Best Matches Seen April 2022 |
UFC on ESPN 35 4/30/22: Marlon Vera vs. Rob Font 5R. Font is one of the best volume fighters around. He has a great jab, and one thing that makes it outstanding is that he can lead with other weapons such as body hooks and uppercuts, and then disguise the jab behind those, rather than always having to lead with the jab to set up his other offense. Unfortunately, he doesn't have tons of power, and it was kind of sad to see him land so much in each round and wind up with little to show for it. He landed enough shots to win every round in theory, but he fights entirely offensively, and when you are coming forward for 25 minutes, no matter how insane your output is, sooner or later a good opponent is going to find an opening and make you pay. Font won the first round clearly against the notorious slow starter, but even after that, Font was still outstriking Vera in every round, only to nearly get finished toward the end of the rounds, allowing Vera to steal them because damage trumps volume (at least when scored correctly). Vera's defense isn't very good either. I mean, at times he mitigated by shelling up and blocking with his forearms, but mostly he just blocked jabs with his face. However, Font really makes little attempt to defend, which is made worse by having a glass jaw, ultimately resulting in this being similar to his fight against Jose Aldo. Vera didn't so much seem the better fighter here, but he was able to win despite eating a near-record amount of significant strikes for a UFC bantamweight fight because he has the things Font, knockdown power, great cardio, and an iron jaw. Vera was doing a good job of landing punishing calf kicks, and just waiting out Font's combos to land a good shot when Font was getting out of the pocket. He still looked better when he was actually initiating, and he was able to get his first knockdown with 20 seconds left in the second round with a lead left hook, but Font survived the barrage of hammerfists and elbows. Vera dropped Font at the end of the 3rd with a knee. Again, Font recovered well between rounds, and came out throwing tons of volume, but this time Vera dropped him with a superkick 3 minutes into the 4th. Vera finally had time to finish Font, but I don't know what he was thinking here, as the next 75 seconds had the least action in the fight, with Vera just standing over Font keeping him front standing back up, but only occasionally even throwing a kick to the leg. Font once again remarkably recovered between rounds, and by a minute into the fifth, had pushed his lead in strikes landed to 60 (192-132). Vera just had one little spot on his nose though, while Font's face looked like it had been worked over with a club followed by a meat cleaver. Vera didn't manage to knock Font down at the end of the fifth, but he did wobble him with another super kick. Vera won a unanimous decision 49-46, 49-46, 48-47 with Michael Bell giving Font the second despite the near finish from Vera. Very good match.
PFL 1 4/20/22: Clay Collard vs. Jeremy Stephens 3R. Stephens, on a six-fight winless streak, fought his best fight in a while in his PFL debut against fellow UFC reject Collard, who recently had his signature win over Anthony Pettis. This was a big time fire fight, with Stephens trying to come forward, but Collard having more stamina, and ultimately being the more consistent fighter. Collard pushed a massive pace, throwing 100+ strikes per round . Stephens started quickly, doing a good job of scoring with both the leg kick and the jab to set up the big right. Collard came on midway through the first, scoring to the body both with the hook and the liver kick to begin to slow Stephens down. Collard was really swarming Stephens most of the night, using the jab to keep backing him, but doing a nice job of then stepping forward to seize that space while following to the body to soften him up. Stephens was swinging big, but Collard just had so much volume that it was hard for Stephens too get his combinations going. Stephens was landing big, but Collard's chin was just so good that he wasn't making the progress he normally would. Stephens landed an overhand right 90 seconds into the second that would have dropped a lot of guys, but Collard just kept going, making Stephens miss most of his big followups. Stephens hurt Collard with an uppercut followed by an overhand right, but Collard dropped down into a double leg. Stephens was up quickly, but was now looking winded, seeming to have punched himself out trying to capitalize on hurting Stephens, and also Collard having thrown over 200 strikes already was more of a pace than Stephens was looking for. This seemed a clear round for Stephens to me, having landed the big shots, but both the fans and the FPR gave it to Collard for his volume. Stephens didn't have a lot left for the third round, and while the fight slowed considerably, it was pretty much one way traffic for Collard early. Even though Collard wasn't throwing as much, he was still constantly on the attack. This round wasn't nearly as great as the first two, and it was increasingly seeming unlikely that Stephens was going to score the knockout he needed to steal the fight, lessening the drama. That being said, Collard surprisingly finally slowed down midway through the round, and, in the end, Stephens was actually coming forward in this round more than Collard, I think, though he had a hard time really getting going. Ultimately, Collard only outlanded Stephens by 12, it's just that he outthrew him by 138. I agree Collard won the fight, but this was a lot closer than the 30-27 the judges came up with. Very good match.
