2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Callihan vs. PARK

Sami Callihan vs. LA Park MLW 12/13

PAS: This was a falls count anywhere in Miami match and was the closet to a US Indy version of a chaotic Park lucha brawl. Park started by lighting Callihan up with chops and weapon shots, only for Sami to get even when Park toped directly into a garbage can. They brawl back into the lobby and out in the street, at one point the ref is selling a broken ankle and the ring is festooned with chairs.  The finish was especially brutal with Park spearing Callihan right into a bunch of hard padded event chairs. There was a millimeter of give and it looked like it broke Sami's back.  Fun stuff which I imagine would have been a blast to watch live.

ER: There should be no mystery about what makes Park great, it's all right there on display, every yellow and black skeletal fold. We won't get to see Park/Rush at Mania, but Sami is a guy who has no problem slotting into a trademark Park brawl. Sami plays a tough act to pull off here: The Violent Stooge, and I like it. I like all the early match stuff with Park implying Sami is a weenie for wearing his flak jacket, taunting him into removing it before dishing out a chop so hard that it breaks skin. Sami sells it the way someone would if they were woken from a nap by getting waxed. Park also wins the mental battle by tricking Sami into revealing that he wears suspenders AND a belt. A sock garter reveal would have added to this, but two guys taking wild bumps will have to do. Park really runs impossibly hard into a trash can on a tope attempt, and I loved Sami celebrating with a terrible and great mimic of the Park strut, looking like Jack Donaghy walking while holding two coffee mugs. Sami gets tossed over the barricade into the chairs, and the venue has those hard "conference room at the Hyatt" chairs, and when Park suplexes Sami onto a section of barricade and starts chucking those chairs in the ring, and it's weird to think that a bunch of people will be sitting in those chairs at some point while attending a From Debt To Net! seminar. I love Park's brawling, love his commitment to running into a boot, loved him throwing loose ice as a response to getting a mini road cone thrown at him, loved Park crashing in with a downward strike headbutt, and Sami smashing a couple of beer cans into the back of Park's head. The finish is spectacular, with Sami setting up a 6 pack of those chairs that you sat in during that one day "How Smart is Your Smart Home?" class, ending with Park hitting a spear of all spears onto them. Park's spear is great enough to stand on its own, but this looked like something out of a Marvel fight.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Balor vs. Brock

1. Finn Balor vs. Brock Lesnar WWE Royal Rumble 1/27

ER: Talk about an overdelivery. Wow. No sensible person could have been excited for a Finn Balor match, and I saw no plausible way for Finn to look good against Lesnar. Finn has terrible offense and you need someone to lace it in to look like you can dent Brock. But they end up doing it. I didn't expect it to happen, but they did it. They actually have Brock sell his diverticulitis, and I love when they implement that into big Brock matches, and Brock shows what a wonderful salesman he still is. Balor laced in shots more than I've ever seen him do, and while they're not going to look like Ikeda, Balor DOES lay them in as much as possible. And Brock's pale wide body takes damage better than any other wrestler's, reading all shades of pink red and purple. And Balor stomps away at him hard and Brock purples up, and they do some great stuff like have Brock get run large intestine first into the corner of the announce table. Balor avoids the Suplex City trap by playing up his slipperiness instead of his bad offense, so while he ate one monster belly to belly (and it was a great one) he kept floating like a bee, even slipping right into giving Brock an F5. Brock was tremendous at selling his vulnerability, I mean it is amazing how much he made Balor feel legit here. I don't think Balor has looked better in any other match that I've seen, I mean he did everything he could and Brock took it the way only Brock can. Balor looks like he genuinely wants to destroy Brock's large intestine with that final Coup de Grace.....and Brock responds like a wounded python. Can't lift him, can't slam him,  SO JUST SMOTHER HIM WITH YOUR LAND MASS. All the camera angles of Brock taking that Coup de Grace and then smothering Balor with his body, eyes crazy like he was Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the thought crossed your mind while Brock was bending that arm...."Brock might actually break this guy's arm...." Brock brings an aura into the ring that nobody else can, and Balor stepped up to that aura, and delivered more than I could have anticipated. This was great.

PAS: This was tremendous, Balor's career match by a huge margin over anything else I have seen him do. I liked the early flurry by Balor, the cut off by Lenser was big but not super overdone, and Lesnar running full speed kidney first into the corner of the announce table was one of the nastiest momentum changers I can remember seeing. Even without a history of intestine issues that would have been a hospital trip. After that bump everything Balor did looked like it could end a match, Lesnar caught his dives on his back instead of catching them, sold every suplex like he had hernia and that final double stomp off the top was just an awesome piece of violence. I loved the finish too, we hadn't seen the chicken wing hammerlock in a while and I loved Brock too busted up to lift and throw, so he just grabs the arm and tries to rip it off his body. That maniacal look on his face as he was cranking the arm was bone chilling, no one does crazy lunatic anymore convincing then Brcok, he looks like he wants to cripple his opponents, and totally could do, which makes him super scary.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WOW - Women of Wrestling Episode 2 1/25/19

I still can't believe Santana Garrett's dad is dead. Opening in ring promo with Garrett and Blanchard was strong, Blanchard's personality is really bringing a lot to this. Also, there was a Blanchard vignette where they basically repeat soundbites of Blanchard over and over saying she's a legend, and she's coming for the title. I want to see Blanchard destroy her.

Siren the Voodoo Doll vs. Princess Aussie

ER: Shaul Guerrero does just about the worst ring announcer read possible when announcing Siren being from New Orleans, Louisiana. The growly drawl she said "Louisiana" with is impossible to listen to without wrinkling your nose at least a little. You cannot hear it and keep a straight nose. Not seen either of these two before, but am enjoying David McLane catching me up on various Australian cultural mythology, but am disappointed he's not doing the same for voodoo culture. Princess wasn't great, so a lot of her stuff relied on Siren doing a lot of working for two, but Siren made it work. I dug Siren taking a headscissors that was almost the equivalent of someone taking a spinnings headscissors from Bernie Lomax. Siren had a bunch of nice stuff, nice grounded facelock, a nice standing splash (no height but nice impact), had some good ideas on what to do to a grounded opponent. I dug Siren's look and how she handled the match, would like to see her against a better opponent. Aussie wins with a frog splash that lands hard but also propels herself to far forward so she kinda faceplants.

Jessie Jones vs. Azteca

ER: We get a long and really weird semi-shoot vignette introducing Jessie Jones and showing her with her mentor, WOW original Selina Majors. They actually turn Jessie heel mid-vignette, starting off presenting her as a tough southern gal who took a bus out to LA, and then by the end she's shooting on her training partner and breaking her arm, and yelling at Selina that THIS WAS HOW PEOPLE USED TO GET BROKEN IN. Things turned y'all. Jones is Tracy Smothers' daughter and I now actually want a Blanchard/Jones team. Jones gets in the ring and does a whole Build the Wall/MAGA spiel, and it comes off genuine, and her having the same horse face that Ann Coulter/Lara Trump/Laura Ingraham have makes it feel all the more authentic. She needs to get their same bottle of blond dye though. I have no clue who Azteca is, but she's not very good, although she is definitely trained. Jones was pretty awesome in this, exclusively targetting Azteca's left arm in really nasty ways, kicking at it and bending it and holding it in all sorts of rough subs (especially liked when she bent it behind her around the bottom rope). Azteca never bothered to actually sell it when she would go on offense, so we have to sit through her doing some bad strike combos and a rope assisted twisting armdrag that looked like she almost broke both her ankles upon landing, though her slingshot tornillo into the ring looked nice. Jones does a ton of stuff to Azteca's arm that looks like it would end a match, and them showing a vignette where Jones broke someone's arm in training and then a match where she keeps trying to break someone's arm is the kind of super simple thing that will always be effective.

LANA STAR IS STILL AROUND!? We get a nice nod to WOW history as instead of doing a promo in a handmirror Lana just does it in a normal full size makeup mirror.

Beverly Hills Babe vs. Tessa Blanchard

BHB is Amber Gallows, and her look reads way more southern to me than "Beverly Hills". And it's kind of weird to be throwing out a heel/heel match this early. Fans are going to be cheering BHB by default because Blanchard has been nothing but a rude asshole and they've never seen BHB, so they're cheering her while McLane is on commentary making botox jokes about her. McLane is really unintentionally hilarious on commentary, as Lana sits in and McLane explains her whole storyline motivation to her as if Lana had just now heard in real time how she was supposed to be acting. The whole match structure is wack, with Babe acting like a heel the whole time while inserted into the face control portions of the match, and she controls a lot of the match. So we get a heel working over the top heel as a face but still working as a heel, and controlling the top heel so long that the top heel gets put into a face sympathy spot because Babe is taunting her during the whole beatdown. It made no sense at all. O'neal isn't very good, a lot of her stuff looks weak, and I wanted to see way more Blanchard here. No part of the layout of this match made sense.

Even with the bizarre layout of the main I still think this was another strong episode, which feels pretty improbable. For all of the McLane-ness of this, they are doing a lot of things right.

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Kingston With the Gravy Mercedes Add the Cranberry Sauce

Eddie Kingston vs. 2 Cold Scorpio IWA-MS 3/1/08 - EPIC

PAS: Eddie Kingston recently announced that this would be the last year of his career, and while I hope that isn't true, I am going to really bang the Eddie Kingston C+A this year and celebrate that awesome career. IWA-MS is a fed that is best known for excess, crazy spotfests, bloody death matches, but around 2008 2 Cold came in and ran a bunch of these awesome minimalist matches built around hard shots, selling and grinding matwork. He had an awesome one with Low-Ki and this banger with Kingston. If you are going to something based on selling and hard shots, Eddie Kingston is one of the hardest hitters around, and one of the all time great sellers. I loved Kingston holding hard onto the headlock early, including absorbing two suplexes to keep it locked in. Both guys laid in with a bunch of different kinds of great looking strikes, Scorp landed a spin kick to the chin, Kingston hit palm strikes to Scorpio's kidneys, and crossfaces. In lesser matches, every shot would be an elbow smash, here they found different ways to make it hurt. All of Scorpio's flying in this match was to hurt not to dazzle, the moonsault was gorgeous, but he landed like a bad of cement tossed out of a pickup truck. Finish was class, with Scorpio hesitating a bit before heading back to the top and getting caught and dropped right on his head with a backdrop driver for the pin. Great stuff, and a credit to the absolute world class greatness of both guys.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON 

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WWE Royal Rumble Not Live, But Not Far Behind Blog 1/27/19

Bobby Roode/Chad Gable vs. Rezar/Scott Dawson

ER: This certainly feels like a WCW kind of move, with Akam injured they just sub in a different member of a different heel team fills in. Of course, it was usually with a babyface team though, so this is odd. And this match is much more of a snack than a meal, mainly highlighting Roode and Gable, which, sure, the tag champs should be able to easily to handle a thrown together team right? Gable had fun stuff, like his old school headscissors and Tim Horner armdrags, liked a tandem Roode neckbreaker while Gable moonsaults Dawson off the top, liked a spot where Dawson shoved Gable into the ropes chest first but then caught Gable's head in the eye on recoil. But there just wasn't enough here to make this feel like anything more than a 9:30 PM Raw match.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev

ER: Lana's outfit matches up with Nakamura which has to be seen as a slight. And I've kind of lost track of Rusev, despite watching the TV and PPVs. He feels like a guy very much lost at sea at this point, no matter what mid level title he has or is fighting for. But this is plenty fun, Nak throwing out a couple of his loose limb sloppy kicks that Rusev is really good at catching with a thud on his jawline, and the battle around Nak's triangle was really great. Nak locked in the triangle and I loved the time they took having Rusev fight up and through it, before turning it into a really awesome almost deadlift looking Jackhammer. Tim just pointed out that Nak won the Rumble and now he is fighting for the US title on the pre-show. Nak hits the Landslide, which looks cool on a larger opponent, looked like a convincing nearfall especially with Nak's great lean back on the pin. Nakamura's interaction with Lana was amusing, with Nakamura not falling for her feminine wiles and Lana taking a nice spill off the apron after Nak moved out of the way and Rusev crashed into her. Hopefully this will not lead to more garbage Rusev/Lana split-up stories, but this match was perfectly fine.

