Found Footage Friday: IWA MID-SOUTH IN THE YEAR 2000~!

IWA Mid-South A King Is Crowned 7/15/00 

Jayden Draigo vs. BJ Whitmer

MD: Draigo was billed from being from the Michaels academy (and I think he actually was but that would have been a great heel indy gimmick back in 2000). Whitmer is Whitmer, and was billed as being trained by Thatcher. He had pleather pants. Draigo was all but falling out of his. And this was a pretty ok opening match for this sort of thing honestly. Technical to start. Whitmer got the advantage. Draigo took over by kicking the rope after he ran around the ring and got chanted at and chased. A lot of his offense was approprtiate to his size and he didn't overreach. They didn't let a Whitmer hope spot (German out of the corner, bridging) sink in enough, but the comeback was just blocked punches and firing up. Whitmer missed a top rope splash and Draigo got him with the Superkick (see, it would have worked if it didn't piss off actual people in the industry) for maybe the surprising win. 

ER: Draigo is from the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy. A girl in the crowd tells him He Sucks Shawn Michaels dick and that He Goes to Shawn Michaels Dick Sucking Academy. By the midway point of the match she convinces the entire crowd that he definitely learned to suck dick at Shawn Michaels' Academy. She knew she was right and convinced an entire small town. BJ Whitmer had okay punches when he had sideburns. Nice backbreaker too, fast snap suplex, and I liked his big missed diving headbutt. 

Nathan Future vs. Prophet Daniel Quinn

MD: We've moved on to the cargo pants portion of the show. This was kind of effective for what they were trying to do and I'm not sure I've ever exactly seen this done like this? Future came out first and Quinn just rushed in out of nowhere and hit a spin wheel kick and kept on him like it was a sprint. He hit a dive, then triple suplexes (last one a Fisherman) and went up top. Harry Palmer, who would have a 2/3 falls match later in the night ran out to get the match thrown out. He powerbombed Quinn and they looked a bit too hard for a chair, finding one and shattering the arm with it before people came out to run them off. It theoretically got some more heat on Palmer for later in the show while having Quinn look like a worldbeater in the span of a minute or so.  

ER: Daniel Quinn looks like a malnourished kid in Gummo with knee pads too big for his 135 pound frame and has clearly watched a lot of Benoit footage. I'd say half a dozen people on this card want to be Benoit and that is the most 2000 thing about indy wrestling (outside of the entrance music). Quinn looked straight out the Yard and that's how these openers should be, and I was genuinely impressed by the local following he had attained. People were really getting behind him like a small regional babyface despite (because?) being a teenager who came straight from school and wore someone else's kneepads. Future took a nice bumped getting shoved into the ringpost and Harry Palmer came off very unlikeable in his interference. 

IWA-MS Light Heavyweight Title: The Suicide Kid (c) vs. Paul E. Smooth w/ Dave Prazak 

MD: Smooth and Prazak did some pre-match talking. Smooth was doing the timely Britney's boyfriend gimmick with a bathrobe and her on his shirt. It's not as fun as the contemporaneous Aron Stevens gimmick in New England where he'd come out with a stand up of Britney, but it drew the sort of chants they were looking for. Kid slapped hands on the way in, big smile on his face, and he was over.

I would have really enjoyed this in 2000 but I was 15 years younger. Kid was confident in what he was doing, had a pretty measured way of doing things. They wore their influences on their sleeves (like a Stan Lane Crane Kick shove over). Smooth got an early advantage but Kid came back with the back handspring elbow. He controlled (with the triple suplexes, last one a fisherman's so no agenting here of course!) until Prazak got involved. Smooth controlled for a bit. Kid came back with so, so many moves, some ridiculous, some sublime (someone should steal his bit where he runs at a seated opponent in the corner, presses off with his feet on their chest and hits a headbutt to the groin). Prazak got involved again as some other guys ran out, Kid finally got him but got killed by the interference and lost the belt (Smooth made sure to lay his head on the groin for the pin for maximum homophobic 2000 heat). Anyway, Kid was very good at what he did even if what he did only made sense in a specific time and place.

ER: This ruled. Smooth talks about Britney Spears' titties and says someone here has an even better pair, calling out some poor kid who was nowhere near the fattest kid there but had no doubt called him a Hard F a couple dozen times. Smooth says he doesn't suck dick but would suck on that kid's big titties because this was 2000 Indiana and there are entire other worlds out there north of Kentucky. Suicide Kid comes out to Bawitaba which brings us to the edge of midwest indy nirvana after already hearing Closer and Dragula. When we inevitably get Last Resort we will have reached nirvana. 

Richard X and Hy-Zaya w/ Uncle Honkey vs. Kid Trailer Park and Colt Cabana

MD: What to say about this one. Well, hopefully Eric is in with me on this because he can write about Uncle Honkey better than I can. There was probably money in that gimmick in some place at some time even if it wasn't necessarily this place and time. I'll leave it at that. There were a lot of big ideas on offense, especially from Hy-Zaya and Richard X. I wouldn't say a single one of them hit clean but that was a quarter of the charm.

The flip side of that was that Colt looked great. Just poised and professional in contrast. He was obviously watching a bunch of tape and did a number of things but they were just a little more grounded than everyone else and even the chain wrestling looked very good. He looked like a real ringer in the midst of all of this, even if he lost it due to Honkey distracting the ref and interference dragging him down. 

Adam Gooch vs. American Kickboxer

MD: Hey, it's DVDVR favorite American Kickboxer. This had a fun little quirk where Hy-Zaya and Richard ran out after the first or second exchange, only to get run off. Then they came back when both guys were in bad shape and took out Kickboxer while Gooch was on the outside. That led Gooch to winning. Post match they made up only for Uncle Honkey to smash Kickboxer for a stretcher job. All of this set up future shows. 

The match itself was best when they were doing the stand up striking and Kickboxer was driving things. Gooch had some perfectly fine offense of the time but it felt novel and different and stood out on the card when they were throwing shots and they did a decent enough job at it. It was the same with some of the wrestling and precision stuff Colt had been doing, just in how it stood out. At one point Kickboxer did a flippy groin kick in the corner that didn't fit the match and wasn't really sold well but it was over. They did a good job clapping the crowd up and keeping them engaged too. I did think the heels running back out a second time was a clever bit, done once at least. 

Best 2-Out-Of-3 Falls: Harry Palmer w/ Nathan Future vs. Cash Flo

MD: I got a kick out of this. Cash Flo is on Tulsa King now. Good for him. This was pretty minimalist, not necessarily in what they did but in how much they did and while I have no idea why it had to be 2/3 falls, as the first two were short and the last one ended in bullshit before long, it was still fun. Palmer stalled to start, and then stalled some more, and then got beat on and ran off, so this was all working for me. He came back with sunflower seeds or something and did a bit of spitting them into Flo's face, incensing him and leading to him getting caught and hit with a blockbuster. That was the first fall.

Flo came right back and brought a couple of chairs in. Palmer ambushed him and took over and set them up and I swear he was going to do a standing 'rana onto them which is such a ridiculous notion, but obviously Flo power bombed him onto the chairs. That was the second fall. Then the third fall had the ref knocked out and Palmer use a weapon and really there's been a lot of BS in this show but it's a sign of the times. Anyway Quinn from earlier in the night ran out (at least I think it was him) and they presumably they set up a tag for the future or something. 

IWA-MS Heavyweight Title: Fans Bring The Weapons Death Match: Rollin' Hard (c) vs. Corporal Robinson 

MD: The biggest takeaway I had from this was how organic and alive it felt just because it was unpredictable. Some of that was how both wrestlers weren't supposed to wrestle each other but other people but it worked out this way, but it's mostly the gimmick. You can't prepare for whatever people in the crowd bring so you have to think on the fly and it's incredibly refreshing in a world of carefully planned spots. 

 

Read more!

70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Lucy! Kumano! Masami!

75. 1979.11.XX2 - 03 Jackie Sato & Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano & Tenjin Masami

K: This is a fairly throwaway formula match with good wrestlers in it. The most significant thing I'll point out is that Tenjin Masami gets a good showing, she's in the ring about as much as Mami Kumano but I don't think she ever looks like she's significantly less developed even if she doesn't have any signature moves yet. She looks nasty and fearsome, the screaming while on offense is probably a bit too much. 

The finish of the 1st fall was a bit off. It looked like they went for the finish a little earlier but there was some miscommunication, and then they repeated the set up almost straight after.

The Black team were very dominant for most of the 1st fall, setting up a babyface comeback and win, only for the heels to get even more vicious immediately on the 2nd fall's start and they introduce a chair to proceedings to even things out. I knew that was going to happen from having watched enough of these. After all of the wild weapons and methods of cheating we've seen before though, simply hitting someone with a chair felt kinda uninspired. Maybe this wasn't the right match to do anything special.

We didn't get to see much from Jackie until the 3rd fall. Selling for long periods of the match is Lucy's job, and since Black Pair were gonna be on top for most of the first two we were bound to not see much of Jackie. A cool moment is when she counters an Irish Whip attempt by just launching Kumano into Masami who was standing on the apron. Jackie follows up this with a whip of her own into a straight forearm or punch in the face that looked like it knocked Masami's lights out. Lucy gets tagged in to go for her Vader Bomb, but Masami is up too early so she turns it into a kind of reverse dropkick, also pretty cool adjustment that felt like it was on the fly. 

There's a really relentless bit of offense where we first see Jackie hit a big flying splash, the cover gets broken up  and Masami tries to escape by rolling under the bottom rope, but Jackie is too on the ball and drags her back into the ring before hitting her vertical suplex into a backbreaker move. All this offense from the babyfaces is just too much and takes us straight into a finish that felt satisfying. 

This was a promotion just spinning the wheels killing TV time till the next big show. First two falls were mostly filler. Jackie got to look like the worthy champ at the end, that’s all it really felt like it was trying to accomplish and I guess that’s all it needed to.

