Awesomely Shitty Movies: 300

Welcome to another edition of Enuffa.com's Awesomely Shitty Movies, where I pick apart a beloved cinematographical (is that a word?) feast and shatter its aura of watchability for everyone.  I'm probably overestimating my influence, but you get the idea.

Today I'll be dissecting the 2007 battle epic 300, directed by Zack Snyder and based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller.  300 recounts The Battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartan King Leonidas, along with 299 of his ruthlessly tough soldiers, stood against a massive Persian army led by King Xerxes.  And, well, that's it.  That's the entire plot of the film really.  In flashback we learn that, like all male Spartan children, Leonidas experienced a childhood of intentionally-inflicted cruelty designed to harden him, that he might one day be a great king and soldier.  There are also subplots involving a corrupt religious cult called the Ephors, who order Leonidas not to move against the Persians, plus one of the Spartan Council is revealed to be in Xerxes' back pocket.  Other than that though it's basically an extended two-hour battle sequence.

So what are the pros and cons of this Frank Miller-inspired film?  Let's take a look, because.....THIS! IS! ENUFFA!!!  See what I did there?


The Awesome

Visuals

Like Robert Rodriguez did with Sin City, Zack Snyder took Frank Miller's stunning comic book panels and recreated them for the screen, assembling an almost shot-for-shot adaptation that looks absolutely gorgeous.  The colors are almost exactly like the graphic novel, the characters have been brought to life in painstaking detail, and the action is stylized to reflect the over-the-top movements depicted in the book.  The film adaptations of both Sin City and 300 proved to be very influential in creating these impossible comic book worlds.  If you're going to make a CG-heavy film, this is how you do it.

Whatever the movie's flaws, this is a gorgeous shot.

Battle Scenes

As I said above, the combat is heavily stylized to echo Miller's drawings and give the characters and events a sort of mythic quality.  The blood and gore are turned way up as well, mimicking Miller's explicit visual approach.  It's a good thing the battle sequences work so well, because this film has a lot of them.  A LOT.


Costumes

Snyder has literally translated Miller's artwork in the costume department as well.  All the characters are dressed exactly like their two-dimensional counterparts, and they look great.


Effects & Makeup

There's a theme going on here - when it comes to the visual aspects of the film, everything is first-rate.  The special effects and makeup are no different.  Snyder uses CGI not as a substitute for reality, but as a way to heighten and distort reality.  The backgrounds are murky and flat, bathed in yellows and browns, just as Miller drew them.  The Spartans all have CG-enhanced six-pack builds and brandish perfect bronze shields.  But when practical effects were called for, Snyder used traditional prosthetics as well.  The Ephors are wart-covered and repulsive, the deformed Ephialtes is a grotesque hunchback, the Executioner is an enormous, clawed being resembling the Cenobites from Hellraiser.  The makeup and effects perfectly capture Miller's bizarrely-rendered characters.

Give that man a Baby Ruth!

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Face/Off

Welcome to another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com, where I'll examine a movie that is horribly entertaining but also entertainingly horrible.

Today's entry in the series is John Woo's 1997 action thriller, Face/Off! 

Face/Off stars John Travolta as FBI agent Sean Archer, whose son was killed by his arch-nemesis Castor Troy, a manic, sadistic terrorist played by Nicolas Cage.  Six years later Troy announces to the FBI that there's a bomb hidden somewhere in Los Angeles which could potentially kill millions of people.  The FBI attempts to capture Troy in an ambush but Troy ends up in a coma before they can learn the location of the bomb.  After unsuccessfully interrogating every member of Troy's gang, Archer reluctantly submits to a radical new procedure wherein his face will be removed and replaced with Castor's, allowing him to impersonate his enemy and infiltrate the maximum security prison where Castor's brother/accomplice Pollux is being held.  Archer's subterfuge fools Pollux, who reveals the bomb's location, but before Archer can arrange his release from prison, the real Castor Troy emerges from his coma, forces the surgeon to apply Archer's face to his, and then kills everyone who knew about the procedure.  The real Sean Archer is now trapped in prison as Castor Troy, while the real Castor Troy takes over Archer's life.

This is one of the most convoluted premises of any action movie I've ever seen, but somehow the filmmakers managed to pull a pretty entertaining piece of crap out of what probably should've been a disastrous effort.  So let's take a look at what worked and what didn't.



The Awesome

John Travolta & Nic Cage

First and foremost, the two leads do an excellent job in this film of convincing the audience that a) this scenario is at all believable and b) that for most of the film's running time they are each playing the opposite character.  Travolta plays Archer as a spiritually broken man, haunted by the death of his son and consumed with catching the bastard who killed him.  His relationships with his wife and daughter are in shambles and the only thing that will bring him peace is taking Troy down.  Cage plays Troy as a high-wire act - oozing evil charisma and relishing his own depravity. 

When the ol' switcheroo occurs, each actor gets to explore the other character.  Cage as Archer brings an even greater sense of melancholy and develops a rather tender relationship with Troy's girlfriend Sasha (Gina Gershon), while Travolta's Troy rekindles the romance with Archer's wife (Joan Allen), and is actually able to identify with Archer's troubled teenage daughter (Dominique Swain).  He also becomes an FBI hero when he locates and diffuses his own bomb and uses all the Bureau's resources to chase down "Castor Troy."  Both actors are fantastic in both roles and have a lot of fun imitating each other.

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Timecop

Welcome one and all to the fifth edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com!

Since last installment dealt with the Back to the Future sequels, I thought while we're on the subject of time travel movies, why not examine the tremendously entertaining but pretty terrible Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Timecop?
 

Timecop was released in 1994 and stars the aforementioned Van Damme as Max Walker, a police officer for the futuristic government agency known as the Time Enforcement Commission.  See time travel has been invented and predictably exploited by criminals for either financial gain or to alter the timeline to their advantage, necessitating the formation of the TEC.  Walker stumbles onto the case of Senator Aaron McComb (Ron Silver), who has become head of the Commission and is abusing his position by stealing money from the past to fund his future Presidential campaign.  What follows is a pretty intriguing-but-not-good sci-fi action thriller as Walker travels back and forth between 1994 and 2004 to thwart McComb's plot and retroactively prevent his own wife's murder at the hands of McComb's agents.

The movie was directed by Peter Hyams (who helmed the Sean Connery sci-fi western Outland, as well as the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001) and is loosely based on a comic book story.

So let's take a look at what was good about this movie, and then we'll look at what wasn't.


