Happy Wrestling Land, The Newsletter: Vol. 9
The "Happy Wrestling Land Newsletter Vol. 8 Backlash" Edition
With apologies to those who look forward to the Happy Wrestling Land Newsletter on the weekend…
This week! Captain Lou checks in with DDT where Kenoh causes trouble and Dragon Gate where Hip Hop Kikuta learns the dangers of the drop-toe hold. In addition to Happy Thoughts on WrestleMania Backlash (featuring zombies), your regularly scheduled coverage of WWE TV and AEW Dynamite can also be found below.
DDT Max Bump 2021 (5/4/21) - Captain Lou
Dragon Gate Dead or Alive 2021 (5/5/21) - Captain Lou
AEW Dynamite Performance Review (5/12/21) - Dum Dum Daniels
Working Man’s WWE TV Review (5/9/21 - 5/15/21) - Dum Dum Daniels
WWE WrestleMania Backlash (5/16/21) - Dum Dum Daniels
Have the best week.
Captain Lou’s Review: DDT Max Bump 2021 (5/4/2021)
Kikutaro vs. Antonio Honda vs. Danshoku Dino – 3-Way Match
Real sadness hours. The Kikutaro/Ref Matsui relationship has a special place in my heart, but this was a bleak reunion. No crowd to even politely clap for the non-sense and no Osaka Pro callbacks whatsoever. Mostly just Depressed Kikutaro playing off his recent American jail trauma. The Prison Lock finish was a powerful dad joke but that’s about it.
Akito vs. Mad Paulie
Not a bad way to turn Akito into a title contender after months of aimlessness. Very 80’s TV wrestling enhancement match vibe – your favorite Cyberfight exec toppling the Damnation monster via persistent leg attacks. I mean, Akito almost looked too strong here. What with him effortlessly picking up Paulie for the gutwrench suplex and Yokosuka kneebreaker. I’m the only person on the Internet who cares about protecting Mad Paulie’s monster aura though, so it’s all good. **1/2
Sanshiro Takagi, Yukio Naya, Chikara & Yakan Nabe © vs. Keigo Nakamura, Hideki Okatani, Toi Kojima & Yuya Koroku – KO-D 8-Man Tag Team Titles
Better than it had any right to be! The DDT kids all made the most of the opportunity, even if they were up against Takagi’s random-ass squad of disappointing sons. Big time energy from everyone involved – including workrate master Chikara who meshed well with Toi. Naya lived up to his potential as a Destroyer of Small Men, the tall teenage terror stiffing the holy hell out any youngster who dared stepping up to him. Absolutely loved the ending stretch between Keigo and Takagi. From the springboard dropkick BIKE CUTOFF to the big money kickouts – Nakamura looked like a star. ***1/4
Kenoh has defeated COVID and he is now ready for an even bigger challenge: SANSHIRO TAKAGI!
Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata & MAO vs. Kazusada Higuchi, Yukio Sakaguchi & Yuki Iino vs. Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo & Yuji Hino – 3-Way Tag Match
Fresh off a successful stint on the award-winning TV drama DARK: ELEVATION, Takeshita came back home with one goal. Proving that DDT can do high-complexity videogame wrestling just as well as their AEW overlords. The result was this match: a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it multiman banger of the highest order – up there with the best Sauna Club tags of the last few months. Even without a crowd! Whoever is laying out these matches has the same heightened sense of creativity as CIMA and company during Dragon Gate’s golden era. Just an endless stream of Fun Shit, with the 3-way tropes enhancing the action in the wildest ways imaginable (6-man stacked Superplex/Powerbomb!?). Blessed wrestling. ***3/4
Chris Brookes © vs. Saki Akai © – DDT Extreme Title + Ironman Heavy Metal Title
Parts of this tried a bit too hard to be epic. Other parts were as epic as empty arena wrestling gets. Faults and all, it was an ambitious match and I had a great time for most of it. Brookes’ mission statement through all of this was to babyface the living hell out of Saki. His heelishness felt a bit flimsy at times, but Akai rose so hard to the challenge that the gamble paid off. Truly wonderful performance from Saki – her best DDT showing since the Meiko Satomura from last year.
