WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

 St. Louis

SETH ROLLINS vs. ROMAN REIGNS (14:25): Good card, packed Dome. Sadly, the show was kind of lackluster. Both Rumble matches were mostly boring. None of the singles matches were great, and both men's title matches had lame finishes. First off: the Dome. When the WWE announced they were having this show in a Dome in St. Louis, I was baffled. Dome? What the fuck do they have a Dome for? Well apparently it's just the old football stadium that they haven't torn down yet. They got a huge crowd for this show which definitely helped...albeit for long stretches of both Rumble matches the Dome was quiet. This first match, for Roman Reigns' Universal title, had the worst ending to a PPV title match I've ever seen. Seriously, what is up with the WWE always doing DQ finishes because they don't want to beat someone? Reigns was choking Rollins and wouldn't let go so the ref rang the bell and Reigns got DQ'd but kept the title. Ugh. Really? You can't, just, like...beat Seth Rollins? This is a major PPV show. You're really going to do a DQ finish in a title match on a major PPV show? Unbelievable. **

WOMEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (RONDA ROUSEY) (59:10): I'm being totally honest here...but Ronda Rousey got the same reaction as a lot of the "special" entrants...like Lita and, later, Shane McMahon. Does that mean that Rousey isn't that big of a deal? Maybe people forget her. Eh. Who knows? Her "surprise" was all over the internet all weekend, which kind of ruined the surprise factor. They had a ton of old wrestlers in this Rumble for one reason or another. They even had Mickie James, who's the Impact champion, and they even acknowledged that she was the Impact champion. That was shocking. Lita was popular. Rousey ended up eliminating Charlotte Flair to win which will lead to their Night 1 main event at Wrestlemania. I say this every year, but having two hour long Rumbles on a show does not work. Maybe cut the number of participants to 20 instead of 30...or put the women's Rumble on Smackdown or something. Both of the Rumbles on this show were pretty forgettable except for the winners. *1/2

BECKY LYNCH vs. DOUDROP (13:00): This only went 13 minutes but it felt like it went a half hour. Nobody thought Doudrop would win the title, that was the big problem. Doudrop is a fat woman, which is rare in the WWE. I wonder who the fuck she knows to be anathema to Vince's "hot chicks" parade while getting a title shot. And I'm still baffled why they let Becky Lynch, who, three years ago was the WWE's #1 star, be a heel. *

BOBBY LASHLEY vs. BROCK LESNAR (10:15): So what was the point, exactly, to have Brock Lesnar win the title 28 days ago? Roman Reigns had Covid, so he was off Day 1...so they did the Paul Heyman heel turn on this show instead. One of the Uso's came in when the ref was down to beat up Lesnar. Then Paul Heyman handed Roman Reigns the title and Reigns hit Lesnar with the title and the ref woke up and Bobby Lashley pinned Lesnar and won the title. This all probably would have been okay if Lesnar didn't unexpectedly show up at #30 in the Rumble and win it. Because Lesnar won the Rumble, you kind of don't feel sorry for him getting screwed in this match, which negates the revenge/anger issue a bit. I also feel bad for Big E. Now we're back to the Lashley reign, a reign that lasted 195 days last year (from March to September). Wasn't that enough? This match was more back and forth than Lesnar's usual dominant victories are. That was a breath of fresh air. Lashley did a brutal suplex that almost put Lesnar right on his head. Lesnar than did the same thing right away. Jesus Christ. This was maybe half as good as that awesome 5 way on Day 1. **1/2

EDGE & BETH PHOENIX vs. THE MIZ & MARYSE (12:30): This was totally forgettable. I remember when Edge was on RAW right after his Seth Rollins feud ended and the speculation was who would be feuding with him now. The Miz was the one name that nobody said for obvious reasons. Who the fuck wants to see that? And why would they waste Edge, who's pretty much a part timer these days, on a feud with The Miz? Well the feud happened, it sucked, and hopefully it's over forever. 1/2*

MEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (BROCK LESNAR): The crowd didn't seem that happy when Lesnar won the Rumble. They didn't boo or anything, but it wasn't a gigantic roar like it probably would have been if Matt Riddle or Big E. had won. Why was Lesnar even in the Rumble? He didn't need it. Give the win to a young, fresh fish that needs the boost. A lot of this match was fairly dull. Unlike the women's Rumble, there weren't any old WWE stars as surprise entrants. Johnny Knoxville from Jackass was in it, but that had already been announced. Bad Bunny, the singer, was a surprise. Shane O'Mac was the other surprise. They couldn't get any old WWE wrestlers? Weird. Brock coming out as a surprise at #30 kind of ruined this match. Really? Brock? The WWE doesn't have any other ideas anymore? The other embarrassing thing happened when Kofi tried to jump from the top rope to the ringside wall and fell when he was obviously supposed to hang on. They also had a whole segment where Olmos was throwing everyone out and the crowd fucking hated it. Lesnar won by tossing Drew Mcintyre out. Kind of a stale show to be honest. **

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 16

NIGHT 1

Tuesday, January 4th

Attendance: 12, 047

RAMBO MATCH (CHASE OWENS, MINORU SUZUKI, TORU YANO & CIMA) (27:14): It probably tells you something about the state of New Japan these days when a WWE match this week was better than anything on this show, night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom 16. That match was a fatal 5 way title match on the PPV Day 1 that Brock Lesnar won. WWE not only had a PPV this week but NXT had a major show, New Year's Evil, where Ric Steiner's son won the NXT title from Ciampa. Tomorrow is Adam Page vs. Daniel Bryan II for the AEW title as is night 2 of WK16. All of the Japan promotions all had major shows as well. I didn't watch them all, but I did see Nakajima defend his title against Go Shiozaki in Noah (match was mediocre) and I watched Kento Miyahara lose in a tag title championship match in AJPW (match was just okay). Small crowds in Japan have definitely made the product worse. This show only had 12 thousand people. The last Dome show pre-pandemic had 40 thousand. I'm not sure if a 40 thousand person crowd would have helped this show, though, as the booking lately has been fairly atrocious. It wasn't the end of the world, but the best match at WK15 last year was Ibushi vs. Jay White and both guys weren't on either show this year. Besides the main event and Shibata's match, this show was pretty bad. It all started with the annual Rambo match, which is basically a Royal Rumble match except you can also pin people. The final four guys are facing each other for the coveted King of Pro-Wrestling belt on night 2. Cima was a surprise winner, as I haven't seen him in New Japan in years if ever. The other surprise was 68 year old Tatsumi Fujinami, who apparently held the IWGP title 6 times. Funny that I never even heard of him. Sting is in his early 60's and actually wrestled in a match last week on Dynamite, so I suppose seeing a 68 year old in a match shouldn't shock me. Fujinami did a bunch of leg screws and that's about it. Chase Owens started the match and lasted until the end. The rest of the B-level dudes were all there; Honma, Kanemaru, Fale. This match was not good. In fact, the Rambo is never good. Why do they even do it then? 1/2*

YOH vs. SHO (12:32): This match just reminded me of how the WWE loves to break up tag teams just so that they can feud against each other. It's always a mistake to do it, yet they fucking love to do it and always do it early when the tag team is still hot. Sho and Yoh were a good tag team but apart they're forgettable and purposeless. One of these guys was actually in the Super Jr.'s tournament final against Hiromu. It was the good one. The bad one is in Bullet Club. No, I have no idea who is who. And yes, this match wasn't good at all. 1/2*

KENTA, TAIJI ISHIMORI & EL PHANTASMO vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & ROCKY ROMERO (8:40): New Japan never does DQ's but they did one here when Tanahashi was hitting Kenta with a Singapore cane. This was to set up Kenta vs. Tanahashi in a No DQ match on night 2. Honestly...what's the point of having two nights of big shows if you're just filling them with set up matches like this? This was truly a waste of all the talent in this match. *