Kalisto vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Hideo Itami vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: Tim points out that we have 4 foreigners fighting for this title, which is fun. And these guys bring some fun and silly stuff with Murphy as an early standout bumping around for everyone and basing for Kalisto. Murphy takes a couple different great spills to the floor, and we get a wild moment with Murphy holding Kalisto on his shoulders, with Tozawa hitting a elbow suicida that then sends Kalisto headscissoring Murphy into the barricade. If you're gonna get silly, make it cool like that. Tozawa looks to really be busting his ass here too, really relishing making it onto a big PPV card. Loved Tozawa eating a high angle monkey flip to the floor that looked really cool. Itami seems a step off from the rest of the guys in the match, always taking a wrong step or being slightly out of place. Big flip dive train was one of those trains where guys get launched over a lot of the guys doing the catching. The finishing nearfall save stretch was fun but felt a little more cooperative than I like. Murphy continued to shine, loved him catching Kalisto with that high knee. Murphy singles matches haven't done a ton for me, but he seems like he might be really good at tying up multimans.

Becky Lynch vs. Asuka

ER: Love that they're opening the show with this, and Asuka is making sure her shots read all the way back to the last row. There's a moment where Asuka is kicking at Becky's face with these great shoving shots, and I love the fire in Becky's face as she gets up. Becky seems off in a couple moments, namely shots that are supposed to miss, throwing things that would miss even if Asuka hadn't dodged. This whole thing is pretty heavily Asuka, but Asuka is working like a champ and Becky is a nice counter to that. We get a big moment off the apron where Asuka hits the rolling fisherman's buster off the apron, and back in the ring they do some fun stuff around Becky blocking a backfist. What's wild is this match felt almost the entire time like Lynch just flat out not being able to keep up with Asuka. They had a bunch of cool scrambles around a rear naked choke, but this at every step of the way felt like a dominant Asuka win, with Lynch never really having an opening to win. Asuka even locks in the cattle mutilation and gets a clean as a whistle tap. The scramble getting into the different subs was cool, but it was shocking how Lynch came off to me. This honestly felt like one of the greatest Asuka performances in her entire WWE run, she looked like an absolute megastar. I don't know if Asuka made one false move the entire match, she looked like freaking John Wick, so I  had a ball.

The Miz/Shane McMahon vs. Cesaro/Sheamus

ER: I don't know the WHY of this but it should be fun. Shane is not a guy I love, but Shane is a guy who in a neverending grab to impress his father will lean insanely into beatings, so you get great moments like Shane hitting a nutbar lariat off the top to the floor, only to eat a bonkers European uppercut from Cesaro right after. Shane McMahon: Punching Bag, is a very entertaining thing. Shane McMahon: Making Guys Wait Around Taking His Offense. Shane eating shots from Sheamus? Great. Sheamus stooging around while Shane paws at him with punches? Interminable. So once the match goes into our extended Shane run, there are satisfying moments (Cesaro catching the Van Terminator), and we actually get Shane hitting a shooting star press for the win. Something tells me Shane wanted to be THEE heavyweight to not mildly botch a SSP on a major PPV.

Sasha Banks vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: Well this whole thing is great. That shouldn't be any kind of a shock at this point. Ronda is maybe the best PPV guarantee of the past calendar year. This whole match is a real freight train that never quite careens out of control, but always feels like it's building bigger and bigger and bigger. Ronda is such a pitbull and I loved how Sasha would bait her. There was no kind of dead time, these two felt like they were constantly going at each other's throats. Banks' shots are never going to be as strong as Rousey's obviously, but I love how she kept coming with them, slapping Ronda even if she knew she would end up eating a harder kick after. I always love the moments where they establish Ronda's weak spot, here she throws a sharp killshot elbow right at Sasha's face but Sasha ducks and Ronda blasts the LED post (love when the post buzzes out), allowing Banks to work her way in. We had big dives, nice nearfalls off some big Banks corner knees, loved her using Ronda's hurt arm to yank her into more knees. We never got any of those silly moments where someone outshoots the actual shooter, so I loved moments like Sasha trying an armbar and Ronda immediately rolling through it and making her pay. We even work in cool non-nearfall nearfalls, like Ronda tapping Sasha out on the floor and some fun stuff with Sasha keeping Ronda away from the ropes during the Banks Statement, and later an awesome Banks Statement with Sasha using a loose part of her gear to fishhook Ronda. Ronda is a total marvel, this was one of her greatest performances in terms of emotion and facials and it's wild how good she keeps getting. This whole thing was tight and was constantly in flux, fantastically laid out, delivered anything anyone excited for this match could have wanted. Ronda forever (also, Sasha).

Women's Rumble

ER: They really are giving us a fully legendary match long Nattie performance aren't they? I would love if that role went to Mandy (although there are a few moments early where she appears to lean out of stuff which is not her typical self). We really get a lot of chuds in there early, with both Iiconics and then a looooooooong extended HOW IS TAMINA STILL A THING runs. Tamina gets this long run of 10 different women bumping all around for her garbage offense, and then for reasons nobody will ever be able to explain, they hav Xia Li come out and have ONLY TAMINA exclusively take her offense. There are so many vets that are good at taking complicated Xia combos that are IN THE RING, and they opt to have Tamina take it. And shockingly, it all looks terrible. What a sabotage. Match Li with Mickie. They are getting rid of so many interesting people, while leaving a lot of trash. Lacey Evans has been in from 1, and hasn't looked interesting for a second of it, starting with her cookie cutter "I'M HERE TO CLEAN UP THE DIVISION" promo. The Naomi/Mandy Rose payoff is the first truly the first decent moment of the match, with Naomi getting the fun "walk the barricade" moment and an insane leap to the stairs (the leap looked gigantic)....and then the just-released Mandy Rose yanks her right off the stairs. I dug the Kacey Catanzaro stuff, she gets a bunch of fun Kacey Catanzaro stuff and gets an actual proper showcase with people who know how to take her shit, the opposite of the Xia treatment. I don't think we've been fully overexposed to "clever ways to not get eliminated" (yet) so I really dug the handstand into crazy monkey lift up the ringpost. Rhea Ripley basically looks like the blowaway best participant. She looks like an absolute monster here and matches up great with everyone. I'm really bummed at the overall treatment of Riott Squad here, they're so ready to be next level and they're just fodder. I will point out that I was completely correct that Natalya would be in this whole damn match. She's been wallpaper the whole time though, someone I keep forgetting about until seeing her in the corner. Tim informs me that there were Bull Nakano rumors, and I'm thankful he waited until all 30 people were already out there before telling me that. Maria Kanellis would have been pretty disappointing as a surprise entrant if I knew Bull was potentially on the table. As clunky as some parts were I think they did a good job of getting to the final 4, and I think it's a good final 4. Becky replaces Lana and I root for Finlay to become the biggest heel in the stadium by refusing to allow Becky to compete in Lana's place. Charlotte is such a natural heel that it is mind boggling that they have spent as much time as they have with her as a babyface. I loved the way the whole Becky/Charlotte showdown played out, really couldn't get more crowd pleasing than that, Charlotte came off mean as hell and crazy, and Lynch got her deservedly big moment. I also must say that even though I haven't mentioned it a ton, a lot of the eliminations looked really great. We got a lot of cool bumps and big splats, that even though I thought some of the elimination order was wonky, the eliminations themselves looked painful as hell. Final third made this thing work.

AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan

ER: This is an odd thing to say but I think I've seen these two enough for now. My brain now just automatically attributes a vulnerability to him, and my brain says "I want to see him against weird one off NEW guys" and at this point I've seen these two match up PLENTY. Give me a Bryan Gulak syndicated match, give me Bryan/Kendrick 20th anniversary, give me anything other than another AJ/Bryan match. And I don't know if the crowd is burned out from getting their big Becky moment, but they seem to feel the same way I do. This match didn't come off very engaging or compelling. Both landed nice shots, both did nice things, but it was a definite comedown match, feeling like they were intentionally working a comedown match. I honestly don't have a lot of comments on this one, it just didn't move me a whole lot. And we got a really bizarre Erick Rowan run-in, which....could you have picked a weirder guy to run in? This is like if Tommy Dreamer showed up. This is Flock of Seagulls coming out for a set during Carcass.

Finn Balor vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Talk about an overdelivery. Wow. No sensible person could have been excited for a Finn Balor match, and I saw no plausible way for Finn to look good against Lesnar. Finn has terrible offense and you need someone to lace it in to look like you can dent Brock. But they end up doing it. I didn't expect it to happen, but they did it. They actually have Brock sell his diverticulitis, and I love when they implement that into big Brock matches, and Brock shows what a wonderful salesman he still is. Balor laced in shots more than I've ever seen him do, and while they're not going to look like Ikeda, Balor DOES lay them in as much as possible. And Brock's pale wide body takes damage better than any other wrestler's, reading all shades of pink red and purple. And Balor stomps away at him hard and Brock purples up, and they do some great stuff like have Brock get run large intestine first into the corner of the announce table. Balor avoids the Suplex City trap by playing up his slipperiness instead of his bad offense, so while he ate one monster belly to belly (and it was a great one) he kept floating like a bee, even slipping right into giving Brock an F5. Brock was tremendous at selling his vulnerability, I mean it is amazing how much he made Balor feel legit here. I don't think Balor has looked better in any other match that I've seen, I mean he did everything he could and Brock took it the way only Brock can. Balor looks like he genuinely wants to destroy Brock's large intestine with that final Coup de Grace.....and Brock responds like a wounded python. Can't lift him, can't slam him,  SO JUST SMOTHER HIM WITH YOUR LAND MASS. All the camera angles of Brock taking that Coup de Grace and then smothering Balor with his body, eyes crazy like he was Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the thought crossed your mind while Brock was bending that arm...."Brock might actually break this guy's arm...." Brock brings an aura into the ring that nobody else can, and Balor stepped up to that aura, and delivered more than I could have anticipated. This was great.

Men's Rumble Match

ER: Well, a lot of this certainly sucked. It's never a great sign when I watch an hour of modern wrestling and say at the end of it "Well, I really liked Jeff Jarrett in that."

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NXT TakeOver: Phoenix 1/26/19

War Raiders vs. Undisputed

ER: Soooooo....I think the War Raiders entrance was the baddest ass version of all of the HHH rape and pillage if-Mad-Max-were-a-Meat-Loaf-video entrances. Them rising up out of the fog in loincloths and helmets could have easily looked silly, but I think it genuinely looked cool. And this match feels like NXT doing late 90s FMW workrate tags, and it's some pretty tasty popcorn. This was a nice big spotfest that earned the This is Awesome chants and was worth cringing through the Fight Forever chants. I used to always be underwhelmed by Hanson on the indies and in New Japan, but thought he looked great when I saw him at an NXT house show in November, the tightest I had seen him look. And he continued making that impression here, having one of the most joyous hot tags of recent memory, crashing through Undisputed in several ways, hitting a high leaping crossbody, upending O'Reilly with a lariat, banzai drop, running Porky senton in the corner, a hell of a run. He's also just a real bump freak, and he takes one here that would rank respectably on the Hamrick Scale, going for a tope and finding everyone had gotten out of the pool, just a big thudding back splash. Roderick Strong was a really great Tully in this one, nasty when he needed to be, but also great at being sneaky and working to cut off the ring. We got big moments like Hanson being bodyslammed off the apron into Undisputed, big splashes off the top, Strong sticking some mean backbreakers, O'Reilly planting a great kneedrop off the top rope, and War Raiders hitting many big running lariats. This was a real fun spotfest that felt like it nicely spaced out the big moments, and I think this delivered in a way that made the titles feel like a big deal worth fighting for. Real fun start to the show.

