How Great is Sasuke (part six II: part seven)

I've been compiling this selection of Sasuke reviews for ages. In the original version, I had a joke about Peter Mandelson limiting downloads from Megaupload. It's no longer relevant, but it was very funny. First half is old stuff, second half is 2010 stuff.

Great Sasuke, Atsushi Onita, Tarzan Goto vs. Jinsei Shinzaki, Mr. Pogo, Masaru Toi, FMW, December 20th 1993

The tag match without Shinzaki and Onita that I just reviewed last month was a hidden gem. I think there's a six-man from M-Pro also from December 1993 on a DVD I've yet to buy, but this match is in FMW and its a lot more barbed wirey than the earlier efforts. 90s Japanese indies are like Mayhem albums - it would feel wrong if they was well produced, so when the camerawork misses loads of stuff, it actually enhances it. The opening was weirdly unstructured, with everyone pair off but in close proximity to each other, so it looked odd that a heel would be beating up a face and another face would be beating up a heel almost back-to-back, with no interaction between the two. But it made it seem more chaotic, so it worked. Loads of blood, barbed wire spots and Tarzan Goto throwing the best wild punches in puro made this a wild and crazy good time.

Great Sasuke vs. SUWA, M-Pro, April 1999

I liked this. They start off with some decent competitive mat stuff which has a bit of quick lucha-type exchange of some stuff clearly influenced by Sasuke working Battlarts (an armbar and an anklelock are two moves I don't remember he using before). It really kicks off when Sasuke goes for his asai moonsault and Suwa yanks him off the apron by his leg. The roles here are just what you want, Sasuke's moveset is perfect for someone eating a large beating then launching a high impact comeback, whilst SUWA is a merciless prick who combines some really impressive stuff (his over the top tope is beyond amazing) and plenty of cheating and shortcuts to give the match a real face vs. heel dynamic. Not sure why, but Sasuke was rana-happy here, he must have done at least four from different positions. They save all their big stuff for the last few minutes, which works for me. Very enjoyable.

Great Sasuke vs. Takeshi Sasaki, FREEDOMS, June 21st 2010

Sasuke's representing Kojika's Army against Sasaki's FREEDOM's guys. This match had a few interesting moments, like Sasuke flipping and attacking the Satos (also in Kojika's Army), but nothing of particular note over the course of the seven minutes and was really both guys just going through some of their stuff. Sasuke's corner senton to the outside hit not a great deal up to the point where he hit the floor (some distance, you may remember, from his starting point).

Great Sasuke and Riki Choshu vs. Tatsumi Fujinami and Ultimo Dragon, RJPW, March 18th 2010

On the place this was downloaded from, I saw it described as an "awful, awful match". How? It was a perfectly fine old guys doing eleven minutes tag match. It's a Fujinami match, so like Mutoh, it's going to be based around his very specific match winning strategy of leg work. Choshu is going to lariat some people, look grumpy and do some stomping. Sasuke will do an absurd highspot and sell everything too much. There's a couple of awkward moments, but that's mainly because Ultimo has a rubbish moveset that he can't even execute well - watch him land on top of Sasuke in a missed SPIN FLY KICK spot. There's a tiny smattering of decent matwork at the beginning, and I kind of liked when Fujinami got all scrappy, kicking and chopping at Choshu until it broke up the scorpion deathlock-in-Japanese. Let's be clear, it's not very very good, I just get annoyed that old guys doing simple stuff is in someway actively bad.

Great Sasuke and MIKAMI vs. Asian Cougar and Miracle Man, Osaka Pro, 20th August 2010

Well, here's four guys that will bump like freaks. This starts with a few minutes of pointless brawling, but after that there was a lot of nutty highspots, and I'm definitely someone who thinks that if your not going to put together a structured tag match, you better be a lunatic. Sasuke takes a lot of bumps, several onto to the ladder - the first whilst superplexing his opponent, assisted by his partner, in one of his trademark accidentally kill himself whilst naively trying to do good. Cougar bumps to the outside and into the crowd on multiple occassions and has some nice looking offence. MIKAMI is the worst offender for not bothering to put a match together and just get his stuff in, but even then, I enjoyed his beautiful top of ladder senton (although partially because I was convinced it was going to slip and kill him).

A (possible) Night of Champions 2010 liveblog

21st September, 7.34pm: Tell me. Is this live-blog-several-days-later concept I wheel out for WWE PPVs working? Does anyone like it?

7.35pm: (Or me? Does anyone like me? Maybe if people got to know me better...)

