maciej

Nakajima vs. Elgin definitely worth a look, I think.

He's certainly quite talented in many respects, but for me there's just something about his specific type of charisma and mannerisms that often really takes me out of his matches into a space where I'm just thinking "why are you acting that weird way, you weirdo?". I'm slowly learning to like him more, I think.

Who had 8/9 in the "when will the Tajiri/Finlay SMASH match get mentioned on WWE TV?" pool?

That LuFisto/Kimber Lee match is so much fun.

Glad to see Bayley/Nia showing up some here. Nice to see them improve on that already quite good match from May. Also kinda shocked to go through this and see all four Revival matches still in my top 10. What a show. 1. The Revival vs. American Alpha, NXT: Takeover: The End, 6/8 2. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Sami Zayn, NXT Takeover: Revival, 4/1 3. Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte, WWE Raw, 7/25 4. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens, WWE Battleground, 7/24 5. Bailey vs. Asuka, NXT Takeover: Revival, 4/1 6. Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe, NXT Takeover: Revival, 4/1 7. The Revival vs. American Alpha, NXT, 7/6 8. Bayley vs. Nia Jax, NXT 7/20 9. The Revival vs. American Alpha, NXT Takeover: Revival, 4/1 10. Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles, WWE Payback, 5/1

I do think he has, for what it's worth; I've enjoyed him in a bunch of different places in the past calendar year or so. I thought he was quite good in the Tanahashi match as well. I think I have a much lower opinion of Okada than you do, though. I wouldn't necessarily blame my opinion of this match on one of them more than the other, I just thought they looked mad awkward together, especially in the sequences where they were struggling for their respective finishers.

Any matches today worth watching? Okada/SANADA was the only one that really piqued my curiosity just looking at the card so I watched that and maaaan did I not think they meshed particularly well.

This is violent, intense, funny, weird, and pretty much everything I love.

Gonna rewatch cuz I was kinda drunk when I watched it last night, but Revival/Alpha from Wednesday might go to #1 for me.

Any recent stuff you'd particularly recommend?

Nominating: HARASHIMA vs. Kazusada Higuchi (DDT, 4/24) This is probably a top 10 Japan match for me so far this year and my fav Harashima match so far (though I don't like it as much as the first two Kodaka defenses), so why not. There are a few things here that fall just on the right side of the line between annoying no-selling and getting Higuchi over as a big guy that's gonna be hard for HARASHIMA to hurt. I especially liked the spots built around the fight for the Canadian Backbreaker, especially the one that ends with the power bomb.

Nominating: Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa (BJW, 5/5) I think this is my favorite match in Japan since January; there's nothing here that, looking at this matchup on paper, is a huge surprise, but both the execution and emotion is top notch as these two big lumps just lay into each other. Yuji is so much fun to root for against people that are even bigger (or taller, as the case may be) than he is.

I feel like such a shit having the 4 Revival matches 1 thru 4 but whatever: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Sami Zayn; NXT Takeover Dallas; 4/1 Bailey vs. Asuka; NXT Takeover Dallas, 4/1 Finn Ballor vs. Samoa Joe; NXT Takeover Dallas, 4/1 American Alpha vs. The Revival; NXT Takeover Dallas, 4/1 Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles; Payback, 5/1 Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles; Extreme Rules, 5/22 The New Day vs. Chris Jericho & AJ Styles; Raw, 3/14 The Revival vs. Enzo & Cass; Roadblock, 3/12 Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe; NXT, 3/9 Bailey vs. Nia Jax, NXT 5/18 Think the Women's Mania 3 way, last night's four way, Trips/Ambrose, the Fastlane 3 way, and Charlotte/Natty from Roadblock would be the next tier maybe. Man, January and February were kinda not great, huh?

I wanna rewatch that four-way, but while it was really fun I think I'm gonna end up lower on it than most people. Probably just outside my top 10 for the year as it stands.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (NOAH, 2/24) - YES There was something about the finish that seemed a little out of nowhere (and not in a great way), but I still loved this a lot and agree that it was the perfect way to use those rope submissions. Love love love Suzuki here, and Nakajima more than held up his end of the bargain. I'm also going to nominate Isami Kodaka vs. Masa Tanahashi from DDT, 1/31. Kodaka, not the largest wrestler in the world, is wrestling in the mode of "get off of me you little shit! Stop trying to climb on to me! I said let go!" for large parts of this match and I found it really fun to watch. Tanahashi is eminently likable, and there's a decent amount of struggle for a lot of the stuff they do here, which I always like to see.

Easy yes to Hama/Okabayashi. Butt lariat was great. The look of Okabayashi's last lariat (both in how he delivered it and how Hama took it) was even better.

Hell yes to Kodaka/Takeshita. The strong up-and-comer vs. scarred up vet dynamic is nice, the arm-submission struggle at the end and Takeshita's selling on offense do a good enough job of making the arm stuff integrated into the match, and the work itself is solid. This is probably my favorite match I've seen out of Japan so far this year.

Gonna throw a quick NO on Omega/Styles vs. Nakamura/Yoshi-hashi, which was a solid way to put over Omega and a totally fine match, but not a major match in terms of what actually happened bell to bell, I thought. YES to Dragon Lee/Kamaitachi. I've been delinquent enough in my lucha watching that I could see this not seeming as fresh to me if I had seen all of their stuff from last year, but these two were super fun to watch together. Word to the comment above about the way they throw their bodies around in a way that actually looks like it's meant to cause pain.

Nominating: Hideki Suzuki vs. Masato Tanaka - ZERO-1 - 1/1 This wasn't an epic, but it was a really fun clash of styles with the Tanaka being his usual fiery self and Suzuki's professional attitude serving as a nice foil. I got a big smile out of Tanaka going for the Tornado DDT and Suzuki just placing him back in the on the top rope in that context, for example.

Gonna dive in here: Ishii vs. Shibata 1/4 - YES This is all very silly, obviously, but I think stretching this type of ultra-macho back and forth bullshit out to being the whole match instead of it being the middle section of a more traditional match makes it somehow more conceptually sound for me? I hope these two don't actually kill each other one day, but I can't help but watch. AJ Styles vs. Nakamura 1/4 - YES I very much enjoyed this. I think there's an interesting contrast with the Ishii/Shibata match too in that, while that match relies much more on strikes and a few suplexes and this one more on very modern pro-wrestling moves, the sense of struggle and competition was actually much stronger in Styles/Nakamura (which doesn't necessarily make it better or worse, just achieving different goals). Okada vs. Tanahashi 1/4 - NO I think I understand why this was so special for people who have enjoyed this over the feud years, but as someone who has never found these two (especially Okada) that entertaining, I just didn't have that emotional pull. So I found the opening boring (especially in retrospect after it didn't seem to affect the rest of the match very much), I didn't think the execution on a move-to-move level was particularly special (put some more effort into those tombstone struggles, dudes), and the finisher swapping wasn't for me. Plus I still can't love the Rainmaker as a move. That's not to say that none of this is exciting, but it clearly doesn't connect with me on the same level that it does with some folks.