NJPW 5/25/18, Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block B Match: Dragon Lee [6] vs. Hiromu Takahashi [2] 20:48. Lee is Takahashi's best opponent precisely because he doesn't allow Takahashi to be too lazy. Lee always wants to push the pace, while Takahashi really has little beyond a handful of dangerous moves, so instead of actually growing as a wrestler or adding to that he just pads out the length with a lot of dead time. If their match were merely the median of the two styles it would have a ton more action than Takahashi's match vs. pretty much anyone else, but Lee shifts the balance way in the favor of action. Lee is also always willing to be daring & engage in a game of top this, so he's a lot more game for Takahashi's car crash than probably anyone else, causing Takahashi to eventually give in to his own kamikaze tendencies. Lee is also willing to try more against Takahashi because they've fought so many times they they know what each other is thinking & have the chemistry & timing down pat. The result was the best match thus far in the Super Jr. The initial burst was really intense, but once they moved from rapid exchanging to Hiromu taking over countering Lee's running Frankensteiner with a powerbomb onto the apron, Hiromu killed the momentum becoming his usual nonchalant self, walking around in a circle after virtually every move. Lee came back countering Takahashi's leap off the apron with a dropkick then hitting a no touch tope con giro, but the difference in the two was then shown as Lee would stand over Takahashi & hit Takahashi until Takahashi hit him back, then hit him 2 or 3 more times, then do that again until Takahashi fought his way back to his feet & into the match. Lee's approach didn't take any more talent or skill, it's simply a matter of what you want to do with your allotted time, something or nothing. Lee coming out with a mask that was a fusion of his & Takahashi's old Kamataichi mask was a nice touch, but he really lit a fire under Hiromu mocking the Ingobernables cornball poses, and from there the match was pretty much nonstop action with the usual assortment of wild moves & big counters. It was very back & forth, overdoing the strike & released German suplex exchanges (Hiromu hit something like 7 released Germans in the match), but having a number of highlights such as Takahashi rolling to his feet after Lee's reverse Frankensteiner & answering with a Canadian destroyer. There wasn't a ton of drama, but when Lee stopped Hiromu's avalanche style Frankensteiner & clunkily answered with his corner hanging footstomp then followed with the Spanish fly & Dragon driver, you felt it should end & it did. As much as I'm busting on Takahashi, this was a really good effort from him as well. Even though they buried this match on the tape delayed VOD shows this year, they still gave every bit the effort they did to their featured TV-Asahi match last year. ***3/4

NJPW 5/27/18

Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block B Match: Chris Sabin [4] vs. Dragon Lee [6] 13:39. Lee wore the UWF kick pads & did the Shibata sit before the match as a tribute to his friend. There isn't a ton of similarity between the two in the ring, but Lee has been doing a lot of striking exchanges & did a sleeper into the penalty kick late for a near fall. Sabin has been trying to have a good match & relishing the opportunity this tournament has presented to do some technical wrestling. This wasn't one of his more mat oriented contests, but the good matches so far in this tournament have been whoever is wrestling Lee or Ospreay, so even though he was once again early on the card, he didn't let this opportunity pass him by. You could see he was more motivated just in the way he moved, whereas he was looking a bit creaky earlier in the tournament, he had the adrenaline going here & his knees were looking like he was a decade younger. They matched each other hold for hold & strike for strike early on. Lee wasn't nearly as reckless as he was against Takahashi because they don't have the familiarity, but they nonetheless as the match developed they played off each other really well with a lot of nice counters. One thing I liked more about this match is once it got going, they showed a lot more diversity in their exchanges, pretty much going back & forth so two moves in a row for anyone was a lot, but throwing a varity of different strikes such as lariats, superkicks into the exchanges & always countering with a different move instead of getting stuck on the German suplexes. The action flowed well, and they were able to organically find a spot for most of their big holds rather than just forcing them as is often the case with guys who aren't used to one another. There was a cool sequence where Sabin ran the apron & you thought Lee might counter the dive with the dropkick as he did to Hiromu, but instead he caught Sabin in powerbomb position, but Sabin countered with a Frankensteiner & followed with a somersault off the apron. Another nice sequence saw S abin turn the Dragon driver into a DDT, but Lee then turned the cradle shock into a cradle for his own near fall. The downside of the match was it was on the short side since it was the undercard, so that was the begining of the end as Sabin then beat Lee to a lariat & hit a couple superkicks & the cradle shock to hand Lee his first loss. The finish itself was fine, but I was really enjoying the match, & it would be nice to see them have a big match together, as they clearly could have added 1/2* to this if they went longer. ***1/2

Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block B Match: KUSHIDA [4] vs. SHO [4] 19:24. KUSHIDA has been shockingly absent so far, but he decided it was time to post. Apparently he'd been saving up all his creativity, as while I expected this to be good because SHO has been working hard in every match, I wasn't expecting KUSHIDA to que the Monty Python, but And Now for Something Completely Different, a Super Jr match that was notable because of the chain wrestling. It looked like KUSHIDA had been binge watching RINGS tapes in his absence from his usual role of saving this tournament, and decided it was time to channel his matches with Kyle O'Reilly. Though SHO isn't yet on the level of Kyle, he's proven to be very versatile in this tournament, able to do the opponent's chosen style whereas everyone is catering to his partner YOH, & still the best you can say about him is he's trying & hopefully learning. The match started with one of the most interesting openings I've ever seen from KUSHIDA. They did this sort of schoolyard grappling where KUSHIDA was always a step ahead, and thus could take SHO down with a legscissors, but when SHO tried to take him down he just matadored him, jumping over or ducking under whatever attack SHO threw at him. SHO could counter KUSHIDA once they were on the ground, but again KUSHIDA was mostly twisting & turning out of whatever SHO tried then they started exchanging flying armbars & countering with kneebars. It was pretty wild, and what was great is this wasn't just some throwaway matwork while they were biding their time to start rolling out their moves. No, the whole match was about them breaking each other down with kicks & submissions, and they never did any unrelated high spots or any pin attempts at all. Even if SHO was being put on the defensive by KUSHIDA more often than not, there's no shame in that as KUSHIDA was a real fighter before he switched to pro wrestling, while SHO is a guy who didn't even show any aptitude for grappling until this 4th match of the tournament. What impressed me is this wasn't merely a one man show like Shibata vs. Okada where sure Okada did Shibata's match but he brought no answers to anything Shibata was throwing at him & thus just cluelessly layed there trapped, SHO instead kept having answers for everything KUSHIDA threw at him, whether countering into his own submission or knowing that KUSHIDA had defended his intial submission & thus switching into a completely different submission. The big question was were they going to see this style through, or were they just going to randomly start doing their usual junior match at some point. The answer lied somewhere in between as they tried to bridge the gap between the match they were doing & the match they normally do as KUSHIDA started focusing on winning with his hoverboard lock, while SHO started working his power moves in slamming his way out of the armbar. While I would have liked to have seen a little tighter focus from SHO toward sticking to the style they started with, I wasn't particularly bothered by him trying to use his power moves as the match progressed because he was losing a very loosely worked shoot style match to a guy that absolutely should beat him in that style, so it also makes sense to change things up rather than continuing to proceed down the road to failure. What was important to me is KUSHIDA stuck to his armwork, and that kept SHO more or less to the initial style. Sure, KUSHIDA wasn't getting the submission, and eventually he was getting countered, but he was breaking SHO down as long as he had the submission on, & forcing SHO to keep coming up with an answer. Looking at the finish of the match in the results, I thought I was absolutely going to hate that KUSHIDA won with his back to the future once I started watching the match since I quickly realized it had nothing to do with the match they had started working, but actually it was brilliant. SHO's answer to the latest Kimura was standing up & using knees to try to break the lock, so once KUSHIDA grew wise to this he caught the knee & went into his other finisher. This was the only pin attempt of the match, and he converted somewhat because the move stands on its own, but probably more because SHO didn't see it coming. SHO's breakout match, and the best match of the tournament so far. ****1/4

Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block B Match: Hiromu Takahashi [4] vs. Ryusuke Taguchi [2] 14:49. Taguchi did his one semi-serious match of the tournament, and while his buffoonery played poorly trying to follow the intense shootish match of the tournament that preceeded him, that's mostly on the booking. Takahashi dominated the early portion, but after countering 2 hip attacks by being far enough away Taguchi missed & landed on Takahashi's knee sort of atomic dropping himself, Taguchi finally took over landing the 3rd attempt. From here they spent the rest of the match trading their best moves, but between the screwing around & the standing around, it was hard to get involved in because you never really felt either guy was trying to win. This is mostly the way they both wrestle all the time, actually giving much better efforts than normal, but it still feels like a hybrid between a big match and an exhibition match, that sort of self-conscious constantly acknowledging the crowd while your opponent recovers stuff that they teach in the WWE. They did fight harder & with far fewer breaks toward the end because neither could afford another loss, but by that point they'd already taught you not to take them too seriously. After his initial surge, Takahashi had his moments such as turning a running hip into a schoolboy, but usually seemed to be behind because Taguchi knew exactly what he was going to try to do, & kept answering until Takahashi ran out of answers. I liked Taguchi stopping short when Hiromu tried to counter his corner charge with his overhead belly to belly into the corner so Hiromu instead hit his head on the mat, but Hiromu caught him with it later. Even though Taguchi was going to use some ass move most of the time, he seemed to actually win a few more counter sequences than he lost, surprising Takahashi with a number of ankle locks instead, for instance after he stopped the Frankensteiner. Some of the cooperation was obvious, for instance you could see Taguchi pulling Takahashi into an ankle lock before Takahashi actually started to kick out of Taguchi's previous pin, but generally the sequences were good & the sheer number of moves the countered was impressive. In the end though, it was Takahashi who got the last laugh. Taguchi was able to roll Takahashi onto his back after Takahashi's Frankensteiner, but while he was seemingly joking about having his face in Takahashi's crotch, Takahashi locked a triangle & Taguchi went out before he could slam his way out. This was nowhere near the level of Taguchi's serious match with KUSHIDA last Super Jr., but it's probably the best you'll get from this pairing or Taguchi in this tournament. ***

NJ 5/20/18, Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block A Match: Will Ospreay [2] vs. ACH [2] 16:50. In last year's Super Jr. League, ach was the sound of the flem coming up everytime I had to watch this guy auditioning for the EWW, preening & posing after every move, but so far this year he's left that to Scurll & now actually looks like a serious worker who thinks out there. It's somewhat ironic that ACH is so much better this year he's banged up & not doing a lot of his flying, but this was Ospreay's match through & through, developing & building through various sequences of usually highly athletic counters, and ACH was healthy enough to be on the same page with him & contributing rather than taking the easy excuse & looking for every opportunity to continue putting himself over at the expense of everything else. Ospreay is still recoving from his neck injury, but he still worked a lot harder than anyone on the card. The match was mostly his greatest hits as he was running away with the match, only getting momentarily slowed down when ACH would land a chop. ACH made counters to stay in the match such as turning the Oscutter into a Samoan driver & Sasuke special into a back back kick, but every time you thought he was about to get going he in fact couldn't maintain the offensive for more than a move or two. He still quickly took the Sasuke special & corkscrew shooting star press after seeming poised to take over. He cut Ospreay off on the top with an awesome rope climb overhead kick, but again Ospreay soon countered a suplex with a cutter, and this time finished landing on his feet for a lariat & hitting his 540 degree kick & stormbreaker for the win. I would have preferred a more competitive & thus dramatic match, but ultimately, Ospreay's stuff is a lot more entertaining than ACH's or just about anyone else's, so we could do a lot worse than a match where Will just goes to town on the opponent. ***1/2

SGPW 5/13/18: DASH Chisako vs. Chihiro Hashimoto 10:14. This was supposed to be DASH's 2nd ever challenge for the Sendai Girls title, but Ayako Hamada vacated due to getting busted for drugs, so DASH fought the previous champion Hashimoto instead, though they decided to have an 8 woman title tournament rather than just make this for the belt. Hashimoto's title loss to Ayako was somewhat disappointing, as all of Ayako's big matches in 2018 have been, lacking urgency & intensity, but these two made the most of their short match, with DASH pushing the pace & taking it to Hashimoto from start to finish. DASH's pressure forced Hashimoto to be quicker & more reactive, and it's a good sign that Hashimoto can actually adjust to her opponent, which tends to be one of the biggest liabilities of power wrestlers, especially those who always win. The work here was really good, and it shows how much Hashimoto has improved in a year because she was really out of her element & outclassed in the similarly fast paced & athletic Stardom match where she teamed with Satomura against Io & Mayu on 3/9/17. Even if DASH was mostly countering her power moves, Hashimoto was working a much faster paced & doing good sequences where she also had answers to DASH's speed. The match was mostly good for DASH, as most DASH matches are, but Hashimoto really elevated her level to match her & this was the only Senjo match I've seen so far in '18 that was better than I expected when I just looked at the results. The downside is it's really short, but going full speed for 10 minutes is a lot more interesting than going half speed for 20. Everything in this match was really well done except DASH's harumaru finisher was almost in two parts as Hashimoto kind of got stuck on her back then had to elevate herself off the mat to end up in the crucifix. DASH's career has really been hurt by her sister Sachiko retiring to get married 2 1/2 years ago, as she was a tag specialist who was since hampered with two terrible partners in a row in slow old KAORU & Mrs. Miyagi, but now that she had a reign with the PURE-J Openweight title & has dropped the Sendai tag titles I'm hoping they'll finally give her more of a chance in singles. ***1/4

UFC Fight Night 130 5/27/18: Makwan Amirkhani vs. Jason Knight 3R. A really fun standup 1st round with the better conditioned & more consistently active Knight against the explosive bursts of Amirkhani that yielded to two somewhat dull ground rounds as Knight shifted tactics rather inexplicably after scoring 2 knockdowns in the 1st. Amirkhani was getting off 1st, landing the most significant shot of the exchange over Knights low guard, often a right hook that bloodied Knight's nose early, then Knight would try to answer. Amirkhani was the faster fighter, but when Knight saw that he was backing away from his lead punches, he began to land leg kicks instead. Amirkhani was winning the round, but with 75 seconds left he tried a lead right uppercut then left body hook combo, but got dropped with Knight's right uppercut counter. Knight tried to pounce on Amirkhani & get the choke then the triangle, but Amirkhani was right back up trying to get the knockdown back only to have Knight drop him again when both threw near simultaneous right hooks. This started the demise of Knight, as he began the losing pattern of being content to be on his back in mission control, generally making little progress toward a triangle minute after minute. To be fair, Knight was able to use a triangle attempt to sweep at the end of round 1, but Amirkhani slipped out of the mounted triangle as soon as he was on his back. Being on top wasn't going to slow Amirkhani down much though, and given Knight was counting on winning with his cardio, it seemed a much better plan to stick with standup & work on deteriorating Amirkhani's movement with more low kicks. Amirkhani wasn't landing the big lead right hook anymore in the 2nd, and Knight was winning the round on activity when Amirkhani ducked into a double leg midway through. Amirkhani let Knight back up soon enough, but took him down again & Knight was able to improve from side mount to mission control, but still ended the round on his back without getting any offense in. This was a very close round because Amirkhani didn't have any real offense either, but the judges are going to go with the guy with 2 takedowns & 1:38 control over the guy with 17 strikes to 14. Having just lost the 2nd round from being on his back in the 2nd half, Knight proceeded to jump into mission control when Amirkhani tried for a takedown early in the 3rd. This was really risky given the fight was likely a round a piece, and time was basically just ticking away until Goddard restarted them 3 minutes in only to have Amirkhani try for another takedown & wind up on top despite Knight defending it because Knight inexplicably gambled on rolling for a kneebar. The fighters were against the cage, but instead of trying to get back to his feet, Knight went right back to mission control. Amirkhani actually only landed 9 strikes in the 3rd despite almost 4 minutes of control (and no submission attempts), but the few shots he landed toward the end busted Knight up. It seemed obvious that Knight won the 1st & Amirkhani won the 3rd, but it wound up being a 27-30, 29-28, 29-28 split decision victory for Amirkhani. Good match.