**1/2

MD: I’m glad we get to see Kumano a couple more times as we’re nearing the end of this stage of the project. This was another one of those very complete tags. My biggest takeaway was how much Masami felt like she belonged. I’m not sure I had the sense in previous matches, but she had as much confidence as I’ve seen out of her in this run and had found ways to stand out. Yes, there was the choking and the general aggression, but she really made use of her size, both in hefting people up with hanging tree chokes or pressing them over her head, but also by using Vader attacks or just having Lucy’s flying cross chop bounce off of her. Just real heft to what she did in a way that wasn’t a visually sure thing as it was with, let’s say, Hori.

Kumano was, of course, Kumano. An absolute bulldozer. Lucy (incredibly fiery and intense) had burst forth to take an early advantage but Kumano just shut her down, pulling her this way or that by her hair or dragging her face across the ropes or the mat. They had a great bit where Masami would grind the knee into the face before handing her off to Kumano for the dangling choke. Jackie broke it up once, but then Masami went after her and both of them ate it. Finish of the first fall was Lucy bouncing off Masami only to slip around her for a roll up. Clever stuff.

Second fall was a mauling as Kumano came in with a chair and absolutely brained Lucy and Jackie. That led to Masami holding one up for Kumano’s seated senton off the top and a missile dropkick. Third fall continued the mauling, including with object shots, until Jackie was able to reverse a whip crashing Kumano and Masami into each other. Lucy had a nice mule kick off the top (that I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen before), and then Jackie used suplexes and slams to win. She just sort of dropped down with an elbow to take it. Still hierarchy in this one as Masami was more likely to get swept under, but she was really more of the force that she would one day be here.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/18 - 8/24

AEW Forbidden Door 8/24/25

Toni Storm vs Athena

MD: One of my favorite parts of Forbidden Door was the short film with Nigel McGuinness playing Chess with Johnny Saint (I'm more of a Marty Jones guy but that's beside the point), and I thought that played well into the Nigel vs ZSJ match and the comparison of rigid, tactical chess against an agile sort of jazz. That said, if you want to see a real example of human chess, look at the start of Athena vs Toni. 

Athena rushed in right from the get go, foot flying, but Toni was prepared for her, moving out of the way, giving her a quick mauling, and then using the hip attack to knock her off the apron. Strategic, stylized, tactical and character driven (more on that later). On the floor, Billie Starkz, and for the sake of this, we'll call her Athena's bishop and not her pawn, got right up into Toni's face. Toni, realizing the threat she was, rushed forth to take her off the board, hitting an abrupt Storm Zero out of nowhere. In doing so, however, she opened herself up for the same sort of flying kick that she was able to avoid at the start of the match. Athena sacrificed her bishop for the first two thirds of the match to get this early advantage. Chess.

Which is not to say that these were two measured, focused, clear-headed players. They're not. Toni Storm portrays a madwoman; there's no way around that. Yes, she's one that learned to love herself, learned to embrace the madness, learned to be canny like a fox, to lean into the trickster element of a Bugs Bunny or Groucho Marx, but she began this journey with a mental break and while she can ride the wave to success and skillfully employ mind games, one always sees the cracks within the character. 

Athena's not much better. She entered AEW with fanfare and excitement and quickly fell down the rankings. On one fated night in Canada, she pushed things a little too far on an Elevation taping, felt the bad faith backlash of misogynists and tribalists, and leaned hard into it, never looking back. Riding her own vehicle of madness, each and every crack just tripping her forward with more and more momentum, she became one of the most electric, unpredictable, unstoppable figures in wrestling. In both cases, there's a fine line between madness and genius, between being beloved and reviled, between being a hero and being a monster.

There was no lengthy shine here. It was a short burst ending with Toni taking Billie off the board and Athena taking advantage of the sacrifice. From there, Athena leaned down hard on Toni, focusing on her neck (already injured somewhat due to a prior pile driver on the steps). Toni, of course, fought back at every opportunity, like the champion ace she is, but Athena had one clever, athletic, and slightly askew cutoff after the next. She'd ride Toni's momentum and come back down upon the neck, would contort her body to sneak in a redirection or a trip out of nowhere. 

Toni represents the unbridled creativity of the human heart, embodying the spirit of old cinema: skilled camera tricks in a world before CGI, clever wordplay to get around the Hays Code, silent movie performances that relied upon the eyes more than anything else. Athena however, is the Fallen Goddess, chaos itself stuffed into a relatively diminutive frame, seething rage bubbling up when you least expect it, that magic forearm like its own version of Chekhov's Gun always ready to go off at any moment, loaded and primed by the sheer existence of this malignant and dynamic force of nature. 

And that rage drove her here. If she herself was a burr upon the world, an irritation, an agitation, Toni Storm was all of those things to her.  Athena had a historic reign like no others, but she had been banished to a paywall-locked show, too dangerous and unpredictable to be brought out into the light. Instead it was Toni who had the often literal spotlight. Athena was an athlete, gritty, tough as nails, agile, explosive, but Toni's over the top antics brought Storm flowers, fame, the love of the crowd. Her madness was embraced as genius. Athena's was not.

So while she pressed her advantage, the burr that was Toni Storm and everything about her pressed into Athena's soul. She started to posture and pose, to try to expose Storm to the world as the fraud that she saw her as. Prepared to add insult to injury, she lined Storm up for her own hip attack in the corner, clapping the fans up, posing ridiculously, and running right into Toni Storm's clothesline, right into the start of her comeback.

But Athena was mostly fresh and the two traded blows and bombs. Starkz, having been wiped off the board early on, found her way back up and showed her worth, distracting Storm to allow for Athena to hit a top rope 'rana. Storm went for the Storm Zero, Athena for her over the shoulder codebreaker, but neither worked. And Storm just barely survived Athena's Koji Clutch, her face, painted in white once again in ghastly homage to Baby Jane, itself a portrait of pain and perseverance, the eyes doing so much work.

Athena hit her forearm once. Storm avoided it later on and threw a jarring headbutt of her own, causing Athena to try to crawl away in desperation. In doing so, she yanked the apron cover up onto the ring, setting up Starkz to once again show her merit, pulling it back to prevent an apron Storm Zero. Storm, distracted, fell victim to an Apron O-Face over the top rope. She was left sprawled, half hanging out of the ring, as the ref and Athena had words inside. 

And here the match came full circle, right back to chess. Athena's bishop was causing havoc, about to crush Storm with a chair, but Storm's queen had been held back in wait. Mina rushed out to stop Starkz, driving her to the back and leaving Athena to face Storm alone. Starkz may be driven by fear, but Mina's loyalty comes from a place of love, and queen takes bishop and certainly takes pawn. All things now equal, king vs king (gender roles be damned), Athena managed to survive one Storm Zero, but not the Chicken Wing that followed. 

Storm's canniness had leveled the playing field early on but at the cost of falling to Athena's dogged aggression. Athena, consumed by her own fury, lost sight of the prize. That very force that drove her to such success, her unquenchable rage, here caused a misstep. Even so, she might have won the day save for Mina's intervention. Whether Toni showed herself to be the more masterful chess player or not, on this day, it was controlled chaos, composed madness, that won out, the light of a star driving Athena back into the darkness.

Read more!

2025 Blue Panther Double Feature: Hechicero! Ultimo Guerrero!

MD: We've been sitting on this Panther vs Hechicero review since January. But now past Panther vs Ultimo Guerrero, we figured we'd drop them both together. Keep in mind I wrote the following 7 months ago though. Eric’s review is new though.

Blue Panther vs. Hechicero CMLL 1/10/25

MD: What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, we were just off of the RUSH vs. Negro Casas feud. Casas and Blue Panther were just around 55 (Casas half a year older than Panther). It seemed fairly clear that while Panther was still enjoyable in the occasional trios or maestro match, and, of course, when paired up against Casas himself, he was simply outpaced by his archrival.

It made sense. Panther was always charismatic in his own way and there was a sort of seasoned toughness and mastery to him even after he lost his mask. Casas had spent a career without one, however, and he was an absolutely singular talent when it came to expressiveness, body language, actions and reactions. Just by winding up the crowd, he could accomplish more than wrestlers thirty years younger than him who could do the most complex and amazing spots.

Yet here we are at the start of 2025, and it is Blue Panther, at the age of 64, who towers like some sort of wizened warrior king. To call his mask (allowed to him for this one night by the commission) a fountain of youth would be doing an injustice to his own daring and pluck, to Hechicero's ability to create motion and base, but maybe most of all, to the virtue of showing one's age. At times Blue Panther moved amazingly well, but it was those moments where the cracks showed, where he struggled to get from Point A to Point B that truly gave meaning to his efforts.

They were incredibly self-aware throughout. In the primera, Panther was put in a position to escape again and again, including a memorable headstand escape to headscissors. While he was able to showcase those escapes, he was working from underneath given Hechicero's superior youth and strength and his own technical mastery, and he got caught in the Conjuro. He evened things up in the segunda after a slick leap back body press. They were smart with these callbacks. In the tercera, Panther would finally get caught doing that one too many times. On the other hand, a rana that he attempted that got him caught early in the tercera (So that Hechicero could really take over) paid off later on.

Hechicero did control the first half of the tercera after catching Panther with a power bomb. Whereas he might bump through the ropes to set up a dive, he rolled Panther out and draped him over the guardrail instead, controlling and creating an illusion of motion (not that there wasn't a lot from Panther anyway, but every little bit helped). Panther's big comeback, getting the crowd going, standing tall, firing back, was as special as anything in the match and as special as anything we've seen this year so far. 

He followed it up with a dive that didn't quite work but they covered so well, with Hechicero taking over until he let Panther sweep him off the apron so they could get back on track. And anyway, there's no point in remembering that dive considering the two or three other impressive ones Panther hit and Hechicero caught. As noted, a match like this is just a little more impressive for holding together despite the cracks than something that would be plastic and perfect instead. 

And this was impressive from beginning to end, a notch on the belt not just of both wrestlers, but on the power of lucha libre and wrestling itself. Some of it was daring and athleticism and training. So much of it was the carefully crafted illusion of all those things and more. What is magic if not exactly that?