UFC 273 4/9/22: Khamzat Chimaev vs. Gilbert Burns 3R. Chimaev has obliterated his 10 opponents without taking any damage, but he hasn't beaten anyone of note, much less a former title challenger who is still ranked #2 like Gilbert. This was a super interesting fight because we got to see whether he is potentially ready to be the champion, or a few years away from a title shot. The fight started very well for Chimaev, as he was able to control Burns against the cage, and on the ground after Burns tried to roll. Chimaev was all over Burns, but Burns slowly earned his respect by beginning to connect with hard punches that backed Chimaev up. Chimaev wasn't really fighting the ways coaches wanted to say the least, he wasn't using his jab or fighting long to take advantage of his huge size advantage or taking Burns down, he was fighting excited, and really just trying to knock Burns out, which, of course, is one of the reasons this fight was so exciting. He almost succeeded, as he dropped Burns with a short right straight with a minute left in the first round. Though this won Chimaev the first round, to some extent, since Chimaev wasn't able to finish on the ground, it sort of wound up being a good thing for Burns because Chimaev fought excited with the mindset of looking for the big finish for the rest of the fight, rather than simply trying to win. Burns was very loose and relaxed in the 2nd, despite being down in the fight, and having an early takedown attempt, which would have been huge for him, fail. He hurt Chimaev with a short right hook counter a minute in, and began to come on. Burns arguably scored a flash knockdown with an overhand left, and followed with a big flurry to back Chimaev all the way across the octagon, including a few nice uppercuts and clean shots to the face. Burns couldn't take Chimaev down, so they were exchanging big shots for the final three minutes of the round, despite their fatigue. Burns knocked Chimaev down with an overhand right in the final seconds of a super round, but Chimaev got right up and took him down. Chimaev did a better of utilizing his jab and front kick early in the third round, which probably even more than fatigue, is the main reason Burns was coming up short on his bombs so much of the round. Burns put everything he had into a takedown attempt, this time coming much closer, but Chimaev then worked him over against the cage when it failed. This was the crucial 30 seconds of the round because the round was close enough that it probably would have went to Burns had he succeeded even if he did nothing with it, and the damage that he took right afterwards was the biggest moment of the round for Chimaev. Burns was bleeding heavily from above the right eye, but finally got a second wind with two minutes left in the round, and began to connect with some of the big shots he was missing with earlier in the round. This was a very close round. Burns won the last two minutes due to landing the more consequential shots, but he was never consistent in this round, and dug himself slightly too big of a hole early on. Chimaev won a unanimous decision 29-28. Excellent match.
NOAH 7/10/04 Tokyo Dome, GHC Heavyweight Title: Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama 35:34.