WILL OSPREAY, GREAT O'KHAN & JEFF COBB vs. TETSUYA NAITO, SANADA & BUSHI (9:27): Ospreay returned to wrestle in a New Japan ring for the first time since last May. Fuck...it's been too long. Sadly he did barely anything in this match. This was also just a set up match for night 2 as Great O'Khan is wrestling Sanada and Cobb is wrestling Naito. We did get to see Khan do those stupid chops and he yelps before he does them. He also tried to pin Sanada by sitting on Sanada's ass like a seat and folding his arms. It didn't work. Ospreay oozed charisma in this match. I really can't fathom how this company existed so long without him. *1/2

KATSUYORI SHIBATA vs. REN NARITA (11:46): This match started as a grappling match but eventually involved Shibata doing some offense like running kicks. This match was actually awesome after it heated up. It seemed like Narita wasn't allowed to do much against Shibata, though, so this was just Shibata beating the shit out of Narita. Narita was also the surprise opponent which was a total letdown. If you're going to have a "surprise" opponent...don't let it be a fucking nobody Young Lion. ***

EVIL vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII (12:10): Someone online mentioned that this was the worst Dome match in New Japan history. I don't think it was that bad...but it was just a typical Evil match with a bunch of interference. Dick Togo, Ishimori, the evil Sho/Yoh (whichever one that is)...they all came in to interfere. The ring bell guy was knocked over like he was in every G1 match. That made me chuckle. Evil retained the NEVER title. *1/2

HIROOKI GOTO & YOSHI-HASHI vs. TAICHI & ZACK SABRE, JR. (15:27): Goto and Yoshi-Hashi shockingly won the World Tag League to get this title shot match. Shocking because...are they even a tag team? Eh. They won the titles here. This match was very dull and same-old early but the last few minutes were dramatic and exciting and a lot of fun. I never want to see a Goto/Yoshi-Hashi defense ever, though. **

EL DESPERADO vs. HIROMU TAKAHASHI (16:18): This was surprisingly kind of stale. These two had a 30 minute draw in the Super Jr.'s tournament recently. It also seems like they wrestle each other all the time. Hiromu has not been that exciting lately for whatever reason. And this just felt like a regular match instead of a Wrestle Kingdom match. *1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. SHINGO TAKAGI (35:44): These two put me to sleep at Dominion, so thank God this was a lot better. Because they went long, though, the first 20 minutes of this match were totally forgettable. Finally they started wrestling fast and doing big moves and kick outs and finally it turned into a really good match by the end. Okada won the title here and will face Ospreay on night 2 where he will retain. Shingo had a great 2021, but his title reign seems kind of circumspect. I remember he had that Dome title defense against Tanahashi in the summer. Was that his only successful defense? I guess I can't complain because we are getting Okada/Ospreay at the Dome, a match scheduled last May but did not occur. The problem in all of this is that in my heart I know a Shingo/Ospreay match on night 2 would be a better match. ***

NIGHT 2

Wednesday, January 5th

Attendance: 6,379

TOGI MAKABE, YUJI NAGATA & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. BAD LUCK FALE, GEDO & JADO (6:40): Adam Page retained his title in a thirty minute blood bath against Daniel Bryan to open AEW Dynamite tonight. Honestly? That match was better than this entire show. Besides the great main event on Night 2, this was a fairly awful show. New Japan really has to cut this show back to being one night. This show opened with three straight meaningless, pointless, superfluous multi-man matches. We already have those shitty matches on every New Japan show. Why are they on what's supposed to be the biggest 2 shows of the year? Ugh. I guess I can complain that a pretty non-existant crowd for these 2 shows were the reason they weren't that great...and, sure, that was a problem...but the booking has been very, very bad. It doesn't help that Evil's House of Torture group is never in a good match and Great O'Khan is putting us to sleep every time he gets in a ring. And with Okada being the champ now, this company feels like Vince McMahon is running it. His idea when ratings plummet is to bring back the old ideas that worked. Okada was champ when New Japan was fucking awesome so, uh, make him champ again! Unfortunately, that means having the two best wrestlers in New Japan, Shingo & Ospreay, lose in the main event on consecutive nights. I don't think that's good for the future. It's really sad, though, seeing New Japan put out a dumpster fire of a show. They used to be the king. Sad to see it fucking dying before our eyes. Oh, and this opener was totally forgettable, forgotten. 1/2*