AJPW 12/12/17

2017 World's Strongest Tag League Match: Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama [12] vs. Kento Miyahara & Yoshitatsu [10] 25:17. A slow building long match where the Violent Giants just ran over Yoshitatsu in the first half, setting up Miyahara & Yoshitatsu to work their way into being competitive so the match could take off. The early portion is rather dull with little skill on display as Suwama & Ishikawa saved their better stuff & energy for later, the punching bag Yoshitatsu just being a stationary target for the plodding Giants to pummel & barrel over. The first 10 minutes had no intensity & looked like a Saturday morning squash, but things really picked up when Yoshitatsu hit a backcracker & finally made the hot tag. Though Miyahara is energetic & over and gave an impressive performance when he was in, it didn't take long before he was behind the 8 ball as well, and this began to show the real problem with this match in that the whole story was building to Miyahara & Yoshitatsu somehow finally overcoming all this adversity, except that wasn't actually going to happen. Yoshitatsu finally had a run on Suwama, so they started double teaming him, which still didn't get any heat though the fans finally popped big when he avoided their sandwich lariat. Because Miyahara's team was losing the match, they had to tell an alternate story where Miyahara, the two (now three) time Triple Crown champion, wanted Yoshitatsu to rise to his own level & be able to hold up his end, so instead of pressing their advantage he'd leave the ring with Yoshitatsu in a very advantageous position & let Yoshitatsu drop the ball, though usually Ishikawa would come in & double team Yoshitatsu to give him an excuse for surrendering the lead. Normally, the big team in AJ has been gaijins, and though they had some fans, the audience was going to cheer for Kawada, Kobashi, or Misawa over Hansen, Williams, or Vader, whereas here you had a guy in Yoshitatsu that never really impressed anyone except WWE until they actually brought him in & had only showed up in AJ 3 months ago being the lynchpin, & the fans instead cheered for Suwama, their 6 time Triple Crown champion & mainstay top star for the past decade, whenever he was actually down. All that being said, the last 5 minutes were quite good. The best near fall was Yoshitatsu countering Suwama's last ride finisher into a sunset flip because if he was going to win, this was the kind of way he might get it done. Suwama was right back attacking with a lariat, and though Yoshitatsu ducked it, Suwama caught him on the rebound & hit the last ride for the win. I liked Miyahara's work here, but amazingly given the length, he was involved far less than anyone & Suwama probably gave the best performance because he was in charge of making Yoshitatsu look good & putting him over such as it was in a match that was mostly Yoshitatsu getting stomped but showing fighting spirit in refusing to surrender. Despite the sort of wrong finish given the story they were telling, the outcome would have worked way better if the Violent Giants won the league right here, leaving you with the feeling that the ace Miyahara & his overmatched but gutsy partner gave it all they had in an epic final but just lost to the bigger better team, instead of having to come right back and make short work of a lesser team, which seemed to mainly be designed to send the fans home happy because the sort of AJ team beat the BJW team. ***

2017 World's Strongest Tag League Final: Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama vs. Daichi Hashimoto & Hideyoshi Kamitani 11:14. The final was almost a continuation of Ishikawa & Suwama's previous match, not just because it happened a few minutes later, but because Hashimoto & Kamitani came out swinging & Violent Giant worked this as a second finishing sequence tacked onto the epic that put them in the final. Yoshitatsu showed heart, but Okami showed belief, fearlessly taking it to Violent Giant. They did their thing, and while slugging it out with much larger opponents yielded the predictable result, at least they went down on their sword. The BJW team being better rested & much more willing to double team than Miyahara & Yoshitatsu were did help their cause greatly before that, and allowed this to be a competitive sprint where Okami wrestled as though they were capable & deserving of winning. The final didn't have nearly as much story, but the story wasn't really good anyway, so basically you traded 14 minutes of mostly slow & one-sided wrestling for an 11 minute back & forth burst to the league championship. While trading shoulderblocks will never be confused with the epitome of skill & technique, at least this match was urgent, energetic, & intense. The main pairing was Ishikawa & Kamitani, and while Kamitani may never have actually came that close to winning, he really took it to Ishikawa & made him earn it. Violent Giant earned the tag league, but Okami earned respect, so it was a win win. ***

NJPW 5/18/18, Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block A Match: Taiji Ishimori [2] vs. Will Ospreay [0] 13:47. The most anticipated match of the tournament for me, a new match pitting the best wrestler in the tournament, NJ's Jr. champ Ospreay, against the perpetually underrated 3 time GHC Jr. champ Ishimori. I would have had this as the final on merit & to shake things up, but there's also a rivalry stemming from Ishimori attacking Ospreay when he revealed he was the wrestler working as Bone Soldier on 5/4/18. The outcome is going to set up a title match regardless, but I really want to see a big push for Ishimori because he still has something in the tank & the problem with the NJ junior division is outside of KUSHIDA, the natives are pretty much over the hill and/or uninspiring stallers, cheaters &/or clowns. I'm not thrilled about Ishimori being a heel, and he didn't seem to be either, as he didn't exactly embrace the role and maybe that had something to do with the weirdness of this contest. One of the reasons I rate these two so highly is they give an effort even when they aren't in featured matches & don't have particularly skilled opponents. It's great that this was the main event, but I was surprised they didn't at least put it on Samurai instead of the dreadful Scurll/Takahashi stallfest & especially it was peculiar that the match was shorter than the previous two, which surely didn't need that much time. Maybe they're trying to conserve Ospreay because he's still not 100%? He didn't have his injured neck taped, but was selling it constantly. Ishimori worked on the neck some, but it seemed more of a theme because Ospreay was selling it in between his offense than because Ishimori really committed to attacking it. That was one of the problems with the match in general, the individual moves & sequences were impressive but definitely more in & of themselves than as a cohesive whole. There was a great spot early where Ishimori tried to whip Ospreay into the 1st row, but Ospreay leaped over the chairs onto the stage & somersaulted right back off onto Ishimori. The match was based on of quick bursts of fantastic counters back & forth, but was somewhat "slow" in between these parity oriented spots. It wasn't really building per se, but eventually they went from starts & stops to the finishing sequence with Ospreay finally taking over with a series of big moves including the swandive shooting star press. Ishimori seemed to come back with a fabulous reverse Frankensteiner, but then Ospreay countered back with the Spanish fly & went to finish with is Oscutter only to have Ishimori turn it into the bloody cross for the win. You could tell this was the finishing sequence, but it was surprising that there wasn't a lot more before it. The match was fine, but the overall feeling I was left with is that I want to see them do a big match rather than that I just saw something that stood on its own. ***

NJPW 5/19/18, Best Of The Super Junior 2018 Block B Match: Dragon Lee [2] vs. SHO [0] 17:31. This was SHO's Super Jr debut, and I believe his first singles match since HOG 8/18/17. The tournament is seriously lacking firepower this year taking Volador Jr & Ricochet out of the already weak group from last year & really only replacing them with Ishimori (Soberano and/or Cavernario should be in if they wanted someone from CMLL younger than Volador or just different after two straight years), so a lot is actually going to fall on SHO & YOH, who aren't experienced or great singles wrestlers, but at least are young guns who should give an effort. Effort was what was lacking last year, with all the shows basically being main event or nothing, so especially given I automatically write off any show that features an insecure cartoonish clown who flaps his arms & regularly makes his opponents look equally foolish (if that's even possible) laying around forever while he preens & poses yet still falling into his traps they can see &/or hear coming a mile away, it was refreshing to see the 1st of the league matches on the card get plenty of time & have both men working really hard to justify the length. Lee started off last year's tournament with one of the better matches against Takahashi, but wasn't really featured much after that despite winding up in the million way tie for 2nd behind Ospreay. He did a great job here, giving an explosive performance that the fans got behind because they realized how hard he was trying when they saw him doing simple things such as running the ropes a lot harder & faster than he needed to. The cooperation was a bit obvious & deliberate because of some combination of the lack of familiarity, language barrier, & SHO's inexperience, but they built a consistently exciting match that told a story with Lee generally eventually winning the various parity sequences but still winding up in trouble because SHO injured his arm & worked it over, including faking a dive but instead hitting a soccerball kick to Lee's arm that was resting on the apron. Lee would eventually win the fierce elbow exchanges, and when he wasn't having luck breaking SHO's armwringer with single elbows, he started working SHO's arm as well, turning a lariat into a wakigatame & avenging with his own soccerball kick to the arm. I would have thought more of the match if someone actually won with an arm move. In the end, SHO isn't quite there yet so there are a lot of matches that are performed cleaner & more precisely, but what was great is they packed 25 minutes of action in 17 whereas most NJ matches tend to do the opposite. ***1/2