DC: This was the main event of a big Tokyo Dome show. These two were very familiar with each other, as they had faced each other numerous times in the past (including over a dozen of singles matches), and they had teamed up many, many times as tag team partners in the past (mostly in AJPW in the 1990s as Burning). As a matter of fact, Kenta Kobashi was Jun Akiyama’s opponent in Akiyama’s debut match in AJPW in 1992. By 2004, they were big established names in puroresu. Kobashi had played a huge role in AJPW in the 1990s, and by July 2004, he had been a pro wrestler for over 16 years. Akiyama had nearly 12 years of experience by this point, and while he had been a well known wrestler in AJPW and NOAH, and a former GHC Heavyweight Champion ending Mitsuharu Misawa's reign, a title win over the other major star in the promotion, ending Kobashi's big reign after 8 defenses, would have finally solidified him as something of an equal to those Heavenly Kings of the previous generation. This match had the characteristics of a big title match you’d expect to see in NOAH or late 1990s AJPW, as they wrestled this at a methodical pace, focusing on in-ring storytelling, hard-hitting action and big moves. Akiyama was the aggressor early in the match, as he had to take the fight to Kobashi in order to win this, and one could say that Akiyama probably wanted and needed this win more. Kobashi still wanted to prove that he was one of the greatest champions ever, and a win here would certainly give him even more credibility as champion. Kobashi certainly wasn’t just going to just stay down after getting worked over by Akiyama, and this became more than clear when he hit Akiyama with a thunderous series of chops that Kobashi is so famous for. Kobashi followed this up with a devastating back suplex off the apron onto the floor that did a lot of damage to Akiyama, but it also did damage to Kobashi himself. It appeared that Kobashi was coughing up blood after the move. A little later in the match, Akiyama suplexed Kobashi off the apron with his exploder suplex. They teased a count-out, and it was believable after a sick bump like that. However, this wasn’t mid 1980s AJPW, so this didn’t end in a count-out. There were some near falls that could have easily been believably been the end of the match, and everytime that it wasn’t the end, it helped add to the drama of the match. Akiyama came close to victory a few times, but Kobashi hit a sick-looking brainbuster. This seemed to only make Akiyama realize how dangerous Kobashi still was these days. Both wrestlers started hitting suplexes on each other in an attempt to put the other away. Kobashi even hit a moonsault, but Akiyama somehow managed to kick out. In the end, Kobashi’s burning hammer got him the victory. The crowd reaction is among the loudest and most engaging in the history of Tokyo Dome wrestling shows, which really helped enhance the big-match atmosphere of this match. Even though this match heavily relied on big spots, sick bumps and a loud crowd, this was a great match. The way Kobashi and Akiyama took this seriously was not only emphasized by the bomb throwing, but also through their facial expressions and through the intensity shown with every move. The pace wasn’t the quickest, but everything done in this match had a feeling of importance, and the 35 minutes appeared to fly by because of them using the time they were given very well. This match was likely the 2004 Match of the Year and the best singles match of Akiyama’s career. ****½
GLEAT 2/6/22 Osaka Umeda Sky Building Stella Hall, UWF Rules: Daijiro Matsui & Takaku Fuke vs. Seichi Ikemoto & Yu Iizuka 9:22.
DC: For those who are not familiar with GLEAT, they have two brands; GProwrestling is their regular puroresu brand, and that's the brand where CIMA gets to have fun with his buddies in trios matches. Their other brand is UWF Lidet, and that’s the brand that presents matches worked under UWF Rules. The UWF Lidet brand is particularly interesting because it's basically helping revive shoot style wrestling, thanks to Executive Director Kiyoshi Tamura’s insight. GLEAT is also trying to build up a joshi puroresu division, but they rely heavily on talent coming in from other leagues (SGPW, Diana and Ice Ribbon) for the joshi matches, as their own joshi roster appears to only consist of Yukari Hosokawa (formerly known as Rin Rin) and Michiko Miyagi. Some of the workers only appear on GProwrestling shows, which are guys like CIMA, Lindaman, T-Hawk, Nobuhiro Shimatani and Jun Tonsho. Some of the workers only appear on UWF Lidet shows, which are guys who are mainly booked for their shoot style skills, like Seichi Ikemoto, Mitsuya Nagai and Hikaru Sato. Then there are some guys who appear on both brands and have shown to be able to adjust well to the different brands, which are guys like Yu Iizuka, Soma Watanabe, Takanori Ito, Minoru Tanaka, Kaz Hayashi and Daijiro Matsui. In this 2/6/22 UWF Rules tag team match, up-and-coming GLEAT star Yu Iizuka was surrounded by three veterans in this match. Takaku Fuke is mostly known for his time in Pancrase, but also for his infamous PWFG shoot against “Sultan of Slime” Lawi Napataya. Seichi Ikemoto and Daijiro Matsui started this match off. Ikemoto initially showed his striking skills, but Matsui wanted to take it to the mat, and that’s when Ikemoto showed his mat skills. Matsui had to go for a rope break. Ikemoto continued to show his mat skills against Fuke, but, even though Fuke was not as flashy on the mat as Ikemoto, Fuke proved to be effective and managed to get the advantage to the point that Ikemoto had to go for a rope break. Iizuka, who was more than 20 years younger than the three other workers in this match, was eager to show his skills in this match in front of these veterans. While Iizuka is one of the more talented young shoot style workers these days, you could tell that this wasn’t quite as second-nature as it was for the more experienced guys. It was only fitting that Iizuka had to resort to a rope break after courageously trying his best to get the best of Fuke. Ikemoto once again showed his effectiveness by hitting a kick that sent Matsui down. Ikemoto hit a high kick on Fuke almost immediately after that, and it was a kick that sent Fuke down. Not too long after that, Fuke had to go for a rope break after Ikemoto caused him trouble on the mat. Throughout most of the match, Iizuka hadn’t quite shown the intensity that was expected from him, perhaps because he was overwhelmed. However, during the finishing sequence, he certainly showed that intensity required to convincingly get a win in this match, as he managed to get Matsui to tap out. This was a very enjoyable shoot style match, and it’s a match like this one that makes GLEAT so interesting. ***½
NJPW 3/7/22 Tokyo Ota City General Gymnasium, New Japan Cup First Round: Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii 23:32.
