GLORY 60 10/20/18: Cedric Doumbe vs. Jimmy Vienot 3R. I'm still amazed by the continued transformation of Doumbe from a defensive oriented points fighter to a hook & overhand winging bomber. This was his most aggressive performance yet, perhaps because Vienot is a familiar fighter from his country he knows he can beat under the best circumstances, much less when Vienot is a last minute replacement. It will be interesting to see whether Doumbe can come close to this aggression against Harut when they do finally meet, but here he was regularly circling left away from Vienot's weapons - the left knee & high kick - to set up the big overhand right. Doumbe dropped Vienot with a left hook counter to his left hook midway through the 1st, and pressed for the finish, really more often than not in this round as well as the 3rd. Doumbe was really getting wild with left uppercut to overhand right combos, & Vienot stunned him countering a right with a knee, though that didn't quell Doumbe's aggression for long. In addition to being a brawl due to both fighters swinging wildly, the adherence to the rules wasn't exactly top notch, with Vienot using some of his muay thai throws that aren't legal in GLORY, which eventually caused Paul Nicholls to dock him a point in the 3rd. Doumbe was no saint here either, sweeping the leg as well. Doumbe fought like it was a 1 round fight, really just using ferocious punches on the inside, but although he hasn't been known to be a marathon fighter, he was training for 5 rounds & had little trouble throwing haymakers for another 2 rounds. In the 2nd round, it became apparent that there was a method to Doumbe's madness, as when Vienot was able to relax at distance, he picked Doumbe apart with his kicks, so Doumbe really had to keep his foot on the pedal. The 2nd round was the closest of the fight. Vienot was more consistent, but he was more landing than really getting a lot on his blows. Doumbe was less aggressive in this round, using his old movement & angles style more, though he pressed at times, and did a good job down the stretch trying to steal it. Vienot got 4 of the 5 judges so he was still in with a chance to draw & force a 4th round, but Doumbe stunned him with an overhand right to start the 2nd & quickly dropped him with another. After the point was deducted from Vienot, it was really on him to make something happen, but Doumbe was still the one throwing big, if anyone. Doumbe's KO streak was snapped at 2, but not for lack of effort. He won a unanimous decision 30-24, 29-25, 29-25. UD. Good match.

UFC Fight Night 138 10/27/18

Don Madge vs. Te Edwards R2 0:14. Season 2 of the not really contenders series has featured a lot of Bellator style mismatches that produce quick flashy finishes, but don't actually tell us anything about the fighter the promotion wants to give the contract to. Edwards came in with a lot of hype after a :28 second win, and any fighter from the atrocious EFC Africa is an immediate underdog probably anywhere else in the world, but that's why they have the fights, and this is one of those cases where a champion from a bad organization is better than a vagabond who hasn't been tested anywhere. The fight itself was pretty insane, as Madge was applying the pressure the whole time whether it be getting in Edwards face in standup or throwing up submissions from his back, forcing an action packed encounter where both fought as though it were a 1 rounder. Within 20 seconds Madge was cut, but had scored a knockdown only to run into a double leg when he tried to follow the flash recovered Edwards to the ground. Edwards spent most of the rest of the round trying to wrestle, and despite being a -500 favorite, it was quickly apparent that was his chance here, except Madge was so offensive off his back that Edwards was almost always on the defensive even from the top. Madge hit a really explosive armbar that caught Edwards off guard & had real potential to finish as the elbow was quite hyperextended, though Edwards was able to roll before Madge generated pressure from the outside leg. Madge got back to his feet in the final minute, and Edwards wasn't liking the standup again, as he was able to block Madge's body kicks but Madge would follow with the hook before Edwards got his arms back in defensive position. Early in the 2nd, Edwards blocked the middle kick again, but Madge faked the right hook & instead landed a left high kick then as Edwards tried to circle away to the left he cut him off with a right high kick for the spectacular finish that was one of the best KO's of the year. Good match.

Nasrat Haqparast vs. Thibault Gouti 3R. Haqparast had way too much power & hand speed for Gouti, but few are more game than Gouti and his chin of steel. Unfortunately, constant pressure alone wasn't enough to disrupt Haqparast's pattern of circling then firing quick wide punch combos from odd angles. Gouti kept coming forward, but he wasn't applying pressure by working the legs or body so much as simply setting himself up to eat more power punches. Gouti's head was largely stationary, and Hasparast caught him on the chin 3 minutes in for a knockdown. Haqparast spent a lot of energy failing to finish, and also broke his hand during this round, so he was slower in the 2nd. Gouti really got going in this round coming in behind the jab. Haqparast's footwork wasn't nearly as good moving backwards as circling, and in general a lot of his power was negated when Gouti could land from outside then close the distance quickly to force Haqparast back while making him eat another shot or two. Haqparast isn't really a counter puncher, but rather someone who throws fast combinations, so the more Gouti attacked, the more he kept Haqparast's headhunting at bay. Gouti won the round, but Haqparast had one big moment late hurting him with a front kick to the belly. Gouti lost a contact lens at the very end of the round, but there's no stoppage for that like a mouthpiece, so he wound up fighting the 3rd round without it. Gouti's output was crazy, especially in the 2nd where he landed 40 of 131. Gouti was punching Haqparast's block all too often, but still, that activity is hard to deal with. Haqparast's power is harder to deal with though, and he hurt Gouti again early in the 3rd with a left hook, and this time followed with a few good body shots. Haqparast landed a liver kick that would have finished almost any other fighter, but Gouti managed to get on his bike. Haqparast landed another when he chased him down, but Gouti's will still wouldn't be broken, and he kept on running until he tripped. Haqparast tried to pound Gouti out, but Gouti managed to stabilize while on autopilot, and got his wind back for one last push when he made it back to his feet with 40 seconds left. Gouti had blood all in & around his right eye, but he didn't merely try to survive, he attacked aggressively trying to somehow steal the win, even trying a spinning high kick & jumping knee just before the bell. Gouti is now 1-5 in UFC, though the decision loss to Sage was debatable, but he's definitely one of the toughest fighters in the promotion & I'll gladly watch him fight any day. He's got heart, guts, belief, and a never say die attitude. Haqparast won a unanimous decision 29-27, 29-27, 30-26. Very good match.

