I don’t know if you noticed, but April was a busy month for wrestling. It was also another busy month for Stuart, so I’m undoubtedly missing some crackers off this list. If you have any particularly strong suggestions, throw them my way, but otherwise, enjoy!
The brace of matches that finished ACTION Wrestling’s well-received tribute to Dean, the founder of the DVDVR forums, were, in many ways, polar opposites of each other. Demus vs Connelly saw them strap on a dog collar and go to war, bleeding and gnawing as they brawled around the venue, unbothered about the fans they wiped out as they went. In contrast, Thatcher vs Makabe rarely left the centre of the ring, as the two incredible grapplers got into the nitty-gritty of wrestling, battling between holds and only occasionally rising to their feet to trade stiff shots. They’re two very different, if equally brilliant, sides of this world that don’t quite feel like they belong together.
And yet, I’d argue that they had a lot in common. Not stylistically but in the intent behind them. They were matches built on aggression and meanness. In the case of Demus vs Connelly, that manifested in spilt blood and chains rammed into foreheads. For Thatcher and Makabe, it was an elbow ground into your side or a hand deliberated positioned over the mouth with a finger in your eye. One is infinitely more subtle than the other, but they’re both grasping for the same goal: hurting your opponent and claiming victory. For all the talent of everyone involved, there was nothing pretty about either of these matches. They were fights, even if those fights were conducted in very different ways.
I don’t need every match to be violent. A scroll through this list will tell you that. But it makes all the difference when two people can convince me that they are fighting to win, not cooperating to entertain. The current canon of great wrestling has its upsides, but a lot of it lacks that. It feels like an attempt to show off what you can do rather than prove yourself the best, which can often, if not always, be frustrating. These four men never gave that impression. They were battling to win, and regardless of how they chose to do it, watching them was a thrill.
Shayna Baszler vs Masha Slamovich, Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport (4/4/24), GCW
Most of the grappling presented as being ‘good’ is clean and beautiful. Someone like Zack Sabre Jr almost floats around opponents, dancing from limb to limb. However, anyone who has watched even the slightest bit of combat sport will know reality is nothing like that. The majority of it is awkward and bitty as two people struggle to get the upper hand over each other. I don’t believe wrestling needs to mimic real life (I can watch MMA for that), but there is something to be said for getting over just how hard it is to roll around on the ground with someone.
And that’s what Masha and Shayna do here. From the second Slamovich shoots for the takedown at the start, there is a real sense that these two are locked in a competition, scrambling to get the upperhand. When they’re on the mat, there is no sense of cooperation as they jab and kick at each other, delivering blows that won’t do long-term damage but might just be enough to knock the other out of their stride. Even when they stand up and trade strikes, there is a shambolic edge to it all, as they don’t give a damn whether anything looks good, just that it does the job.
Most importantly, they still sprinkle that bit of pro-wrestling magic on top of it all. It may have been her Bloodsport debut, but this is Baszler’s world, and everyone knows that, so the chances of Masha coming out with the win were slim (and that’s before you get into the WWE politics of it all). What she could do was get in there with an expert grappler and frustrate her, constantly finding ways to escape her holds before dishing out some damage of her own. Masha turned this into a fight, and when Shayna realised she was in trouble, she had to resort to going route one. The win didn’t come via a fancy hold or definitive choking out but a series of stomps to the back of the head, as brutal and as simple as you can get, as Shayna knew that if she let this match continue, there was every chance she would lose. It was a subtle victory for Masha (at least by wrestling standards), but it worked, and it made sure both of them came out of this looking fantastic.
Mark Briscoe vs Eddie Kingston, Supercard of Honor (5/4/24), ROH
The main event of Supercard of Honor was a good match, perhaps even a great one. Eddie and Mark went out and beat the crap out of each other in the way that only old friends can, with Briscoe bleeding all over the place to add to the fun of it. On a show that had been hit and miss, they provided something different, a hard-hitting, violent brawl that played to both their strengths. If you stripped all the context, you’d probably come away more than content.
However, you can’t strip the context that hung over this. Eleven years on from the day his brother Jay won the title, Mark Briscoe, who has been in Ring of Honor since day one, won it for the first time. That alone would make this emotional, but when you add Jay’s tragic passing in a car accident, it hits a whole other level. Mark Briscoe deserves that belt for his talent, but this thing has become so much bigger than wrestling. It’s was about that man and his family and everything they’ve had to go through. The rest of it is just set-dressing.
