major effort. ***
UFC 230 11/3/18
Lando Vannata vs. Matt Frevola 3R. With 3 Fight of the Nights out of 5 UFC fights and a performance bonus in one of the other 2, Vannata has somehow been demoted to the early prelims, though given UFC's idea of a big match these days, one shouldn't be too surprised that the entertaining fighters would be buried. Once again, this was a fantastic back & forth war that should have been another Fight of the Night, or actually the last few months as Pedro Munhoz vs. Brett Johns from 8/4/18 was the last UFC match that was even comparably as good. Vannata was the aggressor in terms of being the one holding the center & always slinking forward in that unique way he has of moving, but Frevola was the quicker fighter & the one who was more willing to take chances, at least in terms of exploding forward with a big strike. What was great about this match was not so much that there was a lot of big banging, though that was the case, but rather that it was diverse & unpredictable. You just never knew what wild strike either was going to try, and if it was going to land big or they were going to get punished for it. Vannata hurt Frevola early failing to get a takedown after Frevola got a clinch knee in, but catching him with a right high kick when Frevola was prone having turned his body away from Lando to pull his leg free. Miragliotta stopped the fight to reinsert Frevola's mouthpiece, and Frevola had stabilized by then & began to tag Lando with right hand counters as Lando was stepping in. Lando kept shaking the shots off claiming they didn't hurt, but soon Frevola had a flash knockdown with a long right hand. Late in the round, Frevola ducked a wheel kick & a right hook & drilled Vannata with his own right hook, a left straight, & a flying knee. Vannata's nose was bloodied & the round was slipping away from him, so he went for a double leg, but Frevola spun him & hit a guillotine as Lando scrambled to his knees. The blood helped Vannata free his head, but Frevola finishing the round in mount sealed it in his favor. Frevola came out in the 2nd missing a couple spinning kicks, and though he appeared to be the better conditioned fighter even though Vannata moved up to 155 so he wouldn't drain himself so badly making the cut, it was Vannata who soon took over with a spinning heel kick & a front kick to the face a little before scoring another knockdown with a right hand. Vannata did a good job of working the left hook or kick to the body & using the right uppercut after the right or left hook. Frevola recovers quickly, but Vannata also seemed too patient here. This probably should have been a 10-8 round, but usually if you get a knockdown & just keep outlanding the opponent on the feet the judges don't give that benefit even though the fighter is generally landing better shots than they would from the opponent's guard. Frevola wasn't fully recovered from the punishment of round 2, but still had more pure cardio to press in the 3rd, and that was likely the difference. Vannata caught a kick, but ate a series of good hooks just to get it down, and then couldn't keep Frevola there anyway. Vannata was stalking Frevola the entire 3rd round, but he just wasn't letting his hands fly. He was still busy enough, but he was more using his strikes as feints & hoping Frevola would make a mistake than really commiting to them. Frevola went from throwing 54-53-70, wheras Vannata had 48-82-47. In the end, both threw 147 with Vannata outlanded Frevola by 14. One judge gave it to Frevola 29-28, but the other two had it 28-28 for the majority draw. I like that Jacare/Weidman had a finish, but the fight was rather simplistic & repetitive in comparison. I mean, you had Weidman fighting behind his jab & Jacare throwing huge hooks whereas here you had such a wide variety of high level, difficult techniques that they somehow made work. Excellent match.
Julio Arce vs. Sheymon Moraes 3R. Though Arce has competed in MSG in both boxing & kickboxing, it was quickly clear to seemingly everyone outside of his corner that his advantage here was on the ground. Moraes was the bigger, stronger, more powerful fighter, and he hurt Arce in each of the first two rounds, as well as cutting him so badly with an elbow to the hairline that Joe Rogan had never seen more blood on the octagon floor. Moraes leveled Arce with a right straight counter to the nose less than a minute in, & did his best to pound him out, but Arce was able to get back to his feet 40 seconds later after his reverse triangle failed. Arce won the clinch war against the cage & was able to hop on Moraes back & attempt a standing rear naked choke for the rest of the round, though he didn't actually get it locked until the final seconds. Moraes landed a good right early in the 2nd, but missed a high kick & Arce was able to take him down momentarily, though Moraes was up quickly & busted Arce open with a short elbow against the cage. Arce's corner seemed to think or hope Moraes was getting tired, but he's not a high movement or output fighter to begin with, he stands rather flatfooted & picks his spots to go after the game changing counters. Moraes low output could have hurt him with the judges, but he had all the damage in the 1st 2 rounds, dropping Arce again with a minute left in the 2nd. I had Moraes up 2 rounds for the carnage, but for some reason Arce's corner was urging him to throw quicker to try to knock Moraes out rather than telling him to grab Moraes & try to outgrapple him & choke him, which was how he won the minutes he'd won so far. You'd also think they would want Arce to avoid taking more shots given both already looked like they were wearing body paint from his blood. Ironically, Moraes was having trouble with Arce's blood getting in his eyes while Arce shockingly wasn't showing fatigue from all the blood loss, and was able to outwork Moraes in the 3rd. Arce pushed hard down the stretch, but while he got the 3rd round on activity, it wasn't the big round he needed to steal the fight & he just had to hope some judges thought hanging on Moraes back was worth more than a knockdown. Either way though, you had to be impressed by Arce's effort. Moraes won a split decision 29-28, 28-29, 30-26. Good match.
