PROGRESS Chapter 77: WALTER vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
I don't think this came even close to their previous PROGRESS meeting, which was a classic & one of my favorite matches of the year, but as always w/ WALTER & ZSJ, this was a very good time from start to finish. Love how they referenced to that NOLA match here w/ the commentators bringing up the fact that Zack's gameplan in that one was almost like a suicide mission, so here he had to try & change it up. And that he sure did, but it did not go according to the plan, at least not right from the start; WALTER dominated most of the match by not letting Zack get too close - gave the man a mauling, and those submissions by him just look absolutely brutal on Zack, due to their size difference. Aloved the cocky swagger he showed by imitating a few of Zack's signature moves, like the neck twist to a grounded opponent. Zack though, sneaky as usual, managed to get back into things by sneaking in his hard hitting strikes & a few submissions to try n' wear the big man down, so by the end, this was a full on war w/ both guys desperately trying to put one another out. Very good match by a pairing that always delivers. ***3/4
NJPW Power Struggle 2018: Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii
There were parts here where I thought to myself that "damn, this is looking like one of the best New Japan matches of the year" - but then they drifted it back into the generic NJPW & Ishii formula. Still a really good match, but had shades of something so much greater. Some of the standout moments were literally all of MiSu's times on the offense; I could watch him forearm people's faces off & knee people's ribs to oblivion all day long. Most of the strike exchanges that usually feel very masturbatory & filler are actually goddamn AWESOME, because of how amazingly violent MiSu makes them feel. Ishii had a solid performance too - loved his selling, one of my favorite moments of the match was when him & MiSu started their slapbattle, he did the delayed Kawada selling where he felt the effect of MiSu's slap, and that lead to MiSu laying into him w/ those deadly slap combinations. But yeah, while he was solid for the most part, I wasn’t feeling him on the offense really at all, so as a result this was pretty much a complete Minoru Suzuki show for me. An absolutely awesome one at that. ***3/4
I don't think this came even close to their previous PROGRESS meeting, which was a classic & one of my favorite matches of the year, but as always w/ WALTER & ZSJ, this was a very good time from start to finish. Love how they referenced to that NOLA match here w/ the commentators bringing up the fact that Zack's gameplan in that one was almost like a suicide mission, so here he had to try & change it up. And that he sure did, but it did not go according to the plan, at least not right from the start; WALTER dominated most of the match by not letting Zack get too close - gave the man a mauling, and those submissions by him just look absolutely brutal on Zack, due to their size difference. Aloved the cocky swagger he showed by imitating a few of Zack's signature moves, like the neck twist to a grounded opponent. Zack though, sneaky as usual, managed to get back into things by sneaking in his hard hitting strikes & a few submissions to try n' wear the big man down, so by the end, this was a full on war w/ both guys desperately trying to put one another out. Very good match by a pairing that always delivers. ***3/4
NJPW Power Struggle 2018: Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii
There were parts here where I thought to myself that "damn, this is looking like one of the best New Japan matches of the year" - but then they drifted it back into the generic NJPW & Ishii formula. Still a really good match, but had shades of something so much greater. Some of the standout moments were literally all of MiSu's times on the offense; I could watch him forearm people's faces off & knee people's ribs to oblivion all day long. Most of the strike exchanges that usually feel very masturbatory & filler are actually goddamn AWESOME, because of how amazingly violent MiSu makes them feel. Ishii had a solid performance too - loved his selling, one of my favorite moments of the match was when him & MiSu started their slapbattle, he did the delayed Kawada selling where he felt the effect of MiSu's slap, and that lead to MiSu laying into him w/ those deadly slap combinations. But yeah, while he was solid for the most part, I wasn’t feeling him on the offense really at all, so as a result this was pretty much a complete Minoru Suzuki show for me. An absolutely awesome one at that. ***3/4
WWE SmackDown 11/06/18: Andrade Almas vs. Rey Mysterio
Andrade is pretty damn vicious w/ his work over Rey, and Rey Rey of course still effin' rules fighting from underneath. A very enjoyable TV match. ***
I feel like Power Struggle was overally a weaker show with Ishii vs Suzuki being disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I'm always looking forward their matches, but I feel like I've literally seen million of them in a few months and they have nothing new to offer - just another bunch of hardhitting slugfests. This time, it was quite a boring slugfest imo. Very sloppy, had to wait until the last 5 minuted for something to happen.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not my favorite one.