HIROYOSHI TENZAN, SATOSHI KOJIMA & MASTER WATO vs. EL DESPERADO, YOSHINOBU KANEMARU & TAKA MICHINOKU (9:23): This match was action packed and great. Shocking, really. They're setting up Wato vs. Desperado. Unfortunately, that match won't be good. **1/2

SHINGO TAKAGI, BUSHI & HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. TAICHI, ZACK SABRE, JR. & DOUKI (10:28): Shingo lost his title in the main event last night and now he's in a tag match on the fucking pre-show. Jesus! Quite the fall from grace. I think, honestly, Shingo should have beaten Okada and Ospreay and stayed champion. With the pandemic, who knows if Ospreay will stick around...but Shingo will and if he was champ every main event would be awesome. Will every Okada main event this year be awesome? No. The only thing I remember from this match is Douki doing a top rope dive onto everyone. **

ROBBIE EAGLES & TIGER MASK vs. RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & ROCKY ROMERO vs. TAIJI ISHIMORI & EL PHANTASMO (12:07): Are Eagles and Tiger Mask really a tag team? I'm not sure I've ever seen them wrestle. Well, they won the Jr. tag titles here. When Eagles found a piece of metal in Phantasmo's boot, Phantasmo was kicked out of the match. Rocky Romero was wrestling in AEW in a few matches last month. I guess he does whatever he wants? Weird. This match wasn't boring...so there was that. It wasn't worthy of being a WK match, though. **

TAM NAKANO & SAYA KAMITANI vs. MAYU IWATANI & STARLIGHT KID (9:14): This was the Stardom match. It was all action and big moves. For whatever reason it seemed like all four women were screaming the whole match. Not sure if they always do that. Stardom had a match of the year in June 2021 that everyone was talking about. So of course neither of those women were in this match. **

MINORU SUZUKI vs. CHASE OWENS vs. CIMA vs. TORU YANO (6:08): Suzuki won the King of Pro-Wrestling title here. I thought that every KOPW match had to be a stipulation match. This didn't. Oh, well. *

EVIL, YUJIRO TAKAHASHI & SHO vs. HIROOKI GOTO, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH (9:37): The House of Torture won the 6 man titles here, a title that, realistically, should be called the 3 man championship since only 3 men hold the title, not 6. This was a typical Evil match with tons of interference and Dick Togo choking out Yoh when the ref wasn't looking. I finally realized which one was good and which one was evil. Sho is the bad one. Yoh is the good guy. Why they broke up is beyond me, as it hasn't led to anything entertaining or interesting. 1/2*

SANADA vs. GREAT O'KHAN (13:21): I fell asleep watching this match. I didn't even watch this show live in the early morning hours, I watched a replay in primetime after Dynamite. So it wasn't like I was tired, it was just that the match was yawn inducing. The big moment came when O'Khan was tempted to jump over the top rope and onto Sanada on the floor. I'm not entirely sure why they played this out like it was this huge deal. I guess because he never does top rope dives? Eh. He did it. Sanada eventually won. Match sucked. 1/2*