ER: I don't know where Blue Panther found the Fountain of Youth but he found it sometime at the end of 2024 and it's been something. I'm not going to say Panther has looked washed the last several years, he's just looked appropriately His Age. Great performances were more rare. We'd get a showoff spot in a trios, or a fun five minute lightning match, maybe one big singles match a year where he'd step up. Based on his work the last 5 (10?) years, Panther's 2025 has come out of nowhere. Going further, following the first two falls, the tercera also came out of nowhere. The primera and segunda felt like a Hechicero match, which makes sense. How would a 64 year old man show up any bigger in the tercera after a couple cool spots in their first two falls? Had you watched Panther's headstand escapes out of a floatover headscissors in the primera, or his gorgeous floating cannonball in the segunda, suspended in contact with Hechicero's upper torso until they crashed, you would not be expecting him to go insane in the tercera. But that's what happened. 

Hechicero looked like a monster picking on an old man, and Arena Mexico treated him as such. Every trademark Hechicero punishment was altered to be more punishing. He got several rotations on his trapped arm backbreaker and loved the heat he would draw whenever he slugged the legend. When Panther finds back at the end of the segunda, it feels like a last gasp, not necessarily the jumping off point into our special tercera.  Panther looks improbably lithe running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody, submitting Hechicero with a hold that looked like a Stu Hart Dungeon stretch punctuated and tightened by rolling. It felt like a triumph, and I guess I should never underestimate the power of a crowd behind a sympathetic old man, because again, this tercera could not have been anticipated. 

Everything jumps up to the next level in the tercera. Panther is thrown into a tree of woe and headscissors his way out of it, gets placed up top and loudly chopped. The crowd reacts as loud to Hechicero's chop as they do to anything he does all match. When Panther tries to leap off with a headscissors it is blocked, and it feels like a genuine stalemate that pushed things to a crazier place. The headscissors is fought for, the powerbomb is fought for, and when Hechicero's powerbomb wins out it feels more like a concession from Hechicero than winning a battle. A stalemate. Hechicero dropping him felt more like a man realizing he was fighting someone with more juice than he realized. And so, he dials up his inner asshole. 

Hechicero hits a leaping elbow off the apron, kicks Panther in the head several times, then starts punching him in the side of the head. All it does is fire Panther up, and the more fired up Panther gets, the louder Arena Mexico gets. Panther builds to a tope that almost kills him. His head catches on the ropes, he goes down almost head first, and it's one of those fragile moments that makes me love old man wrestlers more than any other kind of wrestler. There is built in sympathy because their bodies do not work the same, even in those moments where their youth has been tapped into, and in moments like these we are collectively reminded that they - and we - are all closer to death. As Blue Panther is making me think about death, he is unafraid, and hits a plancha off the buckles that lands like an anchor, building to a crazy leaping huracanrana off the apron. Panther either trusts Hechicero with his life, or has put aside has already come to terms with his God. 

When Panther tries running up the buckles for another crossbody, repeating what won him the segunda, Hechicero knows exactly what's coming and catches him with a big uranage, drops elbows on him, but takes too long attempting a moonsault. Panther rushes over on his knees for a pin attempt, seeing his shot, viewing the pin as a better chance at victory than locking in a sub, and manages to do so in a way that feels more capitalizing than desperate. His crossbody off the buckles that hit, was caught, but his leaping huracanrana off the buckles that was caught, now hits. Panther has Hechicero crossed up by his tenacity, and just as we seemed shocked at what Panther is suddenly capable of, that counts even more for Hechicero. They fight to the entrance ramp where Panther whips Hechicero into the tall staircase, and Panther hits a plancha off those stairs about 10 steps up, letting the crowd reaction grow with each step he takes, Arena Mexico urging him higher...wait but not that high! 

Hechicero is fighting for his life to keep this spirit down, going to his surefire basics and doing them twice, two running knees that should surely end this all. But his slower submission application almost gets him caught by a tight Panther cradle, and that's when he finally has to get dirty. To stop this from happening again, he removes Panther's mask in one quick swipe as part of his next submission attempt, a sleight of hand to throw the legend for just a brief second, a surprise for the man who has spent 20 minutes surprising everyone, which is all he needs to complete the application and bridge through for a high leveraged pin. With his performance at DEAN~! and the Ultimo Guerrero match still to come, even after witnessing all of this, nobody could have predicted Panther's continued 2025 rise.  

Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero CMLL 8/8/25

MD: The last thing I want to do is downplay the clips. I'm sure most of you saw them. Meltzer went nuts for them even. In this match, Panther did multiple dives of various sorts, be it a flip off the apron, lunging 'ranas, a trust fall from the stage, the over the post bound, and then the top rope electric chair twisting 'rana. Yes, on some of them he had help, be it from his son or Guerrero, but it was an insane stunt show by a man almost 65 years old. And while that's not what I want to talk about here (and if you know me, you know that's not what I want to talk about), the sheer abandon Panther showed in making this match work was remarkable. 

What I want to talk about, however, is how they made it matter. Some of it was going to matter anyway. It would matter by its own nature. You do a dive and it matters, because there's an element of the real to it. There's an element of the daring. There's an element of the spectacular. You do a dive as an old man and it's going to matter even more because all of those things (save maybe for the spectacular) are compounded by an even further element of real, and realness is one of the most powerful forces in pro wrestling.

But it's not the most powerful. Artifice done well will always be more powerful than the real, and when the real that is manifested (be it a resounding chop, a hold with proper technique, or a bump that you can feel from the last row) is framed by the perfect invoking of artifice, that's when wrestling hits the very best. 

And these two are masters of artifice. This was for the MLW Openweight Belt, and they had the pre-match photo. Usually that goes without a hitch, a last remnant of the 80s lucha title match, something held to a higher standard when it came to rules and behavior. Here though, it became a tug of war, with Guerrero the aggressor, hoarding his own belt and his moment to shine. All that got him was a trip to the mat and a bump onto his rear end. He rose enraged and leaped at Panther, ambushing him and tearing off his mask. Because Panther's mask is a ceremonial allowance, Guerrero was able to get all of the heat of the action with none of the penalty, the only time in a CMLL ring where that would be possible. It set the tone perfectly. Every trick in the book underpinned by real and actual substance. Every bump and move underpinned by all of those tricks.

In the Hechicero review, I had suggested that it was the mask that hid Panther's age and gave him some sort of primordial strength, serving as a fountain of youth in its own way. In this match, he more than proved me wrong. 

Still, what sticks with me now a week later and what will stick with me months down the line was that way that they framed every move, the way that they appealed to the crowd. If Panther was going to do a dive, he was going to go out of his way to let every person in that audience (and there were many) know that he was about to do it. He built up their anticipation, churned them into a furor, and then paid it off to their delight. When Guerrero turned things around on him, he did so as theatrically as possible. It wasn't enough to hit a suplex. It wasn't even enough to hit a suplex on the floor. He had to dump Panther back over the guardrail and suplex him back over that. 

And of course, when Panther came back, he made sure to channel the most powerful crowd interaction of the last fifteen years, fingers up in the air to combat Guerrero's roof-raising, Danielson's Yes Chant in full force.

There's always an element of ritual to watching an Ultimo Guerrero match. Ten years ago, I likened it to going to church on a Sunday (just on a Friday night), some of the same spots (and here there was the power bomb counter off the top), but in this match, it was Panther who was guiding the congregation. 

There was escalation and build and sense to all of it too. When Panther tried an early comeback, ref Edgar held the arm to stop a punch in the corner, because while Guerrero could get away with it, in a title match, the tecnico is to be held to a higher standard. Instead of being a hindrance and distraction, Panther used it as a way to build pressure, first for when he finally got shots on Guerrero in the corner later (once again pulled off but here not a hope spot cut off) and then finally when he mounted the turnbuckle defiantly, no... triumphantly, so that the fans could count along with him.

In the end, tasting glory as he did, feeling power that defied age and world-weariness, he flew just a bit too close to the sun. He dove one too many times, a relatively simple back cross body off the ropes. Guerrero rolled through it and won the day, retaining his title. But both men celebrated after the fact, because together they won far more than a simple match.

ER: He wore blue velvet, my god. Would you look at this beautiful man in the most perfect mask in lucha history. Believe it or not, I went into this match without seeing a single highlight. Every single crazy thing that Panther did was unexpected and every single thing got a bigger reaction from me. When I saw Sleepaway Camp for the first time a decade or so ago, I didn't know anything about it. None of my friends did, either, so the reaction by the end of the movie was a room full of humans jumping off their seats screaming. I don't know if I reached the point of screaming during this match, but Blue Panther's Continued Youth Revival did inspire me to shout at my TV no less than five times. Blue Panther was aged for a decade but now he is ageless, but he is ageless in a way that shows his age. His selling, to me, means more than ever, and his selling is better than it's ever been. 

He has this comedic babyface energy that people respond to, and it's amplified by his kind old man visage. Look at him quietly shaking out the cobwebs whenever Guerrero would kick him in the side of the head. He's doing like Milton Berle double takes within a pro wrestling selling framework. Panther's humanity is beautiful. Watching him get kicked around is like seeing somebody fight Mel Brooks. He draws sympathy in ways that would have been impossible 15+ years ago, but his selling didn't just naturally improve because he got old man sympathy, he works to connect with the crowd in ways he never used to. It's in the eyes, it's in his stumble steps, it's in the way he slowly fires up his arms. The selling alone would help him connect with these crowds to huge reaction...but the sudden moveset insanity puts it all over the top. 

Panther's clotheslines and ability to fire up a crowd makes him come off like wrestling's most powerful Rusher Kimura. His cannonball off the apron has surpassed and outlived Negro Casas's Thesz Press as the greatest crazy fired up old man crazy peak. But remember when Panther spent most of his career not doing headscissors and huracanranas and now does crazier huracanranas than ever? Is it the ultimate testament to Ultimo Guerrero's accolades as a lucha base that a 64 year old man trusts him to catch the most highflying he's done in his long career? Blue Panther's leaping huracanrana is my favorite spot of 2025. It's like if Terry Funk had added a moonsault in the 90s but if his moonsault was as great as 2 Cold Scorpio's. I gasp as Panther's head scrapes 1" over the mat, then yelled when his head does the same thing swinging over concrete. I don't think I ever anticipated Blue Panther evolving into a crazy old man Terry Funk persona, but doing it with the old man sympathies combined with youthful adventurousness. Seeing all of Panther's flying is surreal, even more surreal than seeing Panther and Guerrero do a tug of war with a fucking MLW title. A plancha over the ringpost? You've got to be kidding me. I can barely take watching this man take these risks, and I honestly don't know how he does it. 

