WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida

NIA JAX & SHAYNA BASZLER vs. CHARLOTTE FLAIR & ASUKA (10:30): This was the pre-show match and it went on a little after 6:30 PM and the show ended a little before 11 PM. The show was a little over 4 hours long. Thankfully, the show was entertaining and none of the matches were awful, but I'd still rather see a shorter show. It probably didn't help that 24 minutes elapsed between the end of the women's Rumble match and the Roman Reigns match when all they did was have the panel talk, the 24/7 title change hands, and a bunch of commercials aired. The big story in this match was that Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler won the tag team titles thanks to interference by Ric Flair and Lacey Evans. As stupid as that storyline is, it's probably the most entertaining RAW storyline. Plus, Ric Flair looks like he's having the time of his life getting to hang with a pretty, young blonde. Why four singles wrestlers are randomly in tag teams vying for the title is beyond me. One of the only pure women's tag team that I can think of that the WWE had was The Iconics and they broke them up. Oh, well. *1/2

DREW McINTYRE vs. GOLDBERG (2:30): This match was a bit longer than 2 and a 1/2 minutes because they did a bunch before the bell rang like Goldberg spearing McIntyre through the barrier wall thing at ringside. This was, as expected, short with all big moves. Both men kicked out of the other's finisher. Eventually McIntyre won after a Claymore kick. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this match was, especially since it wasn't the main event or co-main event, but it was entertaining. **1/2

SASHA BANKS vs. CARMELLA (10:25): Most people blame the WWE's nosedive in quality in the last twenty years to bad writing. John Cena was probably the last big star the company produced, but good writing should kind of make stars, right? But I think the one reason the WWE isn't as good anymore is because they split the brands. If they only had RAW and only one set of women's, tag team, and men's championships, I think the quality wouldn't be so diluted and the product would shine and they wouldn't be stuck having to fill airtime and thus letting losers be on TV. So instead of having this match, we'd have gotten Sasha vs. Asuka for the only women's title, which would have been a superior match. This wasn't terrible or anything, just kind of mediocre. Carmella did a through the ropes dive to the floor and pretty much went right past Sasha and landed on her face. That amused me. *1/2

WOMEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (BIANCA BELAIR) (58:50): Bianca Belair won the Rumble. Really? I couldn't even tell you if she's on RAW or Smackdown. I vaguely remember her being on NXT. She's memorable because of her epic long pony tail braid that she swings around like a rope. I kind of think they had her win because they knew they'd get heat from having an old man, Edge, win the men's Rumble instead of properly giving that to a fresh face that needs a boost or even a regular roster dude. So now you fuckers can't complain because they gave Bianca Belair a shot in the arm. After the match she gave an interview where she legit cried and could barely talk. Jeez...is winning the Royal Rumble that emotional and that big of a deal? It's not by the way, if you were wondering. At least not these days. This match wasn't very good, although it held my interest at least. They pushed Rhea Ripley, although she got tossed out last. Charlotte laughed after getting eliminated which made little sense. There were a few older wrestlers that were surprise entrants, like Tori Wilson. At least the winner was surprising, as the whole match was just okay. **

ROMAN REIGNS vs. KEVIN OWENS "LAST MAN STANDING MATCH" (24:54): This was a good match but they botched part of the ending and the finish was poor. Both men climbed up into the stands where all the video screens of people at home are. Reigns threw Owens off of the stands and through a table. Then they went outside the Thunderdome into the baseball stadium area. This was visually very cool, as you could see the cavernous, empty stadium and it made a really interesting backdrop. There's no baseball field, it's just a black floor. I guess they just throw an astroturf rug over it when baseball starts. Reigns hit Owens with a golf cart, so I guess somebody loved the AEW Sami golf cart spot. Owens put Reigns through two tables out there in the stadium. Owens climbed up a forklift and did a Senton bomb onto Reigns and a table which was the highlight. Then came the botch. Owens handcuffed Reigns to a post and Reigns couldn't stand up to make the 10 count so Reigns pushed the ref into the post and knocked him out. The problem was that another ref came out and started to count. Paul Heyman had the keys to the handcuffs and couldn't get them uncuffed so the ref just stopped counting at 5 because the finish wasn't for Reigns to lose. Ugh. That looked terrible. I hope they try to explain that on Smackdown. Finally, Heyman got Reigns out of the handcuffs and he put Owens in a sleeper hold and Owens couldn't get up for the 10 count. Good match with a bad finish. These two are always in good hardcore matches. I'm wondering who will face Reigns for the title at 'Mania. There are still 2 PPV's before 'Mania, though, which kind of makes the winners of the Rumble matches go to 'Mania a stupid thing. Will we see another Lesnar/Reigns match? Edge/Reigns? I'm trying to think who's a babyface on Smackdown. There's Daniel Bryan. Who else? AJ's a heel. Kevin Owens already lost to Reigns like ten times. They should totally fly Walter in from Germany. He's a heel but who cares, he's the WWE's best wrestler. ***

MEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (EDGE) (58:30): This was entertaining but not really a great Rumble or anything. Edge won which is weird considering he's an old man and not a regular. Edge entered at #1. There were some surprises like Kane, who looked fat, Hurricane Helms, Carlito, and Christian. Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman came back after both being out for awhile. #2 was Orton and so Edge and Orton battled outside the ring for awhile until Edge hit Orton's leg with a chair and Orton went to the back. So of course Orton came back out at the end to surprise Edge but Edge tossed him out to win. Rollins and Strowman were out there at the end. Matt Riddle lasted until the end, too. Ricochet was in there but didn't do too much. Mysterio and his son were both in it. The only NXT guy was Damian Priest, who looked decent. AJ's tall bodyguard guy kept helping him from being eliminated. Christian looked like a million bucks. Where the hell has he been hiding? So who will Edge face at 'Mania? 'Mania is 2 nights this year. It's going to be at Tampa's football stadium so there will be some fans. Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns are the two champions. I guess Edge vs. Reigns makes the most sense. Is that a big match? Does anyone want to see that? No and no. And so it goes. **1/2

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 15

Tokyo Dome

NIGHT ONE:

Attendance: 12,689

YANO, BAD LUCK FALE, CHASE OWENS & BUSHI "RAMBO MATCH" (33:40): Tokyo supposedly put a new order into effect last week saying that you can't have more than 5,000 in a building for any event because the Coronavirus is getting worse over there. I'm not sure how New Japan got around that, because they had 12 thousand people in the Dome. They did say that tickets wouldn't be sold at the door. And Night 1 of last year's Dome show had 40 thousand in attendance. While I like watching the Japanese shows better because they at least have bigger crowds than wrestling shows in the U.S., having a sparse crowd that can't yell or boo or cheer in a cavernous building came across pretty weak tonight. Most of the matches sounded like they were wrestling in front of a silent crowd, which made some matches (like Ospreay/Okada) seem not as good as they probably were. I guess I can't complain too much, as they actually still had a show with all of the big matches intact. And this was a really good show, albeit not at the high level some of the great Dome shows of the last five or so years have been. This was the dark Royal Rumble match with twenty or so guys. The highlight was when Ishii and Suzuki came out early and beat the hell out of each other. The final four wrestlers are going to wrestle for Yano's King of Pro-Wrestling title on Night 2. That title is almost as dumb as WWE's 24/7 title which, shockingly, still exists. This was fun but obviously way too long. ** (out of ****)

HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. EL PHANTASMO (17:46): While these two did all of their big moves and they were both flipping and diving all over the place...it weirdly felt slow and kind of stale. The problem seemed to be that they would do one big move and then lay there and then do another big move and then lay around again. There was no cohesion or drama in this at all. I will say that El Phantasmo's top rope walk to the middle of the ring ropes into a moonsault to the floor was incredible. I was watching this show on a site that had a chat room and after the match everyone was lambasting Phantasmo for whatever reason. I actually really like him and while this match was good it just wasn't as the level you want to see a Hiromu match. Hopefully Hiromu vs. Ishimori on Night 2 will be better. **1/2

GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY vs. ZACK SABRE, JR. & TAICHI (19:18): This match was great, surprisingly because I don't like the Tongans, I think Zack is mostly boring and I usually loathe Taichi. Taichi did have a good G1, though, and in this match, Zack was on fire, running all over the place and wrestling like his life depended on it. Zack wrestled like this was a big show, which it was, so maybe he should have mentioned this to Kenta and Great-O-Khan who both wrestled like this was just some random house show. This match was mostly all action. It had a ton of near-falls and saves. And while I bashed the show for seemingly having a dead crowd, the crowd loved this for whatever reason. The Guerrillas won the tag titles here. ***

KENTA vs. SATOSHI KOJIMA (14:12): This match was for the coveted U.S. title contract in a briefcase that Kenta has. The reason it wasn't for the actual U.S. title is because Jon Moxley has it and I guess doesn't want to go to Japan during a pandemic. Moxley did have a pre-match video where he mentioned something about being the boogeyman. Funny how the actual Boogeyman was on RAW tonight during Legends night. Coincidence? Juice Robinson was supposed to face Kenta but he broke the orbital bone in his face. Would Kenta vs. Juice have been better? Considering either match would have had Kenta, the answer is "no." Kenta fucking sucks. He's more boring than paint drying. Kojima is 50 years old and he had more spark. This was pretty forgettable. 1/2*