She put it all together here: from the emoting to the selling and fiery comebacks. They lifted the Don’t Piss Off Ibushi spot wholesale from all of your favorite NJPW matches and somehow improved upon it with Saki firing off the nastiest guh punch of the year. The ending stretch could’ve used some tightening, but I still came out of it a born-again Saki Akai Stan. Mission accomplished. ***3/4
Jun Akiyama, Makoto Oishi & Yusuke Okada vs. HARASHIMA, Toru Owashi & Kazuki Hirata
Very pleasant clash between Junretsu’s grumpy traditional pro-wrestlers and Disaster Box’s goofballs. Hirata was game enough to play 2018 Black Menso-re and allowed Uncle Jun to rediscover his passion for body slamming people on the Korakuen Hall floor. A lot of actually pretty good wrasslin’ soon came out of the serious/not serious dichotomy – everyone chipping in a solid amount of effort. The HARASHIMA/Akiyama Cyber Festival preview bits landed right on the money, as did the ending stretch between Oishi and Hirata. ***
Yuki Ueno © vs. Soma Takao – DDT Universal Title
A 25-minute attempt at spreadsheet-breaking that was occasionally great, but could’ve used a crowd to reach its full potential. Ueno’s natural babyface energy brought out the assholery from Soma and it made for a combustible dynamic. All the best parts of the match came from those character-based interactions. The hate-filled shit-kicking of the second half and Ueno’s Strong Zero-soaked Moonsault off the entrance setup were both tremendous.
They lost me a few times during the ending stretch, probably because the lack of reaction made the movez filler and artificial near-fall drama a bit more obvious. Ueno can’t seem to be able to pull off that Pump-handle Bomb out of crazy New Japan Reversal Dance sequence. It flopped with Sakaguchi and it flopped here. Thankfully, the god damn shoot dropkick to the face and exclamation mark WR finish worked a lot better. ***1/2
Captain Lou’s Review: Dragon Gate Dead or Alive 2021 (5/5/2021)
Ben-K, Bokutimo Dragon & Ho Ho Lun vs. Diamante, H.Y.O. & Dia Inferno
Food for thought: Benedict-K might get a decent push if he stopped going through drastic cosmetic changes every week. I mean, what was wrong with the last haircut? Borderline self-sabotage at this point. Meanwhile, Bokutimo is taking the BLACK BUFFALO~! approach to post-mask life by coming out with the hood and removing it early in the match. Judging by the tremendous Big Ben pop-up spear that ended this very okay match, I’d say Shimizu is ready for a new gimmick. **1/4
Ultimo Dragon & Don Fujii vs. Konomama Ichikawa & Mondai Ryu
The gang’s all here. Look, if it was up to me, Stalker would still work every show. Therefore, I had no issues with this grand display of six-star wrestling. The failed German suplex spot is still one of the highest forms of comedic expression. *3/4
Keisuke Okuda © vs. U-T – Open The Brave Gate
Other than Okuda’s unfortunate new live rap theme, this hit all the right notes. High-intensity dust-up that pit the champ’s Open The Inoki-ISM shoot stylings against U-T’s crafty leg assault. They put together a really solid Leg Match structure with a clear inciting incident (ring-post kick), smart cut-offs and inspired long-term selling. Also, lots of petty bullshit. Love me some petty bullshit. Okuda slapping the challenger around turned this clap crowd into a sea of U-T Believers and added tons of heat to the ending stretch. The Rings of Saturn (Rings of U-T?) struggle near the end brought soooo much drama – both guys selling the desperation like crazy and chaining all sorts of wild counters out of the submission. Up there with the Okuda/Ishida bangerz from last year. ***3/4
Masato Yoshino, Naruki Doi, Eita & BxB Hulk vs. Ryo Saito, Yasushi Kanda, Kagetora & Kota Minoura
I have a life to live and bills to pay, so the house show shenanigans that led to DoiYoshi being forced to join R.E.D. for one night completely eluded me. Still, waiting for someone to turn on someone was half the fun of this match. Both sides leaned into it and it led to some quality comedy. The rest of the action was Baseline Dragon Gate multiman-level, Yoshino obviously ramping up the pace whenever he tagged in. **3/4
Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi Yoshida © vs. Kaito Ishida & KAZMA SAKAMOTO – Open The Twin Gate
Pretty solid conclusion to the MOCHIDA tag reign. Babyface Yoshida may have finally found love in his heart but the heel shenanigans of his former R.E.D. buddies proved to be too much for him and Mochi. They went with a time-tested Southern tag structure, complete with old man Mochizuki in peril and big Yoshida hot tag run of house cleaning wackiness. No wheel reinvention whatsoever, but the action flew reasonably well. I liked the idea of setting up Ishida’s WRENCH-ASSISTED ankle lock finish with the knee chair shot for extra asshole points. The Kick Boy and KAZMA are a good fit – I giggled at their douchebag secret handshake. ***1/4
Kzy, Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi vs. Jason Lee, Dragon Dia & La Estrella – Open The Triangle Gate
Total blast of a 6-man tag that efficiently spotlighted the returning Dragon Dia. They structured most of the match around him – first as babyface in peril and eventually as the god damn winner of this whole thing. Beyond Dia’s character arc, the quality content came at you fast and lived up to the Triangle Gate expectations (despite a timid Nagoya crowd). Plenty of daredevil dives from everyone (including a pretty wild Sasuke Special botch recovery from aerial genius La Estrella) and the usual intricate counter wrestling. Susumu worked wonders with both Jason and Dia, supplying a ton of nasty big match offense for the kids to overcome. Very hyped for this Masquerade Triangle run! ***3/4
Shun Skywalker © vs. Hip Hop Kikuta – Open The Dream Gate
It is time to ban the drop-toe hold from wrestling. Too dangerous.
YAMATO & KAI vs. Dragon Kid & SB Kento – Mascara Contra Caballera Cage Survival Tag Match
If you are a fan of bells and whistles, I have some good news for you! This offered large quantities of these two controversial accessories. They basically had a full-on Dangerous Gate cage match, complete with bazooka-wielding faction rivals preventing escapes. The new twist here was that the losing team had to face off and put their hair or mask on the line. While the tag match section was sports entertaining enough, the real drama came from the finale between Kitto and SBK. Kento checked all the boxes here. Tokyo Dome-worthy entrance, effective heel shenanigans and big main event workrate. The kid keeps delivering in high-pressure environments and this performance felt like a career peak. Dumb fun is still fun. ***1/4
Performance Review – AEW Dynamite (5/12/21)
“In case you haven’t noticed I’m pretty f*ckin’ hard to kill.” – Britt Baker
Dynamite opened and closed with good old-fashioned pro wrestling about respect, championships, and understanding your limits. Why’d there have to be stuff in the middle?
Jericho, the Bucks, and Yankee Doodle Cody are taking up a lot of energy on Wednesday nights now competing to parody themselves while too many other interesting possibilities lay dormant, either figuring their thing out on YouTube or just forgotten.
Where did the weekly Tazpromos go too? Where are they?? Dynamite, get your shit together.
The World
I don’t ask for a lot. Really. It’s shocking how little I’ve asked for over 30 years from this. New Japan’s Yuji Nagata threw down with Jon Moxley in the opening match, and in the main event Scary Handsome Miro strangled Darby Allin into submission to take his TNT championship. That was probably enough. Treat it seriously, have stakes, do something different — the pro wrestling love was strong.
Then came a bunch situations and stipulations because the Double or Nothing card was sorted, and the setups felt lazy or try-hard — sometimes both. A week after Blood & Guts, Chris Jericho is back and the Inner Circle is havin’ a laugh doing Attitude Era callbacks to setup a rematch. I think Christopher Daniels might’ve bled this week more than anyone did at Blood & Guts, and now the Young Bucks are defending their titles against… Moxley and Eddie Kingston.
Really weird seeing Orange Cassidy and PAC in a World Title situation that doesn’t feel awesome too.