Michael Johnson vs. Artem Lobov 3R. Johnson was a -650 favorite despite taking the fight on two weeks notice, which really drained him given he had to cut 30 pounds at the last second & couldn't quite make it. Though Sarah McMann is one of the only fighters who has lost more fights they should have won than Johnson, he really had all the advantages here, particularly movement, defense, & diversity. Lobov was going to pressure anyway, but his main hope here is that Johnson would wilt in the later rounds from some combination of moving back too much & perhaps just being afraid to actually win. This wasn't close to either fighters most entertaining fight, but they stood & traded for 15 minutes as you knew they would. Johnson didn't have his normal fast start, instead focusing on making Lobov miss & landing counters when he could. Johnson got his jab going late in the 1st, bloodying Lobov's nose, and began to pick things up landing the left straight & legs kicks as well. Round 1 was fairly close with Lobov using awkward fakes to get his right middle kick in, but Johnson was noticably quicker, and that equated to accuracy against an opponent who just comes forward with his hands down. Johnson landed a big left hook midway through the 2nd that Lobov tried to brush off, as he did anytime Johnson hurt him. Johnson did a better job of staying on the outside in this round, and was able to connect with his body shots. Lobov was slipping the left & landing his low right hook, which bloodied Johnson's left eye. Johnson did the better work of the two in the 2nd, but was coasting in the last few minutes, so again it was close enough that it could have gone either way. Johnson did a much better job of holding his ground in the 3rd. While standing toe to toe should have resulted in a higher connect percentage for both, both actually landed their lowest percentage in this round. Both landed consistency to the legs, but Johnson's speed forced Lobov to actually bother to try to dodge his punches. Lobov did evade some shots, but this was an in & out round for Johnson & he was already escaping by the time Lobov was ready to counter whereas the first two rounds were side to side rounds for Johnson trying to fend of Lobov's pressure. The more Lobov had to react to what Johnson did, the more effective Johnson's angle changes were in throwing him off. It felt like in the 2nd round Johnson wasn't sure if he was going to have the energy at the end, but in the 3rd he knew he was fine & really loosened up & fought freely & fluidly. Once Johnson was flowing, Lobov was no match for him though he still had his energy, and the late takedown was just the icing on the cake. Johnson won a unanimous decision 29-28, 29-28, 30-27. Good match.

OZ Academy Flower Bloom In Yokohama 9/17/18

Hiroyo Matsumoto & Kaori Yoneyama & Yako Fujigasaki vs. AKINO & Kakeru Sekiguchi & Sonoko Kato 15:15. Energetic sprint where they pretty much maximized what they could get out of it, putting enough effort in that they were able to elevate what one would have expected to be a rather standard midcard bout where the youngsters did most of the work into one of the highlights of the show. The big guns, Matsumoto & AKINO, got to work a long portion together in the middle that delivered quite nicely. The others knew when to stay out of their way, but made some good contributions in their own right. Sekiguchi has a lot of potential as a good athlete who has some kicking as well. She started in Actress girl’Z last year but has been adopted by OZ, where she fits quite nicely into the style of her MISSION K4 partners here. Yoneyama was able to be humorous here while delivering action that fit in with the rest of the match. Sekiguchi was ganged up on at the end, but got one flash pin hope spot on Matsumoto before being run over by the lariat & backdrop. Overall, it was mostly Matsumoto who delivered despite not getting the featured match she deserved, but only Fujigasaki was just there to fill out the lineup. ***