And I haven’t always been complimentary about the Briscoes on this site. Like many, I was angry at their perceived views and a belief that they weren’t the kind of people I wanted to be involved in the thing I love. What I didn’t know about was the work they’d done behind the scenes to better themselves, learning from those around them and changing their outlook on the world. That Jay and Mark did that without yelling about it from the rooftops speaks to their decency, and while I’m glad that Mark got this moment, it will always be heartbreaking that his brother wasn’t beside him when he did.
The match was great, but what it represented was even bigger.
There is an art to putting on a memorable WrestleMania Weekend show. Sure, you can always fall back on great wrestling, which might work, but there is a lot of that stuff going on. As this Springbreak showed, 20-odd minute epics can be a fucking drag and, more often than not, will lull a tired audience to sleep (although I don’t want anyone to think I’m calling Effy vs Mance Warner or Joey Janela vs Christian Blake great wrestling, they were shit). What tends to wake them up is things they haven’t seen before, which this match was a perfect example of.
If you were to rip this apart and take its various pieces out of context, it’s probably something I’d have no time for. It’s GCW comedy, a genre I find at best tedious and corrosive at worst, as its pulled Itoh away from being the wrestler I loved. I will always adore the nonsense, but as a general rule, Americans aren’t particularly good at it (there are exceptions). However, this is one of those occasions where the whole was better than the parts that made it up. You had Nick Gage wanting nothing to do with any of this bollocks but sticking it out because of his bizarre loyalty towards Itoh. Meanwhile, Danhausen spent most of the match muttering on the apron, seemingly bemused by the antics of Ram, who, for the first time in America, got a chance to reveal a touch of that 666 side to her game (she didn’t go full 666, even a drunk Mania weekend crowd isn’t ready for that). Then, for the cherry on top, we got Itoh, storming through the middle of it all, seemingly unaware that any of this was weird. It was a delightful collection of oddballs, and throwing them together to see what happened was, to give GCW credit, a touch of genius.
There is every chance that if you tried to do this again on a different day, in a different room, with a different crowd, it wouldn’t work. Some times things click, and this match had the kind of magic you can’t fake. You can only have Ram Kaicho face off with Nick Gage for the first time once, and while I’m sure she wouldn’t mind another shot at him, it’s probably best we leave it there. He is a lot bigger than her.
H2D (Ryo Mizunami & Sonoko Kato) vs ZONES & ChiChi, Marvelous in Kariya (6/4/24), Marvelous
The main event was probably the best match on this show, but I have sung Takumi and Mio’s praises quite a lot, so I decided to talk about this instead. If you want to hear more about it, check out my original review.
As for this match, it was an example of the difference a pair of veterans can make. On the previous Marvelous show, ZONES and ChiChi had an underwhelming showdown with Ai Houzan and Sadie Gibbs, where it felt like a lack of parental control let the action get away from them. Here, with Mizunami and Kato across the ring, that was never going to happen. Instead, they drilled into what makes the Evolution rookies so impressive. For ChiChi, that meant working from underneath, desperately trying to escape the beating the veterans were dishing out. As for ZONES, she was there to be the tank, building to her tag so she could hit the ring and bash into everything that got in her way. It was old-school, simple wrestling, but, like so much of that stuff, it worked.
And I don’t want to make it sound like that was entirely down to H2D, as good as they are. ZONES and ChiChi have to be able to play those roles, and this early into their careers, they do them well. ChiChi is a sympathetic seller, with the way she almost twisted her body away from Aniki’s chops in the corner doing a particularly good job of getting me to root for her. On the flip side, ZONES has the potential to be an elite hoss. She’s strong, fast and bursting with charisma, as every time she hit the ring, the excitement levels notched up a mark or two. It makes them a near-perfect pair, and with a couple of steady hands to lead them through, they already have the ability to put on a damn good match.
The Clusterfuck Battle Royal, Joey Janela’s Spring Break: Clusterfuck Forever (6/4/24), GCW
I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but I’m not necessarily recommending you watch this match. It’s not good. The Clusterfuck is far too long, the pacing is all over the place, and there are periods where streams of generic indie guys enter the ring, all of whom look and act the same. There is so much great wrestling out there, so I can’t recommend you spend two hours of your life watching something this flawed.