7.36pm: So, I'm watching this PPV, having actually sat down and watched some recent WWE TV. I'm excited for Big Show vs. Punk, and Miz vs. Danielson. I am not excited for the world title matches. No Christian match, which is a shame because he's been on a great run since July - his matches with Drew Macintyre have been some of the best things in US wrestling this year.

7.37pm: (I had macaroni cheese for dinner, and I am in the process of making some tea.)

7.39pm: Show starts. Picture flash. Words are ominous.

7.44pm: Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston. Why is this happening again? Dolph has managed to carry something half-decent out of Kofi in past months, but I'm tiring of it.

8.04pm: That was OK. Kofi didn't do much that was offensive, and Dolph was fun on offence and bumped pretty big for a few of Kofi's spots (particularly the outside body press). Dolph has a couple of really nice little touches within his repetoire. I like how he scrambles for a pin after doing some move with an obvious urgency. Also, he works the sleeperhold in very well, capitalising on an opportunity with an almost pounce-like motion.

8.07pm: (I've just had some Coke, and I'm wearing an Emperor t-shirt)

8.10pm: Punk vs. Show next. Well, they are embracing Punk's home support then. Kind of cool. Punk's on mic. He loves Chicago.

8.11pm: Wait for it...

8.14pm: Just a great promo. Undiluted, self-righteous Punk is as good as mic work gets.

8.20pm: Man, I wish that wasn't just five minutes, because it was tremendous fun. Obviously, it's hard to book a long small heel vs. monster face, but this packed a lot of nice stuff in. I love Punk's stiff knees, Big Show's bodyshots, the slingshot senton to the outside (and Punk counting Show out and praying for him to stay down), and the spear on a mid-air Punk.

8.27pm: (I went for a swim this evening and earlier today I saw a crow.)

8.30pm: Miz vs. Daniel Bryan.

8.50pm: No thoughts as we went along, because I was completely absorbed. Tremendous match, probably the best thing I've seen so far this year, certainly in the US. There are two excellent performances here. Firstly, Bryan's selling of his injured arm and his fighting through the pain facials made this a really dramatic fight. Secondly, this is a match that has really sold me on the Miz. His arm work was all really nasty - the shoulderbreaker, the snap over the ropes and loads of other stuff which relentlessly targetted the arm all look great. In fact, both men brought loads of stiff offence and some stuff I've never seen in WWE before, like the lariat off the top. Some of the nearfalls absolutely had me, especially the two rollups and I loved the swerve finish (I was convinced they were going to do a bullshit DQ finish).

8.53pm: Also, great booking, great crowd heat, great stuff on commentary. And how satisfying is it to see a seven month long storyline paid off that well?

8.56pm: Cena is a slick promo, smart, funny (but not desperately so) and the sort of confident that wins over parts of an otherwise hostile crowd.. He also make a refreshing change of pace from the somewhat uninspired intensity of the other guys.

9.10pm: I shall go and do some tasks.

9.12pm: (I tidied the kitchen and I'm sure there were some others tasks.)

9.41pm: Diva's match. One thing I really like about the WWE women's division is the writing of storylines and characters which capture the subtle tensions, bitternesses and jealousies that groups of women experience. Case in point: Layla looking like thunder.

9.49pm: Well, it's not like the match was particularly good, but I kind of enjoy McCool schtick at times, and I'm Lay-Cool aren't breaking up. Their best friend mean girls act is the best thing the division has been built around in years, plus its is frequently hilarious (especially when combined with Ki).

9.52pm: I find it impossible to be excited by another Kane vs. Undertaker match. The whole storyline is absurd and the language gets more and more ridiculous each time. Whose the demon? Who will eat whose soul? What will happen when the screaming nemesis of children's dreams meets the harrowing strangler from the dreaded abyss? Then you throw in the world title, so you get this wierd narrative on commentary where they alternate between hyperbole about one souless evil attempting to destroy an inhuman monster (who, by the way, was recently in a vegetative state in a hospital, like hospitals would be happy to admit one of those without comment: "Well, nurse, the problem seems to be in his black heart and the fact he doesn't respire". His health insurance must be a financial burden.) and a title match story, where they are competing for a belt. Why couldn't you just book a straight up title match? That would at least be novel at this stage.

10.09pm: Match was a slugfest, in the most onomatopoeiac sense of that word. Taker's glassy-eyed, worn down selling is good, but for all the stuff used to set up this match, it wasn't even particularly violent. Sometimes, it pays to be a little more understated.