UFC Fight Night 129 5/19/18

Claudio Puelles vs. Felipe Silva R3 2:23. Fun, back & forth grappler vs. striker match. Silva had a 5" reach advantage & was more confident in his standup, so underdog Puelles just wanted to get it to the ground anyway he could, even trying a flying armbar early. Puelles was either shooting & dropping to his back if it failed or looking to use Silva's aggression against him ducking into a high crotch then shifting to a double leg if Silva defended, but Silva quickly got wise to that. Silva wasn't nearly as accomplished in BJJ, but he was able to defend submissions & land big shots on the ground. There was a nice sequence early where Puelles dropped down into a takedown, but Silva took the top when Puelles went hard for a guillotine, and was bashing Puelles with punches & hammerfists until Puelles countered with a kneebar attempt. The 1st round could have gone either way, I gave it to Puelles because he was making more of an effort to finish the fight, but I wouldn't be surprised if the judges gave it to Silva because Puelles was surrendering position either willingly or by virtue of Silva defending his submissions & taking some shots. Early in round 2, Puelles tried to earn Silva's respect with his striking rather than continuing to sell out for the takedown. This didn't work at all, with Silva hurting him early when he missed with a right hand lead but hurt Puelles with the subsequent left. For the most part, Silva wasn't running over Puelles in the 2nd, but he was landing a bunch of quality shots, particularly knees & low kicks that off-balanced Puelles, while Puelles landed now & then but not with anything that bothered Silva. Silva really took over 3 1/2 minutes in with a big right followed by 2 left hooks. Puelles failed on his desperation takedown & just dropped to his back, and while Silva did take the bait & follow him, he was connecting with heavy ground & pound before disengaging when Puelles started using the cage to escape Silva's mount. I thought Silva's corner told him "no takedowns, no ground game", but shockingly that was Puelles corner apparently figuring he was down 2 rounds & his best chance to finish the fight was with a KO. That worked about as well as it had in the 1st 2 rounds, with Puelles blocking a right high kick & trying to fire back with a jab/hook, but getting floored when Silva's right straight beat him. The writing was on the wall for Puelles, as Silva let Puelles back up & quickly dropped him again with a body hook. Puelles eye began to swell quickly & badly from an apparent orbital fracture, and Jimmy Smith was pretty much hoping for the moment for the ref to step in because Puelles was too tough to give up on his own. When Puelles takedown failed, Silva decided he could target the eye easier with ground & pound. Puelles didn't bother trying for guard, he just got his leg between Silva's & when he summoned up the energy, exploded into a kneebar. I figured it would wind up being a sweep that ultimately wasn't because Puelles would sell out for the submission & wind up maintaining top control, but Silva didn't seem to know the defense & just got stuck on his side so he had to tap. Silva had a ridiculous 70-16 significant strike advantage, making this the biggest statistical comeback in the history of the UFC lightweight division, surpassing Joe Lauzon's triangle choke submission over Jamie Varner at UFC on Fox 4 8/4/12 when Varner had a 38 significant strike advantage. Good match.

Andrea Lee vs. Veronica Macedo 3R. Macedo moved down from bantamweight, but at 5'4" she should be dropping to strawweight where she'd still be shorter than Rose, Joanna, etc. Macedo did well at range even though she had the reach disadvantage, landing a spinning back kick & two high kicks in the 1st, but she was just bullied in this fight by the bigger, stronger opponent whose hands she regular played into despite having no answer to Lee using her size & strength to work her over with knees in the clinch game then take her down. Lee just use brute strength to come back from the high kicks with a hip toss & nearly choke Macedo out. The difference in the fight beyond the size was that Lee just fought smarter, she knew where she had the advantage & would go back to that whenever things started trending in the wrong direction, whereas Macedo put herself in disadvantageous positions & was too willing to try to make the best out of it rather than just take a better position. That's why the 1st round was the best because once Lee figured things out she wasn't falling into Macedo's traps anymore. Macedo did get a takedown in the 2nd even though in my opinion she would have been better just staying on the outside & using her speed & quickness rather than locking up where 9 times out of 10 she was outmuscled, but she immediately gambled for a low percentage armbar. Although that exposed Macedo to more of Lee weighing on her, Macedo did have a kneebar attempt, though Lee probably could have finished her with an arm triangle if the cage wasn't in the way. The ground fighting was entertaining with a lot of submissions back & forth, and mostly Macedo taking a bunch of chances. Lee's corner wanted her to wrestle in the 3rd, and as soon as Macedo closed the distance to get into range, Lee just wrapped her up & pulled her down. Macedo was presumably down 2 rounds, but again stayed in butt scoot position forever like it was early PRIDE. Once she finally got back up she landed a few good shots, but Lee just did more of the usual tying her up & tossing her down. Both tried some submissions, and Macedo would have finished in butt scoot if Lee didn't dive back into her guard. Lee won a unanimous decision 30-27. Good match.

RPW/NJPW Global Wars UK 2016 Day 2 11/11/16: RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Chris Hero 13:18. Shibata's match with Hero was more or less the same as Ishii's offensively, just beating the hell out of one another, with the crucial difference that Shibata was always able to hang with Hero in the striking department. Shibata was also in the match because he can rely on submissions, as he tried to do at the outset before Hero sucked him into the striking exchanges, and he can win by using his submissions to finish with his striking as he did to win this title the night before. The match followed Shibata's usual big match formula of continually escalating the intensity, violence, & pace through the striking. The primary quality of Shibata's style is his durability, the opponent will keep hitting him harder & harder until they've unloaded all they possibly could, and he'll just keep absorbing it & stepping forward to get in their face until he finally unleashes his own offense that's usually even more magnificently brutal than what he just withstood. Hero has 75+ pounds on Shibata though, and can absorb his best stuff as well though, so he was also eventually able to turn the tide back countering Shibata's charge with a knee & getting a near fall from a piledriver. Shibata not only managed to kick out, but locked a sleeper, and again this is where him having more tools than Ishii comes in as maybe Shibata can't KO Hero going strike for strike, but he can bring him to the point of nearly being unconscious & then finish him with the penalty kick. The finishing sequence was built around Hero having answers for the sleeper, establishing his own weapons during this portion that Shibata needed to answer in the Gotch style piledriver that took Ishii out the night before & rolling elbow, but Shibata had answers for both Hero's finishers & Hero's answers for the sleeper. The crowd wasn't as into this match as the Hero/Ishii match perhaps because Shibata was an equal to the big man rather than an underdog so the support was a lot more split if not now leaning toward Hero, who while also an outsider has been making stops in the UK since the early days of his career, but the match actually worked because of that & just has much more sweep & a much better dramatic arc. The only negative is the match was on the short side as both had done real matches the night before & Hero was flying back to the states for the EVOLVE shows the next 2 days. I was a bit surprised Shibata got the finish when he did even though the match built well & consistently to that exact moment, probably because the actual kick didn't have the expected oomph. They were really rolling once they got momentum going with Hero's barrage of strikes leading to Shibata's comback, and it was super physical & punishing with nice counters back & forth. Overall, I'd rate this slightly higher than Shibata/Sabre as the match of the Global Wars. ***3/4

SGPW 4/19/18: Io Shirai vs. Meiko Satomura 20:00. The Shirai vs. Satomura matches have been arguably the most anticipated matches amongst joshi fans for the past four years (Mayu blew past Satomura & has had the better matches with Io but doesn't have the name value & has yet to garner the same respect), so it's odd that they would have one that wasn't even the main event of the show it was on. I understand Satomura wants her promotion's title to mean something & has been pushing Hashimoto through the roof since she first stepped foot in the ring, but this seemed awkward booking as it encouraged Shirai & Satomura not to go full force because Hashimoto & Hamada would never be able to follow that. The match just seemed destined to disappoint to begin with, and while it will still likely be one of the best joshi matches of the year, it didn't break any new ground and had more of a league match feel than the big interpromotional ace vs. ace feel of some of their past battles. They started out doing Satomura's technical match, but it was very slow as everything was built out of the lockup & they just leveraged counters & switches from there. As with some of their previous encounters, most notably 4/26/14, the idea was seemingly that Io had to figure out how to work her flying into the match, but that didn't really fly here, as there should be no reason for Io to be ever be willingly lock up with Satomura & involving herself in a slow grappling match. They randomly picked the match up 5 minutes in with Io countering Satomura by dropkicking her to the floor, and it never really slowed down from there, though this time Io wasn't able to hit a dive as Satomura jumped onto the apron & cut her tope off with an elbow, a spot that was much better on paper than in actuality because they didn't line it up right so Io really had to make sure her head found Satomura's forearm. Satomura was dominating the match early when she stuck to her bread & butter technical wrestling, but when she tried to get fancy, Io might make the risk backfire so she could do her thing. Once Io warmed up though, she pretty much just did everything she wanted & they exchanged big spots back & forth throughout the second half of the match. They'd counter the major spots such as the Death Valley bomb & moonsault, but they weren't really challenging themselves in the development of the sequences or the speed of the counters, just rolling out bombs back & forth. Both were individually very good, but they did more in their previous matches to be collectively impressive than they did here. After Satomura got her knees up for the moonsault they began doing double sell spots to start selling the draw. The intensity did nonetheless kick in with a furious strike exchange, & Satomura really laid into Io when she eventually followed her to the floor after Io escaped following two high kicks. Io's big comeback was countering Satomura throwing her back into the ring with a 619, but her knee got stuck on the apron so she literally had to restart the kick halfway through. Io hit her moonsault attack to the floor after that, and the match finally had a sense of urgency as they kicked it up three notches trying to squeeze a finish in before time expired. Io did a good job with her strikes here, landing some big uppers to set up her power or flying moves, but Satomura always had an answer to the moonsault press. Satomura finally hit her Death Valley bomb in the final 30 seconds, but Io kicked out & time expired right after Satomura's scorpio rising. Satomura's performance was miles better than anything she's done so far in 2018, but my general feeling was that the best thing about the match is it ensures a rematch that will hopefully be a lot more toward their usual leave it all in the ring contest. ***1/2

