Stardom - Cinderella Tournament 2017 (4/30/2017)

1. Cinderella Tournament 2017 First Round: HZK vs. Jungle Kyona

This match had a good urgency, selling, and HEAT! HZK impressed with the new moves she unveiled and how she applied them.

***3/4

3. Cinderella Tournament 2017 First Round: Kris Wolf vs. Tessa Blanchard

***

4. Cinderella Tournament 2017 First Round: Kagetsu vs. Konami

***

8. Cinderella Tournament 2017 First Round: Hana Kimura vs. Io Shirai

No sexy pose from Io Shirai. What a shame. The atmosphere of this match feels different from the previous matches, the crowd is hot with anticipation. Hana-chan gains a ton of momentum behind her dropkicks and boots, and Io bumped good as usual. The dragon screws from Io were sold as viciously as they looked, and she starts to devastate the limb. The close-calls were intense and the crowd was going bonkers at possibility of Hana eliminating Io.

****

10. Cinderella Tournament 2017 Quarter Final: HZK vs. Kairi Hojo

I'm not into Hojo's performance in this tournament. There's great heat from HZK during this clash; she's become one of my absolute favorites to watch.

***

13. Cinderella Tournament 2017 Final: Mayu Iwatani vs. Toni Storm

This didn't quite reach the hype levels of some of the previous matches with the crowd, and I probably wouldn't have liked this as much as I did if Toni was facing anyone else. Mayu was built to take these moves. her selling was superb, limbs flailing like spaghetti, and her facial expressions are great too. Storm was an absolute superwoman here and adsorbed everything that was thrown at her.

***3/4

DDT - Audience 2017 (5/28/2017)

1. Shuten-doji (KUDO, Masahiro Takanashi & Yukio Sakaguchi) vs. T2Hide (Hirata Collection A.T. & Toru Owashi) & Hiranito Collection A.T.

*1/2

2. Antonio Honda & Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Heidi Katrina & Saki Akai

Heidi Katrina has beaten legends such as Sonoko Kato and Jazz, held the NWA Women's Championship, and now she's training with Meiko Satomura and wrestling in Senjo and DDT! What a wild run she's on!

**

3. KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship: NωA (Makoto Oishi, MAO & Shunma Katsumata) (c) vs. Danshoku Dino, Keisuke Ishii & Royce Isaacs

A fun trios match that ended before Isaacs' gimmick wore out its welcome. I don't think Ishii even did anything here other than hold down whomever Isaac was going to snap the arm of with his unbreakable ass. What a shame.

**

4. ALL OUT (Akito & Diego) vs. Smile Squash (HARASHIMA & Soma Takao)

Formerly known as Guanchulo, Diego is revealed as the mystery third member of ALL OUT. Watching this live, I was pretty disappointed. Guanchulo has been around for YEARS and is the definition of vanilla, but every unit needs a fallman, I suppose. Nice match.

***

5. Minoru Suzuki & Rocky Kawamura vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Super Sasadango Machine

I feel like Minoru Suzuki meme booking has lost its appeal over the years, but I enjoyed his performance in this match; the finish where he fucks up Sasadango and turns over his mask looked great. Rocky Kawamura rules!

**1/2

6. DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Shuji Ishikawa & Tetsuya Endo) vs. Kazusada Higuchi, Kouki Iwasaki & Shigehiro Irie

Fun, mindless trios match where DAMNATION controlled the ring. Iwasaki looked good in his session against Ishikawa.

***

7. KO-D Openweight Championship: Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Yasu Urano

This devolves into the 'stop, start' pacing that's becoming all too common in DDT main events lately, with back and forth big movez, and it didn't engage me. Still, it was nice to see Urano go out with a bang in his final DDT match.

**3/4

Stardom - Shining Stars In Kagawa (4/23/2017)

2. Kagetsu vs. Natsuko Tora

**1/4

3. Hiromi Mimura & Kairi Hojo vs. Queen's Quest (HZK & Io Shirai)

***

4. SWA World Championship: Toni Storm (c) vs. La Rosa Negra

**1/2

5. Hetzza & The Craft (Jessicka Havok & Tessa Blanchard) vs. Jungle Kyona, Konami & Mayu Iwatani

***

DDT - Road to Ryogoku 2017 ~ Dramatic Dream Clock Tower ~ (5/21/2017)

1. Danshoku Dino & Royce Isaacs vs. T2Hide (Hirata Collection A.T. & Sanshiro Takagi)

This Royce Isaacs guy can break things with his ass and he's over. He'll be main eventing Wrestle Kingdom in 8 years.

*

2. NωA (Makoto Oishi & Shunma Katsumata) & Soma Takao vs. KUDO, Tomoya & Toru Owashi

Toru has had the same look for decades. How has he been allowed to get away with this? This was a fun match. The literal who indie hack was impressive.

***

3. Keisuke Ishii vs. Koji Yoshida

Who the hell is Koji Yoshida? Ishii was fucking this guy up with rough kicks to the face and submission holds, but the indie hack wouldn't stay down. He hits an Emerald Fusion that fails to get the job done, and Ishii pins him with a Tiger suplex. Fun little match, I loved the way they bumped.

***1/2

4. DAMNATION (Mad Paulie & Tetsuya Endo) vs. Shuten-doji (Masahiro Takanashi & Yukio Sakaguchi)

Sakaguchi was on fire in this match. He leaps off the back of Paulie to kick the hell out of Endo in an awesome sequence. Endo lands his shooting star weird and almost fucks himself up. This ruled!