PAS: That entrance, man alive, this match this had the feel of a internecine Unite the Right battle between Convington Catholic MAGA teens and Vargsmel Zorn 88 cosplayers. I kind of want to hate the Undisputed Era, that cornball fantasy booking name, combined with the Davey Richards residue still sticking to O'Reily, it is hard for me to admit that these guys are pretty great at this kind of car crash tag match. I thought this was a star making performance for Hanson. He timed all of his cartwheels really well, so they were an organic part of the match rather then just a taunt, his crash and burn to the floor was nuts, and he made both a good hot tag and face in peril. I really liked how Rowe kept hurling him at the opponents like a gigantic Spike Dudley.  O'Reiley and Strong are great at finding ways to pick away at bigger men, always running in to clip a knee or land a cheap shot. I thought the War Raiders both did nice bits of no-selling when they got hit head on, only to sell big when they didn't see it coming. I thought they had a kick out or two too many in the end run by Hanson, but they definitely kept the crowd on a string and the finisher combo was really impressive.

Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

PAS: These guys had a really great series in EVOLVE and they brought that chemistry to this match. Ohno brought a bunch of fun new offense, including blocking a sunset bomb to the floor by putting Riddle's head in the ring skirt and stomping on it (shout out to Fit Finlay), they also steal the Yair Rodriguiez vs. Korean Zombie finish with the odd angle back elbow. Ohno is a maestro at leg slapping, maybe the only guy in wrestling who can pull that dumb stunt off, and he really looks like he is pummeling Riddle with big elbows and kicks, something that was helped with the visual of Riddles swollen and bloody lip which came after Ohno stomped right in his open mouth. Riddle threw some great stuff too, his slow motion Everest German looked great and the sleeper suplex dropped Ohno really nastily on his neck. I dug the finish with Riddle getting a tap out on strikes, although it really buries Ohno, they kept mentioning his 0-4 record at Takeover and he was basically crying after the match. They might be redoing the old Hero losing streak gimmick from early 2000s IWA-MS, or they may just be taking him off TV, but man was that finish convincing.

ER: Loved all of this, just a real great sprawling fight between two guys who I like a ton. It's wild how long Hero has remained one of my favorites, and I love the moveset he's settled into that still allows for surprises.  I was into this one, but I really got into it once they moved into a Finlay adjacent spot, with Ohno slipping Riddle's head into the ring skirt with his foot, like a jersey pulled over his head in a hockey fight, and then stomps on Riddle's head. Later we get slo mo footage of Ohno throwing a running boot right into Riddle's mouth, his face contorting in freakish ways. It reminded you of the first 90s All Japan Comm. tape you ordered, and you didn't quite get All Japan on first view but then you got to a slo mo shredding guitar music video of Misawa and Kawada hitting each other and sweat flying off Kawada's hair as he eats a huge elbow, and it all started to make more sense. I love all of Ohno's kicks, and love the knees he yanks Riddle into, and love the way a guy can go into a match 0-3 and still be shit talking. Riddle had some impressive as hell throws, hitting a cool Karelin gutwrench, and the always great slo mo German, and my god that sleeper suplex was just brutal; Ohno's head looked like it bounced diagonally off the mat. Just like the match before, these guys felt like they were pulling out all the stops, and this one managed to build all the action to a fever pitch before crushing Ohno down to 0-4. Genuinely curious where they go with this, would love to know Ohno will still get to be in matches like this. Because this stuff is among the best in wrestling.

Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet

ER: I really loved the long, Low-Ki/Red Jackie Chan throwback at the beginning, with modern turns to it, with this being the extended cut. There were long portions of this match where everything, all the sequences came off very rehearsed. BUT, they were executed so well and laid out cleverly enough that even the overly prepared presentation was still almost always fun to watch. Yes, long sections felt like bonus extended features on the Only the Strong dvd, but it brought us a ton of fun dodges and escapes, and it felt like that oddball stage fight from last year's Red/Low-Ki House of Glory main event. I appreciated that Gargano always stuck to the heel persona, didn't sucker people into an dumb faced Gargano sells, always looking for ways to cut corners but not always overly. There were plenty of moments I thought were eyerolly, some big kickouts and some mirror kind of stuff that didn't work as well as their best sequences, and of course we get a poison rana on the floor that doesn't actually lead to the finish.....but then something would happen like Gargano taking a nasty tumble to the floor and hitting the apron on the way, and I'd be snapped back into enjoying everything. The ways the match ramped up were cool, and the finish was mean as hell: Gargano drops Ricochet with a brainbuster on the floor, mats removed, Ricochet's body making a sick smack on the concrete. Back in the ring and Ricochet gets spiked with a DDT and Gargano's victory actually did feel like a big deal. Everyone is busting their asses to an absurd degree on this show, really feels like a cool environment where everybody wants to be noticed. Definitely a 3 for 3 show right now.

Bianca Belair vs. Shayna Baszler

PAS: This was a match which clearly owed a lot to Baszler's greatness and whoever lays out the women's matches at the performance center. Belair is clearly still a rookie and has a long way to go, but they put together a pretty good match with Baszler being a vicious asshole tearing at the bad shoulder, and Belair having a couple of huge moments. That hair whip is an all time great bit of shtick, I loved how Baszler used her hair against her, and how Belair opened up that cut when she used it as a whip. The power out of the rear naked choke was pretty awesome, and I loved how she almost did it a second time before collapsing. I didn't think they needed all the bells and whistles with the run ins, and Belair still isn't there in between her big moments. This was about as good as it could have been though, and Baszler is a star.

ER: I was really into big parts of this. The stuff that worked REALLY worked. Shayna yanking the braid to tug Belair into the ringpost was a great start to all the arm work, and Shayna's armwork is always guaranteed to be high end. I thought Belair did a fantastic job selling it, several cool spots revolved around her not being able to fully pull something off due to her bum wing, and she made it come off naturally. Her body movement on the missed flung right hands was really cool, and the build all the way up to that horrific whip crack braid shot across Baszler's stomach was insane. I can't believe Belair opened up a CUT on Shayna's body with her HAIR. Her hair is a marvel of course, so at this point it probably wouldn't take a lot to convince me that she could swing from it. I thought the run-ins were a bit too predictable and silly. Duke and Shafir looked like such boobs that it would have just been better to have them not out at all. They got dispatched immediately and then moments later Duke got easily kicked off he apron and pratfalled into Shafir, looked like Keystone Cops. The finish was dope as hell with Belair powering through a rear naked and slowly shifting Shayna's whole body to be able to do an awesome, hard suplex. The immediate missed 450 was a cool own petard finish, and I appreciate that they gave us a nice looooooooong tease that the clutch would actually finish or Belair would be able to power through again. The layout of this was awesome, Phil is right that whomever is helping agent the women's NXT matches is someone with a brain worth picking. The layout really felt like it turned Belair into a full babyface, totally nailed it, and both came off bigger. This is a great show so far.

Aleister Black vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: This was a big batch of sexy dance fighting, but it was really well done sexy dance fighting. To me sexy dance fighting feels like something that always feels within itself, like you're watching a pre-taped performance that wants live performance reactions; there's a disconnect that's always present, every step feels workshopped or overly organized, or like a great match as conceived by a computer simulation. When you're locked into the formula, performance and execution are key, and the execution was great here. It's exhausting and always impressive, but doesn't always engage because you get the sense early that they're locked into exactly what they're locked into, regardless of reaction. The pace is persistent and impressive, and they threw out a lot of sequencing I really liked. I liked how Black played the knee injury, shaking it a little after landing a tope con giro (though even that felt overly planned as Nigel jumped in and point it out a little too quickly) and leading to a few fun moments where his knee failed him. The best was during the very finishing stretch where Ciampa was rolling him through on multiple Fairy Tale Endings, and Black came up to his feet with a Black Mass that fell way short because of the knee, allowing Ciampa to hit another FTE for the win. But there was a LOT of that swing dance vibe happening through out, and it's hard for me to stay into a match that has a lot of that. You catch my leg, swing me one way, I come through with a kick from my other leg that bounces you off the ropes, your momentum off the ropes with a lariat sends me bouncing in another direction, etc. It all looks impressive when it's as well executed as these guys can do it, but it never really feels like pro wrestling to me. They're doing something seamless...while also showing too many other seams. And a lot of impact is lost when guys have to be in position for the next dance move, so you get awesome moments like Ciampa perfectly timing a missed Black Mass to catch Black with a nasty elbow in the back of the head, looked like a perfect nearfall shot...but because the dance must go on, twas merely a flesh wound to Black. I am both very impressed by this match, and left somewhat cold.

ER: Awesome show, even with the main event that wasn't always my thing, but had impressive action with an unmatched pace. We're landing three matches from this on our newly growing 2019 MOTY List, and this was a very fine way to spend 2.5 wrestling hours.

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New Footage Friday: Rey, Eddie, Bossman, Dr. Death, Misawa, Kobashi, Kikuchi, Taue, Fuchi

Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Mighty Inoue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi AJPW 3/31/91

ER: These matches are nearly impossible to mess up, just the breeziest way to throw a bunch of fun guys together and have 20 minutes of gold. You really only need one decent guy on each team to make a trios work, guys can be hidden, kickouts can be at a minimum due to saves, more ways to build drama and sustain the peak run. So a match like this is just about always gonna be gravy. We get a bunch of great fireworks, the first good one being Jumbo literally tripping and falling while getting into the ring for the first time and immediately being swarmed by orange piranha Kobashi. I really dug Mighty Inoue in this. He's not a guy I seek out, but he's a guy right in the middle of one of my favorite promotions during the best times, and here he's Jumbo's little pitbull hitman who targets Kikuchi. Inoue drops a bunch of knees into Kikuchi's stomach, hits a slick as hell gourdbuster, roughs him up on the floor, really doing the bidding by taking out the weakest member of SGA. Also loved how big Inoue then bumped around whenever he was in with Misawa and Kobashi. Hierarchy is such an integral part to Kings Road, really adds so much substance to any of these matches. I really liked Jumbo's non-physical interactions with Misawa, like continually yelling at him to get back to his corner while Taue and Inoue are throwing Kikuchi around ringside, tattling on Misawa to the ref, or when he locks Kikuchi into an extremely high angle Boston crab while FACING Misawa, then casually breaking the hold when Misawa finally gets in the ring. Internet troll Jumbo is the best. Obviously you knew when Jumbo and Misawa eventually threw down it was going to slay, and it did,  but I love how the other guys were the focal point here. You could see the Misawa/Jumbo tension from the apron, while the other 4 guys were having a nicely spirited match. Finishing stretch was cool, loved that tandem Jumbo backdrop/Taue top rope nodowa otoshi (god why do I still remember that's what it's called), and dug that it got a fairly shocking kickout. BUT, I also love that right after Jumbo just drops Kobashi with another backdrop, and holds him down with that full body pin. This match had me at "90s All Japan Trios Match".

MD: I'm much more of an early-90s AJPW than mid-90s AJPW guy. The excess hadn't quite calcified yet. I'm pretty sure this match is new, but I'm no expert on this. It wasn't first pick for us in two ways. We'd intended to do one of the matches that we'll do next week and I just had the wrong card, and then this was listed as Fuchi instead of Inoue. There are variations of this six man with Fuchi or Kawada instead.

This was as good as you'd expect for a 20 minute house show variation with these guys. They started with armwork on Inoue, containing and controlling him as he was the weak-link of his team size wise. Even though everyone on the other side was potentially a force, I thought this opening bit still built up anticipation. You had a sense that things would shift if Inoue could just get Jumbo or Taue in there.

Then Jumbo DOES get in, only to trip through the ropes comedically, immediately getting pounced on by Kobashi as the fans laugh. I watched this a second time and it's a little over the top not to be a spot but one great thing about a match like this is that it all feels totally organic and natural. People pounce on openings, intended or accidental and Jumbo has to go around the circle of getting beat on a bit until he can force and opening and take back over.

