Welcome, dear readers, to the Matches of the Month for October!
We continue to march through the autumn months (whatever is left of them, at least) with this edition of the Matches of the month. I'll keep my opening ramble short so we can get right into the meat and potatoes for the month that was.
What's the story, benefactors of bluffing blitzing?!
Keeping on top of the Watchlist, as per usual, this week. It's been a lighter week for yours truly, but I didn't get a single minute of wrestling watched until Wednesady. No real reason for it, just never got around to it. My job is still working on getting me in for training and we get the keys to our new place on the first of November, with the move starting slowly but surely as soon as we get them.
I have some plans for my office space that I am excited to play around with and implement that will, hopefully, make me more excited to work on pieces for the blog, but in all honesty, I can't promise that I'll be doing as much as I had planned on here in the future.
Now, this isn't doom and gloom. I will be maintaining the Watchlist and the MotM and MotY posts, those are easy, I just need to figure everything else out. Need to sit and stew on my ideas for a while and get back to you guys on it.
But! Until then! Let's enjoy this weeks match, yeah?
Read on, friends!
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| AEW |
📖 -8 minutes
What's the story, marks of mimicking mauling?!
An exciting week of wrestling is behind us as your favourite wrestling blogger presses on into an exciting few weeks! Well, exciting is a relative term, it's more busy than exciting, but exciting nontheless! Let's dig into the match we're reviewing for the week, shall we?
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| AEW |
📖 - 14 minutes
What's new, sympathizers of sugarcoated scrapping?!
This has been one of the busiest weeks in recent memory for me, with far more going on behind the scenes than I care to talk about here. All you guys need to know is, things are looking up! This is a possibly positive change! I will update further when I know more, but keep your fingers crossed for your favourite wrestling reviewer.
Let's get onto the match for this week, shall we?
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| HOG |
📖 - 9 minutes
Welcome back wrestling fans to the newest edition of the Match of the Year Tournament!
Starting off the autumn months with the beginning of the E Block! The D Block brought some heavy competition but the E block is fighting hard to stand out! Let's see how they managed this month, yeah?
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| The September pre-quarterfinalists. |
What's the story, onlookers of obscuring outmuscling?!
Seems I'm stuck in Japan for the time being! It's my own fault for going right back to the rings of Japan again this week, but when a match of note (for good or for bad) comes across my feed, I feel the need to weigh in.
Let's see how things panned out this week, yeah?
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| NJPW |
📖 -14 minutes
What's the word, friends?
A new edition of Matches of the Month is here to celebrate the beginning of the autumn season! Yes, that means the leaves are turning and the temperatures are dropping as old man winter starts to tighten his grasp on us here in the great white north.
But fear not, friends! I will push on! I will power through! I will continue to find the very best wrestling the world has to offer!
But before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at September, yeah?
Hey friends, how are we doing?
Normally, the schedule would call for another edition of Wrestling Roulette, with this being a "10" edition of the Weekly Watchlist. And I'll be straight up with you guys, I had it all figured out for weeks. I have a whole slew of UWF-I matches I recently added to my home media server that I was wanting to get through, so I threw all the matched I had into a spreadsheet (just over 200 entries) and had about a dozen matches already picked out for the week of watching, knowing I'd probably need to spin the wheel again to pick 4 or 5 worth talking about.
But then, on Saturday night, the news broke.
PAC passed away.
I was totally stunned by the news, just like everyone else. And that night, I decided to completely flip the script. My UWF-I roulette will have to wait for another week (hopefully I'll return to this idea again soon) as it's time for me to pay tribute to one of the very best of the modern age.
This week is for the Bastard.
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| AEW via Yahoo Sports |
Editors note: This post is formatted uniquely, as I wanted this to be an all-encompassing tribute to PAC. As a result, there is an "extension" to my Weekly Roundup piece after the matches are reviewed. If you need to read this week's edition in pieces, please do. Look after your mental well being.
📖 - 38 minutes
What's new, fiends of fronting fuming?!
I've been on a real hot streak of covering matches from the land of the rinsing sun the past few weeks, eh? I thought the island deathmatch from last week's Watchlist would have killed the momentum, but all it did was spur me on to find some more wacky wrestling.
And friends, this may be one of the wackiest yet.
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| FMW |
📖 - 14 minutes
What's the story, evangelists of embellishing eradicating?!