OZ Academy Openweight Title Match: Hikaru Shida vs. Aja Kong 25:11. Shida's first title defense was a great big show main event in the sense that the wrestler of today went over the wrestler of yesterday in a highly dramatic contest that was witnessed by as many eyes as possible for this promotion. It was also a great simple but effective story match where Shida was going to go as far as her knee would take her & Aja was going to go as far as her uraken would take her, and with that in mind, both absolutely mauled the other in that area to take away their opponent's best weapon. These two have a long history as Kong took Shida under her wing early in Shida's OZ career after whooping her in singles, and the duo had a run with the OZ tag titles in 2013. Shida has done very well since the two parted ways, but has never beaten Aja in a singles match, though she finally made some progress in their last encounter, going to a double KO on 7/16/17. Shida wasn't merely trying to beat Aja, she was trying to incapacitate the beast in Aja's own strike laden, weapon infested war. It wasn't the best athletic contest you'll ever see, but they made up for that with strong psychology & selling, the kind of story match that made matches special in bygone eras that you rarely see these days as this style has been replaced by overbooked cornball nonsense with silly runins & a bunch of contrived pauses between every move that just makes it seem like the wrestler in the lead isn't actually trying to win as they let the opponent recover rather than press their advantage while they're still prone. Shida got off to a quick start, but Kong countered her flying knee off a set of chairs with the famous can, & spent the match brutally taking away Shida's biggest weapon, as well as her mobility advantage. Kong is such a freak of nature in the best possible way. I mean, in general, female athletes fall off quicker than men, and overweight athletes fall off quicker than fit ones, but somehow Kong, at 48, is still the best female wrestler of her generation & possibly the only one who can still deliver an excellent match. Sure, she's not as athletic as she once was, but this was a classic Kong match carrying things by dishing out a ferocious beating, while still doing a good job of setting the face up for their comebacks, and even being unselfish enough to allow the smaller wrestler beat her until she was down & out. Shida stubbornly tried to use her flying knee to stop the rot, but again found herself on the wrong side of a can shot. Though Shida is a good wrestler who lacks the explosion to be great, that was less of an issue here as she did such a good job of putting over the knee injury that she was going to be a bit more deliberate & mechanical by design. Kong was at her ruthless best here, not only beating on the knee with all the force she could muster, but also targetting it with submissions because she still cares about being champ, and although she had the Senjo title last year, it's been 7 years since her last run with OZ's. Shida didn't believe she could beat Aja without the knee, so she was just going to use it & if it hurt her about as much as it hurt Aja, she was going to have to grin & bear it. She came back again stopping a lariat with a knee & proceeded to work the lariat arm with a series of vicious stomps. When Shida went for the knee again though, Aja countered with her vertical drop brainbuster on the runway. Kong won a 50:20 Last Woman Standing match on 8/19/18 to earn the title shot, but that was a 6 way, and the newest 25+ minute Aja singles match I could find a result for was a 30:00 draw with AKINO on 6/19/05. They took some rests here & there, but they never felt like such because they were submission moves that fit the story of the match or Aja getting back in the ring quickly after the brainbuster on the ramp & forcing Shida to drag herself back in just before the 20 count. Obviously the key to Shida working the lariat arm is it's the uraken arm, and now it was Aja who felt it necessary to force her biggest weapon to beat Shida even though it was hindered. Shida withstood 3 & busted Aja open hardway coming back with a jumping knee. Aja plowed forward with more urakens, which would have been enough in years past, & used Shida's own shinai on her. It was again looking bad for Shida as even though she managed to counter the brainbuster, her knee gave out. Aja went back for the shinai & taunted Shida saying something about taking the belt, but Shida avoided the shot to the knee & countered with a kick to the head, stopped a lariat with a shinai shot, & nailed Aja in the head for good measure. She still couldn't get more than a 1 count with the knee, but she hit a diving double knee that took too long to set up then pulled her kneepad down & finally managed to put Aja away with the knee. This wasn't the smoothest or most fluid joshi match you'll ever see, but a great throwback to the days when matches were actually dramatic & the drama was supplied by the wrestlers themselves being smart & focused. They told their story well, and saw it through from start to finish with the champion getting validated by upsetting the legend. ****

CMLL 85. Aniversario 9/14/18

El Cuatrero & Forastero & Sanson vs. Atlantis & El Soberano Jr. & Mistico 14:21 [6:11, 4:11, 3:59]. Atlantis needed to be on the card somewhere, but this was not the place for him. This was a match for the young that was about speed & athleticism, and he just slowed that down. Nonetheless, it was the highlight of the undercard. Mistico was on here, and it was Soberano that had an unfortunate slip, but he was still not surprisingly the showstealer overall. What elevates the match above the usual fare is The Dynamite Blood are not only way more interesting than their famous father & uncles ever were, they're actually highly athletic rudos with some good offense. They're way too similar outfits make them seem even more interchangeable than their triple teaming & mirroring each other, but even if you might forget which one is in the ring, that's partly becauase you can't really go wrong with any of them. They had a particularly good showing in the 2nd despite ultimately dropping that fall. Forestero hit a cool quadruple jump tope con giro in the 3rd & Soberano did tornillo's in & out of the ring. I liked Mistico breaking up LSD's pose on Atlantis with a swandive Frankensteiner. Sanson got a big pop for scoring the pin on Mistico with his Poder Dinamita (torture rack powerbomb) off the 2nd. ***

King Phoenix & Penta El Zero M & Diamante Azul vs. Caristico & El Hijo de LA Park & LA Park 18:51 [5:53, 5:41, 7:17]. They overcame the awkward pairings with fantastic effort to make this one stand out as a special match. Though the match wasn't abnormally long, they did a whole lot more in the early portions of the falls than you'd normally see. By making it a perpetual motion contest that was overloaded with big moments - seemingly almost everything that the non Parks did would at least come close to qualifying and they had a couple moments as well - you kept feeling the fall must be about to end. Mostly it was Penta, Fenix, & the artist formerly known as Mistico & 5 other names that made it work with so many spectacular moves & some flashy sequences. Park is one of the few guys from the 90's AAA boom that can still go, but this really wasn't the match for him. His brawl with Penta in MLW was pretty good because Penta can shift into that mode & have an effective match that's simply in that style, but this was more one guy stalling the propulsion by using his belt after the typical high flying first fall. It did push Caristico to use his kicks, but they didn't look that good, and regardless that's not where you want him to be. This portion of the 2nd fall aside, the action was pretty fantastic. The big spot of the 2nd fall was Azul doing a windsprint lariat off the ramp then Fenix & Penta standing on the top with Fenix Frankensteinering Penta to the floor so Penta essentially hit a Hokuto style dive, but both slipped off the ropes & had to reset while Caristico & Jr stood there twiddling their thumbs. There weren't any other botched spots, but the chemistry & timing weren't always spot on, and Park Jr. should never try to mirror Fenix. Jr. hit a plancha into the front row & Azul had his moments, but while Azul is a quality worker, these two were basically afterthoughts that were filling out the teams. Hopefully a singles match between Fenix & Caristico is forthcoming. ***1/2

