Mike Grindle @MikeGrindle
It’s been a quiet week in terms of wrestling, namely because it’s been a busy week everywhere else for me. I did manage to catch up on some NOAH though, who I feel have really caught fire as of late, with a great young vs old feud dominating the heavyweight title scene and the Junior division looking as strong as it has in some time, despite the loss of Ishimori not long ago. Of course it’s no surprise that NOAH are putting their best foot forward right now, with the return of KENTA (that’s Hideo Itami for all you WWE fans) right around the corner.
I also watched a little bit of Lucha, namely CMLL. My understanding of Lucha doesn’t go far beyond what I’ve learnt from Puro crossovers and a couple of articles I’ve read, and to be honest that’s part of the appeal to me right now: discovering who the characters are, the history of the promotions and why exactly everyone is so crazy about LA Parka in 2018 (No doubt I’ll be reading some of our new Lucha content coming up right here on Pro-Wrestling Journal to make sense of things). It reminds me of when I first started watching Puro or getting into indie wrestling, only info and footage on wrestling as a whole is a lot easier to access now.
TWF @twf87
After New Japan’s summer tournament ended another began in Stardom’s 5 Star Grand Prix last weekend. The 5 Star GP has a similar format to the G1 – two blocks with 8 wrestlers who face each other in a round-robin format of 15 minute matches. The opening day threw up some surprising results, including Konami beating reigning World of Stardom champion Kagetsu with her Triangle Lancer submission (that has a win rate of 100%), Kelly Klein defeating Mayu Iwatani, and new super rookie Utami Hayashishita beating Tam Nakano. Jamie Hayter made her Stardom debut in this 5 Star GP and impressed in a match against Natsu Sumire on day one and Momo Watanabe on day two. Kimber Lee also made her debut this year and looked good in a win against Natsuko Tora on the first day.
Looking at the tournament going forward, the two blocks are finely poised. Jungle Kyona leads the Red Stars Block on 6 points, but right behind her is the undefeated Utami on 4 points (not all the matches happen on the same night in the 5 Star GP). It’s clear that Utami will be playing a major role, although her next match against Kagetsu will go a long way to determining how much of a push she is getting right now. Kagetsu and Konami join Utami on 4 points, followed by Tam Nakano, Rachel Elllering, and Kimber Lee on 2 points, and Natsuko still on 0 points. Natsuko’s final match is against her Jungle Assault Nation leader, Jungle Kyona, and that could well be her first victory of the tournament.
The Blue Stars Block has six wrestlers on 4 points, but only Hazuki remains undefeated. Her next match is a grudge match against Wonder of Stardom champion Momo Watanabe, which will be a big match to determine who takes the upper hand in the block. The three foreign wrestlers in the block, Kelly Klein, Nicole Savoy, and Jamie Hayter, are also on 4 points, as is Mayu Iwatani. Mayu lost her first two matches but managed to pick up a win against Natsu Sumire and Hayter to stop her slide from continuing. Her final day match against Momo is likely to be crucial. Saki Kashima and Natsu Sumire prop up the block on 2 points, but with wins over Mayu and Momo, they’ve proved that they can beat anyone.
In other joshi news, ASUKA (distinguished from WWE’s Asuka by having her name capitalised in English) defeated Takumi Iroha to become the new Regina di WAVE champion, and the first transgender champion in Japan. On the same show, Mio Momono and Yumi Ohka (as Boss and Mammy) became the new WAVE tag team champions, which has led to a great series of tweets from Mio detailing her life with her new friend Belto-san.
Ryan Armstorm @RyanArmstorm
A first for me for my week. Off the heels of Takeover and Summerslam I can honestly say I haven’t had much time for wrestling this week. I’ve skimmed through what I can and kept up to date with everything. Then Wednesday happened…Jimmy Havoc dropping a dark promo regarding his current position in PROGRESS and his 3 and in status. For those who don’t know 3 and in is a series of matches that PROGRESS are hosting to crown a number one contender for their main event at Wembley. The rules are simple, win 3 matches in a row and you’re in. Lose a match you need to start again. This ran from chapter 74 through the US tour and concludes on Monday at chapter 75. 3 men are currently in the running; Jimmy Havoc, Mark Haskins and Tyler Bate. Enough about that!