The Awesome

Time Travel

As I said last time, I'm a sucker for time travel stories.  I find the whole concept fascinating and by using that as a backdrop there's instant sci-fi credibility in my book.  Of course it's also a very delicate line to walk, given how easily a plot-unraveling paradox can ruin the film.  But as long as the characters are interesting and the overall story works, one can forgive a certain degree of time-travel plot holes. 

In Timecop we see the villains traveling back to the Civil War era and the Great Depression to take advantage of lesser technology and a vulnerable economy, respectively, coming away with a fortune.  Even though these scenes were brief, I enjoyed seeing these different time periods depicted and found the thievery inventive.  We also see the main villain McComb interacting with his younger self to alter his own future, and we see the hero Walker trying to evade the baddies while trying not to be seen by his own younger self, lest the timeline be unnecessarily tampered with.  This is all neat stuff.

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Popeye

Welcome to another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com, where I discuss, in much greater detail than interests anyone, a film with very mixed virtues and faults.  Today's subject is the 1980 Robert Altman-directed adaptation of the beloved cartoon/comic strip, Popeye!  

Starring Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall and Paul Smith, Popeye came about after Paramount and Columbia Pictures had a bidding war over the film rights to Annie.  When Paramount came up short, they mined for similar ideas and one executive came up with the idea for a feature film treatment of Popeye.  Originally the studio (now co-producing with Disney) wanted Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin as the two leads (Tomlin would've been swell, Hoffman probably not so much), but fortunately newly hired director Robert Altman opted for the perfectly-cast duo of Williams and Duvall.  An unconventional choice for a movie of this type, Altman lent his signature style of satirical humor, richly detailed settings and colorful supporting characters, to try and create a three-dimensional world around these two-dimensional characters.  Filming took place in Malta, on a lavishly constructed set, and the budget ballooned to a then-extravagant $20 million.  The studio panicked and ordered Altman to finish up and bring home what footage he had.  The film was released in December 1980 to mixed reviews and less-than-stellar box office receipts; although it grossed $60 million worldwide, it was not the smash hit the studios expected and has since garnered a reputation as one of the great box office bombs.

But Popeye has a lot going for it, and sadly a lot working against it.  Let's take a look at the pros and cons of this unusual comic strip adaptation....



The Awesome


Cast

Pretty much everyone in this movie is spot-on.  Robin Williams (making his feature film debut), while not exactly disappearing into the role, makes a splendid Popeye - likable, matter-of-fact, humble and downtrodden by nature but gallant and heroic when he needs to be.  I'm not sure anyone else in 1980 could've brought this character to life as effectively.  Ditto for Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, who does a note-perfect live action translation of the gangly damsel in distress.  Most of the film's funniest moments involve Duvall's stylized mannerisms, and as someone who's used to seeing her either in hysterics in The Shining, or as Steve Martin's straight-man best friend in Roxanne, it's refreshing to go back and see her in a subtly comedic turn.  She might be the best thing about this film, actually.  Paul Smith also makes a fantastic Bluto, looking exactly like you'd expect this character to appear as a flesh & blood person, terrifying as he glares about the room growling like an agitated lion.  Smith is a helluva lot better in this movie than in Dune, I'll tell ya that much.  Ray Walston is the other standout, as Popeye's long-lost father Poopdeck Pappy, AKA The Commodore, conveying a front of cold, dryly amusing gruffness toward his son, which later gives way to genuine pathos as he bonds with Swee'pea.  So if nothing else, this film has a strong ensemble cast that's fun to watch as they make believable characters out of these cartoon archetypes.

WWE SummerSlam 2024 Review: I Just Want Good Wrestling But WWE Only Sells Bad "Cinema"

Well WWE smashed a whole bunch more records at this year's SummerSlam - not that tough to do when you keep jacking up ticket prices and the city pays you to hold your event there - but as I suspected the card itself was steeped in mediocrity, concerned more with bad drama than good wrestling.  WWE's audience is so bought in to the idea that wrestling matches don't have to be good as long as they advance whatever ongoing melodrama is behind them, that the company no longer cares about making any outside-the-box choices inside the ring.  To them wrestling has to either be about action or about storytelling and they can't seem to understand that it can and should be both.  There numerous times watching this show I found myself thinking "Christ, Vince booked numerous recent SummerSlams better than this one."

After yet another Triple H "Don't forget who's in charge now" moment to kick off the show, followed by a Jelly Roll performance, the opening match was Liv Morgan vs. Rhea Ripley for the Women's Title.  They started out playing cat and mouse, with Ripley chasing Liv in and out of the ring until finally outmaneuvering her and going on offense.  After a few minutes of Ripley dominating, Liv sent her shoulder-first into the turnbuckles, which popped Ripley's injured shoulder out of socket.  Liv took over and worked the dislocation until Ripley finally got some space and slammed it into the announce table, Lethal Weapon 2 style.  Ripley made a comeback but Liv brought a chair into the ring and tried to use it.  Ripley flattened her with a boot, picked up the chair herself, and was about to swing it when Dominik on the outside grabbed the chair and reminded her she couldn't win the title this way.  Ripley let go of the chair but Liv knocked her into Dom and hit Oblivion for a close nearfall.  Dom then threw the chair into the ring for Liv to hit a second Oblivion to win the match.  The announcers sold this like Dom's plan backfired, but then Dom helped Liv up from the floor and kissed her, betraying Rhea.  Solid opener.  ***1/4

WWE SummerSlam 2024 Preview & Predictions

This weekend it's the 37th annual summer spectacular (and for this lineup I use that word very loosely), WWE SummerSlam!

Yeah, this lineup sucks.  I continue to be at a loss as to why this company is as hot as it is, with phoned in crap like this on their third biggest show of the year.  Seven matches, six for championships, only three with any real story to them, one of which makes the company's top champion an afterthought in his own main event.  I legit need it explained to me why everyone loves WWE so much.  Oh, and there's gonna be a three-hour pre-show to fuck over AEW's Collision rating as much as possible.  Because WWE is run by predatory shit weasels.  Anyway, let's get to it....

WWE Women's Championship: Bayley vs. Nia Jax

Jesus H. Christ, this is what you came up with for SUMMERSLAM?  True to WWE form Bayley had a huge babyface title win at 'Mania and she's been coasting ever since with an ice-cold reign.  And then for some reason Nia Jax of all incompetents got to win Queen of the Ring to earn this title shot.  Absolute drivel.  I guess Nia wins, god help us.

Pick: Nia

NJPW G1 Climax 34 Preview & Predictions

It's time once again for NJPW's vaunted G1 Climax tournament, what has historically been the most fun four weeks of wrestling all year.  The company in recent years hasn't exactly earned that title, but there's always hope....

