In the ‘70s and ‘80s, New Japan was the bedrock of Japanese wrestling under Antonio Inoki. In the 90’s they saw more financial success, but hardcore fans preferred the competition. In the early ‘00s, Inoki’s poor decisions dragged the company down, and they spent the latter half of the decade rebuilding. So what made New Japan the sensation it became in the ‘10s, garnering them top marks in both the business of the business and the hearts of the fans? All signs point to three things. First, Bushiroad bought the majority stake in New Japan from Yuke’s for about $4.5 million. That’s almost twice what WWF paid for WCW. Next, Jado and Gedo became bookers for the company and brought some American pro wrestling sensibilities to storylines. Finally, a young Kazuchika Okada returned from America with some of those sensibilities and quickly acquired a main event presence to boot.
February 12, 2012 – Osaka, Osaka
Kazuchika Okada def. Hiroshi Tanahashi {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the New Beginning. Tanahashi had carried the title for over a year, recently defeating Minoru Suzuki at Wrestle Kingdom. Okada challenged Tanahashi, who had defeated him in his farewell match before his American excursion, after the WK main event. I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but one of Tanahashi’s front teeth got knocked out here. The camera does a close up on the tooth as the referee picks it up and hands it to someone at ringside. Then the camera focuses on Tanahashi’s mouth, a lot. It’s very disturbing. Beyond that, they slowly built up to the finish, wherein Tanahashi became more and more disoriented as Okada peppered him with more and more devastating attacks. Knowing Tanahashi’s mouth was a mess made the Rainmaker that ended things at 23:23, as well as a bunch of the big boots that preceded it very hard to watch. A good match, one in which I think saw Tanahashi move around the ring more beautifully than anyone else was probably capable of in 2012; but surely they must have had better after this given their reputations. ***¾
June 16, 2012 – Osaka, Osaka
Hiroshi Tanashi def. Kazuchika Okada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Dominion. This took heavily from their match at New Beginning, which it should have. That said, much like at New Beginning it took some time to really draw me in. But once it did, the action was more compelling here than in the last match. Okada still wrestled like a dick and acted like a jerk on the floor. He still tried to overwhelm Tanahashi. But here, Tanahashi didn’t lose a tooth, countered or blocked a lot of Okada’s offense, and was able to more consistently connect with his own offense. I feel like the Cloverleaf just doesn’t work for him and I’m curious to see if he drops it in the next match. Tanahashi countered the Rainmaker to the Sling Blade and hit the High Fly Flow for the win at 28:06. ****¼
April 7, 2013 – Tokyo, Japan
Kazuchika Okada def. Hiroshi Tanahashi {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Invasion Attack. Tanahashi’s 10-month reign saw him successfully defend the title against Okada at Wrestle Kingdom. I probably should have watched that for the inevitable easter eggs here, but who has the time? Okada won the G1 Climax to get that shot, and he won the New Japan Cup to earn this one. I don’t understand how people have the stamina to put on matches like this one. A full half of the match, 15 minutes, was paced the way the final two minutes of a modern PPV main event would be. Tanahashi’s arm work kept him alive for a while, but Okada was a step ahead of him and was able to hit his piledriver and the Rainmaker for the win at 31:41 anyway. I was rather floored by this. I don’t know if they rehearse some of the spots over and over ahead of time or not but they’re so wonderfully constructed it’s hard for me to believe they can pull them off. After this, Okada and Tanahashi never meet again in a match where the title changes hands, but one of them is involved in every single title change for years to come. ****¾
May 3, 2014 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka
AJ Styles def. Kazuchika Okada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Wrestling Dontaku. On the day before his one year anniversary as champion, Okada was challenged by the debuting Styles, who touted the gulf in their statuses during their time in TNA together. Okada had overcome Styles’s Bullet Club leader predecessor Prince Devitt during his reign, but couldn’t do the same with Styles. I like that, as it reminds me of a hero in a TV series vanquishing the big bad in one season only to be bested early in the next by the guy who takes that big bad’s place. You know which guys aren’t convincing as dirtbag, interfering heels though? The Young Bucks. You know what else stinks? That this match was boring. The last four minutes picked up the pace, but then the finish was Yujiro Takahashi running in to turn on Okada with a Dominator, followed by Styles hitting Devitt’s Bloody Sunday and the Styles Clash for the title at 24:31. In major American companies, interference probably plays a part in over half of all title changes. This I believe was the first time in New Japan history that a second got in the ring to hit a finisher on a competitor. It sucked. Styles spent the rest of May defeating Okada twice more, once in a triple threat with Michael Elgin in ROH, and once in another single’s match in Japan. Then he didn’t defend the belt for five months before running into Tanahashi. **¾