TETSUYA NAITO vs. JEFF COBB (15:34): I was also pretty bored by this match. Naito said during the week that he was contemplating retirement. I'm guessing he said that to trick people since at the end of this show he was challenging Okada for the title. Well, he should retire. I can't even remember the last great match he was in. He got hurt in the G1 and only ended up wrestling once. I think this might have been his first match back. With O'Khan losing, Cobb losing here, and Ospreay losing in the main event, every member of their team lost. I still don't think Ospreay turning heel was the right move. And now it's a group of losers. **

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. KENTA "NO DQ MATCH" (22:40): This match was like 70% the wrestlers looking under the ring for something. Finally this match got interesting at the very end when Kenta brought a big ladder into the ring and climbed it and Tanahashi shook the ladder and Kenta fell off. Kenta fell head first onto a trash can and his face was pouring blood. Then Tanahashi put Kenta on a table and did a High Fly Flow from the top of the ladder onto him. That was great. Besides the end of this, though, this was an awful match. **1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. WILL OSPREAY (32:52): This was a great match that probably would have been better if there was a bigger crowd and/or it took place in a smaller building. This show apparently had 6 thousand less people than night 1, which is kind of a surprise since the card for night 1 wasn't exactly better or anything. And while my match of the year for 2021 was Shingo/Ospreay, that match was also held in a building with a sparse pandemic crowd...so maybe I can't blame the small audience too much on this not being as great as, say, Omega/Okada or Shingo/Ospreay. The big move was Ospreay doing a moonsault off a lighting scaffold. Ospreay also did a lot of his high flying that lately he's curtailed a bit. Ospreay also did some ingenious counters here, one inparticular being a Rainmaker attempt reserved into a Spanish Fly. Ospreay also kicked out of a Rainmaker. I think the only reason this wasn't as great as an Omega/Okada match was simply because Okada is older and a bit slower now than he was then. Because while Okada was good here, this was all Ospreay and Ospreay's show. He looked incredible and did everything and everything flawlessly. I actually think last year's Jay White/Ibushi match was better. And that's saying something because I don't even like Jay White. Maybe if Okada hadn't had a 35 minute match last night this could have been a 45 minute epic. And, yep, I would have loved this even more if Ospreay had won. Okada's been champ, multiple times, forever, it's all been done. Naito came out to challenge Okada. Ugh. It's time for the new people to reign. And New Japan needs something, anything, to get out of it's slump. ***1/2

WWE DAY 1

 

Atlanta

SHEAMUS & RIDGE HOLLAND vs. RICOCHET & CESARO (9:45): This is the WWE's latest experiment, having a PPV on New Year's Day. Supposedly, December's PPV. which has usually been TLC, was always they're lowest watched PPV of the year. Because of that, they didn't have a December PPV this year but they will have two in January because of Day 1. When it was first announced I wondered who was the idiot that came up with this genius idea. After all, they'd be going against college football bowl games, which always get huge ratings, especially the Rose Bowl, which they went against for the first hour of the show. Japan always has a ton of big wrestling shows around the New Year, so maybe they just got the idea from them. The problem with this show wasn't really their fault, though. Because of the Omicron variant that's spreading around the globe, half the world's population seems to have Covid. Roman Reigns got it and the main event of this show, Brock Lesnar vs. Roman for the title, was off and only announced to be off hours before the show. They threw Brock Lesnar into the 4 man RAW title match instead. The show was fairly entertaining and had some great matches, which, usually, you never say about a WWE PPV. It also tells you a lot about the WWE when two of their best in-ring wrestlers, Cesaro and Ricochet, are in a forgettable, meaningless, pre-show match. It still surprises me that Kevin Owens resigned with this company. I guess at least he's still in main events, though. The hot Atlanta crowd chanted for Ricochet early, which baffled me. Huh? They actually know who he is after being fucking buried in WWE for four years? Early in this match, Ricochet landed his boot right on Ridge Holland's nose and it started pouring blood everywhere. The WWE quickly took the camera off him and he rolled out of the ring and went to the back and you never saw him again. I don't even know who Ridge Holland is, though, so that didn't really matter to me that he disappeared. **

