Fujiwara Family: RINGS Astral Step 2nd Aqua Heat 8/1/91

ER: I really loved our opening 5 minute video, giving us a cool background glimpse of all our fighters warming up in Osaka Prefectural Gym the after noon of the show, see Maeda getting his knee looked at, Vrij grappling in the ring, guys running the stairs, Chris Dolman and Willy Wilhelm sitting in the stands with their arms crossed over their barrel stomachs. Seeing Vrij grappling made him look like one of those guys training in a warehouse in an 80s action movie. I love these kind of calm before the storm videos, seeing these guys joke around and put on their gear, then seeing 6,000 fans as they file into the gym. 

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Herman Renting

PAS: This might be Nagai's first worked match (he doesn't have anything earlier on Cagematch) and he showed some of the tentativeness one might expect from your first match. I am used to Nagai just hurling reckless heat (he damn near killed Iizuka) but here the kicks are just kind of normal. Renting spent most of the match timing Nagai and taking him down when he left a kick out there. Finish was cool with Nagai spinning into an armbar, although it kind of went against the story of the match. Interesting curiosity to see a guy with such a long career in his debut, but outside of that this wasn't much. 

ER: This was very base level RINGS, and that's fine. It is cool to see baby Nagai, and I thought that while the match proper wasn't a super interesting format, it at least played out to a logical conclusion. Nagai was throwing fast full extension kicks, which kept Renting from getting too close. Renting would check leg kicks and then back away from a big sweeping high kick, like he was getting the timing down on a boss battle. Nagai outpaced him on the mat and drew two rope breaks and it seemed clear that Renting's only chance was to bait Nagai into a big miss and hopefully land a knockdown. He does catch a Nagai kick and then duck an awesome spinning heel kick from Nagai (Renting would have been faceless had he not ducked), but his lone advantage is fairly easily turned into a Nagai armbar. Again, base level stuff, but some of shootstyle is being enamored by the things that could have finished but barely missed. 

Chris Dolman vs. Ton Van Maurik

PAS: This was tremendous stuff, just a pair of permed dudes trying to absolutely liquify each other's internal organs with body shots. This isn't your slick submission master Volk Han stuff, it is phone booth pummeling.  Maurik unloads with combos to the kidneys which drops Dolman, and Dolman rag dolls him with judo and starts throwing these huge headbutts right to the chest and solar plexus of van Maurik, it looked like he was trying to bob for apples in van Maurik's chest cavity. You give me two big dudes hitting each other hard in interesting ways, that is all I want from wrestling. 

ER: If you're Dutch, you don't need a perm (seriously I'm pretty sure the Dutch have the world market cornered on citizens with very curly hair, it's one of their things); but if you're Dutch, you don't necessarily have to try to cave in a dude's chest with your head. This was all about Dolman being a patient bulldozer and Van Maurik tries to out quick him with leg kicks, but Dolman is good at catching leg kicks. Van Maurik has a less confident look in his eyes every time he gets stood back up after a rope break, and it's hard not to be intimidated by Dolman when you see him basically shrug off knees to the body. The great unexpected moment of this was Dolman keeping his face covered and being fine with taking leg kicks, but getting rocked by two unexpected punches to the gut. I loved seeing Dolman suddenly on the deep defensive, on his heels back to the ropes and knocked down with some well placed knees. But after Van Maurik goes for the ropes again to break a tangle, you can see in his eyes that he knows where this is going. Those rained down headbutts are super nasty, that's the kind of thing you deal with during a bear attack, specifically a bear attack that's going to leave you on the losing end. Dolman literally dragging Van Maurik to the middle of the ring for the heel hook tap was some savage business, made Van Maurik look like someone without a....Ton...of experience. 

Willy Wilhelm vs.  Pieter Smit

PAS: There was one really awesome moment in this match where Smit judo throws Wilhelm ribs first into the ropes and follows up with a rib kick. Looked super violent and Wilhelm sold it like he got hit in the side with a truncheon. Most of the rest of the match was Wilhelm taking Smit down, not violently but convincingly and eventually putting on a cool choke for the finish. As a match it wasn't anything special but it did have a couple of memorable moments which is enough for me.

ER: I liked Wilhelm's alpha bully attitude, looked like a Dutch Stan Hansen who learned judo instead of lariats. I don't really get as involved in the shootstyle matches that are just "one larger judoka using his weight to slightly bully another judoka", and it felt too similar to stuff that happened in the match right before this one. But there is always going to be some gold to mine from any of these matches, and Phil is right, that moment here was Smit doing a judo throw that comes close to tossing Wilhelm right over the top rope, sends him off balance and lands kicks right to the ribs. I also really liked when Wilhelm tried to get mount and Smit threw up a knee from his back right to Wilhelm's teeth (you could tell it really annoyed him). Also big ups to Wilhelm for locking in essentially a shoot Million Dollar Dream. 

Dick Vrij vs. Akira Maeda

PAS: This felt like the RINGS version of the first Sting vs. Vader match or the second Cena vs. Lesnar, where a beloved hero just gets overwhelmed and destroyed. It is the Empire Strikes Back of the series, with Maeda getting the first win last show, but he ends up in carbonite at the end of this one. Vrij just overwhelms him with his size and aggression, damn near knocking him out the ring with a high kick, and constantly putting Maeda on his back foot. Akira gets one knockdown with a nasty body shot, but Vrij gets back up and keeps swarming him. I couldn't imagine Maeda was going to get beat this convincingly on only his second show and I kept waiting for the comeback that never came. Eventually Vrij sweeps the leg with a nasty kick and while Maeda gets up he is a wounded antelope about to get picked off by the lion. Great match especially in context and I can't wait to see Maeda get his revenge. 

ER: After seeing the pre-show video that showed everyone on the show warming up or sparring, and only showed Maeda getting his left knee looked, I was wondering if this was how his match was going to go. And I'm still kind of surprised that was the match they worked, with Maeda clearly favoring a leg and standing on it as long as he could before Vrij effectively targeted it. Vrij is so cool at throwing big crazy kicks as a decoy, as a way of getting Maeda off balance so he could land a wicked punch to the body. Maeda was down bad, unable to put much weight on that left knee, so that even when he hit one of his best kicks of the match it still required him to put weight on that leg, and he went down with Vrij. Maeda still manages to bounce Vrij off the top of his head on a takedown, always looks like he's going to be able to outlast Vrij. That's probably because we've been conditioned from years of watching Fujiwara wait for his opponent to gas, or Ishikawa wait to catch an opponent's kick all of these sons of Fujiwara have us conditioned to wait for them to pull out a buzzer beater. And Vrij does indeed look like he's gassing out (his post-fight backstage promo where he can only get out literally one word is a testament to how gassed he really was), so it was easy to mentally keep Maeda in this fight. Vrij is just relentless with strikes though, a guy who knew he was tiring but correctly calculated that his opponent would go down before he tired out. Can't wait to see the rubber match. 

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Brodie Lee Tribute

When I decided to start writing up Dynamite last year, Phil and I thought the best way to document it would be the classic DVDVR Workrate Report style that Phil, TomK, and DEAN popularized. Talking about what worked and what didn't work is a satisfying way to talk about a pro wrestling show, with certain benefits over just writing up the show linearly. But after watching this episode in its entirety, a typical Workrate Report didn't really feel appropriate. 

There was plenty of wrestling on this show, plenty of in ring to praise and criticize, but a seemingly healthy man just a year or two older than I am dying unexpectedly makes criticizing a weak bodyslam or poorly laid out match seem a little inconsequential. These wrestlers all lost a brother, a friend, a mentor, and I couldn't begin to put myself in their boots and what could have been going through their heads as they honored Brodie Lee. 

I did think the wrestling was good on the show, but this show was obviously not going to be about furthering angles in any drastic way, so it was nice to sit back and enjoy it as much as I could, while also feeling crushed every single time they cut to -1 at ringside. Brodie was a guy who I first saw teaming with Necro Butcher as the Hillbilly Wrecking Crew, and within a few years of that was in the best wrestling match of 2014. He was one of my favorite WWE wrestlers of the decade, and around 2014/2015 he was one of maybe three guys who I would most look forward to seeing on TV every week. But up until his passing I did not know one single solitary thing about the man outside of the ring. 

In the days since his passing I've seen nothing but warm, tender stories about the big man, stories that were a joy to read. But the stories were also gutting in their earnestness, in their disclosure, in what delight they revealed about this man whom I've "known" for over a decade without really knowing a single thing about him. Reading stories and seeing photos that reflected his sense of humor, reading stories about the road, reading about how much of a loving father and husband he was, it hit me how much I wished I never had to learn *any* of these stories. I was only hearing these details because so many were mourning, missing a man they had no reason to believe would be out of their lives this soon. I knew not one detail of his non-wrestling life before this week, and while it has both warmed and torn my heart hearing what a great person he was, I wish I was still able to live in that bubble where I only knew him as a wrestler. I wish these stories were still private, wish they were memories shared among friends, stories that didn't need to be shared to the world to illustrate what we were now without. 

This show was probably the most affecting wrestling memorial show we've seen, but it's not like any of us would be actually ghoulish enough to rank wrestling memorial shows. This is not a contest anyone would want to participate in. Owen Hart's show hit me particularly hard, because it was one of the first times I'd seen wrestlers opening up as humans, to remember someone who they unexpectedly lost. Hearing Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston talk about Brodie gave me the same kind of swelling sinus feeling I felt when Mark Henry read a poem about Owen. I could have listened to Kingston talk about Brodie for an hour, as there is nobody else in wrestling who is more brazenly unafraid to directly associate personal pain and emotion to his words. There is just something so difficult about seeing tough competitors with wet eyes, the saddest way to break the fourth wall. 

Wrestling images don't get more powerful than seeing a man's son take part in an in-ring boots ritual that he shouldn't have ever had to learn about. But another that hit me harder was one of the last images in the show closing tribute video, with Brodie's wife smashing her face into his massive beard to give her husband a kiss. Seeing his out of control beard and mustache engulf her face just made me think about how a woman is never going to be annoyed by her husbands absurdly large, scratchy facial hair ever again; a private moment we were all let in on only because that husband is no longer with us. 

AEW put on a great tribute to a man whose kindness, love, and affability obviously inspired and touched nearly everyone he came into contact with. I wish I never had to learn these details of his life, as that would mean he was still spreading that warmth. 

 

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Drapp! Delaporte! von Chenok! von Kramer! Calderon! Straub!

Andre Drapp vs. Roger Delaporte 9/22/60

SR:1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was the first match in the collection I was underwhelmed with. Delaporte has been entertaining so far, but his methods came across as extremely basic in this. They were wrestling in front of a large, hot crowd, you’d think they’d deliver something special, but the work up to a certain point felt rudimentary. Drapp is clearly an awesome wrestler and I want him to grapple with the likes of Blue Panther, so seeing him going along with Delaportes by the numbers heel routine was a letdown. There were still some cool holds and pin attempts from Drapp and I liked all the parts where they started beating the shit out of each other. Even though Delaportes holds weren’t up to snuff here he still throws great stomps. To complete the match, they rang the bell about 3 minutes before the actual time limit just as both guys exchanged in a heated strike exchange. All that said, the crowd loved all of this, so I guess it’s just my miserable opinion.

