NJPW WRESTLE GRAND SLAM

 

Tokyo Dome

RAMBO (CHASE OWENS) (35:36): This was a strange show. Originally, New Japan decided to have two shows in baseball stadiums in May for whatever reason. I'm guessing because they could only have 50% capacity because of the pandemic at the regular buildings they were using, their thinking was 50% at a huge building like the Tokyo Dome would mean a lot more people and thus more profit. Well both Grand Slam shows in May were cancelled thanks to the pandemic. Ospreay was supposed to defend his title against Okada at the Tokyo Dome which may have been the greatest wrestling match in the history of pro-wrestling. Ospreay got injured, relinquished his title, and now we're finally getting that Tokyo Dome show two months later (the outside baseball stadium show is now 2 shows and scheduled in September). Things didn't get better for this show, though. The main event was scheduled to be Shingo vs. Ibushi but Ibushi got pneumonia that at first was blamed on his Covid vaccine but then they said it had nothing to do with the vaccine. So the day of this show it was announced that Hiroshi Tanahashi would take his place. Tanahashi was just in the main event on the show yesterday against Kenta, so I'm sure he fucking loved being in another main event right away. The other weird thing about this show was that usually they build a big light stage above the ring and of course an entranceway. They didn't build either. There was no entranceway, the wrestlers just walked out of one of the entrances by the seats. They kept the bright house lights around the top of the Dome on which amplified the fact that there was a sea of empty seats. While they probably got 5 or 10 thousand people, it still looked like the Dome was maybe 80% empty. So the show looked bush league and that didn't help. It was also obviously quiet with all of the empty space, plus fans could only clap, which probably didn't help when Evil came out to beat up Shingo at the end of the show and the fans couldn't boo so the place was just a silent tomb. The first match on the show was the traditional Royal Rumble opener. This was for the King of Pro-Wrestling title, surely wrestling's stupidest title by far. Some of the wrestlers were thrown over the top rope to be eliminated and some, like Kenta and Honma, were handcuffed to the ropes to be eliminated. I guess this was a handcuff match? Who the fuck knows? The match had some big stars like Ishii, Goto, Master Wato, etc., but was a total fucking bore and way too long. Chase Owens won the title. 1/2*

EL PHANTASMO & TAIJI ISHIMORI vs. RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & ROCKY ROMERO (20:56):

Phantasmo and Ishimori retrained the Jr. tag titles, titles I swear disappeared awhile ago. They used to be a big deal back in the day when The Time Splitters and The Young Bucks and Rappongi Vice used to always have great matches for them. I think even Sho and Yo broke up, so these titles are pretty meaningless these days (all four wrestlers in this match are singles wrestlers first and rarely tag team wrestlers). Phantasmo walked the ropes and did a moonsault off the top rope and over the guardrail onto everyone. That was pretty cool. This was a fairly basic, forgettable match, though. **

ROBBIE EAGLES vs. DESPERADO (19:56): Most of this show was a bore and a slog. I'm not sure if it was just the empty building and pandemic-tamed crowd or if the matches were just that dull. Robbie Eagles did win the Jr. title here which was kind of a surprise. Considering wrestlers coming into Japan have to quarantine for 2 weeks first, I'm guessing Eagles is sticking around for awhile since he won. Desperado worked on Eagles leg, which is just about the stupidest thing you can do in terms of entertainment in a high flying match. Um...the fans want to see top rope flips and dives...not a hobbled Eagles unable to walk. Eagles did a 450 splash onto Desperado's ankle. So eventually both guys worked on the other's leg...just double the stupidity. This was pretty monotonous. *1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. JEFF COBB (19:23): Okada won with a rollup schoolboy of all things. Jesus. Would it kill this company to give Jeff Cobb a push? Cobb looked good, although Okada kicked out of his finisher which kind of ruins it being a finisher. Okada had a good match with Ospreay at Wrestle Kingdom, but lately his matches have been pretty slow and pretty dull. The final few minutes were kind of dramatic and entertaining, but a lot of this was pretty average. **