October 13, 2014 – Tokyo, Japan
Hiroshi Tanahashi def. AJ Styles {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From King of Pro Wrestling. Jeff Jarrett had just joined the Bullet Club and he was with Styles here. After the debacle that was the Dontaku match, I was ready to hate Styles’s whole run in New Japan. But his performance here was a lot better, a few instances of misplaced overselling aside. The interference at the end of this match was a lot more compelling than in the previous one. Here, Tanahashi basically had things neatly wrapped up with two High Fly Flows. That honestly would have been a sterile capper for the match. But Jarrett pulled the referee to the floor and then a returning Yoshi Tatsu attacked him and chased him to the back. It wasn’t a lot more compelling, but it was something. I wish they could have done all that within the first ref bump instead of doing a second one. From there it was all Styles’s moves getting blocked and Tanahshi hitting High Fly Flows until he got the win at 27:04 for his seventh title. Tanahashi broke the previous record for title reigns here, which had been held by himself and Tatsumi Fujinami. ***½
February 11, 2015 – Osaka, Osaka
AJ Styles def. Hiroshi Tanahashi {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the New Beginning. Tanahashi had defeated Okada at Wrestle Kingdom a month earlier. That matchup headlined WK three out of four consecutive years. Styles pinned Tanahashi in an eight-man tag match a few weeks earlier to earn this title shot. This match was so long considering what they packed it with. The most interesting moment of the match was Tanahashi diving onto the Bullet Club and conking his head against Matt Jackson’s, busting both guys open. That’s the most selling I’ve ever seen Jackson do. The match was far more the level of Styles’s win over Takada than his loss to Tanahashi, which isn’t good. That stupid abandoned Styles Clash piledriver looked awful. Why did he do that? It’s so bad. He strung together that, the Bloody Sunday and the Styles Clash for the win at 26:08. People enjoyed Styles’s main event run in New Japan? Moreover, I feel I’ve seen enough now to say that the Bullet Club was lame. Their unconvincing attacks at ringside by guys who (aside from Karl Anderson) shouldn’t even play a heel in a high school stage production just came off as cheesy. This made me long for the glory days of M2K or even the Muscle Outlaw’z. Sure that stuff was overchoreographed, but at least those guys felt like dickheads. Blah. **¾
July 5, 2015 – Osaka, Osaka
Kazuchika Okada def. AJ Styles {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Dominion. Okada won a feud against Styles’s Bullet Club buddy Bad Luck Fale and then attacked Styles to goad him into this title shot. This is more like it. Styles acted like a real heel who did real heelish things without the help of the Bullet Club (beyond low blows, which he’d been doing plenty). At first I thought him telling the referee and Okada to suck it was lame, but the payoff was the referee doing it back to Styles and then to the Club before ejecting them, which was fun. Styles was up for a fight here, and so was Okada. They laid into each other with a ton of force and effort. The match never had an extended down period like Styles’s other matches, and built at a crazy exciting pace. The finish was terrific, as Okada blocked every single one of Styles’s signature moves, basically embarrassing him with lariats and suplexes before hitting the Rainmaker at 26:16. Glad that Styles went out of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship picture with a great match. ****½
April 10, 2016 – Tokyo, Japan
Tetsuya Naito def. Kazuchika Okada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Invasion Attack. Naito won the New Japan Cup to get this title shot and end Okada’s nine-month reign. Right out of the gate, Los Ingobernables de Japon were a more interesting interfering unit than the Bullet Club just by virtue of the creative way they screwed around in the match. For example, Naito attacked Gedo to distract the referee from EVIL doing the same to Okada. Naito is also just the best pure heel to win the title maybe in New Japan’s history. Styles could take ball shots all he wanted, but Naito was heel scum all the way. Okada’s big comeback here featured a Jon Woo Dropkick, which makes Milano Collection AT call out Toryumon on commentary and bring me such joy. The finish was a little odd, as the referee gets bumped, Okada fights off EVIL and Bushi, but then gets attacked by a debuting SANADA. It’s odd because the crowd doesn’t react to the SANADA reveal at all, which makes what stems from it feel cold. Moments later Naito hits the Destino for the win at 28:50. Would have been better with a different finish, but it was a big way to debut SANADA, I suppose. ****
June 19, 2016 – Osaka, Osaka
Kazuchika Okada def. Tetsuya Naito {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Dominion. Okada defeated SANADA before demanding this rematch. LIJ went to the back at the start of this match, so it had a totally different flavor from the beginning. There were some pacing issues in the first half, but the highs here were way higher than those in the previous match. The dropkicks on the ramp and Okada’s selling were both incredible, as was the final stretch. Okada had Naito figured out, and finally put him down with a trio of Rainmakers at 28:58. Aside from the blip that was Naito’s title reign, Okada went on to hold the title for 1,000 of the 1,095 days that made up the three years from his win over Styles until his loss to Kenny Omega. Speaking of which. ****¼
