I recently started a new job, moved to a new house, and am planning a wedding. So my free time hasn’t been spent watching nearly as much wrestling as it was in 2022. Because of that, I’ve had to quit on a few wrestling review projects I had begun. I’m going to continue doing the Top Tag Team reviews and the Shingo Takagi career reviews, but everything else is cancelled. But I was already into quite a few of those projects, so I’m dumping them all unfinished here. All of these are unfinished and will remain so, but you might as well know what I thought of some matches I reviewed.
Road to the Royal Rumble November 28, 2022 – Norfolk, Virginia Kevin Owens def. Jey Uso December 2, 2022 – Buffalo, New York Ricochet def. Santos Escobar {Number One Contender Match} December 16, 2022 – Rosemont, Illinois Gunther def. Ricochet {WWE Intercontinental Championship Match} Shun Skywalker US Tour September 17, 2022 – Raleigh, North Carolina Shun Skywalker def. SB KENTo and Jack Evans {Triple Threat Match} September 18, 2022 – Norcross, Georgia Shun Skywalker def. Myron Reed {MLW Middleweight Championship Match} September 22, 2022 – Crown Point, Indiana Shun Skywalker def. Space Monkey {Opening Round Match} Kylon King def. Shun Skywalker and Myron Reed {Second Round Triple Threat Match} October 8, 2022 – Atlantic City, New Jersey Shun Skywalker def. Nick Wayne October 9, 2022 – Atlantic City, New Jersey Blake Christian def. Shun Skywalker October 15, 2022 – Durham, North Carolina Andrew Everett def. Shun Skywalker {Semifinal Match} Antonion Inoki Career Retrospective December 2, 1969 – Osaka, Osaka Dory Funk Jr. tld. Antonio Inoki {NWA World Heavyweight Championship 2/3 Falls Match} August 5, 1971 – Nagoya, Aichi Antonio Inoki def. Jack Brisco {NWA United National Championship 2/3 Falls Match} October 14, 1973 – Tokyo, Japan Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi def. Lou Thesz & Karl Gotch {2/3 Falls Match} December 11, 1975 – Tokyo, Japan Antonio Inoki tld. Bill Robinson {NWF Heavyweight Championship 2/3 Falls Match} Here is where I’d include Inoki’s shot at Bob Backlund’s WWWF Championship from July 27, 1978. But it’s another hour-long match in a review that’s putting me through three hour-long matches as it is. Plus I’ve already reviewed their much more historically significant pair of matches from the following year, and I just can’t imagine that a time limit draw between them is that much better. So read those in lieu of a match in this spot. August 2, 1984 – Tokyo, Japan Antonio Inoki def. Riki Choshu El Lindaman G-REX Championship Reign April 16, 2022 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka El Lindaman def. Quiet Storm {G-REX Championship Match} May 18, 2022 – Tokyo, Japan El Lindaman def. Shigehiro Irie {G-Rex Championship Match} July 1, 2022 – Tokyo, Japan El Lindaman def. Tetsuya Izuchi {G-Rex Championship Match} July 22, 2022 – Toa Payoh, Singapore El Lindaman def. Andruew Tang {G-Rex Championship Match} August 24, 2022 – Tokyo, Japan El Lindaman def. DOUKI {G-Rex Championship Match} This Random Dragon Gate Match I Saw and Liked December 6, 2022 – Tokyo, Japan Yuki Yoshioka def. Masaaki Mochizuki {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match}
From Raw 1,540. Sometimes a match is rated so high by Cagematch users that I don’t bother waiting the customary two weeks to review it for this series, because I know it won’t drop below 8.0. I was pretty sure this one would drop so I did wait the full two weeks. But here we are and it’s still at 8.06. Commercials absolutely gobbled up a lot of the flow from this match. They had a nice story going with Owens’ back being trashed because of War Games, making him unable to quickly transition from move to move or hit the pop up powerbomb at all. They also had Sami Zayn cheering for Uso on the floor, but not interfering physically when Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa did. Owens hit a Stunner to win the match at 14:55 (shown of 21:55), though you’d think landing on his ass would hurt his back too. Go figure. It never felt to me like Uso could win, but I like a smartly worked match regardless. ***½
From Smackdown 1,215. I saw some random reviewer say that these two had great chemistry in their Lucha Underground matches, but they only wrestled once there and the match was short and not particularly good at all. This got a lot of time. And it was perfectly fine, but it was slower paced than I expected, and it never got the crowd particularly excited. Well, not never. Near the end some aerial stuff woke them up a bit. Not a ton but enough. I was ready to get annoyed at the way Escobar over-sold for a dropkick and then got in position for Ricochet’s Shooting Star Press, but it was a nefarious tactic to bait and then block the move. Nice. Ricochet got the win at 15:50 (shown of 20:45) with a sick roundhouse kick and the 630 Senton. ***1/4