MD: I'm higher than Sebastian on this one. To me this was just the classic, baseline French Catch stylist vs mechant match and while nothing totally wowed, it really highlighted the style and just how good everything can be even if they travel straight down the middle. If I had to show someone one match that shows off the exact center point of everything we've been watching, this might be it. It doesn't really go far in any one direction and never spends too long doing any one thing, but it keeps things moving and is constantly entertaining, heated, and spirited. The big spots aren't as big as in other matches. The slugfest towards the end isn't as mean or focused. It just hangs out in the middle but gives you a little bit of everything. Delaporte had some sort of trophy here. He also had put his mustache on the line, I think. After some early wrestling (where he shows a bit more along those lines than we usually see out of him), it turns into the usual antics. Delaporte gets clowned for a bit. He cheats and controls for a bit with brutal credible offense, getting the ire of the ref and the crowd. Drapp comes back with some harsh but justified revenge, and repeat. He's quick to snatch a leg and take every opportunity. His facial expressions are brilliant. His tantrums and antics are entertaining. His blows are just crushing. Despite all that, my favorite thing about Delaporte is that moment of tension on a break or when he's begging off, where you just don't know when he's going to make a move. It's palpable and builds throughout the match and while we've seen it in other wrestlers both in and out of this footage, he makes it work as much as anyone. This ended in a draw and the way he sold congenial relief over his mustache with Drapp (who wanted nothing to do with it) was almost as good as anything within the match itself.

PAS: Yeah I really enjoyed this too, Delaporte is clowning for a lot of this, but he is great at that, and is obviously going to take any shortcuts he can to save that stache. Drapp had a bunch of fun babyface mat spots, really working over Delaporte's arm, doing all kinds of cool shit around a body scissors, breaking out this awesome bear hug counter. He also at one point ties Delaporte up in the ropes and just tortures him tightening the ropes on his arms, kneeing him in the spine, it would have come off sadistic if Delaporte wasn't such a bumbling oafish heel, put different music on Home Alone and it is basically Saw. I liked Delaporte getting nasty at the end, he had some big hard shots including some punishing hooks to the body. Could have used a finish, but that is par for the course. This isn't elite, but man I think we are getting spoiled if this gets criticism, I can't imagine how high this would finish on a 2020 MOTY list, but I couldn't see it landing out of the top 15.

Karl von Chenok/Karl von Kramer vs. Gaby Calderon/Luc Straub 9/29/60

MD: This was sort of a perfect storm of being not so great. You had two nerve-hold wielding bald "Germans" vs the judo stylists. It went long ~40 minutes but we don't actually have the finish. The judo guys against better stooging heels could work. The nerve pinchers vs more fiery stylists could work. This was just an unfortunate combination. Nothing was done poorly. Nothing was blown. Everything felt competitive. The Germans more or less controlled the ring well. They were able to snap that nerve hold on consistently and from a lot of different angles. Everything was logical. Calderon had some good revenge shots and Straub had some ok flashier stuff. Von Kramer is really just an excellent pro wrestler when it comes to the fundamentals and timing. Even if I didn't love this match, I can't deny that. Von Chenok is a fine single-minded stooge. They worked a nice comedy heel clowning spot or two towards the end. It was just too much of what I rarely want to watch in the best circumstances, lacking in heat, lacking conclusion.

SR: I liked this more than Matt. A pair of carny martial artists terrorizing heels with judo throws and nerve pinches is a fun change of pace, and the fake Germans are an excellent heel tandem. Calderon even busts out a proto-flying armbar. Von Chenok was solid here using his nerve holds to set up elbowing people in the backs of their heads and there was some nasty throat work. Karl von Kramer  always looks like a great, tricked out wrestler and it’s a pity another match of his ended without a finish. Really looking forward to checking out more von Kramer.

Read more!

NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool 1/12/19

Tyler Bate/Trent Seven vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson

ER: Talk about underwhelming. I've actually seen this tag talked about as "the best WWE brand tag of the decade" and that is just madness. This was an overly long tag match that occasionally threatened to get good, but was always derailed. First things first, this did not need to be a 24 minute match. The work within in the match did not justify the length, as it basically broke down into a long heat segment on Seven, building to a Bate hot tag that required Drake and Gibson to either hold still or dump themselves on their heads (Drake especially leaned into and flew for every strike, lariat, and suplex Bate threw). Bate's offense was nothing but GYV repeatedly getting into position to take something ridiculous, from Gibson having to constantly be flustered by any strike Bate threw, on up to both Gibson and Drake having to hold perfectly still for several seconds just so Bate could do one of his Big Strong Boy spots and lift both in a short airplane spin. Gibson and Drake did excellent work finding plausible ways to fall for the same Bate tricks and make the offense look as good as it did. Seven turned in fine work as the FIP and I would have liked to see more of that, building to an actual comeback from him. Instead it felt like Bate kept hogging all the big babyface moments for himself. Seven did hit a nice low elbow suicida early, but much of this was built around Bate as the big star. Drake and Gibson had some great moments down the stretch. I thought both had real on point elbow strikes, and they hit a twisting suplex/Drake 450 that looked like something that should definitely finish a match. The wildest spot of the match was GYV hitting a Doomsday Device tope that Bate is pretty damn crazy to even consider taking. For a match that felt built around Bate in some selfish ways, I can't deny he took the silver bullet with that one. With some editing and a more of Bate's nonsense cutoff this could have been really good, as it was I will just remember it as a tag match that was too long. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Finn Balor

ER: This was going to be Devlin/Banks and then they changed it to a surprise Balor appearance. He got a great reaction from the loud crowd, but the match wasn't as satisfying as it could have been. They were bringing up the teacher/student aspect a lot throughout the match, but that aspect was kind of the monkey wrench of the match. Devlin has been dominant and mean during the entire run of NXY UK so far, and this match just made him look like a weaker version of Finn Balor. This should have been Devlin surprising the returning star, not the returning star showing that he's still on top even though he hasn't been there. I just don't see the point in running a "new guy dominating everyone here is always a step behind guy who has been up on the main brand". This was where Devlin needed a definitive win. Balor did look good, and that at least made him mauling Devlin make sense. I can get more behind a cocky heel student underestimating his teacher. Devlin is generous about running into Devlin's best stuff, but he throws harder. His kicks really land well here, the sliding apron dropkick looks decapitating and his shotgun dropkick makes Devlin's fast corner bump belieavable. Devlin's offense paled next to Balor's, and he had been looking like a real killer on the weekly shows, but he still made offense look great. He really got dumped with a great Balor brainbuster right after impaling himself into Balor's knees while attempting a moonsault. So it was not a match without great moments, and Balor looked like a star, but it all felt backwards. 

Eddie Dennis vs. Dave Mastiff

ER: This took a little bit to get going, but eventually came through on delivering what I wanted from it: The heaviest guy on the brand going at it with the tallest guy on the brand. The No DQ stip was the thing that slowed things down at first, as not far in we were taking long breaks to go grab chairs and ring steps and set up tables, and when you look at a 10 minute match and realize that 15% of it was plunder retrieval you gotta wonder about your resource allocation. But I appreciated Mastiff's dedication to John Cena's specific kayfabe ritual of preserving the sanctity of the ring steps' weight. Mastiff hoisted these steps into the ring like the weight 200 lb., a thing I always genuinely got excited to see Cena do. Cena would stumble around struggling to lift the ring steps in the way Marcel Marceau would struggle to keep his kite line straight, and while Mastiff doesn't have that same commitment I still always like wrestlers giving some integrity to their weapons. Mastiff ends up eating a nasty side slam on those ring steps, and the Singapore cane shots where metered out and delivered to strong effect, never devolving into exchanges and always given time to sink in. We got a couple cool visuals off of Dennis catching Mastiff up top and planting him with a Razor's Edge, didn't actually think Dennis would be able to pull off the lift and he did these great shaky legs as he was walking to the center of the ring to deliver it. Awesome spot. 

Things got really good when Dennis flipped out and tore back the ringside mats, knocked Mastiff off the apron with a hard back elbow after blocking Mastiff's suplex off the apron. But Mastiff winds up planting him on the ballroom floor with the Finlay roll and then squashes him with a senton. Dennis gets one last nice shot at a win after Mastiff misses a split legged moonsault, and even muscles Mastiff up for the neck stop driver. Mastiff handled the kickout so well that I actually thought Dennis was winning. But, Mastiff slips out of another Dennis Razor's Edge attempt, and bounces Dennis off his neck with a sick German suplex, then a cannonball through the table that Dennis had set up. I thought the violence worked well in this match, and they didn't shoot way past the time they needed to have a nice big man war. The big spots that got nearfalls were built to well, and the lack of overkill made the spots they did do mean a lot more. 

Toni Storm vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: I liked the first 2/3 of this a lot more than the final stretch, as the finishing stretch really felt like they threw out everything that was working for the match in favor of doing the same strike exchange/finisher trading that you see in a lot of modern title matches. The first parts of the match where filled with little things and attention to detail, stiff work over melodrama. Once the melodrama and ugly crying and Home Alone faces kick in you know what kind of match it turned into. The opening cat and mouse was fun, loved the timing the went into Ripley running out to the floor only to be nailed by a Storm tope, and I love how Ripley switched up her game to work this obnoxiously dominating style, always yanking Storm around the ring by her hair and mashing her face with palms and boots. Any time Ripley was in control it would be filled with these dirty exchanges, not just locking a move on but pulling hair before hitting a move. When Storm would kick out of something, Ripley wouldn't just lie there before picking her up for another move, she'd be instantly kicking at Storm, and not enough wrestlers fill those spaces with actual action. I thought Storm was great at fighting back, and I liked how the worked in the headbutt cut off spot as an almost equalizer, giving Storm recovery time while making Ripley vulnerable. Storm's Germans kept landing, and I liked where this was heading. Until I wasn't. I didn't love the hockey fighting (and the fact that it looked better than a lot of other hockey fighting spots just shows you how awful these spots almost always look), and the big melodramatic shocked face 30-45 second waiting period in between hitting finishers a few times just felt like a different match, or a big fat forward to the end of this match. 

Joe Coffey vs. Pete Dunne

ER: I correctly pointed out the needlessness of the tag title match going nearly 25 minutes, so obviously when you get a main event that goes 35, there will be complaints. This is one of those long matches where the longer it goes, the more flaws you notice from both wrestlers, things that could have easily been avoided if they just stuck to their strengths and didn't try to take such a big slice. If you turn this into a 17 minute title match - which is more than enough time to hit literally every single beat you would want to hit - then this could have been something worth talking about. It's biggest crime? It didn't feel like it built at all for 30 minutes. The opening mat work looked good, I was into Coffey trying to bend Dunne's wrist and Dunne making Coffey stop that by bending on his fingers, the kind of opening couple minutes that could lead to good things. But once they got that out of their systems this turned into a match where minute 5 looked eerily similar to minute 35, and that's almost always a problem with this overly long "wars". Guys are dead on their feet throwing...and they remain dead for a half hour. There was a spot where Coffey locked in a nice crab and started stomping on Dunne's head, and of course Dunne was then "knocked out", which lead to Dunne selling the crab the exact same way he sells any submission: lie there motionlessly until it's time for him to just get out of it. It also revealed how much Dunne requires his opponent (especially larger opponents) to do all of the lifting while he's planning his next move. Multiple times I saw Coffey have to roll himself into the ring, move his arm into a submission, place himself just right in the ring so Dunne could get to his next spot. The rolling into the ring annoyed me the most, as Dunne couldn't even go through the motions of attempting to lift Coffey, just put his hands on him and let Coffey roll himself back in. It's the equivalent of a wrestler who just puts his hand on his foe's shoulder and lets the guy stand back up on his own before getting hit with another move. It's lazy and unfocused.