Havoc was due to have a match against Will Ospreay at Wembley but due to NJPW commitments Ospreay can no longer perform at Wembley. Jimmy Havoc has been told he’s gone soft and is no longer jimmy but simply James by Ospreay in the past reigniting this rivalry and needless to say this promo certainly showed us that Jimmy is back! Jimmy wants Ospreay at Chapter 75 so he can beat Ospreay and go onto Wembley…Cut to Thursday and Will has responded he accepts Jimmy’s challenge which is fantastic news but under one condition, it’s a 2 out of 3 falls match! PROGRESS later announce the match officially with an even bigger twist. Not only will this be a 2 out of 3 falls match and likely be the main event this coming Monday but Paul Robinson (someone who is familiar with both of these men) will be the guest referee and the whole match is now No Disqualifications!!
The Chapter 75 card seems a bit flat compared to most due to the fact we are due the biggest show in the UK in just over a month but the ballroom will be electric (pun intended) on Monday afternoon! Cut to where we are now. I’m currently travelling to London as I was lucky enough to get myself a 2nd/3rd row ticket to the show tomorrow! See you in the ballroom. I Hope You Suffer Will Ospreay!
Mark Worrall @hoohoowozza
My week began with a trip to Bourneville and the Cadbury club which played host to another excellent Kamikaze Pro show. Although it was a Saturday night, and just outside the seven days, as there was no My Week feature last week I feel it is ok to include this week’s piece! Kamikaze Pro’s current roster continues to progress at terrific pace. Seven matches that did not have a bad match on the card saw some of the youngster’s really starting to push themselves into great performers with Jack Starz and Elliott Jordan really starting to pull ahead of the pack. Jack Starz showing against an improving Kenny Kilbane stole the show, and if you have not had the chance to see a Kamikaze Pro show, and live in the Midlands area, I advise a visit to this promotion whenever you can.
Although I enjoy NXT television, it can be hit or miss at times keeping up with the show due to time constraints! However I never miss a Takeover show, and once again NXT Takeover Brooklyn did not disappoint. Favourite match for me was the opening Tag Team match between Undisputed Era and Moustache Mountain. This is how tag team wrestling should be, and the four workhorses in the match absolutely showed this by putting out a match that had the crowd on their feet from start to finish. The result was also the correct way to go also with MM making the tag champions looking dominant as, champions. A stellar card that saw two title changes with Adam Cole relinquishing his North American title to Ricochet, and the spot where Cole super kicks a flying Ricochet being a hair on the back of your neck spot! To Kairi Sane taking the Women’s title from Shayna Baszler in clever fashion. The main event having Ciampa successfully retaining the NXT title no doubt means that this feud will continue; however let us hope that this feud takes a break for a while!
Watching Summerslam took me all week to find the time, and courage to do so! Another main roster PPV and, well with the recent main roster offerings I sometimes do not have the will to sit down for four hours and entice myself into some of the garbage that the WWE offers. This is Summerslam though, and I am a wrestling traditionalist, so I found myself sitting on my couch Friday afternoon and watching all four hours with no stop/starting which is something I tend to do. To be honest, this show was ok, maybe because it’s the first full PPV I have watched since Wrestlemania who knows! The show did not annoy me, although some of the booking was a little bit strange at times. The main event was clever, although Strowman suggesting that he cashes in his ‘Monster in the Bank’ briefcase against the winner and not waiting to the winner was down and out before cashing in was good, although the winner was still going to be tired after wrestling a full match so that idea did not quite work as planned! The Becky Lynch turning heel, which has grabbed a lot of attention, was not a great angle when you consider the crowd erupted for one of the most over women on the roster in Becky when she nailed Charlotte and me thinks that the WWE may have to consider going in the other direction of making Charlotte the heel. All in all SummerSlam was a decent offering that I enjoyed watching.
I actually also watched the first episode of World of Sport wrestling, yes I am a little late to the dance but being on holiday I am still trying to catch up. I didn’t hate this show, yes a bit game showish and too many crowd shots, however the wrestling was good and Davey Boy Smith Jnr against Will Ospreay was a good match so I intend to keep watching.