GLORY 53 5/12/18: Featherweight Contender Tournament Final: Serhiy Adamchuk vs. Victor Pinto 3R UD. After an entire year of the Superfight Series showing up the main card, GLORY finally made the right move to switch the big matches to the main show & the tournament to the Superfight Series (which now kind of needs to be renamed), but ironically the notable match on the show was the tournament final. The tournament semifinals were both ugly grindy muay thai brawls, but Adamchuk has claimed he's going to be more aggressive to avoid losing close decisions, and was able to deliver his most exciting fight in GLORY here. Adamchuk was attacking fiercely here, bloodying Pinto's mouth early, but Pinto did a good job of subtly deflecting a lot of Adamchuk's punches with his gloves & landing his own counter. Adamchuk pushing forward kept Pinto out of his kicking range & forced him into a boxing match, which was more advantageous for Adamchuk. Round 1 seemed an Adamchuk round, but looked closer when the replays kept showing Pinto doing better on the inside than it appeared live. They started the 2nd with a furious exchange, and when Pinto tried to quickly get out of the pocket to avoid what looked like an Adamchuk middle kick, Adamchuk instead switched to a glorious spinning backfist that completely leveled Pinto. Definitely one of the best spinning backfists I've ever seen in a competitive situation, and props to Pinto for even getting back up. Adamchuk used his knees to back Pinto & try to keep him trapped in the corner, but Pinto wanted none of that & would press forward with his kicks to momentarily reestablish ring position. Pinto has really fast hands & feet, but he didn't quite have enough power to keep Adamchuk off him. Without being able to keep Adamchuk from being willing to absorb or even walk through his blows, he couldn't do enough sticking & moving to win on volume landing & making the opponent miss. Also, Adamchuk is a counter striker by nature, and he knew if they stood toe to toe, even if he took the first shot he could land a more powerful & accurate counter most of the time, so he didn't have to just keep pressing forward the whole fight, he just had to be ready to step forward if Pinto disengaged after his combo. With a 3 point advantage going into the 3rd, Adamchuk took his foot off the gas & mostly screwed around. Pinto thus did better, but it seemed like the judges gave him the round more because he was trying harder to win it than for him actually being successful. Adamchuk got the 29-27 unanimous decision. Good match.

KSW 40: Dublin 10/22/17

Pawel Politylo vs. Antun Racic 3R. Politylo made his pro debut here, stepping in for Anzor Azhiev at the last minute when Azhiev got food poisoning. Politylo may not have been the greatest technical fighter, but he made the fight exciting with his aggressive attacking brawler style, coming in with his hands down & forcing a big strikes high action fight. While not much was known about Politylo, Racic is a "Killer" opponent to be making your debut against, coming in with a 19-8-1 record that includes challenging for the title in Respect & Superior & winning it in FFC. Politylo didn't care, he charged in bombing, and while his head was there for Racic's counter strikes, he was coming in so aggressively that he usually just had Racic retreating and/or on his back foot. Racic is primarily a grappler, and shifted all his efforts to trying to get Politylo down in the 2nd. He hoped to use Politylo's overaggressiveness against him by ducking into a takedown because he was under fire when he pressed forward himself, but either way Politylo was making him pay with punches & elbows & if Racic did manage to get him down, Politylo would scramble as soon as he hit the canvas so he could get right back up. Politylo was understandably tiring in the 3rd given he basically showed up with his gym bag & suddenly found himself in the 3rd round after fighting like a wildman for the 1st 2 rounds. Racic was finally able to hold a depleted Politylo down in the 3rd & grind on him, but the crowd was fully behind the Irish fighter of Polish descent Politylo & pretty much everyone was under the impression that all he had to do was survive this round to win the decision. Racic was coming nowhere near finishing or getting a 10-8 round, but not surprisingly, the judges screwed up again & Racic took a split decision. Good match.

David Zawada vs. Maciej Jewtuszko 3R. In the vein of the Zabit Magomedsharipov vs. Kyle Bochniak UFC 223 4/7/18 match, a one-sided contest was made memorable by the guy who was taking the beating refusing to back down to the point he was taunting the bully to bring it. Zawada totally brutalized Jewtuszko in the 1st to the point announcer Chris Hoekstra suggested it might be a 10-7 round, but he essentially punched himself out on Jewtuszko's head & couldn't really hurt Jewtuszko in the subsequent rounds because he lacked the power & energy. Zawada first made his mark a minute in charging forward with a punch combo where he missed the right to the body but leveled Jewtuszko with the left hook. Zawada spent the next minute flurrying on the ground trying to finish, and didn't take much of a break once Jewtuszko got back to his feet, landing a right/left straight combo then dropping into a sweep after a clinch knee. Zawada had a big unanswered flurry against the cage after Jewtuszko got back up, mixing big knees in with his punches. The ref was surely looking for the moment to stop this, but Jewtuszko kept moving & swinging back even though he rarely connected with anything, and actually managed a takedown with 20 seconds left. Zawada's charging combos were a little slower in the 2nd, and Jewtuszko was ready for them, backing & countering with a straight. Zawada still won the 2nd with a takedown & top position later after Jewtuszko slipped throwing a kick, but the momentum almost seemed to be on Jewtuszko's side because he not only wasn't fading, but had energy to burn urging Zawada to attack & playing to the crowd. Jewtuszko was throwing flashy, high energy attacks in the 3rd such as the switch knee & switch kick. Zawada was doing a lot of missing in the 3rd, but landed one of his left/right straight combos 3:20 in that sent Jewtuszko's mouthpiece flying halfway across the ring. It would be a stretch to give Jewtuszko a round, but the fact that he was not only standing at the end of 15 minutes, but actually had more left than his opponent if there were another round was pretty amazing. Good match.

UFC 224 5/12/18

John Lineker vs. Brian Kelleher R3 3:43. Lineker is one of the most exciting smaller fighters because he just keeps coming at you bombing hooks. He's predictable & doesn't have a lot of footwork or head movement, but he's got hammers in his fists & he's going to impose himself for the entire fight unless you can do something about it. This fight wasn't so much entertaining because Kelleher could do much but because he somehow managed to stay in it barrage after barrage. Kelleher wobbled Lineker with a right body uppercut then overhand left combo, but mostly was walked down & tagged to the point Lineker was wondering how Kelleher managed to survive the first round. Lineker did a good job working his low kicks, and midway through the 1st was able to follow one with a short right hook & a big left hook for the knockdown. For a guy that doesn't really jab & is the active attacking fighter, it's ridiculous that Lineker was landing around 50%. Kelleher was outlanded 40-15 in the first, but he's just really durable. Lineker was having great success with the right to the body then left to the head to the point he just kept throwing it because Kelleher didn't seem to have an answer. Lineker would keep coming forward once he threw his shots so he was either inside Kelleher's power when Kelleher tried to counter or had Kelleher off-balance because he was scrambling to escape before Lineker could reload, so Kelleher was mostly just getting hit &/while moving. Lineker was really damaging the body in the 2nd, which was dropping Kelleher's hands lower & lower. Kelleher was game, but just seemed unwilling to try to get off first & unable to effectively counter. Kelleher finally got a takedown in the 3rd because Lineker was trying for the guillotine when he stuffed the initial shot, but couldn't get his ground game going. Still, Kelleher was finally competitive in the 3rd because Lineker tired & Kelleher had to take some chances & initiate since he was down 2 rounds. It was Kelleher's jabs vs. Lineker's big power shots, but at least Kelleher was landing something now, and because of that absorbing less than in the 1st 2 rounds. 3 minutes in, Lineker rocked Kelleher with a left hook, & Lineker really pressed his advantage here just charging after Kelleher throwing as many big hooks as he could. Kelleher kept moving & seemed to have weathered the storm, but then Lineker landed the same old right to the body left to the head except this time Kelleher dropped like a ton of bricks for the stoppage. Good match.

Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza vs. Kevin Gastellum 3R. The closest fight I've seen so far this year. Jacare wanted the fight on the ground at all costs, but really wore himself out trying to get it there. Gastellum's wrestling was not very impressive against natural wrestler Chris Weidman last year, but his takedown defense has seemingly improved some since then & Jacare obviously also isn't nearly as good taking opponents down. In the 1st, when he was at full strength, Souza still settled for dropping for a kneebar then sweeping. Jacare quickly passed to side then full mount but he was predictably looking for the submission a lot more than the ground & pound that was there, but Gastellum defended the arm triangle then a minute of Jacare going hard for the armbar with Gastellum trying to stay stacked. Though this was a one-sided round for Jacare, since he wasn't able to get a submission the edge sort of went to Gastellum for making his lesser conditioned opponent expend a lot more energy. There wasn't a lot of defense in this fight outside of Gastellum defending takedowns, though that was the most important defense. Gastellum landed every strike in the 1st round, he just barely threw anything, and was looking good early in the 2nd as he got more active & aggressive, but Jacare actually landed at 56% for the fight. Gastellum started using his jab & getting off first, and Jacare seemed much too concerned with Gastellum's offense given they weren't big shots yet since Gastellum was so open to Jacare he was almost standing sideways & thus could only flick the jab, though Gastellum did cut Jacare. Jacare went from overreacting to everything Gastellum was throwing to not worrying about it at all, getting very sloppy with his technique & using all his energy to throw huge but then not bringing his hands back up to defend. Gastellum quickly capitalized on this with a short jab that he was able to follow with a power punch because he was on the inside, dropping Jacare. I thought Gastellum would press this advantage a lot more than he was able to as Jacare isn't as durable as he used to be , but once Jacare got guard Gastellum disengaged (which made sense) then didn't really pressure Jacare in standup even though he was wobbly & definitely not all there. In fact, Jacare never seemed to recover from this, maybe in terms of clearing his head, but it took a huge chunk off his energy bar & he continued either forcing takedown attempts that failed or just throwing bombs but not really defending for the rest of the fight. The thing is, Jacare hit a whole lot harder than Gastellum & seemed to have a much larger reach advantage than the claimed .5", so he was able to just connect with his big counters by being long even if Gastellum did block quite a few. That being said, the younger Gastellum was able to withstand the punishment much better than Jacare. Jacare would bobble Gastellum's head, but Gastellum just ate it & kept fighting at exactly the same level whereas Jacare noticably deteriorated as the fight progressed in every way even though he actually had a lot more success with his standing strikes in the 2nd half even though he wasn't as crisp or technically proficient with them. Jacare landed 4 big hooks in the last minute of round 2, but Gastellum finally answered with a left cross & Jacare stumbled after the round trying to figure out where his corner was & how to get there. Jacare being the bigger man generally helped him, but one advantage for Gastellum was especially as the fight progressed, Jacare just wasn't getting low enough on his takedown attempts for them to have much chance & if he did get Gastellum off his feet, it was just taking him off balance but not being able to fall on top of him & maintain control. I figured Jacare would get the decision because the fight was in his home country & he was connecting with power punches while Gastellum was landing jabs that apparently were still being scored as significant strikes given there was only a 4 punch difference in his stats. The overall stats edge was in Jacare's favor except for the knockdown, but Gastellum definitely seemed a lot sturdier & less effected by what Jacare did, so there's definitely the argument that one guy was falling, stumbling, bleeding, etc while the other just kept doing his thing for 15 minutes. I know people don't like even rounds, but to me it one of the most foolish aspects of round scoring to almost randomly just pick someone when there's nothing between them. Round 3 was 24 strikes for Gastellum to 22 strikes with a takedown & 30 seconds of control for Jacare. Saying one guy should possibly get a title shot for that & the other should move toward the back of the line just seems silly & absurd to me. Gastellum won a split decision 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. Good match.

M-1 Challenge 91 5/12/18: Janne Elonen-Kulmala vs. Huyixbai Chuhayifu 3R. Huyixbai, who lost his previous M1 fight against similarly experienced Ibragim Navruvov then won some more fights in Kunlun & WLF, stepped up in competition & experience level, taking on a fighter with almost twice as many fights, albeit one whowas on an 0-2-1 streak. Kulmala looked good in the 1st round, busting Huyixbai up & taking him down, and you thought he might just be a level above what Huyixbai is ready for. Early on, Kulmala was very light on his feet as the southpaw moved left to get outside Huyixbai's right hand power & land the left straight down the middle, but this movement was nowhere to be seen as the fight progressed & the veteran tired first. Huyixbai finally caught Kulmala with a right hook, but Kulmala immediately level changed into a double leg. Huyixbai bled outside the right eye & from the nose, but began to come back once he got back to his feet, though Kulmala got a big clinch knee in late that may have been what broke Huyixbai's nose. Kulmala had to expend a lot of energy clinching & wrestling to keep Huyixbai out of his striking game, and the better conditioned Huyixbai began to take over in the 2nd, landing a right hook then dropping down into a takedown. Kulmala managed to stand once, but showed no movement whatsoever on the ground after Huyixbai stuffed his takedown & took the top. Put it this way, if Kulmala ever fought Tomohiro Ishii, it would be The Stone Pitbull vs. The Stone Turtle. Huyixbai dug into the body then landed several unanswered clean shots to the head as Kulmala just held on occasionally & prayed for the round to end so Huyixbai was unstoppable any time he thought to posture up. The fight was definitely a round a piece though I'd give Huyixbai a 10-8 2nd, yet neither showed much urgency in the 3rd. Midway through the round, Kulmala defended a bull rush high single, but Huyixbai transitioned into a belly to back suplex that would make Gary Albright proud. Huyixbai's jaw was hanging from exhaustion by this point & Kulmala nearly twisted him down, but again Huyixbai managed to take the top of Kulmala's takedown attempt, and you figured that sealed it in his favor, but Kulmala quickly escaped out the side. Kulmala had given up on his counter striking by this point as he was too tired to keep his hands up & was just eating the first shot before failing to counter. Huyixbai knew Kulmala was in full on takedown mode though, and it's easier to defend a takedown when you're tired than to keep exploding for them. Not a great technical fight, but both had their moments & put a hurting on one another. Huyixbai won a unanimous decision. Good match.

SGPW 4/26/14: Meiko Satomura vs. Io Shirai 18:15. The first singles meeting between Satomura & Shirai took place on a small Senjo show that wasn't televised (later released on a compilation DVD) with Satomura winning to set up her much better known World of Stardom challenge against Shirai in STARDOM on 7/10/14. While this wasn't as spectacular as the joshi match of the year candidate rematch, this wasn't simply a dry run to familiarize themselves with one another either. They set up the basic tenet of their matches with Shirai trying to find a way to hit her flying moves without falling prey to Satomura's much safer & easier to execute shooter offense. That being said, it was a more solid & cohesive match than its predescessors, doing a more believable job of laying out how these two could work together a logical match together. This wasn't the typical Io match where she's flying all over the place, she takes what's available & thus spends a lot of time in Satomura's realm because it's easier for her to counter a strike with a strike or a submission with a submission. It's a really nice back & forth technical match that is a lot more Satomura's match than Io's, but Io definitely has her moments, not only as the match progresses & she hits her typical moonsaults, but really throughout as she shows her diversity matching Satomura hold for hold despite venturing far outside her box. The match was fantastic until Io finally hit her moonsault to the floor, which actually became possible because Satomura surprisingly decided to ascend to the top rope & got dropkicked to the floor for her trouble. The problem with this match is once it takes off here, they stop working the holds in & instead just do a 5+ minute all out dash to the finish. While that makes for great entertainment, this match was working amazingly because they set the spots up then it was good because it was fireworks between two of the best workers, but the two styles don't really function well back to back, and I just wish they did a longer match where they kept struggling to make the holds work instead of going into hyper stuff to do mode & compressing everything that wasn't viable early into the too brief finishing stretch. I don't want to make it sound like they lost the plot completely, there were a number of exceptional counters in the final minutes, but the focus definitely shifted from making the moves work to having a match of the year, & I think the modes should have been a lot less at odds than they wound up being. Literally, they could have added a couple minutes of setup down the stretch & had a much better match that satisfied what they were trying to do for the majority of the match, but still built to an exciting conclusion. As it was, what would have seemed like an obvious story point of Io losing because a high risk huracanrana failed was lost in the shuffle as was someone finally getting something of a run with Satomura hitting a Death Valley bomb, choke, then Death Valley bomb for the win. Nipicks aside, the work was fantastic & it's probably still the more successful of their 2014 matches. ****

