Opinion
Top 5 Matches: Week Ending 9/30/2018
Sleepy sleepy sleepy, between Pod is War being recorded late on Sunday, and the New Japan Fighting Spirit Unleashed show ending around midnight, it’s a long night.
We did have a vote last week, it was close, but it looks like, NXT: Ricochet vs Pete Dunne Champion vs Champion, won the vote last week. This week will be the last one for September, and we end with a bang. A lot of fun outcomes in the New Japan show, so it gives us stuff to look forward to in the future.
Let’s see what made the cut this week.
5. ROH Death Before Dishonor ROH World Championship Match: Will Ospreay vs Jay Lethal (c)
Well I didn’t watch the whole show, but to be fair, it didn’t seem like the most riveting card anyway. This was the only match that intrigued me and let’s see if it pulled through.
Ospreay and Lethal lock up early, and we get to see a slightly adjusted style from Will. He’s put on a few extra pounds, and seemed to take a little more pride in chain wrestling. We saw both men attempt their Cutter finishers early, but it was a big cat and mouse game for the most part.
It was a little odd that during a spot to the outside, Lethal was looking under the ring, when he mostly plays by the rules. We then see Ospreay go under on the different side to find a ladder and keep it around for later. After that spot comes an interesting moment where Jay accidentally Superkicks Bobby Cruise, the ROH title flies in the air and Ospreay catches it. So we see this thread play through with Ospreay considering using the belt to win, but he fights the urge.
A good bit of back and forth, then we see Ospreay pick the belt back up. He feigns that he’s going to use it, just to catch Lethal off guard a bit and light him up with a few strikes. Will goes for Stormbreaker on a few different occasions, but Lethal fights out of it. Ospreay tries for a Spanish Fly, but Lethal counters it into an Avalanche Sitout Powerbomb, followed up with Lethal Injection, to retain his title.
Winner: Lethal via Lethal Injection
Rating: ****
4. Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix Grand Finals: Utami Hayashishita vs Mayu Iwatani
As a result of everyone else who had a shot losing in Red Stars, Utami moves on to the finals. As for how Mayu overcame an 0-2 start, you’ll have to read Mathew’s articles. But the match is, Super Rookie versus one of the most decorated remaining veteran. Can the Super Rookie overcome everything with only about 2 months on the Stardom Roster under her belt?
Well this match definitely lived up to being a finals match. Mayu showed the veteran savvy early until Utami caught her on the apron and literally Gorilla Press tossed her into the ground. The match was an interesting combination of Mayu’s strikes focusing on Utami’s recently injured right arm, but Utami would fight back with a bunch of submissions.
Camel Clutch, turned into kind of a Bow and Arrow variation, before Mayu crawled to the ropes. Utami started to work over Mayu’s bandaged left arm, but many of the submissions were Sleeper variations. Aside from Utami tossing Mayu literally into the ground, the next best spot was probably when Utami whipped Mayu into the corner, but she ran up the ropes, hopped to the top, turned around and landed a crisp Missile Dropkick without missing a beat.
Utami looked to be fighting uphill most of this match. A nice moment where she dragged Mayu back in to the ring from the apron with a Sleeper Hold Takeover, which she then turned into a Coquina Clutch was probably the last real gasp she had a winning. She tried to fight out of everything, Mayu hit a Frog Splash, but Utami kicked out. Even tried to fight out of the Dragon Suplex, but Mayu ducked the forearm and locked it in, for the pinfall.
So the last of the big 3 of Stardom (Io, Kairi, Mayu) showed that the rookie still has some growing to do.
Winner: Mayu via Dragon Suplex Hold
Rating: **** 1/4
3. 6th Royal Road Tournament: Kengo Mashimo vs Zeus
Now that we have Kento Miyahara going on to the final round, later on, we have Kengo Mashimo taking on our Triple Crown Champion, Zeus. Kengo was able to get back to back surprise victories in this tournament and he could keep up with that trend if he can defeat Zeus here in this match and go on to fight Kento in the final round. Will Kengo be three for three or will our champion make it all the way to the finals?
It would start off with a basic wrestling match without and tricks from both of them or testing any strengths as this one was mostly based on skills this time around and Zeus had the opening when he hits a Diving Clothesline to Kengo to put him down for a bit. Kengo would eventually find an opening by targeting Zeus’ arm in the match and you can see him starting to sell it for a little, so now we know where his opening is going to be here. Most of the time you’ll see Zeus fighting through the pain since he’s more focused on winning the match and if he distracts himself by showing more vulnerability with his arm, then he knows Kengo would win the match.
Once Zeus started chopping Kengo, you can see him selling the injury more and that was what Kengo needed to try and make the champion tap out as he went for a Fujiwara Armbar and would turn it around into a Triangle Choke as he looks to have it here, but Zeus would fight through the pain here and pick him up to slam Kengo down to break the hold. Zeus moves his arm around to get circulation in there as he hits a Lariat and a Chokeslam for a two count and once Zeus went for the Jackhammer, Kengo fought out of it and he would apply the Mudo hold on him to make Zeus tap out and move onto the final.