Hair vs. Hair: El Barbaro Cavernario & Rush vs. Matt Taven & Volador Jr. 22:56 [3:54, 2:54, 16:08]. This wasn't the match that the fans thought they were going to see when tickets went on sale - Park vs. Rush Mask vs. Hair - though it's a far better actual wrestling match with top workers in Park's nephew Volador & Cavernario instead. Though Volador is a reasonable substitute for Park name wise, he's a still in his prime longtime main eventer rather than a decades past it one, stylistically they are oil & vinegar whereas Park & Rush mesh better because they'd just do a brawl. Volador wasn't as over tonight because he wasn't Park, while Cavernario, though way over, & Taven, who the fans were more indifferent toward, were more filling out the match. I could care less about Rush/Park, but at least that would have allowed Volador to do his thing elsewhere. Instead we had Rush doing his shtick in the 1st 2 falls, stalking around with some middling brawling when he got around to it amidst endless preening & attempts to rile up the crowd, and it was cramping Volador's perpetual motion style something mighty. Cavernario is perfect for what Volador delivers, but he was caught between styles as he did his big body press off the video wall early on & some of the usual sprinting when he was off on his own, but the 2nd fall was mostly uninspired double teaming with Rush when Rush wasn't laying on his side. Volador never puts too much stock in the 1st 2 falls, generally opting to get them over & then essentially do a long one fall match, and the third fall did deliver the way a big Volador match always does, especially when he was in with Cavernario. These two started the fall with a classic super speed Volador sequence, and it was really beautiful anytime they were paired, but the match was a lot more single spots then well timed speedy lucha. Taven avoided lucha sequences when he could, opting to just move from one big move to the next. I would have preferred a guy that could actually work more with Cavernario instead of just do his own thing, but Taven gave a big effort & this style worked well with Rush, who just wants to stop all the time anyway. Overall, the 3rd fall was mostly highlights with Taven pulling some stuff out of Rush, who detracted from this portion as little as one could hope, & being a lot more of a plus than a minus. The match didn't really flow outside of a few Volador/Cavernario sequences, but guys were doing 2 dives just in the 3rd fall, and pulling out all the big flashy stunts. This wasn't a classic for the art of Lucha with great timing, chemistry, & well developed sequences, but rather guys making a less than ideal matchup into a big show main event just doing more. Unfortunately, the finish was terrible with Taven hitting Volador with a boomerang enzuigiri for no reason then Rush getting the win with a piledriver. Taven didn't really decide whether or not this was a heel turn, then took off, but Volador dragged him back so he couldn't escape the shaming. ***1/4

PFL 9 10/13/18, Lightweight Semifinal: Natan Schulte vs. Chris Wade 3R. Wade was a NY state wrestling champ in high school, a junior college finalist, & D3 5th place finisher in amateur wrestling, but he knew from his one-sided decision loss to Schulte in the league portion that he wasn't going to outgrapple Schulte. Wade opened with a spectacular kick as he tends to do these days, but Schulte was ready & countered his floating kick with a front kick. Schulte seemed to take offense to Wade trying to posterize him, and the two began taunting each other immediately, with Schulte starting it but Wade continuing it throughout the entire fight as a way to get in his head & keep the #1 seed fighting angry, which hopefully meant needlessly burning energy & slugging it out in standup. This nonsense in and of itself didn't make the fight good, but it was a very intense high stakes contest where both fighters were incredibly desperate to continue to progress forward toward the million dollars. Wade was the considerably better striker, throwing & landing a ton more shots. In the 1st round he was able to come forward & attack, but after a while Schulte just started walking him down like a cyborg. The thing is Wade also allowed this to happen. If you look at how the sequences actually went down, you'll see that Wade had no fear of anything Schulte was doing on his feet & would let Schulte come to him so he could counter & then go on the offensive or later just hit the sitting duck. Wade would avoid Schulte's single shot more often then not then land to the body or the leg, he just had so many more options in his arsenal, & then push forward with a punch combo that would back Schulte up. Rather than then taking it to Schulte & leaving himself open to a takedown because he got overaggressive, it was just wash, rinse, repeat. Schulte had his moments in the 1st 2 rounds when he had energy, but still, the idea that what Schulte was doing was some kind of quality pressure fighting that should be scoring him points for octagon control is pure nonsense. He occasionally got one knee in when he was really lucky, but he wasn't cutting off the ring, making progress toward another takedown, or compromising Wade's ability to land a lot more better offense right back in any way, he was simply plodding forward like a zombie & eating one fist sandwich after another. Early on, Wade connected with the elbow on what was supposed to be a spinning backfist & transitioned into a standing guillotine attempt that had some good neck pressure, but Schulte was against the cage, and Wade wound up on the bottom gambling for body control when he'd already lost enough of the clasp that he should have just disengaged & went back to doing what was or at least should have been winning him the fight. Instead Schulte got a minute of top control & that combined with an inside trip to spend the last 70 seconds on top was enough to take the round. Thankfully this was a 3 round fight, as these 2 rounders where the guy who wins the 1st round advances are just about the most counterintuitive thing that's ever been done in combat sports. I mean, since the dawn of time everyone has known that you want to be the guy winning the fight in the end not in the beginning, and this most basic concept has always been taken into account in Pride & all the Japanese leagues that are smart enough to score the fight as a whole, but I digress. There was more jawing & bad blood that was very close to boiling over at the end of the 1st round, and Schulte was more willing to just exchange in the 2nd. Schulte did land some powerful blows when he actually connected, he had a nice knee & high kick in the 2nd, it's just that Wade's workrate was so much higher. Schulte got a takedown with 90 seconds left in the 2nd, and again controlled the final stages on the ground until he gambled on a rear naked choke. This was another close round, but Wade the extra minute Wade spent on his feet in the 2nd resulted in a lot more shots getting through, and it's hard to ignore 32 strikes to 17 when there was no viable ground offense. Between having to fight 5 rounds over 2 fights in one night & fighting with such anger & emotion, Schulte was totally drained & looked pretty bad in the 3rd. Where Schulte was at least he was entering with some intelligence in the 1st 2 rounds, in the 3rd he was basically just functioning at the lowest level, knowing what he had to do but now lacking the finesse to do anything beyond force the laziest version. Schulte still came forward, but not with any speed or footwork, & he wasn't defending himself, so Wade was landing punches down the middle to his hearts content. Wade pretty clearly won the fight if we're not scoring rounds, especially the way he totally ran away with the fight in the 3rd. Under the silly system we're hampered with, I still have Wade taking the most important rounds to everyone other than the PFL, the 2nd & 3rd. He clearly won the standup by each & every measure with his 96 strikes landed being the most in a PFL playoff fight, while his 58 strike differential ranks 2nd best. Schulte had 2 takedowns & 3+ minutes of control, but while he showed some good BJJ in passing, he never had Wade in submission danger & did little damage. Schulte won a split decision 29-28, 28-29, 29-28. Good match.

