WWE TLC

Minneapolis

HUMBERTO CARRILLO vs. ANDRADE (12:45): There were a ton of wrestling shows this weekend and this one kind of got lost in the mix. It probably didn't help that they didn't even announce a card until a week ago and the card turned out to be pretty forgettable. It did help that there were ladder matches and TLC matches involved, otherwise I probably wouldn't have cared about any of them. Ring of Honor had their PPV, Final Battle, on Friday. PCO won the title, Dragon Lee won the TV title, and Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham won the tag titles. Ring of Honor did have a super match on that show with Bandido and Flamita vs. Marty Scurll and Flip Gordon. Saturday had AAA's Guerra de Titanes show, NWA had their first PPV, and CZW had their annual Cage of Death. Sunday had a Ring of Honor house show at the ECW Arena that I actually went to. The main event was good, which had Marty Scurll and PCO facing Jeff Cobb and Dan Maff. PCO did his sick, top rope, Swanton Dive onto the edge of the ring. He's about to turn 52 and looked like he was going to die in the ring during the match. Jonathan Gresham and Alex Shelley had a pretty good match, as did Flip Gordon and Rey Horus (who was in AAA on Saturday night...and Marty Scurll was on the NWA show on Saturday...so everyone was everywhere!). So it was an exhausting weekend if you actually had the time to watch any of it. Which meant I finally finished watching this TLC show on Wednesday. In hindsight, I probably should have never watched this train wreck of a show. This was a pretty good pre-show match, though. They pushed Humberto Carrillo to the moon for some reason. He's good and better than most of the dull roster but nothing special. Was he even in NXT at one point? Because usually these young, fresh faces toil in NXT for years and show up on the main roster and die a quick death. Andrade should've never left Mexico, honestly. **1/2

THE NEW DAY vs. THE REVIVAL "LADDER MATCH" (19:20): This was a typical brutal ladder match that was both entertaining to watch and hard to watch. Big E. got suplexed onto a ladder bridge and missed the ladder but his elbow hit the edge. That looked gruesome. Dash or Wilder (I seriously don't know who's the bald one) fell off the ladder and onto the ladder bridge to end the match. This was a good opener, though you could kind of tell The Revival are traditional, classic wrestlers and totally out of their element around ladders. **1/2

ALEISTER BLACK vs. BUDDY MURPHY (13:45): This was the match of the night. Which probably tells you something considering there were matches with people climbing ladders and going through tables and yet this, a basic match, was superior. If the WWE ever had brains then a match like this would be the main event for the title. But that's never going to happen. Black got his nose busted and was bleeding. Murphy, who seemed missing in action for months after leaving 205Live, is apparently getting TV time these days (because he's exciting? shocking!), although not a push since he lost. ***

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON (8:30): So let's face it; nobody was paying any attention to this match because at ringside there were random people sitting at a table eating KFC. I guess it was an advertisement for KFC? But it was stupid because you couldn't really care about this match you just wondered who the fuck those strange people were. Gallows and Anderson eventually put one of The Viking Raiders through the KFC table. That was about the only thing good about this. 1/2*

KING CORBIN vs. ROMAN REIGNS "TLC MATCH" (22:20): I finally cracked the code. I'd been wondering why all of these great wrestlers aren't pushed but Baron Corbin has been pushed like he's Hulk Hogan. He retired Kurt Angle at WrestleMania. He was the RAW general manager. He won the King of the Ring. Now he's beating Roman Reigns and is the face of Smackdown. Corbin is always involved in dumb comedy and is an evil heel. Well Vince McMahon loves dumb comedy and loves being the evil heel. But Vince is too old to be actually out there doing that shit every week so he's vicariously living through Baron Corbin. Corbin brought out a guy in a dog mascot costume and had the dog on all fours bowing to Corbin on Smackdown. Because Roman is the big dog. Get it? Yeah, it's fucking juvenile. But that's the exact kind of idiotic comedy Vince loves. Also the pouring dog food onto Roman. Vince was probably cracking up backstage at that. So that's why Baron Corbin is pushed. Vince writes himself into Baron's storylines. And Baron Corbin won this match. He also got help. Ziggler and The Revival came out to beat up Reigns. Did they even use a ladder? Reigns did put Corbin through the announce table. This was amusing but not particularly good. I will admit that I think Corbin is funny but I never want to see him wrestle. **

BRAY WYATT vs. THE MIZ (6:40): So The Miz wrestled Bray Wyatt and not The Fiend. No, I don't know why. After the match, the lights went out and when they came back on Daniel Bryan was in the ring with a buzz cut and no big beard and he beat up Bray. Okay. This wasn't for the title, either, which was vexing. I'm still also curious why The Miz is a face now. I thought everyone hated him? *

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. RUSEV "TABLES MATCH" (13:30): This is the first match in the feud with no end. Was it ever amusing? I guess, in a train wreck sort of way. You just kind of wonder if this is really going to break up Rusev's marriage in a few years. Because apparently it's happened a lot in wrestling. So this was a tables match but they used a Singapore Cane and a guardrail, too, for no reason. Lashley hasn't been in a good match since returning and Rusev deserves better then to have to watch his real life wife cheating on him at work. *

ASUKA & KAIRI SANE vs. CHARLOTTE & BECKY LYNCH "TLC MATCH" (26:00): Kairi Sane got injured in this match and it was probably a concussion because she was so sloppy and out of it during most of this. Besides that, why are Charlotte and Becky even a tag team? And why was this even the main event? I literally just watched this and am trying to think of some cool stuff that happened and can't. I know Kairi Sane laid Charlotte and Becky on a table at ringside and jumped on them and the table didn't break. And Sane tried to throw chairs into the ring and one hit the ropes and bounced back and hit her and Charlotte and Becky just stood in the ring awkwardly staring at her wondering what to do. This almost went a half hour. Jesus! After the show went off the air, some fan posted footage he took on his cell phone of Becky rolling Sane under the ring. I guess to protect her from taking any more bumps because she was concussed? I'm not sure why the refs didn't either stop the match, cut to the finish early, or just pull her out of there. I don't know...this was pretty much a mess. Great way to end a show! *1/2

WWE SURVIVOR SERIES

Rosemont, Illinois

TAG TEAM BATTLE ROYAL (BOBBY ROODE & DOLPH ZIGGLER) (8:20): I suppose this was a pretty decent, entertaining show. At least compared to the usual, humdrum shit the WWE puts on these days. Because AEW Dynamite has been beating NXT every Wednesday in the ratings (until this week when NXT won thanks to packing the show with the likes of Ricochet, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, etc.), they've pushed NXT down our throats and for the first year they're in all of the elimination matches tonight. So that was something new at least. I've never been the biggest fan of this year for a lot of reasons. One: the winners get nothing. Two: seeing Smackdown wrestlers face RAW wrestlers is supposed to be this unique thing but they seem to end up on each other's shows all the time so that is never anything fresh. This match had a zillion dudes in the ring at the same time and if one member of a tag team was thrown over the top rope then both were eliminated. This was a pre-show match (the pre-show was two hours...my God) so nobody really cared and the building was half empty. This was the same building where AEW's All In happened, right? I guess I'm just pondering AEW because it's better and I seriously just watched Dynamite. *

LIO RUSH vs. AKIRA TOZAWA vs. KALISTO (8:20): This was for the 205Live title...which is kind of ridiculous since Lio defended it on NXT two week's ago and 205Live was mysteriously not on last Friday. With these three you'd think it'd be a fucking epic of pure excitement...but it wasn't. It was short, basic. *1/2

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. THE NEW DAY vs. BOBBY FISH & KYLE O'REILLY (14:35):
This was on the pre-show. It was pretty fun but nothing special. The Viking Raiders, for whatever reason, were a hell of a lot more exciting when they wrestled as The War Raiders in ROH and NJPW. **1/2

TEAM NXT (RHEA RIPLEY, BIANCA BELAIR, CANDICE LERAE, IO SHIRAI & TONI STORM) vs. TEAM RAW (CHARLOTTE, NATALYA, ASUKA, KAIRI SANE & SARAH LOGAN) vs. TEAM SMACKDOWN (SASHA BANKS, CARMELLA, DANA BROOKE, LACEY EVANS & NIKKI CROSS) (28:00): Since NXT was added to this 5 on 5 elimination matches I thought this show would stretch on until the end of time. I think the WWE realized that this was a possibility, too, so they actually curbed them all at under 30:00 which helped. This was a good match and the fresh, hot crowd helped. Rhea Ripley was kind of the star here. I guess they're pushing her because she's really tall (Vince always seemed to favor tall people for whatever reason). Candice and Io Shirai got "injured" and had to leave the match but returned to cheer on Rhea as she pinned Sasha to win. **1/2

RODERICK STRONG vs. AJ STYLES vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA (16:45): Strong kind of snuck in the win here. Nakamura has been at least semi-interesting lately thanks to his manager, Sami Zayn. Why Sami Zayn doesn't wrestler anymore is beyond me. Somebody go send Vince an El Generico greatest hits DVD or something. Three years ago this may have been the greatest match in the history of time. Now...it was good not great. **1/2

ADAM COLE vs. PETE DUNNE (14:10): This was perhaps the best match of the night...but unfortunately only the last five minutes or so were great. Maybe it's because Cole has a broken hand and a cast plus he leapt off the War Games cage through a table last night at NXT so he had to start slow. Either way, when this heated up it was awesome stuff. Pete Dunne is one of WWE's best wrestlers and this ended up being really good. ***

"THE FIEND" BRAY WYATT vs. DANIEL BRYAN (10:10): So this match was ruined by the stupid red lighting that every Wyatt match has now. Daniel Bryan is awesome, though, so he at least helped this being somewhat watchable. I guess Bryan is a good guy again now since he's doing the "Yes!" chants. Or is it just because he's facing Wyatt? Who the fuck knows? Get rid of the red lighting already. Wyatt retained the title. *1/2