10.11pm: (I'm very good at the A-minor chord and my bedtime is 12am)

10.14pm: Tag team gauntlet match.

10.20pm: Tyson Kidd is trying to get himself more over by amping up his highspots. It might work, his asai moonsault was impressive. Cole tries to help the process by calling him a 'bundle of energy'. As is everything.

10.30pm: Not really sure how to deal with these sorts of matches. You basically get a miniscule formula tag match at the beginning and the end, and a bunch of spots in the middle as they move from Harts vs. Usos to Bourne/Henry vs. Macintyre/Rhodes, one team at a time. Bourne looked great in this, his jumping rana seems physically impossible. Rhodes manages to completely kill the hot tag by bumping way to early for a Henry chop though - the crowd collectively deflates with how ridiculous it looked. The finish ended up being anticlimatic.

10.31pm: (I write regular wrestling reviews of noted wrestling blog Spin Fly Kick).

11.08pm: Just whistled through the main event six man elimination. This mostly worked OK through the booking, which a multi-man has to because there's never time to develop much through the wrestling. Jericho's early elimination, teasing of Cena-Orton, Barrett as outsider, Edge and Sheamus' brief alliance, the Nexus run in and the remaining falls concealed some fairly run-of-the-mill action. The finish seemed rushed - a minute long between the last two guys, but four minutes of Orton posing with the belt is weird.

10.10pm: One great match, a couple of decent things, but a lot of stuff that could have been better. But definitely watch the US title match.

11.11pm: (That concludes this comprehensive 'getting-to-know-me' session. I assume I am now much beloved.)

Michinoku Pro: 15th September 1994

A notable show, opening with SATO, Shiryu and and Terry Boy, marking the first appearance of the Kai En Tai stable. The latter is in the opening match. Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Terry Boy was one of my favourite M-Pro matches from 1993, and this is the rematch (or something, because it's 14 months later). There's a few knocks against this - the opening brawl feels like late 90s hardcore title material, with too much walking and not enough punching people. You get a sense of the changing dynamics of the promotion, with Terry Boy being in control for most of it and getting the better of Shinzaki with repeated attacks to the arm and counters of his trademark moves into armbars. Shinzaki eventually goes for a chair and opens Terry up leaving a large bloody gash over his left eye for the rest of the match. This is an interesting transition match. By the end of the show, Terry is pretty much working rudo, but here he is still slightly the underdog, and Shinzaki resorts to weapons to take control of the match in a typical heelish move. Yet it's a more aggressive Terry throughout - less sympathetic, more vicious on offence.

With all the focus on the new stable, Great Sasuke vs. Turako is heavily clipped. It starts from Turako's tope, then Sasuke does his no-hand somersault tope, then Turaki cheats to get ahead, then Sasuke comes back and wins (with a cross face chickenwing, somewhat unexpectedly). It's all solid, but this is a match missing a large chunk of it's body, and hard to judge.

Super Delfin and TAKA Michinoku v SATO and Shiryu was an excellent way to launch the Kai En Tai stable. It's part-angle really, a twenty minute rudo beatdown with a stretcher job for Delfin and a DQ finish when they throw the ref aside. It's also the first televised match featuring SATO the bruiser, rather than SATO the impossibly athletic heavy guy. There's no matwork or rope-running or dives here, just chops, kicks and punches designed to look as damaging as possible. Those chops were wild and great. The beating TAKA takes is really something, and his mini-comeback, featuring the no-hand plancha, completely had the crowd (and me). It was borderline cathartic as he made a two-on-one comeback - only for it to be snuffed out by a near-impossible mismatch (or, more accurately, a dropkick to the back of the head). The DQ was moments later, which was sensible, because the whole thing had acheived it's purpose and there was no way to improve upon it with another extended beatdown. Great stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing how TAKA ends up in the group after this.

Michinoku Pro: 30th July 1994

This show is spread over two Champ Forums. There's a joshi match to start which I didn't get much from, and they show the end of a tag match with Terry Boy and Shiryu against Hanzo Nakajima and Masato Yakushiji which is really too short to have any feeling for. There is a Shiryu tope though, and that's always worthwhile.

OK, onto matches I care about. The six man tag (Kendo, SATO and Piloto vs. Super Boy, Delfin and Naniwa) was an absolute blast. The layout was pretty much comedy, comedy, comedy, highspots and finish. I was pleased to see more Kendo after enjoying a match of his from the previous year. Super Boy, once again, was tremendous.