I don't remember the last time I saw a spot as triumphant as Blue Panther punching Guerrero on the turnbuckles, letting each punch sink in, crowd screaming along, before climbing onto the shoulders of Ultimo. The camera angle made their entire fall happen in slow motion, like Butch and Sundance, Panther being held steady and ready to ride an entire man down. You can see them start to slowly tip forward and know it's the point of no return...but this whole match felt like the point of no return. Blue Panther has committed to this. He's committed to wrestling, he's committed to putting on the craziest performance at an outdoor Arizona shopping center, he's committed to innovating and finding new ways to connect at a point where nobody would blame him for coasting. I love the guy, and I've never loved him more than I do in 2025. 

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: RESURGENT DYNAMITE~! YOUNG ROCCO~! GYPSY JOE~! WOLFIE D~! THE LAND OF GIANTS~!

Mark Rocco vs. Terry Jowett WoS 5/24/73

MD: Amazing historical find by Allan here. This has to be the earliest Rocco we have, and maybe even by a couple of years, right? He was only around 22 here, already a three year pro. And it's fascinating to see what he was doing at this age and how he was presented. Jowett had ten years experience on him and Rocco, despite winning out in the end with a near tilt a whirl slam off the ropes, was the underdog and it was ultimately an upset. 

Along the way, there was a ton of entertaining spots, though maybe not the exhausting (in a good way, in small doses) Rocco trademark I'd expect. All the explosiveness and dynamism in how he hit stuff and took stuff but not consistent, if that makes sense. Jowett was a great counter to his antics, and I'm personally sympathetic to his hairline (Rocco's was shaggy and he already had the trademark mustache).

There was a rough around the edges feel to this, that would, in years to come, conform into Rocco's edge of your seat style. We come in during the third here (and leave two rounds later with the finish) and there are lots of quick and deep pin attempts. After one escape where Rocco just sort of stumbled out to the crowd's amusement, he was quick to go for a joking handshake, great instincts in not losing his focus and in keeping the crowd engaged, in making it seem like they were seeing a show instead of making one of their own out of what they were watching. 

Some of the comedy spots were great, whether it be Jowett booting Rocco on a drop down, or criss crossing his own limbs and rolling about so Rocco couldn't get an advantage, or my favorite, when Rocco started his hyperactive roperunning only for Jowett to run in place instead, making Rocco out to be the fool. Very funny stuff. 

Rocco would get dirtier as the match went on. Interesting, after he started clubbering for the first time and drew a public warning, Walton chastised him for it, not for the cheating itself, but because he didn't earn much from the warning. He only took over really when he dropped a knee (legal apparently) on Jowett's throat, and then only until the end of the round as he leaned in on the arm while he could. Lots of imagination in both his offense and his bounding and bumping (one time fliping all the way over and sailing between the ropes) and towards the end, he had these cobra clutch ripcords I can't remember seeing much otherwise. 

Really just a great historical snapshot of one of the most dynamic wrestlers of all time early into his development. One of my favorite finds this year. 

ER: Remember how much we, as an online contingent of pro wrestling writers and historians of Noticers used to criticize Rollerball Rocco? He was the British embodiment of the same criticisms we held towards Kurt Angle, the all flash-no substance, looks cool-means nothing type of wrestler who fell out of favor with us. I don't think we could have anticipated the Kurt Angle/Dean Malenko style of constant movement detached from meaning would become the predominant pro wrestling style in every company in the world, so much so that things have looped back around. Now, watching even the "worst" era of Mark Rocco indulgence gives me new respect for his style and ability. 

The first British wrestling I was exposed to was a Johnny Saint/Rollerball Rocco match and that match was at least a decade after this one, and it is an entirely different Rocco. It should be, he's incredibly young and only three years into his career. As Matt says, he is the underdog in the match and commentary frequently talks about him like a baby who they impressed made it even this deep into a wrestling match. But he does not wrestle like a stupid little baby, he wrestles like tough guy with a real cool command of physics. His snapmares play like violent offense, his timing is impeccable, and his strikes always looked damaging. He was adept at comedy (Matt mentioned the very funny rope running spot where he ran back and forth as Jowett mocked him like Bugs Bunny) and really the only inexperience I saw was how he didn't always seem to know what to do next, never capitalizing on snapmares and kind of waiting around for Jowett to stand back up (which is another hilarious Kurt Angle parallel). I thought that actually worked for his young mustachioed punk character as it made him look like he was big timing the veteran Jowett. Rocco's bumping for the finish was excellent, a real rewind worthy moment where he back bumps and then handsprings back through the ropes feet first and takes another pratfall on the floor, a comedy bump that looked like either the greatest lucha rudo comedy bump or the payoff to a John Cleese bit.    

The Land of Giants (Skywalker Nitron/Butch Masters) vs. New Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith) AJPW 12/1/90

MD: I'm pretty well suited to know what's new and what's not new from 89-91 AJPW or so, and I'm pretty certain this classics drop is new. We're going to cover it anyway because that's what we do, cover Land of Giants matches. We get about six minutes out of the nine here, with a clip in the middle that annoying means we lost the transition to heel offense, but you can imagine it for the most part. 

And honestly, I liked this a lot. I have issues with late era Dynamite but this was one of the best performances I've seen out of him from 89-90. The most important thing is that he needs opponents he can't just chew up and you can't chew these guys up. They're huge. This started with Smith vs Nitron and I thought they actually matched up well, too well. Some of that was Nitron not working big enough but some of it was Smith not working small enough. He wasn't acting like he was in there with a giant. Even though Masters worked bigger, he'd still do the same thing against him later. 

Dynamite knew how to get the most of them though. When he came in, he had some awesome looking stuff, a fistdrop from an angle that you don't usually see it, a headbutt followed right by a jawbreaker. He was punching up and he was valiant for doing so and he wanted everyone in the crowd to know it. We get the clip then and come back to Masters working over the back, and it's honestly one of the best sells for a bearhug I've seen in a long time. I've criticized Omega's selling of his diverticulitis lately because while it's probably accurate, real to how he feels, it comes off as hokey. Dynamite knew what back pain felt like; he was probably feeling it there depending on how much he had chosen to dull it that night, but he was able to project it to the back row in the best of ways. Nitron's bearhug wasn't quite as good but the effect was still the same. 

The comeback was pretty huge as Dynamite fired up to the top as Masters was inexplicably headed up there to put him away and they did a huge superplex. Smith came in and cleaned house. Finally Smith slammed Masters and Dynamite came off the top with the headbutt much to the crowd's delight and they won as simple as could be. Not sure what was in those lost three minutes (when we came back in Masters was beating on Dynamite on the floor) but the six we got were pretty good. 

ER: This was probably the most entertaining Land of Giants match I've seen, and it was because of a more interesting and risky Butch Masters performance than I expected, and a downright fantastic "late era" Dynamite performance. This whole thing was totally worth it just to see Dynamite as a sincerely scary looking man going hard as fuck after Masters. Dynamite's face is scarred, his body is stiff, but the man feels like a threat at all times. Johnny Smith was at his beefiest in this era, so it actually works when he's throwing down with Nitron and Masters, but this is Dynamite's match. Dynamite hits an incredible fistdrop on Masters, a lunging fist torpedoed into Masters' throat, so perfect that I watched it half a dozen times. I would have said this match was incredible if everything else in it looked like dogshit. After that fistdrop he throws Masters to the floor so hard that it turns into what has to be the biggest bump of his career. Dynamite is great at running face first into boots and was good at drawing sympathy as both Giants take him to The Land of Bearhugs, but the big shock is him hitting a superplex on Masters. I have no idea what Butch was going to do up there, but whatever it was I wasn't expecting him to get suplexed off. When Smith tags in, Masters leans all the way into a stiff missile dropkick to his upper chest and gets wrecked by a Smith clothesline that I think hit harder than all of us expected, especially Masters. 

The icing on the cake was Dynamite hitting a flat out disgusting diving headbutt, smashing his forehead into Masters' teeth. You can see a knot already starting to form on the right side of Dynamite's head and Masters lies on the mat holding his face. Dynamite looked and wrestling like a pilled up psychopath, in the best way. That headbutt was one of the meanest things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. Smith sets Masters up over halfway across the ring and Dynamite wants him there. He does a shoot headbutt to a man's face and Masters has no idea what hit him. It is Dynamite's head whipped into the entire side and mouth of Butch Masters, like a soccer hooligan leaping off the bleachers. 

Wolfie D/Steven Dunn vs. Gypsy Joe/Danny D Evansville 9/20/00

MD: I don't know. Sometimes you just want to see Wolfie D (here in full Slash mode) go up against Gypsy Joe? And there was some of the early, with a feeling out process and then the first (shorter) of a double heat after Wolfie took Joe down with a hairpull. Pretty simple control stuff with Danny getting drawn in to allow for the blind switches. Joe eventually made a comeback off of a whip reversed and teased a stinkface maybe, because it was 2000 after all. No punches here though. That's important because those were saved to the end.

Danny got leaned on for most of the rest of the match, and it made sense because even though Dunn was a pro and Wolfie a pro's pro I'm not sure you wanted them stooging for this lanky guy with dubious agility all that much. But it was a joy to watch Wolfie just destroy someone and they worked him into a few solid hope spots, including out of a bodyscissored full nelson. When Joe did make it back in (on a hot tag which was earned but not quite maximized re: the timing) the punches came out and they went into a pretty quick roll up win. You never quite know what you're going to get with the Bryan Turner uploads until you get there but this was pretty well worked overall.

Read more!

70s Joshi on Wednesday: Tomi! Nancy!

74. 1979.11.XX2 - 02 Nancy Kumi vs. Tomi Aoyama

K: Unfortunately the Golden Pair vs. Queen Angels series of matches from 1978 are unavailable except some very brief clips, but that’s enough to know that these two are established rivals meeting again in singles competition.

