Paid Members waters44 Posted February 9 Paid Members Share Posted February 9 (edited) Crikey, what a month It will of course be remembered for the news from outside the ring. Two industry changing events within a week - the abhorrent Vince McMahon allegations and subsequent resignation from WWE, and signing of the massive Netflix deal. We also had a TNA rebirth, and one of NJPW's biggest stars Kazuchika Okada confirming he was off to pastures new. There was a lot of stuff to talk about inside the ring too, and that's what I will focus on here. 2023 I was a bit lost personally and just watched the odd AEW show and WWE PLE. By the end of the year I was wanting more and promised myself I'd start 2024 with Wrestle Kingdom to see if that reignited my passion, and it did (despite it not being an amazing show)! Since then I have gobbled up as much wrestling as possible and here are my thoughts (spoiler tagged so you don't have a big wall of text) Spoiler WWE I only watched Royal Rumble - it was fine. I would say the four matches were all just above average. Nothing spectacular but nothing bad. Loved parts of the Womens Rumble, especially powerhouses Jade Cargill and Jordynne Grace AEW Here we go! I know Tony gets a lot of stick on here, and i'm sure its all deserved, but I can't deny how much joy his company has given me the last few years. I absolutely love AEW and its must watch TV for me. Joe has always been one of my favourites so having him as champion is a real blessing. His reign begun with an absolute classic against Hook on Dynamite which I'm sure will be in my top 10 by the end of the year. We also have Sting on his farewell tour having ridiculously fun tag matches alongside Darby Allin. Speaking of Darby - what a joy it was to see Takeshita throwing him around at the start of the year. The Undisputed Kingdom appear occasionally but they stink. Eddie Kingston got a good match out of Trent Beretta and his feud with Bryan Danielson is simmering nicely. Battle of the Belts IX saw Beautiful Big Bill write off a car by getting suplexed on it, just before Ricky Starks escaped a leaping Sammy Guevara who was channelling his inner Shane McMahon, in what was an unexpectedly fun street fight (Chris Jericho also involved, shudder). Collision in January has been all about the FTR vs House of Black feud which culminated in a very exciting cage match despite the slightly odd stipulations. The final Dynamite of the month gave us two great matches in Hangman Adam Page vs Toa Liona and Swerve vs a rejuvenated RVD! The future is bright with Hangman and Swerve, and this was also the perfect use of RVD. One of my other favourites, Orange Cassidy, had a quiet month but you can't have it all, and in general I think AEW have had a great start to the year NJPW My second favourite promotion and I try to watch all the shows. Wrestle Kingdom had some really good stuff. The three way between Mox / Ospreay / Finlay for the "Global" Championship (which is apparently different to the "World" Championship) and Danielson vs Okada II. I also really liked the Shingo vs Tama Tonga match too. Battle in the Valley 9 days later from San Jose is my current show of the year with current MOTY in the form of Mox vs Shingo No DQ. A real exciting and violent match with both men looking amazing, especially Shingo in jeans! And that was then followed by Okada vs Ospreay which again will be one of the best matches you will see this year. The show also had Jack Perry attack lovely boy Shota Umino and rip up his AEW contract, so i'm looking forward to seeing where that goes. Okada is now working his last NJPW shows and during January he said goodbye to Korakuen Hall. His final match here was superb and had a star making performance by Kosei Fujita. Okada then got on the mic and broke down in tears, which was so emotional it almost broke Ishii. That match was followed by Shota vs Ren Narita which was also another excellent match that went 35 minutes and covered the whole of Korakuen. One bizarre match to mention on one of the smaller shows was a fitness match between Great-O-Khan and Taiji Ishimori for the KOPW Title. Three 3 minute rounds of wrestling with fitness challenges between rounds, then a 1 minute finale where the wrestler holding the belt after the final minute is champion - whilst the wrestling wasn't amazing they told a really great story and i enjoyed it a lot NXT Bron Breakker is absolute class and I love it whenever he's on screen. He was part of a great tag match in the Dusty Rhodes classic. I enjoy NXT, its got a bit of everything. One thing I notice occasionally is how deep Booker T's voice is, sometimes