This must be a WAR vs. M-Pro show. Jado vs. TAKA Michinoku was a fun match. It was built around TAKA being outmatched, but using big highspots to keep up. It's really made by the final run of big moves - they are well-paced and sold well - and the finish is really impressive, with Jado doing a super hurricanrana where he maintains contact and finishes in a pinning position. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Main event was Great Sasuke and Ultimo Dragon vs. Jinsei Shinzaki & Gedo. A few things really stood out here. Firstly, it is really pleasing when you see a conventional wisdom shattered to pieces. In this case, many people's opinion of mid 90s Gedo was shaped by Scott Keith and his very negative opinion of him in reviews of the Super J Cups in 1994 and 1995. Anyone who still buys into that needs to see this match, because Gedo is really great in it. He's a completely dickish heel, faking injuries, stomping on heads and groins and riling the crowd up with a cocky swagger. He also takes a couple of big bumps, works some exciting nearfalls (particularly after a snap powerslam) and he does this nice thing where he gets dropkicked on the turnbuckle, bumps his head off the ring post (unprotected) and falls backwards.

Second thing is how different Sasuke and Dragon are. Sasuke is really good at selling the heels offence, while Dragon blows pretty much everything off in favour of more posing. Sasuke looks worn down going down the stretch, while Dragon just does his stuff. Sure, he has some high spots, but so does Sasuke, and they are far crazier (the quebradora over the turnbuckle to the outside would have been awesome, had Shinzaki caught him at all). And he blows stuff as well. The Segunda Caida WAR project is already doing its part to point out how overrated Ultimo Dragon is - I am completely on board with that. Anyway, the match is pretty good, Dragon aside. There's a couple of minor weaker moments - the above mentioned quebradora and one of the other Sasuke's dives has a weird catch which couldn't decide if it was successful or blocked - but a lot of it is a good time.

Michinoku Pro: 11th June 2010

Rasse vs. Daisuke Sasaki featured Sasaki brining some nice looking high spots and sequences and Rasse, bizarrely, bringing next to nothing. Sasaki could potentially be a fun flyer. The two Kowloon matches (Satos vs. Numajiro and Oyanagi, Minamino, Ooma and Ken45° vs. Yapper Man #1 & Yapper Man #2 and Kenbai) didn't do anything I hadn't seen before. The latter in particular was heavy on the rope running and light on structure.

The multi-promotional invitation match pitted El Samurai, Takashi Sasaki and Boso Boy Raito against Ryuji Ito, HIROKI and Daichi Sasaki. I believe this was Daichi Sasaki's debut - I don't know what his connection is to Sasuke, but the story of the match was all about him getting beaten up. Samurai was a lot of fun in this, especially the bit where I thought he'd actually broken Daichi's nose with a punch, and then he follows it up with a bunch of dickish submissions where he kept returning to the nose. Daichi, for his part, brought the weakest strikes of all time. I don't know if it was on purpose, but there's no escaping the fact that he did a lot of stroking of chests.

The semi-main was Ultimo Dragon, Minamino and Nohashi vs. Shinzaki, Kenou and Hiugaji. Unlike every other Kowloon trios match for the past two years, this one was packed with genuine heat, violence and palpable dislike between the two sides. Heel Ultimo Dragon is as watchable as face Ultimo Dragon is dull. He comes off like a true rudo captain, directing triple teams, taunting opponents, taking shortcuts, begging off and luring the faces into an ambush. Also, his new mask is awesome. It starts with Hayato attempting to fight through an injured leg, until Kenou kicks it to shreds. This leads to Minamino leaping in, sparking a huge brawl - not a time filling one like, but truly glorious chaos. Even Shinzaki was motivated, moving faster than I'd seen in a long time against Nohashi. The pairing on Minamino and Kenou produced the matches best moments: this gets so intense that Kenou seems to lose all interest in the match at the expense of kicking Minamino a bunch more times. There's a spot where Nohashi has him on his knees, and he still keeps on punching Minamino in the midriff despite him being far less of an immediate concern. He forgoes making a hot tag when he has the opportunity (more kicking), and even when he's the last man standing after an series of moves between all six, he prefers to take Minamino to the outside and post him some more, rather than seek a pinfall. It's kind of exhilirating, and the match is kind of one of my favourite things from Japan this year.