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza vs. Chris Weidman R3 2:46. Souza had his first fight in UFC two months before Weidman took the title from Anderson Silva, and I spent the next several years wanting to see Weidman or Rockhold or Bisping fight the two former Strikeforce champions Jacare & Gegard Mousasi in a title fight as I believed either could have taken the title if UFC ever actually gave them their rightful opportunity. Mousasi had the sense to finally move on to somewhere that would appreciate his tremendous talents & has been cleaning up in Bellator, but at least he got to clean Weidman's clock on the way out, even if that, of course, predictably led to nothing. Thanks to more injuries to Rockhold, who hasn't done anything since he beat Weidman almost 3 years ago, but as with Weidman who just keeps losing, somehow stays a win away from another title shot while Jacare is right up there with the most wins in division history & gets no attention because he's not acting like a jackass, we finally got to see Weidman/Jacare, and man did it deliver. Jacare's best days are unfortunately behind him now as he's older than all these other guys, and if enough fighters leave that they finally succumb to finally giving him a title shot, the odds will not be in his favor, especially against Whittaker who is simply too fast, but Weidman was always a good matchup for him because Weidman is a wrestler but going to the mat with Jacare under any circumstance is not advisable. What Weidman has in his favor is he can most likely control where the match takes place because his defensive wrestling is much greater than Jacare's takedown game, so this turned out to be a kickboxing match between two of the best grapplers in the game. Weidman's advantage here is his striking game is a lot more evolved. He can work the jab & throw good combinations, either be landing or moving, and when he's left to his devices he'll just touch Jacare over & over. Jacare's defense has improved, he's moving his head a lot more & rolling with the punches, but in this matchup he absolutely has to be making it a "ugly", as he can win the brawl but not the technical fight. When Jacare applied forward pressure, he was able to beat Weidman with his massive punching power at the same time he kept Weidman from beating him with volume. The problem is this takes a lot of energy, and Weidman busted his nose up badly with so many jabs early that Jacare was forced to breath through his mouth the majority of the fight. The first round was rather cautious, which again was advantage Weidman, who hurt Jacare following a slapping left hook with a big overhand right a little over 2 minutes in. One advantage Jacare had here is because Weidman was the one who was wanting to avoid the ground, he could throw his kicks while Weidman wasn't using his, which made it easier for Jacare to defend his offense, using his high guard & head movement. Jacare came on late in the 1st using brutal left hooks to the liver, and they both hurt each other landing short hooks at the same time just before the end, but the round definitely went to Weidman. Jacare turned up the heat in the 2nd, plowing forward & winging bombs to nulify Weidman's technique & movement as much as he could. Jacare was nailing him to the body, but as soon as he stood in front of Weidman, Weidman hurt him with a right hook. Jacare took as little time to clear his head as possible then forced himself to plow forward. This was a hell of a round. The body shots & general heavy hands of Jacare slowed Weidman down enough that Jacare could afford to take a few pauses in his attacks, but for the most part someone was always swinging, and usually landing, big violent shots. Weidman did look for the takedown late in the 2nd trying to steal the round, but it didn't amount to anything & Jacare still won the round. Ray Longo told Weidman they needed this round & urged him on calling for "5 minutes of hell", and they just stood toe to toe & bombed on each other in the 3rd, both now putting kicks into their combos. Jacare hits so much harder than Weidman that in and of itself is a losing battle, but once Weidman weathered the initual storm he was landing his straights & a nasty short right elbow while Jacare was standing there blowing hard. Weidman seemed to have taken over the fight as Jacare had stopped moving after his initual surge, but once Jacare found another wind he finished Weidman off nailing him with a left hook, throwing him off to break the clinch then landing a right while Weidman was trying to get his balance & escape, and finally landing Weidman to the right hook while Weidman's just missed for the delayed KO as Weidman's right leg just gave out from under him. Even beyond the fact he was blatantly cheating for Kimbo like a heel referee a decade ago, I have no idea how Dan Miragliotta keeps his job as even when he's not intentionally or unintentionally screwing up, he's so slow & lazy the fighters always take an extra pounding while he's lumbering over to get in between. This weekend we had him clearly have no idea what a knockdown is (Josh Jauncey was clearly pushed down after getting hit in the freaking arm) and no idea what a knockout is (a fighter whose leg buckles under him, head bounces on impact, and eyes are rolled back is obviously out cold), but that's just par for the course. If Jacare was a wildman rather than the class act he's always been, he literally would have murdered Weidman, who still had no idea where he was after 5 seconds of Jacare pleading with Miragliotta to just stop it, and then really being nice & not trying to further damage Weidman with the punches Miragliotta forced him to throw to prove to him Weidman was indeed out. Miragliotta's typical ineptitude aside, this was a hell of a violent war that made up for another boring, one-sided PPV main. Very good match.