NJPW 8/11/91: Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Thunder Liger 13:53. Liger vs. Pillman at WCW SuperBrawl II was the match that got me to seek out puroresu. Pillman was my favorite wrestler at that time, him & Rick Rude were about the only two guys that cared about putting on a good show on the Worldwide tapings which, being in NY in the years when Satan had the embargo, were about the only WCW I got to see in those days. However, Liger impressed me so much I wound up rooting for him before the end of the match. I was always dying to see a rematch in Japan, but somehow Pillman was never involved even in the annual Tokyo Dome shows after having one of the more interesting matches on Starrcade '91, and only finally made it back to Japan for '95 Super Jr. that Liger missed due to injury. It was years before I realized they had a singles match in Japan that predated their WCW program, somehow all the main matches from this final day of the original G1 resurfaced in the original run of Samurai classics except this one. It's nowhere near the quality of their famous match, and probably not as good as their other American matches minute for minute, but definitely a good starting point & nice addition to the program. The match is more up up & down than the typical junior match of the time because Pillman really has nothing on the mat transition wise. He has enough high flying to impress, and surely if this was his usual 5 minute WCW match that would have been all he needed, but the rest of his offense was rather remedial rough housing & their chemistry wasn't there yet, so they were more setting each other up & being catchers than developing back & forth sequences. It started hot with Pillman dropkicking Liger before the bell & hitting a plancha then Liger avoiding a dropkick but handspringing off the ropes when he saws Pillman was going to avoid his dive. The first half isn't tremendous by any stretch though as a lot of Pillman's offense that's accepted in the US seems as lame as it really is in Japan, the elbow drops & ramming the head into the turnbuckle and whatnot are just busywork to pass time he normally doesn't get, but his roughing Liger up eventually spurred on a lively comeback from Liger with machine gun shoteis that almost turned comical he did so many before Pillman got riled up & started slapping him back. Pillman continued to play up the annoyance, pulling the mat away & piledriving Liger on the concrete. The action really took off from here, with Pillman getting a near fall rolling through a diving body attack & Liger coming back with the rolling thunder & pumping himself up. Both guys being very charismatic & excitable added a lot to the contest. They're both very competitive & didn't want to get shown up, which makes for a good show. Granted, this isn't the sort of match that ages great because it's all about the high spots, which have obviously evolved quite a bit, but the effort & sense of urgency still really come through, & overall it's quite consistent & good in the 2nd half. They did a really good job of making even the moves that obviously weren't going to end the match into credible near finishes, and the fans were quite into it. Pillman kicked out of the Ligerbomb, but surprisingly wound up losing to a diving headbutt. 1991 wasn't the height of the NJ Junior division with Sano having left, Benoit being underused after a breakout '90, Owen working his final NJ tour, Samurai being a year away & mostly off on foreign excursion, leaving Akira & Honaga to get a ton of chances to prove they weren't anything special. This match was far from great, but it had good energy & was definitely more interesting than most of what was going on in the division at the time. ***1/2

MLW 4/12/18 World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Match: Penta El Zero M vs. Fenix. This was the best sort of brothers match where they have that love/hate relationship that allows them to absolutely beat the hell out of each other, but they also know each other so well they consistently set each other up perfectly. The basis of the match if Pentagon was just going to pound & overwhelm Fenix if Fenix didn't make something happen, so Fenix consistently pulled his creative high risk moves & was either rewarded or punished with a high impact counter. Since Penta was winning, the match was mostly designed to showcase Fenix, who was consistently too quick & too clever for his larger brother. The match was truly a great display for Fenix's speed & explosiveness. There was an insane spot early where Penta shot Fenix up in the air as sort of a back body drop variant, but Fenix forward flipped into a Frankensteiner that sent Penta to the floor so Fenix could hit a double jump plancha. Fenix did a good job of chaining his big offense together, stunning Penta with the counter then immediately capitalizing while he was prone. For instance, Fenix hit a springboard enzuigiri to stop Pentagon from running him into the turnbuckle then followed with his sprinboard footstomp. The match finally turned when Penta avoided a German suplex on the apron & Penta countered with his Pentagon driver on the apron. Penta then "broke" his own brothers arm and finished with the Pentagon driver after Fenix kicked out of the fear factor. It was a little on the short side, and didn't have the best dramatic arch, but it was a difficult match with spot on timing & execution. Pretty much everything they did was fantasic or brutal, if not both. ****

GALLI GALLIMania 2017 9/10/17: Penta El Zero M & Rey Fenix vs. Billy Star & DJZ vs. Gringo Loco & Skayde Jr. Truly spectacular high flying 3 way where North American stars Penta, Fenix, & DJZ more or less went all out even though this was a small indy show with a couple hundred in attendance, yet were still outdone by the unknown daredevil Billy Star, who doesn't even have his own page on cagematch. Starr was flipping all over the place from the outset, hitting a nice rana & doing a cool spot where he was back body dropped over the top rope but caught it on the way to the floor & did a skin the cat into a headscissors. He really started to get going when he hit a Frankensteiner off the middle rope to the floor then ascended to the top to moonsault the others as soon as they get up. Later, Star sprung onto the middle rope & DJZ hit a tope through his legs then Star followed with a quebrada. This was my kind of lucha match with no obvious technicos or rudos, no stalling or fouls, just 6 guys showing off their athletic skills to the extent of their abilities. I'm focusing on Star partly because of the three locals, he's the one that very obviously should have a good career well beyond that, and partly because you should know how good the Lucha Brothers are already. The match was great when Star or DJZ were working with Lucha Brothers, and just good the rest of the time. Gringo & Skayde were fine. They have nowhere near the athleticism or creativity as the others, but the worst thing they did was slow down the match by making it more deliberate. There was a funny spot where Gringo tried an electric chair off the 2nd, but DJZ turned it into a sunset flip powerbomb causing Grinco to essentially moonsault onto his partner Skayde. This was probably a **** match with a fitting conclusion, but I was annoyed by the useless nonsense of Mascara suddenly coming out & knocking Fenix off the top rope to stop him from finishing Skayde with the diving footstomp/package piledriver combination. A minute or two later, Pentagon was able to set it up again on Star, and this time when Mascara tried to interfere, his cousin Maximo tripped him up, which allowed Star to be pinned. ***3/4

