WWE NXT TakeOver: 31 O'O'O'O'REILLYYYYYYY

WWE NXT TAKEOVER: 31


Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano
Gargano may technically be a heel who does some cheap heel stuff now, but he really is still the same workrate geek that he has always been. And this was a yet another super generic, completely soulless & completely uninteresting workrate Gargano style match. Movez & kickouts. Felt like it was never gonna end too, which is also unsurprising. Priest also offered nothing interesting to the table, as he just essentially was one of the many dance partners of Gargano. *

Kushida vs. Velveteen Dream
Kushidaaaaaa, fuck yeah. That man was completely on point here with his relentless assault on Dream throughout -- he was nasty, he was punishing, he was focused. Absolutely lovely stuff by him on the offense, and while Dream's lil' heat segment wasn't all that interesting, I thought his brief answers to Kushida's onslaught were good & his selling (of the arm, and overall too) was great stuff. ***1/2

Isaiah Scott vs. Santos Escobar
I think this might be the first time I'm watching Santos Escobar in NXT, and the dude definitely left somewhat of an impression. Charismatic fella. Him & Swerve had kind of an epic here, and while I didn't care for the absolute majority of it, I thought there were a few good bits here n' there. I liked some of Scott's arm targeting, and Santos busted out a few brutal looking maneuvers as well. An okay match all around. Super forgettable, but not bad. **

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai
The kind of a pairing that you can always trust to have a rock solid, strong match. They did exactly that here -- had a good match with everything looking good. Candice's big heat segment was solid, as she made every move look great, and Io's eventual big comeback & the more 50-50 that followed was solid stuff, as well. SOLID really is the keyword here, because that's what this match truly was. Rock solid. ***

Finn Bálor vs. Kyle O'Reilly
The video package for this match was goddamn fantastic. Between it & the one for Reigns/Uso, WWE has been knocking it out of the park with 'em lately. I've been a pretty big Kyle O'Reilly fan since 2013, so seeing him in a big main event spot like this warms my heart. The match itself was really, really good. I thought Finn & Kyle brought a very nice amount of grit & struggle into the bout, which is something the NXT main events haven't seen in a while. Some very solid technical wrasslin' in the beginning stages, and once Bálor delivers that big spinning kick to Kyle's mid-section, the big story kicks in. Kyle sells the ribs really well throughout I thought, especially in those big knockdown moments, and Bálor was pretty damn good with his work over those said ribs. There were a few moments where he was busting out some real lame looking stomps, but then he totally made up for them a few moments later with a big irish whip chest-first into the corner or a big boot to the mid-section. All in all, it was probably some of the most compelling work he's done on the offense in his WWE run thus far. Kyle finding an opening with that low dropkick to the knee was awesome, and him continuing that attack to counter Bálor's ruthless destruction of his mid-section ruled -- there was quite a few great singular moments in the match, and one of them that stood out for me was when Kyle grabbed that leg, he was desperately looking to go for _something_, Bálor counters it into an abdominal stretch & we briefly get an awesome image of Kyle in big trouble, bloody mouth and all. Now Kyle got out of the hold very quickly, but I thought the whole little sequence there ruled. Great sense of struggle, despair & tenacity. The "big" leg-drama towards the end with the dragon screws on the ropes, and the leglock stuff was solid, even though I do think that the leglock-part of it fell a bit flat -- funny enough, I've always thought that Kyle's leglocks look a bit weak, and such was the case here. The rest of that stretch was pretty great though, and the actual finish w/ the Coup De Grace was awesome, and made all the more sweet because Bálor finished him off by delivering the deathblow to the bodypart he had been targeting for most of the match. REALLY GOOD SHIT ALL AROUND. Did I want it to be even better given the hype? Yes, but I am also satisfied with what we got, because it was indeed awesome. ***3/4

The G1 Catch Up CONTINUES

 

Day 1: Jay White vs. Shingo Takagi
Man, Jay White was just so good in this match. His attack on Shingo's back in the early going, his selling, his facial expressions & his timing on all those things -- so, so good & compelling to watch. Shingo was awesome as well; I always like to call him a "bulldozer" when he is on the offense, and I got that feeling here again when he was just running through Switchblade with his STUFF. Talking about running, I do think the match ran too long by the end of it - they could’ve wrapped it earlier and it would’ve been a tighter package, but like 95% or more of the overall thing was absolutely lovely, so yeah, I loved it. ***1/2

Day 6: KENTA vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
I have soured on Zack Sabre Jr. & his style of wrestling so much, and I don't even know the reason why. I just don't feel a thing when he is running through his quick transitions anymore, and in this match I felt like he could've done a lot more selling instead of just going to his cute submission stuff a second or two after KENTA had just booted him or something similar, you know. I probably would've loved this match a year or two ago, but now, I was left extremely cold by the action. A gentleman's **

Day 7: Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi
I really liked the first half (or so) with the main focus of the match being Taichi's attack on Okada's taped up lower back. Taichi was focused on it, and his work over it was pretty vicious. Okada's selling was also on point, even in his initial comeback bits, but sadly as the match went on & he got more into it, it seemed like that the whole narrative got completely dropped, and that is when I lost much interest in the thing. **1/2