There's a similar moment later on where they'd been working on Kikuchi's gut for a bit (which is a natural for Jumbo's offense but Inoue hit a mean gutbuster too), and Taue comes in and oafishly goes straight for big power gestures instead, almost immediately missing a back elbow in the corner (he'd hit that later on to turn the tide though, which is the sort of attention of detail I love in this stuff). Was the intended thought really supposed to be that Kikuchi was able to escape because Taue made a mistake and left the gut? Maybe? Probably? Probably not? But organically it worked. Because of the fact they never, ever let up, they give you a ton of dots to craft narratives out of if you are so inclined.

There were a couple of pin attempts after huge bombs (top rope Kobashi DDT, assisted top rope Belly to Back by Jumbo and Taue) where I wish there'd been a break-up instead of a kick-out, but partners were menacing and that presence might be enough to justify a distraction and the kick-out. Otherwise, this was really good, just the sort of solid six man they were doing night in and night out.

PAS: Great Kikuchi performance as he takes one of his traditional huge beatings (Jumbo especially seems gleeful if he has a chance to beat on Kikuchi), Kikuchi gets popped in the stomach a bunch of times and a lot of elbows dropped on hist throat, he has some great moments of fire fighting back, including some big elbows that even looked good in a match with Misawa in it. Jumbo tripping on the ropes was either an accident, or Jumbo trying to humanize himself to become a Hollywood star. I could watch AJPW six mans all day and it is exciting that they keep showing up.

Dr. Death Steve Willams/Big Bossman vs. Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 11/24/93

ER: WOW. This match has been out there and aired on TV, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it complete. It starts with cool Dr. Death matwork, nabbing a cool single leg on Misawa and a rad forced drop toehold on Kobashi that I don't remember. I have a lousy memory, so it's possible I just forgot the early stretches, but who cares. This match rules and I will volunteer to write about it yearly no matter its availability. Plus we get a really great handheld of it which really puts you there in there in the crowd, the difference between a quality Dead soundboard or a middle of the crowd taper's recording. Both versions offer different value. And this was a crowd you wanted to be in the middle of because this was a fucking molten crowd, one of those crowds who is losing their minds for the whole last half of the match. Which is the appropriate reaction for this. Bossman and Doc are a great team, that only teamed during this Tag League, and they're a great complementary team. Both are big bullies but find really impressive ways to combine signature offense into weird double teams, like Bossman doing his big windup uppercut under Kobashi's chin before Doc drops Kobashi directly on his head with a vertical backdrop driver. Kobashi lies on his stomach with limbs fanned out for long enough afterward that you buy that something has gone terribly wrong; or Doc hitting the Oklahoma Stampede but with Bossman kind of backpacking Doc so they both their weight lands on Kobashi.

I loved the build to all of this, as we settle into Misawa playing the hardest hitting Ricky Morton, getting worked over by a prison guard and a death doctor, fighting back with elbows but being bull rushed into the corner in an awesome moment by Bossman, eating a tiger suplex and doctor bomb, really making that Kobashi hot tag hot as hell. There's too many fun moments to note, too many great big things and too many perfect little things, all of it structured magnificently. Every Bossman '93 AJPW appearance is really a gem, truly worth of a mini C&A (crushing that we don't have stuff like he and Doc vs. Slinger/Smothers, but alas), and the guy moved with remarkable speed. He's been much fatter in his career, he's been much smaller, but I think this run might be his best combination of size and speed. That sequence where he and Kobashi go back and forth, out of the ring, back in, Bossman eats a dropkick and bounces off the middle rope, firing back and crushing Kobashi. How cool does it look when a huge dude bounces off the middle rope? I mean it's awesome when Negro Casas does it, but a guy who is the size of Casas and Felino and Heavy Metal combined doing it is just going to be way cooler.

Kobashi's hot tag could have been a little more, I mean your boy ate a long beating from two monsters, don't come in and hit your rolling cradle, but you got a cool glimpse of Kobashi as Baba's trainee, making the best use of that hangman's clothesline; the hangman's clothesline is best used as a defense, but too many people use it as an offense. It always looks bad when someone runs at his opponent and does it, but here it looked fantastic as Bossman charged FAST at Kobashi and Kobashi's only option is to leap up with his arm hooked and extended, letting Bossman's speed and size work against him. It looked like Kobashi just roped the biggest meanest bull at the state fair. The match featured at least 8 very convincing nearfalls, all things that could have plausibly ended the match, and it felt like we were right there with them. I genuinely think this ranks up with the best matches of 1993, from anywhere.

MD: Just the coolest match. I'm not even going to try to break this thing down. You don't have to. You're watching this to see Kobashi lock Bossman into a rolling cradle, or for the double Oklahoma Slam, or for the Bossman punch into the German, or for Misawa flipping Bossman around on his second kick-up enziguri into a forearm into the back of the skull. This was just full of cool stuff, especially from Doc and Bossman. Williams could be hit or miss but here he was firing on all cylinders and had an aura of pure energy. Bossman on the other hand wasn't wildly outside what you'd expect. This isn't Hogan-in-Japan doing weird go-behinds or anything. It doesn't need to be. Standard Ray Traylor is pretty awesome and this was just a little more of it than usual with the gamest opponents in the world. Heels took most of this, but the finishing stretch was really good with perfectly time break-ups. This is the most fun you'll have watching wrestling this week, and yeah, I know there's a PPV on Sunday. Speaking of that, and as an aside, we could have done the new AWA tag team battle royal but Phil thinks all battle royals are terrible and no one wants to read Eric and I do a live watch chat exchange on it. We did this instead. Watch it and smile.

PAS: This was classic stuff, Bossman is so good in All Japan you wish that he was a full timer like Hansen or Willams. Bossman is so good at sequences, there will be a regular match going on and then Bossman will break out some intricate rope running exchanges and big counters and attacks, it is almost like watching a great luchadore with a signature rope running spot, like when Santo gets it rolling. I loved it when Bossman just palm stroked Misawa directly in the forehead, it felt like he must have left a palm print right between his eyes. The Bossman uppercut into the Williams backdrop driver felt like an all time great signature spot, which may have never happened before or after. Great finish run,  I loved how the german suplex near fall at the end had the entire audience popping out of their seats like they just witnessed someone getting SportCenter dunked on.

ER: I have a feeling I was intentionally left out of the conversations where the AWA battle royal was even on the table as one of our options.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio WWE 4/8/05 (Password is watch)

PAS: What a treat to get a chance to watch a new Eddie Guerrero match, he was at his absolute peak in 2005, someone who had just mastered professional wrestling. Rey is an all time great, top 10 all time at a minimum,   and he felt like a passenger here, that is how amazing 2005 Eddie Guerrero was. I am not sure of the time line of this feud, but Eddie wasn't true evil in this match, just a little dirty. The kind of guy who will pose with a girl fighting cancer, but also fake a handshake and poke Rey in the eyes. We get some really solid nifty mat wrestling to start with Eddie working over the arm, and them doing some cool spots out of a short arm scissors. Eddie takes both a back body drop and a monkey flip and no one ever took them better. All of the shtick and matwork leads us perfectly to a super hot finish with them hitting a bunch of their signature spots, leading perfectly to the classic Splash Mountain rana counter. House show HH's of this feud are some of my footage holy grails (apparently they worked bloody brawls on house shows as well) , so I was thrilled that this showed up.

MD: This is magic. Pro wrestling magic. Everything from the beginning with Eddy coming out with the kid, to the disciplined easing into things with deliberate, meaningful wrestling to start, to Eddy nailing Rey with the world's most beautiful eye poke, and the pure fluidity of them hitting their spots. I was frustrated we didn't get the Splash Mountain > Rana spot the first time Rey was sitting backwards on the top so I'm glad they went back to it. The counter exchange in the finishing stretch felt a bit lived in, but in a good way, not a bad one. Eddy, at this point in his career, had all but transcended the limitations of pro wrestling as a character. He was a primal archetype. You couldn't help but love him, no matter what he did. It's always good to go back and see it in real time just once more.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Mysterio vs. Andrade 2/3 Falls

4. Rey Mysterio vs. Andrade WWE Smackdown 1/22

PAS: This was more of a spotfest then the week before, but man what a spotfest. We have mentioned it before, but Rey is a marvel, no idea how he can keep coming up with new cool spots every week in his 40s. This week he breaks out a Silver King dive into a rana on the floor (which he had only done once in 97 against Parka, he hit it better 22 years later), and a baseball slide in to a powerbomb  into the barricades, not to mention his flip piledriver,  poision rana and sprinboard rana.  Andrade has a bunch of cool moments too, especially awesome was his top rope powerbomb where he actually yanked him from the second rope. We had a BS ending, and I would have liked to see a bit more mat wrestling, but this was a worthy second act to this feud.

ER: I'm not really sure the 2/3 falls stip added anything to this, but I really don't care. We can have these two work under any stip and I'd be content watching them do their thing. Just run new stip matches out the rest of the year. Shoot let's roll out a blindfold match, because Andrade is awesome enough to take a blindfolded flipping piledriver. Let's see what they can do in the 2nd ever King of the Road match, because you know both of them would come up with some incredibly awesome stuff to do off of hay bales. Do another parking lot brawl, because I'd love to see Andrade base Rey as Rey leaps off a production truck. This whole match is spotty, but there aren't many other guys I'd enjoy watching spottiness from. That top rope powerbomb is one of the most fantastic spots in wrestling history. Honestly, if the rest of the match had just been the two of them doing jerkoff forearm exchanges for 15 minutes, I'd probably leave the match going "So that powerbomb rite!?" It's seriously one of the damndest spots I have ever seen. Andrade, standing on the middle rope, holding Rey up for a powerbomb...we all watched it and we all expected Rey to reverse it with a rana. We've all seen a dozen splash mountain counters, we were all expecting it...and then Andrade somehow steps up to the top rope while still holding Rey for a powerbomb. Picture how difficult it would be to just step from the middle rope to the top rope while facing the ring and not using your hands. Now picture doing that already difficult task while holding a smaller man in front of your face so that you're doing it blind. I almost fell while getting out of my car yesterday. Andrade carried a man over his head up a ropes course. And then, as a reward, he got to drive the back of that smaller man's head into the mat from the highest point he could physically get. Both men are perfect dance partners, Andrade takes all of Rey's flips and flops to new heights, makes Rey look like a crazier yet more sensible PCO, and yeah, I'm going to want more.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki vs. Yehi

74. Low-Ki vs. Fred Yehi MLW 12/13 

ER: I'm sure we were all hoping for something a bit different when these two squared off for the first time ever. They're the two best workers in the fed and you'd want to see a match between them as high end indy dream supermatch, but this is worked as a match within their respective spots in the MLW Totem, where one of these guys is the current Heavyweight Champ and the other is a guy who was ranked behind Simon Gotch while they were in Team Filthy. But it's these two, so obviously any time we get from them is going to work. We get cool stuff you'd expect like Ki trying to snap Yehi's arm over the ropes, and other great little moments like Ki heading off to the ropes but getting his leg grabbed by Yehi before he can run, and Ki lets him stand up (while Ki himself is on one leg) and peppers Yehi's eye with sharp elbows until he lets go. Ki spider monkeys himself to Yehi's leg and Yehi does these big exaggerated high steps to get out of it, and it all shows just how cool these two move. This gets really great once they start throwing blows, with Ki breaking out of the corner and punching Yehi under the sternum across the ring, then snapping off big kicks, but Yehi caught a kick and foot stomped him and legswept him. Yehi even gets a very believable nearfall off a high cradle, really looked like they would suddenly give him this huge and sudden win and then set up a big challenge with Lawlor and a big re-match with Ki. But that doesn't happen. The actual finish is crazy, with Ki winding up on the top rope, throwing elbows at Yehi's head, and then one MAMMOTH overhand strike down across Yehi's chest. That strike right there looked like a finish. You never seen shots thrown from that angle and this one looked like it hit with tremendous force. The Warriors Way pushes back out the portions of Yehi's sternum that Ki sent inching towards his spine, and Yehi is a sicko and wasn't even on the mat when he took it, just a huge stomp right to the tenderest part of the back. Damn, boys. Cannot WAIT to see these two match-up again, several times.