And just as the opening tag felt like everyone in the match was working just to give Tyler Bate showcase spots, this whole match was selfishly and overbearingly the Pete Dunne Show. Every move that Coffey did, no matter how devastating, was used as a way to get Dunne back into the match. I'm not even certain Coffey was able to string two pieces of offense together, because there were so many times where he hit a powerslam, or a suplex, or a clothesline, and it would lead to Dunne getting to his feet first or Dunne kicking out and going right back on offense. When you factor in that Dunne was the one going for cheap shots by attacking Coffey's fingers, the whole match felt like Coffey was the underdog babyface who couldn't keep down a heel Terminator. The whole match was about Dunne's explosive offense, so everything Coffey did was just to set up Dunne being explosive again, and every big spot in the match was used as a match restart. That's the main thing that lead to this feeling like it had zero build, is every big spot for 30 minutes just lead to either both squaring off in bad looking exchanges as if there hadn't just been a big crash. I think Mastiff/Dennis earlier on this show was a good example of making the biggest stuff in a match mean something, give them consequences. This could have built into a match with consequences at any point, but they kept choosing to make their own offense mean little. 

These complaints would have been there without them doing other annoying fluff like "my elbow strike knocks you into the ropes which allows you to bounce back and lariat me which allows me to spin around with a punch!" Dunne has a few bad strike combos that make opponents look like total clowns when they fall for them, made me appreciate more of Tyler Bate's misdirection attempts before hitting his combos. Dunne's combos all require Coffey to duck stupidly just so Dunne could hit bad left/right combos. By the end we lose the thread so much that we get a couple of weird "both men fall off the top rope but we don't know what move they were supposed to be hitting so we'll just act like it didn't happen but also act like it was extremely damaging even though both wrestlers just went back to doing things." Through 20 minutes of this match I still thought there was a salvageable match. They clearly wanted to do something special in the first UK TakeOver main event, but their idea of "something special" was always "let's get to another run of big Pete Dunne offense!" This needed an editor, badly, but post HHH wrestlers have this weird aversion to hiding their weaknesses. 

ER: I was hoping for a better show considering it was the first TakeOver, and the people wrestling clearly wanted to put on a great show. Sadly, it appears that I dislike the instincts a lot of the guys when constructing a "big" match. It felt like the time could have been much better utilized on the show. They could have easily trimmed 12 minutes off the main event and had Jinny vs. Isla Dawn, showcasing two other women to set up a future title contender. Having only 5 matches, one of them FAR too long, just means less people showcased on the biggest show the brand ran so far, and one of those matches was used to show that the already established Finn Balor could still easily best someone who had been looking like a title threat. This show should have been used as a springboard and it came off like a muddled, confusing show when looking at what it actually accomplished.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

RIP Brodie Lee

Hillbilly Wrecking Crew (Necro Butcher/Brodie Lee) vs. H8 Club (Nick Gage/Nate Hatred) JAPW 11/21/09

PAS: The Hillbilly Wrecking Crew tag run was this truly awesome under the radar series, every match was like a 21st century Moondogs match. Hopefully with JAPW showing up on IWTV more folks will get to check it out. As one might imagine this was an all around the arena tag brawl between four nutjobs. Necro grabs a pair of scissors to carve up Gage, Lee and Hatred brawl outside in the cold and slam each other into walls. Lee might take the biggest bump in the match with all of these crazy bumpers and he gets hurled over the top rope and lands on his knee. I think the end meandered a bit, which kept this from all timer level, but it was as bloody and unhinged as it looked on paper.

ER: It's hard not to love the Hillbilly Wrecking Crew, and this team was my first exposure to Brodie Lee. This match is filled with tough guys taking awful spills on concrete, bleeding, and landing on each other in ugly ways. Gage brought this great Give No Fucks energy to this, running hard enough into guys that he seemed totally unaware that he could come out taking damage as well. Brodie had this insane hulked up Necro Butcher energy, stomping through crowds of people and shoving everyone who got near. He looked like Brody during an All Japan entrance, shoving fans on the upbeat and running into Gage or Hatred on the downbeat. Gage does some gnarly work on Necro's leg, stomping it in a chair and leaping onto it in a way that looked extremely dangerous. But what is danger to a man who was jabbing scissors into Nate Hatred's head? Necro also takes a sick sunset flip powerbomb onto the bad side of a chair, Lee dishes out big boots and big bumps, just the exact kind of war you'd want. The sit and brawl stuff wasn't any good when it was happening in 2009, and it's completely stupid that we're seeing that spot even more in 2020, and I think in this case especially it really slowed things down unnecessarily (it literally always fucks up the pacing of any match that spot appears in). If someone like Necro can't make it work within a match, what chance does anyone else have? Still, this match brought the brawl violence that you would want to see these loons inflict on each other, so let Necro take a seat. 

Brodie Lee vs. Mike Bailey C*4 1/19/11

ER: This was Brodie and Bailey doing the things you'd want them to do against each other, and perhaps doing it for too long. We get some wild Bailey stunts stunt together in fun ways, starting things with a tope, hitting a tornado DDT in the aisle off a cool as hell moonsault, building to him hitting a dragonrana off the risers. I like how they had Bailey not hit these things super clean, having Brodie look like he was about to reverse all of them before Bailey would find a way to finish it. Lee takes over with a big boot and then alternates back and forth with big power offense, and showoff Mike Bailey-style offense. He hits a powerbomb, but also a fantastic dropkick, hits a black hole slam (that honestly looked big enough that it should have ended the match), but also hits a nutso Asai moonsault. I thought they got a little silly with kickouts (I don't think it would have been tough to give Bailey a better way back into the match than just kicking out of things), but they did cool offense after all the kickouts (Bailey hits his great shooting star press, Lee hits his awesome Liger bomb), so who really cares. People want to see Brodie bounce Bailey off the mat and want to see Bailey hit wild offense, and both those things happened a lot.  

PAS: Good example of how comfortable Lee was in a spotfest. He had a great ability of keeping up a juniors pace while still retaining a heavyweight aura. I really liked Bailey's early hit and run offense, and Lee's takeovers were as violent as you hoped they would be. He does this pumphandle suplex which sends Bailey damn near to Manitoba. I do think they had a couple kick outs too many, and a match like this doesn't need as many near falls to work structurally. Still this delivered what you hoped it would, the imported wrestler works a Mike Bailey match formula was one of the cooler things in end of the aughts, start of the teens indy wrestling and this was a great example of it. 

Brodie Lee vs. Eddie Kingston Chikara 3/25/12 - GREAT

ER: This didn't quite get to the heights that it could have, but with these two you know there was a damn high floor. I think this was their only singles match, and it's great that they ran it right before Lee was headed off to WWE. We got some big stuff, including topes from both big men and a half nelson suplex that I'm sure made Kingston think about Lee for weeks after. I love Kingston as Grand champ, going into the match and getting outfought and outgunned by Lee, and Lee was really really swinging like a man who thought he wasn't going to be allowed to work Indy Stiff any longer. The strike exchanges here were really cool, because they were sold exactly how they looked. Lee was buckling Kingston's knees with his elbows and rattling his brain box with uppercuts, and against a beast like Lee you knew that Kingston would be best playing a man outgunned. Kingston realizing he's being outstruck and still letting his mouth get him into hotter and hotter water is one of my favorite types of Kingston match, him taking a hard shot and saying he's been hit harder is such a real thing to bring into wrestling. Nobody likes getting their ass kicked, nobody wants to give the guy beating their ass any satisfaction, and Kingston is the guy who would rather absorb a worse beating as long as its on his own terms. I love King selling individual injuries (like hurting his arm after Lee blocked a backfist), and again that half nelson suplex was a real monster. I wish we could have seen a series of matches between them, as I know they would have kept going out there and doing new things as a feud progressed. I'm glad we got what we got. 

PAS: It was cool to see Lee work a big time heavyweight title match. Kingston did a great job of making the Grand Championship meaningful and this felt like something that mattered. This was two big guys hitting each other very hard, but with the variety and selling to make it matter. Lee was throwing his sick looking open hand shots to the ear and Kingston sold it like a guy getting his equilibrium jarred. Eddie was on his back foot but was going to try to give as good as he got. I liked Lee going for the foul after the ref bump and getting a big near fall on a Liger bomb, it really felt like he was going to be taking the title to Connecticut. I didn't love the finish run, felt like it needed a bigger explosion to put a pin in the match they were building, still this was two greats having their big match and it was neat to see. 

Read more!

2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Big E vs. Sheamus Falls Count Anywhere

25. Big E vs. Sheamus WWE Smackdown 10/9

ER: What a couple of psychos. This was a falls count anywhere match that played like Big E and Sheamus somehow saw Yard Call and wanted to do their own version of it. Except do it in the middle of a pandemic, without a crowd surrounding them and urging them on. No, this was just two guys hitting each other as hard as they could with weapons for 10 minutes, like neither had heard of the concept of pulling your shots. This lost any pretense of "wrestling match" within the first minute, and once Big E crashes Sheamus to the floor with the out of ring spear (how crazy do you have to be to not only still be regularly using that move, but using it with no live crowd?!?), this was two guys hitting each other with disgusting weapon shots. Sheamus and Big E were beating each other up so bad that you'd think Big E was refusing to wear the special glasses Sheamus wanted him to put on. 

These might have been the sickest Singapore cane shots I've seen, with Sheamus tying Big E's arms in the ropes before hitting him in the ribs as hard as he could, and Big E paying him back by welting most Sheamus's back. Sheamus had a wide bruise going from the back of one arm, across the broadest part of his back, and off the other arm. They break brooms over each other's heads, Big E beats Sheamus with a trashcan that doesn't really give, then runs him hard into a concrete wall before scraping him out a door. These hits looked nastier the more they did them, as every fall looked painful, every hit looked as hard as the first, and they were doing this with only a ref and cameraman around! This is among the sickest most inspired teenage backyard matches in their willingness to kill each other for no live crowd gratification. They do a lot of great things in and out and off of cars, including some sicko car bumps. Big E takes a White Noise on the windshield of a car, and Sheamus takes a powerbomb on a car windshield and slides off to the concrete; Big E gets his hip and legs slammed in the car door, and I loved the spot where he got his leg up to keep Sheamus from slamming his arm in the trunk. By the end Big E has cuts on his legs, Sheamus has cut up elbows and dark welts, and you know this whole thing would have played great at the Zone 23 junkyard. 