Thank Christ, New Japan has returned to the classic two-block format this year, as that four-block experiment the last two tournaments stunk.  So right off the bat we have an inherent improvement in the 2024 edition.  Also you'll notice some stunning omissions in this year's field.  For the first time since 2001, we'll have a G1 Climax without Hiroshi Tanahashi.  End of a fuckin' era.  Also for the first time since I think 2009 there's no Tomohiro Ishii, historically one of the tournament's perennial MVPs.  Time marches on, as they say.  Couple that with the absences of recent AEW signees Jay White, Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay, and this field looks VERY different from last year's.  But that actually sets the stage for a very refreshing tourney.  We'll see some new faces and many others who have only just begun their G1 tenures.  Also the winner is somewhat hard to predict this year, which is always fun.

Let's look at the blocks below:

Block A: Shota Umino, Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Sanada, Great O-Khan, Zack Sabre Jr., Gabe Kidd, Jake Lee, Evil, Callum Newman

Block B: El Phantasmo, Hirooki Goto, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura, Jeff Cobb, Henare, David Finlay, Ren Narita, Konosuke Takeshita, Oleg Boltin

 

As usual I'll only go through the individual names who have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this thing (or at least their respective blocks), rather than the entire field.  

Block A: Shota Umino, Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Sanada, Zack Sabre Jr.

Block B: Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura, Jeff Cobb, David Finlay

Oscar Film Journal: The Long Voyage Home (1940)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Still toiling back here in the 1940s and still on the theme of "films photographed by Gregg Toland," today I'll be reviewing one of John Ford's lesser known films, The Long Voyage Home, starring John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, and a host of character actors as a ragtag group of merchant marines tapped by the British government to deliver a shipment of explosives to London, around the start of World War II.  The sailors are a rowdy lot, prone to drunken debauchery and very bad decisions.  Case in point, while the ship is docked in the West Indies at the film's outset, Mitchell's character Driscoll, the group's de facto leader, sneaks ashore one night to arrange for a host of native female guests to smuggle booze aboard the ship so the crew can party.  Later in the film the crew, prone to mob mentality, begins to suspect one of their own, a shifty Englishman named Smitty, of being a German spy because of his secretive behavior.  Smitty isn't, but that doesn't stop them from tying him up and raiding his possessions, determined to prove his guilt at all costs.  In the film's third act Wayne's character, a rather dimwitted Swede named Olsen, decides to return home after ten years at sea, but he and the group can't help getting roped into one last blowout at a seedy tavern, where the waitstaff and a sailing agent have ulterior motives to keep Olsen from leaving.

WWE Money in the Bank 2024 Preview & Predictions

Time for another skimpy five-match B-PPV from WWE that everyone will claim is the greatest piece of "cinema" they've ever seen....

It's another internationally hosted show that's light on star power and outrageously expensive to get a ticket for, WWE Money in the Bank.  The most tired gimmick in WWE gets another go-round, in its 19th year of existence.  Jesus, next year will be the two-decade mark, for a gimmick that's barely ever elevated anyone.  So we have two ladder matches, a World Title match, an Intercontinental Title match that should steal the show, and a trios match to set up one of the weakest SummerSlam main events in recent memory.

Women's Money in the Bank: Iyo Sky vs. Chelsea Green vs. Lyra Valkyria vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Naomi vs. Zoey Stark

This one could not be more telegraphed given how weak this field is.  Iyo's already won MITB, and of the remaining five women Tiffany is the only future main eventer.  She and Iyo will do some cool spots, but man is this lineup thin.

Pick: Tiffany

Oscar Film Journal: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Today's subject is a film I resisted watching for many years due only to the fact that it beat out It's a Wonderful Life for Best Picture of 1946 (along with an astounding eight more trophies).  But I finally gave it a whirl after learning that the cinematographer on this film was Gregg Toland of Citizen Kane fame.  I'm talking about the post-WWII drama The Best Years of Our Lives, starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Theresa Wright and Virgina Mayo.  

TBYOOL was one of the first films to tackle the subject of war veterans struggling to readjust to life in the world after coming home from battle.  In the opening scenes we're introduced to three vets all headed to the same hometown, who quickly form a bond during their flight.  March's character Al Stephenson is a middle-aged husband and father of two who left a lucrative but unfulfilling banking job to enlist, and now finds everyday civilian life rather dull unless he's heavily alcohol-medicated.  Andrews' character is Fred Derry, a bomber pilot who suffers from PTSD and has no viable job skills, with a vapid, gold-digging wife seems uninterested in him without his uniform.  The third vet is a young sailor named Homer Parrish (played by actual veteran Harold Russell, in his feature debut), who lost his hands and had them replaced with hooks (Parrish actually suffered this disability in real life), and can't bring himself to resume his relationship with fiancée Wilma, fearing that she won't want to commit to taking care of him.

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2024 Review: Swerve and Will Have Arrived

Never doubt AEW when it comes to PPV.  Just don't do it.  This company is untouchable at putting on absolute banger shows.  Case in point the 2024 edition of Forbidden Door, a ten-match main card (plus some very fun pre-show bouts) where the worst thing on the show was the perfectly fine opening match.  The match layout also made it fly by, as they saved most of the longer matches for later in the show.

After an enjoyable Mariah May-Saraya tournament match that saw May steal a win with a rollup, and a blazing lucha trios match featuring the legendary Mistico, Forbidden Door kicked off proper with hometown hero MJF vs. technical lucha wizard Hechicero in a fast-paced clash of styles.  This only got ten minutes but they had enough time to tell the story of Hechicero targeting Max's recently rehabbed shoulder, and Max keeping up with Hechicero's technical prowess.  Max escaped a double arm submission and hit Adam Cole's Tequila Sunrise destroyer and his own brainbuster to win the match and foreshadow his impending date with Cole.  Solid stuff to get the PPV started.  ***1/2

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2024 Preview & Predictions

This Sunday it's the third-annual AEW x NJPW (xCMLL) Forbidden Door extravaganza!

This time of year is generally a tough sell for AEW, as it is geared to a smaller segment of the fanbase that also enjoys NJPW and other international promotions, but the show is always a ton of fun and this year's edition should be no different.  From a wrestling standpoint there are no fewer than 7 or 8 potential ****+ matches on this show, including a huge babyface vs. babyface main event and two women's championship matches that should be stellar.  There are a couple of head-scratching inclusions too but they should deliver regardless.  Let's take a look.....