PAS: Ki wrestles so infrequently these days, that I fear this might be the only time we get to see them match up, awesome as fuck WCW Pro match isn't ideal, but this was an awesome as fuck WCW Pro match. MLW Ki wrestles so differently then other times in his career. He seems to be working as almost a counter puncher, waiting to land one or two big kill shots, waiting for openings, wrestling defensive and viciously landing shots when he can. I loved Yehi pushing Ki into the corner, and Ki unloading with four nasty body shots right to the ribs on the break. We got a couple of great Yehi flurries of offense, and then an absolutely killer finish, with Ki sitting on the tope landing a crossface shot on a standing Yehi across his jaw and onto his chest. Sounded like a baseball bat hitting a mango, and the a grisly double stomp on Yehi's back. Great stuff by both guys, would love someone to book a long rematch somewhere but if this is what we get, it was pretty great.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Makabe vs. Talbain

124. Daniel Makabe vs. Kaden Talbain 3-2-1 Battle! 9/7

ER: Now this was a cool fight that started with snug matwork and sharp sequences and steadily built to some big bomb throwing and hard throws. Talbain is a guy with a big Saito suplex and Makabe is a guy with a bunch of cool ways to avoid getting suplexed, and a guy who can build nicely to getting suplexed. Makabe brings the squirrelly wrist control but can't get in too close without the risk of eating a suplex, and we get a few cool Makabe roll throughs (he always has good positioning on these), rolling in the way of Talbain during an Irish whip to catch him off guard, and we get a couple of awesome moments of Talbain going for that suplex and Makabe using his weight and leverage to get a cool headlock takeover. We got one of the coolest spots I've seen all year with Makabe basically jumping his full body weight up into Talbain's arms during a headlock (basically picture Makabe leaping up into Talbain's arms like Scooby Doo leaping into Shaggy's arms), forcing Talbain to drop him so that Makabe could roll him into a kneebar. Both guys hit hard, Talbain had really nice body shots and a great headbutt, all his strikes were short and too the point, and Makabe's punches are awesome. We get some cool learned behavior reversals, and some cool uses of the ring and surroundings to create drama. Makabe bull rushes Talbain while holding a sleeper to send both sprawling out of the ring, which felt like a cool self sacrifice moment where he knew he'd take some damage on it, but knew it would be worthwhile to cause more damage to Talbain. And both seem real smart about their use of positioning and use of the ring, like when Makabe shoved Talbain chest first into the turnbuckle and caught him with a great snap German on the rebound. Makabe was able to weather Talbain's storm while taking some mean spills, and they pay off Makabe's match long arm attacks when Makabe holds onto Talbain's trunks on a superplex, keeping him close so he could grab the arm and fold that wrist in for the tap. I didn't love the minimization of the superplex, but it was a minor nit in a match with so much great stuff. This really made me want to see their other singles matches.

PAS: Makabe is a guy who will break out a ton of fun shit in a match, and really delivered here. Talbain was a fine guy to tag along and be part of the cool shit, although I didn't think he brought a ton to the table outside of being an opponent. Eric said both guys hit hard, and while Makabe threw some nasty stuff, including a great short jab right to the kidneys, Talbain would just threw dozens and dozens of weak looking forearms, more mustard would have really helped. Still there was a ton of great stuff here, Makabe seemed to invent a ton of neat moves I hadn't seen before. I loved when he pushed Talbain chest first into the ropes and snapped off a German, and the set up for the kneebar was impossibly slick. He did about three counters to set it up, and it was so fast that it didn't come off contrived like some similar British spots can. I can't fully endorse shrugging off of a superplex, but that last armbar was some nasty stuff.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Mysterio vs. Andrade

1. Rey Mysterio vs. Andrade WWE Smackdown 1/15

ER: I would love it if we got a great year of WWE TV matches. I love great WWE TV matches. And this was a killer WWE TV match. We got to see a couple generations of lucha doing lucha in Alabama, we got to see Rey look unpredictably ageless, and we got a continued fulfilling of potential from Almas, who 1 year ago had the best match of 2018. This was exciting and filled with great small moments and great big moments, with Rey breaking out of couple moments that made him feel just as innovative as he felt at Halloween Havoc '97. Honestly I would have loved this match if it were just them working headlock exchanges and lucha matwork. The opening of this was one of my favorite WWE match openings in my memory, Rey finding cool ways to hold onto a headlock and Almas being a super interesting guy to get held in a headlock, rolled into a couple odd transitions, Almas held onto Rey's arm in a couple of nasty ways, and the whole thing felt cool. All the Rey ranas looked great, and we got several, and they kept ramping up into cool moments like Almas taking a rana to the floor but HOLDING ON to Rey on his shoulders before powerbombing him on the floor. Holy cow. And as the match goes on I think Almas really showed he could be right up there as one of Rey's all time great bases. Rey pulled off every big move with ease, and Almas gobbled each one of those big moves up: landing nice and high on his shoulders off a Code Red, catching dead in its tracks a massive Rey Thesz Press to the floor, flinging himself neck first into a crucifix pin and eating a crazy flipping piledriver on WWE Television (not just a piledriver on WWE TV, but a flipping one, and it gets a 2 count!!!), Almas was base god. Rey clearly has bionic knees, it's the only explanation for how he moved in this match. He was springing up to Almas' shoulders like this was 1996, and he's still one of my favorite underdog strikers. This does kind of turn into a fireworks version of recent 205 Live style, which isn't my favorite, but these two do it better than those guys do. I do think things could have been structured a bit differently down the stretch, as I thought Almas' running knees and that flipping piledriver all got swept aside pretty quick. I wish Vega would have actually been involved physically, as her involvement was key to the quality of Almas' two epic 2018 matches. I think bringing Vega in as more than an apron pounder could have allowed for some workarounds to avoid a couple of the big move kickouts. But what we got certainly felt special, it showed a legend still looking legendary, and a hopefully serves as a stepping stone for a new star.

PAS: This was a real Dorian Gray performance by Rey, he is 44 and is hitting the kind of fast and intricate flying highspots he was hitting in the mid 90s. Andrade doesn't have the charisma of Eddie Guerrerro (which is no shame) but he is a heck of a base and brings his own twists and turns to the match. All of the initial matwork was really cool, I really dug the hammerlock takeover which Andrade held on to, and the early headlock stuff was really nifty, the kind of thing I could see Ricky Morton opening a match with. I can't believe that Rey is still coming up with cool new shit at his age, he could easily just play the hits,  but the spot where Andrede holds on to Rey on his shoulders and flips him into powerbomb was awesome and nothing I have ever seen before. Rey's flipping piledriver was dope too, and no one is better at making the implausible seem plausible.  Loved that this got so much time, and the fact that they are running it back 2/3 falls tomorrow is really exciting.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Saturday Night 7/25/98

Bobby Eaton vs. Scott Putski

ER: And at 3:05 Pacific Standard Time on this Saturday afternoon in the middle of Summer 1998, Bobby Eaton was given a task that would have turned away most men. Show opener, tone setter, just do it with one of the bigger stumblebums on the roster. Scott Putski is truly putrid, and had I gone to a Saturday Night taping perhaps I would have brought a poster board sign stating Putski is Putrid, or as long as I was using MAD Magazine type humor on my sign, Scott Pukeski. He being Bobby Eaton, wearing his shiny and sequined ring jacket that looked like a torn open King Cake, wearing that jacket that I’m sure was sold on eBay for much less money than I would have paid for it, he being Bobby Eaton, he has a nice little match against Scott Putski. Until Scott Putski makes his usual conscious decision to cease having a good match. Eaton goes over for some short arm drags, Putski grinds his knee in Eaton’s left arm, Eaton makes it look like Putski can semi-convincingly work an arm and Eaton also rubs this left arm out occasionally after. Eaton throws punches you like and walks directly through a Putski right to the body, Eaton refuses to break stride and silently makes an agreement with the audience that nobody was to acknowledge that punch thrown by Scott Putski. At this point it’s time for us to go home, and Putski runs for that finish line like a man with his boots tied together. He almost drops Eaton on his head during a backdrop where he can’t muscle him up properly, he barely lifts Eaton up for some kind of spinebuster type attempt, and then he almost gets Eaton up for an ugly Lo Down style powerbomb. Putski made everyone sad at the end of this.

Stevie Ray vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

ER: Boy serves me right for trying to watch 1998 WCW on an early AM plane ride. But this match keeps threatening to get good, and keeps eventually swerving back into not good territory, but maintains its threat of being good. One major thing WCW matches like this have going for them, is the short TV match structure works so much better than WWE’s current structure. Here were two water oxen clubbing at each other and working strikes and slams, and not once did Stevie Ray grab a chinlock for 20 seconds to build to Duggan’s comeback. Once you notice that every 4 minute WWE match has a babyface comeback out of a chinlock, it’s disheartening, and it’s refreshing seeing two meaty guys just clonk each other for the duration of their allotted 4 minutes. Duggan doesn’t always have great punches, but his fists read well; they are round, and he balls them up tight, so the visual of him throwing a heavy hand at your jaw set a high floor for him. Stevie Ray takes an incredibly slow bump over the top to the floor, gets a couple nicely timed eye pokes in on Duggan at different times, grabs a terribly bearhug that Duggan sorta does an okay job of fighting out of….but we get heavy punches the whole time, back elbows, a couple slams, and it all felt like something constantly moving forward without stopping. One thing I was genuinely excited for the entire match was finding out who was taking the pinfall. I always love establishing WCW hierarchies among B-show competitors, and wasn’t sure who outranked who at this point. Amusingly, this match goes to a double DQ when they both shove the ref, and 6 other refs hold them apart as Stevie Ray and Jim Duggan have a pull apart brawl.

Doc Dean vs. Rick Fuller

ER: Rick Fuller is your proto- Rhyno/Albert big man who somehow never got the opportunities those two got. Doc Dean didn’t get much here, and due to him being a foreigner he got roundly booed while not getting much. The match went on a little longer than I anticipated, especially since Dean only got a couple quick corner punches before getting shoved off, and then only got a sunset flip attempt, which was blocked. Fuller owned this match and Dean was there to bump all around for him, and he did. Fuller hit a big chokebomb, and caught a crossbody attempt from Dean and just walked around with him for awhile before planting him with his unparalleled over shoulder piledriver, always a killer.

Barry Horowitz vs. Chris Adams

ER: You know who's really great in '98/'99 WCW? Chris freaking Adams! Until watching several of his '98'99 WCW matches I had no clue that he would have worked really well in similar era BattlArts.  He's really vicious with all his offense, from tight headlocks and a stiff shoulderblock, to hard elbows to the jaw, to a hard kneelift and cool rolling kneebar. Horowitz really gets nothing in this, Adams just roughed him up for 3 minutes. Adams really came off with this badass shooter charisma during this era, it was a really cool coda for his career that was sadly almost over. Honestly a Chris Adams in  WCW C&A is a pretty great idea. I bet there are some awesome gems in there, with nearly two years to pull from. I think it's on!

Villanos vs. High Voltage

ER: Man this was a pretty great little scrap. High Voltage were a super fun tag team with a bunch of fun tricks in their bag. They did a lot of things really well and were always open to ideas, a team that worked really hard and that was probably harder than they needed to. They were always breaking out weird double teams that you'd only see them do once, always looking for something vaguely dangerous that would never stick. Here they make up a couple suplexes (two different times they hold a Villano in monkey flip position but then just throw them into a backdrop), and Kaos drops a leg off the middle rope while Rage holds a Villano in a Boston crab. Rage hits a cool springboard crossbody Doomsday Device, Kaos hits a genuinely great flying double lariat, Villanos are super stiff breaking up pinfalls and hitting a cool missile dropkick, dropping nice elbow drops. Both these teams would be great to see in a series, would be nice to see Villanos get a bit more. But this match was the kind of thing you want to see when you pop in a WCW disc.