PAS: It is pretty crazy the amount of punishment wrestlers are willing to take in these sterile audienceless gimmick matches. I wasn't going to watch War Games but the clips I saw looked nuts, and I wasn't going to watch TLC but I can imagine the dumb shit they did there. This had a bit of random WWE weapon brawling in it, but it got pretty nasty pretty quick with the Kendo stick shots. They were really on the "Sandman canes Mikey to make Woman cum" level of violence (Rest in Power Nancy) and Sheamus's seal white body is a great wrestling special effect, it really accentuates every welt and cut. They really shouldn't have done the white noise on the windshield to set the match up, as it took a little of the steam off seeing it a second time, still totally nasty stuff, and both guys were smearing blood all over the hoods of the cars after the match. Uncalled for stuff, for something which was basically forgotten the next day, but we didn't forget it. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

New Footage Friday: FUJISAKI! KATO! LAWLER! BRUISER! ICEBERG! DUSTY MAC!!

Tadahiro Fujisaki vs. Shigeo Kato WYF 1998?

PAS: Fujisaki is the future Fugo Fugo, a long time Segunda Caida favorite, and he shows that early in his career he had that same lack of regard for his own and his opponents well being. This is 10 minutes of two George Takano trainees trying to impress their mentor by holding absolutely nothing back. Fujisaki opens the match with a sick lariat and they do some pretty good scrambling on the mat. Kato tries to break a kneebar by elbowing Fujisaki right in the back of the head and neck, Fujisaki responds by scrambling to his feet and reckless stomping Kato in the head and we are off. Kato gets cut from a head butt and tries to drive his knee through Fujisaki's head. There is a section with Kato working a figure four, which isn't what we came for, before we get back to slapping each other in the face until Fujisaki starts spitting blood. We get a cool offensive run at the end with Fujisaki winning with a crazy slam into a chokeslam. Sebastian is so great at digging up this indy sleaze, and this was a gem.

MD: This gave you a little bit of everything in <10 minute package. These two are Shinichi Takano trainees and they leave it all out there. I liked Fujisaki a lot here. You got the sense he knew he wasn't Kato's equal on the mat so he rushed him with a clothesline to start and when he got some distance later after getting stretched a bit, he just stomped him mercilessly in the face. Kato decided the best way to respond was to mostly wipe out on a flip dive. By the end of it, both guys were bleeding and slapping each other head on, with Fujisaki escalating things to a couple of big bombs including the press up turning chokeslam that he won it with. His bleeding maw post-match was a face that only a mother or a trainer could love.

ER: Not a ton better than an unseen Japanese indy scum match surfacing, with two young workers stiffing each other for 8 fun minutes. The poise isn't there, but who needs poise when you can throw a lariat as mean as Orihara and palm strikes nastier than Liger's? Fujisaki's match starting lariat really sets a ton, and I was into all the ways Kato would fight back from that. Kato was more comfortable on the mat and threw sharp knees dead on. Kato even breaks out a surprising tope con hilo (that Fujisaki doesn't totally bother catching) and that reminds me of Orihara too. I know these are Nakano trainees but maybe he got some other SWS alumni to help. Fujisaki throws some of the hardest palm strikes I've seen. No glancing blows, just full straight arm shots, like he's throwing a shot put. They really highlighted the actual power of palm strikes as usually they don't read as well as even worked punches. Fujisaki bleeds from the mouth and Sato hits a lariat maybe as hard as Fujisaki's match starting shot. These are the Young Lions matches we as a people need. Great find. 

Jerry Lawler vs. The Bruiser MCW 11/10/01

MD: Bruiser passed away from Leukemia back in November. He was a stalwart MD wrestler for years and years. This was a good showing, really one of the better 00s Indy Guy vs Lawler match you'll see. Bruiser measured his time and interacted with the crowd well and his punches were top notch, with Lawler answering in kind. That was a lot of the early structure actually, with Bruiser trying something (like punches in the corner or a kick out of a test of strength) and Lawler answering threefold. Lawler was actually a little too dominant here, but that's because Bruiser was ultimately going over, I think. I would have liked a couple more minutes of Bruiser leaning on Lawler (after a mule kick in the corner gave him an advantage) before the strap went down and we got the pile driver(s) and screwy finish, but it's really hard to fault the execution of anything here.

ER: This was fantastic, one of the best Lawler vs. Local Indy Star matches we've seen. MCW was one of those feds that I was inordinately familiar with just because of their PWI presence. Earl the Pearl, Romeo Valentino, Jimmy Cicero, I knew these names better than my own grandmother's. Bruiser was someone who I had on a couple VHS but haven't actually thought about in years, and this match makes me want to go out and find all the Bruiser that exists. This was Lawler working with a best case Louie Spicolli, and it was tremendous. Lawler takes an excellent high backdrop bump, throws a dozen different punches from a dozen different angles, and Bruiser staggers around constantly checking his mouth and nose for blood. Bruiser has a gorgeous right hand of his own, and there is literally nothing more I want from pro wrestling than a couple nice bumps, and several great punches. It's my base wrestling desire, and this is a great version of that. Lawler keeps setting up Bruiser for different kinds of perfect punches, like letting his sit up before flattening him with a right hook, or dropping straight down with a fistdrop, or throwing a combo before a snapmare to set up a middle buckle fistdrop. The crowd is hot for all of it, which makes it so much better. I love how Bruiser would pop Lawler and Lawler would fire back with his own, can only imagine how stoked I would be if I were there in Hampstead. The announcers absolutely lose their minds when Lawler drops the strap, audio going into the red, just losing it for Lawler strap down punches. The finish has a bunch of well done bullshit, like Bruiser shoving Lawler hard into the ref (nice ref bump into the ropes), two Lawler piledrivers, and a hard hidden weapon punch "not like this!!" finish. RIP Bruiser, you were clearly gifted. 

PAS: I went to a bunch of MCW shows around this time, and didn't have particularly fond memories of the Bruiser, but this really made me want to revisit that stuff, because he looked great here. Lawler is both the greatest puncher and the greatest seller of punches in wrestling history, but I think you have to give Bruiser some credit for how nasty his stuff looked. Just a classic Lawler punch out, with King throwing hands against a younger stronger kid (I loved the homer announcers saying "Lawler has been in there with some tough wrestlers, but Bruiser maybe the best guy he has wrestled). I didn't even mind the Lawler stunner which is normally the bane of my existence. You don't normally see the King lay down in these Indy matches, but a wrench to face will do it. Classic stuff. 

Iceberg vs. Dusty McWilliams PWA 12/26/15

MD: Methodological violence. Iceberg (and Bailey) was a face here and this was an escalation from a bullrope match the show before. As a face, he played to the crowd at times without ever losing what made him so imposing. This was a cage full of weapons where the weapons come into play far more than the cage. There's a brand of cage match (generally my least favorite) where the cage is primarily used to help guys who don't usually go up get to the top rope. While this fell along those lines, it was really mostly to contain the action and center the weapon shots. Transitions were good, with McWilliams taking things early, switching from weapon to weapon, until he gave Iceberg too much distance and he just plunged into him. Later on, he took back over after Bailey got Iceberg a fork and he decided to use that instead of bats and chairs. Finish centered around thumbtacks, with McWilliams grimly missing a moonsault and Iceberg hitting a splash. The match definitely lived up to the gimmick, though the cage was really just to steady them on the top.

PAS: I thought this started out pretty bad, with kind of bad german suplex and some shots with a cookie sheet which looked weak and didn't even sound cool. It picked up big time after that with an awesome looking spot where McWilliams tries to hang Berg with a noose by climbing to the top rope, only for Iceberg to throw him over head off the top rope. We get some sick weapons shots, including some sort of hard plastic contraption which splinters in a sick looking way. Matt thought that Bailey handed Berg a fork, but that wasn't a fork it was the implement of destruction, which is a fucking paring knife. That Iceberg top rope splash is one of the great high spots of the 21st century, just a crushing monstrous violent crushing blow. McWilliams is fine, and I am adding the dog collar match to the queue, but this was an Iceberg show and he is just a force of nature. First ballot US Indy Hall of Famer.

Read more!

Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Tag Battle 1996 12/21/96

12/21/96

Alexander Otsuka/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco/Viktor Kruger

ER: As much as I appreciate Greco and Kruger coordinating their trunks for a Tag Battle League, I can't help but think this match could have been a classic had Greco chosen someone a little more interesting than Kruger as his partner. Kruger is a guy who gives us the answer to the question nobody ever asks, which is "What would shootstyle Jungle Jim Steele be like?" His power strikes feel like the weakest strikes of the match (those clubbing forearms are bad Power Plant trainee personified), but I did like when he was trying to use his size to hyperextend Otsuka's knee, and at least his late match powerbomb on Ishikawa and especially the KO splash mountain bomb on Otsuka looked great. The rest of this was just me being excited at our next shot at Greco vs. either Otsuka or Ishikawa. Greco brings such great energy to his mat scrambling, and he vs. Otsuka is one of my favorite BattlArts pairings in history. Otsuka is a guy who will throw incredible suplexes, and his suplexes on Greco make it feel like Otsuka is twice Greco's size. Seeing Greco tangle with Ishikawa you get the sense that a finishing sub could come at any time, and it's fascinating to just zone out and watch them each work three holds in advance, going after an ankle while also having a crossface in mind, always cool stuff. I loved when Ishikawa and Otsuka trapped Greco in a tandem Boston crab, really looked like they were going to wishbone the guy, and Ishikawa mocking Kruger while applying the hold made it that much sweeter. Again, thought the match ending powerbomb on Otsuka was sick, but Kruger needs to bring it in the finals. 

PAS: I didn't hate Kruger in this, he comes in with a terrible looking legdrop, and those Vader forearms were awful, but I liked the idea of a giant German guy using his size to bulldoze smaller guys. It is really just the drop off, Greco is such a talent, that any time he is on the apron you want him in the match. Kyle Kuzma is a fine player but if LeBron is on the bench, the Lakers are going to get outscored. The Greco vs. Otsuka and Greco vs. Ishikawa exchanges are as brilliant as they always are, Ishikawa and Greco just grapple and it is great to watch. I liked Kruger's finishing powerbomb, felt like a KO shot, but he was clearly a big step down. 

Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono vs. TAKA Michinoku/Shoichi Funaki-FUN

ER: This was fine, but shootstyle removes all of the most interesting parts of Kaientai's game, and the match is also unexpectedly controlled by them, so you mostly get Taka and Funaki just throwing stomps and locking on submissions directly next to the ropes. Was this their strategy? Because it felt like every time they locked on an armbar or kneebar it was right in the ropes and immediately broken up by the ref. It was odd. Their coolest bit of submission work was even a kind of a copy of the tandem Boston crab from the prior match, with Taka and Funaki focusing more on wishboning Ono's legs (like I thought Ishikawa and Otsuka were going to do) rather than turning it. Ikeda is always nice when working guys like Funaki, never outright massacres the guys who aren't real killers, so he still hits several headbutts but they aren't thrown with the math-forgetting intensity that he'll throw them against Yuki, his Brother in Lost Brain Cells. Taka does not get as much leniency, as Ikeda lays him right out with a mean as hell lariat that upended Taka like he was hit by a Yugo. I think I would have liked this more as a style clash, with both teams playing to their strengths, rather than one team dominating at a style they aren't nearly as good at.  