From Smackdown 1,217. The nice thing about no rematch clauses in WWE these days is it’s way more satisfying to see Ricochet get his return match for this title by having to win a big ass tournament. I like the branding of this title as the Workman’s Championship, but I wish they wouldn’t pretend that they’ve always called it that. Michael Cole makes up for it by dropping a sly Prince Puma reference. Ricochet dances around Gunther for quite a while until Gunther boots him to the floor and throws him onto the apron. After a commercial break, Gunther brutalizes Ricochet with a Boston Crab. I was thinking that what this match was missing was a bit more interaction with the crowd, as they were subdued right up until the final few minutes. But then Ricochet tried to do it and got destroyed with a lariat. Gunther broke out the Last Symphony to put Ricochet down at 15:43 (shown of 21:29). There was one chinlock in the middle that went on a bit too long for my attention span, but that aside this was an interesting refinement of
their PWG match.
They borrowed from and tweaked spots from that match, most notably Ricochet going for but failing to get Gunther up for the Benadryller. ***¾
From DPW Victory Lap. This was meant to be the Dragon Gate guys vs. Evans & Andrew Everett, but Everett couldn’t work the show so it was changed to a triple threat. Evans started wrestling the year that KENTo was born. A bit of comedy kicks off the match, ending with Skywalker calling KENTo rude and breaking the alliance. The match was cartoonish and contrived, but the crowd was very into everyone’s personalities. Evans essentially wrestling a handicap match gave this a bit more of a unique flair than it might have otherwise had. And the final stretch of dives and finishers was a lot of fun. Evans missed a 630 senton, and Skywalker came back with the moonsault kneedrop and the SSW for the win at 11:25. ***¼
From MLW Super Series. Davey Richards is in Skywalker’s corner. Not sure why. Skywalker’s American style is perfect for MLW, because both are known for their medium efforts. I don’t want to bag on either too hard because the last few minutes of this match were above average. Of course, watching Skywalker no-sell Reed’s cutter counter of a moonsault so he could get to the finish quickly was annoying. I guess I do want to bag on this match a bit. Skywalker, completely lucid after taking said cutter, countered a roll up to la magistral for the win at 10:59. ***
BLP Turbo Graps 24. Skywalker comes out wearing his newly-won MLW title. He wrestles in his t-shirt, making me think he’s going to dog the match. He didn’t do that though, which was a relief. The way that Monkey wraps his tail around his waist and the way that he’s from space makes me think that he’s doing a Dragon Ball Umaga? Maybe not. On commentary, Erick Stevens says that Skywalker is wearing a shirt to take the sting out of chops. Seems more likely now that he wore the shirt so that he could advertise the shirt to Americans. Monkey got in a lot of offense thanks to Skywalker not taking him seriously enough at the outset. The goofy spots focused on Monkey’s tail didn’t do anything for me, but I appreciate that Monkey lost because he became over-reliant on the tail. Skywalker ducked a shot with it to take control. He hit the Skywalker Moonsault and the SSW for the win at 10:05. **¾
From later in the tournament. No image to immerse us in the illusion that the tournament wasn’t planned. In a very nice touch, Reed and Skywalker get heated before the match because Skywalker took Reed’s MLW title. This was a perfectly fine little spot-fest. If this match had happened in 2001, people would have gone crazy for it. In 2022, we’ve seen it countless times before. But, given that these three guys were told they’d only have five minutes to make something out of a triple threat match, they did a commendable job. It was filled with non-stop spots, and everything was executed pretty well. Only a couple of moments looked contrived. The finish worked well though. Skywalker went for the SSW on King, but Reed stopped it with his rebound Ace Crusher. Skywalker rolled to the floor and Reed went after him. King got up, so Reed went for a sunset flip from the apron to the ring, but King cut back on it for the win at 4:53. **½
From GCW Fight Club, Night 1. This show is on the boardwalk, and the few matches that were filmed during the day look awesome against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. This was a great performance from Wayne, who I normally don’t really care for. He showed a ton of personality here, fighting from behind the whole match, desperate to show that he was on Skywalker’s level. Skywalker somewhat casually proved that not to be the case, as he calmly dismantled Wayne, eventually putting him down with the moonsault kneedrop and the SBS at 10:46. ***½