DC: This was a no-nonsense match, and you wouldn’t think this was a first-round match based on how competitive it was. It was all about them beating the crap out of each other. One of the early big spots was Shingo Takagi hitting a Death Valley Driver on the floor. Takagi was in control for a bit after this. Once Tomohiro Ishii was able to fight back, we got the usual hard-hitting battle with both trying to show their toughness. Ishii focused on moves with a lot of impact, like a backdrop suplex and a superplex off the second rope. Takagi turned things around with a DDT. With things looking in his favor now, Takagi hit a superplex off the top rope. Ishii wasn’t going to stay down for a three count yet though, not even after Takagi hit him with a lariat. Ishii used headbutts to take Takagi down, but Ishii was not able to follow up immediately, as he was selling previous damage. What followed was back-and-forth action with several near falls. This was around the 20-minute mark, and this was when they leveled up their intensity to the maximum. In the end, Takagi won the match and advanced to the next round. Overall, this was a very good match. However, the main problem with this match is that we’ve seen these Ishii-type matches from Ishii many times before, and it seems it’s getting harder for him to keep bringing the intensity that made his matches so interesting several years ago. Of course, that’s not necessarily a knock on Ishii, since it’s obviously really hard to keep doing his style at a high level at his age, and this was actually one of his best performances in a long time. Takagi is one of the most reliable big match performers in NJPW right now, so it was not a surprise that his performance was quite a good one. ***½
GLEAT 3/13/22 UWF Rules: Seichi Ikemoto vs. Soma Watanabe 9:23.
DC: In the middle of this GProwrestling show, we were treated to a match presented by GLEAT’s UWF Lidet brand. MMA veteran Seichi Ikemoto battled up-and-coming GLEAT superstar Soma Watanabe. In the early minutes of the match, Watanabe started off fearless. Once he was down the first time, he started becoming more cautious, yet still aggressive. Watanabe’s aggression paid off, as he even scored a down after a kick. Once he was back on his feet, Ikemoto showed some of his great skills, which led to Watanabe going for a rope break. Watanabe fought courageously, but he was no match for Ikemoto’s skills. Watanabe went down after a well-placed one-two combo of high kicks. Watanabe went for an armbar, but Ikemoto didn’t go for a rope escape, instead he managed to counter and make Watanabe rope escape. Watanabe scored a down with a Michinoku driver. Ikemoto hit a jumping high knee and then went to follow up immediately on the mat with a submission hold that made Watanabe tap out. This was a very good match, but it was a little bit one-sided. Either way, it’s good to see good-quality shoot style wrestling in 2022. ***½
GLEAT 3/13/22 Tetsuya Izuchi & Jun Tonsho & Keiichi Sato vs. CIMA & T-Hawk & Issei Onitsuka 20:09.