PAS: Hard not to see this as a disappointment. I have seen really great PWFG TAKA and PWFG Funaki, but they didn't full embrace that style. Instead of really going hard on the mat, you had long sections of kind of dull figure fours and boston crabs, it felt like Brad Armstrong and Ted DiBiase killing time until a loaded glove finish. I really liked the opening asskicking rush by Ono and Ikeda although it kind of promised a match we didn't end up getting. There were a couple of mid match moments of dickness from Ono and a big Ikeda lariat, which keep this from being skippable, but it was a miss for me. 

Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Greco/Viktor Kruger - GREAT

ER: I liked this but - as with the other two matches - this never really kicks into that higher gear the best Batt matches get to. We get some fun brief double teaming on Kruger (Ono hitting him in ring while Ikeda throws kicks at his kidneys and back of head from the apron), and a lot of Ikeda and Ono ripping apart Greco. Ono was a real dickhead, which is Ono at his best. He punked Greco the whole time they tangled, throwing in small unprofessional shots to set up something bigger. He punched Greco in his braced knee right before dropping back with a kneebar, and any time he had mount he would just grind his forearms and elbows across whatever part of Greco's body is most convenient. Ono here makes me want a wrestler who just does this, no real offense, just digs his elbows into a guy's flesh every single chance he gets. I have no clue how Greco got anything done, with an elbow or fist constantly digging into his jaw or eyebrow or collarbone. Ono is the master of annoyance, never holding still, the guy who will crank on Greco's neck with no intention to actually lock on a neck submission, just being annoying in painful ways. By the time Greco finally tagged out to Kruger, I was excited to see Kruger stick up for his boy, but he doesn't really have it in him. Kruger is lost on the mat and it's exciting to see the much smaller Ono completely fearless with him, shooting in for a takedown and kicking away at him, tagging in Ikeda for more kicks. Kruger can really only cover up and absorb attacks while waiting to catch a limb, and I do like the payoff over shoulder powerbomb he crushes Ikeda with for the KO. Part of me likes that he has this killshot powerbomb, but perhaps a bigger part of me is annoyed he does basically nothing other than take shots and hit his one finish. 

PAS: I am higher on this than Eric. I thought the use of Kruger in this match was really good, he mostly just stays out of the way and lets us get awesome Greco sections against Ono and Ikeda. He gets really worked over by a pair of legendary cheap shot artists in Ono and Ikeda so when he finally comes in for the final run he looks like a killer, huge wild stiff shots, like he decided "Fuck it, if these tiny guys are going to pop me, I am popping them back" and the final powerbomb was an exclamation point. Of course most of the match was Ono and Greco rolling hard with Greco being a wizard and Ono being a nasty little asshole. I need to seek out some singles between the two, I am sure they happened and they have such great chemistry, two guys who never stop attacking, always looking to adjust and sink in something different or tighter. I agree with Eric that this didn't hit the level of the best BattlArts tags, but that level is so high that it still leaves plenty of room underneath for great stuff. 

Read more!

Paradigm Pro: UWFI Rules Contenders Series Episode 1

ER: I haven't been enjoying AEW the past few weeks, TNT messed up my area broadcast of AEW tonight anyway, and the first episode of Paradigm Pro's Indiana Inokiism just happened to be tonight. Sounds like some signs pointed to us checking this one out. Big Beef is the only wrestler on this show who I have seen, and I haven't even heard of the rest of them. We're going into this blind.

PAS: This is kind of a silly idea, but silly in an awesome way. Midwest indy guys working empty arena UWFI rules matches is very much our kind of shit. I really liked the opening video graphic illegally mixing in clips of Buster Douglas and UFC fights, just hammy enough.

Big Beef Gnarls Garvin vs. Lord Crewe

PAS: Pair of solid looks on these two, really feels like an unexpected post Hardcore show fist fight at the back bar of the Black Cat. Garvin is a thick guy and despite Crewe being listed as a bare knuckled fighter, Garvin had the advantage throwing shots as he really put his weight behind them. The UWFI rules forbid closed punches to the head and it didn't feel like Crewe fully mastered throwing good looking open hands. I did like his jumping choke finish and he had some nice post match trash talking. 

ER: I think the UWFI rules held back the striking here, as the big swinging arm shots from Beef looked really dangerous for something that would have looked better as a worked punch. Kind of like how Foley said Bob Holly had bad looking punches that actually hurt - the worst combination. Beef is probably killing Crewe with open hands and heavy arms but actual worked punches would probably look better. Beef had a couple great suplexes, including a big German and another that just looked like him throwing a sack of concrete. He's put on big size during the pandemic, but I think it really works for his whole thing. Wrestling needs guys that look like Beef. I was excited to see Crewe after buying into some of the pre-match hype on him, but he didn't show a ton here. Some guys excel in this weird scheme and others don't, I'll see him some day under his own style and I'll make my judgment then. 

Janai Kai vs. Jordan Blade

PAS: Fun style clash with Kai working a Muay Thai gimmick, and Blade being a powerlifter and grappler (with cool nickname the Anklebreaker). Both ladies were DMV based, and I imagine this might be a touring match of a sort. Kai has really fast hands and used the speed to dominate on her feet, Blade took her down and dominated her on the mat before letting her up, dropping to her own back and calling Kai in, only to lock in an ankle lock for the tap. Blade got put over really strong here looked mostly unbothered. Not sure whether this leads to intergender shoot style or if they have a deeper distaff bench, but I was into what I saw. 

ER: I really liked what both these two brought, with Blade being maybe the biggest female fighter I've seen on the indy scene (tale of the tape said gold medal powerlifting background, and a female Mark Henry would be such a cool thing to see), and Kai's Muay Thai looked like a whole complete look. This started with it looking like it was going to be a Kai showcase with all her cool flash, but Blade started powering her down and basically smothering Kai. There was a great moment where the lifter finally got the bumblebee and slammed her down, immediately kneeling into her back and beginning a pounding that doesn't let up until she gets that ankle lock. Very curious to see more. 

Crash Jaxon vs. Isaiah Broner

PAS: Jaxon is a big kid out of Ohio while Broner is a menacing looking black dude from Detroit. This is short and sweet, Jaxon gets a throw but runs right into a spinning back elbow that damn near takes his head off for the fast KO. Broner calls out Hoodfoot after telling JRose the ring announcer to "Social Distance your ass to the back." Impressive way to make someone, and I like how they don't need every match to be 55/45.

ER: I get why they did this but I really wanted to see this one play out. Jaxon had a huge throw before he got put down hard by a Broner back elbow (even nicer than one Big Beef used earlier) and it looked like something that could be a KO. That's the most important thing, that your KO finish look like something that would result in a KO. They could still run this match back and you've got your built in story of Jaxon feeling robbed. 

Lexus Montez vs. Tommy Kyle Dean

PAS: This didn't fully work for me, both guys seemed to have ideas which didn't totally come off. This was one of the longer matches of the night, and despite some attempts at things, nothing really stood out. Montez wins with a spinning back elbow, which was probably a mistake with Broner's looking way better in the previous match. I would be fine seeing either guy again (TKD is an AIW student and while he hasn't done much for me yet in AIW, that school has a great track record), but this show has nicely made stars, and this didn't.

ER: I liked this a little more than Phil, but I get where he's coming from. It's hard on a show like this to not have guys doing similar versions of what others have already done on the same show, some of it is going to look better, some will look worse. I liked the things they went for and liked the messiness of some of the positions they wound up in. I liked when TKD missed a shot and Montez wound up standing over him, lobbing elbows at the back of his head. TKD would throw out a bunch of kicks and at one point looked like he was trying to intentionally miss a high kick to turn it into a kind of leveraged armbar takedown. None of those things worked, but I appreciated the "First 3 UFC events" feel of the approach. I liked the back elbow finish and thought it worked even with a nastier looking back elbow finish the match directly before. It would have made sense to not double up on the same finish back to back, but if it looks good it looks good. 

Hoodfoot Mo Atlas vs. Flash Thompson

PAS: I thought this was pretty rad for a short match. Thompson was listed as the Indiana Golden Gloves champion, and I liked his head movement and body placement, he looked like a fighter. Hoodfoot is a big charismatic guy who feels like a champion, and it was mostly the speed and technique of Thompson against the power of Atlas. We get several go behinds by Atlas, one results in a Thompson ankle lock, and two others are just dismissive throws to the ground by Atlas. Finish exchange is pretty great, both guys have figured out how to throw good looking open hand strikes, with Thompson throwing cool combos including rocking Atlas with a dip uppercut, before running into a monster looking right hook for the KO. The announcers were making Kimbo Slice and Mike Tyson comps, and it only felt a bit like hyperbole. 

ER: I love matches that barely go 3 minutes but manage to pack in a ton of detail work. Most of this match was worked real tight, a lot of need exchanges thrown from the clinch. I like how off speed they worked in the clinch, both throwing at awkward times instead of more measured turns, and I liked the ways each found to outgun the other. The short range striking can be hard to make look right, and they kept it smart by mixing it up with hard knees in between the open hand shots. The rolling ankle lock from an Atlas go behind looked good, loved how Thompson would set it up with a back elbow. As we've established already on Episode 1, back elbows are murder in Paradigm. So Atlas gets sick of taking back elbows whenever he slips into a go behind, and decides the best way to prevent those is to just toss Flash to the mat. The KO looked strong, and I liked all the KOs on this show. Shows running Only KO/Sub stoppages usually end up with a couple duds, a couple fights ending on this that looked like the weakest shot of the fight, but the KOs on this show all looked like the finish. 

PAS: They finish with a pretty heated pull apart with Hoodfoot and Broner, and they sold me a virtual ticket to that fight for sure.  Fun show, want to see more for sure.

ER: This show came at the right time, on a night where the AEW airings got all messed up in my area, coming after me not enjoying Dynamite for the past several episodes. Something totally different - in this case a Wednesday night UWFI rules show - was the right change of pace. I like some things they set up for future shows, and am excited to see what matches break away from the pack and become shootstyle classics.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Jarret! Bibi! Bernaert! Cowboy Jack! Guettier!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Michel Jarret vs. Cheri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert 7/22/60

MD:I am floored by how good the Bibi/Bernaert team have gotten by this point. They're just a mauling, stooging, cheating, heat-seeking unit, totally on the same page, garnering reactions, well-balanced as they each bring different things to the table but wholly focused in that both of them can do a ton of damage. Ben Chemoul remains very impressive. Some of his big spots are becoming a little more familiar now but most of them hit with a lot of flash and plenty of substance. This is our first look at Charret (I think we get one more) and he was okay, standing out the most for punch flurries in the corner and the way he twisted his body back and forth to escape from holds. He did do a triple up and over on a top wristlock which was more elaborate than I've usually seen that spot.