Cody Rhodes channeled both pride over fatherhood and his own frustrations over the paradox of patriotism into a rivalry about patriotism and flags and shit. Cody helped train an Olympic medal-winning boxer to be a pro wrestler and introduced him to the world as an evil foreigner. From Lowestoft. Tone deaf, embarrassing, and not even good wrestling.
Hangman Page is also definitely just hanging around doing nothing but at this point, that’s a win for him.
Performance: 2.5 / 5.0 (IFFY)
The Wrestling
Yuji Nagata vs. Jon Moxley for the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title was too fun fun a scenario to not be good but it was also actually good, 10 minutes of TV with no wasted movement – strikes, floor, signatures. Nagata looked dangerous in defeat and hopefully re-established the legend of Blue Justice for the 18-49 olds — AND THEM ONLY.
SoCal Uncensored and their ability to team vs. The Young Bucks’ and their Tag Team Titles worked some really impressive tag spots into a tight tag package and then OOOOOO blood! So much blood, mostly pouring from Daniels’ head but also on a Young Bucks’ shoe. It created some fun if not slightly rushed near falls.
PAC vs. Orange Cassidy for a shot at Kenny was a brief reminder of how good serious wrestler Orange can be and then OOOOO that powerbomb.
We support Thunder Rosa squashes here at Happy Wrestling Land and wish to see more in the future.
Darby Allin vs. Miro for the TNT Title was phenomenal, a no-bullshit quick pace clash of a relentless David vs. weirdo Goliath. Darby diving hyper-speed and shoulder-first at Miro may be one of the greatest topes of all time.
Performance: 4.0 / 5.0 (EXCELLENT)
The Entertainment
The lack of comma in the quote that began this review is a casualty of confidence, the delivery of one Britt Baker who by promos alone appears unbeatable headed owards the Women’s World Title. Big time promo this week.
Otherwise, the wrestling carried the show this week.
Performance: 3.0 / 5.0 (FINE)
Room for Improvement
Intro Ogogo like a Luger, not a Koloff
More Team Taz
I said reel Chris Jericho in!
My Favorite Things
Finally: Monstrous Miro
Darby looks to Sting before he stands up one last time against Miro
Darby’s shoulder-first tope suicida
Performance Review: 63% [-5%]
Working Man’s WWE TV Review: 5/9/21 – 5/15/20
WrestleMania Backlash (that’s the name) is Sunday and it just got real spooky in NXT.
Working Man’s Recap
Good Work: John Morrison, Leon Ruff, MSK, Hit Row, Noam Dar, Nathan Frazer, Roman Reigns, Rey Mysterio
World: RAW is Bad?, Hit Row is Just Different, New Women’s Tag Champions, Tag Teams Going Single
Wrestling: Leon Ruff vs. Pete Dunne (NXT 5/11/21), Heritage Cup Rules: Nathan Frazer vs. Noam Dar (NXT UK 5/13/21), Rey Mysterio vs. Dolph Ziggler (SmackDown 5/14/21)
Entertainment: Hit Row Debuts (NXT 5/11/21), Nakamura puts on King Corbin’s crown (SmackDown 5/14/21)
RAW (5/10/21)
The show began with a 6-women’s tag that Alexa Bliss helped Asuka win with magic. That’s what we in the business call a hook.
Two rematches from last month’s WrestleMania here, one for the WWE Title and one for the RAW Women’s Title. It’s a week later and they are but a foggy memory, the momentum of Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, and Rhea Ripley lost to a glut of content and a red brand that stopped caring long before it was sentenced to the Thunderdome.
Jinder Mahal is back with a revised Indus Sher and he beat Jeff Hardy, looking all of on his way out of the territory. An 8-man tag was highlighted by a Randy Orton/Omos showdown that they cut to commercial break immediately on.
I feel like Sheamus‘ da – why did he take that sunset flip powerbomb from Humberto Carrillo??
Lucha House Party re-introduced themselves (kind!). Shelton Benjamin beat Cedric Alexander (weird!). John Morrison bumped around real big for Damian Priest and then Priest chose to face The Miz in a Lumberjack Match on Sunday. Very cool guy, very cool show.
Rating:1.0 / 5.0
NXT (5/11/21)
“It’s about to get real spooky here in NXT.”