DC: CIMA’s team represented CIMA’s STRONGHEARTS stable. Keiichi Sato and Issei Onitsuka worked against each other at a fast pace, and their work was some of the best work during the feeling out stages of this trios match. Jun Tonsho ended up on the floor during the middle portion of the match, and he got beat up by CIMA and T-Hawk. Onitsuka ended up on the receiving-end of a beating by Izuchi’s team, as that team was now firmly in control, trying to keep a fresh man in against Onitsuka, the least experienced member of CIMA’s team. The final minutes had the most action. T-Hawk hit some chops and bumped well. CIMA didn’t get too involved, as he probably wanted the younger guys to have their moment in the spotlight, but he was solid whenever he was in. Onitsuka did really well, especially considering he worked the majority of the match for his team. Keiichi Sato is a solid performer in this style, and he’s good to have in a trios match. Tonsho’s athleticism and well-executed moves made him one of the most outstanding ones in the match, as everything he did looked really crisp. Izuchi’s strikes looked really good, and I think the future looks bright for him. Izuchi had scored a shockingly quick 39-second win over Yu Iizuka in a UWF Rules match in the main event of the UWF Lidet brand’s 3/5/22 show. Considering Izuchi is not used to working against the wrestlers from the STRONGHEARTS stable, as he was the only one on his team who hadn’t worked several times against these three STRONGHEARTS members, I’d say he did really well here. Overall, this was a good lucharesu match, and it was probably the best trios match GLEAT’s GProwrestling brand has delivered so far. For those who enjoyed this match and want to see more like this, the main event of the GLEAT 3/23/22 is not quite as good as this match from 3/13/22, but it was still a pretty good trios match that was quite fun to watch. ***½
AJPW 3/21/22 Tokyo Ota City General Gymnasium, AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title: Hikaru Sato vs. Hokuto Omori 16:39. DC: This match took place during AJPW’s 50th anniversary tour. Hokuto Omori is a somewhat basic worker who proved here that he's certainly carryable. Hikaru Sato did a very good job carrying Omori by staying focused and by guiding Omori, while still allowing Omori to wander off trail for a bit. Eventually, Omori realized that he had to try harder, and Omori finally started to play a bit rougher. Omori thought he finally had things going his way, but Sato stopped him with an enzuigiri. Omori came relatively close to beating Sato after a Dragon suplex. Sato had mostly been relying on strikes as a reply to Omori’s offense and attempted offense, but since Omori was now getting more momentum, Sato realized he had to go for some different offense, like submission attempts and suplexes. Omori hit a released German suplex and wanted to follow it up with another one, but Sato countered it with an ankle hold. Sato was determined to win this match, so he eventually just kept hitting backdrop suplexes until Omori would not be able to fight back and kick out. Omori certainly isn’t the toughest opponent out there, and early in the match, he was trying a bit too much to be charismatic, but eventually he worked more seriously because of Sato’s insistence that this was going to be a good match. It did indeed turn into a good match. It was interesting they were approaching this with each having a different style, but it worked since they mixed the ingredients they had both brought to the table, which resulted in quite an enjoyable smoothie. ***½
NJPW 3/21/22 Nagaoka Aore Nagaoka, New Japan Cup Quarter Final: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Will Ospreay 23:04.
DC: Zack Sabre Jr. had defeated Ryohei Oiwa, DOUKI and Great-O-Khan in the first, second and third round respectively to make it to the quarter final. While Sabre’s performances in those matches were really good, his opponents weren’t that great, which is why those matches didn’t end up being noteworthy, even though Sabre did his best to elevate the work of his opponents. The same could be said for Will Ospreay’s road to the quarter final, as he had beaten BUSHI, El Phantasmo and SANADA in the first three rounds respectively. Those matches Ospreay had in the first three rounds weren’t bad, as the middling BUSHI match had a couple of cool spots (but too many referee bumps), the okay-ish match against the passable Canadian wrestler Phantasmo saw Ospreay display some of his great athleticism, and the decent match against SANADA was almost good, and one of the better pre-quarter final matches in the tournament. However, all three matches were definitely nothing like Ospreay’s match in the quarter final. The best thing about the 15th singles match between Sabre and Ospreay was the amazing counter wrestling displayed by both. They told the great in-ring story of them knowing each other so well that they would know what the other would do, but then they would have to think a few moves ahead, since they could expect the other to counter their move. After a fast-paced start, they slowed things down a bit, but they would always try to continue doing serious damage. At some point, they were sitting on the mat, facing each other, trading kicks and slaps, and they would challenge each other to hit back harder. The way they exchanged slaps made it look like they were really mad at each other, so it wasn’t one of those exchanges that are just done for the sake of it. They also did a lot of trash talking to each other during the match. When they were on the floor, Ospreay jumped on the guardrail and hit an Oscutter. Sabre made sure to keep working over Ospreay’s left leg, because Ospreay had been selling the leg earlier in the match after not being able to execute a springboard move. During the final three minutes, they increased the speed again, and that’s when we got to see some more great counters, as they were both getting near falls near the finish. In the end, Sabre managed to score the submission win. Ospreay claimed that he didn’t tap, which hopefully means there will be another match between these two at some point. Even though they have wrestled each other several times now, they seem to keep having great matches against each other, and the matches are always differently worked. ****½
NOAH 3/23/22 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Go Shiozaki 17:20.
