WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

Phoenix

BOBBY ROODE & CHAD GABLE vs. SCOTT DAWSON & REZAR (6:55): This show was held at the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball stadium (which does have a roof), which made it look fairly impressive (it wasn't sold out but it was about 80% filled...tickets were apparently being sold two-for-one as of last week since it wasn't selling as well as they had hoped). The pre-show started at 5 PM Eastern and didn't end until around 11:50 PM. Yep, too fucking long. Although it was a pretty entertaining show for the most part, albeit without any great matches nor shocking surprises. I didn't see this unadvertised match nor want to. I'm not even sure why Rezar and Dawson were teaming up except for the fact that Rezar's tag team partner is hurt and Dawson and his partner asked for their WWE release last week but I guess were denied.

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. RUSEV (10:15): Nakamura won the Royal Rumble last year. Ah, how the mighty have fallen. He never did get the title...although he won back the U.S. title here in a so-so match. **

BUDDY MURPHY vs. AKIRA TOZAWA vs. KALISTO vs. HIDEO ITAMI (12:05): There was some good action in this bout, even though Murphy doesn't look at all like a cruiserweight. Hideo Itami may have been a huge Japanese star ten years ago (Kenta, from NOAH), but he fucking sucks in the WWE and always has. Tozawa used to wrestle in Dragon Gate and he's pretty much wasted in the WWE. 205Live has and always will be a joke, no matter how great the wrestling is, so what's the fucking point of it? **1/2

ASUKA vs. BECKY LYNCH (17:10): This turned into a pretty entertaining match by the end. It was light year's better than what used to be and what usually is (on RAW, anyway) women's wrestling in the WWE. It was hard hitting. Asuka delivered some brutal kicks. Lynch is the crowd favorite and tapped out but showed up later to win the Rumble. **1/2

THE MIZ & SHANE McMHAON vs. THE BAR (13:20): I'm still not sure why The Miz and Shane O'Mac are tag team partners now. They won the titles. Is this story going anywhere? Because Shane is kind of sad and pathetic in the ring these days, although the crowd stood on their feet when he climbed to the top rope for his Van Terminator maneuver. I guess this was mildly amusing. **

RONDA ROUSEY vs. SASHA BANKS (13:55): This was just okay. They didn't particularly mesh well, which hurt. Banks has always been my favorite WWE women's wrestler, mostly because of her awesome NXT matches years ago. This wasn't awful or anything, but Rousey usually delivers and this was just mediocre. **

WOMEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (BECKY LYNCH) (1:12:00): God, was this fucking boring. Hornswoggle crawled out from under the ring for no apparent reason. Selina Vega was hiding under the ring and he came out and chased her. Lynch took Lana's #30 position because Lana was injured and fell down while walking to the ring (she was "injured" during the Nakamura/Rusev match). Nia Jax was eliminated but then pushed Lynch off the steel stairs, injuring Lynch's ankle. So Lynch, hurt, had to face Charlotte at the end and ended up winning. The Charlotte/Lynch feud is so heated it's kind of a shame that at WrestleMania the main event will be Rousey vs. Flair vs. Lynch. I'd rather just see Lynch vs. Flair. Oh, well. *

DANIEL BRYAN vs. AJ STYLES (24:35): Fuck me. This match was a total bore. It certainly didn't help that the crowd was a silent tomb. Instead of going fast and furious and doing non-stop, big moves and kick-outs they did all of these dull, wrestling holds for twenty minutes. The ending was also atrocious. Luke Harper came out and slammed AJ when the ref was out, leading to Bryan winning. Harper is now, apparently, Bryan's bodyguard/enforcer. Total bore of a match and a sour ending. This sucked hard. 1/2*

BROCK LESNAR vs. FINN BALOR (8:40): Good match. They went back and forth instead of the usual, Lesnar beat down...which made this entertaining. Balor threw Lesnar into the announce desk and Lesnar hurt his ribs so that later on he had a hard time doing his moves...and Finn's finisher of course is jumping feet first onto his opponent's chest. Lesnar kicked out though and then submitted Finn and the obvious ending occurred. So Finn came across as a worthy opponent but of course they did a post-match beat down that negated that. Oh, well. **1/2

MEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (SETH ROLLINS) (57:35): This match didn't start until around 11 PM and what the hell, WWE? A seven hour show? Are you fucking nuts? #1 was Elias and #2 was Jeff Jarrett...who last we saw got his head shaved in AAA in Mexico. JJ wasn't the big surprise. The big surprise and the most entertaining moment of the entire night was when Nia Jax beat up R. Truth, who was #30, and took his spot. Usually the WWE doesn't let men hit women for whatever reason (old school values?), but Nia got an RKO from Orton and a 619 from Mysterio which brought the house down. There were a few NXT stars like Gargano and Aleister Black that showed up. Black threw Dean Ambrose out. The final two had Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins. Earlier, Bobby Lashley put Seth through the announce table. Seth ended up winning. He was the favorite. And nobody wants to see Lesnar vs. Seth at WrestleMania. Nope. **1/2

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 13

Tokyo

TOGI MAKABE & TORU YANO & RYSUKE TAGUCHI vs. YUGI NAGATA & JEFF COBB & DAVID FINLAY vs. HIROOKI GOTO & CHUCKIE T. & BERETTA vs. MINORU SUZUKI & LANCE ARCHER & DAVEY BOY SMITH, JR. vs. MARTY SCURLL & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI & HANGMAN PAGE (27:47): This was the pre-show match...meaning the lights in the Dome were still on and it was sort of like the usual, opening Rumble match they typically put on first on this show. This match was for the #1 contender to wrestle for the NEVER 6-man title, a totally superfluous title if there ever was one. You can tell how deep the New Japan roster is because this was the pre-show match and had Jeff Cobb and Hangman Page and Suzuki and Goto and Scurll. Kind of crazy, really, that such big names like Goto and Suzuki were left off the big show and stuck in a silly match like this. It turned out okay. It was way too long. Early on, Jeff Cobb and Page were entertaining, but then it just got tiring. *1/2

WILL OSPREAY vs. KOTA IBUSHI (18:13): Fuck. This is the opener? A match with two of the best wrestlers in the world wrestling each other for the first time? Jesus Christ. The anticipation was monumental. So of course it was a letdown even though it was a great match. Since it was early, the crowd was not as boisterous and crazy loud as they were later during the Okada match and the final moments of the main event. Which is kind of the opposite on the WWE shows when the early matches have a hot crowd and then the longer the show goes the quieter the crowd grows. So the not-as-loud crowd didn't help here...and of course everyone thought this would be the greatest match in the history of the world...so it wasn't, and couldn't be...and that didn't help. I think if it had gone a few minutes longer it might have been better. It was also for the useless NEVER title which nobody cares about. They didn't do anything completely suicidal here, although they did a ton of very brutal strikes and kicks. The final had Ospreay running and giving Ibushi an elbow to the back of the head then delivering his finishing move to a lifeless, apparently knocked out Ibushi. They took Ibushi out on a stretcher and it was said that he suffered a concussion during the match. Really good match but it did not live up to the hype. It couldn't have, though, really. ***

BUSHI & SHINGO TAKAGI vs. SHO & YO vs. YOSHINOBU KANEMARU & EL DESPERADO (6:51): This match just happened a month ago or so when these three faced each other in the finals of the Jr. tag team tournament. At six minutes, you didn't really get much here, and I think that this show suffered a bit from all of the short matches. The Los Ignobernables team won the titles here. It was noted later that every title changed hands on this show...something I didn't even really realize until later on...which probably proves how pointless most of these titles are (this title became pretty meaningless when The Young Bucks left the division). Okay match, pretty forgettable. **