Bibi and Bernaert's heel antics were great. They had a long stretch of controlling Ben Chemoul and Charret with hammerlocks, either grabbing onto the rope or each other in order to stop the flying mare counter attempts. All of their stuff looked brutal. Bibi has gone from being an immobile clod in the middle of a style he couldn't keep up with to a center of gravity that lines guys up and knocks them down, with Bernaert there to creation more motion when need be. Bibi doesn't sell much, but when he does, towards the end of the match, it means all the more. Just knocking him down and getting the best of him means something because he's presented as so strong. And all the while, the crowd is jeering him and, at times, swiping at him and trying to trip him. The momentum shifts here were pretty good, with the faces getting solid revenge at times only for the heels to cheat and scheme and take back over. The finishing stretch felt more like an old lucha trios where everything reset and the tecnicos got to clown the rudos. Here, the fans loved it and everything ended on a high energy note. Just another super entertaining 40 minute tag match from 60s France that looked absolutely effortless.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 35 minutes. This was, naturally, extremely similar to Chemoul/Cesca vs. Bibi/Bernaert we reviewed a couple weeks ago. It followed the same structure as usual, faces shine, heels start cheating, rinse and repeat till all hell breaks loose. I was theorizing that I was getting bored of these guys because I didn’t find the first 20 minutes or so not terribly engaging, but then Bibi and Bernaert started salvaging the match by dishing out some big damn beatings. The faces retaliated in kind and suddenly you had Chemoul trying to break peoples arms and Michel Jarret throwing headbutts and punch combos. The intensity turned up to as the falls kept dropping and it felt like the ending really delivered. I shouldn’t doubt this crew.

PAS: I thought this was dope, Chemoul is such a fun tag worker. Great at using his athleticism to wrong foot the heels, takes a monster beating, and has big exciting comebacks. His leap frog mule kick owned, popped Bernaert in the jaw. Bernaert was a monster in this, totally vicious and frantic. At one point he stops Jarret from countering a hammerlock and just starts smashing the side of his head on the mat, what a mean fucker. We get a big build towards the end with the babyfaces matching the violence of the heels. Chemoul and partner versus Bibi and Bernaert seem like a total guarantee.

Roger Guettier vs. Cowboy Jack Bence 9/15/60

PAS: Really not sure what the hell was going on here. The ring is covered in trash as we join the footage before the entrances even happen, and throughout the match every time Guettier does even a basic bit of heeling he is pelted by garbage. Weird atmosphere which kind of fucks up the match. Bence has some fun escapes, including a backflip, which was less Ricochet and more Jimmy Valient. They do some cool stuff working out of a leg lock, take some big spills to the floor and tee off on each other. Still it has to be weird to try to wrestle like that, and it was more like watching a skilled standup deal with a blackout drunk bachelorette party, then an all time memorable match. 

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 25 minutes. This was good solid pro wrestling, and I continue to be impressed by Bences ability to match the French athleticism, but there was something rather disturbing going as there was a group of snotnosed kids ringside that kept throwing trash into the ring. Normally that’s an excellent sign of someone getting great heat, but in this case the stuff just came flying with no relation to what was going on in the ring. Not that Guettier is not a good heel. It approached some kind of surrealist theater as referee and wrestlers were trying hard to ignore the fact that the ring was starting to look like a trash bin and newspapers kept flying at their heads. If you can get over that, there were some pretty sweet European uppercuts vs. punches exchanges in this match.

MD: So far, between 57-60, we've seen very little sign of kids in the audience. Here, there's nothing but kids, a legion of rowdy newspaper boys who make their presence felt like you'd not believe. They spend the entirety of the match, the entirety, tossing paper into the ring. That's not to say they're not reacting or, if Guettier does something whiny and scummy in his babyfaced heel (as in a heel who has a pudgy, baby faced look) manner, the intensity of the paper doesn't increase, but it's a constant. Mid-way through the match, they're really tying each other up in tricked out holds and wrenching and it's just in a sea of paper as they roll around. Bence is even more a showman here than the last time we saw him, coming off like the old rodeo star traveling through Europe with trick lasso moves that he might have been able to pull off twenty years before but full of so much gumption that you wouldn't dare tell him to stop now. I'm not sure they entirely adapt the match enough to the crowd they're in front of, though the end of the first fall was absolutely perfect. See, Guettier ends up on the floor. That's not where you want to be on this day as dozens of kids rush up to pelt him over and over and he doesn't make it back into the ring before the count. The wrestling is good, with Guettier mean and sneaky and Bence getting plenty of revenge, but it's the paper flying into the ring and the kids revolting against societal norms that are the real stars (maybe the real heels?) here.

Read more!

NXT UK Matches Worth Watching: Devlin! Gallus! Ripley! Isla Dawn! Mustache!

Rhea Ripley vs. Isla Dawn NXT UK 10/14 (Aired 12/19/18) (Ep. #17)

ER: Strongly worked women's title match with a nice build and no overkill, plus a ton of very engaging headlocks and collar elbows. Their lockups looked really good and both looked like they were putting full weight into them, and both leaned really heavily into every chinlock, headlock, and submission. Ripley was really pressing her weight on a grounded chinlock and Dawn's standing side headlock looked really wrenching. This was the toughest Ripley has looked so far and she looked really dominant stomping the hell out of a collapsed Dawn in the corner. Her kicks, clubbing strikes, and then cool low angle Saito suplex all send Dawn folding in believable ways, and they never lose that sense of actually working for a move. Dawn fights out of another suplex but gets locked in the standing cloverleaf. Ripley had fought to get the cloverleaf earlier and got kicked off, and I loved how that played out because it actually looked like Ripley stumbled getting it on which gave Dawn the opening to kick her off. This time there was no fumble and she was able to lock it in convincingly, leading to a nice rope break (with Ripley awesomely kicking Dawn's rope grab arm after she broke the hold). Dawn's comeback looks good, she brings sharp elbows with her full body being thrown into them, dodges Ripley's dropkick and gets to run hard into the ringpost. I really didn't love the standing exchange, thought the strikes were the weakest part of the match, and thought the exchange felt totally out of place within the match they had been working. But I liked Dawn returning the Saito suplex favor with a nice one of her own, and I liked how succinct the finish was. Oddly, the middling strike exchange did a nice job of setting up the sudden finish, with Dawn again going back to standing kicks and missing, leaving her wide open to getting her arm trapped and then getting planted with the Riptide. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Kenny Williams NXT UK 11/24 (Aired 12/26/18) (Ep. #19)

ER: Devlin has been unexpectedly good at these 5 minute matches with interesting stories and satisfying internal builds. Devlin worked this like a squash and loudly kicked and elbowed Williams around the ring, and it made Williamses' big comeback come off huge. Devlin worked quick on the beating, with that same Dynamite Kid-style domestic bully speed, pursuant. If Williams would spill to the floor Devlin would just out immediately after him to beat on him some more. And when Williams started firing back Devlin put that same energy into bumping hard to the floor, and starting it all off by catching kneebone right to the balls as Williams counter the standing shooting star. Williams hit a great tope, running around the ring determined to do the dive no matter where Devlin was going. But Devlin was not down for long and always came back more vicious than before. He catches and throws Williams with a half nelson suplex that has a very non-WWE allowed arc to it, and yanks Williams by the arm into a sick Saito suplex. Williams has a lot of offense that requires his opponent to be in a specific place and that leads to hitches and phoniness in his matches, but Devlin is really great at anticipating his marks and because of that brought about the best Kenny Williams match so far. 

Wolfgang/Mark Coffey vs. Tyler Bate/Trent Seven NXT UK 11/24 (Aired 1/2/19) (Ep. #21)

ER: I always heard NXT UK crowds were quiet, but apparently nobody else is watching loud main event tag matches like this one. The crowd kept getting louder and louder for a Trent comeback as Gallus kept holding him down with awesome bearhugs and body vices. I thought this was a standout performance from Wolfgang and Coffey, both working convincing bearhugs without losing any of the drama. I'm someone who's already going to be interested in long grounded bearhug sequences, so getting two from Wolfgang and one from Coffey is going to make me happy. Coffey is really mean whenever he tags in to work over Seven, really laying in some forearms and even driving a fist into a kidney. The crowd gets rightly invested in Seven fighting closer and closer to making tags, Gallus great at cutting him off and laying in boots. Seven gets tossed rudely to the floor by Wolfgang, and when Coffey goes out to retrieve him he catches a hard surprise vertical suplex on the floor from Seven. Seven tags in and Bate runs through both with a nice hot tag, hitting a pair of topes, including one that would have sent him into the 2nd or 3rd row if Coffey hadn't slowed him down. I do think Bate's hot tag goes on a bit long and has a couple of his strongman spots that requires opponents to get into tough positions naturally. This one was wearing Coffey as a backpack and while also German suplexing Wolfgang. That's a tough spot to make Gallus get plausibly into position for that, but the crowd eats it up and it gets a genuine (loud) NXT chant. There's some ringside distraction from Joe Coffey and Pete Dunne and the vibe the match had been building to kind of went out the window, but overall this was a good tag. NXT UK has been kind of light on quality tag wrestling so far, their best matches clearly leaning towards main even singles and hot 5 minute singles. But Mark Coffey and Wolfgang seem to be the reason for the best stuff so far, the ones that have the best heel tag shtick for babyfaces to work off. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

WWE TLC 2020 Late Blog

My sister is moving in a month, so I spent the weekend with her packing boxes and moving things into her garage. A stunt show PPV I can have on in the background and pay partial attention to sounds like it could be fun. Not super familiar with the card so I'm kind of going in blind, which hopefully leads to being pleasantly caught off guard. Am very excited for Sasha/Carmella.

Daniel Bryan/Otis/Chad Gable/Big E vs. King Corbin/Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura/Sami Zayn 

ER: Bryan keeps shaving the sides of his head higher and higher, and he continues his career trend of Always Having the Hair of a 10 Year Old. Otis is wearing a Vader singlet, and this match looks like something that can't miss on paper. These 8 guys in a 2000s NOAH setting would light things on fire, so I'm high hoping this one. And it was actually really good. It had a great Coliseum Video feel to it, the way it was worked, and the way it was 4 babyfaces vs. 4 heels and they're mostly aligned because of being either a face or a heel. Zayn was avoiding Big E and running around the ring and hiding like Jimmy Hart, and it was balanced well with quick tags and a brief cool down to build to the big finish run. Corbin is good at working cool down (that's an actual compliment) and good at inserting himself in the hot finish, Bryan glues all this together to build to the big Otis hot tag, and the finish stretch move chaining all looked good. Cesaro hits this awesome deadlift Dr. Bomb and just lets him go, Corbin hits a great spinebuster on Otis, we get our big showdown between Big E and Zayn and Zayn gets caught. It's all very satisfying pro wrestling. 

AJ Styles vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: I really liked this, but thought the ladder stuff really took away from the match at points. I liked the first 8 minutes when no weapons were used the best, with Styles bumping big around the ring and ringside. He took hard hits into the buckles, got dropped ribs first a couple times on the barricade, got thrown over a table with chairs on it as if he were in a fight in a closed bar, and it was great. Setting up tables and climbing ladders changed the pace of the match, which they made up for by building to hard landings (Styles gets tossed hard on a ladder and thrown over the top through a table at ringside), so everything looks like it really stings. But I think the ladder climbing really took me out of it as the climbing doesn't feel anywhere near as climactic as had they just been wrestling. Miz cashing in his briefcase and then doing the slowest possible climb really made this stip feel stupid, though I think the fight choreography when they got to all three fighting on the ladders was good. Styles working over McIntyre's leg lead to a couple nice moments, like the calf slicer through the ladder. Styles' bump off the ladder to the floor looked sick, and Miz was made to look like an absolutely tremendous fool. Also, I do not need Miz in the title scene and him losing in this kind of fashion is perfectly fine for me. A match that lost me, but one that also had a lot of good (front loaded), but needed an editor. 