SGPW 1/13/18: Chihiro Hashimoto & Hiroyo Matsumoto & Manami vs. Meiko Satomura & DASH Chisako & Ami Sato 24:12. Rookie Sato worked the 1st 8 minutes, getting battered & bloodied by Hashimoto & Matsumoto, with Satomura refusing to tag when Sato finally got an opening against 13-year-old rookie Manami. Luckily DASH showed no qualms about beating on the kid or typically stealing the show with her speed & badass nature. She's particularly great in these matches because she should be overwhelmed by the size & strength of Hashimoto & Matsumoto, but she's like Mayumi Ozaki in the JWP days when she cared, she just refuses to back down to anyone & keeps finding ways to instead take it to them. Satomura took it easy on Manami & mostly just stretched her out though. The rookies got too much time to not shine, but once they got them out of the way, a quality, energetic match between the four good workers ensued. Hashimoto has come a long way, and while she may not be the most graceful or athletic girl, she's figured out how to use her size well & grown confident in her abilities. Matsumoto is still ahead of her, just mauling the opposition with brute force, but Hashimoto is closing the gap & they're doing some good double team & stereo spots. I can't recommend this match all that highly because so much time was devoted to the rookies, which is good for the long term development of the company but not exciting for our main event entertainment. Also, although the second half was all good action, it never developed any drama & they eventually just called it a day with the predictable finish of rookie getting taken out when the veteran actually tried. That being said, DASH vs. Hashimoto & Matsumoto was quite good with Satomura chipping in sometimes as well, and this was a match that really made you want to see relevant matches between any combination of the four, so it was successful at a lot of things at the same time that because of its length, it did contain a good amount of quality action. ***

RPW/NJPW Global Wars UK 2016 Day 1 11/10/16

Chris Hero vs. Tomohiro Ishii 13:35. Goofy violent fun that the crowd consistently went absolutely nuts for. Ishii typically tried to intimidate Hero at the outset, but Hero was quick to point out his huge size advantage while otherwise ignoring him, brushing him off, & swatting him away. Hero would willingly laugh off a series of shots from Ishii without budging then just level him with 1 of his own. The main problem with the match is once you establish Hero as the immovable force, how do you then make Ishii competitive given Ishii really only strikes & Hero already showed these were nothing? This question was not adequately answered, as suddenly Ishii could take Hero's shots & Hero was now hurting his hand punching Ishii's head just so they could eventually have a competitive match. The spot after this where Ishii avoided Hero's corner charge & followed with a lariat would have been a much better transition to Ishii's offensive rather than a segue into him finally hitting a suplex. I didn't mind Ishii's no selling in and of itself, the issue to me was more that he was blown off his feet by everything Hero did early, but now that he's battered & concussed he's suddenly popping up from piledrivers like the undead. That is, until the 3rd piledriver where instead of popping straight up he was pinned. There was really no rhyme or reason for when Ishii could do something & when he couldn't, or much else here for that matter, but Ishii typically gave a great effort, and the fans massively supported the underdog to the point if you just listened to it you'd be penciling this in as match of the year. In reality though, Ishii only came close to competing, not to winning. Hell, he only advanced to the point of even going for the pin 3 times, and none of those were attempts anyone believed he had a chance of converting. I'll take Hero over Okada any day, he actually brought good things to this match, but Okada is the much more dominant wrestler & Ishii was allowed to push him to the limit & then some in their G1 match on 8/6/16 whereas this was really just a high effort squash. ***1/4

RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Katsuyori Shibata 16:39. The effort & chemistry were much better in this rematch from 7/10, and they basically did the match you'd expect from them the first time, a really competitive technical brawl between two wrestler's wrestlers. This was a much more thoughtful & developed match, starting with parity segments where they quickly countered one another & moving into each finally gaining an edge, increasing the intensity & pace as the match unfolded. Advantages were seized early, but almost just as quickly taken away as they went back & forth on the mat. Shibata took over working the arm, but Sabre countered the armwringer & damaged Shibata's arm with an overhead kick. Shibata had a pre-existing shoulder injury, so Sabre was able to gain more traction working that arm & shoulder, getting the 1st extended segment of offense. Shibata was forced to change things up & try to get his striking going, but Sabre quickly countered a right hand with a flying triangle. Shibata eventually Hulked up & absorbed Sabre's best shots to the bad shoulder before leveling him with a single right then taking over with his strikes. Sabre held his own here though, and both hit their penalty kicks to further drive home the idea this was a mirror match. Shibata was able to slow Sabre down enough with his chokes though that he eventually put away an already almost unconscious Sabre with his penalty kick. Again the match was on the short side, but this swift & brutal meeting packed 3 times as much action into the same amount of time as their previous encounter. They're still definitely capable of a lot better, but there was no disappointment this time, as it really felt like a high end Shibata match as he swept us away in his whirlwind of violence & aggression. ***3/4

RPW Summer Sizzler 2016 7/10/16, RevPro British Cruiserweight Title Match: Pete Dunne vs. Will Ospreay 15:48. On the surface battle of Dunne's bruising vs. Ospreay's flying, with both doing a good job of setting each other up & using counters to shift from one style to the other, though clearly this was mostly an Ospreay showcase. Dunne was a solid old school roughhouser with a few powerbombs & piledrivers, but Ospreay was so spectacular from start to finish, doing crazy things such a springboarding off the guard rail into the crowd, that Dunne just had to do enough to be competitive while facilitating Ospreay's highlight reel. Eventually Dunne baited Ospreay into a striking exchange, which Dunne was winning until Ospreay somehow managed to land on his feet after getting nailed with a lariat & hit his Spanish fly. The match really picked up after that as Ospreay threatened to set the record for most flips in 30 seconds hitting a standing shooting star press (sort of) after landing on his feet for a suplex then missing a double moonsault but hitting another standing shooting star press then a phoenix splash off the 2nd for a near fall. Dunne had his moments such as catching Ospreay's no touch moonsault attack & hitting a tombstone on the floor & countering the cheeky nandos kick & managing to get into a tombstone position as he got off the ropes for a near fall. Dunne did this again, but this time Ospreay reversed the tombstone position but instead tossed Dunne face first onto the top turnbuckle so he could now hit his cheeky nandos kick into a reverse Frankensteiner. Ospreay hit a reverse Frankensteiner off the 2nd to set up taking the title with the Oscutter. Nothing deep here, but they had good chemistry & did a nice job of setting up Will's amazing high flying. ***1/2

RPW/NJPW Global Wars UK 2015 10/3/15, RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: AJ Styles vs. Jushin Thunder Liger 15:04. AJ is one of the many who grew up idolizing Liger, and though today's Liger is obviously nowhere near his optimal mid '90s level, Styles both put him over heavily despite it being a heavy vs. a junior match & also really understood how to work around Liger's lessened athleticism & take sweet bumps to make his moves look better. Whether Styles was giving or taking, he was doing pretty much all the running & jumping so Liger wasn't tested too heavily physically. Liger was mostly working the back with submission moves, but he did just enough offense to keep it entertaining before Styles finally got going. Liger stepped it up in the 2nd half, which was mostly built around his shotei, unfortunately forgetting the back almost entirely, with Styles taking one awesome flip bump and countering one with an overhead kick only to have Liger answer with his abisegiri. This was hardly a blowout MOTY contender, but it was an effective match that made for a reasonable main event. It was just the opposite of Okada vs. Ospreay, with AJ succeeding in making me believe he could lose while giving a performance that showed he deserved to win. ***

