Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
We’ve already featured Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu in Meltzer’s Classics when they faced off against each other in 1989. Today, however, we are going back a few years to 1986 when they were on the same team defending their NWA International Tag Team belts against Riki Choshu and Yoshiaki Yatsu. This is classic All Japan tag-team wrestling and it’s a whole lot of fun.
After a decent start to proceedings, the Mae Young Classic has cut out some of the deadwood as we move into round two. Most of the wrestlers left can work and there’s a handful who are truly special so the match quality should only improve from here. Once again, I won’t be bothering with talking about JR and Lita, they still suck. Let’s hand out some stars.
Hardcore is a simple genre. I love it, but it’s true, and its punk roots are still strong in that regard. However, even simplicity can be tinkered with and over the last few years, there has been an influx of bands who use hardcore as a base. A base from which they can branch out into other genres. A big part of this is melding hardcore with its metallic brothers but not in the vein of the million identikit metalcore bands that roam the planet. Instead, these are actual hardcore bands with actual metal influences.
There’s not much to say here that I didn’t say in the intro to the first review as we’re still in the first batch of matches. It’s worth noting, however, that I’m not going to bother mentioning JR and Lita. They are awful, but me continuing to moan about it won’t help. Right, let’s start dishing out those stars.
Continue reading “Mae Young Classic Episodes 3 and 4 Review”
After the discovery of a whole bunch of 5-star matches that we missed the first time around, Meltzer’s Classics has now dived back into 1985 and to the regular setting of Japan. This is our first women’s match to feature on the list as Jaguar Yokota defends her WWWA Championship against Lioness Asuka. Being honest, I hadn’t heard of either of these women, but a bit of research tells me that they are highly respected in Japan, if not in the West.
Continue reading “Meltzer’s Classics: Jaguar Yokota vs. Lioness Asuka, 22/8/85”
The best EPs are the ones that leave you unfulfilled. They tease you with greatness and as they finish all you can do is howl for more. With its five songs coming in at under ten minutes, Cycles of Grief, Volume 1: Growth from Australian metallic hardcore band Cursed Earth does exactly that. Although after it has punished you for its entire running time, there’s a chance you’ll be curled in a ball on the floor while you do the begging.
Continue reading “Cursed Earth – Cycles of Grief, Volume 1: Growth”
Over a month after it was taped, the Mae Young Classic finally came to the WWE Network yesterday and brought with it a swell of expectation. The Cruiserweight Classic was a highlight of last year and the pressure is on this tournament to compete. It’s also an important part of WWE’s attempts to alter history by convincing us that they’ve always liked women and that it wasn’t their fault there needed to be a ‘women’s revolution’ in the first place. Anyway, let’s not get too bitchy and instead have a look at how things went down during the first two episodes of this tournament.
Continue reading “Mae Young Classic Episodes 1 and 2 Review”
In an interesting move, this weekend saw AAA air TripleMania for free on Twitch. As someone who has never watched any Lucha Libre before, never mind any AAA, it seemed as good an excuse as any to check it out. What I discovered was a show that, well, to be perfectly honest, was bloody mental. It made SummerSlam look consistent and yo-yo-ed wildly from fantastic to awful. From emotion to farce. It was one hell of an experience and I’m desperate to talk about it so let’s hand out some stars.
WWE has released this news into the wild already, but, if you want absolutely no spoilers from the most recent NXT tapings, stop reading now. You stopped? Good. After over 500 days and an undefeated streak that must be around the 200 match mark, The Empress of Tomorrow, Asuka, has relinquished her NXT title. The news came at a time when she is believed to have suffered a collarbone injury, but WWE is treating it as being the set-up for her move to the main roster. Where, if they have any sense, she will do it all again.
Living in Edinburgh as a lover of music and wrestling you have two choices. Never see anything live or spend a lot of time on a train to Glasgow. While Discovery is starting to change the wrestling part of that statement, it’s still exciting when one of the big boys turns up in our city rather than the ugly bastards’ one over there. We appreciate it more (plus the Weegies are perfectly capable of taking a train too). It’s particularly lovely when they turn up with a selection of NJPW, CMLL and Rev Pro wrestlers in tow. So how did a rare visit to Edinburgh’s capital go for ROH?
Continue reading “Ring Of Honor – War Of The Worlds Tour, Edinburgh (20/8/17)”