There’s a very gradual pace to this that’s a bit uneven. Sometimes it does feel like they’re building up to something, I thought Aoyama’s armwork was pretty cool and so were the battles over the leglocks and figure four. There’s a moment where Aoyama’s getting really feisty about it and pushes away the referee when Nancy’s in the ropes and he tries to break it up. But the moments are all a bit disconnected from each other and it just feels too much like they’re stalling for time rather than stalling to gain some kind of advantage. It would be better if one of the wrestlers was primarily responsible for the stalling and having the other trying to get to keep the match going so you could create some narrative tension with it, rather than them both just doing it. Even when they do some action, for example right at the start they take turns to kick each other in the back of the leg and take a slightly off-timed backbump, it just ends in a reset.

Zooming in a bit though, the work was mostly good. The holds were worked quite tightly and were believable, as well as most of the transitions. They managed to establish a bit of a contrast between Nancy going for more brute force whereas Tomi was more flashy. A good moment for Nancy was when she lifted Tomi up in the atomic drop position and then just planted her straight down on the mat with a look of annoyance. Things did heat up well in the last few minutes, but the lack of a finish hurt it. It felt like they should have started the “finishing” stretch a bit earlier so there was more tension going into the time limit, but it being so late in the match it never really felt like either had gained enough of an advantage to win anyway.

Tough match to assess really. Felt like a super flawed and primitive version of something that could have been great.

**3/4

MD: I thought this was supposed to be the finals of the challenge series to see who would face Jackie but of course it was inconclusive (a 30 minute draw). Maybe this was just part of the series as we still have a Kumano vs Ikeshita match ahead of us. It was pretty heated all things together. Rivalry between the teams or no, this felt to me like two people who had been honed into razor sharp steel by fighting off the Black Army for the last few years. Aoyama had been elevated even as a singles but Kumi felt elevated here too. 

I did see a bit more of an advantage by Aoyama but some of that might have been due to the ten minute cut. Aoyoma had pressed her advantage hard trying to hit her back press off the top rope (rope not turnbuckle) and top turnbuckle but neither worked and she had controlled the arm. When we came back from the cut, Kumi was briefly in control. Then, though, Aoyama went to the leg and really did a number on it. When she had the figure four on and then Kumi did finally get to the ropes, she kicked the ref away a couple of times. That’s how heated all of this was, babyface vs babyface or no.

But all of this allowed Kumi to come back and attack Aoyama’s leg and get her own figure four. I thought her selling was quite good as she took back over right until they both decided to drop it for a bit (though Kumi was able to stay in it during Aoyama’s last press by sniping at the leg once more in desperation). Aoyama hit the Queen Rocket for a very dramatic 18 count where Kumi just barely made it back in but by then time was almost up and Kumi survived one last suplex and it ended up a draw. The cut was kind of brutal here since it was one third of the match but I thought what we did get was one of the better singles matches we’d seen in a while.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Zarak! Bete Humaine! Di Santo! Mores!

Zarak/La Bete Humaine vs Michel Di Santo/Eddy Mores 9/30/81

MD: Let's just say that this is a rare, rare match that took place on what is undoubtedly one of the most important days of my life. I guess I'm glad Zarak and La Bete were doing their thing on that date somewhere in the world. Couple of real characters here. Zarak was, of course, Dave Larsen, aka Batman, who passed away October of 2024. You have to love just watching him move as he puts theatricality in every step. I have no idea if this is the same La Bete that we saw in 71 and I'm not going to go back to compare/contrast but he's a guy in basically a cowskin costume and mask but one that can, when he is called upon to do so, work the style very naturally. Di Santo is a few years older than we last saw him and I'm not too sure about Eddy Mores except for he's older and dubbed the Captain.

Start and end of this were quite good but I thought it had some issues in the middle. We'll get to those. The best stuff in here was when La Bete was really wrestling. Some very slick exchanges around wristlocks and what not, especially with Mores. He'd generally then fly across the ring with an axe handle or put on a choke before they'd go back to the wrestling. So long as the balance was there, it generally worked and was probably additive overall. Zarak was more prone to picking his spots, laying in a kick or a knee and prancing around in a subdued but affected way. He had some nice, caring interactions with La Bete which again were additive overall. 

When they were in control, it was a bit too choke and grind heavy without enough variety or actual heat. Part of the problem there was the referee who would get in the way and allow for tags when they should have been building heat again or to cut off a comeback without any real narrative gain to it. Just too overbearing overall. Both fall finishes were good though with Zarak and La Bete taking two in a row. Solid ceiling on this one but the floor was just a bit too low maybe. 

SR: I missed La Bete Humaine during the last French mega-watch, so this is actually my first time seeing him. This is in colour so we see that La Bete Humaine has white-brown fur, and kind of looks like a cow, but his head is dark and furry and kind of reminds me of the wolfman. Is he a cow? Does he dress himself in cow fur? That doesn't seem very beastlike. Regardless this is a pretty fun match. La Bete Humaine definitely has the vibe of something that Survival Tobita or Goro Tsurumi would face. But this is a very mannered French match. The two masked monsters bump around for a lot of snappy armdrags, and the two technicos are a lot of fun.  Eddy Mores has a cool vibe with his greying look and being really athletic, Michel de Santo is a bit non-descript but he is as solid as any French technico. They both were fast, technically skilled, and a had a lot of fun comebacks against the monstrous onslaught of La Bete Humaine and Zarak. The two masked men were good as you expect from French heels. La Bete doesn't bring quite as much flavor as you expect, he does like the claw hold a lot which is unique for Catch and he would do these graceful technical arm takedowns into claw holds because it's France, daddy. He even looked quite bumbling like when he throw one of the faces to his own corner accidentally and then was stuck adjusting his mask. Not everyone can be the Anderson brothers. In the end it was a fun match with a lot of cool wrestling and the funny sight of La Bete Humaine will Zarak did his best to maintain his classy swaggering. Technicos looked very good. I wouldn't mind seeing more of either of them here, and I imagine La Bete Humaine might be pretty fun in a singles match so I'll probably have to go back and watch that at some point. 

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 8/11 - 8/17

AEW Collision 8/16/25

The Technical Spectacle (Nigel McGuinness vs Daniel Garcia vs Hechicero vs Lee Moriarty)

MD: My dislike for 4-way matches is pretty well documented at this point. I went into detail back during Double Or Nothing a few years ago. In short, 4-ways are the ultimate immersion killer. They're quite possibly the least organic form of pro wrestling ever invented. They're excuses for big spots and big set pieces that are elaborately set up in ways that have nothing to do with winning a match. They force wrestlers to act outside of their established norms, often contriving them to do things in parallel in a way that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. You end up with people laying around for far longer than they would in any other match and it all becomes a muddle with too many cooks and too many ideas. At best, you get some cool and memorable things, but we're so desensitized to that anyway that it barely registers after the fact. 

Quick pause on that. I've been watching a lot of Newborn UWF/UWF 2.0 lately. It's almost all on YouTube so I suggest people go and do the same. It's helped me refine my thoughts about shoot style and how best to engage with it. I'd seen my share of UWF 1.0, but that's so centered around a few characters and they were still figuring out the style so that you're not necessarily watching a distillable shoot style match so much as you're watching a Super Tiger or Fujiwara match. With UWF 2.0 though, everything is more locked in and refined. You can best understand the matches along three axes: technique/physical attributes (this is self-evident), opportunity (what openings exist in any single moment and how can a wrestler take advantage of them), and personality (who are these people and how do they approach the fight). You can't necessarily look at things through a traditional narrative (shine/heat/comeback) lens. Instead, by trying understanding those three things you can jump in and see how, let's say a smaller fighter apt to tire his opponent out and fight defensively like Shigeo Miyato will face off against a larger fighter who has to make use of his size and press hard early (but that might still get one powerful blow in late) like Tatsuo Nakano. Who are these people? What drives them? How does that create opportunities and how do they respond to them? What opportunities do those responses then create in the moment and throughout the match?

Still with me? Ok, so maybe people wouldn't necessarily define the Technical Spectacle as shoot style (maybe they would), but it was at least a sibling or cousin to it, and so many of those same tenets operated here. Unlike almost every other 4-way I've ever seen, this was set up around opportunities and personalities. Nigel carries the weight of the world on his shoulders knowing full well the possibility of every impossible opportunity (a different sort of opportunity, but related), having had so many of his dreams slip through his fingers. Garcia is watching his own dreams start to slip as well, stumbling through a series of failures and wanting to wrench back his future. Moriarty sees himself as the present, the time-tested Pure Champ, but without the recognition or respect he deserves. And Hechicero is just a malignant spirit, Bandido and a title shot ahead of him, a wretched, brilliant creature that just wants to ply his craft and hurt people. 

In parts of the match technique drove things and the wrestlers grappled evenly, looking to create opportunities. But when those opportunities arose, it was their personalities that defined the action, this a direct opposite of so many 4-ways where the necessary over the top spots override and overwrite personality. Moriarty was the one who went out of his way to get multiple people in a submission at once, leaning into his bravado and swagger. Garcia always had an eye out for what Nigel was doing, seeing him as the biggest threat, as the one he'd never faced off against (only teamed with). And Nigel? Nigel may be a sympathetic figure given his journey, but there's something of the rogue within him, of the scoundrel, but even more than that, the stone-faced realism of a man that has been through life's wringer. When his opponents were in simultaneous submissions, he laid in an opportunistic stomp to break it up. In a similar moment, he dropped an elbow on Garcia. And then, when it seemed like Garcia had his Scorpion Deathlock on while he himself had the London Dungeon locked in, he threw a nasty, chippy, possibly even underhanded elbow, flooring Garcia. It wasn't personal; in fact, it was even regretful on some level, but it was life, the only life Nigel knew and the only life that he could possibly have left.

And all throughout, the technique was as compelling as the personalities. Handfighting, moments of leverage, tricked out takedowns, lightning fast pin attempts that never felt like needless waterfall spots existing for their own sake. They solved the problem of someone laying out by almost constantly having wrestlers paired off, and here it worked because success for one wrestler didn't mean a headdrop or huge bump but instead gaining advantage over a limb or locking in a hold. 