From GCW Fight Club, Night 2. Unlike the night before, they’re indoors with this show. Looks like just another indie now. I don’t follow GCW, so I was surprised to see Christian work heel. He played a solid scummy, arrogant heel, though it would be nice if his offense shifted a bit in the same way that his persona did. It would also be nice if either guy would sell anything for any length of time during this match. Oh well. It was a fine match that Christian won with a standing Spanish Fly and a springboard 450 Splash at 11:42. Skywalker kicked out right after the three-count, quite possibly even before the three-count, but the commentators just ignore that. ***
From DPW Carolina Classic. The winner of four first round matches go on to the finals of this very short tournament. This is a nice make-good on Everett not being able to wrestle the Dragon Gate guys a month earlier. There are Japanese wrestlers in more than half of the matches on this show. Sounds expensive. This was a fine match, much like other’s Skywalker has had during this tour, where he seems to be going at three-quarters speed. They also did a few annoying shortcutty things, like Skywalker feeding Everett his legs for pins in situations where it didn’t look natural, and a trading of slaps that didn’t make sense in the context of the match. Good, but very far from great. The crowd was into it. Everett hit a moonsault for the win at 10:25. ***
From JWA NWA Series. Inoki was 26 here and Funk was 28. Inoki looks his age while Funk looks 20 years older already. This match goes the distance. The most notable thing about the first half of the match is how venomously anti-Funk the crowd is. At one point, Funk has an armbar applied over the top rope, and an apple gets thrown at his corner. Funk throws the first punch of the match about 25 minutes in, and Inoki fires back and chases the champ from the ring. Funk viciously goes after Inoki’s arm in response, after having worked the arm in a more sportsmanlike way earlier. The crowd loses their minds every time Inoki gets to the ropes. Inoki puts on a Boston crab and is able to get control of Funk’s arm. Funk gets the ropes and transitions seamlessly into a kneedrop to the head. Then he gets nasty and pitches Inoki to the floor. That pisses off Inoki, who comes back with slams that really get the crowd going. Funk’s dad interferes to stop the champ from getting rammed into the turnbuckle, allowing Funk to retake control. That spot RULED. The first near fall of the match happens almost FIFTY minutes in, with the crowd losing their minds when Inoki kicks out after a butterfly suplex. Funk’s lip gets busted open thanks to some classic Inoki kicks from below. With a couple minutes to go, Inoki gets the Octopus Stretch on, but Funk quickly tosses him through the ropes. They trade desperate slams and pins, with Funk grabbing more of them than his challenger. Inoki reapplies the Octopus Stretch, but Funk gets to the ropes and the 60-minute time limit expires. This hour went by very quickly thanks to constant movement from both guys at almost every point in the match. My only complaints were that things slowed down a little bit around the 40-minute mark and the exciting run up to the finish didn’t start until about two minutes before the end. But for an hour-long match from the ‘60s it’s wildly entertaining. ***¾
From JWA Summer Big Series. This is one of the three championships that merged to become the AJPW Triple Crown Championship. The first ten minutes of this match are a snooze. Things pick up after a brief journey to the floor when Brisco zeroes in on Inoki’s leg. The crowd, which has been all but silent up to this point, gets a kick out of Inoki tying Briscoe in the ropes and bopping him a few times. Briscoe counters the Octopus Stretch to an awkward pin to win the first fall about 21 minutes in. The most entertaining part of the match sees Inoki put on an armbar and Briscoe fight desperately to escape. Briscoe counters to pin attempts, and when that doesn’t work he counters to pin attempts while holding the tights. The referee kicks him right back into the armbar when that happens. Brisco is able to get into position to hit kneedrops and finally escape. Inoki quickly hits a German suplex to win the second fall. Brisco is on dream street, so Inoki clobbers him and puts on the Octopus Stretch to win the third fall at 29:45. This picked up a lot in the final ten minutes, but getting there was something of a chore. This match is famous, but you can skip right to the 18-minute mark and you will have missed nothing. Inoki never lost this title, and it became inactive when he left JWA. AJPW revived it as a trophy for Jumbo Tsuruta, and eventually turned it into the Triple Crown Championship (along with the NWA International Heavyweight Championship and the PWF Heavyweight Championship). So in a way (that way being as a side plate of the current title belt), this title still lives on today. ***¼