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. GREAT-O-KHAN (17:13): I think it's about time to give up on the Great-O-Khan experiment. He's only been back in NJPW since October but he's already teamed with Ospreay, wrestled Okada, and now is in a match with Tanahashi. How much more can they fucking give this guy? And he's proved NOTHING. He's seriously the worst. His offense of lame chops is silly. Tanahashi is one of the greatest ever and even he couldn't wrangle a decent match out of this stiff. Where do you possibly go with this guy? I say put him in a tag team and relegate him to the low undercard forever and forget about him. 1/2*

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. WILL OSPREAY (35:14): This was really good...but not as good as their G1 match...and that match wasn't as good as last year's G1 match. They seem to be devolving. Ospreay seemed to be more into doing a long, rough, dramatic classic...when all we really want is a super fast, action packed, high flying spectacle. Sure you can do the high drama stuff...but we don't want a whole match of that. Ospreay didn't do much of his high flying...which is kind of why he's one of the best wrestlers in the world. Okada actually did a top rope flip to the floor...while Ospreay only did a top rope Spanish Fly and an AJ Styles flying forearm. I'm not sure I like Ospreay as a heel. So far it hasn't entirely worked in his favor. You kind of want to cheer the dude doing all of the crazy flips and dives. This kind of reminded me of Ospreay's last Dome match...the one against Ibushi. The expectations were so sky high that even though it was good it was never going to achieve the level of greatness expected. This was really, really good...but I thought it would have reached best of all time level. Which is unrealistic...but look who's in the match. You expect masterpieces with these two. And this was a little bit short of that. *** 

KOTA IBUSHI vs. TETSUYA NAITO (31:18): This was a good match but not as good as some of their crazy 2019 matches where they seemingly tried to paralyze each other. This wasn't really a safe match, it just wasn't as sickening as some of their previous matches. Probably the only devastating move was when Ibushi gave Naito a Hurricanrana from the apron to the floor. The end was also a little bit of a disappointment. Ibushi just won after a knee to the face. Ibushi won the title here, which is awesome, but considering he has to face Jay White on Night 2, the victory after all of these years seems a little less cathartic and joyous. Naito's title run, unfortunately, will probably be seen as a disappointment. The pandemic hurt it, but Gedo's booking did as well, making him lose and regain the title to Evil, one of the most boring wrestlers on the planet, in a series of 3 terrible matches. And, really, does anyone want to see an Ibushi vs. Jay White match? Ever? Nope. ***

NIGHT TWO

Attendance: 7,801

TORU YANO vs. BAD LUCK FALE vs. CHASE OWENS vs. BUSHI (7:43): Surprisingly, I thought that Night 2 was better than Night 1. That's a surprise since Ospreay, Tanahashi, Naito, Okada, Suzuki, and Ishii were only on Night 1. The attendance was lower tonight and the card wasn't that great...but tonight had the 2 best matches of WK15. I really hope they get rid of the 2 night deal, as it takes away from the big, one main event that past shows have had. This show certainly didn't start on the right foot. What the fuck was the point of this match? This could have had Ishii and Suzuki. Hell, Honma would've made this more entertaining. I still don't even comprehend the King of Pro-Wrestling title. What is the point of it, anyway? When it was first announced it was supposed to be a gimmick title...meaning every match would be a Falls Count Anywhere or a No DQ or something. Well that's seemingly gone out the window. Yano won. Nothing of note happened. Eh. 1/2*

EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. MASTER WATO & RYSUKE TAGUCHI (13:20): El Desperado wrestled Hiromu in the finals of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament last month. Hiromu ripped at Desperado's mask and eventually Desperado just took it off and wrestled without it for the last few minutes. Even the announcers mentioned the name of the guy under the mask. So he comes in here with his mask back on like nothing happened. Huh? Whatever. This match wasn't very good. Master Wato did some interesting big moves, although he still is sloppy and off the mark a lot of the time. Kanemaru sucks. This just never really amounted to much. Desperado and Kanemaru remain the Jr. tag team champs. This just reminds me of the glory days of the Jr. tag division...when The Young Bucks, Sho and Yo, Ricochet, The Time Splitters, and Rappongi Vice were tearing the house down at all of these big shows. Who was Ricochet's partner back then? Did it matter? *1/2