JUST ADDED: Mariah May vs. Saraya

I usually don't do picks for the pre-show matches but this is an Owen Cup match so I'll add it.  By the way, this pre-show also has Mistico/Lucha Bros vs. Yota Tsuji/Hiromu Takahashi/Titan??  Holy shitballs, I dunno who's gonna win that (probably Team Mistico), but it'll be a banger. 

But back to the Mariah match.  Should be a solid outing.  Mariah is clearly going all the way in this tournament, so kaboom.

Pick: Mariah

Samoa Joe/Hook/Katusyori Shibata vs. Chris Jericho/Big Bill/Jeff Cobb(?)

This one hasn't officially come together yet, as Bryan Keith's injury left an opening in the Learning Tree trio, which Jericho intended to fill with Minoru Suzuki, only to be rebuffed with extreme prejudice.  Elsewhere, Jeff Cobb was supposed to be defending his NJPW TV Title in an open challenge but that apparently fell through.  I wonder who the intended opponent was.  Anyway, it seems at last night's Collision tapings they revealed Jeff Cobb as the third man, which should make this match better.  Not sure when Suzuki's challenge to Jericho one-on-one will play out, maybe next week's Dynamite?

Pick: I think team JoeHookBata probably wins.

Oscar Film Journal: Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Time to take a little trip back to the mid 80s with a look at Woody Allen's acclaimed comedy-drama Hannah and Her Sisters, an ensemble piece about middle-age angst, starring Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Carrie Fisher, and Allen himself, plus a veritable who's-who of future film and TV stars (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Black, Julie Kavner and John Turturro for example).  The film centers around the titular three sisters and their sordid romantic entanglements with deeply insecure, troubled men.  Hannah (Farrow) is a self-assured actress who is always emotionally available to support her siblings and her former and current husbands, but everyone seems to resent how together she is and how she never seems to need that support reciprocated.  Her husband Elliot (Caine) is obsessively infatuated with her sister Lee (Hershey), who is dating an eccentric, reclusive artist (Max Von Sydow).  Hannah's other sister Holly (Weist) is a recovered cocaine addict struggling with her own acting career and running a catering business on the side with her friend/rival April (Fisher).  Meanwhile Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Allen) is in the midst of an existential crisis brought on by a health scare, which sends him scrambling to find real meaning in his life.

Top Ten Things: Movie Plot Twists

Welcome to Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com, where I compile a list of stuff that, let's be honest, is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  But let's do it anyway...

Today it's the Top Ten Movie Plot Twists of all time.  The plot twist is an age-old narrative device used to reframe an entire story and make the audience go, "Wait, whaaaaaaaat??"  When executed correctly it can save a poor film (Saw, Terminator 3) by creating a memorable ending that stands out much more than the film itself, or it can make an already good film a transcendent piece of pop culture.  A good plot twist generally makes the movie a mandatory repeat watch, as the first viewing results in a colossal mindfuck, while the second allows us to put the pieces together with the new frame of reference.  It also requires great skill and discipline on the part of the storyteller, as they need to give away enough information that the reveal doesn't feel like a cheat, but keep enough cards hidden that the audience won't see it coming.


Here are the ten greatest plot twists in cinema history, according to me.....

*****SPOILERS AHEAD******

10. The Prestige: "A brother...a twin..."

Christopher Nolan's moody period piece about feuding 19th century magicians has great fun playing around with the timeline, creating narratives within narratives as each of the main characters reads the other's diary and we see flashbacks from multiple points of view.  The rivalry centers around a trick known as The Transported Man, in which the magician disappears into a cabinet at one end of the stage only to instantly reappear from an identical cabinet twenty feet away.  Alfred Bordin (Christian Bale) invented the trick, and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) becomes obsessed with discovering the secret, even commissioning the creation of a newfangled teleportation device.  In the film's climactic twist ending it's revealed that Bordin had a twin brother the whole time.  He and the brother would take turns playing the role of Bordin's assistant Fallon, and both committed so fully to their secret that it ruined Bordin's marriage, his career, and eventually cost the brother his life.  The filmmakers masterfully manipulate the audience's sympathy, transferring it from Angier to Bordin midway through the movie.  The final reveal caps off that transition perfectly.
   

9. The Wizard of Oz: "There's no place like home"

One of the most famous and often imitated twist endings is the "It was all a dream" scenario, wherein the protagonist wakes up to find that none of the events we've just witnessed actually happened.  In a lesser story this can be an infuriating revelation, but in the case of The Wizard of Oz it turned out iconic.  Dorothy gets trapped in her house during a tornado, is knocked unconscious, and is transported to a magical world called Oz, populated by witches, little people, talking scarecrows, tin men and lions, and of course, color.  After a whimsical journey to see the famous Wizard about helping her get home, a good witch named Glinda tells her to click her heels together and suddenly she wakes up in her own black & white bed, having dreamed the whole darn thing.  While this type of plot device has been parodied and watered down over the years, in this case it was a brilliant piece of storytelling.  The Wizard of Oz is probably the quintessential family movie and I always associate it with a time before the advent of DVDs and on-demand streaming, when we could only watch it once a year on TV.  Truly an Event Viewing experience.   

WWE Clash at the Castle: Scotland Preview & Predictions

This weekend is WWE's return to the UK for Clash at the Castle, this time in Drew McIntyre's home country of Scotland.

Once again it's a lean five-match show.  Unfortunately WWE doesn't seem to think much of Scotland, since this card looks pretty mid at best.  Drew finally gets his rematch with the transitional champ who cashed in on him, two throwaway women's matches, an admittedly good Intercontinental Title match with a damaged-goods challenger whom the champ has already beaten, and....*checks notes*.....the exact same scenario for the WWE Title.  This company can't book a babyface champion to save their lives.  Newly crowned babyface champ gets challenger who isn't at all credible anymore, beats him clean, challenger goes on a mean streak, gets a rematch because "reasons."  Are they deliberately cooling Cody off until Dwayne and Roman come back?

Women's Tag Team Championship: Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill vs. Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn vs. Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark

Yeah this is pointless.  Bianca and Jade retain, obviously.  Jade does her usual schtick, showing very little in-ring improvement.

Pick: Bianca & Jade

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Welcome to yet another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies here at Enuffa.com, where I examine a film that is quite flawed but for one reason or another I can't help tossing it into the DVD player every so often.