it sounds like he's humming TNA TNA is back and had a fairly good first show, highlighted by the four way tag match. It's all about the following weeks IMPACT though, which had a really awesome match between Will Ospreay and Josh Alexander. Check it out if you can. They both had their working boots on but Ospreay is just soooooo good. NOAH The headlines will all point to Kota Ibushi's performance at their New Year show. Personally i think its been a bit unfair, the match was....ok.... until he fucked his other ankle and then I think he did amazing to even get to the finish. Luckily Kenoh vs Soya for the title was good so we had that, and Ishii vs Kitamiya was fun too. The main takeaway I have from NOAH in January is how awesome the tag team of Alpha Wolf & Dragon Bane are! I've seen two of their matches in NOAH this year and they have both been barnstormers. Tag team of the year so far Kenoh also had a great match with Go Shiozaki at Star Navigation for the honour of saying "I am NOAH", although there was one very scary looking German suplex on the outside that could have ended very badly for Shiozaki AJPW Nakajima has had some good title defences, including NXT star Charlie Dempsey Masanobu Fuchi wrestled on his 70th birthday and went TWENTY minutes! Great to see him jogging out while Danger Zone plays BJPW I loved BJPW years or so ago so I checked out their New Year Battle show. The main event between Yuya Aoki and Leyton Buzzard was actually really good and some fun deathmatch stuff I will mention later GCW I was obsessed with CZW in the mid 00's and GCW scratches that itch for me. I watched their first 3 shows of January and enjoyed them. Joey Janela always manages a good match and they have some exciting up and comers like Jack Cartwheel. They have a bit of everything - traditional, high flying, deathmatches, comedy - so the shows tick along nicely. I also smile at them using doors instead of tables. Mustafa Ali headlined the first show and i'm sad to report I thought the match was a dud. Effy vs Mance Warner had a pretty good and violent match at Look At Me. The same show had a hardcore six man tag match which had some pretty cool ladder spots that the crowd enjoyed. MLW Never watched MLW before but gave it a spin. Kings of Colosseum was a decent show with a fun tag match and bloody Taipei deathmatch There was an inter gender match between Good Brother #3 and Steph De Lander at Reload, which included both a lapdance and a marriage proposal. I'll tolerate one in a match, but not both /Partridge CMLL I watched Sin Salida which had a chaotic 16 man hair vs mask cage match. Made even more mad by what I presume was the 10 second countdown to Midnight halfway through the match to bring in 2024 in style I also watched Mascara Dorada vs Templario from 5th Jan as Meltzer gave it five stars. It was a great match but personally wouldn't go that far The CMLL ring looks and sounds so hard, and the crowd go absolutely nuts at those Arena Mexico shows. I will definitely check out some more lucha I also tried to watch a DDT show but just couldn't get in to it. And I was hoping to watch some Joshi but ran out of time  My top 10 of January 2024 Spoiler Jon Moxley vs Shingo Takagi - No DQ - NJPW Battle in the Valley Samoa Joe vs Hook - AEW Dynamite 17/01/2024 Will Ospreay vs Josh Alexander - Impact 18/01/2024 Will Ospreay vs Kazuchika Okada - NJPW Battle in the Valley Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kosei Fujita, Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste - NEVER Six Man Championship - NJPW Road to the New Beginning Night 3 24/01/2024 Darby Allin vs Konosuke Takeshita - AEW Dynamite 03/01/2024 Jon Moxley vs Will Ospreay vs David Finlay - IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship - NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 Alpha Wolf & Dragon Bane vs GLG (Tadasuke & YO-HEY) vs Alejandro & Ninja Mack - NOAH New Year 2024 Shota Umino vs Ren Narita - NJPW Road to the New Beginning Night 3 24/01/2024 Bron Breakker & Baron Corbin vs Axiom & Nathan Frazer - NXT 23/01/2024 Deathmatch Corner Spoiler I know there is a small but dedicated part of this forum that enjoys the odd deathmatch and I am part of that. BJPW had a few deathmatches. It was great to see Kobayashi & Ryuji Ito still rocking - they teamed up with Drake Younger and had a good match which ended with a cop killer through a chair. Mad Man Pondo turned up later in a match teaming with the clown from ICP, who nearly killed himself doing a moonsault. Neither cinder blocks, sledgehammers nor shovels could make this match any good. Then Free Bird starts blaring and Necro Butcher