SHINGO TAKAGI vs. JEFF COBB (21:11): This was the best match so far of both nights. What a great match. These two wrestled in the G1 last year and it was a good match but nothing special. Tonight they brought the big guns. This was brutal, dramatic, fast paced. I have no idea why Shingo isn't in the main event picture. He looked as good as anyone in the company tonight as he usually does. Cobb looked great as well. This was just big moves, big elbows, big slams. It was awesome. ***1/2 

SANADA vs. EVIL (23:40): This was at least entertaining. Sanada looked spectacular tonight...which is good since he came out and the end of the show to challenge Ibushi for the title. Dick Togo got knocked off the apron and through a table. For some reason Evil threw Sanada so hard into the fence barricade at ringside that it knocked the announcer at the table behind it out of his seat and the table fell on him. It was funny because this happened twice. Is this a new feud? Evil vs. the announcer? It cracked me up, anyway. Sanada did a bunch of moonsaults. Evil didn't do much of anything. There was a ref bump or perhaps multiple ref bumps...these Evil matches have so many ref bumps it can get confusing. This was not great or anything but certainly one of the better Evil matches you'll see. **1/2

HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. TAIJI ISHIMORI (25:31): What can I say? This match wasn't very good. Hiromu's match on Night 1 wasn't that good either. Even the crowd was pretty silent for most of this. I'm not sure what went wrong, as these two had a great match last summer at the baseball stadium show. Maybe this just went too long. They both did everything they usually do but the high drama was absent for whatever reason. Hiromu won the Jr. title here. **

KOTA IBUSHI vs. JAY WHITE (48:05): I didn't want to see this match. I doubt anyone did. Jay White hasn't exactly set the world on fire in his matches of late. Plus, these two just wrestled in November at a big show and it was decent but nothing great. Tonight, though, the Wrestling Observer reviewer, Ethan Renner, noted that Jay had "the match of his life." He's not wrong. I usually find Jay White's matches boring and this match was boring for the first half but Jay White went into another gear in the second half and this turned into an excellent match and a worthy Wrestle Kingdom main event. It probably helped that this was the longest New Japan match in 2 and a half years (Okada and Omega went over an hour in June of 2018). There was a point in this where Jay was so tired and beaten down that he laid in the ring and motioned for Ibushi to just pin him. Ibushi refused and just slapped him. They traded big moves back and forth. Ibushi did all of his crazy, high flying spots, including a perfect Phoenix Splash. Gedo pulled the ref out of the ring after the Phoenix Splash and Ibushi's attempted pin. Ibushi kicked out of the Switchblade finish which was probably a first. Jay did a series of devastating fisherman suplexes that put Ibushi right on the top of his head multiple times. Ibushi finally won after a few knees to the face. These two just put everything and more into this match...and while we've seen Ibushi do this before, we've never seen Jay White reach this pinnacle. This wasn't a perfect match, as the first half was pretty dull (at least when Jay White was on offense), but by the end this was high drama and as good as it gets. After the match, Sanada came out to challenge Ibushi for the title. And in the post-match press conference, Jay White mentioned something about "ending this" which perhaps means a face turn. While a small crowd didn't help either night and all in all this WK didn't reach the epic highs of past years, notably 2016, this final match was excellent and a great way to end the event. ***1/2

BEST WRESTLER OF 2020: WILL OSPREAY

 

    It's pretty tough to name anyone best wrestler of 2020 since some promotions, like Ring of Honor, barely even had any shows. And while wrestlers in Japan were wrestling in front of fans for half of the year, wrestlers in Mexico, most of the U.S., and in the UK, were stuck trying to make it work in empty arenas. But with all of these obstacles, the cream rises to the top. Without all of the bells and whistles, you can more easily tell who's fantastic and who isn't. I've heard Jon Moxley, Go Shiozaki, and Drew McIntyre's names being thrown out as Best Wrestler of 2020. Those three were champions that were in the limelight most of the year and in all of the big main events, so that's understandable that people might consider them. I had my own 3 picks though; Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and Will Ospreay. Granted, The Young Bucks would be Best Tag Team...but I don't waste my time on that category. Omega had an outstanding year. He had a good 30 minute Iron Man match against PAC, he was in the best match of the year teaming with Adam Page against The Young Bucks, he was in the Stadium Stampede mele, he had a spectacular match against Page, a good match in Mexico against Laredo Kid, and won the AEW title in a good match against Moxley. Unfortunately, Omega wasn't in Japan wrestling the greats, so his year obviously didn't match those high water mark of excellence years of his past. The Young Bucks were in 2 of the best matches of the year plus the Stampede plus pretty much every match they're in is entertaining. But there was one wrestler that just seems to be ascending to an unmatched peak year after year, and that's Will Ospreay. He didn't even wrestle from March to September. But when he entered that ring for his first match in the G1, your eyes couldn't look away. He looked as incredible as ever, and in the G1 he had good matches with just about everyone, even fucking Taichi. His matches against Shingo Takagi and Okada in the G1 were awesome and epic. And he kicked off the year with good matches against Hiromu Takahashi and against Zack Sabre, Jr. He even had one of the better empty arena matches of the year against his girlfriend, Bea Priestley. When he first started in wrestling he was a "spot monkey." And now, years later, he's crafting his game to include everything at its apex; great storytelling, great selling, great drama. All of his big, spectacular moves look seamless. His ringwork is truly a work of art. And he, of course, does the best looking flips and dives than pretty much anyone in the game. It wasn't a perfect year for just about anything, but Will Ospreay didn't miss a fucking beat.