TEAM SMACKDOWN (ROMAN REIGNS, BRAUN STROWMAN, KING CORBIN, MUSTAFA ALI & SHORTY G) vs. TEAM RAW (SETH ROLLINS, DREW MCINTYRE, KEVIN OWENS, RICOCHET & RANDY ORTON) vs. TEAM NXT (WALTER, TOMMASO CIAMPA, DAMIAN PRIEST, MATT RIDDLE & KEITH LEE) (29:25): Again with the pushing of NXT, the finale had Roman Reigns vs. Keith Lee. There was a lot of good action here and this was a fun match. Walter got a huge reaction from the crowd when the match started. The goodwill ended when McIntyre pinned him first and the crowd booed. Seriously, Walter is one of the greatest wrestlers in the world and the WWE is fucking him over. I guess they went with pushing Keith Lee because Walter is in NXT UK and not NXT Florida. Ugh. Ciampa did a top rope slam on Adam Cole through a table last night from the top of the cage. Ciampa had frigging neck surgery last Spring. Are doctors getting better or something? What the hell is going on? Maybe he's a robot now. **1/2

BROCK LESNAR vs. REY MYSTERIO, JR. (7:00): This match was good but stupid. The crowd loved it, though, and it was hilarious in a Vince Russo type of way. By the end, Rey Mysterio was hitting Lesnar with a lead pipe and Mysterio's son was giving Lesnar a low blow, then they both did a 619 on him and it was crazy and wild and ridiculous. Lesnar of course won...somehow. Cain didn't show up for whatever reason. This had the big fight feel and I'm not entirely sure why it wasn't the main event. **1/2

SHAYNA BASZLER vs. BECKY LYNCH vs. BAYLEY (16:10): Wow. They put this match on last for no good reason and the crowd was asleep and this was awful and boring. Way to end the show, idiots! Shayna Baszler is by far the worst NXT women's champ ever. I guess they think she's like Ronda Rousey because she's an MMA fighter and so they're pushing her...but Rousey was exciting. Baszler is a snore. The big problem with these three way NXT vs. Smackdown vs. RAW matches is that the winner gets nothing so they're meaningless. Oh, well. 1/2*

AEW FULL GEAR

Baltimore

BRITT BAKER vs. BEA PRIESTLEY (11:35): This match was on the pre-show. Apparently, if you watched the pre-show on YouTube, they forgot to stop the feed so the whole PPV was on there for free. Oh, well. I still watched it for free. I love AEW but even I won't pay $50 for a wrestling show on TV. I never did watch this match, thanks mostly to BRLive not showing a pre-show replay. It sounds like I didn't miss much. The AEW's women's division is not that exciting, although Britt Baker, Adam Cole's girlfriend, is cute and went to Penn State. Speaking of girlfriends...Priestly is dating Will Ospreay. This is like a tabloid gossip rag or something.

SANTANA & ORTIZ vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS (21:00): I didn't even realize that Santana and Ortiz are not using their TNA Impact names, LAX. I guess that name is copyrighted. I did see a few LAX matches in Impact over the years and the one thing I learned is that they're entertaining but only when in hardcore, clusterfuck matches. This match was good because the Bucks are always good but it wasn't stellar or anything. With the Bucks and Omega losing tonight, somebody in AEW has to go tell them that just because they're part owners and management and all of that it's still okay to fucking win once in awhile. Jesus. **1/2

ADAM PAGE vs. PAC (18:30): This was like a standard New Japan match. It started slow and boring but went long enough to get the crowd into it and become hot with big, back and forth moves by the end and turn into something good. Neither guy is a superstar in my opinion. I think PAC is great but hasn't been in a great match since NXT when he faced Balor. Even his main event title matches this year in Dragon Gate were good but never great. Oh, well. **1/2

SHAWN SPEARS vs. JOEY JANELA (11:45): If Janela isn't diving off ladders and falling backwards through tables then I'm not particularly interested in him. He built his career being the crazy, hardcore nut job...so when he's just wrestling it's kind of dull. Wrestling the boring Spears didn't help. Spears' best asset is his manager, Tully Blanchard, who should really be doing more since he's the true star. This was average, forgotten stuff. *1/2

SOCAL UNCENSORED vs. PRIVATE PARTY vs. LUCHA BROTHERS (13:00): I thought that this match would be better. It was still good, but I figured it would a four star masterpiece with these three teams leaping over the top rope left and right. Fenix did steal the show during this match, though, which of course he did. SoCal Uncensored kept the titles and then Christopher Daniels returned dressed up as Pentagram for no good reason after the match to beat up the Lucha Brothers. **1/2

RIHO vs. EMI SAKURA (13:20): I think Riho is great but this match was boring. Sakura is her real life teacher so it was teacher vs. student. Sakura likes Freddie Mercury for some reason so she came to the ring wearing a fake mustache and holding a microphone and doing Freddie Mercury dance moves. Okay. Riho retained the title. 1/2*

CHRIS JERICHO vs. CODY (29:35): By the end this match was stellar...but I'm still wondering why they had to go and do the stupid stipulation that if Cody lost he would never wrestle for the title again. Even with him losing by screw job, a stip is a stip and it'll be stupid and make him look idiotic if he ever does wrestle for the title again. Cody did a dumb top rope leap onto the entrance ramp that connected to the ring and he fell head first onto the steel and cut his forehead open and separated a rib. Smart. The big finale had MJF, who was Cody's ringside "friend," throwing in the towel when Cody was in the Walls of Jericho. So of course MJF kicked Cody in the balls after the match and turned heel, which he was earlier this year in AEW anyway. By the end this was dramatic as hell but early it was kind of slow and dull. Cody's mom at ringside slapped Jericho. They had three judges at ringside who were scoring the match in case it went to a 60 minute draw (the judges were Arn Anderson, Malenko, and The Great Muta...all who looked bored as hell and didn't want to be there...except for Muta who wore a mask so you couldn't tell). So this sets up Cody vs. MJF, which should be good since MJF is a hell of a heel talker. Jericho as champ is good in that he's a good promo guy and character, unfortunately he's 49 years old and can't really be in great, fast paced matches. But this was about as good as it gets for him and it was better than most of this show. I said most. ***

JON MOXLEY vs. KENNY OMEGA "LIGHTS OUT MATCH" (38:45): Before these last two matches, I thought that this show was a little on the disappointing side. And while this match wasn't Omega/Okada great or anything, it might have been the most memorable match I've seen all year. While this wasn't as bloody or as violent as a Big Japan death match...this was one of the most gruesome, big time American wrestling matches I've seen in quite some time. It's one thing to see Big Japan guys hitting each other with light tubes, sticking skewers through their cheeks, and wrestling on a mat covered in broken glass in front of a few hundred fans. It's different to see barbed wire, blood, and broken glass in a match in front of ten thousand people in a big arena on a major American show. It reminded me of those old Onita matches in Japan in front of huge crowds during exploding, barbed wire matches. So seeing CZW at a bingo hall is one thing...but seeing Omega stuffing broken glass into Moxley's mouth then kneeing him in the face in front of an arena crowd is a totally different animal. Which made this match unique and something you don't see every day. And these two fucking did it all. Omega didn't really get to show off his hardcore side in New Japan. We got a taste with that Ladder match against Michael Elgin in NJPW a few years ago. But who knew Omega had this sadistic side in him? And why are these two huge stars doing shit like this? They don't have to. But the chains that New Japan and WWE bound them in are off and they can finally do what they want to do and they end up doing...this? It's pretty bold...also reckless. But they're true wrestling fans and wanted to do it and they fucking did it. The one bad thing about this match was that instead of getting moves and wrestling we got two guys looking under the ring, not seeing something, then walking around to the other side of the ring and looking under for what they needed. This happened maybe ten times. So what was under the ring? A board with mousetraps glued onto it. A barbed wire broom. A barbed wire bat. Trash cans. A bag of broken glass. A metal spike. A pile of chains. Jesus Christ. We also got a huge, barbed wire spider-web contraption that Moxley suplexed Omega onto by the ring entrance. When they were both stuck in the barbed wire web it took like five or six guys to help them out...giving me deja vu of when the crew had to help and cut Sabu and Terry Funk out of the barbed wire jungle in ECW during that infamous, no-rope, barbed wire match. They were both bleeding thanks to the barbed wire bat and broom used. Omega speared Moxley through a plastic, Full Gear logo/sign thing by the entrance. Omega did his over the top rope flip through Moxley and a table. After broken glass was introduced, Omega had Moxley in a crab submission hold and Moxley had to, literally, crawl across broken glass to get to the ropes (which was by far the most creative and memorable moment in wrestling this year). By the end, Moxley tore off the ring mat to expose the hard wood floor. In what was the most painful thing perhaps I've seen this year (and reminded me of how far Omega is willing to go in big matches...remember his top rope Dragon suplex to Okada that look like it broke his neck?), Omega did a Phoenix Splash from the top rope and Moxley moved and Omega crashed down right on his face on the wood floor. Omega even took his time before that to climb up to the top rope, perhaps having second thoughts on what could have paralyzed him for life. So this match had it all. It went almost forty minutes. When was the last time a big time American match went that long? Bate and Walter went longer in August but that was in the UK in NXT. Taven and Jay Lethal did a 60 minute draw but that was in ROH in front a few hundred in February. So while this wasn't a great match or anything, it was certainly noteworthy and something to talk about for years to come. And it definitely made this show...as it wasn't particularly a great AEW show until these last two matches which really felt like big, PPV worthy spectacles, especially this lights out melee. Moxley ended up winning. But all that I could really think about was that the best bout machine, who'd been mostly absent since losing to Tanahashi in January, is back. Maybe all of us fools were just idiotic to think he wasn't still around. ***

NJPW POWER STRUGGLE

Osaka

CLARK CONNORS, TJP, TITAN & VOLADOR, JR. vs. JYUSHIN THUNDER LIGER, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, TIGER MASK & YUYA UEMURA (5:43): I only watched one match in the Jr. tag team tournament that ended on this show. That was the first night's main event, which was Robbie Eagles and Ospreay vs. Sho and Yo. I suppose if Dragon Lee had been given an invite the tournament may have been more interesting, but ever since CMLL fired him he's been persona non grata in Japan because politics. Dragon Lee was stuck in Columbus, Ohio at a Ring of Honor show in front of maybe a hundred fans. Oh, well. So that's the reason why this match had all these small, high flyer types...they're left over from that Jr. tag team tournament. But that's a good thing, as this short match was all action and a lot of fun. I still have no idea who Clark Connors or Yuya Uemura are and because I watched the Japanese language version of this show and don't speak Japanese I'll probably never know. TJP I do know. He used to be fairly entertaining in Impact. **1/2