All In 9/1/18

Chicago Street Fight: Hangman Page vs. Joey Janela 20:09. An overachieving match where their willingness to pull out all the stops to make it memorable overshadowed everything else. It was basically an endless string of insane gimmick spots that took an eternity to set up, but their desire & creativity ultimately ruled the night. Janela is more of a stunt man than a good wrestler, but the kamikaze style of the athletic garbage stuntfest accentuated his strengths as a Foleyesque wildman while minimizing his liabilities as much as possible. Page carried the match & delivered most of the actual quality. Though he isn't great right now either, Page is really athletic & has shown he's willing to continue to work hard to improve now that he's finally been given the opportunity to wrestle fulltime, so long term he's probably worth the overpush he's been getting of late. They started out with flying including Page doing a moonsault to the floor then set up a chair that Page hit a fallaway slam onto & used a cracker barrel for Janela to somersault off. You knew the carnage was going to be way over the top when Page used a burning hammer onto a ladder as one of the early gimmick spots. Lethal's odes to the Macho Man seemed even more feeble distractions than usual after seeing Janela put HMP through a table with a diving elbow to the floor. Janela took another table out with his elbow when Page gave him a nutso jackknife off the stage. Janela's leg was all scratched & scraped up from going through all these tables, but there was still one final crazy bump as Page hit the rite of passage off a ladder through the table for the win. There wasn't a lot more to the match to be honest, but most of the night's memorable spots came here. The less said about the post match penis brigade, the better. ***1/4

Kenny Omega vs. Penta El Zero M 17:47. This dream match between two guys at the top of their continents wrestling scene was so far & away better than anything earlier on the card it was like it was from another planet. They didn't get as much time as we'd like or expect, but that turned out to be okay, as rather than an "epic" New Japan match where they just stretch everything out to pad the time, they instead were forced to speed up the pace, and wound up packing so much into the allotted 18 minutes that the issue became almost irrelevant. There finally weren't a bunch of distractions & diversions, it was just two guys relying on their own skill to have a memorable match, the way it should be. Penta isn't the best at pure lucha, probably even in his family, but what makes him great is he doesn't need to be running the ropes & whatnot as a lot of those guys do for his matches to be functional, much less great. Konnan literally destroyed AAA forcing extreme lucha, but Penta is one of the only guys who can actually do that style within the context of a good match, and especially a good actual wrestling match that doesn't simply rely on the gimmick spots but does get a lot of mileage out of them. The initial story was that brawling & generally creating chaos was to Penta's advantage, but they left this quickly, and it was mostly a high flying athletic encounter in the Japanese junior style, which suits both very well. Although this was a new match, these guys had fantastic chemistry, developing a counter laden match where they had to have answers to the opponent's favorite moves, and their timing & reacting to one another was spot on. Both wrestlers were very cocky, but that was also a story of the match, with both fighters coming back the moment the other tried to taunt or posterize them. Omega overdid the V-trigger & Penta overdid his no fear pose in response, but I liked Kenny responding with a powerbomb & hitting another V-trigger. Penta hit the package piledriver on the apron & supposedly broke Omega's arm, but Omega somehow finally managed to hit the one winged angel essentially with one arm to get the win after failing 4 times when he had two arms. The lights then went out & Chris Jericho appeared disguised as Penta to assault Omega. ****

Kota Ibushi & Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Bandido & Rey Fenix & Rey Mysterio 11:43. Probably would have been a great main event had they not wasted so much time with the DUD & endless other run ins to set up their next show that doesn't actually exist that they had to cut the match people actually came to see more than in half. What we ended up getting was about as good as anyone could expect them to deliver in 12 minutes. The athleticism was fantastic, and the work was able to hold up to the hyper speed, super athletic style for the most part. Bandido was the revelation for those who hadn't seen him before, stealing the show even from Fenix & Ibushi. The Jackson's were mostly just putting the other guys over, though they did get the pin in the end on poor Bandido, of course. Mysterio was lagging behind a bit, it was even more a young man's match once everyone was forced to rush so badly, but he's at the point of his career where he just does what's expected of him, and as such he more or less satisfied & held his own. This wasn't a deep match obviously, it was just a lightspeed spotfest, but it was super spectacular, and that's really all you could ask for given the constraints they were working under. If this were an undercard match on a show with the usual sluggish main event, everyone would be raving about it, but the expectations were raised so highly given they were on last it felt more throwaway than it probably should have. I don't really know how to rate the match, but it still managed to work & be fun. ***1/2

