WhiteTail Wrestling

Another year gone by and I must say it was probably the most hectic year of my life. I started the year as a full time university student and a part-time accountant and ended the year well still a student (I won’t go into details) and a full-time accountant. This resulted in very little time to commit to the blog and that is something I am determined to change in this new year. Like most resolutions we will see how long that determination lasts.

Gatoh Move

I did not expect going in to 2024 that the first show I would watch would be from Gatoh Move a promotion that wastes away some talented and some less talented wrestlers in a chocolate factory that doesn’t even have a wrestling ring. In previous years New Years Day has had some memorable shows from Japan with the previous two years featuring a Budokan show from Noah. This show was moved to the 2nd and took place at the Ariarke arena. This resulted in Gatoh Move show being the only easily viewable show available from Japan on January 1 with the Wave show not on You Tube and the Zero 1 show delayed on Samurai TV for over a week for those few individuals outside Japan who have access to this service. This was disappointing as the Zero 1 show two years ago was available on Wrestle Universe. If these Japanese indie promotions want to grow their audience they seriously need to find better ways to broadcast their product to those who are not already hardcore fans.

So the Gatoh Move show. It was unsurprisingly bad. The first match featured the Best Bros of Baliyan Akki and Mei Suruga against Minoru Fujita and Sayaka Obihiro. Suruga is a talented performer unfortunately she has spent most of her career stinking it up in crappy Gatoh Move comedy matches and this was no exemption. They spent almost ten minutes clowning around on their stupid little mat with no room to do anything of any interest. Best Bros won the match but I don’t remember how and I really don’t care I lost interest in the opening minute and they never gained that interest back. *

Antonio Honda is an awful comedy wrestler that spends his time either in Gatoh Move or DDT. He beat Tokiko Kirihara in a match that started awfully. The comedy here was atrocious Honda is rarely funny and he didn’t even make me smile once. Perhaps if I spoke Japanese I would care about his crappy mid match comedy monologues but I unfortunately don’t so perhaps the genius of this clown is lost on me. They actually started to wrestle a little bit towards the end which improved this match to *. 

The final match of this shitshow featured Gatoh Move founder Emi Sakura who has recently returned from the United States and her role doing jobs in AEW something she has done very well despite being 47 years old and having a career dating back to the mid 90’s. She teamed up with Masahiro Takanashi to defeat Miya Yotsuba and Munetatsu Nakamura in by far the best match of this show. By best match I mean an average ** match. This was the closest thing to wrestling I had seen to date this year. Sakura performed well as usual despite being handicapped by the venue and everyone else was fine but this show was definitely a chore to sit through. The show is available for free below.

Recommended Matches – None

Wrestler Points – None

Promotion Points – None

WWE

I must say I am not the biggest fan of the WWE product and RAW being a three hour program does little too enhance my enjoyment on the rare occasion that I watch it live. RAW started the year on day one with a show that featured one massive segment that sets up the likely main event for Wrestlemania with one of the biggest stars ever to grace the WWE ring making his return. Despite this live RAW is heavily handicapped by advertisements which interrupt the mostly bland product and make even the best stuff difficult to watch at times. The best way to watch RAW is not to watch it live when the advertisements can be skipped and the show clocks in at a much more viewer friendly number.

But the 2nd of January in Australia was the last day of my leave and with nothing else on I was able to view RAW live. The first match featured Nia Jax a terrible wrestler who is obese, slow and reckless with her opponents who are supposed to be her colleagues. The entire storyline of this match was based on her recklessness in injuring her opponent Becky Lynch in 2018 when she punched Becky in the face breaking her nose and I believe her orbital bone. The image of Lynch bleeding in the crowd became iconic and helped Lynch to become the Man perhaps the biggest star in western women’s wrestling history even though the height of her fame was not to last. Credit for the success of her career of course belongs to Lynch and not Jax although according to the bad storytelling here she is claiming at least some credit. But I suppose they need to have an excuse to put Jax in the ring with Lynch and of course they gave Jax the victory.