EL PHANTASMO & TAIJI ISHIMORI vs. ROBBIE EAGLES & ROCKY ROMERO (8:42): Short, fun, entertaining match. Phantasmo is definitely the big, rookie star of 2019 in my book. And I can't wait to see him face Hiromu for the first time next year if it ever happens. **1/2

EVIL, SANADA & SHINGO TAKAGI vs. MINORU SUZUKI, LANCE ARCHER & ZACK SABRE, JR. (9:07): The big story was Shingo vs. Suzuki in this match, which means they're probably going to face each other at the Dome. Suzuki is apparently leaving the company soon, so I guess a hard-hitting, brutal final match against Shingo is a good farewell. Besides those two battling it out (and by the end of this, Suzuki was holding a guardrail and Shingo a chair while they stared each other down), there wasn't much else. **

KOTA IBUSHI & HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA & YOSHI-HASHI (10:51): This would be like a main event match if Yoshi-Hashi was unfortunately thrown into this mix for no reason. This went ten minutes and pretty much nothing of note happened besides Yoshi-Hashi working his ass off and running all over the place trying to get over. *1/2

TETSUYA NAITO vs. TAICHI (12:56): I'll just never see a good Taichi match...because it'll never exist. Dude sucks. Every time I review a match he's in I always just talk about his stupid, lip singing, Phantom of the Opera entrance. Maybe he should just do that and not wrestle. And while Dave Meltzer keeps saying after every Naito match that he's done and looks broken and is falling apart...I always watch him and he looks as great and fantastic as ever. Go figure. 1/2*

RAPPONGI 3K vs. EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU (12:56): This was the final of the Jr. tag tournament. You can tell how prestigious that tournament is...the final is in the middle of the show and only goes 12 minutes. This was pretty average and filled with the usual Desperado/Kanemaru schtick...which is throwing you into the guardrail like ten times. I did finally watch that Jun Kasai/El Desperado match from May where Desperado broke his jaw. It was a hardcore match with barbed wire and stuff so I figured he broke his jaw hitting a table or a chair or something. No, Jun Kasai just punched him in the face and hit him too hard. That crazy fucking monkey. **

KENTA vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII (20:12): I really need to go and watch some of Kenta's old NOAH matches. Back then he was apparently the best wrestler in the world. I've only seen him in the WWE as Hideo Itami and now in New Japan and he's always in lame, slow, stiff matches that put me to sleep. I can't imagine him being in four star classics all the time so I'll have to see them to believe it I suppose. Kenta beat the shit out of Ishii for the first ten minutes and it was like a typical, boring WWE match. The big Ishii comeback never really came as when it did Kenta still kept at it and then won. Hard hitting match but not too memorable. **

WILL OSPREAY vs. BUSHI (16:20): Bushi is like Taichi in that he'll never be in a good match. I've given up on that. But...the last few minutes of this were excellent. Bushi tried to spit his black mist into Ospreay's face but Ospreay swallowed the mist and spit it back at Bushi...which was crazy and very inventive. Ospreay gave Red Shoes an Oscutter by accident. The end of this was like a WWE ending with interference and a ref out and shenanigans. But I like that stuff. Ospreay is the best wrestler in the world so this was perhaps the best Bushi match you'll ever see even though it wasn't that great until the end. After the match we finally got the return of Hiromu Takahashi after Dragon Lee broke his neck in San Francisco in July 2018. Hiromu looked good and did a bunch of silly dives and falls by himself as he ran around the ring and by the entrance, I guess to show that he was okay. There have been wrestlers that broke their neck and came back. Sabu did, as did Steve Austin. Sabu still did all of his crazy stuff after, too, so Hiromu might still be a great wrestler upon his return, but I guess we'll see. I'm happy that we're going to see Ospreay/Hiromu at the Dome for the Jr. title...but, man, Hiromu was one crazy mother fucker. Do I still want to see him doing all kinds of insane shit? And if he doesn't, will he still be entertaining? Well the crowd loved his return and it was by far the highlight of this show. **1/2

JAY WHITE vs. HIROOKI GOTO (27:40): Jay White is only in good matches once a year...and he already had his this year (against Okada at the Dome). Goto is in a good match maybe once in a blue moon...and this wasn't it. This was a bore fest. Of course it was. White's a good heel but not the most exciting in the ring. The end of this match got somewhat interesting when the ref was pulled out by his leg by Kenta to prevent a Goto win. Shibata came in to make the save and Kenta kicked him right in the head (Shibata retired because of bleeding on the brain and almost dying...so it's weird to see him get kicked in the head). Everyone keeps saying Shibata is retired and isn't doing another match but it sure as hell looks like he's going to wrestle Kenta at the Dome. White eventually won and retained his IC title then called out Okada and Tanahashi to the ring but Naito came out instead to challenge him for the IC title. Then Okada and Tanahashi did come out and the four of them are all apparently going to be in a four man tournament at the two Dome shows that will culminate in the first ever dual champion, which, presumably will be Ibushi. This means that, presumably, we will be getting another Naito/Ibushi match...which a lot of people never want to see again because when they wrestle they attempt to kill each other for fun. I'd honestly just be happy seeing a one Dome show with Okada/Ibushi. But...those two have wrestled before, just recently in the G1, and while their matches are good, they're not Omega/Okada good. And considering who ever wins will have to wrestle again the next night at Dome #2...will they have to hold back? At least the Dome is intriguing this year...which, with Omega gone, it definitely had a chance not to be. 1/2*

NJPW KING OF PRO-WRESTLING

Ryogoku, Tokyo, Japan

EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. ROPPONGI 3K (10:44): There was a super typhoon that hit Japan on Saturday, which meant changes to this show which was oddly not cancelled. Tokyo supposedly got hit with a lot of flooding but I guess the show must go on! Two wrestlers couldn't make the show, presumably because of flight cancellations. Zack Sabre, Jr. wasn't there but was only scheduled for a superfluous multi-man tag match. Jon Moxley, however, couldn't make it to Japan and was thus stripped of his coveted U.S. title. The Moxley/Juice no DQ match for the title probably would have been one of the better matches on the show, so that was a letdown. The show was a good one, though, save for most of these lame tag matches that New Japan fucking adores for some reason. There doing a Jr. tag tournament starting on Wednesday so I guess this was a preview. El Desperado is back after having his jaw broken in a match against Jun Kasai last Spring. That elusive mask vs. mask match between Dragon Lee and El Desperado certainly seems further away than ever thanks to CMLL firing Dragon Lee and New Japan pulling Dragon Lee out of the Jr. tournament. As for this match...Roppongi 3K is always entertaining so it was at least watchable. El Desperado came out wearing a blood stained shirt that he supposedly was wearing in the match he broke his jaw in. Does he even wear a white shirt in matches? No. So that confused me. Jun Kasai is nuts. Remember the infamous CZW Fans Bring the Weapons match with him like fifteen years ago in Delaware where he got his elbow cut open after being power bombed out of the ring through a stack of fluorescent light tubes? Yep. So it certainly doesn't surprise me that he broke someone's jaw. **1/2

HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. TOGI MAKABE & TORU YANO (9:43): Tanahashi is in the second match of one of their biggest shows. My how the mighty have fallen. Well Naito was in the third match and Jay White in a nothing six man so I guess this show wasn't as "big" as some may thing. Usually this is there third biggest show after the Dome and Dominion, right? Although, the championship hasn't changed hands on this show in five years (when AJ Styles lost to Tanahashi) so it's been a little stale (and how can we forget last year's epic fail when Ibushi vs. Omega was ruined by inserting Cody into the match). And what's up with Honma? Dude was almost paralyzed with a neck injury and he's still doing twenty diving head butts every match. This wasn't terrible or anything, just forgettable. **

TETSUYA NAITO & SHINGO TAKAGI vs. TAICHI & DOUKI (9:00): Shingo should be battling for the title in the main event. What's wrong with this company? I guess he's still new and a Dragon Gate guy but still, c'mon, what's one of your best wrestlers doing in a lame match against the two stupidest wrestlers on the roster, Taichi and Douki? I will admit that Taichi's ultra stupid entrance always makes me laugh at how ridiculous it is. He's lip singing while holding a microphone obviously not plugged in and he looks like the Phantom of the Opera and he's supposed to be this tough, bad ass heel? Douki is worse. Guy wears a dress that's flapping around while he's trying to do dives and flips. And I can never get past his name. Shingo saved this, though, and Naito is always amusing. There was that. *1/2

MINORU SUZUKI vs. JYUSHIN THUNDER LIGER (17:38): This was a letdown. Liger didn't wear his whole costume, just a new mask and pants. They set this up by doing a ridiculous, hard core run in with a spike and a table so you figured this would be a hardcore match or something. Nope. It was boring. Liger didn't do any of his high flying. Eh. His retirement tour isn't going so well. *

WILL OSPREAY vs. EL PHANTASMO (27:58): The match of the night! Ospreay is just having one of those years. He's already the best wrestler of 2019 and he's still putting out unbelievably awesome matches. They did pretty much everything. Phantasmo did a dive off an entranceway amidst the crowd. The ref got knocked out and Ishimori interfered. They both kicked out of everything. Phantasmo jumped up from the top rope to give Ospreay a Hurricanrana off the top rope by Ospreay slammed him down in mid-air from like ten feet. This was just nuts. Great match. ***1/2

HIROOKI GOTO, TOMOHIRO ISHII & YOSHI-HASHI vs. JAY WHITE, KENTA & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI (12:27): Ishii and Kenta are on a collision course that will probably end at Wrestle Kingdom even though they already wrestled in August in London when Kenta was legit knocked out. Besides the Kenta/Ishii stuff there wasn't much of anything else noteworthy. Kenta has yet to have a great match in New Japan so fingers crossed we'll get it someday. **1/2

LANCE ARCHER vs. JUICE ROBINSON "NO DQ" (14:58): Archer replaced Moxley and won the U.S. title. They broke a bunch of tables and used chairs. This never heated up into anything special or awesome or anything but it was at least semi-entertaining. Archer had a hell of a G1 but maybe he doesn't have anything left after that because this felt like the old, dull Archer. **