Marvelous 9/17/18: DASH Chisakao vs. Tomoko Watanabe 10:56. It's weird seeing Kaoru Ito, who used to be the thin half of the ZAPs, be 200 pounds overweight, while Watanabe, who once jokingly worked as Pork Warrior, is relatively in shape (by no means thin, but weighing less than she did 20 years ago). Watanabe wasn't great here, but she can still move & go to an extent, and with an opponent who knows how to wrestle without much help from anyone else, that was more than enough. DASH took it to Watanabe with her flying & her foreign objects, sometimes combining both such as the footstomp off the apron onto the chair, trying to beat the veteran in the sort of brawl she was known for at the height of her stardom. DASH dominated the match with Chikayo Nagashima, Megumi Yabushita, & Pandita running too much interference for her until Watanabe eventually came back taking everyone out with a reverse body attack to the floor & they had a regular match once Watanabe got done giving DASH a tour of the arena. It began to get quite good as they went back & forth with Watanabe countering DASH's athletic moves & DASH countering Watanabe's power moves. Watanabe obviously isn't as agile as she was back in the day, but that didn't hurt the match too much except DASH's harumaru near the ropes didn't come off. The big problem here is DASH just randomly ran into Watanabe's big lariat & that was that. DASH has been wrestling 12 years, yet since she just had a birthday, Watanabe has been wrestling 1 less year than she's been alive. Apart from the interference, I liked this sprint up to the premature & abrupt finish, as it did a good job of showing how their game is both similar & different. That being said, it's still the same old girls over the wrestlers of today nonsense that Chigusa has been booking since the start of GAEA in response to AJW forcing her to retire so the current generation would get their chance. ***

UFC 229 10/6/18: Tony Ferguson vs. Anthony Pettis 2R. Ferguson somehow returned 6 months after a full LCL tear, sporting a giant surgical scar, but after an early scare, ultimately seeming like the same insane pressure fighter. Even though Ferguson had to be off his feet for a while, his stamina & forward thrust were as we've always seen, so he was still able to cut Pettis off at every turn & keep him pinned against the cage & under constant heavy fire. Pettis was denied the space to be creative, forced to fight off his back foot or pinned on the wall the whole time, but he still had his moments, mostly landing the overhand right. Pettis planned to chop down Ferguson's legs, and was able to land a few kicks to the knee & get Ferguson limping early, which gave his fans hope he might win if only because Ferguson was coming back too soon, but once Ferguson forced him out of the center, Pettis never had the space required to continue down this road. Pettis looked good for the 1st half of round 1, but was fading fast because he was constantly forced to retreat as well as eating a ton of leg kicks while he was doing so. Pettis was still fine when he was moving back, but that negated a lot of his weapons & creativity. The real problem is when he'd stand still against the cage because literally all Pettis was doing there is trying to set up the overhand right, whereas Ferguson could attack him in any manner he saw fit, and would land a bunch of shots while Pettis hoped for the one big one. One of Ferguson's most successful tactics was batting Pettis's block to the left then slicing him up with a short right elbow. Ferguson was landing the low kick of the stance switch, but early in the 2nd he tried to come in with a leg kick & Pettis dropped him with an overhand right. Ferguson popped back up, but now it was Pettis who was applying relentless pressure to the point that Ferguson forward rolled after narrowly avoiding another overhand right. Ferguson was bloodied, but Ferguson also cut Pettis worse with an elbow from the bottom. Jason Herzog had Pettis' cut checked, and Ferguson was totally recovered by the time they restarted, ripping the body to further fatigue Pettis. Pettis was totally gassed in the 2nd half of the round, and the more he just stood there flatfooted with his back on the cage, the more Ferguson would just pick him apart with elbows, jabs, and body shots. Pettis was cut badly outside the left eye now, and Ferguson was able to worsen it with more elbows & hooks & then to the body when Pettis tried to protect it. Pettis still landed the right hand now & then, but mostly was a sitting duck. Pettis told his corner his right hand was broke, and Duke Roufus seemed to talk him out of trying to continue "I don't want you going out there if you can't fight the way you need to fight, alright?" Given Pettis had no legs left & his only weapon left was the overhand right, it was hard to imagine him not getting massacred further when that weapon was also compromised, so Duke likely gave Pettis the out that was better for what's left of his career. A disappointing ending for the fans, who hoped Pettis might have a good minute or two to start the third, though realistically Pettis was likely done regardless of the injury because he was so physically spent. Very good match.

OPW 12/19/04, OPW Tag Title Match: Billiken Kid & Tigers Mask vs. Black Buffalo & Daio QUALLT 19:43 of 24:46. OPW was a really fun promotion in their 1st few years on the strength of the Michinoku defectors, who had mostly all left or tailed off considerably by this point, but the young team of Billiken & Tigers, who started in OPW in 2001, had taken up some of the slack & become new stars of the promotion taking the tag titles from Liger & Murahama at the end of 2003 & defending them all year including a big win over MPW legends TAKA & Shiryu at the 4th Super J Cup. Billiken, who had worked in AAA prior to OPW, was a lot more developed & had broken out sooner, but Tigers had improved to the point that it didn't much matter that Tigers was the one making the hot tag. Buffalo was the glue that held together so many matches in this league, a really underrated rudo who worked hard & always did a good job of facilitating the action. Daio was never going to make a match, but was a more than servicable power wrestler who would give an effort & could actually take your offense as well as toss you around. This was a massive all around effort, but Tigers had arrived & Daio in particular stepped it up in a major way delivering some killer power moves including a powerbomb off the 2nd & reverse suplex off the top. The match followed the typical 90's Michinoku formula & dramatic ark as most of the quality, serious matches in the promotion did, starting off solidly & just getting faster & more action packed as it progressed, with all sorts of counters back & forth, double teams, and last second saves. The first nine minutes were fine, mostly what aired was the rudos running over Billiken, but once the action kicked in with Tigers hot tag it just kept escalating beautifully, with one hot move & near fall after another for final 15 minutes. The primary pairings were Kid/Buffalo & Tigers/QUALLT, but there wasn't much rest here, usually everyone was going at it or at least holding on to an opponent on the floor to keep them from jumping in, and someone would break free at the right times to make a save or get some more double teaming in. Finally QUALLT took Billiken out with a pedigree on the runway & they did a sort of delayed sandwhich lariat where Buffalo set Tigers up on the ropes & ran the ropes, with QUALLT running the apron & knocking Tigers off the ropes into Buffalo's charging lariat for the win. QUALLT had a run with the singles title & prior runs with the tag title, but this was the highlight of his in ring career from what I've seen. His power moves were a really nice contrast to the flying, and they did such a nice job of countering back & forth from one style to the other. Sadly, he retired about a month he & Buffalo dropped the titles to Billiken & Perro in their 1st defense. ***3/4