***

5. Kouki Iwasaki & MAO vs. Smile Squash (HARASHIMA & Yasu Urano)

Another fast-paced tag, but this one was a bit more methodical, with HARASHIMA destroying MAO's limbs with surgical legdrops, and Urano following up on it by working the leg. MAO hardly sold it, but I'll forgive him! This moved at an exciting pace; no time for nonsense like long-term selling. Urano gets a bloody lip scuffling with the DNA youngins. Good stuff.

***3/4

6. DDT Extreme Championship - No Disqualification: Daisuke Sasaki (c) vs. Antonio Honda

Sasaki takes a spike piledriver through a table, which looked dangerous and idiotic, but... it also looked really awesome! Honda applies an Octopus Hold on the damage neck of Sasaki, but the DAMNATION leader has his cohorts to break the hold. Honda clears the scumbags off the apron, and tries for a diving fist drop, but Sasaki lifts up the ring bell to counter! Antonio's arm is beyond fucked and he's selling it brilliantly, attempting to make the one-armed comeback before Sasaki shuts him down. Awesome match, the punches were great, and I just enjoy the sound of bodies crushing into piles of chairs!

****

7. KO-D Tag Team Championship (vacant): ALL OUT (Akito & Konosuke Takeshita) vs. Kazusada Higuchi & Shigehiro Irie

Sweat sparks fly during the Takeshita/Higuchi exchange; these two will obviously clash in singles soon. Akito comes in with his geeky technical wizardry, targeting the hurting arm of Higuchi, but Higuchi overpowers him with a chokeslam. He was so adamant about working that arm and kept getting overpowered. Poor Akito. Very awesome match, with plenty of movez and hard hits throughout.

****

DDT - Choshi Electric Railway x DDT Train Pro-Wrestling (4/16/2017)

Falls Count Anywhere Gauntlet Battle Royal: Danshoku Dino vs. Guanchulo vs. HARASHIMA vs. Kazusada Higuchi vs. Keisuke Ishii vs. Ladybeard vs. Mad Paulie vs. Makoto Oishi vs. MAO vs. Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Rekka vs. Royce Isaacs vs. Saki Akai vs. Sanshiro Takagi vs. Shunma Katsumata vs. Yasu Urano

***

DAMNATION - Unlawful Assembly (4/14/2017)

1. Falls Count Anywhere Match: Antonio Honda, Gota Ihashi & Masahiro Takanashi vs. Brahman Brothers (Brahman Kei & Brahman Shu) & HARASHIMA

A Brahman Brothers match.

**

2. X vs. Nobuhiro Shimatani

Heidi Katrina was revealed as the X, and instantly gets over with this crowd who can't stop wooing her. Her movements felt mechanic at times, but she was hitting hard and the little no-neck bastard bumped good. 

**1/4

3. Ryuichi Sekine vs. Tetsuya Endo vs. Yusuke Kodama

Tetsuya Endo being cool as fuck.

***

4. Daisuke Sekimoto & Masato Tanaka vs. DAMNATION (Mad Paulie & Shuji Ishikawa)

Masato Tanaka is one of my favorite spot wrestler ever. He just goes non-stop. This was a fun clash between badass hard-hitting dudes and Daisuke Sekimoto.

***1/2

5. DDT Extreme Championship - Ultimate Submission Match: Daisuke Sasaki (c) vs. Dick Togo

Big Dick Togo gains the early lead with 2 points, and Sasaki has to pick his spots to even the score. The moments where Sasaki stalks before striking the worked-over leg were great, and gave the match that 'human chess game' vibe. Both competitors have measured/urgent movements, and the submission hold struggles and limb selling were very compelling. Also dug the punches they connected with in this. Great match!

****

Ice Ribbon - Yokohama Ribbon 2017 GW II (5/5/2017)

1. Elimination: Maruko Nagasaki, Matsuya Uno, Satsuki Totoro & Tequila Saya vs. Team DATE (Hana DATE, Karen DATE, Nao DATE & Nori DATE)

**1/4

2. Eiger vs. Hamuko Hoshi

**3/4

3. 235, Maya Yukihi & Risa Sera vs. Akane Fujita, Mochi Miyagi & Rina Yamashita

***

4. Miyako Matsumoto vs. Yoshiko

This turned out to be surprisingly competitive with Miyako getting clever counters and near-falls. Yoshiko kept this thing tight, and shows off her Y-shaped balance.

***

5. Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto

This was a good and well-paced timeout draw, full of neat set-ups and counters.

***1/2

6. International Ribbon Tag Team Championship: This is Ice Ribbon (Hiiragi Kurumi & Tsukushi) (c) vs. GEKOKUJyou (Kyuuri & Maika Ozaki)

Maika Ozaki looked awesome here, running through her opponents as the bulldozer of GEKOKU, but Kurumi has power herself and was quick to remind her opponents of that! Kyuuri gave a great performance as well. Obviously Tsukushi threw her wicked strikes. This was great.

***3/4

Yuu, Shoko Nakajima & Nodoka-oneesan vs. Mil Clown, Miyu Yamashita & Reika Saiki (Tokyo Joshi Pro, 5/7/2017)

Tokyo Joshi Pro - Girls Fight Out #4 (5/7/2017)

Mil Clown Goodbye Match: Yuu, Shoko Nakajima & Nodoka-oneesan vs. Mil Clown, Miyu Yamashita & Reika Saiki

***1/4