KOTA IBUSHI vs. EVIL (24:05): Ugh...a twenty five minute Evil match. What, are you trying to torture us? I can't wait for the day when Shingo takes Evil's spot up here in the prestigious matches. This was for Ibushi's Wrestle Kingdom title shot contract...which makes no sense because he won the whole fucking G1 to get it and all Evil has to do is win one match to get the same thing? Stupid. Has anyone ever won the contract this way? I'll have to investigate. But of course Ibushi won. If Evil ever main events a Dome then I'm done watching this company. I'm also trying to think of the last good Evil match. Has there ever been one? Maybe Ospreay got a good match out of him once. I'll have to do more investigating. Evil sucks. I will admit that the final flurry was entertaining. The problem was that Evil wasn't winning and that sucked any sort of drama out of this. The other problem is that as big as Okada vs. Ibushi is...the previous times they've wrestled it never turned out as epic and as awesome as you'd think. I hope it's not that they don't have chemistry together and I'm totally wrong and their Dome match is the greatest thing in the world ever. **

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. SANADA (36:21): Sanada loses to Okada all the time so why are they wrestling again? Oh, right, Sanada beat Okada in the G1 which, let's face it, was meaningless because it wasn't the final or semi-final. These two had a better match earlier in the year. It was either the New Japan Cup final or their match right before that. But this was still good, at least by the end when the crowd was into it and there were a bunch of near falls. One glaring issue with this match was that Sanada had his submission hold locked in for probably ten minutes total in this match...which made a lot of this boring. I can see Sanada winning the title but probably at the February show when it doesn't mean as much. **1/2

WWE HELL IN A CELL

Sacramento

NATALYA vs. LACEY EVANS (9:25): And so the greatest week in the history of wrestling has come to an end. Maybe not "greatest" but it certainly was a huge week. It all started with last Friday's Ring of Honor ppv where Rush beat Matt Taven for the title and afterwards Dragon Lee and Rush were fired from CMLL. There was also CMLL's biggest show of the year where Negro Casas lost his hair in a cage match (the show sucked btw). Then we had the big premiere of RAW which featured stars like Ric Flair and Hogan and a bunch of hot angles like Lesnar destroying Mysterio and his kid and Bobby Lashley making out with Rusev's wife Lana in front of him. Then on Wednesday we had a huge NXT episode that went head to head with the first ever episode of AEW's Dynamite on TNT. Adam Cole defended his NXT title against Matt Riddle in a great match and over on AEW Riho won the women's title and Jon Moxley gave Kenny Omega a DDT through a glass coffee table. Then it was the big Smackdown premiere on FOX on Friday. The Rock showed up to roast Baron Corbin, Kevin Owens retired Shane in a Ladder match, and Brock Lesnar beat Kofi Kingston for the title in five seconds then Cain Valasquez showed up to set up a Lesnar/Cain fight in Saudi Arabia. And now to end this insane week was the WWE ppv Hell in a Cell. Granted, that's more than seven days but you get the gist. It's been a crazy week. AEW also beat NXT in the ratings which was noteworthy. And this show ended with the fans booing. Literally it went off the air with everyone booing. Nice. This first match kind of sums up the WWE. They actually did a really good job this week with surprises and stories and good matches. Better than usual, anyway. But this show went off the rails after the Daniel Bryan match. And this show started off very poor with this awfully boring match. Lacey Evans sucks and Natalya is boring. What'd you expect? -No Stars-

BECKY LYNCH vs. SASHA BANKS "HELL IN A CELL" (21:50): Banks is back after being pissed off and wanting out of her contract. So what happened? She signed a new contract! Or is rumored to. I guess money talks or the WWE was just going to keep her sidelined forever so she was a trapped animal. Either way, she's been the WWE's most entertaining women's wrestler forever and she proved it here. This was the match of the night. They didn't do any high dives off the cage or anything, they just used canes and chairs and a table but it was brutal and wild and a hell of match. I suppose they couldn't have ended the show with this because all of the promotion has been about Bray Wyatt but still, this should've closed the show. Lynch kept her title when she submitted Banks. ***

DANIEL BRYAN & ROMAN REIGNS vs. ERICK ROWAN & LUKE HARPER (16:45): This was a wild brawl and very entertaining. Reigns ended up spearing Rowan through one of the announce tables which was cool. A lot of action and the crowd popped big for all of Reigns' spots and did the Yes! chant when Bryan wanted to hug Reigns at the end. Entertaining stuff. **1/2

RANDY ORTON vs. ALI (12:10): Ali lost and didn't look as good as he usually does against 205Live dudes. Ali is awesome, though, so it's kind of sad seeing him in a dull match like this. At least put him in there with someone he can work with doing the high flying style like Ricochet or Mysterio. 1/2*

ASUKA & KAIRI SANE vs. ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS (10:25): Ugh. Asuka and Kairi Sane's tag team name is The Kabuki Warriors. Isn't that racist? Maybe it's not but it sounds racist. It also sounds fucking stupid. Well they won the "coveted" women's tag team titles which have become a joke and, let's face it, were never really turned into anything worthwhile in their short existence so far. I'd have rather seen Sane vs. Asuka. 1/2*

THE VIKING RAIDERS & BRAUN STROWMAN vs. THE O.C. (8:15): Remember how entertaining The War Raiders were in New Japan and Ring of Honor only a year ago? Fuck me but they suck now. What happened? Even The O.C. (which...no, doesn't have anything to do with the great FOX teenage show from years ago) is pretty monotonous these days even though AJ was one of the best wrestlers in the world not too long ago. I'm still not entirely sure why Braun Strowman was in this match and teaming with The Viking Raiders. *

CHAD GABLE vs. KING CORBIN (12:40): There were a bunch of unannounced matches on this show because the WWE spent so much time hyping up Smackdown that they forgot they had a ppv. This was one of them. Or was it? There were four unannounced matches and I'm not even sure which ones they were. Baron Corbin beat Gable on RAW two weeks ago to win the King of the Ring. So this was their third match. Gable beat Corbin after Corbin won the KOTR so I guess this was a rubber match. I will admit that Corbin can be pretty funny when he does heel stuff on the mic but he's never been a good wrestler. Gable tried hard as usual but even he couldn't put together a quality match with Corbin. 1/2*

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. BAYLEY (10:15): Flair won the title in another yawn inducing match. I can see why the WWE's ratings have plummeted in the last year and a lot of people are dying for an alternative like AEW. Flair is a great wrestler. And Bayley had some great matches on NXT. So why is their title match so lame? Give me strength. 1/2*

SETH ROLLINS vs. THE FIEND "HELL IN A CELL" (17:30): I already noted that the show ended with the entire arena booing. I didn't mention that this match was held under red lights that were so stupid and awful looking that it boggles my mind that they decided to go with that bad idea. It looked terrible! And ridiculous! So if the regular lights were on we'd see that Bray Wyatt is just a dude in a clown mask and not scary? We kind of already know that, idiots. They really didn't do much of anything interesting in this match. Rollins finally put a ladder on Bray's head when Bray was lying on the mat and then Seth threw a tool box at the ladder. Okay. Then Seth got a sledgehammer and hit the ladder with it so the ref called for the bell. Yep, a no contest in a Hell in a Cell match. But Mick Foley falling off the top of the cage twice wasn't a no contest? Or Shane jumping off the top of the cell in two different matches wasn't a no contest? Or Dean Ambrose and Rollins falling off the side of the cell through the announce table wasn't a no contest? Or Rikishi falling off the top of the cell onto a truck filled with sawdust wasn't a no contest? Okay, that last one was super dumb and obviously didn't deserve to have a ref stoppage. So the ref stopping this was lame but I guess it was because they didn't want either guy to lose. The Fiend got up anyway and attacked Rollins after the ref stopped it so that was stupid. Someone online posted a shot of the crowd chanting, "Refund," after the match. Nice end to the show! -No Stars-

WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS

Charlotte, NC

DREW GULAK vs. HUMBERTO CARRILLO vs. LINCE DORADO (10:05): Wrestling is about to get interesting. This week, NXT starts a live 2 hour show on the USA network every Wednesday night. And in October, AEW starts their 2 hour live Wednesday night show on TNT and Smackdown moves to FOX on Friday night. This is the beginning before the storm. Will everything totally change? Will the WWE go down in flames and die? It's been pretty much running on fumes lately anyway, and now that the NFL is back the RAW ratings are taking a nose dive. But what about the product? It's been pretty stale for years, right? Summerslam was a monotonous bore. This show was surprisingly better, albeit it was more of the same really and an average show, although entertaining in spots and there certainly wasn't anything completely awful. This opener on the pre-show was the match of the night. Of course it was because Vince probably doesn't know that 205Live exists and thus can't sneak his greedy paws into it and turn it into mush. Gulak isn't particularly exciting, but this match also happened to feature two luchadores who are dynamic and fun to watch. A lot of big dives and flips and near falls and it was great. What happens to 205Live now is up for debate. Everyone seems to think it will be moved to Full Sail University and go on before or after NXT, which would be a vast improvement. Although the problem is what happens to guys when they "graduate" from 205Live? See the next match to view the bone chilling answer. And what the hell happened to Buddy Murphy? ***

AJ STYLES vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER (4:55): Alexander used to be on 205Live and now he's losing to AJ in less than five minutes on the pre-show. I suppose that tells you what Vince thinks of 205Live (wait a minute...you said earlier that Vince doesn't know 205Live exists). These two could have had a match of the year if they had gone thirty minutes. They didn't. And that's the problem with the WWE these days and why a hungry, rabid fanbase is about to explode when AEW starts on TV. As for this actual match: I don't even remember what the hell happened. It was a flash. And why is one of their biggest stars on the pre-show? 1/2*

ROBERT ROODE & DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. SETH ROLLINS & BRAUN STROWMAN (9:40): Rollins and Strowman lost the RAW tag titles to Roode and Ziggler even though I never remember Rollins and Strowman ever winning the titles. That tells you all you need to know about the coveted RAW tag team titles. This was at least entertaining though nothing special. I will say that this PPV was greatly helped by the Charlotte crowd that was not only loud and into every match but seemed to actually be interested in the show and invested in the WWE. Those dumb hicks, right? But it's actually refreshing after watching so many WWE events before a bored, tired, silent crowd or one that chants, "AEW! AEW!" after Kevin Owens was fired on Smackdown last week (if you don't like the WWE why are you going to their events?). **1/2