Just a note, if anybody follows ‘Mort’ from the Real Hero archive. He can be seen receiving a long kiss on the mouth from Danshoku Dino, the current DDT KO-D Openweight champion during the 14th episode of Maji Manji which aired on Tuesday 14th August, but I watched last week. The show also saw Dino cashing in his Right to challenge anywhere, anytime contract defeating Shigehiro Irie to become the new champion. The Maji Manji show is DDT’s weekly television show, and if you can see past the language barrier is a really entertaining show.
Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
Reviews and coverage of Takeover and Summerslam are elsewhere on the site, so I’ll just add that I may not have liked the booking of everything I saw – mainly in terms of Summerslam – but both shows were worth watching. Naturally, Takeover was a better show, but Summerslam’s matches felt well put together even if the finishes weren’t always the best – those that could be short were kept short, those that needed time were given time.
I’m drowning in wrestling books at the moment having picked up Jim Smallman’s, the new NITRO book and the translated version of Shinsuke Nakamura’s autobiography. However, I was finishing up with an older book this week as I read Daniel Bryan’s book. Considering Bryan was a driving force behind a golden age of independent wrestling, it was a worthwhile read, though he didn’t ever really look to rock the boat with his opinions. I did particularly like how honest he was about his failures or his areas of weakness; this level of candidness is pleasing.
My 1984 watching goes on, with the most notable thing I’ve learnt about this time period being Barry Windham’s quick moving through the territories. Having been signed on the ‘biggest contract seen in wrestling history’ when joining Mid-Atlantic, he would wrestle less than fifty matches over the course of around two months before ending up in WWF. I guess they were used to working on the fly, but to make such a big deal about a wrestler that leaves before Starrcade even comes around must have been gutting.
Billy Collins @billy_collins52
After Summerslam, there wasn’t much going on this week for me as far as wrestling goes. The show I most looked forward to this week was CMLL’s Friday Arena Mexico show, not because any match looked exciting, but I wanted to see the crowd reaction to the main event after this week’s announcement of the Aniversario main event. It was lukewarm, as to be expected.
Then on Saturday I watched TripleMania, which was a very long, tiring show. Overall not a bad week, there certainly will be more interesting ones in the coming months
Ciaran James @TheCiaranJames
My week in wrestling started last Saturday night, where I started with NXT TakeOver Brooklyn 4, it was on that show that I witnessed the first of two MOTY Tag Team matches I would watch live that weekend. The second occurred the following evening in Bristol at AttackProWrestling ‘Thank God It’s Not Winterslam 3’, there I witnessed the team of Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) defeat Team Whitewolf (Adam Chase & A-Kid), it was truly exceptional. Moustache Mountain vs Undisputed Era was all kinds of perfection, the following night at Attack was the icing on the cake, it’s those type of matches that fill you with pride and make wrestling a work of art. Aussie Open vs Team Whitewolf was the best match I have seen in 2018.
I was interested by the turn of fortunes in the career of Becky Lynch, her post match attack on Charlotte and SDLive promo were exceptional moments, however the drawback is that WWE have once again turned the wrong person. The critics and audience saw the writing on the wall and WWE did as we all thought, the result being that Becky is treated as the face and Charlotte the heel, once more WWE misfire with their shortsightedness.
Apart from that my week was taken up with listening to my PWTorch VIP subscription, the in depth analysis offered by Wade Keller and especially Todd Martin & Bruce Mitchell is so absorbing. Listening to different opinions and analysis only makes my interpretation of booking and why companies do things the way they do better, their weekly ramblings are essential to keeping me sane and not cancelling my WWE Network sub.
One final piece of news is the dream match Pro Wrestling Chaos have scheduled for their September show between Mark Haskins and Pete Dunne, surely the money is on Dunne to win but my mind wonders. I see this as a wondrous opportunity for Chaos to make Haskins their ‘guy’ and propel him to the top of the card, the audience respect him and he has the credibility to hang with the top names in the company, I see September as being an important month for Chaos.
