Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
December is a weird month for wrestling as it both feels quiet and busy. We’re building up to the New Year buzz in Japan, but at the same time, everyone is going back and looking at the past twelve months as a whole, picking out their favourite matches and moments. Still, wrestling never sleeps, so there was plenty of stuff to get your teeth into, and these were the ten matches that I particularly enjoyed.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Top Ten Matches of December 2020”
Weakness isn’t something you often find in professional wrestling. When you think of its icons, American superstars like Stone Cold or Japanese aces like Mitsuharu Misawa, everything about them screams strength. In a world defined by macho posturing, to be weak, and even worse to show that weakness, is not only not done, but actively discouraged. You need only go onto certain Twitter accounts to see what old-school wrestling types think of anything that might make a performer not look like a hard bastard.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Match of the Year: Pencil Army vs Tropical Calimari”
The match of the year lists continue with part two of my best of the rest. Honestly, any one of these (or the ten from part one) could be my top pick, and in a different year, they probably would be. As it is, though, they’ll have to be happy with the somewhat crowded runner-up spot.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Match Of The Year: Best Of The Rest Part 2”
According to some, 2020 has been a lousy year for wrestling, an opinion fuelled by New Japan not doing what people want them to do and an aversion to the dreaded clap crowds. Unfortunately, no-one told my match of the year list, which was quite frankly unwieldy. So yes, this is part one of the best of the rest because when I started writing it very quickly got out of hand. Excessive? Perhaps, but despite its many faults, wrestling is still the best, so a bit of excess isn’t too bad.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Match Of The Year: Best Of The Rest Part 1”
The year may be coming to a close, but November has proven a hell of a month for wrestling, giving me a tough time as I tried to trim my favourite matches down to a mere ten. I succeeded, so you can all be proud of me and hopefully enjoy my monthly round-up of all the action that’s been keeping me entertained over the last thirty days.
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Wrestling titles are weird. You don’t need to work to make a football league or an Olympic gold medal feel important. In a pre-determined sport, however, a title only has as much value as the people competing for it give it. It means that in some companies, they are mere props, McGuffins to build stories around, but with no real value. In others, they are everything, the backbone of what they do and the conduits to incredible moments. That feeling you get when you watch your favourite scratch and claw their way to the top, finally winning the big one, well, there are few things like it. Rarely, though, and I do accept that it’s uncommon, those titles are hats.
Continue reading “Lulu Pencil’s Hat”
Guess what, folks? I was smart this month. Rather than waiting for the 31st to hurriedly throw this together, I wrote it as we went. How fucking sensible is that? You may no3 call me a grown-up. There was plenty to write about too, as we’ve got a bit of deathmatch, a load of nonsense and even some straight-ahead wrestling, what will they think of next?
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Top Ten Matches Of October 2020”
Another month is done, and this hell year ticks on, providing us with little joy. One thing it has given us, though, is plenty of fantastic wrestling. There are a lot of big tournaments going on right now, but not a single one made this list because, well, I honestly haven’t watched a second of them. There is a lot more fun to be had elsewhere.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Top Ten Matches of September 2020”
Another month, another list of my favourite matches. This feels like the first full post-COVID four weeks of wrestling we’ve had, which doesn’t make any sense when you consider two of the biggest joshi companies had to cancel shows, but there was a hell of a lot of wrestling! That means there are a fair few impressive bouts that didn’t make the cut, but they’ll have to forgive me because what is there, was brilliant. Enjoy.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Top Ten Matches of August 2020”
I’m tweaking the match of the month formula a bit for July, ditching the top ten list to do it in chronological order. Partly that comes about because I think ranking matches was always a bit silly and partly because there was a series this month that told a story, so writing about them out of order would be weird. Anyway, it was another strong month for wrestling, so here are ten matches I reckon you should check out.
Continue reading “Ramblings About’s Top Ten Matches of July 2020”