BAYLEY vs. CHARLOTTE FLAIR (3:45): Short match. Bayley threw Charlotte into a turnbuckle that was missing the padding and then pinned her and ran away. Nice. Would it kill pro-wrestling to have a heel actually win by not cheating? I suppose it happens sometimes. Hell, it just happened at AEW's All Out when PAC submitted Kenny Omega clean. It's just sad to see Bayley be a champ but also be a bad wrestler. 1/2*

THE REVIVAL vs. THE NEW DAY (10:15): Usually these two teams have good matches but this one was flat for whatever reason. The Revival won the Smackdown titles. I could swear that they're supposed to be on RAW, though. *

ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS vs. MANDY ROSE & SONYA DEVILLE (9:05): Mandy Rose is like a model so of course she's a terrible wrestler. Nikki Cross is probably the only one that's a half decent wrestler. At least Bliss is fairly decent and being a heel. I cringed when Bliss got destroyed by the leg-sweep-and-legs-kicked-out-from-under-her-at-the-same-time move (I'm sure it has a name) because Bliss was recently sidelined because of excessive concussions. So let's do a move where she's quickly slammed down on the back of her head! Why the fuck not! Ugh. Bliss and Cross retained the women's tag team title. *

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. THE MIZ (9:35): Sammi Zayn might just be the best thing the WWE has. I guess they're at least using him...although does he even wrestle anymore? You know he's a really good wrestler, right? Do they know that? Lately he's been Nakamura's heel manager even though Vince hates managers and rarely uses them (Paul Heyman is probably the only other one these days). This match sucked but during the match, Sami took the microphone and was making all kinds of jokes and mocking The Miz and doing a play by play during the match. And it wasn't on commentary at the announce table...he had the live mic that the whole crowd could hear. It was hilarious and preposterous (there was a match going on of course while he was talking). Since this show featured all of the titles on the line I'm assuming it was for the IC title. And The Miz sucks worse as a face, if that's possible. *1/2

SASHA BANKS vs. BECKY LYNCH (20:00): This was a good match. Not surprising, as Banks is the WWE's best main roster woman wrestler. She tried to quit and they wouldn't let her so she sat out all summer but is back for some reason. Lynch got DQ'd because she used a chair but she retained the title. They ended knocking out the referee and brawling up and down the arena and out on the concourse. It's so funny seeing them fake punching each other up on the stairs amidst the crowd and everyone is looking at their phones filming it instead of just looking at it. Every "great" moment has to downloaded and then showcased to the world for some reason. Why is that? Validation? Strange how our culture has become that way. The next PPV is the Hell in a Cell. Let's hope these two are in one. It'd be interesting. **1/2

KOFI KINGSTON vs. RANDY ORTON (20:50): Not as terrible as some of their previous matches. Thank the crowd for this, as they were into this match and every near fall and into Kofi. Why was this North Carolina crowd so into this show? Because it wasn't that great of a show. Is life in Charlotte that fucking boring? Or is the WWE just really popular in Charlotte? I don't think it's that popular, as one half of the arena was obviously closed as they intricately and carefully never shot one side of the building. But the crowd loved this basic, no frills match. It was okay. Kofi's reign will go down as one of the least exciting runs ever I think. **

ERICK ROWAN vs. ROMAN REIGNS "NO DQ MATCH" (17:25): Tells you a lot about Kofi and Orton, no? That they don't even get to go on second to last? Reigns is the big dog so he has to go on close to the top. This match was bad. They used the ringside steps. Reigns went through the announce table and another table out on the arena floor. The ending had Luke Harper returning and helping Rowan beat Reigns. I thought Harper was quitting but I guess they threw money at him to return like they did with Gallows and Anderson. Money talks! Why Daniel Bryan wasn't on this show is beyond me. He was supposed to wrestle Reigns at Summerslam and that never happened and now it might never happen. I'm still sad we'll never see Bryan in the G1...but at least put him on this show. I guess the table breaks were amusing. The rest? Eh. *1/2

SETH ROLLINS vs. BRAUN STROWMAN (11:00): Short match for a title main event, right? Have they ever given Strowman the title? I kind of think they never have. And why is that? Kind of weird as he's supposed to be this unstoppable monster who apparently is always stopped. They did give him two kick outs on Rollins' finishing move, though. Rollins had to give Strowman three Curb Stomps to pin him. That actually woke me up when Strowman kicked out at 1 on Rollins' finishing move. What a finishing move! Remember how nobody has ever kicked out of Kenny Omega's finishing move? And so it built his finishing move, The One Winged Angel, into this awesome thing? Well Rollins' finishing move is pretty much the exact opposite now. Nice. I guess Strowman is so big that he can't do a long match. But Walter just did a 45 minute match in NXT UK. Granted, Strowman is no Walter. But this is the main event for the title on a PPV! We need more than 11 minutes, idiots. We need a fucking epic masterpiece! After the match, Bray Wyatt, aka The Fiend, gave Rollins the Sister Abigail by the entrance. That was kind of cool. *1/2

AEW ALL OUT

Chicago

WOMEN'S BATTLE ROYAL (NYLA ROSE): This was an insane weekend for wrestling. On Saturday there were three big shows. NXT UK had a Takeover show from Wales. New Japan had a show from London. And then there was this, AEW's second PPV and their last show before they debut on TNT in October. Considering college football also started on Saturday, the best fighter in  the world (Lomanchenko won at the 02 Arena in London on Saturday) was fighting, and the U.S. Open was going on. It's too bloody much. I kind of want to see the sun. I still haven't watched a second of the NJPW show, although I did watch the NXT UK main event, which was a really good, 42 minute title match between Tyler Bate and Walter, who retained. As for this AEW show...it was great, but not as good as Double or Nothing. This Chicago crowd wasn't as hot as the Vegas crowd. I guess because in Vegas everybody's on vacation, it's an earlier start time so they're more awake, and it's Vegas so they're probably fucking blitzed and don't have to drive. This show started with an hour, free pre-show. This battle royal was never boring but was never awesome or anything. Awesome Kong was in it. Cody's wife was in it. Will Ospreay's lover, Bea Preistely, was in it. Nyla Rose, a big girl, won, and will face Riho on the TV debut for the title. **

PRIVATE PARTY vs. ANGELICO & JACK EVANS (11:35): This was an excellent match. The one dude in Private Party wrestles with sunglasses on, which I think is hilarious. Angelico and Jack Evans have apparently held the AAA tag titles in the past. What this turned into was just a bunch of wild, fast, intricate, creative moves on top of a bunch of high flying. It was sheer spectacle. ***1/2

SOCAL UNCENSORED vs. MARKO STUNT, LUCHASAURUS & JUNGLE BOY (11:45): This was another awesome match with more of the same; a bunch of creative, thrilling moves one after the other and a bunch of high flying. Luchasaurus does a bunch of crazy stuff for a tall guy like the standing moonsault and the Matrix bend-backwards-to-avoid-a-punch maneuver (I'm sure there's a name for that...somewhere). The crowd fucking roared in approval for everything Luchasaurus did. Jungle Boy, who's excellent, didn't get to do much here, though it was fast paced and wild. ***1/2

PAC vs. KENNY OMEGA (23:20): This was supposed to be the big Jon Moxley vs. Omega match but Moxley got a staph infection during the G1 so had to pull out. So we got what I figured would be a better match. It wasn't...but it was definitely Omega's best match so far in AEW. It was kind of weird that this went on so early considering these two superstars are used to being in the main event for a title when in Japan (PAC lost the Dragon Gate title in July...Omega lost the NJPW title in January). Omega did his patented over the top rope dive and hit is feet on the metal guardrail. PAC did a moonsault off of the top rope and hit his feet on the guardrail. Maybe they forget that this isn't Japan where if there is a guardrail it's like twenty feet away. For whatever reason the crowd was not super hot for this. And it never heated up into anything like a classic Omega/Okada bout or anything. This was about as good as PAC's matches in Dragon Gate over the last year. Good but not great. PAC won with a submission hold which the crowd loathed. ***

JIMMY HAVOC vs. JOEY JANELA vs. DARBY ALLIN (15:00): This match was insane. AEW, at least tonight, seemed to be veering into becoming ECW. Which isn't a bad thing...but I kind of hoped it would turn into something like New Japan, which good, long, dramatic matches that the WWE never does. Unfortunately the crowds so far just want tables and blood. Well they got it here. I'm not sure I can even attempt to describe the mayhem in this match. They put thumbtacks in Havoc's mouth then taped his mouth shut then taped him to a chair then Allin did a flip over the top rope and onto Havoc on the chair. Yep. They used a staple gun. Havoc gave Janela paper cuts between his fingers and on his mouth with a sheet of paper which, let's be honest, the crowd popped big for but it was stupid. Allin did a skateboard trick from the top rope onto Janela's back and the bottom of the skateboard had thumbtacks on it. I guess I could just describe everything but it might sound like I'm a crazy person. Allin did a back drop with a wooden barrel from the top rope onto the steel stairs and the barrel shattered into a million pieces. Janela did a gruesome over the top rope DDT type of slam on Allin through a ringside table. This was truly a clusterfuck of epic proportions. And perhaps the best match of the show. ***1/2

THE DARK ORDER vs. BEST FRIENDS (13:40): The Dark Order just doesn't get much of a crowd response. I'm not sure why, because as The Super Smash Brothers, they've had some great matches in the past with The Young Bucks in Ring of Honor. They're definitely entertaining but the crowd doesn't like them for whatever reason. The Best Friends are popular but not the most entertaining to be honest. This wasn't bad or anything just kind of okay, especially going after that last match. Post-match, Orange Cassidy showed up after the lights went out and did a dive through the ropes while keeping his hands in his pockets. I guess his gimmick is he's too cool? **1/2

RIHO vs. HIKARU SHIDA (13:35): The crowd actually made more noise for this match than the last, which, let's face it, is astounding. Two Japanese girls wrestling? It wasn't great or anything but Riho, the young, skinny, small girl is great. She's actually teaming up with Omega in a tag match for DDT in November. And she'll probably end up being AEW's first women's champ since she won here and will face Nyla Rose for the title. **1/2