Finally, the main event: Great Sasuke and Dick Togo vs. FUNAKI and TAKA Michinoku, for Sasuke's 20th anniversary. Sasuke comes out the some heavy metal, fist-pumping and faking playing the guitar in the crowd. He also has a little beard. Obviously, it was goofy as hell. This is a match of two very different teams. First question - how is it that FUNAKI looks like the oldest, most tired person in this match. He's spent the last decade doing backstage interviews and two minute matches. Anyway, he and TAKA really don't do anything of interest in the whole match - their heat section on Sasuke was plodding and dull and not exactly classic Kaientai DX. Sasuke and Togo, on the other hand, worked really hard. Togo is the support player here, but all of his bits were really fun, his offence is still crisp and violent where other 90s juniors have become slack. His somersault tope was pretty spectacular, almost threatening to outdo all of Sasuke's crazy dives. He's also really great at getting the crowd going, and setting up Sasuke to take centre stage. Sasuke, for his part, was his usual self once he got there, a combination of big risky moves and the weariness of an ageing body. Spot of the match was Sasuke missing a somersault senton, watching TAKA roll out of the ring, and dragging himself up the turnbuckle to have another go. Fun, but perhaps not as good as I was hoping.

A Bunch of: 2010 Japan Indie Title Matches (part one)

What with Shuji Ishikawa and Daisuke Sekimoto's KO-D title runs and several other big title matches and switches over the year so far, I thought work through them in addition to all the Big Japan, Michinoku Pro, Battlarts and K-Dojo shows I'll be reviewing in full. That way, I actually might have seen enough stuff to justify submitting a 2010 Japanese ballot at DVDVR.

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yoshihito Sasaki, Union Pro, 24th January 2010

First half of this was about Ishikawa taking away Sasaki's lariat and chopping arm and Sasaki taking away Ishikawa's knee strikes and kicking leg. The second half of this was about both guys unloading their heavy weaponry, which included Sasaki's lariat and chops and Ishikawa's knee strikes. So, you can see, this match is problematic. Hard-hitting, perhaps even well-paced, but problematic. Yoshihito Sasaki is also not a guy averse to taking dangerous head drops, nor to completely no-selling them, which given I was already feeling ill-disposed towards the match already really did no it no favours.

Dick Togo vs. Billy Ken Kid, Osaka Pro, 11th February 2010

Tremendous Togo performance. Last year, I thought some of his face-in-peril work was the best in Japan, this year it's a rudo performance that impresses. The match is divided into a series of heat sections with brief comebacks, and Togo finds new and interesting things to do each time, whilst letting BKK to bring a few highspots. The mask theft stuff was great: not a DQ in Japan, but completely disabling as he tries to obscure his face. My biggest problem is that BKK's final comeback - the one where he got his mask back - was disappointing and lacklustre. It really should have been "OK, I've taken 30 minutes of this crap, ENOUGH", but amounted to some weak strikes and the feeling like he almost didn't know what to do next, leaving Togo to take the offence back right where it should have built to the satisfying payoff. Frustrating finish to a great solo performance.


Shuji Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Sekimoto, Union Pro 28th February 2010

I liked this much more that the Sasaki match, and the odd thing about saying that is that, as a match, its much less ambitious. The leg vs. arm story in the Sasaki match is much more interesting, but the execution is weak, which is really such a widespread thing in Japanese wrestling it gets a little depressing. Here, it's very much a case of keeping things simple, leading to a fun power match. Sekimoto is much more worthwhile when against a bigger guy. His power stuff becomes impressive and he doesn't go into finisher overdrive. He's someone I have learned to enjoy in his own way (like in these sort of matches and in tags) - can't expect anything particularly smart, but in certain circumstances his angry-faces and running-around and sort-of-topes have a familiar charm.

Kaientai Dojo 9th August 2009

I watched the openers at some point in the past, and had no desire to rewatch a battle royale or PSYCHO vs. Quiet Storm again. I have no memories of either being any good.

First real match of interest was Minoru Suzuki vs. Kengo Mashimo. Most of this was perfectly decent - two guys knocking seven bells out of each other is hard to get wrong. Mashimo gets smart first and targets Suzuki's arm with loads of kicks and a couple of armbars. The fight against the submissions is too long - drama builds for a while, but it soon becomes apparent there isn't going to be a submission, which means it peters out. The long-term selling is a bit suspect - Mashimo blows off Suzuki's early attacks to launch a comeback, whilst Suzuki isn't too emphasise his damaged arm. That aside, I liked the strike exchange at the finish, with Suzuki ducking and diving, and the chance opportunity to lock in the rear naked choke felt in keeping with a match where Suzuki was higher ranked but was mostly coming from behind.