Today the film in question is the third installment of the original Mad Max Trilogy, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.  I'm a huge fan of this series - the inaugural Mad Max is a mercilessly bleak dystopian film with an unrelentingly frantic pace, wherein our protagonist loses everything he cares about and becomes a sadistic revenge-seeker.  The second film, The Road Warrior, is simply one of the greatest action films I've ever seen.  This hugely influential piece of pop culture is essentially a Western set in a post-apocalyptic future, where Max has been aimlessly roaming the wasteland scavenging fuel and food, and lends his considerable survival skills to help a small band of colonists defeat a gang of homicidal marauders.

The first two movies make up two-thirds of a near-perfect trilogy.  Unfortunately, as with many trilogies, the third episode falls short of expectations.  With Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, director George Miller stepped back into a Co-Director role after his longtime producer Byron Kennedy was killed in a helicopter crash.  Right off the bat this movie would lack the main driving creative force behind the first two films.  Still there was an interesting story to be told here, and some aspects of it worked quite well.  Let's take a look at the pros and cons of Beyond Thunderdome.


The Awesome


Mel Gibson

None of these movies would be the same without Mel Gibson's thoroughly compelling turn as the emotionally broken Max Rockatansky.  Gibson has in later years revealed himself to be a totally crazy person with serious bigotry issues, but it's impossible to deny what an onscreen talent he used to be.  When I first heard they were making a new Max film without Gibson I couldn't possibly picture anyone else in the role (I have to admit though, Tom Hardy proved himself a fantastic choice).  Like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or Bruce Willis as John McClane, Mel Gibson was born to play Max.  He brought rugged, taciturn charisma and a hardened heroic quality to this lonely but honorable character.  We're able to completely sympathize with him despite his moral ambiguity.

Max is a BAMF

Mad Max (1979): Revisiting the Mad Max Franchise

Welcome to a special look at one of my favorite film series!  You know it, you love it, it's Mad fucking Max.

Mad Max.  Few film titles convey such a fountain of information and connotation as those six letters.  When George Miller conceived the title for his first feature film (Jesus, what a debut...), he tried to think of a name that would be simple, easy to remember, alliterative, and most of all evocative.  The fact that only the third letter of each word was different was a plus, and even more compelling was that the title ended in an X.  Is there a phonetically more jarring letter in the English language?  Couple that with the absolutely iconic chrome/lightning bolt/grill graphic design in the opening titles, and immediately the viewer is keenly aware this film will not be for the squeamish.  Things are about to get intense up in this bitch.

Produced on a scant $400,000 budget by the barely experienced Miller and Byron Kennedy, Mad Max was a veritable powderkeg of an action movie, shot guerrilla-style while capturing the look of a big-budget film.  Proper safety precautions weren't even considered; the cinematographer was often seated in a chair mounted to the front of a vehicle, or strapped to the back of a motorcycle to achieve the immersive, frenetically-paced action shots.  It's a near-miracle no one was seriously injured during the making of this teleplay.  The cinemascope aspect ratio allowed for the car chase shots to feel even faster than they were; with the sky and distant background cropped out of the frame all you're left with is the road and the vehicles, hurtling toward camera.  

The History of NJPW Dominion (2021)

Well that was a rather short Dominion PPV, wasn't it?  Only five matches, two of which were barely over ten minutes.  Not only that, we got a very unexpected main event result, as for the third time that year someone won their first IWGP Title.  

After guest commentator Hiromu Takahashi addressed the crowd assuring everyone he'd be back in action soon, NJPW Dominion 2021 opened with a ten-man tag match, pitting members of Chaos plus Hiroshi Tanahashi against a Bullet Club squad let by Evil.  This boasted fast-paced action and was enjoyable while it lasted, but a sub-twelve-minute match featuring ten dudes isn't going to leave a lot of room for folks to get their shit in.  The biggest story coming out of this match was in the Juniors division, as Taiji Ishimori and Sho carried the third act of the match, culminating in Ishimori snaring the win with a Bloody Cross.  Pretty forgettable overall, but inoffensive.  **1/2

The second multi-man tag pitted Tetsuya Naito, Sanada and Bushi against Dangerous Tekkers and Douki, with the main story being Naito and Sanada meshing well as a new tag team.  Like the opener this was fine but too short to be very memorable.  Zack Sabre and Sanada had the best exchanges, with a lot of pinning combinations and reversals.  Finally after eleven-plus minutes Sanada scored an upset by countering a ZSJ European Clutch with a cradle of his own.  Thus Naito and Sanada are your new #1 contenders for the IWGP Tag belts.  I like that matchup and it's nice to see some new blood in the heavyweight tag ranks.  The temporary demotion of Naito rather telegraphed the main event result though...  **1/2

The History of NJPW Dominion (2019)

Welp, Dominion 2019 was definitely not on the level of 2018, or 2017, or 2015.  But then those three editions are three of the best PPVs I've ever seen.  Still I have to consider this show, very good though it may have been, as a mild disappointment.  I've come to expect Dominion to automatically be a Show of the Year contender, and this wasn't that.  Fortunately it was a sellout and set up some cool stuff for the future, but I was expecting a grand slam and they only hit a triple.

The show kicked off with a Jon Moxley showcase, as he made short work of Shota Umino.  I get why this went under four minutes but I would've liked to see more from these two.  That said, this was a very good four-minute squash, with Moxley taunting Umino during a series of Umino forearms; the veteran toying with the rookie.  Moxley finished Umino with his double-arm DDT and then helped him up post-match, giving Umino his endorsement before announcing his intention to enter the G1.  Between his excellent US Title win over Juice Robinson and this match, the stage was already set for Moxley to prove how much better he was outside WWE.  This was fine for what it was.  **3/4

From Moxley's first appearance as US Champion we moved onto Shingo Takagi's first as a division crossover star, as he and Satoshi Kojima beat the tar out of each other.  As a Junior, Shingo had been able to bully and overpower every opponent, but heavyweight Kojima wasn't standing for it and gave it all right back.  These guys had some sick forearm and lariat exchanges and built to a strong finish, with Shingo hitting a Pumping Bomber and Last of the Dragon to get his first heavyweight singles win.  Shingo's run as a company MVP heavyweight was underway.  This was an excellent little fight, particularly for its place on the card.  ***3/4

The first of two mongrel tag matches was next, as Minoru Suzuki and Zack Sabre faced Yoshi-Hashi and Jushin Thunder Liger.  These four paired off for most of the bout, Suzuki building to a future match with Liger and Yoshi proving himself as a British Heavyweight Championship challenger for Zack.  Suzuki and Liger's exchanges were fun, while Yoshi wasn't the most credible opponent for Sabre.  But he stole a win here with a magistral cradle.  This was a garden variety undercard tag match.  **1/2