CODY vs. SHAWN SPEARS (16:20): Spears used to be in the WWE. Remember him? He was called the Perfect Ten or something stupid? For whatever reason, AWE crowds love Cody. I'm not exactly sure why. He's not a particularly good wrestler. But in this company he's a fucking star. And while this match wasn't much of anything, there was a ton of outside interference from legends that brought the crowd to an orgiastic frenzy. Tully Blanchard, who used to wrestle Dusty Rhodes a lot back in the day, was in Spears' corner. Eventually Arn Anderson came out to slam Spears which got the loudest pop of the night. All of this spectacle made this feel like a big time PPV match. And, Jesus Christ, when was the last time a WWE match felt like that? **1/2

THE LUCHA BROTHERS vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS "LADDER MATCH" (21:00): This match reminded me of the Naito/Ibushii match from Dominion in June. That match was incredible, one of the year's best, but afterwards I thought that I never want to see them do it again. After this match I thought the same thing. Never do a ladder match again with these two teams. They're going to fucking kill each other. There were two spots that were so brutal I thought someone was going to die. And I'm not even talking about the Canadian Destroyer that Pentagon did on one of the Jackson's through a table from the top of a ladder. Are you kidding me? That has to be the craziest spot in the history of wrestling. Seriously. One of the Jackson's was supposed to fall of a ladder and through two ringside tables but his foot caught the rope and it whiplashed him straight down hard and he landed through the table headfirst. That was brutal and oh-so hard to watch. He's lucky he's not paralyzed or dead. The other spot was when Pentagon pushed a ladder out from one of the Jackson's and he fell right onto the ladder in a sickening thud. There was also a Pentagon package piledriver on one of the Jackson's onto a ladder bridge. This was just a car crash and while it was entertaining and exciting and all of that by the end it was just difficult to see so much suffering. There match at Double or Nothing, which didn't have ladders or anything and was just a wrestling match, was still insane but not this insane and was a better match. This was the 6th time this year these teams wrestled each other and I think it's hopefully the last. The Lucha Brothers retained their AAA tag titles. After this match, TNA's LAX showed up to a crowd that sort of, kind of knew who they were. ***1/2

CHRIS JERICHO vs. ADAM PAGE (26:25): And now we come to the dud of the night which also happened to be the longest and the main event. Jericho won the title here in a long, mostly dull, slow match that never turned into much of anything. Page did his moonsault off of the edge of the ring and Jericho hit him with a Code Breaker. Jericho bled. Jericho wasn't as fat as he was in his previous matches so I guess he hit the gym since Dominion. But he's still 48 and still slow and while making the big star the champ makes sense...does anyone really want to see title, main event matches with Jericho? Nope. Page has never been a main event star in my mind and he didn't exactly prove it here. Granted, there's not much to do with Jericho besides brawl. Naito learned this, as his match earlier this year at Wrestle Kingdom against Jericho was actually, shockingly pretty good, probably because Naito is a crazy person who will take DDT's on ringside tables. So Jericho is the champ and now we have to wait a month until the TV debut on TNT. This show was crazy and great. Will we get sick of it when it's on every week, though? I guess we'll see. After all, every great or popular TV show either dies or turns into something as boring as RAW. *

WWE SUMMERSLAM

Toronto

DREW GULAK vs. ONEY LORCAN (8:45): I was on vacation during Summerslam weekend so I missed a ton of wrestling and it took me about a week to catch up. There was of course the last three nights of New Japan's G1 tournament. Usually the A and B block finales are best of the year type matches, but this year they weren't. Probably blame Jay White for that, as he's not really on par with the likes of Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Tanahashi, Ishii...I guess I could go on. The Ibushi/Okada match was good not great...so that doesn't entirely give me hope for their inevitable Dome main event next year. Ibushi and Okada are both awesome, but for whatever reason against each other there nowhere near Omega/Okada. The final had Jay White vs. Ibushi with Ibushi winning. That match was great late but not as good as last year's Ibushi/Tanahashi final. Ishii and Ospreay were the MVP's of the tournament and Shingo Takagi was probably the close second. Ring of Honor also put on a big show on Friday night of Summerslam weekend in the same city, Toronto, as Summerslam and Takeover. While it was an entertaining show main evented by a Ladder War match between The Uso's and The Briscoe's, the crowd size was small and disappointing. Ring of Honor has a major problem these days with getting crowds to their shows and I can't really envision them existing in the future. The funny thing about that is that this will probably be ROH's biggest money making year ever thanks to the Madison Square Garden sell-out in April. The other big show of the weekend was the Takeover show, a typical, entertaining NXT show, although it wasn't as good a show as they usually put on. Every match was good except for the Shayna Baszler match. The main event was another great match between Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole, although they did a stupid two out of three falls match where one fall was a wrestling match, one a street fight, and one a weapons filled cage. These two are the rare types that can put on a four star match without gimmicks so the weapons filled cage wasn't needed and detracted. That match went 46 minutes...so it was definitely epic. And here we finally come to Summerslam, the dud of the bunch. I suppose after watching awesome matches every night in the G1 and then watching Takeover...it's tough to give a shit about the WWE main roster. It's honestly as bad and as lifeless as I can ever remember. The main event was good, although not as half as good as those great Lesnar matches five or so years ago when CM Punk faced Lesnar at Summerslam and John Cena faced Lesnar in his re-debut. And how can you forget that awesome Royal Rumble match with Cena vs. Lesnar vs. Rollins? So the show started with the 205Live title match. 205Live has just gotten unwatchable. I suppose it's because the champ, Gulak, is a bore. This was typically average. *

BUDDY MURPHY vs. APOLLO CREWS (4:20): Murphy made 205Live great...then he left and disappeared only to reappear facing Crews in a four minute, nothing match. Huh? Murphy is a star and should be the champ and main eventing. Oh, well. Murphy did some cool stuff here but no one cared. *1/2

ALEXA BLISS & NIKKI CROSS vs. THE ICONICS (6:15): I think the one problem with the WWE is they have all these lame, short matches. Seriously, when was the last time a match of the year candidate was under ten minutes? Has it ever happened? You have to build drama and suspense and get people invested. Whatever. I suppose it's good that this match didn't go thirty. Bliss and Cross retained the Women's tag titles...titles I swore The Iconics never lost. Okay. This was as awful as one would expect. 1/2*

BECKY LYNCH vs. NATALYA (12:35): This wasn't terrible. Natalya is Canadian so the crowd was somewhat into this. They popped big when she put Lynch into the Sharpshooter. Then Lynch won. **

GOLDBERG vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER (1:50): Okay. Why is Goldberg facing Ziggler? Does it matter? I mean...Goldberg is a legend and only comes out to wrestle once in a blue moon...so, you know, why not make it special? Not just some random, early-on-the-card, superfluous match? It was short. And, hell, a lot better than Goldberg's last match, his Undertaker match in Saudi Arabia that was perhaps the worst match in the history of wrestling. The crowd liked this. Goldberg did a sick spear. It pointless fun. **1/2

AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET (13:00): There are a lot of reasons that the WWE depresses me, but nothing worse than seeing them utterly humiliate, embarrass, and destroy Ricochet, who only a few years ago was one of the best and most exciting wrestlers in the world. Tonight they made him wear this stupid, Tron-like body suit that was so stupid looking it made me cringe in embarrassment. There's no way in hell he wanted to wear that. Did he? He looked like a fucking moron. Not to mention that AJ Styles vs. Ricochet didn't have a good match. In what world do these two not have a good match? In the WWE universe. I guess it wasn't awful. But it was fucking depressing as hell. When's Ricochet's contract up? *1/2

BAYLEY vs. EMBER MOON (10:00): Bayley is the Women's champ. But there's two women's champs. So she's, like, the lesser champ. I'm grasping at straws. This was another awful match. This show sucked. Did you figure that out yet? Maybe I should have reviewed the G1 tournament this year like I did last year. Although fast-forwarding through Bad Luck Fale's matches has its perks. -No Stars-

KEVIN OWENS vs. SHANE MCMAHON (9:20): If Owens lost he had to quit the WWE. That's like a reward these days. He should've just laid down and taken the pin! If Shane lost...nothing happened. Nice stipulation! Makes zero sense. They really need to forget about this "evil boss" storyline with the McMahons that's, like, twenty years too old. I will say that Elias singing his Toronto sucks song before this was funny. Elias was the special guest enforcer or something during this match. Seriously, what the hell is going on with this company? And they expect to go on FOX and deliver big ratings? Oh, boy, are they fucked. *1/2

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. TRISH STRATUS (16:40): Trish is 43. I'm not entirely sure why she's back and wrestling this one-off. It actually got good late (this was the longest match on the show). The crowd was semi into it. The place was sold out, so any sort of crowd reaction helped the matches that were actually not half bad. **

KOFI KINGSTON vs. RANDY ORTON (16:45): This ended as a double count out. Ugh. Was making Kofi the champ a mistake? I don't know...because his match to win the title was awesome...but every match since has been terrible. Orton is too old to be in good matches anymore, so maybe it's not Kofi's fault. But, seriously, a double count out? If they're trying to save something for a rematch...then do they forget that this is supposed to be the 2nd biggest show of the year? What the fuck are you saving a rematch for? Some dumb B-ppv no one is going to watch or care about? 1/2*

THE FIEND vs. FINN BALOR (3:25): Bray Wyatt is now The Fiend. His gimmick is kind of scary and kind of basically Sami Callihan. It surprised me that Wyatt actually wrestled with his evil clown mask on. I'm not sure how far they expect to go with this "character" when he's going to eventually have to wrestle longer matches and not just be a stupid, scary gimmick thing. I feel bad for Finn Balor. Remember a few years ago at Summerslam he WON THE FUCKING TITLE? Yeah, even the WWE forgets that apparently. *1/2