The match itself was pretty good I would go **+ but the credit belongs all to Lynch for getting a watchable match out of Jax. Becky was great bumping for her sloth of an opponent and pulling of some excellent fast paced moves which brought the crowd right into the match. Jax wasn’t completely horrible with some of her moves being pulled off but others looked bad especially seeing her land on her ass on the apron a callback to a moment in the past where she cried out in pain my crack when landing on her posterior. With Jax winning this match we can expect more from these two hopefully we don’t see history repeat and Lynch walks away without any serious injury from a Jax feud.

Speaking of injury the next match which featured Imperium the team of Giovanni Vinci and Ludwig Kaiser against Jey Uso and Kofi Kingston ended abruptly when Vinci landed badly on his head. Fearing a possible concussion the referee rightly ended the match.

We got a Miz TV comedy segment when the always confused R-Truth joined his former Awesome Truth teammate. The latest R-Truth gimmick is that he thinks he is a member of the Judgement Day. Two members of the group Dom Mysterio and JD McDonagh came to the ring setting up a match where R-Truth would often appear in the wrong corner. The comedy was funny at times but not much happened here and the Awesome Truth team picked up the win in a perfectly average ** match.

Rhea Ripley defeated Ivy Nile to retain her women’s title in a **+ match. This match went too long and Nile is far too inexperienced for a match of this level but the final few minutes were pretty good and enhanced the match to a reasonable degree.

It was around about now we got the big segment of the show. It had been advertised that a former WWE champion would appear on RAW and a former champ did appear Jinder Mahal whose one title reign was a complete disaster. Mahal who is now a manager rather than a regular wrestler cut a long anti-American promo that would not have been out of place twenty plus years ago and like in the past an American hero would return to stand up for America. The promo itself despite being fairly generic had elements of truth to it which in my view did enhance the quality at least somewhat. That American hero that would appear well he was none other than the Hollywood mega star and former WWE champion Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The Rock also cut a long promo but he played all the hits and the crowd were right into it. This would have been just another segment screaming of ratings desperation if it wasn’t for a line made by the Rock who while discussing going out to eat in San Diego mentioned sitting at the head of the table. Which of course sets up a probable Wrestlemania main event with another part-timer WWE champion Roman Reigns.

The next match on the card featured Shayna Baszler teaming with Zoey Stark against Natalya and Tegan Nox. This match was bang average ** and will be completely forgotten from the moment the match ended.

It was now time for the main event as Seth Rollins defended his World Heavyweight title against Drew McIntyre. This had the potential to be excellent. It was fast paced and exciting with some really good moves and a crowd that were into it. However WWE had to do the WWE thing and ruin it. We got a heap of interference and McIntyre being made to look like a complete geek taking advantage of the interference to hit the claymore but he then foolishly pinning Rollins while Rollins had his feet on the ropes voiding the pin. McIntyre loses his cool and then soon after the match. ***- but this could have been a lot better.

Recommended Matches – None

Wrestler Points – Becky Lynch - Silver – 2 Points

Lynch deserves to be acknowledged for her excellent performance in carrying Nia Jax to a watchable match. The Man is one of the best women’s wrestlers in the world and continues to be a crucial element of the WWE women’s division.

Rhea Ripley – Bronze – 1 Point

Ripley retained her title against Ivy Nile in a decent match. Ripley performed well and was never likely to be defeated.

Jinder Mahal – Bronze – 1 Point

Jinder played the foreign heel excellently in his promo segment with the Rock taking a people’s elbow for his trouble.

The Rock – Bronze – 1 Point

The Rock played all his hits from his prime with his mouth and with his elbow.

Seth Rollins – Bronze – 1 Point

Performed very well in the main event shame about the finish.

Drew McIntyre – Bronze – 1 Point

See Rollins.

Promotion Points – WWE – Bronze – 1 Point

A good episode of RAW. Yes it was too long and had too much of nothing but the matches were mostly decent and the Rock appearance was memorable.

What’s Next

Reviews from AJPW, NOAH and NXT.