turns up tagging with AKIRA. A bloody match with lighttubes and Necro takes a brutal suplex from the apron to the concrete before winning the match with a choke The best deathmatch I saw in January goes to the Taipei deathmatch at MLW Kings of Colosseum. A really violent match with a stomach churning amount of blood. At one point a glass pane is introduced. I was naive to think this would be gimmicked - but nope - as soon as Rickey Shane Page hit the glass his back turned red. I gather this has been quite a decent feud and these two certainly work well together That was the highlight. Unfortunately AJPW provides the lowlight in the form of a "Three Current Blasts Bats Deathmatch" with all the OAPs - Atsushi Onita, Great Kojika & Raijin Yaguchi vs Mr Pogo, Onryo & Takumi Sakurai. This was slow as fuck and just about saved by the exploding bats which to be fair did look awesome. Look at this cute Grandad, why would anyone want to hit him with an exploding bat (he actually got hit twice!)  GCW Ultraviolent champion Rina Yamashita defended her belt in a good scrap against John Wayne Murdoch. Yamashita is tough as nails Finally H2O had a Cage of Hell show. The commentators kept accidently calling it Cage of Death but it wasn't close to the glory days of CZW. It was a very cramped ring with six "wrestlers" hitting each other with weapons. And that was about it. There was one ok looking spot on the outside with Neil Diamond Cutter being thrown through a contraption of chairs, glass and other plunder. One of the sides of the cage was electrified and did explode a little bit when someone was thrown into it, but i've seen it done much better in Japan 25 years ago. There was also a young girl in the crowd facing the hard cam, with a fluffy pink hoody and cat ear shaped ear protectors on which just reminded me of my daughter, and it just felt so wrong that someone would take her there to watch this  Looking ahead to February Spoiler The road to Wrestlemania pivots continues and we take a diversion via Australia for Elimination Chamber at the end of the month. February is the month of love and we have already had our hearts broken when it looked like Cody was in a never ending story. But then Rock slaps Cody and all is well. NXT have their first PLE of 2024 Lucha is the word of the month, with CMLL taking over parts of AEW TV and the Fantastica Mania shows start in NJPW Speaking of NJPW - February will also have Okada's and Ospreay's final NJPW matches And finally Indy fans have the Jersey Cup to look forward to which is now a joint production between GCW and JCW  So what did you enjoy in January? What did I miss? What were your favourite matches? Edited March 15 by waters44 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JLM Posted February 9 Paid Members Share Posted February 9 (edited) I will try to contribute to this thread properly soon, but for now I just wanted to say that was an absolutely outstanding post sir. Been slowly working through Battle in the Valley but haven’t got to the business end of it yet. Too much wrestling to get through each week but I am determined to watch Mox and Shingo. Oh also on the looking ahead/Feb front,  NJPW New Beginning on Saturday has Brian Danielson vs Zack Sabre Jr. in the Wrestledream rematch. Their first match was a highlight of 2023 for me so very much looking forward to it. I personally only follow Raw and Smackdown in recap/highlight form and watch the PPVs in full. There are definitely some belting hidden TV matches on those shows though, so I'm hoping if this thread becomes a monthly occurrence people can point some of them out too. Edited February 9 by JLM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 Great post. Although you made me question what date it was and think that it wasn't February yet. Don't mess with my head like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members waters44 Posted February 9 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 9 32 minutes ago, JLM said: Oh also on the looking ahead/Feb front,  NJPW New Beginning on Saturday has Brian Danielson vs Zack Sabre Jr. in the Wrestledream rematch. Their first match was a highlight of 2023 for me so very much looking forward to it. I personally only follow Raw and Smackdown in recap/highlight form and watch the PPVs in full. There are definitely some belting hidden TV matches on those shows though, so I'm hoping if this thread becomes a monthly occurrence people can point some of them out too. Absolutely! Also on that show is the ten man cage match between United Empire and Bullet Club War Dogs which will hopefully be good! And re Raw and SD, that’s