Saturday, January 4, 2020

WRESTLE KINGDOM 14 DAY 1

Team Liger vs. Team Sano
SO MUCH FUN! Everybody got time to shine, and everybody looked great. Was marking out all over the place. Liger is the best. ***3/4

Los Ingobernables de Japon vs. Suzuki-gun
A very paint-by-the-numbers multi-man tag. Things picked up when Shingo came to wreck some shit + ZSJ & SANADA looked good as well. **

Bullet Club vs. CHAOS
Better of the two usual faction vs. faction multi-man tags. Everybody looked pretty good with the exception of maybe Yujiro, but he didn't get to do much, so it's all good. Fale, Ishii, Chase & Goto were the 4 strongest performers I thought. **1/4

David Finlay & Juice Robinson vs. Guerrillas of Destiny
This was really good! Juice was a great hot tag, the 2-on-2 section w/ Finlay fighting against the Tongans ruled & so did the whole finishing stretch. Quality tag team rasslin. ***1/2

Jon Moxley vs. Lance Archer
Fookin' loved this. A wild fight with Moxley fighting from beneath w/ some badass comeback attacks, and Archer was completely awesome brutalizing him on top. The big table spot was great & I loved the plastic bag suffocating + the spike-HELMET. The lads sure made sure to get good use of the Deathmatch gimmick. ****

Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay
A couple of your usual silly Ospreay moments & a few too many nearfalls for my liking, but all in all, this was really damn good. Ospreay did a good, compelling job being the aggressor, targeting that neck of Hiromu & all. Hiromu was a real good babyface as well, with some very nice counters & that finishing move he busted out was terrific in all of its brutality. Good to have ya back, Time Bomb! Oh & the Sasuke Special sequence that is getting GIF'd to death was legit very, very cool too. ***3/4

Jay White vs. Tetsuya Naito
Definitely a bit too lengthy for its own good, but I enjoyed most of it very much. White is very compelling on top, doing the damage & in particular targeting Naito's knee, and Naito, surprisingly, sold pretty damn great for most of it. ***1/2

Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi
My thoughts as of now are that this is the best Dome main event since the last Tana/Okada, and an instant classic. Slow build like in every big Okada match, but they make every headlock & all feel super compelling, and once the thing explodes & Ibushi goes into that fucking killer mode?? OH BOY. Those damn punches! That finishing stretch was something else too -- that V-Trigger got me good. What a goddamn match. ****1/2

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