Winner: Kengo via Mudo (Scissored Armbar)
Rating: **** 1/2
Honorable Mentions:
NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed IWGP US Title Match: Cody vs Juice Robinson (c)
Winner: Cody via Inside Cradle
Rating: ****
6th Royal Road Tournament: Kento Miyahara vs Yuji Hino
Winner: Kento via Japanese Leg Clutch
Rating: ****
Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix: Utami Hayashishita vs Konami
Winner: Utami via Torture Rack
Rating: *** 3/4
NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed: Will Ospreay vs Marty Scurll
Winner: Scurll via Graduation
Rating: *** 3/4
Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix: Tam Nakano vs Kagetsu
Winner: Tam via O’Connor Roll w/ Bridge
Rating: *** 1/2
NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed: Roppongi 3k vs Jushin Thunder Liger, ACH & Ryusuke Taguchi
Winner: Taguchi via Dodon
Rating: *** 1/4
Raw: Authors of Pain & Baron Corbin vs The Shield
Winner: Shield
Rating: ***
NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed: Kazarian & Christopher Daniels vs Hangman Page & Chase Owens
Winner: Daniels via Best Meltzer Ever
Rating: ***
2. NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed: The Golden Lovers vs Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii
Well since it’s the special main event, it’s not just gonna be ANY tag team match. Also I wonder if it can be assumed that Jay White and Gedo broke away from Chaos since Okada and Ishii are working together, and ROH Death Before Dishonor had a Chaos match also. So I guess those are the surface questions that might get answered eventually.
The match starts off like most Japanese tag matches, they start, tag in the other and it’s fairly respectful early on. Ibushi and Okada have some nice back and forth, Ishii and Omega reignite their feud from the last few weeks.
To be fair, there was more going on in this match than I can adequately describe at such a late hour. I will say that Okada had some nicely personality flairs throughout, the story telling was fantastic, and the Golden Lovers pulled off a beautiful Cross Slash. Aside from that…just watch the match, it was really well done. Okada getting kicked into the guardrail and Ishii absorbing the Golden Trigger is a fitting way to end this match.
Okada stays protected and Ishii’s loss looks more complete.
Winner: Lovers via Golden Trigger
Rating: **** 3/4
1. 6th Royal Road Tournament Finals: Kento Miyahara vs Kengo Mashimo
We’re now down to our final match as it comes down to Kento Miyahara and Kengo Mashimo. Both of these men have had impressive victories during their tournament matches but now only one of them can win the whole thing and earn the right to challenge Zeus for the Triple Crown Championship. Will Kento win to get his rematch to reclaim his prize or will Kengo pick up four big wins in a row and fight Zeus once again?
This is where we see Kengo’s technical side of his wrestling starting to flourish here when he started to target Kento’s arm when they were outside when Kengo would slam his arm against the guardrail and Dropkick it for good measure, and now he has the strategy he needs to destroy Kento’s arm just like he did to Zeus earlier. I liked that this was more of a wrestling match since these two are extremely talented wrestlers as they fed off of each other and telling the right story of the match since the crowd was super into it and were fully supportive of Kento and you can hear it in the audience.
The more we got into the match, the more interesting it was starting to become when they were going at each other with Kento using his knees and Kengo working on his arm to try and make him tap out. Kengo would land a Crucifix and applies the Mudo hold like he did to Zeus to make him tap out and the crowd starts cheering for Kento not to tap out and somehow makes it to the ropes. Kento starts to fire back with a few Blackouts to knock him down a peg and the match is getting rather explosive that it can go either way here. Kento would hit another Blackout for a two count and he quickly picks him up for the Shutdown German Suplex Hold and Kento wins the Oudou Tournament!
There’s one little problem I have with Kento winning the tournament and it’s that I feel like he’ll most likely win back the title from Zeus and as much as I love Kento and he’s my favorite wrestler right now, I don’t want to see him win the title back. The reason why I’m saying this is because Zeus has worked very to get his first title run and it would be a shame if they ended it in a three-month reign with only one successful title defense. Another thing they could do is to have Zeus retain the title against Kento and don’t let him get the belt back until at least after next years Champions Carnival if he does win it and challenge Zeus around May, that way Zeus would get a nice long run and a few solid defenses in his reign instead of kinda doing hot potato. Let’s just see how it goes and I have no doubt it’ll be a good match.
Winner: Kento via Shutdown German Suplex Hold
Rating: **** 3/4
Thoughts:
Alright, tired thoughts, tired writing, tired tired-ness…yup that’s a thing now. I’m gonna vote for, AJPW Kento Miyahara vs Kengo Mashimo. Damn good match to end a tournament and I’m fairly sure most people won’t vote for it. So make your opinion heard for the birds and for the things that aren’t birds.
Just…Use Chairshots Away From Your Head…Always Go To Bread….whatever we say.
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Opinion
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!