Sasha Banks vs. Carmella

ER: I thought this was really good, as good as I was hoping it to be. It had a couple twists and turns, made Carmella look like a worthy challenger, built to a feverish home stretch, one of those matches where a better opponent helps bring out the best parts of Carmella. Sasha is really great at this point, so much that it always bums me out that none of this is playing in front of live crowds. Sasha feels like she'd be the biggest thing in 2020 wrestling if there were live shows. I'm really glad this was a straight match and not worked under the TLC stip, a straight match was the right choice and the drama over nearfalls and submissions is more interesting than climbing and falling. The involvement of Reginald was good, loved him catching Carmella on a dive, ducking Sasha, and tossing her into a headscissors. And the payback was well played late in the match with Sasha hitting a meteora and then getting blasted by a couple superkicks for a genuinely strong nearfall. I thought Carmella could actually win it there. Sasha was great at running into everything Carmella had, and both kept things real close on sunset flips and small packages. It's really nice seeing such fine execution on pinfall attempts. I loved both of Carmella's submissions, both of them look like sick lucha maestro subs and are both somehow locked on just as smoothly. Both of those subs would look awesome applied by Negro Navarro or Blue Panther, but it also looks awesome applied by Carmella. It makes me happy. This whole match was fun throughout, really made me smile and enjoy the wrestling the whole time. A very tight build and explosive finishing stretch, just another great Big Match Sasha performance. 

Shelton Benjamin/Cedric Alexander vs. Xavier Woods/Kofi Kingston

ER: This was good, and kept up the same fun energy the entire rest of the show has had so far. This has been a very fun show, everyone feels like they're trying a couple new things in the ring, it's made things feel special so far. This tag was no different, and it made me realize that I appreciate that The Hurt Business actually seems to be growing as an idea. I like that it wasn't one of those ideas where WWE seems on board with it for two weeks and then loses all interest, instead it seems like they're letting it grow naturally. It's given new life to Shelton Benjamin and made him as relevant as he's been in 15 years. If they want to they could let him ride out a couple more years as an upper card tag worker and he'd be great at it. It's also been good for Cedric Alexander, who instead of being one of several similar 205 Live babyfaces, his style feels more focused for being in a regular tag team. Both teams worked a fun fast big bumps style, and kept the match to a brisk 10 minutes for maximum impact. I love how definitively Hurt Business won the belts. There was no bullshit, just a dominant team catching the champs. Benjamin hit a pop up superplex that should play in Hurt Business highlight videos, and the Alexander backcracker finisher is the premier use of that overused move, and shows that an overplayed move can still be used effectively. I'd love to see the Hurt Business continue to evolve and even add members, and would love to see them have a run with multiple title holders in the stable. This whole match really got me into the potential of them, so I'd call that a huge success. 

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

ER: I was just thinking the other day that I had not missed Charlotte, and yet I was happy to see her here just because I will take any new face in this match rather than see Lana in the main women's program on Raw. It's poorly executed, it's obvious, the commentary screams all of the bullet points for how we're supposed to feel about it all, but I just don't want Lana in these matches anymore. That said, I wish it didn't feel like Charlotte was immediately Superwoman again. It felt like she just ran through Nia and Shayna, and while I admit the Nia/Shayna hasn't lived up to its potential, they should be a pair who are on Charlotte's level. You can make an argument for the surprise factor, they weren't expecting her, but they just got outmatched and I didn't like that. Asuka automatically feels like the smaller banana with Charlotte around, as she had to spend the match being the one to take a lot of Nia and Shayna's offense. But Asuka is good at that and I liked the way her hip attack took Nia out of things at the finish. Still, this match played into my worse fear, that we're going to go straight back to a Charlotte-dominated scene. 

Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens

ER: This didn't feel far off, but this didn't work for me. I didn't like the Uso interference, and Uso made to look as effective as a manager only type. There were a lot of big spills - maybe too many - yet I thought several of the biggest ones were shrugged off in the name of blocking someone's climbing. I was not into the slow climbs no matter how earned they were with big bumps. I thought going to Uso for every big Reigns comeback came off weak, and that it would have been perhaps more played out to have the interference happen in only one big moment instead of all through the match, but it would have made for a better match and made it appear Owens had more of a chance. Roman going through the barricade looked fantastic, and was one of the best looking "leveled barricade" spots they've done. No matter how I felt about the match layout as a whole, I thought that looked the best. Owens took some nasty falls into ladders (Roman too), but these slow paced Roman walking matches have not been my thing. 

So, I had a really fun time watching this show, and the vibe seems to be turning with those last couple matches, turning into something much less good. The tag match and Reigns match were not my thing but I also don't think they were bad. BUT. It feels like I would be tossing a lot of goodwill and pleasant memories right out the window if I put myself through a Randy Orton/Fiend match. I mean what kind of psychopath would I have to be to do that? 2020 has been difficult enough, why would I put myself through all of that? Let's go out on a high note, and be happy for the fun stuff we did get. 

Read more!

2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Ripley vs. Raquel

48. Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Gonzalez NXT 10/28

ER: This match kicked a ton of ass. This is the kind of match that would have killed in front of a big crowd. Gonzalez has not looked like a long match worker so far in NXT. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her in a singles match that went longer than 5 minutes, but this match was compelling from bell to bell. My brain got tricked midway through this match into thinking that it was the main event, because they worked this match like it was the most important match of the night, and it really felt like a main event. Ripley is able to work bigger than she actually is, making up the size difference, and Gonzalez basically comes off as if she was Rhea Ripley at the size they want to bill Ripley at. There are a lot of strikes in this match, and there was really only one brief section I didn't like, and thought the rest of it played great. Ripley was working body shots the whole night (a smart strategy of cutting that size gap, targeting nothing but Raquel's ribs until Gonzalez is naturally hunching down to her level) and both had cool moments of swinging hard at the other's head. You knew this match was reaching the next level after a standing clothesline exchange that saw Rhea throw a couple of the hardest lariats ever seen in a WWE women's match, really made it look like she was bouncing a baseball bat off Gonzalez's chest. Gonzalez got in one of her own late in the match, and also caught Ripley on a cannonball and powerbombed her into the railing and onto the floor. And they kept doing big slams and throwing bombs, most of the sequences looking strong, really kept me hooked the entire match. The nearfalls were strong, they smacked each other around a bunch, and honestly this was the first time Rhea has felt like a big deal to me since the Charlotte feud mercifully ended. 

PAS: I hadn't seen Ripley in a while, her "Ivanka during her punk phase" look isn't great. This match was pretty great though, just a heavyweight wrestling match between two big strong ladies.  I loved Ripley going to the body so much, makes a ton of sense when you are working someone so strong. The big belly to belly throw off the top rope by Gonzalez was awesome looking, Ripley waited a long time to rotate to her back and it looked like she was going to get spiked on her crown. I also liked Gonzalzes' monster powerslam. Gonzalzes is clearly still a little green, but green powerhouse is actually a good look for a wrestler as long as they aren't tentative. Goldberg was awesome from the jump, as were the young Road Warriors. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

New Footage Friday: All Japan Handheld 8/20/96

Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Kentaro Shiga 

ER: I really liked this, and was excited to see it. I saw a bunch of young lions matches on NJPW tapes, an endless series of 8-10 minute matches of black trunks rookies doing headlocks, dropkicks, and Boston crabs. But AJPW young boy matches never made tape, so you would rarely see some of these guys (at most you would see them do one move in a clipped trios). This was Kanemaru's 10th match and that's a cool thing to see. They do some cool matwork to start, the kind of matwork you didn't really get to see in AJPW, with nice hammerlocks and headscissors. Kanemaru gets to try a lot of fun things for a guy 10 matches into his career, hitting a Super Calo headscissors out of the corner, and a cool Vader bomb senton. He had a neat way of squirming out of Shiga bodyslams, twice slipping out of a bodyslam and winding up on Shiga's shoulders in a way that seemed 100% plausible. I rewound both instances he did this, as I'm not sure I've ever seen someone slip into an electric chair position to reverse a bodyslam. One time Kanemaru turned it into a headscissors, the other time a victory roll that actually made me think a guy was getting a win in his 10th match. Shiga was great at framing Kanemaru's showy moments and was really good at selling individual moves. I especially liked Shiga taking a dropkick on the chin and getting to his feet holding his mouth while still going back on the attack. I wish we had more AJPW young boys matches, because this was the kind of low key low frills gem I dig. 

MD: Perfectly enjoyable opening match, including working in and out of a headlock for a bit. They were very focused on their selling (Kanemaru his back, Shiga his face post dropkick) in a sort of academic way. Nothing really flubbed, with some high difficulty spots. I liked the way Shiga lifted his foot on the fisherman's suplex bridge to give an extra bit of weight for the three count. Good outing for these two.

Masao Inoue vs. Johnny Smith 

ER: This was dryer than the opener, but I enjoyed where it wound up going. It was slower and more methodical, snug headlocks reversed into snug hammerlocks, nice clubbing shots from Inoue, simple things done well. It builds to some nice offense for both, a great vertical suplex and powerslam from Smith, nice falling lariat from Inoue. I've seen plenty of Smith matches where he really dials up the stiffness, and that wasn't the Smith we got here (he can really cave in chests with his back bump missile dropkick and he's much kinder here), and while I still liked the pairing I have a feeling a singles match a year or two later would have been better. 

MD: Still in the range of perfectly acceptable house show undercard stuff here. They kept it mostly on the mat for the first half, with Smith pulling out some fun arm whips. Everything stayed close to the center of the ring with fairly limited motion, but it was gritty and hard hitting enough. As things escalated towards the finish, the fans got fairly well into it. Smith's big stuff (like his floatover suplex and powerslam) all looked good but it's nothing you'll remember tomorrow.

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Mitsuo Momota vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue/Haruka Eigen 

ER: Bless this man for recording the full legends trios. When old men matches would up on TV it was always clipped down to crowd spitting and the finish, you rarely got to see them working pre-bell shtick or the smaller comedy moments where guys like Eigen shone. So god bless this sicko for recording TWENTY FULL MINUTES of these glorious old dudes. Before the bell they work a fun gag around shaking or not shaking each other's hands, then a spot where Baba's team is throwing goodies to the crowd and Eigen steals Rusher's treat to throw to a different part of the crowd. Eigen's specific brand of ham played in full to a house show crowd is the exact kind of butter my bread needs. Gimme that bullshit where he gets sad about Momota getting a bigger cheer after getting up on the turnbuckles, but also give me Eigen throwing several headbutts and nice short uppercuts to Momota. Fuchi and Inoue are real dickheads to Rusher, with Fuchi kicking him in the knees and Inoue throwing strikes (Mighty Inoue still weirdly had some of the nastiest open hand chops in the company) and kicking him in the head after slumping him in the corner, and then Eigen laces into him with chops!

