As February began I was fully expecting this month to be quiet compared to January which had huge matches, moments and news. By the end of the first week, I was very wrong. Rossy Ogawa was terminated from his Executive Producer role, for contract tempering. Vince Mcmahon and other execs are officially under federal investigation for their crimes. The Rock returned and stole Cody Rhodes’ spot leading to his name trending for weeks. Scott D’amore was fired as President of TNA to the dismay of many in the company. Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada both wrestled their last matches in NJPW. February has been head spinning for anyone following this business.
Within the first 7 days, not one but two Match of the year contenders took place. First at NXT Vengeance Day which was a fantastic show from start to finish. The highlights for me were absolutely Dijak and Joe Gacy beating each other to a pulp. The fallout angle for Roxanne Perez.
Most importantly Ilja Dragunov and Trick Williams, which I expected to be good but WOW was I blown away. The drama was drama-ing. The tensions between Carmelo Hayes and Trick were becoming too great, it felt like a time bomb waiting to explode. I really thought that Hayes was going to interrupt the match and cause a DQ, but they let these two shine. Trick looked the biggest underdog, every strike he took from Dragunov looked like it could be the last, I couldn't believe how intense this was. Trick failed to conquer Ilja and become NXT World Champion. Melo comforts his soon to be former friend before circling around him like a tiger stalking his prey. Melo cuts Trick’s leg out from under him, The crowd was nuclear. Melo ends the assault by crunching Trick’s leg in a steel chair. When Melo returns to NXT only a few days later, he struggles to get words out as the NXT crowd chanted “FUCK YOU MELO”. Which was well deserved. Unfortunately, this is cable television, so those chants were silenced. According to those who were in attendance, a producer had to address the crowd and warn them to censor their language or else they would have to throw out the taping.
On the AEW side, Adam Page has had some fantastic trilogies of matches, and Hangman and Swerve continues that trend. These two opened the February 7th episode of Dynamite with an immaculate match, with the goal of facing Samoa Joe at Revolution for the AEW World Championship. These two wrestled, and wrestled, and wrestled until a 30 minute draw. What made this match so special to me was they realized that the crowd was rooting for Swerve, so they pivoted towards positioning Hangman into the heel role. When the draw happened, Swerve called for 5 more minutes, which Hangman denied. Despite this fantastic opening to the show, this episode of dynamite got progressively worse and ended with Ricky Starks and Big Bill losing the tag titles.
My most anticipated show of the month: NJPW’s New Beginnings in Osaka, with a double main event like no other. A rematch from Wrestle Dream back in October, Zack Sabre Jr. against Bryan Danielson. I was so enthralled with this match my girlfriend got mad at me for shouting. I can’t really begin to describe why a match like this is so special. A fight for the crown of best technical wrestler in the world. Zack walked out victorious and Bryan admitted that ZSJ is now the best technical wrestler in the world. Their match might not be appealing to everyone, the style of wrestling is not as flashy as Lucha or Strong Style might be. If you’re an absolute nerd for pro wrestling, you should love this match just as much as I do. A definite match of the year contender.
The closing match of the show was Will Ospreay’s send off for NJPW. United Empire led by Ospreay against Bullet Club War Dogs lead by David Finlay, in a cage match unlike any other I’ve seen. The cage for this match was more so like a tall steel fence that encapsulated the ring and its surroundings. Every set number of minutes another member of a team would enter until all members are inside the steel bars. From that point it was all out war. Watching this match was like waiting for a car crash, and when one would happen you know a worse one is not too far behind. My notes for this match describe this as a cacophony of violence, and it couldn’t be more true. At some point relatively early on, Henare of United Empire got a serious head wound, he was temporarily taken out of the match to return later with some crazy amount of gauze and tape around his head, which was so much that it resembled a helmet more than bandages. I think every participant in this match drew blood at some point. Towards the end of the match the War Dogs had complete control.
To fulfill their promise of making sure Ospreay leaves NJPW injured, War Dogs tore apart the ring. Now in my time watching wrestling I've seen the aprons get cut and the wooden planks get revealed a few times, however NJPW Rings are structured differently, across the center of the ring is a support beam where wooden planks rest on top, and held in place by the paddings and canvas. Without those additions, these planks slipped from their proper locations leaving dangerous pits that could slide out at any wrong step, and this happened several times. Member of War Dogs would step and fall into a hole awkwardly as the planks fell away under them . Ultimately War Dog's prediction came true, As Ospreay was pinned by David Finlay with all the other members of Bullet Club celebrating.
The following week NXT and Dynamite were pretty decent, Bron Breakker and Baron Corbin became NXT Tag Team champions, which... sure why not. On the valentines day edition of Dynamite Orange Cassidy faced Matt Taven in a Texas Death Match. Which Mr. Taven surprised myself and a lot of others with his performance, taking some truly awful bumps that I wouldn't want my worst enemy to take. An Iconic moment was a Valentines day gift left under the ring for Orange Cassidy from Good ol' Chuckie T.
A heart shaped box of thumb tacks, which of course led into the finish of the match and OC retaining his International Championship.