ZACK SABRE, JR. vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII (11:37): Good match. Pretty short, though. Sabre won the REV-PRO title...which is a promotion in the UK. I would loathe being a wrestler in REV-PRO because the title is always held by foreigners that rarely even work in the company. Ishii had the title and before him Suzuki had the title. This was the best Zack Sabre, Jr. match I've seen in some time. I think because we got more action out of him than just submission holds that last eons. ***

JUICE ROBINSON vs. CODY (9:03): These two actually wrestled each other two years ago at Wrestle Kingdom 11. Juice won the U.S. title here in another match I'll probably forget happened. This was the one dud on the show. Cody is leaving to go wrestle for AEW, plus he got hurt a month or so ago. This was just lame. 1/2*

TAIJI ISHIMORI vs. KUSHIDA (11:17): Kushida is rumored to be going to the WWE. What a fucking mistake that would be. Kushida is fucking awesome, and he's been awesome for so long you kind of forget. He was a master in this match. His ring entrance had a young boy with a Kushida mask come out and then Taguchi, dressed as Doc Brown from Back to the Future, run out and grab him and pull him back up to the stage where he was changed into the real Kushida after a burst of smoke spewed forth from the depths of the stage. That was amusing. And Kushida will have to get used to silly shit like that if he goes to the WWE and is stuck in 205Live purgatory. ***

JAY WHITE vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA (14:20): Up to this point, this was the match of the night. Okada revealed that he was wearing shorts when he unfurled his multi-colored robe and the crowd popped. This is how big Okada is...people care that he's not wearing his stupid pants anymore. No, Okada is all business now. Gone are the balloons and red hair. And Okada proved tonight that he's the man. I might even fathom to say that he gave the best performance of the night. He looked as incredible as he ever has...and that's wrestling against Jay White, who's definitely a better character than wrestler. This was short, again, but super heated and super dramatic. Jay White won on the big stage (which he pretty much had to do) and this was great stuff. ***1/2

TETSUYA NAITO vs. CHRIS JERICHO (22:35): By the end this match turned out to really good, but early on it was just typical ECW-style brawling around the outside of the ring. Jericho gave Naito a DDT on the announcer's table that seriously looked like it broke his neck. No blood, but we got chairs and a Singapore cane. Jericho is old and fat but the crowd loved this. It was probably about as good as a Jericho match is ever going to get these days. ***

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. KENNY OMEGA (39:14): This was boring early but by the end it was one of the greatest matches you'll ever see. Tanahashi actually wrestled the next day on New Year's Dash but after this match I envisioned both guys being in a hospital bed for a month. Tanahashi did a High Fly Flow through a ringside table when Omega moved out of the way. And Omega must have hurt his leg or foot because he could barely stand or put pressure on it by the end. The big, shocking moment came when Tanahashi delivered two High Fly Flow's and then Omega kicked out. That brought the high drama to a deafening crescendo and the end of this was just awe-inspiring stuff. Tanahashi is older and he didn't even look as good as he did during the G1 tournament (that probably took a lot out of him...and this is six months later!) but he still produced a masterpiece of a match and took a wicked beating. These two are at another level when it comes to wrestling. They both know what to do and when to do it. And they both beat the shit out of each other for forty minutes. Tanahashi won the title and Omega never even got to use the One Winged Angel. It seems like Omega just won the title...so does this mean he's leaving? His contract is up at the end of January. I kind of figured if he didn't win here he'd be gone. Although it could just be that Tanahashi is the John Cena of New Japan. And remember how many times Cena won the big one and kept winning the title? Tanahashi hasn't had the title in years and he's the big crowd favorite...so it makes sense that they wanted to close the show on a happy, dramatic note. Great match and a really good show, as usual. ****