WWE does introductions a lot better than follow-up, but Hit Row has arrived and got an intro that made me feel like a fan of NXT again: Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Ashante “Thee” Adonis, Top Dolla (!), and B-Fab (!?). Names aside they all cut good promos, already feel like a fully formed crew, and Swerve Scott looks like a completely reasonable NXT Champion. It’s good to be excited about something in this weird black metal Triple H paradise.
Leon Ruff screamed at William Regal, Pete Dunne and Oney Lorcan are back together, and Bobby Fish dropped himself from Kyle O’Reilly. All good things.
Some pretty good matches too: Pete and Leon smacked the shit out of each other, as did Oney and O’Reilly. Breezango remains such a graceful tag team even though Fandango is like 47, and had a fun match with MSK. KUSHIDA vs. Santos Escobar 2/3 falls for the Cruiserweight Title was a good wrestling sequences in the middle of a stipulation they didn’t need.
The top two titles are in a spot though, and it drags the show down down dowwwwn: the Karrion Kross/Austin Theory previously ranked very high on a list of WWE singles matches I hope I never have to see, and Raquel Gonzalez vs. Mercedes Martinez didn’t really work either.
Rating:3.0 / 5.0
MAIN EVENT (5/12/21)
A Mustafa Ali promo kicked off the show and Nikki Cross is back – Main Event is where things happen! Nikki and her bad theme music beat Naomi, then Ali and Ricochet kind of tore it up for a little bit in this terribly sanitized environment before a double countout.
Rating:2.5 / 5.0
NXT UK (5/13/21)
Goddamn can Nathan Frazer hit a backflip DDT. I mean goddamn. He opened the show with Noam Dar in a Heritage Cup (European) Rules match and these two fellas can wrestle. Maybe not enough to recommend NXT UK, but they can wrestle.
Mark Andrews (who enters with his crew in black-and-white now) had a fine TV match Levi Muir. Tyler Bate and A-Kid reminisced. Sam Gradwell yelled “stupid” like five times at Trent Seven.
The main event was a Gauntlet Match to see who challenges Kay Lee Ray next. Isla Dawn mowed through Emilia McKenzie and Dani Luna before Meiko Satomura emerged to have a good run opposite Isla and Jinny. Sure, let’s do Kay Lee Ray vs. Meiko Satomura again.
Rating: 2.5 / 5.0
SMACKDOWN (5/14/21)
Apollo Crews cracks me up. “Hold on, hold on: you’re going to reward their misbehavior?!”
This was pretty good: Rey Mysterio had a whole match with Dolph Ziggler and I think Shinsuke Nakamura will finally get to wear a crown. He just looks cooler that way.
Tamina and Natalya are the Women’s Tag Team Champions now too. Good for them. Confusing for everyone.
The Roman Reigns family drama carried the last show before (WrestleMania) Backlash: he actually got angry with Jimmy Uso and the great Roman promo really comes out when he’s angry. Jimmy wrestled Cesaro for a bit in the main event, and though Roman showed enough fear in the post-match angle this all seems more about the Usos now.
Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
205 LIVE (5/14/21)
Asher Hale and Ari Sterling are here now! At the same time!! It worked this week.
Asher took down Ariya Daivari in a solid match, but the real story here was Sterling vs. Tony Nese which kind of ruled. It went from an ideal WWE young lion intro match to the most dramatic near falls on 205 Live since Buddy Murphy.
Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Working Man’s Satisfaction: 52% [52% last week]
Happy Thoughts – WWE WrestleMania Backlash 2021 (5/16/21)
From the Reality Era to the Redundant Era, and — look folks: I already knew it was stupid. That’s my superpower.