I continue my journey in the rings of Japan this week with, what might possibly be, the strangest match I've ever reviewed on the Wrestling Vault. I say this, knowing full well I've reviewed a match on a Bullet Train as well as a handfull of CHIKARA matches in my day too.
Despite all that, I think this one has to take the cake.
Why is that, dear reader? Well, read on and find out!
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| NJPW |
📖 - 20 minutes
What's the story, watchers of whitewashing wrecking?!
I continue through the rings of Japan with another Stan Hansen encounter this week! What can I say, when I'm in a good grove, I like to stay there! This match blew every expectation I had away and thoroughly entertained me.
Let's read some more about it, shall we?
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| NJPW |
Welcome, one and all, to the August edition of the Match of the Year Tournament!
We've reached the end of the D Block this month, with a semifinalist being decided to start off the back half of 2026. It's kinda crazy to think that we may have our match of the year winner decided already, but should anyone be surprised, honestly?
And if you are, well then, keep reading to find out what I'm talking about!
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| The August Pre-Quarterfinalists |
What's new, junkies of jockular jousting?!
I continue this unintentional streak of covering Japanese wrestling by going back to Sendai Girls to cover one of my favourite wrestlers on the planet.
I think you guys can figure out who I am talking about.
Regardless, read on! It's a brilliant matchup.
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| Sendai Girls |
Welcome friends, to the August Matches of the Month!
2026 is more in the rear view than the road ahead of us, and this month proved to be a real treat for exceptional wrestling! Maybe I'm getting my mojo back, maybe the end of the summer is proving to be a better season for great wrestling than the start. Regardless, let's see what matches were the very best this month!
What's the story, champions of counterfeit challenging?!
We're starting to get some motivation back, slowly but surely, as I dig around my media server to find matches to watch this week. I was feeling like watching some Stan Hansen this week and happened to find a rather historically significant match by complete happenstance! What luck!
Let's see how this match shakes out, yeah?
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| AJPW |
What's new, hobbyists of hustling headlocks?!
There's been a lot of talk in the wrestling world this past week about this match, so I decided I'd throw my hat in the ring again. 2 weeks ago I commented on the Tsuji/Yuto match from this year's G1, feeling it didn't quite live up to the mammoth praise that was being heaped onto the match, and now I comment on the finals of this year's G1.
Is it a legitimate match of the year contender? Hell, a "greatest of all time" candidate?
Or, is it just another great match that will get lost in the history books?
Let's dig in and find out!
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| NJPW |
What's new, maniacs of masquerading mauling?!
This was a difficult week for yours truly. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, but depression is a real bitch. It was a real struggle for me to find anything I wanted to review or even watch the matches I wanted to watch to just keep regular for the week. Up until last night, I had a whole other match pencilled in for this weeks review, but I started to remember how I've pulled myself out of these funks.
In case of emergency, break glass.
What, or who, I should say, exists behind said glass?
Two wrestlers I've relied on when I needed that extra boost, that reminder that the sport of kings is the greatest thing on planet earth.
The first; Kenta Kobashi, arguably the greatest wrestler to ever live. The Iron Man himself.
The second; Akira Hokuto, the Dangerous Queen, close behind Kobashi for one of the greatest to ever live, regardless of gender.
So, at about 11pm on Thursday, I turned to YouTube and searched the most open-ended thing I could think of, "Akira Hokuto vs." that's where all great searches start.
From there, I found this weeks match.
Let's see what I found, shall we?
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| GAEA |
Welcome back friends to the beginning of the D Block! We're officially in the second half of 2026, with the board "reset" as we look to determine the next finalist for the 2026 Match of the Year tournament.
Let's get into this!
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| The July Pre-Quarterfinalists |
What's the story, enthusiasts of exaggerated enmity?!
This week, I have a rather interesting match on offer for review. One of the more polarizing matches I've watched in some time, the internet can't seen to decide if they think this match is the hottest thing since sliced bread, or the worst thing NJPW has done in years. Honestly, I'm somewhere in the middle, and am going to try and thread the needle a bit here and play to both sides. Maybe by the end of this review I'll have a much better opinion, but I write this intro paragraph a mere hour after watching the match and am still undecided about how I truly feel!
Let's take a walk together, shall we?
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| NJPW |
Welcome back, wrestling fans, to another Matches of the Month!
A leaner month for quality wrestling, at least from what I found, but still enough quality matches to warrant one of these posts! I mean, I'd still post one even if there was only one good match, honestly. I'm all about consistency!
Let's not waste any more of your time. On to the matches!