DC: This match was very no-nonsense and to-the-point. These are two hard-hitting wrestlers, so it was no surprise we got lots of stiff strikes. Shiozaki’s chops are among the loudest in wrestling today, and Nakajima’s kicks are among the most awesome ones in wrestling today. They beat the crap out of each other in a long segment that saw them exchanging stiff shots, as Shiozaki chopped the hell out of Nakajima, and Nakajima hit thunderous kicks to Shiozaki’s chest. Nakajima continued to viciously hit kicks as the match went on. Unlike the okay-ish but almost parody-esque NJPW 3/13/22 Minoru Suzuki vs. Hiromu Takahashi match, this very good Nakajima vs. Shiozaki match was about struggle and challenge, it wasn’t just two guys (over)acting like they were going crazy and chopping each other almost all match long for the sake of it because people will then overrate the match and say it was a great match, which was the case with the Suzuki vs. Takahashi match, a match that Kenta Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki would likely have been laughing out loud about if they were watching it. Anyway, this battle between Nakajima and Shiozaki was grueling, and it told a story. Shiozaki managed to win this match, and after starting this year with a losing streak, it seems Shiozaki has been able to turn things around. Getting a pinfall over the former GHC Heavyweight Champion was obviously a big win. This was one of the stiffest matches of the year so far. It was more than 12 minutes shorter than their excellent match from 1/1/22, and that helped make the viewer want more. Still, the 1/1/22 match felt like it was more memorable (even though ironically one of the main points of critique for that match was that it was perhaps just a little bit too long of a match), which was probably partially because that one was a title match at Nippon Budokan, but also because that one felt more like a varied match with a bit more urgency and more like a match both men were desperately trying to win. In this 3/23/22 match, it felt more like that these two challenging each other to fight back harder was the main story, like a test of toughness without a title on the line, while the main story of the 1/1/22 match was mostly both guys trying to get a win in a big title match. It’s possible that five more minutes would have turned this 3/23/22 match into an excellent match, but that’s merely speculation. It was a really good match, and hopefully we’ll get to see these two wrestle each other for the title again once Kazuyuki Fujita’s title reign comes to an end. ***¾
NJPW 3/26/22 Osaka-Jo Hall, New Japan Cup SemifinaL: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Shingo Takagi 19:24.
DC: They tried to avoid some of their moves early on, as they knew about each other’s reputation, and had wrestled each other before. They kept being aggressive though, so there was no real escape from each other’s offense. Zack Sabre Jr. focused on Shingo Takagi’s neck. Takagi went for some hard-hitting moves that would interrupt Sabre’s flow and would buy Takagi some time to recover. After Takagi hit some moves, Takagi would continue to sell his neck. Takagi hit a Tenryu-style falling backward elbow off the ropes onto Sabre, but Sabre anticipated it and replied with a headscissors. Takagi hit a DDT, but that only temporarily slowed Sabre down, as Sabre was able to apply a submission hold that had Takagi in a lot of trouble. Takagi hit a death valley driver and a superplex. When Takagi hit Made in Japan, it seemed like it could really be over for Sabre, but Sabre kicked out. Sabre was on Takagi’s back with a sleeper, but Takagi climbed the ropes and fell backwards. However, Sabre recovered quickly and immediately re-applied the hold. Takagi tried to get up, but he collapsed with Sabre on top of him while Sabre was still applying the hold. The referee decided to stop the match and award the match to ZSJ, since Takagi went out. In this match, they constantly kept the action going, but they still sold sufficiently. It was a very even match, and it could have gone either way. The action was very much back-and-forth, with them going for the offense whenever they saw an opening. They increased the pace as the match came closer to the end. The finish was well done because it emphasized that Sabre could re-apply and/or counter pretty much from any position or even after having just been on the receiving-end of a move, which makes him a very dangerous opponent. ****¼
STARDOM 3/27/22 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan, Wonder of STARDOM Title: Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano.