what I’m partly hoping for with this thread, uncovering the hidden gems. I don’t have access to WWE TV (nor the time!) so hopefully we get some good recommendations in here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members waters44 Posted March 15 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 15 Well I'm already behind, but I enjoy writing a few notes about the wrestling I watch so I will keep going February, March and April are very busy for me so I won't be able to watch as much as I would like! Also, no deathmatch corner this month unfortunately, I just haven't had a chance to see any and GCW has been a bit tame. Anyway, here is my February round up - Spoiler WWE I watched Elimination Chamber which was good. I enjoyed the two chamber matches and Rhea Ripley somehow got an ok match out of Nia Jax so fair play. I do find these WWE shows a slog though, and this one was probably the hardest to get through in recent memory. The show was three and a half hours long and according to Cagematch there was only 1hr 40 minutes of wrestling  AEW The month started with a bang with the CMLL invasion. The luchadores had great matches with BCC with the highlight being an incredible match between Hechicero and Bryan Danielson. I am now besotted with Hechicero, I love everything about him Then we get to 7th Feb Dynamite which may be the best episode I've ever seen? Hangman vs Swerve / Takeshita vs Jericho / Sting & Darby Allin vs Big Bill & Ricky Starks - all fantastic matches and a really hot angle to finish the show 14th Feb Dynamite had a great Texas Deathmatch between Orange Cassidy and Matt Taven. Lots of fun stuff here, highlighted by Matt Taven taking flight over the top rope and through a table leant against the announcers table. Before this match I couldn't have picked Matt Taven out of a lineup of one person but this left a lasting impression on me I have been quietly enjoying Jeff Hardy's mini resurgence but there is always that worry he will go too far. So him being booked in a No DQ match with Sammy Guevara was a worry. It was a good match with Sammy taking most of the risks, but Jeff still manages to get a concussion taking a shooting star press. Such a shame for Jeff, hope he's ok With regard to injuries I don't know how Madison Rayne walked away from her match with Deonna Purrazzo. She almost got decapitated with some sort of DDT thing. Then AEW show a replay and it won the sponsored move of the night! Overall a decent month for AEW and Revolution is set up very nicely indeed. Last month I mentioned Orange Cassidy had been a bit quiet but this month he was back with a bang, love the guy NJPW February was the month of goodbyes in NJPW. We said sayonara to Will Ospreay, Tama Tonga and the Rainmaker himself Kazuchika Okada. More importantly though we lost Shingo Takagi's Youtube channel AND Yuya Uemara's lovely locks! Gabe Kidd and HENARE had a ridiculously fun brawl on 4th Feb. I think if the selling had been a little better this could have been something a bit special. Gabe Kidd took some absolutely brutal kicks in this one Speaking of selling - there's a wrestler who tends to open the cards called Shoma Kato. He is already insanely good at selling, if he can improve in other areas he could have a bright future New Beginning in Osaka on 11th Feb was a great show! Okada vs Tanahashi was great. Then you have two MOTY candidates in Bryan Danielson vs ZSJ and the ten man cage match. Personally I would pick the cage match over BD vs ZSJ. The match felt extremely dangerous and I was completely enthralled. HENARE gets hurt early doors (with a ruptured artery!) and the commentators don't ignore it, they keep talking about it which just increases the tension. The match goes on and it turns into complete carnage. Blood everywhere. Towards the end Bullet Club start tearing the ring apart down to the boards. They continue wrestling but the boards move and there is a legit danger of somebody falling through the broken ring. It just added another layer of craziness to the already mad match. I absolutely loved it The final two New Beginning shows will be remembered for being Okada's last matches, but not much else. He said his farewells on Night 2 with his CHOAS partners which was sweet, Ishii just wanted a handshake but Okada gave the big lump a nice squeezy cuddle. Shame smelly Matt Riddle was in the match but other then that it was good. El Desperado lost the Jr Heavyweight Championship via COUNT OUT which i've never seen before. This was due to some HoT shenanigans, which I know is generally hated but I love it. My favourite is when a good guy will have a member of