So why is it here? Because I watched it with friends, laughing and taking the piss out of this nonsense. We revelled in Shane Douglass going all Brock Lesnar, howled at CPA’s multiple shirts and delighted in Microman getting the win after having protested the decision not to put him over in the ladder match the day before. The Clusterfuck is the kind of wrestling that comes to life when viewed in person, revelling in the bollocks with a room full of people who are willing to go with it, but if you can’t do that, then the only other way to watch it is with people you like, laughing at its flaws as much as its strengths.
Wrestling as a communal experience is one of the best things in the world. I watch most of the stuff I write about by myself, and I love it, but the moments that stick with you forever are nearly always those that happen with others. Whether in the Tokyo Dome, a friend’s living room or shouting into the chat on YouTube, the sense that you are sharing something can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. I can’t recommend you watch this because I can’t guarantee you can mimic my experience, but if you are lucky enough to have people around you willing to indulge in this buffoonery, then something that is flawed as all hell can become one of the great experiences of the year.
Sami Zayn vs Gunther, WrestleMania XL: Night One (6/4/24), WWE
I genuinely can’t remember the last time I watched WrestleMania in full. It’s not been a deliberate thing. I just stopped bothering. However, because of the aforementioned friends, I broke that streak this year and got to check out what this new-look WWE was like. On the whole, I was unimpressed. Overwrought, overbooked and still full of an impressive amount of cunts, it was a timely reminder that WWE isn’t for me. There is good stuff there, and I’ll get on to talking about this match in a second, but it’s nowhere near worth the bullshit you have to wade through to find it.
However, even WWE can’t ruin everything. One of American wrestling’s great babyfaces going up against the monster that is Gunther was a recipe for success, even if the skinny version of the man formerly known as WALTER still weirds me out. When people talk about wrestling not being complicated, this is what they mean. A champion that has been, by all reports, protected for years, going up against a plucky wee underdog who is desperate to dethrone him. Throw in Zayn’s wife at ringside and the backstage shot with his adorable child, and even if the match had sucked, it would have felt special.
Thankfully, the action was also good. One thing that WWE arguably does right is holding off on those killer moves. In AEW, big spots are littered through your average TV match, and while WWE does a bit of that, there are certain lines they will only cross when necessary. Here, that paid off with the Brainbuster on the turnbuckle, a move that has rarely (if ever) appeared on WWE programming but has a rich history with Zayn’s old pal and saviour of orphans, El Generico. Not only was it cool as hell, but it looked vicious, providing the perfect turning point for Zayn to finally burst through and get the three. In a company where you see that stuff every week, that moment doesn’t have the same impact. Here, it felt momentous and proved that even WWE is incapable of fucking up something this reliably good.
Before this match, Mei Suruga explained that while Emi Sakura and Masa Takanashi are her mentors, unfortunately, they have lost their human hearts and are evil. However, she believes in them, and because this was a happy, happy birthday show and they were born of humans, they can get better.
She was wrong.
Emi and Masa are so good at this. Up against a suddenly pure-of-heart Mei (no one is falling for that) and a plucky rookie, they revelled in being the biggest pricks possible. At one point, they had Suruga trapped in a tablee, delighting in prodding and torturing her. It was like they’d heard her words and wanted to strip every inch of that optimism out of her. They’re bastards, and they love it.
Credit also has to go to Erii, who held her own while sharing the mat with some esteemed company. I loved how she and Sakura kicked things off, using that tiny room to turn a simple lock-up into something thrilling. Kanae may only be a rookie, but she’s got that Gatoh Move instinct, as she’s learning to milk the tiniest things for the biggest reaction possible. If she can continue to channel that, she’ll go on to have a healthy career in Ichigaya.
It also sums up this match. Emi and Masa’s almost panto-style villainy is nothing new or fresh, but done this well, with this much gusto, it works. Their bastardry fuelled the action, giving Erii and Mei something to fight back against as they tried to ruin this happy, happy day. That’s simple but effective wrestling, and few things are better than that.
Marvelous Train Wrestling (14/4/24)
It’s the Marvelous roster pissing about on a train. Do I need to say anything more than that? It feels like enough.
If you’re coming into this expecting something similar to the DDT train matches, you’ll leave slightly disappointed. Marvelous isn’t associated with great production values at the best of times, and with this seemingly being filmed on someone’s phone, it’s shoddy as hell. They’re constantly being jostled, and with the action spread over two carriages, there is a lot of spinning around to see what the exciting noises behind them are all about. However, if you can get past that, this nonsense is a whole lot of chaotic fun.