DC: STARDOM had two shows at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo that weekend, one on 3/26/22 and one on 3/27/22. On 3/26/22, Saya Kamitani had only an adequate match with Utami Hayashishita, because not much was happening in that match, apart from a few cool moves by Kamitani. On 3/26/22, Tam Nakano was involved in a passable match, as she teamed with Sayaka Unagi against Mayu Iwatani & the returning Kairi Hojo, who showed plenty of ring rust in a match that had a lot of melodrama, overacting and stalling. This 3/27/22 match between Kamitani and Nakano was one of the best matches of the STARDOM shows that weekend. This match wasn’t quite as good as their surprisingly excellent match against each other on 12/29/21, but it is clear that Kamitani and Nakano have a lot of chemistry together. Kamitani hit a springboard plancha to Tam the floor, but the craziest spot was Kamitani hitting a huracarrana on Tam from the top rope to the floor. Another memorable spot was Tam hitting a plancha off the ring entrance onto Kamitani. They clearly wanted to make this special. They teased a double count-out, but they were back in the ring on time. Kamitani missed the phoenix splash, which is usually her finisher, so that kinda made it seem like she was going to lose. Unlike pretty much all other matches that weekend up until this point, Kamitani and Tam showed a certain drive and determination to succeed. In terms of effort, this was excellent. One of the main points of criticism one could give this match is that they would occasionally act a bit overdramatic, but that seems to be a requirement in STARDOM these days. ***½
STARDOM 3/27/22 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan, World of STARDOM Title: Syuri vs. Mayu Iwatani 28:57.
DC: Mayu Iwatani gave one of her most spirited performances in a long time. One of the coolest moves Mayu did in this match was when she ran up the ropes and twisted in mid-air when reaching the top rope and then went for a top-rope dropkick. Syuri is an excellent pro wrestler, but in this match, she didn’t give the high-quality performance you would hope to see from her. It is not that she lacked effort, it was more than she seemed spent and tired. As much as Syuri commands respect as champion, on this particular night, it wouldn’t have been undeserved if Mayu would have won the title. Syuri’s performance was perfectly fine, but Mayu’s performance was more inspiring. That being said, as likable as Mayu is, this Mayu isn’t the old Mayu we used to know. She seems to be involved in memorable matches less and less often. Her last very good singles match was on 7/31/21 against Momo Watanabe. For her last excellent match, we have to go back to 2020 for her 2/8/20 match against Takumi Iroha. Of course, most wrestlers will never have matches of the quality of Mayu’s best matches, so perhaps it seems harsh criticizing a wrestler for not having a 4-star match in over 2 years, but it is in fact somewhat of a compliment in this case, simply because we have been so used to Mayu being one of the very best workers in the world. Going into the match, it wasn’t clear if Syuri or Mayu was going to win. Syuri was the more likely choice, since she is in the middle of a run that is establishing her as the one who has been carrying STARDOM main events. However, long-time fans of STARDOM would have probably enjoyed seeing Mayu get one more run for old times’ sake, as Mayu is one of the best STARDOM workers ever. One of the best things about this match was the execution, because pretty much everything they did looked well-executed. One of the main problems with this match was that during pretty much the entire match, they sold like they had been in a 45-minute or 60-minute match. Of course, they were going to go nearly half an hour, but why start the match off selling like 30 minutes have already gone by instead of gradually adjusting the selling based on time gone by and energy spent? This isn’t just the problem with this match, it seems to be an ongoing trend, where we get to see matches that have the wrestlers selling like they were in a long and grueling match just for the sake of getting people to say it was epic. We saw this very same problem just the night before, in the main event of the 3/26/22 show between Syuri and Giulia, which was a very average match where maybe 10 minutes of action was dragged out over 26 minutes with maybe 16 minutes consisting of them acting like they had been in a war without them having the necessary action to warrant that selling. These days, it seems that pretending that they are having a dramatic theater performance that will make people say it was epic takes priority over the most fundamental aspect of pro wrestling, which is simply trying to put over that you are trying to beat your opponent in a match. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it really feels like it’s something that has become the norm. Anyway, this match was good, because these two are very talented wrestlers, so whatever they did was still going to be good no matter what. However, it was a very disappointing match when you consider that on paper this should have been excellent. In the end, Syuri made Mayu tap out. ***¼