Steve McMichael vs. Julio Sanchez

ER: What a weird shitty on paper match that somehow totally works in execution. Julio Sanchez was an indy darling when indies didn't have many darlings, and McMichael was a guy who was no good but had a lot of energy and tried, and that means something. There were some things that sucked, McMichael throws bad clotheslines (a couple variations of bad clotheslines!); but then there are those cool moments that surprise you like Sanchez hitting a nice kneedrop (when have you seen Julio Sanchez drop a nice kneedrop??) and Mongo hitting a big back suplex, great running tackle, cool tombstone piledriver, and then you're taking a look in the mirror over how much you enjoyed a Mongo vs. Julio Sanchez match.

Road Block vs. Lash Laroux

ER: "Hey Eric, you wanna see a Roadblock squash to guide us into your MLK day off?" Obviously I want that to happen. Lash looked exactly like current Adam Devine only ginger, and he gets absolutely worked by the gigantic Roadblock. Roadblock turns up on a disc and brother it's like when I bought a 25 cent pack of Donruss baseball cards in the Raley's checkout line with my mom, and found an Elite Series Jose Canseco card. Some dude offered me $250 for that card at a local baseball card show. I did not take that man up on his offer. I don't think I know where that Jose Canseco card is today, and if I did I likely wouldn't be able to sell it for the 25 cents that the pack originally cost me. Unless it turns out the fucking Melendez brothers were sitting in the background in one of those situations that makes day to day life bearable and worth waiting around for. I don't know where that card is (parent's garage?) but I got Roadblock on this disc, squishing the hell out of a cajun who would have a kind of impressive status leap within a year. Roadblock crushing him with huge right arm chops, a great lariat, big boot, leaping elbow drop, just the best Son of One Man Gang. Roadblock was a decade too late. He throws a great powerslam and hits his Dead End, just flipping backwards over those ropes like Charlotte, but belly flopping like Louie Anderson. There really is no 90s finisher more damn fun than the Dead End. This match is pure undistilled joy.

Jerry Flynn vs. Fit Finley

ER: Well you knew this would be a cool asskicking. It was Flynn early and Finley down the stretch, both guys landing shots throughout. Flynn even opens the match with a hard as hell spinkick to Finley's chest that Finley sells like a brick hit him in the chin. He sells it for the next couple minutes of match too. Flynn hits kicks to the head, nice kneedrop, an awesome big left hand in the corner, tosses him around ringside; Finley is really cool in how he sells offense based on how much a guy's offense deserves to be sold. Flynn had nice offense, Flynn gets his offense sold. Finley takes over by getting the boots up and runs through the greatest Finley hits. Hard shots with none wasted, sticks the rolling senton, snaps off the tombstone. Just was the exact kind of asskicking you wanted, that these two always deliver.

Scott Hall vs. Konnan

ER: I really dig this era Scott Hall. The guy had so much personality. He was like an actual tough version of John Tatum. I love coward sniveling pretty boy John Tatum, but Scott Hall is Tatum with stubble and posturing. If you know you know. And Hall is in the driver's seat for a ton of this. Hard short arm shoulderblocks, great stomps to the back of the head, choking Konnan over the middle rope (and also allowing my boy Vincent to sneak in shots), and all the while making all these great expressive faces, totally nailing his character. We even get Vincent helping Hall lock in an extra tight abdominal stretch because that was a THING and the WCW crowds always responded to things like that. Konnan is sluggish on a lot of his eventual offense, but at least he throws some pump behind his seated dropkick. Barely bends on a snapmare, but can throw a dropkick. Konnan goes down kind of shockingly easy here. Sure you had Vincent with some interference on the floor, but Konnan didn't have any kind of run here, not even putting two moves together at any point. Hall and Konnan were both guys who would show up in main event "big name" squash match on Saturday Night, but it's a rare thing to have them together, let alone with one being so dominant. WCW hierarchies are just one of my favorite things in pro wrestling.

I live for this.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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WOW - Women of Wrestling Episode 1 1/18/19

So I legitimately had no idea David McLane's WOW was back in any form until I saw Bix swooning all over it on Twitter. I was a huge WOW fan during it's original run. My gf and I at the time would watch it at 1 AM Saturday nights, I ordered a Riot shirt that never came because they went out of business, and I watched that PPV LIVE! Now they got Tessa Blanchard (who is clearly a better wrestler than anybody involved in WOW's original run) and I am not looking up any further information about it. It's on my TV right now, I'm watching it.

We start with WOW "Women of Wrestling World Champion of the World" Santana Garrett (apparently WOW has been running shows?) and Tessa Blanchard came out with her and McLane and made fun of Garrett's towel boy dad for carrying her dad's Gucci bag.

The Beast vs. Stephy Slays

ER: Unfamiliar with both of these girls. Stephy sets goals, and slays them. The Beast is making her mark. And really this wasn't bad. Both seemed pretty rough around the edges, but Stephy takes hard fast bumps and Beast lands clotheslines and avalanches with a lot of impact. Throw in a nice dropkick from Slays and a fun nearfall off a Beast missed corner charge, big butterfly suplex from Beast, surprise kickout from Slays on an Air Raid Crash, and this overdelivered on what I expected. Granted, I expected it to be two untrained fitness models clomping around the ring, but there have been modern Diva matches that have looked worse than this. The weirdest thing was that Stephy was working as underdog babyface, but Beast was working as dominant babyface. She pulled Stephy up from a kickout, which was the only heelish thing she did, and the rest of the time they were talking about her on commentary like she was Goldberg. I'm excited to see how the face/heel dynamics play out with the rest of the roster. I liked the mix of heels on the original WOW.

"The Governor's Daughter" Abilene Maverick vs. Fire

ER: Fire is Kiera Hogan, who I like, Maverick works all over as Barbi Hayden. This was fine, although apparently mule kicks are still really tough to make look good. This was split up weird, with Maverick taking the first half, building to a big comeback by Fire in the second half, until Maverick won with a rope drape DDT that Fire couldn't have made look any better (really dropped her on her head and folded her). Maverick makes good heel faces, McLane - in perfect McLane fashion - gossiped about her boyfriend (Preston!) during the match, and I liked Fire's comeback. Fire hit this sliding kick in the corner that looked real good. Fire had a whole vignette before this where she evolved from troubled bullied teen into FIRE, so I'm surprised she lost in her debut.

Khloe Hurtz vs. Eye Candy

ER: Hurtz is called the All Natural, which apparently is because she has fake lips and fake boobs, but she ALSO has a bunch of ring boys called RING RATS!! So that's pretty terrific. She didn't do a ton for me in ring, but I dug Eye Candy. I'm sure she doesn't actually go by Eye Candy on the indies, but she looked good here, best of the babyfaces so far. Crowd was way into her, she hit a couple nice senton variations (including a nice rolling one), a big dropkick off the top that I thought was going to fall short (nice whip bump off it by Hurtz), a nice headbutt and hip attack, and wins with a really great moonsault. So far in the first episode we've had at least one decent nearfall in every match even when some of the wrestling has been so-so. A nicely placed nearfall can be really exciting, and so far each one on this episode has added to their respective matches.

Jungle Grrrl vs. Santana Garrett

ER: WOW ORIGINAL JUNGLE GRRRL! Jeez WOW was another lifetime ago. I was literally a teenager when I first watched WOW. I didn't think we'd actually get any WOW originals. And Jungle Grrrl is now a Jungle Mother and she looks almost exactly the same as she did in 2000 and her son Jungle Boy is there in attendance! Jungle Grrrl is clearly a Jungle Pilates Trainer now, she is ripped. The match doesn't go too long as it serves more as an angle, but the action we got was pretty good. I liked the opening scramble, JG showing off her yoga strength and working nice exchanges around knucklelocks, the coolest being Garrett elbowing JG a couple times while they were still joined in a knucklelock! I don't think I've seen that before. JG hits the Jungle Driver (basically a Michinoku Driver) and commits big to missing the big Jungle Splash off the top. The angle we got to end the show was pretty fantastic, with Tessa Blanchard coming out and kinking up Garrett's dads oxygen tubes (awesome), and The Beast coming out to confront Jungle Grrrl. The whole show they're building up the inevitable showdown between Garrett and Blanchard, and then all of a sudden they're doing a huge pull apart between Beast and JG and making me want to see THAT match more!

I gotta say, this debut episode had to blow past everyone's realistic expectations. This show made shockingly good use of its time, felt weirdly like old WOW but with better wrestlers (though also less blue collar professionals moonlighting as wrestlers), it didn't have one crazy young referee out to take one extremely stupid bump per episode, but they unexpectedly seem like they know how to build things. I came out of this episode already wanting to see the matches they're setting up, which is a huge win for them. Eye Candy, Fire, Beast, Stephy Slays, almost everyone here showed breakout potential. I watched WOW as a teen, now I'm watching WOW as someone who just turned 38. WOW is on a larger cable television platform than Impact Wrestling, which has been around for an eternity yet somehow wasn't around the last time WOW was on television. What a strange Friday night.

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New Footage Friday: Hollywood Blondes, Dusty, Slater, Black, Dustin, Corino

Tommy Siegler/Roberto Soto/Argentine Apollo vs. Hollywood Blondes/Assassin ASWA 12/28/72

MD: This was a really interesting match from the Ann Gunkel promotion in Georgia. We have plenty of 70s footage but this feels more alien, if only because we don't usually see this Assassin and Roberts as a Hollywood Blond and Siegler's pretty rare, footage wise. Apollo looked great here, definitely the world's best Superfly Sifi Afi. Even if he was just aping parts of Rocca's act, he was doing it so well, that it didn't matter in the least. The guy died young of a heart attack, but it still feels surprising we didn't see him more into the early 80s. He could certainly go here. The Blonds were, of course, great stooges, but I thought everyone looked really good here.

This had a long shine with a few teases of the heels taking over. Past Apollo cartwheeling all over the place, and the heels stooging well, this was mostly notable for the announcers going out of their way to call Ann Gunkel the prettiest little girl promoter you ever did see.

The heat was equal parts boring and interesting. They ran through headscissors spots with all three babyfaces working from underneath. It felt a little like a lucha momentum shift instead of a classic face-in-peril. They were hot for all the tags but not as hot as they might have been. At one point the Assassin cut off Soto by turning a headlock into a belly-to-back which doesn't feel like a 70s spot at all no matter how common it'd be in, let's say 1990s AJPW (and both guys sold it as an impact too which was interesting). Siegler was the babyface that fought out of the headlock the best. I'd like to see more of him. After the final hot tag, this played out like a lucha comedy match from the 80s, with a few heel miscommunication spots and a lightning pin. Fun relic that showed off some elements that felt either experimental for the era or maybe connective tissue between what came before and what would come.

TKG: Was that Assassin Jody Hamilton? Cause damn he was once a lightheavy workrate machine. I mean still clearly doing "cerebral" gimmick but just workrate "cerebral". Kind of really the star of the heel team. Grey had an insane knee to the face, but Assassin was doing the more intricate stuff. The whole banged himself up a little loopy sell after hitting the big suplex to set up the reversal spot totally worked for me in the way that a lot of "I hit a big move then will be reversed next" signature 80s stuff doesn't. A lot of this was faces winning exchanges stuff and I thought they worked out a neat almost lucha hierarchy in how they set that up. Siegler gets the pin and was clearly being pushed here but was at the same time very clearly the low man on the totem pole. Apollo clearly captain (and the one guy to do the muga handstand escape out of the reverse headscissors that both other faces attempted to pull off) and Soto was an amazing workhorse who clearly was #2 guy on team. Soto is a machine on this and I need to see if there is much WWF Invaders on the network to look at. He also has a permanent thousand yard stare where his whole body communicates babyface but yeah mask makes sense.