The weakest match on the card was the six-man tag pitting Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson and Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jay White, Chase Owens and Taiji Ishimori.  Usually Tanahashi is able to hide his physical limitations in a singles match, but he wasn't able to do so here.  Tana looked so beat up and tired, his offense wasn't nearly as crisp as usual.  Taguchi's story during this match was his inability to hit the Funky Weapon hip attack.  Ishimori didn't do much here, leaving Owens, Juice and White to carry most of it.  Not much to this.  **

Things picked up with the NEVER Openweight Championship, as Taichi had one of his best matches to date against Tomohiro Ishii, who had what was for him a middling encounter.  This was very solid stuff, with Taichi actually fighting for a change, begging the question, both from the announcers and myself, "Why aren't all of his matches like this?"  After some early stalling and usual Taichi antics, the second half of this match became a more typical Ishii fight, with traded strikes, suplexes and some Taichi submission attempts.  Ishii eventually won with a sliding lariat (after multiple missed attempts) and a brainbuster to recapture the NEVER Title.  This match was very good, a step below Shingo-Kojima.  ***1/2

The Tag Titles were next as GOD faced Evil & Sanada in a pretty standard tag match.  There was some good action but nothing terribly noteworthy.  Jado interfered liberally, hitting Evil with a kendo stick from the outside, and later pulling the referee out of the ring to stop him from seeing Tama Tonga tapping to Evil's Scorpion Deathlock.  After a ref bump Jado came in with the stick again but Bushi appeared, spraying black mist into his face and knocking him out with a tope.  Evil & Sanada went for the Magic Killer but Tama broke it up and rolled up Evil, hooking the tights for the cheap win.  This was fine but not much else.  ***

The real meat of the show, as expected, was the final three bouts, starting with an incredible Dragon Lee-Will Opsreay match.  Ospreay stated a few days ago he and Lee intended to steal the show here, and they did just that, with an epic 20-minute Juniors match.  After several minutes of thrilling back-and-forth, Lee propped Ospreay on the outside railing and hit a stunning tope, knocking both guys over the railing and the Japanese announce table.  Absolutely wild spot that was actually safer than it looked.  Ospreay later hit a gorgeous corkscrew moonsault to the floor.  One of my favorite spots, incredibly simple though it was, involved Dragon Lee attempting to run away from Ospreay but getting cut off by a hook kick.  Such a basic but brilliant moment.  Another great exchange saw Ospreay take a reverse rana but counter a Lee running charge with a Spanish Fly out of nowhere.  And of course they did the spot where Ospreay appears to take a top rope rana but lands on his feet and both guys sell the magnitude of that reversal.  Ospreay repeated his finish from his Shingo match a few days earlier, putting away Dragon with a top rope OsCutter/Stormbreaker sequence to once again capture the Jr. Title.  Just a spectacular performance by both men.  ****3/4

The semi-main event was one of those matches I have to reluctantly give a very high rating to.  At this point I was convinced Ibushi and Naito had a suicide pact, considering how many times they've dropped each other on their heads over the years.  This match was slower paced than their previous ones but the second half featured so many piledrivers, reverse ranas, and other spiking moves it became really uncomfortable to watch.  And don't get me started on that apron German suplex spot.  Like, obviously the plan was for Naito to flip Ibushi all the way over so he landed on the floor on his stomach (ridiculously dangerous as it is), but Ibushi didn't clear the apron and the side of his head caught the edge on the way down, which looked like it folded his head into his shoulder at a 45-degree angle.  Jeezus fucking Christ.  I spent the rest of this match saying "What the fuck are you doing??"  That Ibushi was even able to get up after that, let alone finish a match full of crazy high spots is baffling.  And from a workrate standpoint this match was pretty great.  But after this I didn't want to see them wrestle each other ever again (Fortunately their WrestleKingdom 15 main event was much safer).  Naito kicked out of a Last Ride and countered the Kamigoye with a DDT that Ibushi took like Rob Van Dam.  Naito finished him with Destino to recapture the I-C Title.   ****1/4 for the mechanics of the match, but zero stars for the common sense displayed in getting there.

The main event, following two spectacular matches, left me feeling a little underwhelmed truth be told, but there was plenty of good stuff here.  Okada and Jericho worked a very unusual style for New Japan, with Jericho playing the Terry Funk-type heel and Okada altering his usual main event style to match.  Jericho subverted several of Okada's usual spots, such as the clean rope break at the beginning, where Jericho answered Okada's pat on the chest with an eye poke.  Then later Okada tossed Jericho over the barricade and went for his high cross body but Jericho countered with a Codebreaker.   Late in the match Jericho attempted to steal the Rainmaker but Okada ducked and hit the Codebreaker for a nearfall.  Okada avoided Jericho's new Judas Effect and countered another Codebreaker by throwing Jericho over his head.  Jericho went for a sunset flip but Okada sat on top and got a quick pin, echoing the first fall with Kenny Omega last year.  Jericho was pissed and attacked Okada after the bell, using a chair and hitting the Judas Effect.  Guest commentator Tanahashi came to Okada's rescue, setting up a dream match with Jericho, at WrestleKingdom 14.  The story of this match really seemed to be Jericho robbing the fans of a typical Okada main event, with multiple signature spots broken up, a slower-than-usual pace, and an out-of-nowhere finish.  Okada never even hit the Rainmaker and certainly didn't get a post-match promo.  For what they were going for this was very well-done, it just left me slightly vexxed because it wasn't the match I expected.  On balance I'll give it **** because it was well-worked and accomplished what it set out to accomplish.  Arch-villain Chris Jericho pissed off the New Japan faithful and was protected in a loss.

So yeah, Dominion 2019 was certainly not the instant classic show we've come to expect from the annual June PPV, but it was very far from a bad show too.  On the contrary, a show like this on WWE's calendar would be considered one of their best of the year.  For New Japan though it was just good.  

Best Match: Dragon Lee vs. Will Ospreay
Worst Match: The six-man
What I'd Change: Tell Ibushi and Naito to stop trying to die.  
Most Disappointing Match: As good as it was, Ibushi-Naito was really difficult to watch.
Most Pleasant Surprise: That Taichi can actually deliver a good NEVER match when he wants to.
Overall Rating: 8.5/10


Alright, bring on the G1 Climax!  Thanks for reading - follow us on Twitter, MeWe, Facebook and YouTube!


2018

2020

 

The History of NJPW Dominion (2018)

Okada-Omega IV.  The new wrestling yardstick.  The 60+-minute epic that made everything else feel obsolete.  The culmination of an 18-month rivalry that ranks among the greatest in the history of the business.  Oh, plus a bunch of other good stuff.....