THE USO'S vs. THE NEW DAY (17:05): This was a great match. It was exciting with a ton of near falls (perhaps too many) and a hot crowd that cheered and fell with every two count. Since the Lesnar/Reigns match was off the show, it did seem that a few of these matches were given more time which they didn't use wisely. This was a great match but perhaps five minutes too long. The Uso's retained their titles. ***

DREW McINTYRE vs. MADCAP MOSS (9:45): I'm guessing that, like Happy Corbin, Vince McMahon probably finds Madcap Moss hilarious. His character is a bad standup comedian. No, I'm not joking. And the WWE wonders why their ratings, attendance, and popularity have plummeted to new depths. Or maybe they don't, who knows? I guess it'd be one thing if Madcap Moss was a great wrestler or something but he's not. 1/2*

RK-BRO vs. THE STREET PROFITS (11:15): Matt Riddle, or just Riddle as he's now known in the WWE for no good reason, is a fantastic wrestler. You wouldn't really know that, though, if you only ever watched him wrestle in the WWE and not in, say, PWG or something. The RK-Bro tag team is a fan favorite...but, man, I really want to see a 30 minute, classic Matt Riddle match, not some lame tag team shit where Randy Orton gets the spotlight. The one Street Profit did do a cool dive over the corner out of the ring and down onto everyone. Other than that, this match was mostly boring. *1/2

EDGE vs. THE MIZ (20:00): Fuck...a 20 minute Miz match? Serious? What hellish purgatory have you sent us to? It was bad enough that the WWE brought back Edge out of retirement to feud with the worst of the worst, The Miz...but then to add insult to injury they forced him into a 20 minute match with a guy that is about as plain and as dull as any wrestler has ever been in eternity? Ugh. At the end, after Maryse interfered multiple times, Edge's wife, Beth Phoenix, came out to chase Maryse away. This caused The Miz to look at Beth Phoenix and thus turn around to get speared and lose. And alas, mercifully it ended. 1/2*

BECKY LYNCH vs. LIV MORGAN (17:00): They definitely gave Liv Morgan a lot of offense and close calls in this. At one point, I thought that maybe she'd actually win. Silly, boy. The WWE doesn't promote the B-stars. Toni Storm figured this out. She just lost a title match to Charlotte on Smackdown two weeks ago and last week she abruptly quit the company. Lynch was supposed to put her feet on the ropes to win at the end but she was a bit too far from the ropes and so it didn't really work. Liv worked hard but she's not exactly a super exciting wrestler or anything. She definitely got this far with her looks not her wrestling ability, although that's not really her fault. **

BROCK LESNAR vs. BIG E vs. SETH ROLLINS vs. KEVIN OWENS vs. BOBBY LASHLEY (8:25): Man, this match was fucking awesome. In just the first couple minutes I was thinking, damn, this is the best WWE match in years. Then it ended quickly at 8 minutes and it left me scratching my head. That's it? Lesnar wins the title even though he wasn't even in this match yesterday? Kind of lame, honestly. And considering the Reigns/Lesnar match was scratched...you'd think they'd make this match at least a bit longer than 8 frigging minutes since we got cheated out of a title match on this show. It was all big moves, though, so it was exciting while it lasted. Lesnar gave everyone multiple suplexex and multiple F5's. Lashley speared Lesnar through the barricade at ringside. Owens and Rollins teamed up on everyone. Lesnar pinned Big E. I wonder if this means that Lesnar was scheduled to beat Roman Reigns for the title in the main event. Or maybe they just didn't want Lesnar to lose. This kind of seems superfluous because I doubt Lesnar is going to be on RAW every week. So, what? RAW, a 3 hour show, is going to go on every week with the champion not there? The match's result seems to not have been thought through. Still, awesome match while it lasted. ***1/2