Red's Wrestling Blog

Matches: 1.Shane Taylor Promotions vs Briscoes, EC3 **3/4 2.ROH Pure Title, Pure Tournament Finals: Gresham vs Hotsauce ***1/2 Thoughts: Quinn kicks us off, promoting the episode's main event and the finals of the Pure Tournament before getting another look at the package setting up the opener.  That match saw Shane Taylor and crew taking on EC3 and The Briscoes in what was EC3's in ring debut for the company. Admittedly, I am unsure about him being in the company but willing to see where they go with it. My vision for ROH doesn't include dudes like him but they have made some situations work in the past. They've also pushed Bully to nauseum, though. Guess we'll see and at least he is a decent worker. But yea, this was better than expected. The Taylor dudes are so green they don't even have Cagematch profiles yet, but there's potential there for sure. Honestly, this was just a decent start overall. The package for Gresham/Williams was great as expected. Reme

Matches: 1.Gresham vs Woods ***1/2 2. Lethal vs Hotsauce **** Thoughts: I'll be adding a review for 476 in a bit, too. The two episodes cover the semi and finals for the Pure Tournament, crowning a new champ. I love that they finally revived this title and while I have numerous issues with ROH, I applaud them for being one of the better at handling the virus by all accounts. So, the final four are Gresham, Lethal, Woods, and Hotsauce. A great group of talent that represent the style well. I have hopes for the division and know ROH intends to tighten up the divisions. I have no idea why dipshit Flip is working matches against them, though. Up first, The Goods versus The Octopus. I am excited about The Foundation. I wanted Lifeblood to be great but things didn't line up. This should be the Catchpoint of Ring of Honor! But yea, I love the pure rules and am very happy they are a thing again in ROH and the style and rules were utilized super well here. This was very good and a highl

Matches: 1.Future of STARDOM Title: Maika(c) vs Saya ***1/2 2.Wonder of STARDOM Title: Giulia(c) Himeka ***3/4 Thoughts: Following the absolute banger of an episode that was #46, We are STARDOM!! #47 started with Maika defending the Future of STARDOM Championship against Saya Kamitani. It lived up to the name of the strap, with both stepping up nicely and looking like true future big stars of the company. The champ in particular looks poised for a big push sooner than later, too. Very good stuff and a nice start to the episode. The main this time featured Giulia defending the white belt once more against her stable mate, Himeka. The challenger attacked early and acting a bit cocky in her approach early on before the champ put her back in her place. From there, they traded control at a nice rate before a Glorious Driver finished it. I thought this was great stuff and I enjoyed the emotion on display after, too. Like most editions, this is worth watching. Click play above if you skipped

Matches: 1.World of STARDOM Title: Mayu(c) vs Iroha **** Thoughts: Back in February, which feels like 46 years ago instead of one, Marvelous' ace, Iroha, pinned Mayu Iwatani in a singles match that I gave a ****1/4 rating. They've been building the rematch with a short teaser for a few episodes of We are STARDOM!! and we've finally arrived! A few episodes back, I called out the format style of the series. While it usually works for me, even if I always would prefer full content over clipped, that specific episode really exposed that when done wrong it can make the entire thing feel off. While that was still a decent episode, I think it took away drastically from the feel of the most important match of the episode. This is an issue that occurs from time to time on the show but was super glaring there. This time, they did the right thing, though with the entirety of #46 focusing exclusively on the big rematch! Their last encounter felt more one sided with Mayu trying to battl

Matches: 1.Riho, Death vs STARS ** 2.Oedo Tai vs Queen's Quest *** 3.Donna del Mondo vs Queen's Quest ***1/4 4.Grab the top vs AphroditE ***1/4 Thoughts: This edition covers the start of the 2020 Goddesses of STARDOM Tag League. Up first, Riho and Death Yama-san against STARS' Mayu and Starlight Kid. The Riho/Mayu spots were fun and the entire thing had a touch of comedic value, including the finish. It was okay for what it was and an decent enough kick off for #45. A chaotic waterfall of action followed as we got the end of OT and QQ going to battle next, which featured a nice ending that saw Utami about to take the W for her team when the time ran out. Good stuff. The third match saw DdM's Giulia and Maika take down Momo and AZM with the peddle kept down for a high octane display of tag team entertainment. DdM have grown on me a lot. The main came from the second night of the tournament, with Himeka and Syuri defeating Saya and Utami which was arguably MOTN and saw th

Matches: 1.SWA Undisputed Title: Bea vs Momo *** 2.Losing Unit Disbands, No DQ: Oedo Tai vs Tokyo Cyber Squad *** 3.Goddesses of STARDOM Title: Queen's Quest(c) vs Donna del Mondo *** Thoughts: This week's edition started in progress with short clips from a few matches. My main takeaways were that I am glad Natsupoi is in STARDOM now and that she is a great addition to DdM, that AZM and Starlight are still as fun as ever, and that Riho was not used super well during her run here. So little was shown of these clips that I didn't bother listing them above, for the record.  Our first reviewable match of the night was for the vacant SWA Undisputed Women's World Championship, with Bea taking on Momo after Hayter vacated the belt. We only got the final three minutes or so, but it was good stuff. Bea took the gold and the win with a queen's landing in the end.  Up next, about four minutes of the Losing Unit Disbands, No Disqualification affair between OT and TCS. Perhaps I