2018's PPV of the Year may primarily be remembered for its main event, but it was anything but a one-match show.  In addition to the 6-star classic (or 7, or 8, however many snowflakes you wanna give it), this show boasted three other ****+ matches by my count, and while it took a few matches to really get going, this edition of Dominion ranks among the finest.

The opener was a short but entertaining Jr. Tag Title match, with Roppongi 3K challenging El Desperado & Kanemaru, hoping to regain the straps.  The heels took advantage of a slight ref bump and Kanemaru used a whiskey bottle on SHO for the win.  It's a shame these guys only got nine minutes for a title opener and even stranger that RPG3K didn't win.  Nothing spectacular in this opener, it was fine.  **

Next up was Jay White & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Juice Robinson & David Finlay in another short bout.  This was all about setting up White vs. Robinson, which it did nicely.  Robinson got the pin on White with Pulp Friction, and these two would deliver a fantastic US Title match at the G1 Special in San Francisco a month later.  This however was just a quick 7-minute match.  **

A third undercard tag match pitted Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano against Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr.  This was the best of the three openers, mostly due to the Ishii-Suzuki interaction (Who doesn't love watching these two maniacs pummel each other?).  Sabre got the win for his team by tapping out Yano, but after the match Ishii and Suzuki brawled into the back.  Another fun little match.  **1/4

The first really noteworthy bout was the NEVER Openweight triple threat.  Hirooki Goto and Michael Elgin carried most of the weight here while Taichi played the chickenshit heel who picked his spots and tried to stay out of danger.  After some nice three-way spots and some good powerbrokering from Goto and Elgin, Elgin won by buckle bombing Taichi into Goto and then Elgin-bombing Taichi for the pin.  This match wasn't your usual NEVER slugfest, and leaving Taichi out of it would've been a major improvement, but it had some clever spots and was well worked.  ***1/2

Here's where the show really started to take off.  The Young Bucks, freshly moved up to the heavyweight tag division, challenged Evil & Sanada in an energetic, dramatic bout where both Bucks sold injuries - Matt's back became an issue again, and Nick missed a kick on the apron and whacked his foot on the post.  Both injuries played into multiple spots and the Bucks were in peril for much of the bout.  This can be considered the match where Matt and Nick Jackson successfully transitioned from spotfest wrestlers to really great storytellers, and it felt markedly different than their Jr. division stuff.  After multiple exciting false finishes, the Bucks took the match and the straps with More Bang for Your Buck.  One of the best heavyweight tag title matches I've seen in NJPW.  Seven months later the Bucks would drop the titles back to Evil & Sanada and make their New Japan exit, but this bout served as an historic template for their work in AEW.  ****1/2

The History of NJPW Dominion (2017)

NJPW follows up the superb WrestleKingdom 11 with a similarly structured Dominion, complete with four rematches from that show....

In a year when the company, especially its top champion, was churning out classics like a five-star match assembly line, NJPW Dominion 2017 was yet another homerun for the world's greatest current wrestling promotion.  Its nine-match lineup included nary a misstep; the matches ranged from "entertaining opening match fluff" to "pretty good" to "goddamn awesome" to "transcendent."  By my calculations the show included four ****+ matches, the last of which served as an in-ring Godfather 2 to its predecessor.  Five months after Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega lit the wrestling world ablaze with their epic Tokyo Dome main event for the ages, they did it a second time.

First though, let's look at the undercard.

The opening 8-man tag was quick, energetic and inoffensive.  Nothing much at stake but everyone got a little time to warm up the crowd, and team Tiger Mask won after Togi Makabe landed the King Kong Knee Drop on Nakanishi.  I believe this was Kota Ibushi's final Tiger Mask W appearance, thank god.  **1/4

Next up was the 6-Man Title gauntlet match, which was slightly better than its WK counterpart but ultimately entertaining without being terribly memorable.  The first and last segments were probably the strongest, but I find gauntlet six-man tags kind of a slog to sit through.  I'd have preferred a simple six-man tag for the titles.  Team Chaos won the first fall after Toru Yano hit a low blow on Yujiro Takahashi.  He tried to do the same in the second fall to Taichi and Kanemaru but Zack Sabre Jr. rolled him up in a bridging cradle to make short work of Chaos.  Taguchi, Juice and Ricochet were next and had a bit of baseball-themed fun, where Taguchi trapped Taichi in the corner and acted as a catcher, Ricochet wound up and threw an air pitch, and Juice acted as a ball, cannonballing Taichi.  Juice ended up pinning Taichi with Pulp Friction after Kanemaru accidentally whiskey-sprayed him.  Zack Sabre then trapped Juice in an Octopus Hold after the bell, until Evil, Sanada and Bushi entered.   Los Ingobernables retained in the end after Bushi hit a second-rope codebreaker on Taguchi.  Like I said, this was fine but too long for its spot and importance.  **

NJPW Dominion 2024 Preview & Predictions

Remember when NJPW Dominion was a lock for one of the best shows of the year?  Good times....

Yeah so this Sunday is New Japan's second-biggest PPV of the calendar year, and this lineup.....this is not my kinda lineup.  We have an IWGP Title match I'm not at all excited about, a Super Juniors final that should be good but hardly worthy of the main event of the company's second tentpole event, a couple promising secondary title matches, and that's about it.  I know NJPW is in a rebuilding phase but Jesus, where's the rebuilding??

Tetsuya Naito vs. Callum Newman

Why is the company's biggest remaining full-time star in the opener?  I'm glad Newman is getting this chance but shouldn't this be presented as a way bigger deal if they're serious about his future?  This just seems...weird.

Pick: Naito is obviously winning

TMDK vs. Clark Connors, Drilla Molony & LJ Cleary

Standard undercard throwaway trios match.  I'll go with team Zack.

Pick: TMDK

The History of NJPW Dominion (2016)

NJPW rebuilds their roster and sets the stage for a record-shattering IWGP Title reign.....

Osaka-Jo Hall - 6.19.16

The 2016 edition came at a strange transitional period for New Japan, when they were still recovering from the loss of four major players a few months earlier.  While AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Anderson and Gallows were making waves in WWE, NJPW was hard at work to fill the void.  Kenny Omega had emerged as the new top gaijin, winning the vacant Intercontinental Title (I'm still baffled they didn't have Nakamura drop the belt to him on his way out the door), while Tetsuya Naito skyrocketed to the main event scene, winning the New Japan Cup tournament on his way to a shocking IWGP Title victory over Okada at Invasion Attack.  Replacing Anderson & Gallows as the tag team division centerpiece was another pair of Bullet Club guys, Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa, who got off to a rocky start but quickly grew into the role.  And yet another emerging new star was Jr. Heavyweight sensation Will Ospreay, who defeated Ryusuke Taguchi in the Best of the Super Juniors final to earn a shot at division champion Kushida.  So in spite of the talent loss, New Japan was making the best of things and then some (as we'd see over the next year).