Because, and I say this with a lot of love, the Marvelous roster is all at least a little unhinged, so setting them loose on a train was always going to leave at least a few things broken. By the end, they’re picking out random fans and whacking them with a baseball bat, making sure each hit is a little harder than the last. Before that, they covered every inch of those carriages, battling up and down them and engaging in a mini-game that proved Mio is equally petulant whether she wins or loses. The only thing stopping it from coming fully off the rails was presumably the driver, although considering they let all the wrestlers have a go at that after the match was done, I’m surprised we didn’t end up with a catastrophe.
Is this good wrestling? No, of course not. A train is not the place to deliver that. Is it a lot of fun? Yes. I watched it on a Friday night after a few beers and had a lovely time. If you’re not overly picky about everything being perfect, it was a delightful slice of nonsense, and what more could you wish for when talking about Marvelous on a train?
Gaisen Sakura Pro Wrestling (15/4/24), TJPW
In what is becoming a theme this month, it’s time for another show that took place somewhere off the beaten track. The TJPW roster descended on Shinjo Village, the home of former wrestler (and current sister of Yuki Aino) Nodoka Tenma, delivering a show from what seemed to be a town square surrounded by cherry blossom. It was beautiful.
And I can’t tell you the wrestling on this show was anything must-see. It was fun, but with four fairly straightforward matches, there was nothing that would typically make this list. However, the vibes were immaculate. It reminded me of Marvelous’s annual trips to Hokkaido, a weekend of shows that always take on the giddy atmosphere of a group of people away on holiday. If anything, the TJPW roster seemed even more drunk with excitement, as Mizuki was whacking folk with traffic cones, Pom was hiding behind children, and Rika vanished halfway through her match to go check out one of the local food stalls. The wrestling wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the most important thing here. It was the setting and the atmosphere that made this work.
It wasn’t just the wrestlers who brought the holiday feel either. With children running around, stalls surrounding the area, and fans scattered between chairs and the ground, the whole thing felt like a music festival on a beautiful summer’s day. The sun in the sky and the beer in your hand making every band sound better than they ever have. The wrestling wasn’t incredible because it didn’t need to be. It could ride along on that sparkle of magic in the air, playing off the mood of everyone there and even managing to burst through the screen to me, stuck indoors watching this in a still-cold Scotland thousands of miles away. That’s good vibes, and if you’re looking for an hour of joyous wrestling, this will do the job.
HYPE!2 (19/4/24), Hyper Misao Produce Show
The Hype! shows have revealed that Hyper Misao’s genius is not only rooted in her ability to present herself. She also seems to have an outstanding grasp of what makes her friends and colleagues special. Last year, that allowed her to introduce a whole new side of Mahiro Kiryu to the world, letting her tell her story through a match that had her travel back and forth through time and give Arisu Endo and Rika Tatsumi the shits. Who else can claim that?
This time, the whole show was dedicated to Misao’s theatrical wrestling, with Raku taking centre stage. Unsurprisingly, she was wonderful. Delivering a charming and delightful performance as she explored what it means to be an idol and a wrestler before finally wrestling her friend and mentor, Aja Kong, in a match that could have been saved for a much bigger platform than this but was perfect here. However, it wasn’t just Raku who got to shine. Everyone who stepped into the ring for this play was put in position to show a different side of themselves, from hunky Toga to gyaru Moka Miyamoto. There has to be a degree of Misao pushing these people out of their comfort zones, but you would never guess it, as they all step into the roles asked of them and pull it off with aplomb. It’s beautiful. Twisting and turning into a love letter from Misao to the brilliance of her found family.
And they return that love. Even in a normal year, this show would require a lot of work, but with Misao sidelined by an injury just beforehand, that must have at least doubled. Yet, they all pulled through. Whether it was Pom doing makeup, HIMAWARI’s puppetry or the fans going with every second of it, embracing the oddness alongside the wrestling, this was a collective effort. It would take just one weak link for this whole thing to fall apart, something as simple as a guffaw in the wrong place or a wrestler not fully committing, but no one slipped. They all stepped up for Misao, crafting her vision and creating something no one else could do.
When people talk about how wrestling can be anything, they usually mean it can be a bit silly or that someone can stare at their hands and ponder how violent they are. Misao takes it so much further than that, and I’m grateful we have her.
Mio Momono vs Mayumi Ozaki, Battle Big Bonus (28/4/24), Oz Academy
I already wrote over a thousand words on this, and while I probably do have more to say, even if I think that’s a bit excessive. Go read those instead!
Ramblings About Wrestling 
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