June 9, 2018 – Osaka, Osaka
Kenny Omega def. Kazuchika Okada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship 2/3 Falls Match}
From Dominion. Omega won the G1 Climax in 2016, but lost to Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11. A few months later he beat Tomohiro Ishii in a main event and was granted another title shot. That match, exactly one year before this one, went to a time limit draw (which for the record is the best match in their series in my opinion). Omega lost in the G1 Climax 2017 finals to Tetsuya Naito, but luckily for him Naito failed to beat Okada for the title at Wrestle Kingdom 12. On the anniversary of their time-limit title match draw, Okada wanted to prove he could beat Omega again and offered him a title shot in a no-time limit match, which Omega agreed to on the grounds that it be 2/3 falls. There’s a cute Infinity War reference in Omega’s intro video. Enough preamble. First, I like that Okada’s first fall came from a surprise reversal and not from something absurd, because that was the fastest he’s ever been able to pin Omega and it wouldn’t make sense for that pin to come from some powerful move that had never pinned Omega as quickly before. I also like that Omega’s first fall came in the same fashion as his G1 Climax victory. I continue to be impressed with how Omega sells exhaustion. There were also some surprising counters and near-falls in this thing. It totally worked for me that they’d be throwing huge bombs at each other (a cradle tombstone piledriver is called the Cradle to the Grave, right? I can’t find any evidence of anyone calling it that so far, which is crazy to me, so I’m coining it here). But if I’m being honest, I didn’t start marking out until Okada hit the wall and he could connect with a weak Rainmaker. That was in the third fall and wasn’t terribly far away from the finish. I also found it frustrating that they spent so much time on the table spots. The first one, the double stomp, was frustrating because the spot doesn’t make sense if Omega doesn’t penetrate the table with his feet. That’s why the spot worked a year ago and didn’t work here. Here the table looks like more of a shield than a weapon. The second one was frustrating because the crowd wasn’t feeling it, no matter how hard the wrestlers hyped it, and they didn’t work around the crowd’s energy; they just forced the spot on them as they’d planned it. The saving grace was that the table didn’t end up getting used a second time in the end, which made this feel more real to me. I said in my review of the Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano title match that had their table not broken, I’d give them points for being subversive, and I feel the same way here. So that’s a silver lining. So what does it all mean as one piece? It means a very fitting end to the rivalry, a nice way to end Okada’s title reign, and an excellent match. I just don’t think it’s in the running for the greatest match of all time as others have suggested. ****¾
January 4, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Kenny Omega {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Wrestle Kingdom 13. Tanahashi won the G1 Climax to get this title shot. Omega spent the build to this match tearing down Tanahashi as a broken down relic, reminiscent of New Japan’s dark ages. Old main eventers really wasn’t what dragged NJ down in their dark ages, but it’s cutting thing to say nonetheless. This match certainly didn’t need 40 minutes to get across what it was going for, but that’s not to say it wasn’t great. It just could have been greater. Tanahashi teasing Omega in the early going by using Tatsumi Fujinami and Keiji Mutoh’s moves was fun. He also hit a weird Styles Clash because of Omega’s issues with Styles. That didn’t look great, but a brutal High Fly Flow onto a bare table sure did. It was interesting to see Tanahashi in this state, clearly a step behind where he used to be and a bit more careful about his movement. But it didn’t stop him from putting on a main event effort. Omega has a few quirks that bug me, like blatantly getting into position for spots or blatantly being aware of moves long before they hit him and doing nothing about it. Basically just being blatant. But that only happened a few times here. Otherwise he too put in a hell of an effort. Tanahashi hit the High Fly Flow for the win at 39:13. ****¼
February 11, 2019 – Osaka, Osaka
Jay White def. Hiroshi Tanahashi {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the New Beginning. I definitely understand the desire to move the title around some after the very long Okada and reasonably long Omega reigns. White had beaten Okada at Wrestle Kingdom and pinned Tanahashi in a six-man tag match to earn this title shot. Gedo defected from Okada and joined White and the Bullet Club. Sadly that means more BC nonsense in the main event. This felt very long, longer than even a thirty minute match should. White never looked convincing as a threat, and his win with the Blade Runner (at 30:29) came out of nowhere. I didn’t care for this much as a big title change, and by the sounds of it neither did the crowd. On the bright side, this seems to be the floor for quality at the end of the ‘10s for main event matches. ***¼