You don't typically get FIP sections in these matches and it's great seeing the heels really gang up on Rusher as Baba gets pissed on the apron. Fuchi fucks with Rusher by continuing to kick at his knees, then run away, making Rusher limp after him, before kicking his knees again. Fuchi keeps going back to the knee and it leads to a great moment where Rusher stops selling Fuchi's strikes, just walking forward while Fuchi is punching him right in the head, Rusher unfazed as Fuchi shakes out his fist (later, Fuchi pays him back stepping on Rusher's face to break up a pin). When Inoue tags in Rusher throws two genuinely crushing open hand chops right to Inoue's throat and hits an awesome old man bulldog. This was among the hardest chops and strikes I've seen thrown in a Kings Road old man trios, and probably more headbutts than I've seen thrown, and of course it boils down to Baba coming in and hitting a Russian legsweep for the pin. I love that this exists, and I would happily review all of the handheld old man matches. 

MD: Old man comedy. Momota anchored this, being the only guy on his team that could still move, while still being as charismatic as ever, garnering sympathy and having the fans clap along to his chops in the corner. There was a weird, and I suppose sort of funny bit of Kimura just eating a ton of shots from everyone on the other side and barely registering them, causing everyone to run from him in fear. There's a limit to how much you can do that without devaluing all offense on the card maybe? There was one moment where Kimura slinked into a drop down and I was legitimately worried about what would happen, because there was no way he was getting up in time for the next spot, but Baba got a shot in from the outside so it was okay. Baba not being able to get his leg up for the kick without hanging out in the ropes is always a little sad to watch (even relatively to just a few years earlier), but he still hit the leg sweep and seemed to be enjoying himself otherwise.

Jun Akiyama/Takao Omori vs. Giant Kimala II/Jun Izumida

MD: Weird reverse structure here where Kimala and Izumida got a shine of sorts, where Izumida was dominated in the middle building to a quasi-hot tag to Kimala, and then a long finishing stretch. Obviously that's not exactly what happened, but it's kind of what it felt like. Kimala and Izumida controlled things well when they were on top. They did a double elbow drop from the same side which I'm not sure I've seen much before but that people should steal. Again, the work was all fine but the structure was baffling. You want a monster heel team to take way more of the match than this.

ER: I'm a big fan of the Kimala II/Izumida team, but this tag was still even better than I hoped it would be. Kimala was a real (Botswana) beast here, loved all his strikes (his overhand chops and axe handles to Omori looked real nasty), loved his big legdrops and screaming flying elbows, his great avalanche, and will always be a fan of he and IZU's tag team offense that is basically "both men jump and fall onto their opponent and squish him". Omori is usually one of my least favorite AJ guys, but he was on fire here, great uppercuts and running kicks, really looked like a force on the same level as Akiyama, and Akiyama was throwing knees and elbows as hard as you'd expect. Izumida is always good as a guy eating a beating, because he's a real sicko and seemingly has no problem absorbing stiff shots with his massive head. Due to the handheld we don't see Izumida or Kimala getting thrown into the rail, but the landings sounded huge. And I just don't think it's possible for me to find more joy than in a Kimala II hot tag, and I was really impressed with how hard he worked on a smaller house show. He never got much of a chance to work actual tags like this when he teamed with Abby, as the matches were usually shorter and more dominated by Abby, so here you could really see his ability. There were a couple good saves down the stretch, and I liked Kimala knocking Akiyama to the floor to take him out of action. Izumida misses a big moonsault but plops down hard on Omori's chest when Omori goes for a sunset flip, and I was not expecting IZU and Kimala to get the win. Wonderful. 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Satoru Asako 

PAS: All Japan juniors matches were not a focus of either the TV or of discourse, but they had some very talented wrestlers. Asako always seemed like the blandest of the 90s AJ crew, but I enjoyed him a bunch here. He had some big spots including a nasty dropkick through the ropes and flip dive, and landed some stuff with real pop and violence. At one point he blasts Kikuchi in the throat with a spin kick, and smashes him with back elbows. It feels like the kind of performance you see an undercard luchador give if he gets a mask match. Kikuchi is just as nuts as you would expect, apparently missing a diving headbutt on the floor (it is a handheld and you can't see the landing, which actually makes it more harrowing). We get a good nearfall section, and this felt like a match which would have been a bigger deal in a different context.

MD: Kikuchi oscillated between being a vulnerable champ and a juniors heel bully here and he was good in both roles. Past the finishing stretch, which really had the fans buying into Asako's hopes, the best part of this was when he was in charge and that bit didn't go quite long enough. Things meandered at times when Asako was in control after his comeback, with the match being most compelling when they kept it moving. A good number of dives and action on the floor. I was ok with Asako's kickouts during the stretch because he had ultimately taken so much of the match but it's good it didn't go much longer.

ER: Asako is the 90s AJ guy I basically know the least about, and have seen the least. He was not a guy who made tape in singles, and was typically showing up on AJ TV as the guy definitely taking the pin in a trios match. This match is probably the most memorable performance of his I've seen, with only his 2002 NOAH retirement match coming to mind as a contender (I remember that being a fun trios with him teaming w/ Misawa and Kobashi). Here he is coming after Kikuchi's belt, and he practically works sections of this like badass Kikuchi. This whole match had cool spots throughout, really had a similar feel (in pace, quality, structure, highspots) to heralded early 90s juniors stuff like Liger/Pillman. We got big dives to the floor, with both hitting heavy pescados, Kikuchi slingshotting himself into a flip dive and later hitting a big plancha, and Asako hitting a wicked baseball slide dropkick that sent him through the ropes. 

Both guys laid into each other with nice dropkicks, and then kept expanding to bigger things. Asako hit a wicked jumping spin kick right under Kikuchi's chin, and that really felt like the kind of hard kick to the chin the Kikuchi usually dishes out to younger guys. Kikuchi hit his running calf kick to the back of Asako's head, Asako hit hard back elbows, Kikuchi hit his great running elbow smash, and it all built to a genuinely hot nearfall finishing stretch. Asako got a couple surprise kickouts after two fireball bombs, and got great nearfalls of his own with tight cradles and inside roll ups, and a nice rana off the top. I always loved Kikuchi's form on his rolling Germans, and he finally has enough and whips Asako into the mat with a couple of them and then hits that exclamation fireball bomb. I thought this was really good and a great showing for Asako. It would be really fun if someone like him ends up with a bunch of Stock Rising performances found 25 years later on handhelds. 

Stan Hansen/Gary Albright/The Patriot vs. Dr. Death/Johnny Ace/Dan Kroffat 

MD: Frustratingly, only this and the main end up clipped, though none of it seems major. Unsurprisingly, the best stuff here all had Hansen: the headlock in and out of the ring with Williams to start, Ace and Kroffat trying to contain him (failing but doing better than one would expect), the way he sold walking around the floor after Patroit came in, his body careening across the ring to knock someone out to clear the way for the finish. This had plenty of big guys tossing each other around, but maybe due to the clipping never entirely came together for me.

PAS:: I thought the stand out here was Dr. Death, he crushed Patriot with a clothesline, hit a big spine buster and some great jabs. Finish run focused on Albright and Albright on an offense hot streak is one of the more exciting things in wrestling, you know big throws are coming and he hit a sick judo throw to go into a cross armbreaker. I do feel like there was some stuff on the cutting room floor, and it was a bummer we didn't get to see some of the ass kicking.

ER: I always love these big AJ matches that just literally throw all of the whites into the same match. It's the kind of visual that would stand out visually to someone not familiar with wrestling. It's like WWF throwing six AAA guys out there to open a Raw in Toledo, if they had given the crowd an actual reason to care about any of them. This doesn't live up to the on paper potential and wraps up a little conveniently (and maybe we missed more with clips than we realized), but it totally delivered in the interactions I wanted it to. Dr. Death really was great here, acting like a big general for his team and getting in the face of everyone on the other side. Every Hansen/Death stretch we got kicked the amount of ass that pairing should kick. They were really socking each other with punches (Death had a few sick punch exchanges in this, even his exchange with Patriot looked good) and there was a great moment where he knocked Hansen down to his butt with a hard jab. The match felt a little underbaked (and again, could be the handheld clipping) as Kroffat and Ace don't have a ton to do, and there are weird moments like Hansen breaking up a pin and then selling his save more than Patriot sold the Dr. Bomb he was being saved from. Still, we got to see cool stuff like Doc's spinebuster, and Albright really fucks Doc up with one of his World's Best Suplexes, folding him bad on a snap German. These guys weren't holding back on hitting each other, while also holding back on working too much of a compelling story, so it had a super high floor without coming close to the potential ceiling. Still, give me Hansen and Doc potatoing each other any damn day of the week.  

Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue/Yoshinari Ogawa

MD: The clipping here is particularly frustrating. You lose less of the match, I think, but what remains feels fairly iconic, and it'd be good to have the whole picture. Honda shines both early and late, tossing his head at people's faces with reckless abandon, though there's one spot with Taue which doesn't quite work (they recover well and then hit it). We come back from that first clip with a fought over nodowa to the floor and roll right into a really long (and like I said, plenty iconic) mauling of Kobashi. I like how he got his hope spots on Ogawa but they were all cut off. Kawada just kicked the ever-loving crap out of him, but he was able to come back against him and got meaningful revenge on Taue later. My guess is that most of what we lost in this was Misawa (probably an opening exchange) but everything else was great.

PAS: This was good stuff, but a little irritating (who the hell clips a HH?). I am happy we got all of the big Honda moments, that is my dude, and I always like to see him get shine. He was very headbutt heavy and not the suplex machine he would become, but we did get a nice throw on Taue. Kobashi gets the crud beat out of him, and few do that better. I love Kawada as this chill guy who will calmly beat the shit out of someone, he really lays into Kobashi. The finish felt a bit abrupt, it didn't have the all time finish run that some of these matches have, but all time greats doing great things is always worth watching.

ER: I thought this was great, seeing it from a partially obscured view with some clips in the action, so you know it would have played hot live. Everybody gets moments to shine and takes them, with a standout no nonsense Taue performance and a great babyface Kobashi run. Kobashi is an all time great at taking a heavyweight beating. There's a lot of small guys who take big beatings, but it's tough to pull off a 260 pound guy getting his ass kicked while still fighting. I also always like revisiting the era where Ogawa was opposite Misawa. We saw them together for the last decade of Misawa's life, it's cool seeing him when he was in the Holy Demon Army, cool seeing him work with Kawada to take down Misawa. Honda got a spirited dying on his sword performance, playing the fired up attention seeker well, dropping a dozen falling headbutts on people over the course of this. 

But I loved Taue the most, and this match got kicked up another level with an amazing spot that felt like something that would happen in a Tag League Final and not at a 2,000 seat Osaka house show. Taue and Kobashi were fighting on the apron, and Taue jammed the sole of his big boot into Kobashi's jaw, then leapt off the apron with a nodowa otoshi, but instead of splatting on the floor he flattens Misawa in a great bit of timing. I'm honestly not sure what happened (the nature of some of the action happening off camera due to the handheld), but either Misawa ran in quick to break Kobashi's fall, or he was whipped that direction by Kawada and the Holy Demon Army timed and incredible double team. Honestly I love either scenario. Holy Demon teamwork is second to none, and it's cool seeing Ogawa integrated into that, like when Kawada booted Kobashi in the face to assists an Ogawa back suplex, or Ogawa hitting Misawa with a left jab to knock him face first into a Kawada enziguiri. The build was great through this whole match, even with the cut footage. I'll never get tired of seeing the way these guys move against each other. 

Read more!