Dominion opened with the Bullet Club B-Team of Bad Luck Fale, Hangman Page and Yujiro Takahashi facing the Hunter Club of Captain New Japan, Yoshitatsu and Togi Makabe.  The heels attacked at the bell and worked over Yoshi momentarily, but things broke down quickly and spilled to the outside.  Fale attacked Makabe with the railing, while Page hit CNJ with a shooting star press off the apron (This spot was terrifying, as Page underrotated and was lucky not to land on his head).  Yoshi finally made the hot tag to Makabe, who worked with CNJ to dominate the heels, but Page hit Last Rites on CNJ to win the match, and hung him over the ropes after the bell.  Not much to write home about here, just a proper showcase for Page more than anything else.  *1/2

Up next was a the first of three Chaos vs. Los Ingobernables matches on the show, as the two newest LIJ members Sanada and Bushi faced Tomohiro Ishii and Yoshi-Hashi.  Bushi started right in with heel tactics, choking Yoshi with his T-shirt and opening the door for the heels to work him over for a few minutes, before Yoshi hit a neckbreaker and tagged Ishii.  Ishii ran wild on both LIJ members.  With all four men in the ring Yoshi and Sanada had some good exchanges, with Sanada hitting a top rope dropkick, lariat, and a TKO.  He went for Skull End but met an Ishii lariat.  Yoshi then countered a second Skull End attempt with his Butterfly Lock, which Bushi tried to break up but found himself snared in an Ishii choke.  Sanada tapped to give Chaos the win.  This was a decent match but pretty skippable.  **1/4

The History of NJPW Dominion (2015)

The next four Dominion shows were really something, starting with this masterpiece.....

Osaka-Jo Hall - 7.5.15

The 2015 Dominion PPV was the first NJPW show I truly anticipated as a fan, after initially diving into the product with WrestleKingdom 9.  Between January and July 2015 I perused their back catalogue and watched the big matches from New Beginning, Invasion Attack and Wrestling Dontaku.  But Dominion was the first stacked New Japan show after WK9, and I made it a point to sit down and view it from start to finish, on the day it aired.  Another bit of trivia for you, Dominion 2015 was the first NJPW show I wrote a predictions column for (I went 8 for 9).  If WrestleKingdom 9 converted me into a New Japan fan, Dominion 2015 vaulted New Japan ahead of WWE on my list of wrestling priorities, and I haven't looked back.

This show was the culmination of a year-long arc for the company's rising Ace, Kazuchika Okada, who'd been unseated for the IWGP Title by AJ Styles (partly due to Bullet Club shenanigans), and spent the intervening months trying to climb back up the mountain (with a heartbreaking loss to Tanahashi at WrestleKingdom 9).  Okada's road to Dominion had been a troubled one, with a couple losses to Bad Luck Fale before a big win at Invasion Attack that ended that feud and set the stage for a rematch with AJ at the second-biggest show of the year.  Such was the central story of Dominion 2015.

But first the undercard...

The show opened with a wild, fast-paced offering from the Jr. Heavyweight Tag division, as The Young Bucks defended their Titles against reDRagon and RPG Vice.  The Bucks took a lot of abuse early in the match from both teams but managed to outmaneuver Fish and O'Reilly on the outside, leaving Romero and Beretta to flatten reDRagon with planchas meant for Matt and Nick.  From there the Bucks staged a walkout which prompted RPG Vice to give chase, and Matt and Nick superkicked them both on the ramp before running back into the ring.  RPG Vice nearly got counted out but just made it back in.  After lots of wild exchanges, Kyle O'Reilly took out both RPG Vice members with a rebound lariat, and Fish hit a top rope Falcon Arrow on Romero for a nearfall.  But the Bucks came back, knocking reDRagon out of the match with twin superkicks, Matt superkicked Beretta out of the ring, and the Bucks hit More Bang for Your Buck on Romero to retain the belts.  A super fun opener with the type of Jr. action you'd expect from these three teams.  ***3/4  

Next up was one of only two "forgettable" matches of the night; Bad Luck Fale and Yujiro Takahashi vs. Tomoaki Honma and Tetsuya Naito.  This match was historically significant, as it marked more or less the beginning of Tetsuya Naito becoming the Ingobernable we all know and love today.  Honma was ambushed by the heels at the opening bell, and Naito sauntered down to the ring, in no hurry to help out his partner.  The opening few minutes consisted of Fale and Takahashi pounding Honma, and every time Honma escaped to his corner Naito refused to tag in.  Finally Naito agreed to do some work, leveling both heels with a dive to the outside and offering his signature pose back in the ring.  Naito locked Fale in a Figure Four but ran into some trouble and tagged Honma back in, taking a powder on the outside.  Honma flattened Takahashi with a running headbutt, and Naito detained Fale long enough for Honma to hit a top rope headbutt for the win; this was during a time when Honma lost basically always, so the crowd was jubilant at his success here.  Naito bailed after the bell and left Honma to his celebration.  The rest of course is history; Naito would soon become one of the company's top draws thanks to his transformation into an anti-hero.  A decent match with nice character development, but not a standout on a show like this.  **1/2

The really stacked portion of the card began next with the Katsuyori Shibata-Kazushi Sakuraba fight.  And I mean FIGHT.  This was one of the best simulated MMA bouts I've ever seen and I'd rank it right up there with Sakuraba-Nakamura from WK7.  The grappling looked totally convincing and snug, and Shibata's strikes were brutal.  Sakuraba mostly relied on submission holds, repeatedly locking in guillotine chokes and armbars, while Shibata fought back with sickening forearms, palm strikes, and a pair of stiff-as-hell corner dropkicks.  The most memorable moment came when Sakuraba locked a rear naked choke on a standing Shibata.  Shibata inched toward the ropes with Sakuraba on his back like a spider monkey, but as he reached out, Sakuraba converted the hold into a double butterfly lock to trap both Shibata's arms; Shibata had to resort to reaching the ropes with his teeth to break the hold.  Shibata spun Sakuraba around with a lariat but got caught in another choke that nearly passed him out.  Shibata escaped and locked in his own choke, which he released just long enough to score a match-ending Penalty Kick.  This was fantastically brutal and different from anything else on the show.  ***3/4