ZACK SABRE, JR. & TAICHI vs. TETSUYA NAITO & SANADA (37:58): This match was about the same length as the main event...yet during this match I actually wondered if they were going to do a 60 minute draw. That's how fucking boring this match was. Or maybe that's just how great the main event was (it wasn't that great, though). These two teams just wrestled for the titles two weeks ago and Naito and Sanada won the titles. That match was a yawn-inducing, sleep fest. This wasn't much better. Zack and Taichi won back the titles in this match, which kind of tells you how important and prominent the tag titles are. After twenty minutes of seemingly wrestling in slow motion they all decided to finally start wrestling at a faster clip. Unfortunately, they still had 20 more minutes and so they went back to going slow. There were also a lot of slips, botches, and sloppy maneuvers in this match. Why this match was almost 40 minutes boggles my mind. 1/2*

SHINGO TAKAGI vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI (37:26): The best I can say about this match is that, unlike the previous match, it didn't feel like 37 minutes. The last ten minutes are so were fairly dramatic and there were a lot of suspenseful near falls. The early part was pretty boring, though, and this was not some epic, awesome, classic New Japan main event. I'm not sure even Ibushi and Shingo could have had a great match in this empty Dome with the house lights on but who knows? These two wrestled in January in a main event and Dave Meltzer gave that match 5 stars (on a 5 star scale...although ridiculously he sometimes gives matches 6 stars). I did watch that match but barely remember it, so I'm guessing I didn't think it was that great. Tanahashi can still get the crowd to wake up, as there were a few minutes when the zombie crowd woke up from their slumber. Tanahashi is great and knows what to do and when to do it...but he's obviously a hobbled, shell of his former, great self. So this was probably the best Tanahashi you're going to get these days. Shingo is usually brutal in his hard hitting elbows and clotheslines but he couldn't really do that to an old man so he didn't and the match suffered because of it. This was definitely the best match on the show but in all honesty it was pretty average stuff. **1/2

WWE MONEY IN THE BANK

 

Fort Worth, Texas

THE USO'S vs. DOMINIK & REY MYSTERIO (11:25): This was the first WWE PPV since Wrestlemania with a crowd, and unlike 'Mania, this was a sold out, packed house. That certainly helped, as the atmosphere was off the charts for the main event and the men's ladder match. It also helped that this was the best WWE PPV in years. One of the reasons was that there wasn't any filler; no lame, forgettable non-title matches. And Edge vs. Roman is a big time main event considering Edge rarely wrestles. Add that to the fact we got two ladder matches and this was a great show. Money in the Bank has always been my favorite WWE PPV every year, so I'm glad they picked this one to be the first one to get a packed house post-Covid (granted, Covid cases are sadly rising these days thanks to morons). This match was on the pre-show...and, seriously, this has to be the biggest pre-show match of all time, right? Usually they're something superfluous. The Uso's won the tag titles here in a fantastic match. It was non-stop action. The one ugly factor underneath the surface of this match, though, was that Jimmy Uso recently got arrest for a DUI...his third arrest in the last few years. Usually when something like that happens the person gets suspended or fired or sent to rehab. Nope. He gets rewarded by given the tag titles! Way to go, WWE. And it's not like we're talking one DUI. His second arrest he wasn't driving but was drunk and threatened the cop. Dude obviously needs help. It's kind of sad to see the WWE not doing anything about this. *** (out of ****)

NIKKI A.S.H. vs. ASUKA vs. NAOMI vs. ALEXA BLISS vs. LIV MORGAN vs. ZELINA VEGA vs. NATALYA vs. TAMINA "MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH" (15:45): This was entertaining but not great or anything. The crowd roared for Alexa Bliss early for some reason. Then they cheered for Liv Morgan when she was climbing the ladder. When Nikki won they popped big. Alexa did two supernatural things during this match. The first was she raised her hand up to summon the briefcase down but was thwarted when someone just pushed her over. Then she hypnotized Zelina on the ladder to make Zelina go back down. If she has super powers...why isn't she powerful enough to just easily win the match? Not that I should even attempt to interject logic into Alexa Bliss' stupid gimmick. And where is Bray Wyatt, anyway? She stole his gimmick and now he's been absent since 'Mania. They did not do any crazy ladder bumps in this one. But it was decent. **1/2

AJ STYLES & OMOS vs. THE VIKING RAIDERS (12:55): The final five minutes or so of this were pretty entertaining. The one big, cool move was Omos tossing AJ over the top rope where he flew down onto one of the Raiders to give him a Hurricanrana on the floor. Omos picked up the fat Raider and slammed him which the crowd loved. AJ looked so good in this match it kind of made me sad that he's stuck in a tag team instead of wrestling in main event title matches. AJ and Omos retained the tag titles. This match was advertised a few weeks ago as being on RAW tomorrow night. I was shocked; they were actually advertising matches for RAW weeks ahead of time like AEW does. That sadly didn't happen and I'm not even sure why they changed it. **1/2

