Matches #8

Hey y'all! Back already with more matches to talk about.

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Matt Mako vs. Katsuyori Shibata (Ring of Honor 9/11/2025) - GOOD

This was under ROH's Pure Rules and aired on the 9/18/2025 episode of Honor Club.

Was a big fan of this matchup, I think it ended up being even better than the two Lee Moriarty/Xelhua matches that ROH just ran that I also liked a lot. I've never really connected with Pure Rules like longer-tenured Ring Of Honor fans seem to, so I don't think there's a lot of guys left in the U.S. that I'd want to see in the match type. But Mako is definitely one of them, more than Shibata even.

While they have been getting better at it as of late, AEW has always seemed to struggle with hierarchy in their match structure 90% of the time and I wish they could borrow more from ROH in that regard. This isn't a perfect example of that, but I feel it's really interesting to see how this match goes about showing it. Of course, it's easiest to see that Shibata is outplaying Mako when he forces him to use all 3 of his rope-breaks very early on in the match, before Shibata himself even uses one of his own. Shibata is gonna out-grapple Mako, sounds about right. Mako then has to resort to his striking instead, and Shibata beats him there too. He's just not going to be able to beat him by any traditional/"pure" means but he's gonna keep running into that brick wall, hoping it comes crashing down.

I also love seeing when someone that actually knows what they're doing goes out there and showcases some real jiu-jitsu discipline like Mako does. His transitions are incredible here and it's nice to see Shibata in his most grapple-focused match in years.

Felino, Místico & Volador Jr. vs. Averno, Mephisto & Olímpico (CMLL 6/18/2004) - SKIPPABLE

This was the debut of Místico under the gimmick and was re-released by CMLL last year to celebrate his 20th anniversary. Also, Fray Tormenta comes out to second Místico during his entrance, yes!!

Místico starting off with Olímpico just feels like the right decision. Místico doesn't feel like he's moving as mythically (if that doesn't make sense, just think about Hijo del Santo moves) yet at this point in his career, but Olímpico has always felt like a reliable hand to me. It also creates an opening for rudo trios offense on Felino and Volador Jr. while Místico chills on the outside in that first fall.

Second fall goes pretty similarly, in the sense that Felino and Volador are carrying the load after Místico gets a cool spot in. To be fair, they're sick as hell and I love the both of them. Rudos have some great stooging of course.

Místico/Mephisto and Volador Jr./Averno are great pairings in the third fall. There's a lot of points in the match that just feel like a regular two on two match between the Felino/Volador Jr. and Averno/Mephisto, while Olímpico and Místico do their own thing. They are the opening and closing of the match and while this a perfectly fine debut, there's still a bit of novelty behind seeing those two do their spots in a historically significant moment as the four other guys are having a much more interesting match (albeit, one that could've been better).

They should run this back in 2025 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara but move Felino to the rudo side to replace Olímpico and then put Rey Bucanero on the tecnico side.

Great Muta vs. The Great Kabuki (WAR 5/24/1993) - FUN

I don't really know how great this match could've been (or even ended up being), but I love blood in my wrestling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, call me insane or whatever, I see blood and I like the match. I don't even wish to spoil how gnarly the blood in this match is, but it's basically the one thing I wanted to talk about that I feel like I have to.

Kabuki has blood squirting out of his forehead after just a few minutes. It's one of the sickest visuals I've seen in a match and also one of the most concerning. I don't usually love a lot of Muta/Muto matches because a lot of them fall into a boring, control-heavy formula. This still has some of that but the blood does so much to keep me engaged and the match didn't go too long either. I can't hate this.

Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey (World of Sport 7/27/1981) - GOOD

Usually am put off by a lot of the WoS stuff I've seen but this was the first time watching a match from there that was a recommendation, so I wanted to give it a fair chance. A lot of the other stuff I've seen has too much "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" grappling that's without much struggle and it makes it really hard for me to get into it, but I tried going into this with the mindset that not all wrestling is going to fall into the mold of a match that I love and that's alright!

Funny enough though, there was actually a lot of great struggling in this! The earlier rounds made me feel like I was watching a match from decades before this took place, which is great. I love when there's a focus on a hold as "simple" as a headlock. The suspense builds perfectly to when the first forearm strike gets thrown later on.

I even like the simplicity of the finish and didn't feel necessarily let down by it or anything. I liked both of these guys, but I think I'm gonna seek out more Steve Grey for sure.

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Thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches today; I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page.