CMLL 10/30/15, NWA World Historic Welterweight Title: Volador Jr. vs. La Sombra 24:57 [2:41, 3:16, 19:00]. I was curious how they'd approach this knowing it was their last match since Sombra left CMLL to join the circus. Their earlier matches were so amazing because they were both driven to test the limits of what they could do together, so they were always trying faster & more complicated sequences & counters & just keeping the action rolling & flowing. The later matches after Sombra turned rudo were more autopilot, constantly starting & stopping as they still did cool moves & sequences (though Sombra was much less spectacular taking much of his flying out of his arsenal) but Sombra would stop after most to kill some time & whatever momentum they'd built up. This match had some aspects of both, but was much more toward the good old side. Sombra cashed out on his mask before cashing in, losing it to Atlantis on 9/18/13, so this is their only match where both are unmasked. Sombra was just brawling early, with some assistance from Rush, and literally won the 1st fall without doing anything interesting. This trend was continuing until Volador finally took over on the outside, running from one side to the other & leaping over the security wall for a tope con giro. All the matches in this series had been serious athletic contests, mano a mano, but here when you thought it was going to take off, Rush broke up the pin pulling Baby Richard to the floor after Volador's backcracker for the DQ. The seconds were then ejected & a wrestling match ensued. Though the 1st 2 falls were the lamest they've ever done together, these two have never cared about these falls anyway, and even in their best matches they're something they can't wait to get out of the way. What mattered here was the 3rd fall was the most driven they've been together since before Volador's ill fated mask loss, and very well might be the best 3rd fall they've ever done together. Sombra gave by far the best effort I've seen from him since his heel turn, actually trying to win the match despite the useless Ingobernables groups indifference to things that actually make watching wrestling worthwhile such as trying & succeeding. He dusted off all his old flying moves, and was up for matching Volador for speed, athleticism, & pace. Every spot was a great spot, and no one could gain any advantage. They just kept going back & forth, and the sequencing was much better here, as they sometimes played off what had already been done. For instance, Volador hit a sweet rana off the apron that sent Sombra crashing into the guard rail then tried for another, but Sombra avenged, catching him & throwing him into the rail. Sombra then tried his springboard Dragonrana, but Volador turned it into a powerbomb. This 3rd fall was totally insane, with every move being some crazy aerial stunt or big finisher. I was just shaking my head thinking where the hell has this been the past 2+ years? Despite the endless near finishers & near falls, they weren't trying to force the drama with all the usual overwrought lucha histrionics either, they just let the athletic action speak for itself, which was so fitting because the action is what's separated this series from the beginning, and you know what, the crowd was super into it & totally cared about what they were doing. Sombra finally took over, but couldn't believe Volador kicked out of his top rope superplex & Sombra driver. He gave into temptation & paused to give the cutthroat sign after he elbowed himself out with a rapidfire barrage in the corner, and that gave Volador the second to recover & take Sombra out with his backcracker & Volador spiral. Sombra tried to congratulate Volador after the match, but Rush & Mascara had returned & they shoved him aside & put the boots to Volador, reinstilling their belief in meaninglessness of it all. Sombra wound up leaving by himself after he refused Rush's offer to take the belt he didn't earn. If these two never wrestle each other again, at least they left it all in the ring for this final night. This series seemed to have peaked & been in steep decline, but this match forces us to reevaluate things totally, as there are a handful of contenders for their best match together, and this is actually one of them. ****1/2

NJPW CMLL FANTASTICAMANIA 2012 1/22/12, NWA World Historic Welterweight Title Match: La Sombra vs. Volador Jr. 21:47. The earlier matches in this series are so amazing because they have a sense of urgency. All of their matches are lightning paced when they are actually wrestling, but there's an intensity here that really separates going hard & fast from start to finish because you want to win & have something to prove with just screwing around & showing off. The biggest problem pro wrestling has when compared to real combat sports is the real fighters are always pushing themselves to their limits. These two may not have been fighting for their lives, but this was one of those rare instances where I don't feel bad about saying they were going to the extent of their (amazing) athletic capabilities just the same, if there was a negative here it's that once in a while they couldn't even quite keep up with the speed & complexity of what they were trying to do, with Volador somehow busting his nose up. I loved that this was only 1 fall because the traditional 2/3 fall format has always hindered their matches, with both men opting to just get the 1st two falls over with so they could get to it, which creates a massive gap in the storytelling in that both guys are literally taken out by 1 or 2 moves when they are fresh then suddenly survive 15-20 minutes of the most insane high flying, backcracking action Mexico can produce after they've already been concussed. I also loved that they did their full match here. This was the most exciting lucha program since Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis or Juventud Guerrera matches of the early to mid 90's, but they never delivered in Japan to the level the delivered in Mexico or even ECW because they were never given the time to do more than their greatest hits (remember the WAR Super J Cup needing Rey vs. Psicosis to tear the house down because no one was waiting for Gedo to somehow deliver a great final but then giving them less than 10 minutes). Japan may not have been the best audience for these two, not that they weren't going crazy for the match by the end, but it gave them the opportunity to do their best match, a marathon (3rd) fall where, unlike their later matches, they really tested their endurance by not stalling or putting in filler so they could rest. I don't think these guys have ever started at a higher level, and the match was incredibly consistent in delivering fantastic action. There were so many great spots they announcers were getting distracted trying to figure out what they were seeing, especially when they expected Sombra to do a quebrada but he instead pulled an imploding senton, which they finally settled on calling the Sombra special. Sombra finally retained with his springboard moonsault into a standing moonsault. ****1/2

CMLL 11/4/13: La Sombra vs Volador Jr. The brief first 2 falls may have been the worst they've ever done together because they were basically lame brawling from Volador then a couple cool moves for the pin. They swiched into full on DragonForce mode at the start of the 3rd fall though, and it was just insane how fast they were able to pull off their amazing athletic sequences. This briefly looked like what we've come to expect from them, maybe better. Sombra was feeling it, hitting a moonsault attack to the floor & rolling through to his feet then high fiving a fan, and you thought the 3rd fall was going to be insanely awesome as most of their previous matches had been, but there just wasn't enough substance & action here to meet their previous standards. The match was too short & as with their later matches they lay around too much. Granted, the all out sprinting for the sequence itself somewhat earned them the subsequent break, the bursts were going to be what you remembered even though the match had considerably less spots & sequences as a whole than their others. I was expecting Volador to win since he'd infamously lost his mask to Sombra on 9/13/13, but Sombra got him again with a super Frankensteiner. For me, the match was most similar to their 10/9/12 lightning match in that it was a taste of the best things they can do, but didn't really feel complete. I liked the lightning match more though because it was one consistent & cohesive fall, pretty much the good without the rest. Both are beyond what most others are capable of, but definitely nowhere near what these two can do together. ***1/4

CMLL 8/3/15: Volador Jr. vs. La Sombra 22:09 [2:05 & 3:15 & 16:49]. Volador was the greatest working rudo (until they turned him back technico for no good reason) because he pushed the pace & did exciting, highly skilled things rather than stalking around between every move & doing unskilled things. Unfortunately, rudo Sombra paces the match like he's already in the EWW, so even though Sombra should theoretically be hitting his prime & Volador should be at best toward the end of his, the discrepancy between the two is actually widening in Volador's favor. The match is kind of uneven & doesn't really flow because of Sombra, but Volador basically lets Sombra waste as much time as he wants in between moves as long as the sequences themselves are as fast & athletic as ever. When they are actually doing something, the speed, athleticism, & fluidity of the sequences is as breathtaking as it gets in lucha libre, and all their greatest spots are here. That being said, the match feels more like an exhibition than ever because you aren't exactly trying to win when you stop fighting the moment you get the opponent down. Sombra takes things more seriously as the match progresses, and the 2nd half of the 3rd fall is fantastic. As always, they do a wonderful job of having an answer for whatever the opponent throws at them to the point it seems both are better of when they aren't the one who is initiating. Though these two have fought countless times, they always mix up the order of the spots & throw cool new moves, counters, & twists in, so even though there's never really a story & you are always watching the same style (athletic encounter of the highest magnitude) all of them feel unique. Some of the highlights outside of the expected included Sombra hitting a cartwheel overhead kick & Volador slingshotting himself to the floor for a Frankensteiner. Volador hits the super Frankensteiner here as one of his big near falls, and he generally seems to be coming closer to winning than Sombra, though that may simply be because he actually appears to be trying to win. After countless great moves, Volador finally puts Sombra away with a sweet Volador spiral. ***3/4

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