From NJPW World’s Strong Tag Team. There’s just a smidge of star power in this match, though Gotch is in his fifties (looking as good as Stan Lane did in his thirties) and Thesz is in his sixties, looking old but moving around very well. After twenty minutes of nothing but trading holds, Sakaguchi hits Thesz with a shoulder tackle and Thesz comes back with a back suplex to win the first fall. Gotch tries to go after Inoki’s leg in the second fall, but the leg plan falls apart at around thirty minutes when Inoki decks Thesz for the first time. Thesz catches Inoki with the back suplex, but he can’t cover. Inoki is able to hit a dropkick and tag out, and Sakaguchi hits an atomic drop to win the second fall. Thesz is tired. He tags out and Inoki goes after Gotch’s arm. Gotch’s selling and the way he protects his arm after it’s injured is beautiful. Inoki pinned Gotch with a very cool roll up that is tough to describe. It started in the same position as the Gedo Clutch, but then he twisted around so he could roll back and bridge. That gave his team the victory at 43:57. I wouldn’t call this exciting but it was definitely engaging. I believe this was the first Gotch match I’ve ever seen and it made me curious to see more. Can’t say the same about Thesz, but then this was very close to the end of his career. ***½
From NJPW Toukon Series II. The tone of this match is shown to be different right off the bat, as Robinson comes out of the gate with a big suplex in the first five minutes. They kept up the pace more or less for 40 minutes, until Robinson won the first fall with a wild backslide. I didn’t know this was a 2/3 Falls Match when it started, but knew that Robinson never held this title. Either way, the pin shocked me. Inoki was forced into playing defense for the next 15 minutes. But when the five minutes remaining announcement happened, Robinson started backing off and making Inoki chase him. With just seconds to go in the time limit, Inoki put on the Octopus Stretch and made Robinson submit. Woo! That was exciting! The final fall was very short and saw Inoki fire away with dropkicks. Robinson started shooting back with punches, so Inoki followed suit and they brawled until the time limit expired at 60:00. The middle 20 minutes were a bit of a drag, but they were sandwiched in between some really exciting action. Inoki continued to defend the title for five more years, almost exclusively against gaijin, and using it as a sort of proto-IWGP Championship that locals never challenged for (for whatever reason). ***¾
From NJPW Summer Fight Series. Choshu’s historically bad haircut has me feeling like he was the Greg Valentine of Japan. The hold that Inoki had on these fans was truly incredible. The next time you think a modern wrestler is over with a crowd, no he isn’t. Every time Inoki regained control of the match, even for a second, the crowd lost their collective sanity. And I can’t even really describe how they reacted when he kicked out of moves that looked like they’d be his undoing, or got to the ropes after having his leg worked over for more than half of the match. There was a moment when Inoki backed out of a hold and then caught Choshu with a German suplex that even I cheered; for a dead man! And just when the crowd was starting to cool off a bit because Choshu was showing sustained control, Inoki caught him with the Octopus Stretch and rolled him up for the win at 29:39. Just insane heat. ****
From G PROWRESTLING Ver. 22. Storm out here looking like he ate Chris Divine. You know this is a company that owned NOAH in the mid-’10s because Storm is somehow still employed. He’s my age, which is old for wrestling, and he’s gotten fat enough that he’s in the BULK Orchestra. If you’re not familiar, imagine Weird Al’s gang from the Fat music video. I’m being unfair, as 20 years of experience and the extra weight turned Storm into a much more interesting wrestler. I was never a fan of his take on high flying, but I got reasonably invested in watching him give the much smaller Lindaman trouble here. Lindaman was a rabid animal, attacking from every angle with strikes but still determined to win with suplexes. He hit a crazy judo throw and two German suplexes for the win at 17:55. ***½
From GLEAT G PROWRESTLING Ver. 25. Does it make me sound crazy to say that Irie is the most underappreciated wrestler in the world? In the past I’ve talked about how he executes moves in a way that makes them look so much more painful than when others do them, specifically a cannonball. On top of that, when he brings the fight to the floor he uses the floor to do the utmost damage, moving his position from the floor mat to the exposed wood, and then as fast as possible rolling Lindaman back into the ring for a pin attempt after hitting a piledriver. He also jumps while hitting suplexes and does a front roll after hitting a lariat to put over how hard he’s running. These don’t seem like hard things, but he’s doing them all the time and in succession where most others aren’t. And he’s a big dude. More love for Irie please. Lindaman is no slouch, of course, fighting hard for every lift of his much bigger opponent like the little tank he is. The only thing holding this back from being better was a clap-only crowd and a flub toward the end that distracted from the finish. Irie fell off of the turnbuckle, which didn’t look like it necessarily had to be a botch, but the fact that I was still thinking about it a minute later at 20:07 when Lindaman hit a tiger suplex for the win did give the final moment less drama that it probably would have had. Still, a crazy match that made both guys look amazing. ****½