Best Show of 2018: NJPW BEST OF THE SUPER JR. 25 (DAY 13) 6/3

   
The best show of the year was the second to last night of New Japan's Super Jr.'s tournament. The reason is that the tournament has two blocks with different wrestlers so that every night of the tournament only features one block of wrestlers. The second to last night, though, featured both blocks and every wrestler. It was also up in the air who would be in the final, so it had drama to go along with a murderer's row of talent. There was not a top ten match of the year on the show, but the show was great because pretty much every match was good and a few were awesome. It featured wrestlers from Mexico and Japan and the UK and America, so every match had a unique, different style to it. This show featured an awesome match with Will Ospreay vs. Flip Gordon, a brutal, wild bout with Dragon Lee vs. El Desperado, and a great main event that had Kushida vs. Hiromu Takahashi. It also featured Sho vs. Marty Scurll, Yoh vs. Taiji Ishimori, Taguchi vs. Sabin, Bushi vs. Kanemaru, and a very entertaining opener with ACH vs. Tiger Mask. That was the entire show; eight fast, fun, wildly different cruiserweight matches in the awesome, crowds-on-top-of-you Korakuen Hall building. No lame, filler, multi-tag opening matches, no bullshit, just a night of high flying and a show where, literally, none of the matches were bad. This was perhaps the only show all year that I actually watched from beginning to end and didn't get bored or skip a match. And that's pretty much the definition of a great show.

Best Match of 2018: KENNY OMEGA vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA (2 OUT OF 3 FALLS) "NJPW DOMINION" 6/9

     It was pretty easy to pick 2018's match of the year. Omega vs. Okada have delivered incredible matches one after another for the last two years, and shockingly, they seem to keep getting better, even when their very first match was noted by many as being the best match they had ever seen. They only wrestled once in 2018 and it was an hour and ten minute, 2 out of 3 falls match for the title that Omega finally won. This not only gave Omega his first heavyweight championship in New Japan, it also ended Okada's amazing two year run as champion. And added on top of those historic moments was a stellar in-ring match as always. The drama, the big moves, the emotion; this had it all and then some. I suppose the big question now is...can they even attempt to top this somehow when they eventually face off in a fifth match?


Other Notable Matches:


Andrade "Cien" Almas vs. Johnny Gargano  NXT Takeover: Philadelphia  1/27


Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi  NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka  2/9


Adam Cole vs. Ricochet vs. EC3 vs. Killian Dain vs. Lars Sullivan vs. Velveteen Dream
"Ladder Match"  NXT Takeover: New Orleans  4/7


Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa  NXT Takeover: New Orleans  4/7


Hiromu Takahashi vs. Taiji Ishimori  NJPW Best of the Super Jr.'s (Final)  6/4


Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kota Ibushi   NJPW G-1 Climax (Day 10)  7/28


Kota Ibushi vs. Kenny Omega  NJPW G-1 Climax (Day 18)  8/11


Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi  NJPW G-1 Climax (Final)  8/12


Will Ospreay & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi  
NJPW Road to Tokyo Dome  12/15

Best Wrestler of 2018: JOHNNY GARGANO

   
 The top wrestlers this past year have been the usual bunch from New Japan; Kota Ibushi, Kenny Omega, Will Ospreay, Hiromu Takahashi, Tomohiro Ishii, and Kazuchika Okada. But I tend to go for the wrestler that lucked out by being in the best matches, feuds, and storylines, and if you factor that in then Johnny Wrestling, aka Johnny Gargano, from WWE's NXT was the best wrestler of 2018. He was the type of wrestler that was so great that he wrestled in the main event of NXT's biggest show, their Takeover the day before WrestleMania, in a match that wasn't even for the title. Gargano kicked off the year in January with a great match in Philly at the Takeover show against Andrade "Cien" Almas. Then he was in the feud of the year against his former tag partner, Tommaso Ciampa, with three straight main event Takeover matches. Those three matches were awesome and brutal and had the type of big fight feel and drama that the WWE sadly does not deliver very often anymore. His last Takeover match against Aleister Black was also exceptional, and he ended the year in another good match on the NXT TV show against Black in a steel cage. Gargano has that special something; he's got great charisma and a terrific arsenal, he's smooth and quick and has a great knack for storytelling and getting the crowd in the palm of his hand. He turned heel halfway through the year and never did end up winning the title, but it didn't matter. He delivered a legendary year and became a star. Let's hope he wrestles for NXT forever.