April 6, 2019 – New York, New York
Kazuchika Okada def. Jay White {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From G1 Supercard, a co-promoted show with Ring of Honor, and the only time the title has never changed hands outside of Japan. I was at this match live but remember almost nothing from that experience. Match length creep was a real problem here, as the first fifteen minutes did nothing to engage the very tired crowd. The show had run for four hours before this match, including a wild Ibushi vs. Naito match and a ladder match that saw a ladder hit a fan. They started putting the pedal to the metal the moment that the ring announcer said that 25 minutes had passed. How hard would it have been to wait even thirty seconds to do that so it didn’t seem so contrived? They worked hard, but the match was way more flat than it would have been because the crowd was blown out. They only reacted to Okada’s lariats. Okada hit the Rainmaker for the win at 32:33. ***½
January 5, 2020 – Tokyo, Japan
Tetsuya Naito def. Kazuchika Okada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship vs. IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match}
From night two of Wrestle Kingdom 14. On the previous night, Okada defended his title against Kota Ibushi and Naito did the same against White. This is now my favorite New Japan pairing ever. These two play perfectly off of each other. The way Okada worked over Naito’s leg on the floor made my sinuses hurt. Naito’s selling after that was a little suspect, but goddamn the reverse Frankensteiner he hit Okada with was like none other I’ve ever seen. Okada went back to the leg near the end and it cost Naito a pin because of the pain, but it would have worked better had Naito been consistently selling or if the plan was for Okada to win because Naito wasn’t caring enough for his leg. It’s a minor quibble on an otherwise killer match, but it could have been about perfect. Naito won at 35:37 thanks to the Destino. Shots of the crowd showed a good portion of fans wearing masks. It was a sign of a growing problem, as shortly after this, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the whole world to shut down. Naito made one title defense against KENTA before New Japan went on hiatus for four months. ****¾
July 12, 2020 – Osaka, Osaka
EVIL def. Tetsuya Naito {IWGP Heavyweight & IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match}
From Dominion. The night before this, EVIL beat Okada in the finals of the New Japan Cup to earn this shot, then immediately turned on his buddy Naito and joined the Bullet Club. Most of the tournament was done in empty arenas, but the finals were in front of a crowd of about 3,000. The crowd here is a similar size, all in masks and all sort of distanced from each other. It looks weird, but they sound like a normal crowd and that’s what matters. MIlano Collection AT weirdly gets involved in this match, attacking EVIL for antagonizing him and getting beaten up. Why? I can’t say that this match was bad, but to watch a just fine match for 40 minutes is really irritating. Not to mention that EVIL controlled so damn much of it. This should have been, at most, half as long as it was. This really made me miss the early ‘90s matches that went like 12 minutes on average and still managed to rule. The Bullet Club interfered and Hiromu Takahashi made the save near the end, but it was manic enough that I actually liked it. But then Bushi came out, though it was clearly someone else under Bushi’s mask, and attacked Naito, giving EVIL the opening to hit Everything is Evil for the win at 37:59. I liked that way less, as in not at all. Although, it turned out to be Dick Togo under the mask, and I do like him quite a bit. I’m sure it’s been pointed out before but this is the first time in a decade that the title has changed hands and neither Tanahashi or Okada has been involved. I have to be honest, as good as most of the matches from this era are (not this one), I’m glad that I’m finished with this series. The matches were getting so long and often the first (at least) third of them didn’t factor into the rest of it. This is a problem across all of wrestling that comes and goes in waves. I’m excited for this wave to go away. **½
August 29, 2020 – Tokyo, Japan
Tetsuya Naito def. EVIL {IWGP Heavyweight Championship & IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match}
From Summer Struggle in Jingu. The baseball field set up is interesting, though it makes it even harder to hear the socially distanced fans. This had more life to it than their last match did. In fact, the only two major flaws were that it still went about five minutes longer than it needed even though it was shorter than their last, and that the interference from Gedo, Dick Togo, BUSHI and SANADA felt very indie or even backyard thanks to the setting. But the rest of the match was decent enough and the end result was good. They maybe botched the finish a little, but I liked when Naito blocked a low blow by crossing his arms at his crotch. He hit his new move the Valiente and the Destino for the win at 26:23. ***
I’ll be curious to know how consistently NJ can put on shows in 2020 given that Japan’s COVID transmission rate is surging. I’ll also be curious to see if they can get back to the level of quality they were at before COVID, because they seem to be having the same troubles as everyone else during the turmoil-filled 2020.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