While watching this, I had the sense of something incredibly rare in 2025: the feeling of watching something brand new. Usually things that are touted as new are instead just "more." Bigger spots, more excess, more people, more risk, brighter colors and flashier fireworks; adding another few floors to a tower that already exists. Here though, even the foundation felt new. This feels like something that could be done again with the same wrestlers or different ones, with huge stakes, incredible techniques, and opportunities driven by personality.

They could have done this the old way, could have had all of the holds be tandem things, could have done so many more suplexes, could have slipped in a tower of doom spot and some dives, could have gone around the world a few times with all of their finishers. That would have been safe as crowds tend to be more favorable towards those things than I am. This was not safe. It was brave and it was daring and in its own way, it was brilliant. So much of that was on the courage to trust that the crowd would come along, that their own skill and personality and commitment would win the day. But win the day it did, and in doing so they broke ground on something that felt brand new and very worthwhile.

CMLL 8/15/25

MJF vs Zandokan, Jr

MD: Another data point has arrived from Arena Mexico and the results are conclusive: the system works. Pro wrestling is a wonderful, gripping, engaging, vibrant art form, and it is as strong as ever in a fabled place where the fans can live and breath on every heroic and villainous act and find exhilaration in every single punch (yes, there are punches there too, not just chops and forearms).

The combination of MJF, with Jon Cruz at his side, in Arena Mexico, is the best act in wrestling today, and so much of that is due to the sheer commitment to everything that's always worked, the timeless, universal elements of pro wrestling, an appeal to the heart based on morality and identity and pride. 

This replicated a number of the elements from MJF's previous appearances in Arena Mexico, most especially the recent title win over Averno, but in every way, it took the act even further. Now Cruz was out dressed like Abraham Lincoln, still taking editorial license on MJF's insults stretching them this way and that, as his twisted, fawning C-3PO. Zandokan's response was perfect, shutting it all down instantly so the match could begin and getting a crowd that was already inclined to support him due to his upstart rudo charisma fully behind him. But then, of course, Max hit the floor to massive boos. The game had begun.

And what a game it was. At Zandokan's first touch, Max rolled back out and complained (on the mic with translation) about hair pulling. Then, of course, later, when it came time to cut Zandokan off, he pulled the hair and mask himself. Perfect hypocritical pro wrestling symmetry meant to get heat. When Max was in control, he made sure to punctuate each and every offensive move or cut off by rubbing it in the face of the fans, and they booed huge. Whenever Zandokan fired back, MJF sold for the back row and the back row was duly elated. Cruz intervened all the more which meant that when it was time for Zandokan to really come back, Cruz got to bump huge for him as well. Chekhov's Gun was loaded and fired and the universe was placed in perfect balance. 

The dive, when it came, was singular and spectacular, smashing MJF who had been draped on the guardrail (again a likely unintentionally but wholly meaningful parallel to how he lounged on it when he ducked out of the ring a first time). And they build to an exciting series of finish attempts before Max had to go an extra mile to get the ref out of position so he could hit another foul and steal the win, a payoff to the match and a set up for the post-match Mistico challenges to come. 

With so many different opponents each with their own quirks and history (imagine him against Blue Panther or Ultimo Guerrero or Barbaro Cavernario, etc.), this match, as much as anything else, was proof positive that the act isn't just one spectacular firework meshing old and new, but instead something with real legs and that can bring real joy each with each and every outing. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: GARZA~! DRAGON~! BLONDY~! CHICANA~! LOVER~! GUAJARDO

Blue Fish/El Sanguinario/Gato del Ring vs. Hector Garza/Ruben Juarez Jr./Franky CMLL 1992

MD: It's a real testament to the footage we've gotten over the last few months that it's been so long since I chipped away at Roy's Monterrey uploads, but here we are. This is a blurry, staticy undercard match with some local guys (like Blue Fish) and Garza as the star of the future very early into his tenure. And it was fun straightforward lucha trios action.

The rudos controlled as we came in, really laying a beating on Franky. The commentary noted how he was such a flyer that he even flew well when he was taking a back body drop. He flew well into the stands when they tossed him in and followed it up with a chair too. Nice mugging from the rudos, solid stuff. The comeback was spirited like you'd want with Garza looking great to the point where Franky couldn't quite keep up. He would throw a dropkick off the apron to the floor in an attempt to do so though.

Then the tercera had holds broken up with matter-of-fact hard shots. It worked well and built to a big Garza flip dive before Jaurez got the win. My favorite bit in it was Juarez not able to get a monkey flip going and Garza having to leap behind him to flip them both. Pretty novel spot. I like Garza from later in the decade fine even if I think his real strength was as a rudo stooge later on, but there was something dynamic and exciting about him all the way back here. 

Fabuloso Blondy/Rick Patterson/Sangre Chicana vs. Ultimo Dragon/Cesar/Apolo Dantes CMLL 1992

MD: This is one of those ones that we'd probably never really even look at otherwise. It has a big chunk missing due to static in the middle and a Mil Mascaras commercial between the segunda and tercera. But it also has Ultimo Dragon doing maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen him do, rearing back and hitting a Yoshiaki Fujiwara style headbutt onto Rick Patterson. 

That was during the tecnico comeback in the primera. They'd been literally pulling Apolo (listing says their father Alfonso, but I think it's Apolo) apart until the tecnicos rushed in. Blondy was post-hair match but he and Patterson made for two solid big lugs with Chicana to add the flair of violence. Post-static we come right back to Blondy clocking Apolo with a chair and the tercera was a beatdown exacerbated by the fact that Cesar had decided he wasn't going to get along with his brother and Dragon. Instead, after watching for a bit, and right when Dragon was making a comeback, he clocked him allowing the rudos to pin him. Post-match he tossed a chair right in Dragon's face and paraded around the ring. 

ER: I really liked all the tecnicos going after Rick Patterson's meaty hamstring. Cesar ends the primera grabbing him by the chin and throwing two swift kicks, Ultimo sweeps his leg out with one in the segunda, and Patterson is very entertaining selling them. He treats them lethally and it shuts him down every time. When Dantes hit his, Patterson didn't even retaliate, he just got up and limped exaggeratedly back to the apron. It's funny seeing Blondy and Patterson in there with the smaller Cesar and Dragon, and I think Apolo was really good at selling the chokes and clubs of Blondy, getting dragged around on his knees and choked with a cable on the apron. The Cesar turn on Dragon was angry enough (for reasons I do not understand) that I'd love to see a singles match that surely doesn't exist...yet. I wanted to see Dragon work BIG against the big men but that didn't happen. Matt is 100% right about his Fujiwara headbutt, though. I have watched hundreds of Ultimo Dragon matches and I have never seen him rear back and headbutt someone like that. Funny, in classic Dragon style, that this violent piece of offense came one minute in and nothing else he did matched that energy. 

Bronco/Latin Lover/Valente Fernandez vs. Sanguinario/Rene Guajardo Jr/Canadian Butcher CMLL 1992 

MD: Pretty complete match with a few interesting wrinkles. Pairings for the primera were Bronco and Guajardo, Lover and Sanguinario, and Fernandez and Butcher, but we got a lot of Fernandez and Guajardo throughout too. They were pretty perfectly matched up even in look and both were over. Pretty much everyone was over here. Even Butcher (Brett Como/Black Dragon/Ultimate Dragon) was over due to his very unique look (a mullet and a mohawk, but the mohawk was just one patch of hair gelled to stick up two feet like a unicorn horn) and a pretty astonishing 1992 Monterrey Shooting Star Press towards the end of the segunda.

Bronco danced about and Guajardo had some great, great punches, the sort of punches that make you want to ask around and say "Hey, do we know as a community that Rene Guajardo, Jr. had some great punches?" because I don't remember people ever talking about that. A lot of the story here however, was making Lover look good. This was shortly after the gimmick's debut and the match went out of its way to make him look strong. Certainly whenever he was in, women screamed, and there was one point in between caidas where he was getting beaten on the floor that two stepped forward to protect him. He ultimately had the comeback (or at least set it off) and was the last man standing after Bronco wiped out on a brutal missed dive where Butcher just walked away and they pinned Fernandez. It was ultimately three-on-one at that point but he got his share of near-falls before Sanguario finally got the better of roll up reversals. Fernandez still felt like the star of the moment but there was a torch passing element here. 

Read more!

70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jumbo! Jaguar! Victoria! Gomez! Rios! Ikeshita!

73. 1979.11.XX2 - 01 Ayumi Hori, Rimi Yokota & Victoria Fujimi vs. Norma Gomez, Raquel Rios & Yumi Ikeshita

K: This didn't go anywhere I didn't expect from the start, but still, it felt like it overachieved somewhat considering it included two unfamiliar Mexican wrestlers and a very green Ayumi Hori, who actually got more focus than anyone.

The first half of the match was mostly a drawn out face-in-peril segment for Hori, who is so outmatched that she never really even attempts to make a comeback so much as just try to make it to her her corner to tag back out. It makes you wonder why her partners let her tag in in the first place. There's an interesting moment when she almost makes it to her corner but Ikeshita just covers her. Not a pin attempt, they're clearly in the ropes, but it just stops Hori from making a tag. She's looked pretty weak on offense in previous matches (which really is a drawback when you're the biggest wrestler on the roster) so at least this role avoids that. She at least does a decent job of repeatedly reaching out her hand to signal she needs to tag out, although in one moment she reaches out her hand to the wrong corner. Maybe Ikeshita’s face-targetting offense disoriented her.

When Victoria Fujimi gets to tag in she's immediately on the receiving end of more offence, these tags are almost always very heel dominating. She is established as being a bit above Hori in the hierarchy though by letting to fight back a bit and things spill out to the outside for some rudimentary chaos.

Things pick up when Ikeshita is back in the ring and is taking everyone out with a metal bucket. After that's taken off her though she more than holds her own with the slickest moves of anyone, and finishes things with a fantastic looked-like-a-deadlift pile-driver that the second she hit it I thought had better be the finish as I don't remember seeing her hitting a better one. It's just a bit of a shame that Yokota had so little to do here when she already looks like the best wrestler on her team and is started to get hyped up on commentary. Solid showing though.