Four days later was Rev Pro's High Stakes show, the main event was Will Ospreay's last independent match before heading to AEW, against Michael Oku. Unfortunately I did not have 48 minutes to put aside for this match. According to what I've seen this match was the highest rated match of the month. Every clip I've seen was pretty cool! I would be lying if I said this wasn't an important match this month, and is absolutely worth checking out if you have the time.
Monday Night Raw on the 19th opened with Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre in a No DQ match which Drew surprisingly won! I do wish that it was a clean victory but I'll take what I can get. The same show was main evented by Jey Uso and Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship, which I was disappointed by, not because Jey lost, but because it had the same exact finish as the match that opened the show. NXT the following day featured Lyra Valkyria set to defend her title against Shotzi who unfortunately got injured, and an impromptu open challenge took place, with Lash Legend answering. I actually wanted this match to have much more time. Hopefully they will have a rematch and when that time comes it will be glorious and maybe even Lash will win the Women's World championship. Dynamite the following night, was honestly just fine, the most notable moment was the angle of Hangman Adam Page selling an ankle Injury. As the show went off the air, there were instantly dirt sheet reports that Hangman was completely fine and that this was all an angle.
NJPW had another show, New Beginning in Sapporo. There was only two matches I wanted to see: Mina Shirakawa vs. Mayu Iwatani and David Finlay vs. Nic Nemeth. I was actually disappointed by these two bouts. Shirakawa and Iwatani's match lasted only 12 minutes, when the closing bell rung I was confused. I though to myself "That's it?" This could've gone another 20 minutes and been amazing, but with such a short amount of time given, they couldn't seem to build to something. Hopefully the next time they face each other it will be given the time they deserve. Nic Nemeth is now a champion in NJPW, something I genuinely never thought I'd see. Growing up I was a person who really liked his work in WWE and always felt like he was never given an opportunity to really shine. I hope Nemeth can show the world what he can do and prove my childhood brain right. As for his match with Finlay, it felt a little flat to me. The match didn't have much build up and Finlay just won the title by beating two of NJPW's biggest stars, and just came off a dominant win in a huge cage match. This wasn't a bad match by any means, it simply felt a bit off, there was pieces missing. Most of all Nemeth needs a new finisher, in WWE the Zigzag was a cool move and looked believable as a finish against opponents around his size, but in a setting like NJPW and strong style wrestling, I don't think the move cuts it anymore. In this match in particular it felt anti-climactic to see him win with it.
The final PLE I watched this month was WWE's Elimination Chamber, which took place in Perth, Australia. So while I was sound asleep, a pretty strong show took place, when I awoke I did my best to avoid spoilers (to no avail) and turned on the show several hours later. The Kabuki Warriors defended their Tag Team Championships against Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell, which should've gone on longer, but at this point when am I not saying that about a women's match.
The Women's Elimination chamber stole the show in my opinion, every woman showed out. This match would've been a 10 out 10, match of the year contender for me if the final two pin falls didn't happen within seconds of each other, a trope that WWE relies on a lot in these multi person gimmick matches. Perth loved Tiffany Stratton, "tiffy time" was chanted through out the match until she was eliminated. I was baffled that the first eliminated was Naomi, She is a star and somehow even after coming back to WWE, is being treated the way she is. This was a match full of fun and unique spots and ended with Becky Lynch coming out victorious. The obvious choice that I feel like most people expected.
The next match was Judgment Day defending their Tag Team Championships against New Catch Republic: Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne. The original NXT UK tournament was so special and fun to watch thanks to Bate and Dunne, so I was very excited to hear that these guys are a team again, this time without the dead weight they had as British Strong Style back in 2016. Despite this being a really fun match, Judgement Day isn't ready to give up these title that so desperately need to be split up again. Following this was the Men's Elimination Chamber match, which ended up being a really fun match. I could've done without two interferences in the one match. However, it was with the intention of building matches for WrestleMania weekend. Logan Paul and Randy Orton, and LA Knight and AJ Styles should both end up being great feuds and matches. Drew McIntyre won this match, which means we will get Drew vs. Seth Rollins, which should undoubtedly be a banger of a fight.
The main event of the night was Rhea Ripley. It didn't matter who her opponent was, this was her show. Her home country. She received a heroes welcome and looked like a mega star. In this instance her opponent was Nia Jax. I personally very much do not like Nia. To give credit where it's due, this was possibly Nia's best performance. Rhea looked fantastic in her victory. It was very heartwarming to Rhea celebrate with her family who was front row. I've been following Rhea since her debut in the Mae Young Classic. I have vivid memories being in my college dorm room and having brackets for the tournament with my friends and all agreeing that she was a standout rookie. Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch will be a huge match at WrestleMania and who ever wins, I'm confident it will be a match of year contender.
February came to an end with a (in my opinion) a BORING Dynamite in terms of its actual matches. NXT closed out the month with a huge shock to me, Noam Dar dropping the NXT UK Heritage Cup to No Quarter Catch Crew's Charlie Dempsey. Dar has been doing fantastic work with Meta-Four. Hopefully two things happen, Dar moves up the card for something greater, and Charlie Dempsey shows the world how good he is.
February was a much bigger month than I anticipated. There is just so much good wrestling in the world. I've watched a lot and there is still so much I missed. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'll see you next month for more. In the mean time, I will be playing WWE2k24.
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