Next up, TAKA vs. Kashiwa for the title. I gave this two watches, because the first one left me completely surprised. Basically, it boils down to this: given the opportunity, Daigora Kashiwa might be one of the best wrestlers in Japan that nobody talks about. Nobody. He's like Tamon Honda in that he completely doesn't look like what popular Japanese wrestlers look like in 2010, and his style isn't particularly pretty, but it is very effective and like basically nothing within the current indie scene. He has two basic weapons: his headbutts, which he uses like chops or kicks as his go-to offence, and a camel clutch which he regularly looks to get TAKA in position to lock in. The headbutts come from all angles and are targetted against all limbs - TAKA occassionaly looks completely surprised by this, as another headbutt strikes him in the midriff or the hip or the arm. Near the end, he combines the two, headbutting TAKA in the back of the skull whilst fighting to keep him in the hold.

TAKA is mostly along for the ride here, but to his credit he keeps in simple and responds to the camel clutch attempts with his own submission hold (whatever he calls that). My favourite part of the match was where Kashiwa fights out of this with headbutts to the arm to weaken the hold. This is a match with plenty of scrambling for position and fighting for holds, which I really liked. Add to this a fun opening where Kashiwa surprises TAKA mid-streamer shower and a really great finish where TAKA can't hold onto the headlock submission so shifts to this leg-scissor version that Kashiwa can't escape from. Had I seen this earlier, it would have made my Japanese top 10 at least, and probably higher.

The main event, Oishi and Asahi vs. YOSHIYA and GENTARO, was predictably mindless. Loads of back and forth with no real structure or anything more long-term than the present second and occassionally the one after that, all capped off with a rubbish looking finish - whatever there awful assisted Canadian Destoyer is called, GENTARO jumped right out of it. However, let me reinterate: everyone, track down the title match. It's really good.

Michinoku Pro: 5th October 2009 (part two)

Kinya Oyanagi vs. Kenbai and Takeshi Minamino vs. Rasse were both quick openers. The latter was a three minute mismatch, which was a shame because bigger guy vs. Rey Mysterio lookalike has potential to be fun at least (see bigger guy vs. Rey Mysterio matches from past decade).

Next, Shinjitsu Nohashi and Rui Hiugaji vs. Yapper Man #1 and Yapper Man #2. I have no idea where they clipped this: it was either in the middle, or just showed the last four minutes. This seemed kind of low-impact, even in the high spots (planchas with little force, dropkicks placed on the chest), so it wasn't even that good a sprint.

I never really enjoy either Ken 45 vs. Ultimo Dragon purely as wrestlers, but they deserve credit for the performing aspect here: Ultimo is good at rallying babyface support from the seated masses, whilst Ken 45 is fine as an expressive rudo. The booking in this was very WWE-ish, with a lone babyface taking on a heel stable single-handedly, and coming unstuck due to a mix-up. The story works though, and distracts away from both guys limited in-ring work, which is smart.

Sasuke and Shinzaki and Numajiro vs. Shu and Kei Sato and Maguro Ooma was your Standard Kowloon Match - plenty of action and exchanges, but little in the way of structure. Not quite comedy, not quite serious, too much Numajiro (who seemed to be the focus of the match, especially the finish, so maybe it's was an anniversary match). Sasuke's involvement is limited, more's the pity, a few comedy spots (his overly-delayed Randy the Ram forearm is always amusing, but spots involving trolleys have been overplayed now) was about it. There are brief moments I liked here - some of the Kowloon teams bumping from weak Numajiro offence, and their slick triple team offence - but most is largely forgettable.

The main event was my favourite match from Japan in 2009 - reviewed elsewhere - and, quite frankly, it is the only thing worth watching on this show. But then, they give the match and the build-up over an hour of TV time, so you get the impression the promotion knows that too.

A (possible) WWE Money In The Bank 2010 Live Blog

Tuesday, 20th July, 9.10pm: This show has been finished and completed for nearly two days, and I have managed to inadvertently find out who leaves the show with the world title belts. Damn you Twitter and my inability to not follow links even though I suspect they will spoil a surprise.

9.15pm: PLAY. I have a cup of tea (no milk or sugar). Just hardcore tea. My wife is drinking heavily in the corner and cursing at the Irish (this is a lie).