**3/4

MD: Some interesting commentary notes I picked up on. They indicated that Fujimi was probably the leader of her team since she was most seasoned. And they likened the future Jaguar to Mariko Akagi and said that she was following her path. 

No big surprises for this one. It’s interesting to see Hori work from underneath because other than people having to punch up at her, they treat her just like anyone else. Rios had some size and they had a brief beatdown but it wasn’t really a Clash of the Titans. When Hori’s on offense, she just crashes into people though. I liked Gomez more here, even if she just choked and shoved a finger into someone’s throat for the most part. 

Primarily and unsurprisingly, this was an Ikeshita showcase. They always are unless Kumano’s there to share the load. A headbutt to take over, dragging a face over the mat, the obtuse angled slams. Things broke down and the babyfaces had more luck after that (after a brief series of bucket shots), but only so much, as Ikeshita reversed a tombstone attempt and absolutely planted Yokota with a sit down pile driver for the win. Not as much substance to this than if it went longer but you may not have gotten that substance in the first place, so I’m not complaining too much. It was solid for how long it went.

Read more!

Tuesday is French Catch Day: Manneveau! Gessat! Aubriot! Bayle!

Les Blousons Noirs (Marcel Manneveau/Claude Gessat) vs Remy Bayle/Dan Aubriot 1/2/66

MD: More studio catch. We have this match in a different setting but I don't remember it well. I think, at the time, I didn't realize Bayle became Der Henker either and I imagine this is shorter which probably is a positive overall. As a slice of life thing, they have Couderc's grown up (or close to it) son introduce him, which I thought was a nice touch.

Match itself was a very good tag of its kind. Bayle had strength and technique. Aubriot had speed and technique. The Blousons pulled hair, came in illegally, controlled the ring, double teamed when they could. Thus there was a balance. Everyone worked into everyone else's spots well. It's a testament to Bayle that he could do both this and the Henker act. 

The stooging spots were all entertaining. The dogged offense by the Blousons was properly nasty and hit just the right note of enhanced reality (one pulling the rope up while the other draped the neck of his opponent over it). Gessat would miss a punch and bump on it but Manneveau was the one who would go way over the top with his reactions. Everything went wild midway through as a Blouson took a bump over the top from the ref (after tossing his opponent out) and they went towards the stands putting the cameras in danger. Just nice use of the studio. 

Great finishing stretch too as Aubriot really flexed his speed with rope running and ranas and what not. They did a double ko where they crashed into each other but Aubriot just beat the ten count (a finish I've rarely seen in any French Catch, let alone a tag) and there was much celebrating. Very fun stuff. 

SR: This was another match in that studio setting. A lot of quietness early on with no fans in sight, and they kind of wrestled in a suitable manner. A bit subdued but with plenty of neat wrestling going on. It never ceases to amaze me how many cool touches these guys would seamlessly work into an exchange, such as the blocked hammerlock that lead into a slick backslide. Even modern worker rarely think of things like that. They moved more towards the stooging, bumping and heel shenanigans that we associate with French tags and at that point the crowd came alive. Ridiculously well executed, down to even minute details such as Mannevau's headlock aiming the face perfectly at the camera. Things got more unruly with one of the babyfaces using the referee to flip out the ring and then the fight spilling into the audience ranks, which is not something we had quite seen like that before I think. They wrapped it up with some slick exchanges for a somewhat (18 minutes) match. A good match, not mega outstanding but definitely worth watching just for the clear look at the wrestling alone.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/4 - 8/10

AEW Collision 8/9/25

Hangman Adam Page/JetSpeed (Mike Bailey/Kevin Knight) vs LFI (Rush/Dralistico/Beast Mortos)

MD: There's a fine line between genius and madness, likewise greatness and disaster. Sometimes the qualities that make wrestlers stand out, make them dynamic and brilliant, are also the factors that can drag a match down in excess, that can muddle a match in chaos and confusion. Likewise, if properly channeled, some of the worst qualities on paper can channeled into strengths. Sometimes all that matters is the sheer intensity of the qualities at play.

RUSH is as visceral as any wrestler alive. He's a seething, fuming, tinder box of pride (ego might even be a better word), aggression, and a lack of impulse control. He blurs the line better than most wrestlers of this century. You might be frustrated by a Rush match, but you're never going to be bored by it. If anything, you're going to be irritated because he manages to shut enough doors that you don't get all the matchups you want to see with him. Dralistico has his own issues, a tendency to go into business for himself and leave the match's purpose behind, a lack of cooperation, a certain bent for unevenness when it comes to how cleanly he hits his most spectacular offense. It's hard to say much negative about Mortos but sometimes I think he gives too much too soon and works too small. For instance, the tornillo is spectacular but it's not the sort of thing I want to see every match. It should be a huge deal when he goes to his higher agility offense. 

So many possibilities, so many things to be controlled for, some of them being entirely human instincts and emotions and not just something you can move around on a board.  

This was Hangman's homecoming, a rare Collision appearance, an attraction six-man tag main eventing a show just down the street from where he went to college. While there was an existing issue between JetSpeed and LFI, Hangman was here as the ace, the champion, the sheriff who's sick and tired of all of the injustice around him. He's a lead babyface who's going to support the rest of the locker room with his stare, and his words, and if need be, his fists. 

And it's a testament to how this was put together that it all worked exactly as it should have, strengths accentuated, weaknesses (or at least potential disruptions) channeled for the good of the match. Let's look at Rush, for instance, one of the most exciting potential main eventers I can imagine, and certainly a main eventer in his own mind. He was laser focused for Hangman for much of the match. Of course he wanted to go toe to toe with the champ. Early on, he gave just enough. In their strike exchange, he often had advantages, but he took them by switching gears first. He switched from forearms to chops when Hangman was starting to get the better of him. It created the illusion of being in control when he actually wasn't. Later on, he wiped Hangman out on the apron for absolutely no reason, exactly the sort of thing you think he'd do; at face value, it didn't fit into the match, not really, but it set up the big final comeback, as he tried it late in the match and Hangman caught him and nailed him, allowing for the hot tag and the setup for the finish. 

Likewise Dralistico. It doesn't always work out this way, but given the chaotic and bombastic feel of the match and opponents who could do things that were spectacular enough to stand out, that he was uncooperative at times, that he was blustery at times, that he played to the crowd at times, that things seemed a little rough around the edges at times, all added to the gritty fight feel. At times, Knight was forced to contort his body this way or that in order to try to hit a piece of an offense and that made everything feel all the more organic, believe it or not. And Mortos? Well, yes, he hit his dive, but it was perfectly placed and he took out both of JetSpeed in the process, before helping to base for Rush's subsequent dive. That made it feel larger than life in a way that you can't quite accomplish in a singles match against a smaller opponent. 

It was there all the way to the finish. Hangman got the better of Dralistico, planting him down and then scooting backwards to skin the cat and set up the Buckshot. He had to fight off first Mortos and then Rush on the apron, however. That allowed for Dralistico to recover, only for the math to play out and JetSpeed to take him out as well. They followed up with dives of their own (clearing the table for the finish, the real purpose for dives, being means and not ends, in so many lucha trios matches). And then Hangman could flip back over the rope to victory. In wrestling, anything is possible with enough thought and care. Likewise, the opposite. Negatives can be channeled into positives. Positives can decay and mutate into disaster. Thankfully though, this match threaded the needle and maximized possibilities extremely well.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: DESTROYER~! WISKOWSKI~! WRIGHT~! CASWELL~! CHALL~! DIETER~!

Hanover 9/10/80 

Le Grand Vladimir vs. Karl Dauberger

MD: The show itself started with a big AJPW Start Of Tour style celebration with everyone in the ring. This opener went to a draw over a number of rounds but it was good for what it was and the crowd was into it. For the first round and a half or so, Vladimir would control on the arm or with a cravat and Dauberger would counter with a similar hold and the crowd would go nuts for it. Eventually, Vlad got frustrated and started roughing him up. The round breaks and ref carding only offered so much succor as Vlad would keep up the onslaught after the bell or charge right in at the start of the round. 

Dauberger would, however, copy the formula of the holds and fire back to the crowd's delight. Then Vlad would get a cheapshot in and they'd repeat. Basic but incredibly effective wrestling and everything looked good. My favorite bit was Vlad picking up Dauberger by the back of his singlet and slamming him onto the mat repeatedly. It's the sort of thing you saw Andre do occasionally but rarely from anyone else. Things built to Dauberger knocking Vlad first out of the ring and then back in towards the end of the last round, but it was only a moral victory as they ran out of time. I was ok seeing this one go because I was eager to get to Martin, Destroyer, and Wright/Wiskowski but it's not as if it wore out its welcome on the way.

ER: What is this little game Karl Dauberger plays with the referee? This little hand game? What kind of bit are they working that I have, until now, not seen? When Dauberger enters the ring he goes to shake the ref's hand and the ref retreats like a germaphobe, and Karl gives him a little chin scrape gesture. When the ref is checking both men before the match, Karl keeps pulling his hands away from him, like he's forcing the ref into a game of hand slap. They don't show this kind of playfulness with each other during the match but I'm wondering what's going on with these two vets. You know this is some 1980 Hanover wrestling because two men are wrestling in single strap singlets that are holding in their midsections. This was simple stuff but amusing. Vladimir is a guy I've never see who has a way of getting big reactions with little movements. He draws yellow cards by kicking Dauberger in the knee more than once, kicks him across the ring well after the bell, and shoots in for a half assed post-round single leg after Dauberger was gentlemanly enough to set his foot back on the mat instead of wrenching it. Dauberger had a nice cravat and German energy. I too dug that spot where Dauberger, flat on his stomach, kept getting lifted up by a kneeling Vladimir and slammed back to the mat. I kept rewinding to see how they were doing it, as the physics weren't apparent. Vlad didn't seem to be lifting hard and Dauberger didn't seem to be obviously pushing off with his limbs. It made Vladimir look strong even though in reality he looked like a guy who was probably 6'5 and didn't lift a thing. There was some magic in that spot, and some other minimalist surprises. 

