Csonka Reviews This Week’s Free Grab Bag Matches With Tomohiro Ishii, Tetsuya Naito, More

Csonka Reviews This Week’s Free Grab Bag Matches With Tomohiro Ishii, Tetsuya Naito, More

OFFICIAL RESULTS
– From GFW/Impact Wrestling: Laurel Van Ness defeated Eva Storie @ 5:35 via pin [DUD]
– From ROH: Karen Q defeated Sumi Sakai @ 8:05 via pin [**]
From NJPW G1 Special in The USA (Night 1) 7.01.17 – US Title Tournament Match: Tomohiro Ishii defeated Tetsuya Naito @ 16:02 via pin [****½]

---

Laurel Van Ness w/Sienna vs. Eva Storie: This is either their 4th or 5th meeting this year. Seriously. This is Van Ness the mess in the wedding dress. Van Ness screams a lot, Ava takes control, rolling her around the ring and landing some rough looking knees and kicks. Sienna distracts Ava, allowing Van Ness to take control. I have no clue why we need distractions in a jobber match. Van Ness curb stomps Ava in the corner, and then slams her to the mat. Van Ness runs around a bit, yells at the ref and slowly works over Ava in the corner. The running boot follows; Ava avoids another and fights back with rights. Clotheslines follow; she trips Van Ness up and sends her to the floor. She follows and attacks, back in and Ava works the rings of Saturn but Sienna distracts the ref. That allows Van Ness to fight back, hit the curb stomp and pick up the win. Laurel Van Ness defeated Eva Storie @ 5:35 via pin [DUD] Like most of the Laurel Van Ness matches in the gimmick, this was really bad. The work was really sloppy from both women, and while they are heels, I see no point in doing distractions is a match that is essentially an extended squash. Who ever laid this out/produced the match is very bad at their job. This isn’t hard, one performer is regularly featured on TV, and the other isn’t. Just let the featured performer win while giving the up and comer some offense, no bullshit needed. The Van Ness character is unhinged; her making a mistake leading to her opponent getting in some offense/a hope spot is fine. Sienna wasn’t needed at all.

Sumi Sakai vs. Karen Q: Karen Q has hit the women of honor scene and is undefeated, beating Kelly Klein by countout, and also picking up a big win over training partner and former friend Deonna Purrazzo. Karen came in as a happy go lucky babyface, but has transitioned well to a heel role. Her facial expressions and mannerisms are really good. Karen slaps Sakai around a bit, but Sakai fights back and hits a missile dropkick. Karen quickly cuts Sakai off, slamming her to the buckles and then laying the boots to her. Karen works a nice and aggressive heat here, Sakai hits a desperation dropkick and locks in an arm bar. She then transitions to the crossface, but Karen makes the ropes. Karen takes control back, hitting the rolling senton and standing moonsault for 2. Karen follows with the back handspring elbow in the corner and lays in kicks before hitting the XPLODER for 2. Sakai keeps fighting back, they work into a double down. Back to their feet and Sakai runs wild with dropkicks and a northern lights suplex for 2. Sakai then hits the fisherman’s neck breaker, covering for 2. Sakai then runs into a Samoan drop, and Karen covers for 2. Karen now grabs a chair and slides it in. The ref takes it away, and then Karen slams Sakai into the ref. Sakai avoids the dropkick and Karen ends up dropkicking the ref. Sakai hits a fisherman’s buster, and grabs the chair. Sakai use sit on Karen’s hands, lays her on the chair and looks for a moonsault; Karen rolls away and Sakai overshoots, completely missing the chair but selling it anyway. Karen rolls her up for the win. Karen Q defeated Sumi Sakai @ 8:05 via pin [**] I thought that this was going along rather well until the overbooked finish with the double ref bump and chair use. It feels like they are making Karen Q a Kelly Klein-lite heel. She’s sort of bad ass, she doesn’t need to cheat to win, but they are going to have her do so anyway because God forbid we change the way a heel can be played in 2017.

– Post match, Karen works over Sakai with the chair. Karen then runs down Purrazzo, who was on commentary, proclaiming that she’s 4-0 and doesn’t need Purrazzo’s approval. She’s also sick and tired of Purrazzo stealing her spotlight. Purrazzo says Karen picks her spots and only appears when Purrazzo is in the middle of a match. Purrazzo wants a match; Karen teases walking off but then sneak attacks Purrazzo. They brawl, Purrazzo tosses Karen and follows with a suicide dive. They brawl at ringside, Karen posts Purrazzo and rolls her back in the ring and sets up the chair. Purrazzo counters out and DDTs Karen on the chair. These two have been working a good angle, and despite all of Joe Koff’s bullshit about how the women are doing just as good as the men, these two can’t sniff some TV time.

US Title Tournament Match: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tetsuya Naito: Naito is over big as expected. He attacks before the bell and then poses before dropping to the floor as Ishii is back in. Naito then sneaks back in and attacks, beating down Ishii and then slapping him. This pisses Ishii off, who fires up with chops. They trade back and forth, with Ishii no selling Naito’s chops and then leveling him and then choking him out with the boot. More chops by Ishii follow, Naito fights back and hits the big boot and another. The neck breaker follows and Naito then hits basement dropkicks. They trade strikes center ring, but Ishii cuts off Naito with a Saito suplex. Ishii then lights up Naito in the corner with chops, follows with a corner clothesline and then hits a powerslam for 2. Naito escapes the powerbomb and hits a draping neck breaker. Naito up top and hits a missile dropkick. Naito looks for his corner kick combo, but Ishii cuts him off with an apron lariat. Ishii looks to suplex Naito back in but Naito hits a DDT to counter. Naito is bleeding from the mouth. Naito looks for a German, Ishii escapes but Naito hits a reverse DDT and a German for the near fall. Naito sets Ishii up top, follows him up and hits the RANA, covering for a good near fall. Naito looks for destino, Ishii fights that off so Naito clubs away at him and kicks away at the head of Ishii. Forearms by Naito follow, he spits at Ishii who gets pissed and head butts Naito. The powerbomb follows for a near fall. Ishii cuts of the clothesline with an uppercut, decapitates Naito with a lariat for a close 2. Naito counters the brainbuster, Naito rolls into a cradle but Ishii escapes. They work into a series of counters, and Naito plants Ishii with a great looking tornado DDT. Naito then hits a missile dropkick to the back of Ishii’s head, hits Gloria and that gets 2. Ishii counters destino with a head butt, but Naito hits a flying forearm. Ishii hits an enziguri and sliding lariat, covering for 2. Naito slaps Ishii, but Ishii look for the brainbuster, and Naito counters into a snapdragon suplex for 2. Ishii counters destino, hits a lariat and another, but Naito kicks out at 2. Ishii finally hits the brainbuster and Naito is done. Tomohiro Ishii defeated Tetsuya Naito @ 16:02 via pin [****½] This was an excellent, hard-hitting match between two guys with great chemistry. They work so well together, and brought back some familiar themes from their past matches. This came at time in the show where it really needed a really great match, they kept the crowd, built to a great finish and Ishii looked great in victory.

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Van Ness vs. Storie is a definite skip; Sakai vs. Karen Q is a solid match that could have been better without the shenanigans, but had a really good post-match angle. The real money is in the Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tetsuya Naito match, which was awesome.