9.21pm: Smackdown Money In The Bank match. And Kofi is first out. Great news for fans of Kofi Kingston in ladder matches. Maybe he'll try that stilts spot again. Four guys I like in this (Dolph, Christian, Matt and Big Show), four guys I don't care four (others, look up names yourself)

9.27pm: Big Show was awesome at the beginning of this. I loved the look on his face as he breaks that first ladder under his weight.

9.59pm: Well, how about that? At first watch, I thought that was really good. Felt a lot more like a fight and a struggle compared to the usual spotfest with elaborate unrealistic setups. Having the two big guys in there gave it a different feel, with one story being about how the smaller guys could restrain them. Big Show's involvement was great - he made getting the huge ladder into a real performance for what could have been very dull - but they don't overplay his stuff and use credible stuff to keep him out. He took Kofi's DDT like a king. A little bit, I thought Dolph was the best guy in this. He's a good bumper, so there's plenty of opportunity for that (has he started doing Foley's apron bump regularly? Onto ladder was a cool spot), but his best moments came fighting with Kane on the ladder, scrambling over him then catching him with a sleeperhold. Kane does some stuff I don't like, but the booking of Drew Macintrye as the guy left at the end only for Kane to stop him was a great way of getting a face pop. Had it been Matt Hardy, for example, it would have been badly received.

10.15pm: Oh, and Kofi was inoffensive and that announce desk leg drop was nuts. Well played, WWE. Next match.

10.17pm: Next match soon. Errands have emerged.

11.25pm: Sheamus interview. I'd like to clarify that great white sharks do have souls. Some produce beautiful poetry (largely unwritten), about the loneliness of being a shark in a world that thinks you are soulless. Decent interview. Sheamus has got better at talking.

11.28pm: Eve Torres vs. Alicia Fox begins. It's the battle of the divas with surnames. This was what it was. Alicia Fox looks more able than the average diva. Is it futile to point out that if you can't do a suplex because of a bad back, you can't then do a moonsault?

11.36pm: Speaking of divas, my wife has just fired our cleaning lady for putting the shampoo in the conditioner's spot on the shelf (utter fiction).

11.39pm: That was not a realistic conversation between Jack Swagger and the (imaginary) Ma Swagger, unless Ma and Pa Swagger are divorced. Or, more probably, if they are still are married.

11.40pm: Haven't seen the Usos before.

11.50pm: That was a perfectly decent, if short tag match. Felt like they packed a lot in and I was surprised only about seven minutes passed. Usos look like competent heels, and that assisted samoan drop was very cool. I'm very into the Harts being top team now, after being jobbed out all of last year. They complement each other well - definitely a greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts deal

Wednesday, 21st July, 12.01pm: Tired. Going to put on the Segunda Caida radio hour and fall asleep to Eric and Phil's melodious banter and Dean's falsetto. Will finish this tomorrow, providing my wife doesn't insist we got out shooting dogs again (absolutely never happened before).

11.52pm: This is ridiculous. I've been procrastinating watching stand-up on Youtube. Onwards.

11.56pm: Man, I wish I'd watched more Smackdown this last month. Rey vs. Swagger is on my screen now. Rey appears to be wearing his tribute to the gimp from Pulp Fiction costume, one of the lesser superheroes.

Thursday, 21st July, 12.05am: I love Rey busting out the split-leg moonsault as he's going around on a bad leg. Commentators missed how clever that was.

12.11am: Just a really nice match. Swagger looks great beating up Rey, Rey plays to his strengths (great selling, nice comebacks, including a couple of really nice dodges which barely missed). Couple of minor annoyances (Rey's setup headscissors seems to get less and less believable, and the top rope DDT was telegraphed and looked overly co-operative.

12.16am: This MitB angle is WELL played out by this point. Are they doing a split personality thing with Kane? That was the only thing that struck me as interesting here. That tombstone was a mistake, there was daylight and some of the following night between Rey's head and the mat.

12.20am: Layla vs. Kelly. SC's Eric says Layla is good, I have seen no singles matches of hers in 2010. Let us test this hypothesis. LayCool always strike me as two of the better developed characters on the show, and it's not just booking - they play them well.

12.27am: Fine for what it was. I liked Layla using Finlay's ring apron spot, but the slightly botch the dodgy finish. OK, it's late again. More sleep.

6.22pm: Right, I'm finishing this tonight. RAW ladder match now.

6.35pm: OK, a lot of this is really uninspiring and unimaginative multi-person ladder match fare. But Mark Henry pushing four guys off the ladder in two directions was a really cool visual. Bourne and Henry are the only people I care about so far, mostly for actually bringing something new to the table.

