@Iwanmack
So
after a long absence from this segement I am back and back in a big way because
I did four wrestling shows in the past week from Battle Pro, EVE, RIPTIDE and
ATTACK!
All of them were good to great with some great stuff packed in their. Battle
Pro’s main highlight was a great feud ender to the epic JJ Lynch vs Nathan Cruz
feud of the last 12 or so months, JJ defeated Cruz in a great last man standing
match that had plenty of drama and physcology. EVE featured a lot of debuts and
returns as a lot of NXT UK were unavliable due to contract bollocks but we did
get some great/returns in the forms of Lana Austin, Raven Creed and the Woke
Queens in particular and we saw Emi Sakara rock her Queen gear which was just
cool.
The Riptide show was a lot of fun that had some great comedy in Sugar Dunkerton
and Gene Munny against the Anti-Fun Police but also some fantastic wrestling in
Jordan Breaks vs Connor Mills. The last show of the week was ATTACK at the Dome
with several highlights on it that I will speak about at length during my
ATTACK review.
Old news now I guess, however my week watching wrestling began with NJPW Dominion from Osaka, which in my opinion was an excellent show. Not to go into too much detail, but Moxley’s match with Shota Umino was a great way to kick off the show, especially the visual of Jon Moxley carrying the defeated Umino to the back and also declaring his intention to participate in this year’s G1 tournament, which as of today became a reality. Stand out matches have to be Ishii v Taichi with Ishii tossing out Taichi’s gimmicks and forcing him to actually wrestle a match, which in his favour he did, and showed he is a decent talent when he has to be. Good to see Ishii win a title, albeit the Never title, however let’s hope he gets a run with it. Ospreay/Dragon Lee was ridiculously great, and Ibushi/Naito was ridiculous! Stll good though!
Kenta Kobashi’s Fortune Dream series entered its sixth year! The annual Kobashi produced show brings various, mainly independent talents from various promotions together in multi-man matches mostly, although this show carried one singles match as Joshi legends Meiko Satomura and Nanae Takahashi went to a time limit draw. A five match card this is an easy watch with some hard hitting action and well worth your time.
Fell behind slightly but managed to watch MLW Fury Road show from a couple of weeks back. The finals of National Openweight Championship tournament ran to a finish with Alex Hammerstone winning the inaugural championship defeating Brian Pillman Jr in what was a rather one sided affair with Hammerstone looking strong, and a decent prospect for the future if used properly. Great Physique, look and a decent move-set, Pillman however looked a little sloppy at times. Jimmy Havoc failed to beat Teddy Hart for the Middleweight title in a match of two side with Hart looking crisp and his fluidity with his moves looking great against Havoc who, as usual went hardcore with his arsenal, but the match worked. Another decent show from MLW except there was barely any sound to the ring entrances.
Japanese Joshi Promotion Stardom announced the participants for their upcoming 5* Grand Prix starting August 18th. Quite a mixture of talent, eighteen entrants this year with details on the We are Stardom website, or Pro Wrestling Journal Twitter feed. I will be covering the event for the website so stay tuned.
@WynterStorm24
This week has been a lot of ups and down (play on words because I love Simon Miller!). Smackdown was trash and NXT was just average. But I got to go to my local promotion and I had an absolute blast. They’re gearing up for their biggest event of the year next month and I also met and talked to a wrestler I hadn’t heard of before and will definitely be checking out. And of course, I left with a few purchases from him as well. I organized a lot of my wrestling stuff in my house as well so it has more of a flow to it. I recently\obtained a Sasha Banks pop figure and now all I need is a Bayley pop. For some reason, she’s so difficult to find. The only thing I need to figure out now is where to put my Shield plaque. They essentially have their own little space so maybe I’ll put it there. The announcements for the G1 were made and I’m excited to watch it. I tend to have a hard time keeping up with it but I always manage to keep up and now my grandmother’s into New Japan too so she might be the one giving me all the updates. I also need to Mox to come out with a shirt or hoodie that says “Amazon Prime for head trauma” as that is one of the best things I’ve ever heard.
@RoxBlackburn
My week in wrestling comprised of clawing my way through Raw. And thanks to Wynter, I didn’t even bother with Smackdown for the fifth week in a row.
It absolutely baffles me that Shane McMahon was given 40 minutes of TV time across both Raw and Smackdown, yet Finn Balor v Shinsuke Nakamura was a Smackdown dark match, which took place after 205 Live aired.
Tickets for AEW’s event in August sold out in less than 15 minutes and apparently more than 160,000 people tried to get tickets and most were unsuccessful. This not only solidifies their PPV quality but also means they have a foundation for more throughout this year and next. For those going, enjoy!
Even wrestling social media has been quiet this week, although I have seen Becky Lynch’s red carpet pictures for the MTV Movie & TV awards and she is looking particularly fierce!
My buddy over at Taker UK is a busy bee on the UK convention scene. Please go over and say hi if you see him any events.
NXT and NXT UK are tearing it up at Download Festival, which was an absolute mud bath before the weekend, hopefully it’s dried up now.
Mark Andrews’ band, Junior, are due to release new material this week and Jeff Hardy sang live yesterday with his band Peroxwhy?gen. I’m not massively feeling his musical abilities, I never have, but one of his band members, Junior Merrill, was in a great band called Fueled by Silence.
We’d love to hear what you guys have been up to this week. Please share your stories with us.