Achim Chall vs. Caswell Martin

MD: I get the sense that if we had just another twenty Martin matches, he'd be almost undeniable. He's one of the most interesting and enjoyable wrestlers to watch, one of those wrestlers where you look forward to every exchange because you know you're going to see something unique. Chall was more than game to "base" for him and keep him in holds and make escape attempts, etc. The first round was fairly even with a lot of tricked out escapes and ways to keep the holds on by Martin, including his bridging stutter step.

The second round was all about Martin working over the arm, including a long in and out hammerlock that was really good, but also some joint manipulation and just smacking the arm against the mat repeatedly. Then in the third, Chall controlled with a cravat almost the whole way through, using mares to get back into it, and other head related holds to bridge gaps when needed. Just super strong in and out stuff. In the fourth they went to rope running but almost immediately Martin suffered a face-saving arm injury off a sunset flip and had to forfeit. It was good while it lasted though.

ER: For those who aren't familiar with the always entertaining Caswell Martin, he's like Bob Backlund at his most playful combined with Norman Smiley at his most skilled. He escapes holds and pins with impressive neck bridges and almost challenges opponents to keep him pinned, popping arms off the mat and bridging as a way to escape and as a way to bait. Watched back to back with Le Grand Vladimir's match and this match seems like it took place in another decade. Martin's strong and crab walk-like escapes with a more-than-game Chall looked like a different sport than that first match. Chall was a guy who looked capable of working just as freaky as Martin as he knew the counters too well and kept getting pushed into freak territory by big Cas. I like how Martin isn't just a quirky oddball and can back it up with snug holds, like when he grabbed Chall's hand just to roll his wrist around in painful ways, showing he's more than escapes. I actually liked the injured arm finish. A few minutes before the finish I noticed how there was no give at all in the ring, how every flat back bump looked even flatter with an unmoving ring. When Martin tried a sunset flip and then got thrown with an armdrag, it really did look like he bounced off the ungiving ring on his elbow. His selling was good enough that I would have bought it even without noticing the ring, but since I had noticed I said "well of course an armdrag could do that!" 

Axel Dieter vs. The Destroyer

MD: It's great we're getting new Destroyer matches out of the blue, from Germany. Yes, these results were buried on wrestlingdata but they're not all on cagematch for instance, so I'm sure some people who even are big Destroyer fans weren't aware of these tours. I'm not sure there's any wrestler ever who was better at carrying himself with a sort of matter-of-fact dignity (as opposed to whatever Lord Steve Regal did for instance) but then walked right into indignities. The first round had slow ones, built around one hold where he'd get his comeuppance on the way out. The second round was rapid fire spot after spot, each one more humiliating with the last. For instance, he started the round off with an airplane spin, got two out of it, but then walked right into an upkick that sent him sprawling. The round was full of that sort of thing. 

He started the third with another airplane spin but both went toppling out. He'd open up on the leg after, but half the things he'd try would still end with him eating the mat. And ultimately, it sent him over the top and led to a countout. Post-match, things devolved a bit and some of the other wrestlers came out which led to a big UFO chant since they loved Della Serra over there. I wouldn't have minded if this went another round or two, but what we had was highly entertaining with Destroyer living his best mean mug stooging life.

ER: Destroyer was the one guy stirring things up during the pre-show in-ring introductions, walking slowly around the circle of men sizing everyone up (nobody else did this, they all just got in the ring) and lingered on the referee, as if warning him that there better be no issues with the rules. When he was announced (after everyone else) he again walked out to the center of the ring like he was above them all (nobody else did this), and you know he was the last to leave the ring. This man knew how to carry himself, and when he enters the ring for his match he's got this funny cocky, bouncy little strut, just getting under everyone's skin. Destroyer lands headbutts from the mount like Smashing Machine and goes on to run Dieter's head into the turnbuckle from one corner to the other, and when round 2 starts he headlock punches the already bleeding Dieter several times. I was thinking things were going to continue like this and was sad that they did not. What we got instead was two rounds of Destroyer constantly forgetting that Dieter has kicking legs and those legs just kept sneaking up and taking him out. Dieter hits four different upkicks in different ways, all knocking Destroyer flat to his back and ultimately over the top to his demise. Every hold Destroyer attempted to work, every pin he made, was thwarted by a late upkick. I thought the finish was going to be Destroyer's airplane spin, starting in the center and moving out towards the ropes, then over the ropes with a kind of rolling Samoan drop off the apron, picking Dieter up off the apron from the floor to continue the airplane spin drop. Instead, Beyer was humiliated by upkicks, and Cowboy Ed had to come out to cool things down while heating things up.   

Ed Wiskowski vs. Steve Wright 

MD: Very good one. Wright controlled early, cartwheeling out of holds and basically eating up Wiskowski as you'd expect him to, but Cowboy Ed had the size advantage and he started in on the back. Wright's selling, both acutely and broadly (when he was stomped and writhed all around for instance) was excellent and that's really not a part of his game we often see since he just mows through his opponents most of the time. Wiskowski had some nice stuff like a move where he grabbed Wright by the waist and jammed his back right into the ropes. 

They'd have Wright try to come back in clever or pointed ways; for instance, Wiskowski would hit a nice gutwrench suplex only for Wright to slip in and reverse it instantly the next time. But then Wiskowski would just lean on him some more or whip him into the corner, causing Wright to go sprawling. Wright would start on the gut to fire back but Wiskowski cut him off with gutshots of his own. It built to a big comeback but another banana peel finish, this time with Wright flying in for a headbutt but going through the ropes and crashing and burning instead. Wiskowski suplexed him back in for the win. I maybe wanted to see Wiskowski stooge about for Wright more, but if I had to choose, I'd much rather have a more balanced match where Wright had to work from underneath like this. 

ER: This was so damn good. Wiskowski is great at punishing Wright, Wright takes hard bumps that lead to harder bumps and learns from them, and Wright makes up the size difference with his own punishing strikes. I thought this started off good and kept ramping up. Wiskowski is a calculated ass kicker who is great at taking Wright's offense and making him look like a bigger heavyweight with his bumps. I thought this was going to be a lot of Wiskowski bumping for Wright, and when he was rolling for Wright's ankle snare headscissors it was exactly what I expected...until Wright went for a third and Wiskowski moved, sending Wright into a nasty Psicosis style miss in the ropes. After that, every single time Wright got sent into the buckles it looked devastating. Wright took four different Bret Hart level bumps into the buckles, making it looked dangerous just getting his face slammed into them, but making it look skeleton breaking when he would take a whip. 

They were so good at building spots into reversals, establishing actions and results and still making it feel like a surprise when the same action led to a different result. Wright's bumps into the buckles were so painful that I was surprised and delighted when it led to Wiskowski missing an avalanche, leaving him stomach down bridging the top ropes, and allowing wright to do leg pumps from his back to bounce Cowboy Ed up and down. This would have been a top 3 (at least) Santino comedy spot and it was done by a 6'5 Polish cowboy with incredible posture. Wright pays back all of Wiskowski's back punishment and swinging long arms by really kicking him hard several times in the back of the head and I think surely this is where it turns around. Wright is headbutting Wiskowski in the stomach and big Ed is on the ropes...and then those actions surprise me again with a different result. Wright runs in with another big headbutt and Ed sidesteps him again, just like the headscissors earlier, and Wright flies into a tope to nothing but abyss. Suplexing him into the ring for the finish is a great way to show that the fall did most of the damage and merely getting him back in was going to be enough to finish him off...but Wiskowski didn't need to gingerly hop over the ropes on his exit. That's just rubbing it in. 

Read more!

70s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Lucy! Ikeshita! Gomez!

72. 1979.11.XX1 - 03 Jackie Sato & Lucy Kayama vs. Norma Gomez & Yumi Ikeshita (2/3 Falls)

We start in the middle of the 1st fall. I found it a little hard to get into being dropped into it with Jackie getting double teamed by the Ikeshita and her Mexican ally, lots of choking for several minutes, and when Lucy got tagged in she just got more of the same. Then, in a blink and you’ll miss it transition, the babyface suddenly started steamrolling and were 1-0 up. 

But ok things pick up when we start the 2nd fall and Jackie is in a mean mood now. The fall starts with Jackie Irish Whipping Norma Gomez straight into Ikeshita on the apron, knocking her to the ground and drawing out a ‘woah’ from the crowd. Ikeshita is pissed and wants to fight on the outside and looks determined to get her vengeance. I thought it was interesting how she wins with the hurricanrana pin (after some very cool over the head backdrops), and even though Jackie makes contact jumping in to break up the pin, it still counts because she wasn’t able to actually break it up and Lucy’s shoulders stay down. I don’t know when it became a rule (or if it even officially is one) in wrestling that the referee stops counting the pin in a tag match if someone so much as taps the pinning wrestler on the back, but I don’t think that was a good change.

There isn’t much of a 3rd fall. Jackie does a cool backbreaker and looks like she’s going to really take charge, then a chair is being swung around, they’re fighting on the outside and the result is a countout. Oh well. I guess they just weren’t going to give away anything tonight. 2nd fall was good though.

**

MD: We come in JIP here. I didn’t really get a great sense of Norma except for that she was credible. She kept the pressure on, mainly with choking and mean shots and that was all that was needed because Ikeshita was going to come in with all the cool stuff. Also a picked up choke hiding. Eventually Lucy took out Norma on the apron and ran right to Jackie and they just mowed through their opponents like it was nothing. 

We had another transition in the second fall, but that was after some chaos on the outside. Again Ikeshita looked like a million bucks. Her delaying power slam off the ropes were brutal and the way she won the second fall with that elaborate over the top escape into the ‘rana was top notch. There were a couple of moments here where they said the crowd was going up big for Jackie and I just didn’t see or hear it. You watch the crowd and there aren’t those shots of wincing or screaming girls. Everything seems less hot than back during the Ripper feud and before, and I don’t know if it’s how things were mic’d or if they were just cooling down in general.

But that didn’t make Jackie any less of an Ace. When she took over in the last fall, it was brutal and without mercy or doubt. But then the chairs come in and everything breaks down and that was that.

Read more!