Matches: 1.Wonder of STARDOM Title: Giulia(c) vs Tam ***3/4 2.World of STARDOM Title: Mayu(c) vs Syuri ***1/2 Thoughts: This series has replaced W1's weekly show as my favorite. I absolutely love the roster and the length of each is perfect for me. My daughter also loves it, which is the cherry on top. I plan on continuing to cover the series, so keep an eye out as I work toward the end of 2020 content. Also, note that the next review posts will include episode of We are STARDOM!, two episodes of Ring of Honor TV, AEW Full Gear, NWA Shockwave #4, and a variety of grab bag style pulls. I also have an essay style post on ChocoPro in the works. I also hope to start watching ONE again soon. This episode was one of the best of the year, with two major matches from the Yokohama Cinderella gig. The Wonder of STARDOM strap was defended with champion Giulia against Tam first, joined in progress. As far as episode openers go, this was magic and a great, high octane battle. The Glorious Drive

MATCHES FROM G1 CLIMAX 2020 TOUR Night Thirteen 10/10 1. Cobb vs Ishii ****1/4 2. Kota vs Suzuki ****3/4 3. Okada vs SHINGO ****1/2 Night Seventeen 10/16 4. White vs Ishii ***3/4 Night Nineteen 10/18 5. Finals: Kota vs SANADA ***3/4 Thoughts: With these, I am finished with my dive into this year's G1. I know I missed a lot of decent stuff still, but I always have to make some hard choices with the tournament simply because of how much amazing content there is and how little time I have to watch it all. Up first, three pulls from night 13. Cobb is a dude that should be a star in Japan but something didn't click right last time. Here against the Meatball God, he looked like he more than belonged. I fucking love hoss battles and love both of these dudes so this was right up my alley. In all, it was simplistically beautiful and a fantastic display of the genre! Next, murder hobo versus sexy fly boy! They went tech with this early on which worked very well and accelerated perfectly

One of the down card stories highlighted last year in both AEW as well as BTE saw Brandon Cutler and Peter Avalon fighting about who was the best of the worst. It was the Shit Bowl series, culminating in a series of three matches on Dark. While most of the review posts I have left featuring 2020 content are a series of MOTYC level bouts, I simply couldn't overlook the entertainment value on display here.  Lets dig in! MATCH ONE  AEW Dark #52 Their first singles encounter started as expected, with Peter coming out with cheap heat work and a cut off attack. Pretty was 0-26, Brandon 0-25. I appreciated Leva stopping a shit finish from taking place, which set up a shit finish near fall. Good stuff. A few minutes later we got a double countout. This won't win any awards. It wasn't amazing. It wasn't even actually good. What this was, though, was a short first match in a series and absolutely nothing else. Match Rating: ** MATCH TWO AEW Dark #56 Up next, Peter attacks Brandon

Matches: 1. Champion Carnival Finals: Kento vs Zeus (10/05) ****1/2 2. NEVER Openweight Six-man Titles: CHAOS(c) vs Suzuki-gun (10/23) ****1/4 3. AJPW World Tag Titles: Violent Giants(c) vs Enfants Terribles (10/24) ***3/4 4. KO-D Tag Titles: Nautilus(c) vs Eruption (10/25) ***3/4 Thoughts: Getting back on track, hopefully closing out 2020 as soon as possible. We start with a killer, MOTYC level encounter between the almighty Kento Miyahara and Zeus. The latter is a great worker especially when facing off against the right guy. Kento is always the right guy. I appreciated the high level workrate on display here, which more than lived up to my expectations, and even though I am surprised a bit at the overall outcome of this year's tournament, I still applaud the match itself. Remember, Miyahara is a top three worker and is always worth checking out! Next, a throwaway match that fucking rocked my socks! It really speaks to the talent level of New Japan that this was as good as it was

I am officially back, which means I will resume regularly posting here as well as getting back to updating Watch Now! Wrestling once again. I would like to take a second to address some of the chaos of the past month real quick, partly due to the need to vent one last time of what happened during the time span and partly for anyone wondering why I have been largely MIA here. A reminder, but my family travels around the country regularly for work reasons. The assignments tend to last anywhere from 3 months up and we just finished up one in New Jersey. I loved our time there and we had a lot of great memories. It ended on a bad note, though. The company responsible for booking our housing during our stay screwed up big. We were supposed to leave on Monday, the 28th of December but at ~6 am on the 26th we received a message from the landlord "reminding" us that checkout was at 11...that day! A few things were wrong with that. First, we had had very limited interaction with the