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. KOFI KINGSTON (7:35): This was the one weird, bad match on the show. At first I thought this was going the Lesnar route. The big guy beats down the small, babyface forever and then the babyface makes a comeback and almost wins and the crowd goes ape shit and then the big guy wins. But no! The babyface never got a comeback. Lashley beat the shit out of Kofi and then pinned him. Jesus Christ. Talk about burying Kofi for the rest of time. This kind of baffled me. I guess their idea was to make Lashley out to be a monster, unbeatable heel like they did with Roman Reigns. This after Lashley lost to Xavier Woods on RAW Monday Night. But you can do that by giving Kofi something. Lashley is supposed to wrestle Goldberg at Summerslam. So they destroyed Kofi, a full time WWE employee, to make Goldberg, a once-in-a-blue-moon WWE employee, be the savior. Makes sense! -No Stars-

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. RHEA RIPLEY (16:50): I'm not a fan of Rhea Ripley. I think she always looks awkward in the ring and has no timing or dramatic flair. With that said, the final few minutes of this match were really good. The crowd got really into the near falls and late drama. Flair did a top rope DDT maneuver on Ripley and when Ripley kicked out the crowd jumped to their feet in shock. Flair won the title here which I think was kind of a bad move even though I dislike Ripley's wrestling ability. Flair seems to always be the champ and it's gotten kind of boring. **1/2

BIG E vs. RIDDLE vs. RICOCHET vs. JOHN MORRISON vs. DREW McINTYRE vs. KING NAKAMURA vs. SETH ROLLINS "MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH" (17:40): This match was excellent. It was super entertaining. It was big moves after big moves and the crowd adored it and was in a mouth-frothing frenzy by the end. Early on I was remembering how awesome Ricochet was in that NXT ladder match a few years back when he fell off the ladder only to step on the top rope and then do a flip to the floor onto a bunch of wrestlers. Well he did that again here and it was just as awesome and the crowd went ape shit. Kevin Owens was power bombed over the top rope onto a ladder bridge which was the big, sickening move of the match. Riddle did a bunch of RKO's since he was supposedly taking Orton's spot (Orton is either sick or on vacation, who knows?). Morrison was the star for a lot of this match. He's been a star in a ton of ladder matches over the years, from ones in Impact to Lucha Underground. The one big move Morrison tried (a spinning 450 type of slam onto Owens on a ladder) missed, though. Nakamura didn't do much but the crowd loved when he did a top of the ladder, upside down, hanging armbar. Big E did a top of the ladder slam and then climbed up and won. Great match. ***1/2

ROMAN REIGNS vs. EDGE (33:10): The WWE rarely has a "big fight" feel to their main events...but they did tonight. The sold out crowd helped, but they've also done a great job at creating a serious, heel champion in Reigns. He's held the title since August and has beaten pretty much everyone. Maybe the WWE is finally learning how to write a long-term storyline? Took 'em long enough. The first half of this match was boring, though. The second half was great. Roman tried a spear and Edge moved and Roman went through the barricade. When he got up, Edge speared him through another barricade. They did the usual WWE hijinks, though, but I actually find the ref-bump-then-outside-interference to be entertaining, so I enjoyed it. The ref was knocked over. The Uso's came out. The Mysterio's beat up The Uso's. Roman broke apart a chair and was going to use one of the steel pieces of the chair. Edge ended up using it on Roman's mouth for a submission hold. Seth Rollins came in and kicked Edge. Eventually the ref woke up, Seth Rollins hit Edge when the ref wasn't looking and Roman ended up winning. The ending kind of sucked, and it made me actually want to see another Edge vs. Roman match with a better, more definitive ending, which they probably will do eventually (Roman is tentatively scheduled to face The Rock at next year's Wrestlemania...so Roman might be champ for a long time). Edge and Rollins battled to the back after the match. Then John Cena came out because he's wrestling Roman at Summerslam, although Cena didn't talk or even point to the title or anything so you wouldn't really have guessed that. So there was a lot going on in this and it made this show feel big time and important and exciting, qualities the WWE has been lacking for a very long time. Good show. I honestly can't even remember the last time the WWE main roster had a show this good. ***