AJ 12/11/80 '80 World's Strongest Tag Decision League Match: Terry & Dory Funk Jr. vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant Baba 43:50. These teams had 45:00 draws in the previous 3 tag leagues, but with Baba & Jumbo coming in a point behind the Funks, that really put the pressure on the natives to finally break through & even things at 2 tag leagues a piece rather than finish tie for 2nd with Abdullah & Kamata & allow the Texans to capture their third league. Only Baba seemed to feel that urgency early on & was interested in taking things to the next level when he came in. However, while Baba tried to pick things up with his signature highspots, the others still more or less stuck to their body work, delivering an unspectacular technical match where the Funks worked on Jumbo's knee & Baba's team worked on Terry's back. The quality was good from the outset, and it was a consistent but never particularly dynamic until they shifted to the stretch run about 27 minutes in when Jumbo came in & stomped Terry's head to break up the rolling cradle, then just kept putting the boots to him until Dory came in swinging. Jumbo was quite good during this final portion, but overall, the disappointment of the match is his greatness wasn't on display before that. He didn't or couldn't prod the Funks into doing anything that would instill any urgency or changes of pace into the match before the action finally got hot. Part of the problem may just have been that, even though Jumbo was well established by this point as the #2 star in the company, the style was basically Baba's when he was in & Dory's when Baba wasn't, so Jumbo never seemed to make even portions of the match his own despite logging the most ring time. Baba finally hit his big boot on Dory & told Jumbo to ascend to the top for his flying knee drop, which he gladly still delivered despite Terry diving on top of his brother before Jumbo lept. Terry taking the brunt of the impact apparently allowed Dory to come right back with his backdrop, but he lost the advantage going to the floor to check of Terry's health. The stretch run was shaping up to contain all the intensity & action you wanted to occur 20 minutes earlier when Baba managed to win without even knowing he won despite booking this nonsense. I'm not honestly sure why Jumbo wasn't counted out as he hit the floor first with Terry knocking him through the ropes with his headbutt then following him out. Both made it back to the apron, with Baba shoulderblocking Terry off then going back to fighting Dory, but Jumbo then fell off the apron without actually reentering. However, Joe Higuchi just completely ignored Jumbo & finished the count on Terry. To make things more muddled, you can't really tell he counted Terry out as Joe goes back in the ring & deals with Dory & Baba then eventually raises the hand of Jumbo, who finally reentered, and Baba just has this great befuddled look as he looks around trying to figure out what the hell happened. Needless to say this finish was super anticlimactic, and actually way worse than just another draw because at least you know what a draw is without having to rewind to figure out what happened. I want to say this match would have benefitted from being 2/3 falls, but the whole gimmick was neither team could even win one. The finishing sequence is what would essentially have been the 3rd fall, give or take, but what I mean though is they just needed something to prod them into some tempo changes earlier on. As it was, it was fine except for the finish, but as the final match of the tournament & the "payoff" to a rivalry that had been so equal, it just seemed like a nice match that managed to inconclusively keep everyone & everything exactly as before. ***1/4

ARSION 7/13/02, QUEEN OF ARSION Title Match ~Lumberjack Match~: Michiko Omukai vs. noki-A 22:24. Rossy overbooked this as a lumberjack match, but luckily the wrestlers themselves didn't care, with noki-A instead leading Chama through an old school technical match that literally had no reason to ever hit the floor. Lioness did do an uninspired lariat to Omukai & later GAMI just fanned noki-A with a towel after she escaped a triangle but attacked Omukai when she finally decided to do the lumberjacks job for them, which set up the big payoff for the lumberjacks where Lioness & GAMI tried to hold Omukai for noki-A's tope con giro, but got taken out when Omukai escaped their clutches in time & a brawl broke out on the outside. Aside from these 3 spots, the match was contested in the center of the ring except when Akino did her climb up reverse body attack or someone got a rope escape. Much of the technical wrestling was quite basic early on, especially given the level these two showed at the height of Yoshida's influence in the late '90's, but they built the match pretty well & did enough holds & appendage work that you believed the match could actually end with a submission. Noki-A did do some nice arm work to set up her cool flying armbars, while Omukai was working for her triangle. The match would have been much better at the 15 minute range with no lumberjacks as they had more than enough good material for that, but they were stretching things out early, which really accentuated the main problem, that the match lacked urgency & aura. Perhaps this is what the lumberjacks were actually supposed to be doing other than twidling their thumbs, but when you only have 10x the people in the crowd as you do wrestlers surrounding the ring, it's kind of tough to pull off an epic title match. noki-A was one of the best females around at this time, and though Omukai had slipped quite a bit from her '98 level when she was hungry & out to prove she was more than undercard fodder for the old girls club that has always been LLPW, she followed well enough & had her moments here even if she was a bit sloppy at times. The match got a lot better as it progressed, but they had a hard time getting across any feeling of desperation or that something was on the line. This was somewhat lessened when they did their big moves down the stretch, but battling tornado A's & shining wizards until Omukai won with the latter had little to do with the submission oriented match that came before it. Overall, this was good, but rather muddled. ***

BACK TO QUEBRADA REVIEWS

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web quebrada.net

* Puroresu, MMA, & Kickboxing Reviews Copyright 2018 Quebrada *