ICExInfinity Title Match: Suzu Suzuki (c) vs. Tsukasa Fujimoto - Ice Ribbon New Ice Ribbon #1095 ~ Winter Story - 23/01/2021
This is a rare Ice Ribbon main event for me. If I do watch I've Ribbon, it's usually for the tag team matches or the deathmatches that are becoming a staple of theirs, if it's not already. And that's because the style can be a little tiresome despite the creativity and speed that they usually have. But I wouldn't put this in that category. Although it was mostly a collection of spectacular moves and main event spots. It was essentially a spotfest but that's hardly a criticism if it's entertaining. Which this very much was. Suzu Suzuki despite her age looked very comfortable against Fujimoto, even being in firm control of the match tempo at times but, of course, that changed various times throughout the match. The closing stretch mirrored that with constant momentum changes. The ending kick to the head looked awkward though. ***1/2
First Blood Match: Ruslan Angelov vs. Alexander Nabiev - NSW Cross Factor - Until The First Drop Of Blood - 13/02/2021
Wait. Who? I don’t know how I came across this much but I watched it. Was it good? No. Calling it unrefined would be kind, honestly. I thought Nabiev looked okay. Very rough but he had some good looking forearms/elbows to the back of Angelov’s head. Brutal ones. But Ruslan Angelov was the shits. Their initial flurry of punches gassed him quickly. Angelov was begging for air immediately and he was the same for most of the match. Angelov had a striking sequence that involved slow, soft kicks to the leg and a spinning back fist, where he almost tripped while turning. Nabiev had to awkwardly push him into the corner to save the spot, if it could've been. Total amateur hour. I liked how they brawled. This is a first blood match after all. But the brawling was dire. They had no clue how to brawl well, except to go outside and throw bad palm strikes. In saying that, they had one really interesting part of the match where Nabiev brought out a fucking knife, of all things, and tried to maime Angelov, who blocked Nabiev's attempts with a rather nice looking cross arm breaker. For a knife spot, it was well done. A rarity in this match. I both liked and despised the finish. Obviously being influenced by American and Japanese wrestling (as shown by Angelov doing the worst Kawada kicks you can visualise), they opted for a melodramatic spot. The story of the match seemed that Angelov was unwilling to go to the extremes unlike Nabiev, so Angelov took an age to decide whether to hit Nabiev with the light tubes or not, with Nabiev, who was on his knees, egging him on. Nabiev tried to make him pay but Angelov regained the tubes and hit a spin kick to the light tubes, which were alongside Nabiev's head, cutting him open badly. Blood pissed out of Nabiev's head at a rapid pace. When the camera cut, Nabiev looked like Austin at the 2001 Rumble after Triple H attacked him. The rest of the glass went flying into the crowd. That's what I liked about this. So no, this was far from a good match. It was pretty terrible from start to finish with some interesting ideas saving this from being a dud. I expected Russian wrestling to be grimey but this was just lame, bad indie wrestling with Russian commentary. How disappointing. 1/2*
GHC Tag Team Title Match: Sugiura-gun (Kazushi Sakuraba & Takashi Sugiura) (c) vs. The Aggression (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Masa Kitamiya) - NOAH Great Voyage 2021 In Yokohama - 07/03/2021
Great tag team wrestling. No matter how little interest in NOAH I may have, I can count these two to deliver. Same with Sugiura. There was a simple approach to the match, hit each other as hard as you could. Nakajima and Sakaurba had more to it than that but it ultimately still was mostly Nakajima blasting Sakuraba with kicks. The kicks when Sakuraba was lying on the ground were gross to watch. Sakaurba can withstand tons of damage, thankfully, otherwise I'd worry about his safety. Kitamiya came in and looked like a star with his raw energy. The obvious lasting moment of the bout was the finish where Kitamiya hit a skull splitting headbutt while having Sugiura in a Prison Lock. Sugiura and Kitamiya had a cool exchange of elbows before doing their signature spots. Kitamiya did some work on the knees, which included Sugiura getting his knees smashed on the apron. This all led to the finish. It was a solidly worked match. Not much in regards to tag team wrestling but that's okay. ***3/4
ICExInfinity Title Match: Tsukasa Fujimoto (c) vs. Maya Yukihi - Ice Ribbon New Ice Ribbon #1106 ~ Ice Ribbon March 2021 - 27/03/2021
One thing I like about Ice Ribbon is that they put emphasis on technical wrestling. Even if it can be showy, there is a lot of wow to it, as well as effort and technique. These two have great chemistry together so this flowed wonderfully, mixing between holds and strike exchanges. The counter wrestling, especially, was very good. At one point, Fujimoto countered a headscissors by bridging while face down, then applying a straight jacket and wrenching back. They used their moment from the first part to make an exciting closing stretch with many big moves and sequences, which led to some great nearfalls. Finally Fujimoto was able to get the win with the reliable JOCS. ***1/2
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