SETH ROLLINS vs. BROCK LESNAR (13:25): This was entertaining. And this was the longest Brock Lesnar match in years. Rollins did a frog splash from the top rope to Lesnar down on the announce table. That was cool and, also, been-there-done-that. They kind of sort of did a back and forth which is the only thing that makes Lesnar matches work (the WWE probably doesn't realize this). If it's just Lesnar beating you down and then finally a miraculous comeback it's boring. So this had Rollins do a little more offense and eventually win the title. I'm not sure why he even lost the title last month if he was just going to win it back. This show was atrociously dull but at least this main event was pretty good. **1/2

WWE EXTREME RULES

Philly

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. FINN BALOR (7:40): Extreme Rules? More like Extreme Crap. God was this show a bore. None of the matches were really awful, just the entire show was a lifeless pile of nothingness. I suppose Lesnar winning the title to close the show gave it some notoriety...although Lesnar being the champion yet again isn't very exciting anymore. This match was early on the hour long pre-show. The whole night started at 6 and ended a little before 11. No, we do not want a 5 hour B-PPV. This match was short and pretty basic.WWE is awful these days if you haven't realized that yet. *

DREW GULAK vs. TONY NESE (7:25): So this was a gigantic weekend for wrestling. There were G1 shows on Saturday and Sunday. AXS TV showed the Saturday G1 show on tape delay in a two hour block from 9 to 11 PM on Saturday night. AEW had their third show from Jacksonville on Saturday night and it was free on the Bleacher Report Live App. And Evolve, an indy promotion, had their 10th anniversary show live on the WWE Network on Saturday night. It was the first non-WWE show on the network. The reason it was on was because Gulak faced Matt Riddle and Tozawa faced Adam Cole for the NXT title on the show. It also took place at the ECW Arena in Philly...and this show, Extreme Rules, was in Philly the next night on Sunday so the WWE crew was already in town anyway. So Gulak had two big bouts this weekend. Both were average at best, surprisingly. Maybe it's because Gulak isn't that good? Hmmm. This match was one of the worst 205Live PPV matches in recent memory. They're usually pretty entertaining. I don't know...it was too short and not very exciting. Gulak retained the Cruiserweight title. *1/2

THE UNDERTAKER & ROMAN REIGNS vs. SHANE McMAHON & DREW McINTYRE (17:00): Well the crowd loved The Undertaker...even though he's old and cumbersome and shouldn't be wrestling anymore. I will say that he looked better than he did against Goldberg in Saudi Arabia in what has to be the worst match of the year (or any year). The Undertaker tried to pick up Shane at the end and couldn't so he tried again and could do it so he delivered the Tombstone Piledriver and won. This was supposed to be a hardcore match or a no DQ match or something. Shane jumped off the top rope and did an elbow drop onto The Undertaker on the announce table. Shane also did a coast to coast drop kick onto a trashcan and The Undertaker. I'm still not sure why Reigns and The Undertaker were teaming up. Remember that Reigns retired The Undertaker in the main event of a WrestleMania a few years back? I suppose this wasn't terrible. That's about the best I can say. **

THE REVIVAL vs. THE USO'S (12:35): These two have had great matches in the past. I'm not entirely sure why this just turned out mediocre. Every match from this on just seemed to be plodding and lifeless. Maybe after the crowd cheered for everything The Undertaker did they decided that they did enough cheering and caring for the night. *1/2

ALEISTER BLACK vs. CAESARO (9:45): If these two put on a thirty minute, main event title match somewhere it probably would be a four star, excellent match. Well a nine minute, meaningless match in the middle of a long night just isn't going to cut it. Black looked good. Caesaro is a master. But this was just too short to turn into anything worthwhile. **

BAYLEY vs. NIKKI CROSS & ALEXA BLISS (10:30): I was taking out the trash during most of this match (I should have also taken this match out! To the trash! Get it?), so I didn't hear the announcer's explanation as to who would be the champion if Nikki or Alexa had pinned Bayley. I guess who ever pinned her? But that wouldn't make sense because it wasn't a triple threat match it was a handicap match. The reason it was a handicap match was because Alexa had a bunch of concussions lately and they wanted her to lay low. This was by far the worst match on the show...although, granted, I didn't see the whole thing. 1/2*

BRAUN STROWMAN vs. BOBBY LASHLEY "LAST MAN STANDING" (17:30): Ugh. The finale had Braun slamming Lashley through a completely stupid, fake looking cardboard box set in the crowd. It was so fake looking and they knew it so they didn't even show the landing and didn't light it properly. They brawled all over the arena and out on the concourse for what seemed like hours. Who knew that two big men battling all over the arena for hours would be boring? Maybe if they had actually done something exciting around the arena besides fake punch each other and toss each other into walls. Is that exciting to you? There was a, "This is awesome!" chant during this match...but there was also one during the Daniel Bryan match and, let's face it, neither were awesome. *1/2

THE NEW DAY vs. DANIEL BRYAN & ROWAN vs. HEAVY MACHINERY (14:00): This was the best match on the show. Daniel Bryan & Rowan had a good match against Heavy Machinery last month on the PPV. And throw in The New Day and you at least get some entertainment. They weren't exactly re-inventing the wheel but it was fun. **1/2

AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET (16:30): So what happened to Ricochet exactly? Did the WWE just neuter him like they do everyone? Because he used to be one of my favorite wrestlers and he used to be exciting and in great matches. AJ won the title here. What title? I think it was the U.S. title. Isn't AJ Styles like a big, main event star? So why's he have the U.S. title? I give up. If Ricochet and AJ Styles can't have a great match, then nobody in the WWE can. *1/2

KEVIN OWENS vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER (0:30): Wasn't Dolph battling Kofi for the title last month? So why is he losing in thirty seconds to Owens? Owens now has a new storyline. He's doing the CM Punk Pipe Bomb schtick and this time he's against Shane McMahon. I guess the WWE's solution to their dying ratings and product is to reach back into the closet for ideas that worked years ago. They hired Eric Bischoff to run Smackdown because I guess he was successful in the late 90's? They put Heyman in charge of RAW because I guess he was successful with ECW in the late 90's? Becky Lynch is basically doing the 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin gimmick. Does this company not believe in new, fresh ideas? Well, obviously not since Lesnar is the new champ. 1/2*

KOFI KINGSTON vs. SOMOA JOE (9:45): Yawn. I guess Kofi's title run is officially a disappointment. 1/2*

SETH ROLLINS & BECKY LYNCH vs. BARON CORBIN & LACEY EVANS/ 
BROCK LESNAR vs. SETH ROLLINS: I think even Wikipedia got bored with this match because this was the only match that they didn't print how long it went. I'll just tell you: it was too fucking long. This match was super boring and went on forever and nothing remotely exciting happened. Seriously, though, what did you expect? The main event of a WWE PPV is Seth Rollins & Becky Lynch vs. Baron Corbin & Lacey Evans. That's a bad RAW main event, not a PPV main event. The WWE even knew it, as they flew in Lesnar to cash in his Money in the Bank title to beat Rollins after the match and win the title. The crowd did pop when Lesnar came out...though when he pinned Rollins the crowd didn't seem that exciting. The whole, Lesnar is an unstoppable beast thing is old hat and oh-so tired. Lesnar has only been exciting when he's been in long, back and forth matches. When he just comes out and destroys someone and wins it's awful. So of course they did that. As for the match that proceeded the Lesnar cash-in: it was a no DQ match or a hardcore match or something. They used Singapore canes. They did a double table spot where Lynch went off the apron onto Lacey and a table and Rollins did a Frog Splash onto Corbin through a table from the top rope. The big moment that seemed to wake up the crowd was when Corbin gave Becky Lynch an End of Days. I guess this is shocking since the WWE rarely has men hit women. So Lesnar is the champ and the WWE is still really, really bad. The only thing extreme about this show was how extremely dull it was. *1/2

WWE STOMPING GROUNDS

Tacoma, Washington

DREW GULAK vs. AKIRA TOZAWA vs. TONY NESE (11:20): This was the only match on the card I thought would be any good and it turned out to be the best match of the night. A better company would have Tozawa vs. Ricochet in the main event for the title. The WWE is sadly not that company. Gulak ended up winning the 205Live title that Nese had. This was all action and the hot crowd made this even better. There were two particular head bumps that made me wonder if Nese had been watching Naito/Ibushi matches recently. Not a good thing! So Gulak is now the champ of a show nobody watches or cares about. Kind of sad that the best match of the show featured wrestlers relegated to the purgatory of 205Live. ***

BECKY LYNCH vs. LACEY EVANS (11:30): Evans was amusing in the main event later on as the heel referee. Maybe they should just make her Corbin's manager or something, because she can do everything but wrestle. She's a pretty blonde so of course they gave her a push...but this match was a complete bore and Evans just seems flustered and lost amidst the wrestling moves. Charlotte Flair wasn't even on this show. I'd be happy if Lynch faced Charlotte on every PPV until the end of time to be honest. 1/2*

KEVIN OWENS & SAMI ZAYN vs. THE NEW DAY (11:05): Good match. Zayn and Owens together are two of the only watchable things on RAW these days. It probably helps that they can both actually wrestle in entertaining matches. The crowd was hot for this (later on they died and started chanting various, random things) and Xavier Woods and Big E. are usually always in fast-paced, fun matches. This was bell to bell non-stop action. ***

RICOCHET vs. SAMOA JOE (12:25): If these two had wrestled four years ago in PWG it might have been the greatest match ever. Hell, if these two wrestled in another company today it would have been better. It was a good match but never turned into anything great. Ricochet, for whatever reason, just seems like a shell of his former self. He still does most of his flips and leaps and jumps and dives but for whatever reason it doesn't connect in the way that Will Ospreay's arsenal of maneuvers does. If you remember that infamous Ospreay/Ricochet match from a few years ago...they were pretty much on par with each other, yet now Ospreay is the best wrestler in the world and Ricochet is perhaps a little better than okay. He did usually excel in multi-man tag matches in New Japan, so maybe he was just never cut out for single matches. Or maybe Joe is just too old these days. The first half was a beat-down bore, then the second half was fairly dramatic. Ricochet won the U.S. title and looked like he just won the lottery. It's not that great of a title, kid. **1/2

DANIEL BRYAN & ROWAN vs. HEAVY MACHINERY (14:25): Good match, thanks mostly to the loud and proud Washington crowd. Bryan was born in Aberdeen, Washington so of course they showered him with approval and cheers and booed the good guys. They even cheered for Rowan. Heavy Machinery are pretty much two fat/fun guys. This wasn't exactly anything special, fresh, or new. But it was watchable. **1/2