6.40pm: Morrison's obstacle course run to the ladder was nice - sort of thing that usually goes wrong. His unprotected bump inside the ladder looked really nasty.

6.43pm: Not a word of a lie: Henry bump off Edge's spear outside was the greatest bump ever taken by any man ever.

6.50pm: Fuck it. COME ON EVAN.

6.54pm: Nowhere near as good as the Smackdown match. Highspots weren't as good, loads of stuff that was overly contrived. The few nice moments featured Henry (his elimination was great, his bumping and selling off of that terrible offence was a sight to behold) and Bourne (I liked the shooting star out of nowhere). It felt like all the really good ideas were taken by the Smackdown match. All things in moderation, WWE.

7.02pm: Main event: Sheamus vs. Cena, in a cage.

7.30pm: A perfectly solid main event, with overbooked ending. Not particularly violent or hate-filled, nor did it feature anything standout-ish, but it was all put together well. I thought that they might actually give Sheamus a cleaner win at one stage, before Nexus came out. That said, this felt like a match where Sheamus seemed at home as heel champion and main-eventer, and I think that was Cena's doing.

7.33pm: I think it's time to move Cena away from the title belt for a bit, which this Nexus angle gives the opportunity for. Overall, a good show, with most things solid, and only the second ladder match disappointing my expectations. The opener was most surprising of all, and I recommend a watch.

7.35pm: My wife has just proof-read this post, and dislocated my arm as a punishment (a complete fabrication).

A Bunch of: Jerry Lawler's Memphis 2010

Jerry Lawler's Memphis promotion is back on TV, and as part of my Indie-cision 2010 project, I figured I'd watch the first four shows together. You too can do this at Lawler's website. The episodes run to around 35 minutes once the adverts and WWE clips are stripped out, and with two or three matches and interviews on each of them, I'm not expecting a classic. But quite a lot has been solid, and there's some fun to be had as well. Let's focus on the good stuff.

Derrick King is quite clearly the best guy on the show so far. He's had one short match with sort-of bland babyface Matt Boyce which was a really nice two and a half minutes of action. His main input so far has been this little feud with Koko B. Ware, which started with a really intense promo exchange, followed it up with a pull-apart brawl the following week, then had a four minute match in the last week. I loved King's selling off punches and his expressions after bump-taking, and he generally carries off the pace of his matches with significant presence.

I also liked the two Kid Nikels and Eric Wayne vs. Cody Melton and Stan Lee matches from what they appear to be calling their tag division - nothing complicated, but it felt really fluent and pacy and there's plenty of no-nonsense stiffness. The first was longer, and they do an abridged version of the longer formula with a false then a real face-in-peril section, whilst the second is almost entirely heat section, then a quick comeback victory. Both classic templates and all four guys do them well. Cody Melton and Stan Lee have a versatile heel act - it's much more obvious in the second match, when they slow things down more, cheat more and get cockier, whilst in the first one they pace is faster and they have to work together more and cheat less.

There's been some good booking and some less good decisions. It's at its best when sticking to simplicity - fight one weeks leads to match next week. There's main storylines so far have: Koko vs. King, which has progressed nicely with both guys doing good work inside and outside the ring, and the Southern title tournament which has been used for two additional purposes - the building up of heel Brian Christopher, and to establish Matt Boyce as the second top babyface (below Lawler). Christopher's turn sort of came out of nowhere (tagged with Lawler one week, cut a heel promo the next), but he's pretty dislikable and suits the role. His in-ring work hasn't been particularly notable yet, but the booking of his character is covering it up. Boyce, as mentioned above, is a little bland, but he's being booked well - he can bump, and he keeps sneaking quick pinfall victories. Aside form his match with Derrick King, the formula worked well against the physically imposing Tommy Mercer.

Lawler needs to establish a program for himself, because the show is missing a top babyface at present. They started to set up a program with Kevin White last show, which will hopefully go somewhere. In the meantime, there seems to be about thirty colour commentators/managers who want to retire Lawler or stop him winning the title or other unspecific threats. A re-run of Lawler vs. Jimmy Hart is no bad idea, but they need to pick a direction. On a related point, Brandon Baxter, as commentator, has been excellent, talking up the matches and the workers, but not in an annoying, paid-by-the-superlative way. Ring announcer and occassional commentator Lauren Jenkins is keen (and very pretty, has this been noticed by anyone yet?) but she is right at the bottom of the learning curve of doing good commentary - Baxter, however, is really good at working all her observations into something more insightful.

I will be watching more of this.