From GLEAT Ver. 3: 1st Anniversary. Izuchi acts very much like a 22-year-old. He’s energetic and expressive, and he gets no respect from the crowd. In fact, they’re eerily silent through most of this match. There’s a great moment about halfway through during a fight on the floor when Lindaman is working Izuchi’s leg; he hits a dropkick against the guardrail, but flips out over how much landing on the floor hurt his back. That gives Izuchi the opportunity to retake control. After fighting tooth and nail for it, the crowd starts to give Izuchi some respect thanks to a very convincing near-fall he got with a German suplex. It was espeically impressive given how hard Lindaman had been fighting to hit (and how little success he was having hitting) a German suplex. Once he finally hit it, it got a two-count, and a few moments later he snuck in a tiger suplex to retain the title at 19:27. It took a bit to get going, but once it did I was enjoying the hell out of it. ***½
From SPW Battlefront: Stronghearts Attack. The ring announcements and commentary are in English. I didn’t expect that, which I guess is stupid given how common English is in Singapore. Tang gave me major Davey Richards vibes. The energy and stature were very similar, thought Tang didn’t go overboard with kicks. Nobody sold anything for more than ten seconds here, but the match was short and fast-paced enough for it to not matter all that much. Lindaman’s goofy bridging sell for Tang’s DDT was pretty stupid, though. Lindaman hit the Kumagoroshi and a German suplex for the win at 13:25. ***¼
From GLEAT G PROWRESTLING Ver. 31. DOUKI is decked out like Rain from Mortal Kombat. Bush league silliness. Or, if you’re being VERY generous, a purple Hayabusa. Lindaman does the bridging DDT sell here too, but for a fraction of the amount of time as he did in Singapore. That said, what I liked about this match most in the context of Lindaman’s title reign is that DOUKI leaned deep into a DDT-centric offense. Lindaman had shown in previous defenses that his neck was vulnerable to the attack, so in the first ten minutes of the match DOUKI hit four DDTs from different angles, whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself. In the second half of the match, DOUKI switched his offense up to focus on Gory-type moves, which were hard for him to hit but paid off when he did connect. Lindaman responded by going for armbars, so DOUKI locked him in the Italian Stretch to neutralize his arms. I did not expect to see Milano Collection AT borrowed from in this match. Lindaman hit an incredible powerbomb to escape. Lindaman weaseled his way into position to hit a German suplex, and followed that with a tiger suplex for the win at 24:29. That was a close one! The matches in which Lindaman almost loses are way more entertaining than the ones where he more or less rolls over his opponents. ****
From Fantastic Gate. I woke up to a tweet that said this show was streaming for free and turned it on just in time for this match. So glad I did. The new, very young champion Yoshioka defended against his former mentor, who has since broken bad and reformed M2K (as M3K) as a way of mentoring his son instead. This blew my face off. Mochizuki is only an eighth of a step slower than he was when I was fanboying over him a decade ago. Back then, in his early 40s, I marveled at what he was able to do in middle age. Now he’s straight up old and he’s still bringing the same energy but incorporating a realistic portrayal of his physical condition. He still no sells giant moves, but now he’s fully dazed during the no sell. He still finds amazing ways to follow up near falls, in this case it’s straight punching Yoshioka in the face from the mat after a Frog Splash, a moment that had me over the moon. Yoshioka repeatedly stopped Mochizuki from hitting the Triangle Kick and doggedly attempted to win the match with a Frog Splash. As the match wore on, Yoshioka spent less and less steadying himself on the top rope before going for the move. In the end, he won because he stopped even bothering to move Mochizuki into position for it, hitting a long Frog Splash to Mochizuki’s back and another to his chest for the win at 26:16. This was dramatic and exciting and had me considering covering DG again. ****¾
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 