HoT in a submission, so one of the other members will ring the bell, making the good guy think he's won the match and release the hold - always gets a pop from me. The only other match to mention was the Shingo Takagi vs Taichi (fighting for their Youtube Channels!!) which started slow but really got going towards the end. I didn't get a chance to see any Fantastica Mania shows so I need to catch up on those, especially as my man Hechicero was there  NXTOnly managed to watch Vengeance Day which was a good show. First time seeing Dragunov work and I thought he was great so will have to check some of his older stuff out. Looking forward to catching up on the weekly TV and seeing where the Trick Williams / Carmelo Hayes feud goes  GCWI managed to watch all the GCW shows which, from a deathmatch point of view, were a bit lacking! There was still some good stuff to mention though. The two night Jersey Cup was fantastic! Night One was bookended with two really fun matches in Nick Wayne vs Marcus Mathers and Mike Bailey vs Great Sasuke! The latter had a moonsault off the bar, you can't ask for more. Then Night two was banger after banger in the tournament, great showings from Jordan Oliver, Myron Reed, Masha Slamovich and Alec Price. There was also a ridiculously fun twelve man tag match - at one point there was an extended passage of the wrestlers each doing old WWE finishers, culminating with the ref giving out a stone cold stunner and celebrating with a few beers mid match. One other thing to mention about GCW is Microman. He must only be a couple of feet tall but takes big suplexes and dives off balconies etc. He has such a huge amount of trust in his opponents to look after him. It's hard to watch sometimes but he's clearly loving it and I'm really pleased he's able to go out there and put on a show My top 10 of February 2024 Spoiler Bullet Club War Dogs vs United Empire - Ten Man Steel Cage Tag Match - NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 11/02/2024 Bryan Danielson vs Hechicero - AEW Collision 03/02/2024 Bryan Danielson vs Zack Sabre Jr - NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 11/02/2024 Hangman Adam Page vs Swerve Strickland - AEW Dynamite 07/02/2024 Big Bill & Ricky Starks vs Sting & Darby Allin - Tornado Tag - AWE Tag Team Championship - AEW Dynamite 07/02/2024 Orange Cassidy vs Matt Taven - Texas Deathmatch - AEW Dynamite 14/02/2024 Mike Bailey vs Great Sasuke - GCW Jersey Cup Night One Twelve Man Tag Team Match - GCW Jersey Cup Night Two Orange Cassidy vs Tomohiro Ishii - AEW International Championship - AEW Collision 10/02/2024 Ilja Dragunov vs Trick Williams - NXT Championship - NXT Vengeance Day 2024 My top 10 of 2024 so far Spoiler Bullet Club War Dogs vs United Empire - Ten Man Steel Cage Tag Match - NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 11/02/2024 Jon Moxley vs Shingo Takagi - No DQ - NJPW Battle in the Valley 13/01/2024 Samoa Joe vs Hook - AEW Dynamite 17/01/2024 Bryan Danielson vs Hechicero - AEW Collision 03/02/2024 Will Ospreay vs Josh Alexander - Impact 18/01/2024 Will Ospreay vs Kazuchika Okada - NJPW Battle in the Valley 13/01/2024 Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kosei Fujita, Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste - NEVER Six Man Championship - NJPW Road to the New Beginning Night 3 24/01/2024 Bryan Danielson vs Zack Sabre Jr - NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 11/02/2024 Darby Allin vs Konosuke Takeshita - AEW Dynamite 03/01/2024 Jon Moxley vs Will Ospreay vs David Finlay - IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship - NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 Bump of the month Spoiler We all love a good bump (no Tony jokes allowed remember). Matt Taven going neeeeeeeeaaaaaaawwwww was my favourite (I hope this Twitter link has worked...) Looking ahead to March Spoiler No WWE PLEs in March so it will be a WWE free month for me AEW have their first PPV of the year where we say farewell and thank you to the Stinger NJPW celebrate their 52nd anniversary and then present the New Japan Cup GCW bring in some deathmatch legends for a scrap, and MLW have a show called "War Chamber" which has piqued my interest I hope you all enjoyed some wrestling in Feb. I would be interested to know if you saw the Ospreay vs Oku match from Rev Pro as i've heard that was absolutely fantastic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted March 15 Paid Members Share Posted March 15 Can Great Sasuke still go? I love that crazy bastard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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