BAYLEY vs. ALEXA BLISS (10:35): And here is where the show, which was pretty good up to this point, fell off a cliff. This was perhaps the worst match ever. Well, not really, but it was still awful. Bliss has never been and never will be in a good match ever. Bayley should just go back to NXT and wrestle Sasha Banks, because that's the last time she was ever relevant. This was for the Women's Title, which Bayley retained. This was simply the definition of boring. -No Stars-

ROMAN REIGNS vs. DREW McINTYRE (17:20): This match was also awful...until the last few minutes. The end was somewhat exciting with some near-falls and Shane giving Reigns the coast-to-coast dropkick when the ref was knocked out. These two are just both so fucking dull, lifeless, and mediocre. *

KOFI KINGSTON vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER "STEEL CAGE MATCH" (20:00): I'm really not sure what match was worse, this or the Bayley/Bliss one. This match was so God-awful boring. Ziggler showed up out of nowhere last month to wrestle Kofi for the title in Saudi Arabia after being gone for seemingly years. Now they're in a steel cage match that put everyone in the Tacoma Dome to sleep. Yes, Kofi had a great match at 'Mania against Bryan. Perhaps that was a fluke, because he definitely doesn't have the chops to put on great, main event matches. Nobody did anything suicidal off the cage. The finish had Dolph crawling out of the door but Kofi leaped through the ropes over him and landed on the floor to retain his title. Groan. 1/2*

SETH ROLLINS vs. BARON CORBIN (18:25): You know this PPV had zero interest when this main event was announced. Everyone hates Corbin except Vince. They've pushed Corbin to the fucking moon for some reason. I'm almost kind of shocked he didn't win the title (they have to save their Lesnar/Rollins Summerslam main event, I suppose). The hatred for Corbin isn't the usual heel heat, though. People don't hate him because he's a bad guy and he mocks the crowd. No, they hate him because he's an awful wrestler and he sucks and why are they pushing him? It's mind boggling. They did save this match from being a dumpster fire by having Corbin pick Lacey Evans to be the special referee. Which meant we got all of the hilarious, heel ref shenanigans. Slow counts and non-counts. Lacey changed the match to a "No Count Out" match when Baron couldn't make the ten count after being put through the announce table. Then Lacey made the match a "No DQ" match when Corbin started beating Seth with a steel chair. Yes, all of that heel ref schtick has been done a million times before but I still found it to be amusing and entertaining. It sure made this match a hell of a lot better than it had any right to be. The crowd chanted, "AEW," "Daniel Bryan," and "boring" during this match, although they got into it by the half way mark and popped big when Becky Lynch finally came out to beat up Lacey (Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch are dating in real life...which the announcers have been telling us constantly for the last few weeks). I was entertained by the second half of this match. Which, for the WWE these days, is a complete and utter shock. "Wait...you were entertained?" I can't believe it either. **1/2

NJPW DOMINION

Osaka

JON MOXLEY vs. SHOTA UMINO (3:52): Moxley, formerly Dean Ambrose in the WWE, is now a free agent and seemingly popping up everywhere cool. He had his first big TV match since leaving the WWE on Wednesday here in Japan against Juice Robinson where he won the U.S. title. He isn't really doing anything different, but he just looks like a caged animal set free. He looks happier, more loose, and the crowds in Japan love him. This was more just a showcase for him since Umino is just a trainee Young Lion dude. Moxley won fairly quickly and announced that he'll be in this year's G1, which, although it's losing Omega, is gaining Moxley, Shingo Takagi, Will Ospreay, and Kenta, who came out with Shibata for some reason to announce his G1 entrance. *1/2

SHINGO TAKAGI vs. SATOSHI KOJIMA (11:14): Kojima was just in Canada and the states wrestling for Ring of Honor. You can pretty much tell how far Ring of Honor has fallen lately that they sent Kojima there instead of someone good like, I don't know, Okada? This was another showcase, since Takagi lost to Ospreay on Wednesday in the Super Jr.'s final and he needed a bounce back. Takagi had been undefeated in New Japan until losing to Ospreay, which kind of took the wind out of his sails and beating Kojima isn't really a help. I will say this, though: that Ospreay/Takagi match was so far the best match of the year. And, honestly, that show on Wednesday was better than this. Which is kind of shocking because Dominion has been one of the year's best wrestling shows of the year the last few years. *

JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER & YOSHI-HASHI vs. MINORU SUZUKI & ZACK SABRE, JR. (9:39): The one thing that the WWE does better than NJPW is that on their PPV's they at least have wall to wall big matches, not just random, multi-person filler matches like this. Not that the WWE PPV's are stacked with "big" matches...but at least they attempt to set up stuff beyond crap like this. Liger is apparently retiring soon, probably at next year's Dome, so he seems like he's more energetic and on fire lately. He got in the ring and kicked his partner, Yoshi-Hashi, in the back during the match. Not to turn on him but to motivate him. Uh...okay. 1/2*

HIROSHI TANAHASHI, JUICE ROBINSON & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. JAY WHITE, CHASE OWENS & TAIJI ISHIMORI (9:48): After this match, Tanahashi was doing commentary, which I thought was a good sign that his recent surgery probably didn't go well and he's easing into the sunset. But no! He's apparently fighting Jericho in the future and that's why he was doing commentary. He did have a pretty good match on Wednesday against Jay White. But this was just a nothing match. Juice cut his dreadlocks and looks like a chump...even though I thought his dreadlocks looked fucking stupid. Go figure. *

TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. TAICHI (11:16): Jeff Cobb won the NEVER title at Madison Square Garden in April. Then he lost it to Taichi who lost it to Ishii here. The NEVER title has to be the dumbest title going these days. Oh, wait. The WWE 24/7 title might have that beat. Ishii will probably go down in history as the greatest wrestler to never win the big title. He's too old now. Probably. Taichi sucks and always will no matter how many idiot wrestling writers online change their mind. *1/2

GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY vs. EVIL & SANADA (16:38): So far, this show is fairly awful. Which is a surprise since on Wednesday they had a hell of a show and the Super Jr. tournament was great. I'm not sure why I'm not reviewing Wednesday's show, as I keep talking about it. This match was for the tag team titles. The Guerrillas also have the Ring of Honor tag titles. This was not good at all. I'm not sure I've ever seen a good Guerrillas of Destiny match nor ever will. The Young Bucks couldn't even get a good match out of them. *

WILL OSPREAY vs. DRAGON LEE (20:07): This probably would have been a four star, memorable match...if Will Ospreay hadn't just had the match of the year on Wednesday against Takagi. This was awesome, sure, but it paled in comparison to that epic. As much as I love Dragon Lee, I think it's fairly obvious that the best matches he'll ever be in are the ones against Hiromu. Ospreay won the Jr. title here...which seems pointless as he's apparently a heavyweight now. There was one particular insane move that occurred during this match. Dragon Lee sat Ospreay on the metal, crowd barrier in front of the announcers and then went into the ring, ran the ropes and dove through the middle ropes like a torpedo, hit Ospreay going a million miles a hour and they both toppled over the announce table to the floor, knocking one of the announcers over. It was crazy. These two are nuts. But this is New Japan, where everyone is on the precipice of breaking their neck, so the next match had even bigger nuts wrestling. ***

TETSUYA NAITO vs. KOTA IBUSHI (22:06): Fuck. Do these two want to be paralyzed? Do they have a death wish? I'm not even joking...but if I was someone in charge in New Japan I would never let these two wrestle each other again. Ibushi already broke his neck once years ago and Naito is halfway to life in a wheelchair, but they still continue to up the ante to self destruction. I guess all of this means is that this was an incredible match, their best of the year, and it was by far the most cringeworthy match of the year. I truly couldn't believe what I was seeing during most of this. How these two aren't paralyzed or dead after this is miraculous. There were a thousand DDT's and moves where one or the other landed on their head or neck badly...but the one that everyone will probably be talking about is the gruesome ring apron spot. Naito seemed to be attempting to give Ibushi a belly to belly suplex from the ring apron to the floor. I'm not sure if Ibushi was supposed to land on his feet or really take it but what ended up happening is the side of Ibushi's head hit the edge of the ring and then he fell to the floor. I watched the replay a few times and still have no idea what they were trying to do. It reminded me of that botched Spanish Fly that Ospreay did to Scurll last year on the ring apron. This match was definitely not for the squeamish. But it was also by far the match of the night and the crowd seemed to be into it. This probably should have been the main event. I really hope these two dopes are put in separate G1 sections. I'm not sure I want to see them kill each other for real. I've already seen Shibata's career end and Hiromu break his neck in the last few years and I'm still heartbroken and sad about both of those tragedies. I love New Japan, but sometimes, sometimes you've got to just dial it back. ***1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. CHRIS JERICHO (25:43): Well of course this was boring and it sucked. I haven't been Jericho's biggest fan lately, even though a lot of the wrestling critics online seem to love his matches. Meltzer gave the Jericho/Omega match last year 5 stars and I gave it *1/2. I did like the Jericho/Naito match from this year's Dome...but maybe that was more because Naito is a maniac and the Dome crowd was loud and into it. The crowd during this match was mostly a silent tomb, occasionally chanting, "Okada" and then by the end, "Y2J." Jericho did just wrestle a long, grueling match two weeks ago against Omega. But he didn't look lost or out of it or tired. He looked like his usual, old, fat self and did all of his usual antics. He lost by a roll-up and then beat up Okada post-match with a chair until Tanahashi, who was on commentary, made the save. Considering Tanahashi is more beat up, broken, battered, old, and slow than Jericho...that match isn't exactly going to be a classic. This show was not New Japan at it's greatest, although Ospreay/Lee and Naito/Ibushii were both awesome and memorable. Dominion has had a string of excellent main events lately, so I suppose the party had to end. Remember Okada/Styles? The 60 minute Omega/Okada draw? Last year's 60+ Omega win against Okada? So yeah, this year's main event is kind of lame when compared to those classics. Hopefully Jericho will sail off into the sunset with AEW and get the hell out of this company and soon. Because nobody wants to see a former great star tiredly walk around a ring anymore. *