BEST SHOW OF 2020: "NXT TAKEOVER: PORTLAND" February 16th

 

     There were only 2 months of shows in 2020 pre-pandemic, so of course the best show of the year was probably going to be one that happened in January or February. While we did mostly get used to watching wrestling with sparse crowds, no crowds, and no crowds with piped in crowd noise, those shows did suffer without a raucous crowd. One show that might be considered being a best of the year show amidst the pandemic was the AEW Brodie Lee tribute show, which was awesome, but kind of hard to watch at how sad it was. There was also one G1 show, Day 13, that some might consider the best show of the year. It was a great show, with Cobb/Ishii, Taichi/Ospreay, Ibushi/Suzuki, and Okada/Takagi all being good matches. Wrestle Kingdom, which is always at least one of if not the best show of the year, was split into 2 nights in 2020 and kind of suffered as a result. But there was one show that stood out. NXT usually always has great Takeover shows, and their show in Portland in February, in front of a packed, frenzied crowd, was spectacular. Dave Meltzer noted after the show on his podcast that it was one of the best WWE shows ever. Ever. Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic had an awesome, big-move-after-big-move, spot-fest of a match that had the crowd frothing at the mouth and on their feet. Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne faced Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish for the tag titles in a spectacular, match of the year contender that was all action and drama. The main event was an epic with Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa for the title. And even the two women's matches were at least entertaining; Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox in a Street Fight and Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair for the women's title. Every match was good to great, and it was seemingly non-stop high drama, devastating moves, near-falls, and a crowd roaring with approval for 3 hours. A truly legendary show.

BEST MATCH OF 2020: KENNY OMEGA & ADAM PAGE vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS "AEW REVOLUTION" February 29th

 

     2020 was a weird year to say the least. While pro-wrestling never stopped, most of the great, best of the year type of stuff happened in January and February, before the pandemic shut everything down. Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. The Young Bucks from AEW's Revolution ppv on February 29th was such a great match, though, that it would probably have still been the best match of the year even without a pandemic and wrestling shows with empty arenas or sparse crowds. I remember listening to the Wrestling Observer Live podcast after the show and Dave Meltzer mentioned that it was the best tag team match in the history of wrestling (he rated it 6 stars on a 5 star scale, which is ridiculous but at least lets you know how awesome it was). And he wasn't the only one that thought that, either. Omega and Page retained the tag team titles in a classic. There was drama, action, story, and, obviously, a packed crowd cheering and yelling and shouting and clapping and creating a highly memorable atmosphere. Omega and The Young Bucks have been three of the best wrestlers in the industry for the last ten years or so, and Adam Page, with his 'Stone Cold' gimmick, was the crowd favorite in this match. That meant that this was the highest level of wrestling you're going to get, with some of the best in the business. Page and Omega eventually broke up and we never got that rematch. Does it matter? They couldn't get any better. This is one of those matches, like Omega/Okada, that will certainly live in infamy.

Other Notable Matches:

Tetsuya Naito vs. Kazuchika Okada  NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14 (Night 2)  1/5

Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne vs. Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly  NXT Takeover Portland  2/16

Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi  NJPW G-1 Day 5  9/27

Shingo Takagi vs. Kota Ibushi  NJPW G-1 Day 11  10/7

Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada  NJPW G-1 Day 17  10/16

Walter vs. Ilja Dragunov  NXT UK  10/29

Adam Page vs. Kenny Omega  AEW Full Gear  11/7

The Young Bucks vs. FTR  AEW Full Gear  11/7

Go Shiozaki vs. Takashi Sugiura  Pro-Wrestling Noah The Best Chronicle 2020  12/16