0. WWE U.S. Title: Sheamus [c] vs. Ricochet
Sheamus’ open challenge for the United States Championship was answered by Ricochet, something that would have been hysterically more exciting just a couple years ago. This is life now. This is the Thunderdome. They kept it basic until Sheamus started blasting Ricochet with strikes and they managed a few near falls way more dramatic than you’d expect. A big Sheamus knee out of nowhere ended it, and it felt like the only way. ***
1. Triple Threat Match – RAW Women’s Title: Rhea Ripley [c] vs. Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair
They made this look easy, action that kept coming and everything flowing so seamlessly to the next thing that I couldn’t really stop and say, “Man – triple threat matches suck.” These things come and go and there was definitely nonsense here and there to get in place for moves, but it started the show off hot. ***1/4
2. SmackDown Tag Team Title: Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode [c] vs. Rey Mysterio & Dominik Mysterio
Ziggler and Roode took out Dom backstage on the Kickoff show, so Rey fought alone for most of the match. It was kind of awesome because it was Rey Mysterio still being Rey Mysterio for like 15 minutes, but it was also a match that WWE over-complicated and stretched out way too long. So, kind of a meet in the middle thing. It might’ve been better for it, but the angle felt unnecessary and Dom brought nothing new to the table as he held his abdomen and limped to the ring just in time for the finish. Roode tossing Rey under the bottom rope into a Ziggler superkick was tremendous, as was Rey just forcing Ziggler into the diving sunset flip powerbomb for the finish. ***1/4
3. Zombie Lumberjack Match: Damian Priest vs. The Miz w/ John Morrison
After The Miz was eaten by zombies in a wrestling ring, Damian Priest lined up his invisible bow-and-arrow and shot it at a big screen with the logo of the new Army of the Dead movie on it. Sometimes things are just stupid.
4. SmackDown Women’s Title: Bianca Belair [c] vs. Bayley
Triple threat matches, handicap matches, zombie matches — here was some actual wrestling. Bayley showed range here, being a real dick on offense and going in a matter of seconds from eating the floor mats on a missed tope suicida to trying to cheat to win and grabbing the ropes on a rollup. Belair meanwhile is ready to go tour with Dragon Gate at this point. Good serious wrestling outside of an iffy finish that left room for more. ***1/2
5. Triple Threat Match – WWE Title: Bobby Lashley [c] w/ MVP vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Braun Strowman
This wasn’t quite the SummerSlam 2018 Fatal 4-Way in terms of WWE heavyweight spectacles but it way exceeded expectations, another Triple Threat Match too filled with action to stop and think about how bad RAW is every week. I’m over a guy tackling another guy into a barricade or LED video board, a Strowman somersault plancha off the apron, McIntyre Michinoku Driver to Strowman, and Lashley lifting Strowman like he was weightless made sure this had a lot more than the usual spots. ***1/2
6. WWE Universal Title: Roman Reigns [c] w/ Paul Heyman vs. Cesaro
This is paced like and delivers an exciting 30-minute championship match, but it’s held back by a lack of urgency — the timing felt more inspired by Spiros Arion at MSG than any of Roman’s recent defenses. That’s fine, maybe even technically better… but at some point you hit a wall with really connecting. I loved watching these guys fight for headlocks and the way Cesaro sold his damaged arm the whole match, a result of some inspired and nasty attacks from Roman. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the move where he trapped Cesaro’s arm in the turnbuckle and used his boot for pressure, or at least never done so well.
It’s just missing… something? We appreciate Cesaro for his ability, if not always his ability to beat some ass. Against this Roman Reigns in this Thunderdome era, I think he could’ve beat a little more ass — shown a little more fire, or whatever Vince McMahon was probably frustratingly always right about. Whether purposely or not it was Roman Reigns who came out of this shining more with me, maybe because he — WWE main event style guy — has adapted better to “good worker guy” more impressively than Cesaro has adapted to “WWE main event style guy.”
Eventually they found their footing and did what the kids like, mainly submission-trading and smacking the shit out of each other. Cesaro impressively hits his deadlift superplex on Roman and Roman impressively hits a sit-out powerbomb on Cesaro. Roman eventually gets Cesaro in his guillotine choke, though a timing mis-cue or just perspiration creates an awkward moment where Cesaro slips out. It’s locked on soon enough and that’s it. I’ll treasure this match, but Cesaro’s thing might always be he was so good he always left you thinking, “could’ve been better.” ****1/4
Happy Thoughts: Zombies aside, this was pretty much good match after good match. In the Thunderdome era, that’s a winner. 4.0 / 5.0