PAS: The Assassin had Jody Hamilton's nose, so I am assuming it was him. Never thought I would see Jody Hamilton ripping off dropkicks and headscissors. I really enjoyed Apollo in this, he was clearly doing a tribute act, but he still had some really impressive agility and acrobatics. I loved his lightning fast one foot dropkicks. I would have liked to see a little more Buddy Roberts to get a better sense of him pre-Freebirds, but he seemingly had the least ring time of anyone in this match. Really enjoyable 20 minutes, which works as both a historical document and an entertaining wrestling match. 

Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat vs. Black Bart/Ron Bass/Tully Blanchard MAW 12/25/84

ER: You knew this was going to be absolute fire because everyone shows up dressed like they just got done with some yard work and Dick Slater wears a gigantic foam cowboy hat to the ring like he was Turd Ferguson. We don't get a finish to this, they're all out of time folks, but we get these six guys punching each other for 12 minutes and that's definitely something you want. Tully is the ultimate punching bag in this, falling all over the ring for everyone, and at one point Dusty and Dick are holding onto his belt while taking turns punching him, not letting him fall over the entire time. Black Bart stooges around the same way Necro Butcher does, which checks out as I believe he trained Necro. Ron Bass keeps spending time on the floor avoiding action, then entering only to get knocked right back. This was heavily controlled by the faces, but we do get a couple nice moments of Steamboat taking a beating, including a cool post-piledriver sell where he pushes himself backwards while on his knees looking lost in a fog, and he takes a monster bump over the ringpost to the floor. Not sure how much is missing or what this whole thing built to, but I loved every bit of it that we got.

TKG: Steamboat's superplex is so purty and Tully and Steamboat are great as I guess the Kikuchi and Fuchi's of this. Well that's all backwards as Jumbo, Taue, Fuchi are the face punishing heels heels while Dusty, Slater, Steamboat are the heel punishing faces. But AJPW should've done some touring bunkhouse matches. I was just watching the July 4, 81 Slater v Tiger Jeet Singh and Slater is so good at the babyface pacing of horseshit brawling and moves well between communicating moments of being a guy who just enjoys being in a fight and guy in a fight and then back.

MD: So this is more rare than found. It's a classic JCP TV match from the very end of 84. It's so cool to see Steamboat tag with Dusty and even just for Steamboat to interact with Bass. This was to establish Magnum as much as anything else. He's on the outside keeping JJ at bay. Just over the top bunkhouse brawl action with a crowd that was absolutely overjoyed to see every second of the bad guys running into the good guys' offense. Dusty looked like the biggest star in the world with his affectation-laden offense. Slater was a wild man, kicking, scraping, biting, using his boot to the fans' delight. This has the BS "We're out of time folks!" ending but sometimes you need a shot of that particular sort of disappointment in life just to remind you that you can't have everything you want. What we do have of this is way better than just being character building.

PAS: One thing I love about Slater and Dusty is that they always look like they are super excited to be in a fight. The opening seconds with Dusty in his bunkhouse gear, and Slater with the novelty foam cowboy hat just put a giant smile on my face. The smile didn't leave me until the cut off at the end of the match (this was a commercial tape for fucks sake, those things were expensive). Almost all chaotic brawling, with the heels mostly getting their comeuppance, flawless bit of business all around.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Corino UWF 6/8/07

MD: This is wilderness era Dustin, when he wasn't quite in the best shape. I had actually looked into this stuff not that long ago when a PR match popped up from 07. UWF was a TNA-affiliated promotion that was venturing north into the ECW Arena for some reason. There's actually a lot of potentially fun Dustin matches from this run, including matches with Scott Steiner and Aries and Damien Wayne and Bobby Houston. Probably the neatest thing about this, past the fact it simply exists is that Corino feuded with Dusty. Both guys got to cut promos. Corino brought out Mitch Williams, Philly's poor man's Bill Buckner, who at least seemed to have a blast out there as his heater (though he never got his comeuppance). The match itself was a decent enough brawl for their current physical state. It needed a few more minutes, but they bled early and hit each other hard and had a few imaginative spots with the bell. I liked how they sold the usually terrible finish to a bullrope match as Dustin having learned the tropes well from watching his dad. Now I just have to convince Phil to buy the Dustin Rhodes, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, Kirby Mack & TJ Mack vs. CW Anderson, Steve Corino, Hernandez, Homicide, & Elix Skipper double cage match from this promotion.

PAS: I am amused at the cheap heat use of Mitch Williams in Corino's corner, I wonder how much money you have to pay him to come out in a giant mustard colored dress shirt to get people to boo him. Pretty surprised we didn't get a Dusty elbow on him, but I imagine that would have cost more. Both Corino and Dustin are all time great bleeders and Corino especially seemed to blade two or three separate times. I enjoyed the dumbness of having to touch all the turnbuckles in a six sided ring. There were a couple of rude chair and cowbell shots, and this felt like a fun houseshow brawl, nothing all time great, but delivered what the crowd wanted.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Team Suzuki vs. Team Okabayashi Trios

1. Hideki Suzuki/Takuya Nomura/Yoshihisa Uto vs. Kazumi Kikuta/Ryuichi Kawakami/Yuji Okabayashi  BJW 1/2

PAS: Really fun trios match which felt like the kind of chaotic brawl which was the kind of thing that Japanese wrestling really used to excel at, this wasn't elite WAR level, but it felt like a fun Zero One brawl. We get some wild brawling around the outside which included Okabayshi smacking the crap out of a random trainee at ringside.  I enjoyed Kikuta who was working kind of like one of the old Z1 Karate dudes, I am excited for anyone trying to be 21st century Ogasawara.  Finish was a blast with Okabayashi Gotch lifting Nomura out of an armbar and slapping on a Camel Clutch which looked like it snapped his back like a Kit Kat.

ER: This was fantastic and just about the best advertisement for modern Big Japan. After those 12 minutes I wanted to devour every damn thing the fed had to offer. This felt like a real throwback and had the violence of an old interpromotional multiman. Yuji Okabayashi came off like a real megastar, and like more of a badass than I've ever seen Ishii come off. Once they all brawled to the floor I was hooked in, with Okabayashi thundering chops right past the heads of fans, Nomura kicking him in the head while Yuji echoes bombs off his chest. How kickass would it be to be sitting like 3 feet away from that!? This might be my first time seeing Kikuta, and I want more! He felt like a mid 90s sleaze fed kicker, and that's always going to be a good thing. He rocks Suzuki with a few palm strikes to the chest that will change the minds of 100% of the people who don't view a heart punch as a viable finisher. Both times Suzuki gets punched in the chest he responds by kicking Kikuta right in the balls. It's cheap, but damn those shots probably just reflexively cause that. I like everyone here, and we had no shortage of guys taking hard shots or getting clonked by a chair, but Okabayashi was the star here and man did he shine. He beat men around the arena, he did the most impossibly quick snatch and grab vertical suplexes on every opponent, he chopped some trainee in the throat, and somehow came off like a huge babyface hero even though he was constantly caving in bodies. 2019 Big Japan, here we come!


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AIW Hell on Earth 14 11/23/18

Duke Money (Mance Warner/Jock Sampson) vs. The Production (Derek Director/Danhausen) vs. Young Studs (Eric Ryan/Bobby Beverly) vs. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money)

PAS: AIW has a lot of really fun multi match workers, and their big clusterfucks are at a minimum enjoyable. This was a little more than that, as we got a bunch of cool big moments, along with a really exciting finish. I love the Jollyville Fuck-Its, they are a great version of the tough guy face tag team a 21st Century version of Bruiser and Crusher. This was an especially great Nasty Russ performance, he hits a standing version of his great cannonball, does a totally unexpected and insane Orihara moonsault, and while attempting to do a cannonball on the Duke, dives from the top rope right into a kneelift which looked like it removed all of middle school from his memory. Everyone else had a cool moment or two, and they really built to a cool crescendo, just a great way to open a card.

ER: I'm officially over the moon for AIW multi man tags. They're the best. I'm not sure who's training all these guys but these matches always have a ton of moving parts and everyone is able to work real fast and real stiff without clogging up the works and stumbling through anything. It's super impressive and there's always a few wild moments and a ton of hard as hell shots. Everyone makes the most of their time in so that everybody leaves looking real good. Mance was hitting hard all match, sprinting in with hard chops and bringing a boot into play (where did that boot come from?) and Mance is really good at corner beatdowns, really made this feel more intense; The Production is a fun stable, dug Derek's avalanche and Danhausen (looking like a spitting image of King Diamond) gets dropped with a nice backdrop driver, and clonks heads at high speed with Derek in a fun spot (T-Money had Derek in a fireman's carry and was spinning him around while Russ punched him on each go 'round, Danhausen ran in to stop it and two melons collided), one of those spots that never looks good but here looked great. The breakdown of the match was pretty crazy, with Ryan hitting a huge cannonball off the apron into Derek (his stuff to the floor is great, earlier he was running into the ring and out hitting spots, including an awesome moment where he slid to the floor to hit a Russian leg sweep into the barricade), Russ hits a wild Orihara moonsault to the floor, Money hits a big pounce on Duke (who looks like Louis CK so the spot is satisfying on a couple levels) and then the spot of the freaking match: Russ goes for a cannonball off the top and eats the nastiest kneelift to the teeth from Beverly, and then Beverly eats a sick running knee from Mancer. These guys know scramble tags, know exactly what makes them work and what keeps them exciting. AIW opening match tags have pretty much become the best guarantee in pro wrestling.

Swoggle vs. MJF

PAS: Swoggle was the surprise replacement for a retired Tracey Smothers, and this was a basic comedy match, with MJF loudly talking trash and taking a pasting. Swoggle was almost too dominant, 30 seconds into the match he is throwing a German suplex, although he does work stiff, and I do buy that it would suck to try to wrestle him. Not really my thing although it was solidly executed.

Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham vs. KTB vs. Dominic Garrini vs. Joshua Bishop

ER: This was weird. Decent, but weird. It only goes about 5 minutes and Garrini/Bishop disappear to the back a couple minutes in, so we mostly get a short Rockingham/KTB singles. But this whole thing is fun enough. Garrini gets a cool release German and a nice running shot in the corner, KTB hits a suicide dive, Asai moonsault, and a nice top rope lariat, but for the life of me I still have zero clue what DCR's trap arm finisher thing is supposed to be, or who it's supposed to hurt, because every time I've seen him attempt it, it always looks like both people fucked it up. Any help on what that is supposed to be? He traps an arm, do-si-dos to the side, grabs another arm, then KTB gets dropped straight on his head while DCR acts like he's taking a rana...it's something that can only happen on the indies. A move where neither guy seems to know what he's taking or delivering, at least one guy gets dropped on his head, and the fans have no clue how to react? That's an indy finisher baby. But, the good here was good (not sure why it was so short or why Garrini got brought in to work about 1 minute of a scramble though).

No Consequences (Tre Lamar/Chase Oliver) vs. The Production (Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK)

ER: Another short match, with Magnum's epic ring entrance taking much more time than the actual match itself. And Magnum's entrance is spectacular, so that's not a huge issue. He walks around ringside taking people's hats and throwing them into the crowd, some quickly, taking his time on others, making me laugh when we cut to the hard cam and you can see him running in and out of frame snatching and throwing hats. He gets a massive reaction from the crowd too, and a guy over huge in front of his home fanbase is awesome to see. It sounds like he really went through the shit, and it will always be awesome for someone to go through the weeds and come out the other side bigger than ever. It's an easy thing to root for. We've seen these two teams match up before and they gel nicely, so it's disappointing we didn't get much of a match. There's some cool stuff, I especially dug No Consequences going for a tandem flying knee and crashing their own knees into the other, liked CK's two big spinebusters, liked Oliver's full extension superkicks, but I wanted more than a 3 minute match ending with a quick roll up.

Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK vs. Weird World (Alex Kellar/Evan Adams)

ER: That match leads directly into this match, with Weird World coming out with big trophies that I believe grant them an any time title shot. They bring a ref and start brawling on the entrance ramp and some wildness is there, but overall this didn't work. I liked Weird Body brawling through the crowd with Flynn and Derek Director taking a nice spilling bump through a chair, and back in the ring Flynn hit a cool delayed side slam that really whipped Weird Body into the mat. But this whole thing overall was too short and the champs went down way too easy. Magnum went down after getting press slammed off the top and eats a DDT and not much else to put him down. I would have liked to see an actual match with these teams. A title change should have felt like a bigger deal. But it does all make a ton more sense (and his huge reaction pre-match makes a ton more sense) after the match when CK does a long and heartfelt promo about how his back has gotten worse and he found out that he has always had spina bifida, apparently. I had noticed he really really slowly locked Kellar in a figure 4, but I just assumed he was poor at applying a figure 4. He said spina bifida was supposed to be diagnosed from birth but it wasn't diagnosed. A fan amusingly said that it was probably Dr. D who blew it. His talk is really straight from the heart and the locker room comes out and he gets a lot off his chest. He talks about his difficult upbringing and how he started watching wrestling, tells a couple stories about his career. A real nice moment.

The Philly Marino Experience (Philly Collins/Marino Tenaglia) vs. To Infinity & Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

ER: This show is almost exhausting in its high quality. The tag scene in AIW is just incredible, these guys can just keep matching up in different combinations and having killer 12 minute matches and I will keep watching these shows. This match had it all in an economical amount of time, fun opening stooging from Delaney and Cheech, great double teams from To Infinity, fun spots from all, really built in a satisfying way and never threatened to overstay. I thought Colin Delaney looked really great here, and he's a guy I've enjoyed plenty before (and really loved his Hero singles) but this felt like a guy really coming into his own. He can do quick spots, innovative-while-not-ridiculous double teams, stooging, hard shots, really moved comfortably around a ring that constantly had action in it. I really dug his sliding in-ring powerbomb to the floor, then running around the side of the ring to hit an under bottom rope dropkick back into the ring, then ran in with a leaping cutter off the middle rope that lead right to Cheech planting Marino with a sick German. Super fun sequence in a match filled with them. He and Cheech worked consecutive running elbows in the corner then follow with consecutive face washes, and every tag team in AIW seems so in sync. Delaney even surprised me later with this awesome springboard cutter that saw him climb over the ropes and stop on the inside middle rope before leaping off. Philly Marino were fun foils, with Marino hitting some nice flying spots (big leap to the floor, awesome rana off the top that sent To Infinity cannonballing into each other) and Philly having a nice fired up babyface comeback hitting some big lariats on Cheech. They all made good use of saves and cut off spots so we didn't have ridiculous kickouts, and while it took a bit to set up the match appropriately ended on a tag team Vertebreaker/Air Raid Crash, which is a suitable way to end a match. Very very excited for this tag division going forward. Also, for whatever reason, it hit me that one of the commentators during this match is basically 0.9 Rick Sanchez. He doesn't do the belching, but the dude sounds exactly like Rick while calling the action.

PAS: This was really fun stuff. Delaney and Cheech are long time staples in AIW and it was really fun to see them work subtle heel here against a pair of young energetic kids. Fat guy and flippy guy is a good tag team template, and Marino took a big beating leading to a great fired up hot tag from Philly.  Loved the springboard plancha, Marino got great height on it and he had an awesome Skayde style roll up which is a great dude to crib from. I didn't think any of the double teams looked goofus (which is always a fear with indy tag team double teams, I see you Lynch Brothers), and that finishing Vertabreaker/ARC was super nasty and I appreciated the lack of kick out. So many good tag teams in this fed, there are dozens of different match ups I am excited about.

El Hijo De LA Park vs. Facade vs. Louis Lyndon vs. Laredo Kid vs. Gringo Loco vs. Flip Kendrick

PAS: Throw a bunch of nuts in a ring and let them try every highspot in their crazed minds. Obviously not everything is going to be hit cleanly, but there is enough frosting to make this a great dessert. Loco is a fucking beast in this match, his exchanges with Laredo Kid are pretty breathtaking, and he just takes offense so well, love the fact he is back in the wrestling spotlight nearly a decade after his IWRG peak. Lyndon and Flip are brothers and have some crazy ideas, including Flip hitting a destroyer into the turnbuckles (unsurprisingly this match had a bunch of Destroyers) and Lyndon hitting double poison ranas on Facade and Flip for the win. Hijo Park was probably the weak link, but this was on the level of any crazy Crash, AAA or indy lucha spotfest.

ER: I love a good spotfest and this, like any decent fireworks show, had a couple nice peaks and then kept drawing out the action, getting to a respectable runtime and leaving before running out of ideas. If I had attended this show and not enjoyed anything on the card so far (not true as this card has whipped) but I would have left happy, saying that Gringo Loco squaring off against Laredo Kid was worth the price of admission. Those two were so good and matched up so excellently that I just kept waiting for the match to get back to more Laredo/Gringo tradeoffs. Loco is certifiably Loco, and he works such graceful fast sequences well with basically anybody, but watching him take the flourishes of Laredo were too cool, especially that absolutely nuts rana that he took onto the entrance ramp. That ramp doesn't provide a lot of room to move - let alone bump - but he caught it and tumbled on down the rampway. Hijo de Park isn't great and he slowed things down when he was in. Slower is a better speed for him as there's still delay with a lot of his moves, but when he works faster he tends to cut corners (sloppily applied ranas, ugly headscissors). Lyndon, Kendrick, and Facade all had moments, every one of them knows how to take a flipping crazy bump off another crazy move, but I still was just waiting around for cameras to show Loco or Laredo again. Because come one. We had Laredo getting flipped into a dragon rana on Loco, Loco taking an MK Ultra from Hijo Park right on the top of his head, Laredo flinging himself off the mat and bouncing around after taking a flipping piledriver, Laredo hitting an insane dive - fast as hell - that crashed him into Loco and the guardrail (with Park hitting an Asai moonsault into him right after, and Facade hitting a flip dive onto Loco) and Loco is just an expert at flying around the ring and getting delicately into position for others' madness. I have a feeling we'll be writing up more available Gringo Loco footage than just about anybody.

LA Park vs. Nick Gage

PAS: There were some moments of miscommunication and awkardness here, but for the most part it delivered on its on paper promise. Gage gets mauled early, with pretty sick chairshots, and belt shots, getting tossed into the ringside. Gage makes a comeback beating on Park some, and we get a great Park dive and spear, before the shticky finish. It felt a little like play the hits PARK, which is fine those are some good hits, but it never reached the intensity of a great PARK brawl, or even a great Gage brawl. This isn't a big main event Apuestas match or anything, and I get why he didn't go nuts and have a classic,  but the PARK ceiling is so high, that it is hard not to think about what could have been.

ER: Phil didn't think I needed to watch this, but I was still curious and like these guys, wanted to see for myself. And I'm glad I did because I thought this delivered. It wasn't clean, it was a little messy, but I thought that dirtiness added to the mean fight feel of it all. Gage looks hungry and angry, Park looks like a larger and larger boss, both look like two guys you *want* to cross paths violently. Park jumping him with a chairshot got everything off to the perfect tone, and I thought that tone was matched through to the beginning. The brawling in this had a good amount of danger, and there were some major moments like Park's colossal dive, and Gage getting powerbombed kidneys first into a couple set up chairs. Park whips him with that sharp belt, but I loved the Gage comeback we built to. I dug how Park was working this almost subtle heel, really made Gage's comeback feel more exciting. I liked the up close hits in the middle of the ring, both guys throwing hard straight arm lariats, fun low blow finish all with great vocals and visuals from Gage. I'm glad I checked out these two kooks doing their thing.

Matthew Justice vs. Tim Donst

ER: This was no DQ and had a fair amount of crazy stuff, but it had a lot of backyard level spot set up and a confusing (which is not uncommon) Donst performance. Donst keeps kind of morphing into Balls Mahoney, and here he really lazily crawls onto tables to wait to be put through them, seems tired all throughout, but has no problem taking some rough spills. He splits Justice's head open kind of early with a brutal hard chair shot, then jabs at the cut with his fingers and scrapes Justice's bullet belt into it. There are a few big table spots, a nasty Jackhammer on the entrance stage where Donst likes like he doesn't really get all the way over, Justice really taking a long time with some of the set up, really dragging out the match time for spots that weren't ever treated like anything close to a killshot. The ref even takes an insane clutched death valley driver through a table after not letting Justice wrap Donst's head in a chair. The absolute craziest spot of the match - and one of the wildest things I've seen in wrestling this year - was Donst hitting a double underhook piledriver on the entrance ramp, and Justice's head splitting that ramp into a jagged particle board hole as it completely broke away and dropped Justice into the hole. A piledriver that literally drove Justice through the surface he was being piledriven onto. It gave us a great visual of Justice disappearing into the depths. Donst dragged him out and it got a 2 count. I lost interest in it the rest of the way (which wasn't much, but everything after felt like it was post a moment they wouldn't be able to match intensity-wise).

Eddie Kingston vs. Tracy Williams

PAS: Eddie Kingston does big Puro epic matches better then anyone in Japan. This was a hell of a battle and a kicker for a great year for both guys. I get a total kick out of Brooklyn street fighter Eddie Kingston training BJJ at American Top Team, but the early rolling here was pretty great, including Kingston with an awesome guard pull. Williams stomps and twists Kingston's fingers and we get some classic Kingston bodypart selling. He is constantly pulling at his finger, trying to pop it back, and get feeling back, it is a part of the match the entire time, nothing he does isn't informed at least a little bit by that bad finger. I have said it a bunch before, but Kingston may be the best seller in wrestling history, he takes a backdrop on the floor and starts groaning like someone who just blew out his knee in a pick up game. Kingston lands some very big shots on Williams, busting his eye open and smashing him with backfists. and Tracy refuses to go down. We get maybe the only good version of the emo Gargano spot, where Kingston makes the sign of the cross before trying to hit the Burning Hammer. Williams is able to flip the switch and hit two piledrivers to put Kingston down, and Kingston does his post match mic work while holding his arm straight out because of neck trauma.

ER: Main Event of a 3.5 hour 10 match show, and following a 6 man spotfest, a No DQ match, an LA Park brawl, and a fan favorite's retirement. That's a spot Eddie Kingston seems to have no problem occupying, and you knew he'd approach that fan burnout with his own unique touch on main event epic. This was a deep bruising war, and there really aren't guys around that do these deep bruising wars better than Kingston. Williams has his shoulder wrapped and Kingston is always nursing something, and that was an awesome story for two guys who couldn't look more different but have super complementary styles. Williams has hard elbows to the jaw, and the impact makes me think of my hands hurting after making bad contact with an aluminum bat. That ringing through your body. At one point Kingston starts gnawing on his tongue to get feeling to his jaw (a weird habit I sometimes do while running). Kingston hits back just as hard as Williams, sometimes Kingston can't help it and forecasts his shots, but it's a fun wrinkle in his game and I always like how he plays it. These guys throw each other around a ton, and each landing was so hard. These landings all looked no give, Kingston taking a back suplex on the floor, both getting dropping in the ring, Kingston unleashing a career shortening head and arm suplex (dumping Sauce directly onto his head and neck); all the suplexes looked tough, fought for, earned. That butterfly suplex by Kingston was something that you could see in a creative playground fight. Now, I do think the match went long. I see why they went long, and I kind of appreciate them going long considering their spot on a very big card. But my absolute favorite Kingston wars do tend to be his somewhat truncated shoot outs. This went a little over on the damage for me, and I'm never going to be excited for a piledriver rendered meaningless. These guys were crushing vertebrae, I'm going to need that to be respected. These guys earned their scars, sheesh we see in real time a cut get opened on the side of Williams' eye for goodness sakes. But these two were mean, they should have protected their killshots.

ER: What a fantastic show, this fed is really ticking off all the boxes on what I want to see on a pro wrestling show. The base style of this fed is very high floor for me, so with that structure and an enjoyable pace these shows really deliver. We're putting THREE matches from the show on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and there were a couple others that were arguable. That's a show that's easy to recommend, highly.

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