Day 7: Jay White vs. Will Ospreay
I have about 0% interest in watching a Will Ospreay match at this time, but decided to give this a shot since it was against the wonderful Jay White. Wasn't really a good match, certainly the worst of the now-three that I have watched where they go against one another. White got to dominate a lot of the thing, and as usual, his work doing that was really good, but Ospreay's phony selling disregarded most of that. He did the usual Ospreay thang where he sells for one second & the next second he is doing his super flipz and movez, which all were even more uninteresting than usually, btw. And even though I love to praise the Switchblade & I did mention that his work was really good, I do think that this one was one of his more "lesser" performances, as in his output wasn't as compelling as in some of his previous G1 outings. Of course it helps that his opponent had nothing interesting to offer. *1/4

The G1 Catch-Up

 

Day 2: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito
This was good. As always, the two top dogs brought the big time emotion & charisma into the match, and the match followed the familiar structure of Tanahashi weakening Naito's knee & Naito largely spending his time on top going after Tana's neck. It's good stuff & while I almost never expect good selling from Naito, I thought he did fine here. Of course it helps that Tana's focus on the leg wasn't ALL THAT much, but yeah, everything was fine from that point of view as well. Nothing great, special or memorable, but a good New Japan main event all in all. ***

Day 3: Jay White vs. Kota Ibushi
They had the NJPW MOTY 2019 & the Wrestle Kingdom re-match was very good -- this one is clearly the weakest out of the three, but it's still a very niiiice match. White is extremely dominant from start to finish - his usual arsenal of moves is a pleasure to watch, and the legwork was also pretty good here. I really liked how he used it as a way to gain the control back each time it started to look like Ibushi was gaining some momentum. Now Ibushi certainly isn't a very notorious limb-salesman, but here I thought that he didn't get enough time with his comeback bits to truly say "fuck you" to White's attack on the leg, which made the whole thing work. Some cold moments & periods of time here n' there make this feel a little spotty in its quality, but all in all I had a good time watching it. ***

Day 5: Kota Ibushi vs. Tomohiro Ishii
You know what you're getting when these two step into the ring with one another. It's all about them letting those macho juices flow & refusing to acknowledge being hurt. That of course doesn't mean that there isn't selling, because both of them, especially Ishii, sell big when needed. Sadly though, I thought that this felt quite tired -- usually there's always some new spark & energy in their matches, but this felt like a very paint-by-the-numbers autopilot Ibushi vs. Ishii bout, and it definitely wasn't very interesting for the most part. **

Day 5: Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada
Another strong Jay White G1 main event. Not a high-level must-see banger or anything like that, but a rock-solid outing that told a fun narrative from start to finish. ***

Moxley vs Kingston

 

AEW Dynamite 09/23/20

Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley
One of the most appealing looking matches on paper that has happened in 2020. And it was exactly the kind of a lovely, badass fight that one would expect a match between Eddie Kingston & Jon Moxley to be. It didn't take long for them to just start laying it ON with them strikes & bigger stuff in suplexes and piledrivers, and it was all just awesome stuff. A pretty damn great TV main event. ***1/2

WWE Clash of Champions: IC Triple Threat, Jey Uso vs Reigns

 

WWE CLASH OF CHAMPIONS 2020

AJ Styles vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Sami Zayn
I'm not big on ladder matches in general, and they especially DO NOT work well in this era of empty arena matches. So unsurprisingly I didn't care for like 99% of this, but I can appreciate the big bumps they took, because gawd damn, the lads sure went into town when it comes to those. And I guess the best thing I can say about the match overall is that I sure love to see Sami Zayn shine and wrestle according to his character so flawlessly. The finish & the whole lead-up to it was fun too, but yeah, as a whole this wasn't exactly my cup of tea. **

Jey Uso vs. Roman Reigns
The video package highlighting this feud before the entrances was really great. Got me pretty pumped for the match. Sadly the match itself was really damn yawn-inducing. 20-something minutes of Reigns talking trash in cringe fashion -- at first I thought it felt natural, but by the end with all the "CALL ME DA TRIBAL CHIEF" stuff, geeeeez. He dominated pretty much all of the match too, and his actual work doing that wasn't any interesting either. Just very generic & forgettable. Certainly not a match of my liking. There were a few positives though, such as I did like Reigns jawing Lil Naitch, and that one comeback bit by Jey was pretty nice w/ that Superkick & that finish splash of his. *1/2

The G1 2020 BEGINS WITH ISHII & MINORU

 

NJPW G1 CLIMAX 30 - DAY 1

Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii
This kinda goes exactly as one would expect, and I for that reason wasn't really looking forward to watching it, BUT as usual with going into Ishii matches in general, I have my doubts about my interest in them, but usually always by the end, I come away with something I really loved. Such was the case here. Him & Suzuki brought the violence big time, with it being most in display in that absolutely wonderful sequence where Suzuki destroyed Ishii with those deadly forearms -- those strikes looked & sounded awesomely brutal, and Ishii's epic selling complimented them peeeerfectly. All in all, I really loved this. Sure it felt a bit long, as in it could've used some trimming, but come on. That is to be expected. Comes with the territory. This ruled. ***3/4

AEW ALL OUT 2020: FTR vs. Hangman & Omega

 

AEW ALL OUT 2020

Adam Page & Kenny Omega vs. Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood
Extremely disappointing. The lack of a "real-real" crowd hurt this so much, especially since they went around 30-minutes. Most of the more major moments of the match didn't register at all because of that, and talking about the length, man it felt very unnecessary for them to go this long. The whole first half or so felt like almost complete filler. OH WELL - all in all I sure wouldn't call this a bad match though, as I do think that in the last 10 minutes or so the action actually got some hook to it w/ FTR seeing a target in Kenny's knee, and that reaching its apex in the last few minutes with that pretty great finishing stretch. Shame that the road to that compelling section of the bout was such a bore. **