Found Footage Friday: WAR GAMES~! MISAWA~! KOSHINAKA~! PIRATA~! COLOSETTI~! BENETTO~!

Shiro Koshinaka vs. Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 10/14/83

MD: As best as we can tell, these next two haven't been in easy circulation. Thankfully gus came through and figured out how to get them off of a tricky disc and upload them. This one started out as one thing and morphed into something entirely different. People should go out of their way for it.

Where it started, and where I figured it would end, was as Young Misawa putting Young Koshinaka through his paces. He controlled for basically the first two thirds of this as an undercard young boy cruiserweight bully. They both had red trunks and Misawa really did a number on Koshinaka, grinding down on the arm. A lot of shots of the back of Misawa's head and emotive selling from Shiro. Shiro would try to escape and Misawa would get him back in. There was a nice floatover arm twist and some rolling with the short arm scissors, etc. Eventually, Shiro turned things into a cross toe-hold and took over with that and later a Romero Special.

When things picked up, though, they really picked up. Shiro's butt butt, sure, but also Misawa doing a front flip into a kick off the top, followed by a huge dive to the floor, and then Shiro hitting a double stop off the top. It felt like whoever was agenting the match went on a smoke break and they just decided to do whatever they wanted for the last two minutes before Shiro finally dragged Misawa down with a bulldog. Misawa looked more like the guy who would become Tiger Mask II than the guy who would become Misawa here, but he looked like the best possible version of that guy.

Shiro Koshinaka/Mitsuharu Misawa/Halcon Ortiz vs. Coloso Colosetti/Pirata Morgan/Tony Benetto 3/16/84

MD: This is likely one of Misawa's first matches in Mexico. He was matched up with Colosetti here in the initial primera pairings and it went mostly ok. There were one or two times where he seemed just a little lost, like when it was time to tag Shiro in after Coloso left the ring, but in general, he did fine. Colosetti had great for-the-last-row body language, really working big, both when matched with Misawa and during the comeback in the tercera as he was batted around the ringside area. Shiro was matched with Benetto; basically a lot of Kato/Bruce Lee back fists but he did get his double stomp off the top in too. Ortiz and Morgan worked well together, as you'd expect, the best pairing of the three even if maybe that's not why we're here.

Morgan did get to match up a little with the Japanese contingent, most spectacularly for a spot towards the end of the primera where they basically hit a veg-o-matic (bearhug, lean back, kneedrop) on him. Most memorable, though, is the ending image of him as Misawa and Koshinaka were getting the win on his partners; Ortiz decided to just bodyslam him over the top, not touching the rope, so he could hit a dive. The heat during the segunda was effective and efficient though there could have been more of it maybe; possibly a small clip at the start of the tercera to give that feeling. The comeback was fun with plenty of Koshinaka backfists. Misawa was just finding his way here but it's a good way to spend twenty minutes.

War Games: Hotstuff Hernandez/Jeremy V/Jimmy Rave/Onyx vs. Iceberg/Jason Cross/Justice/Rainman NWA Wildside 06/28/03 - EPIC

MD: Are there just an infinite number of these matches hidden away somewhere? Is there some sort of alternate reality that we can just endlessly pull these from? Or are we coming to the end sometime soon? We've covered so many over the years and they're all great and this is no exception. Wildside was just amazing for the sheer diversity in the ring, every size, shape, temperament. And it all came together and it all worked. It was like the entirety of possibilities of what pro wrestling could and should be were in the ring together. Just wild stuff. 

They started with Jeremy and Rainman, maybe not the pairing I would have chosen myself even though they'd been feuding but Rainman was a pro in these and kept things moving. Right when Jeremy (who got color early) was gaining control, Bailey's team won the coinflip and Cross came in, absolutely crushing Jeremy with a dragon suplex and brainbuster and setting the tenor for the rest of the match. Jeremy, Jimmy, and Jason had a high hill to climb here since not only were they in there with monsters of various shapes and forms, but the monsters almost all did crazy stuff. There was a Superplex on Iceberg (I think by Onyx). Iceberg used the cage to steady him to hit a top rope elbow drop, etc. And Justice (being Abyss) came in as the mystery man and towered over everyone. Hernandez was like a missile when he came in to even the odds. They managed well enough by flying around though, Cross hitting a ton of offense, Jeremy showing heart (and getting the win in the end with his camel clutch/cobra clutch combo), and Rave maybe getting the spot of the match with a sunset flip powerbomb on Justice off the top.

Look, during the same year, Cage of Death was going on in Philly. I get that Blood and Guts take more from that than from classic War Games, but these Wildside and Anarchy attempts really show how you can bridge the gap between the two.

PAS: This didn't have pools of gore that some of the other all timer Landmark Arena War Games had, but it felt kind of on the level of them. This was like a version of the 1989 War Games, with a lot of huge dudes throwing each other with big power moves. This might have been the most I have ever enjoyed Abyss, and it felt like the slugfest between him and Hernandez felt like a huge big man showdown. Iceberg not being a huge star in the 2000s was a big mistake by the wrestling world, he was a monstrous force of nature, who would still bump big, Iceberg taking a superplex felt like felling a Redwood tree. His top rope Sudanese Meat Cleaver was truly disgusting looking I expected Jeremy V's head to pop off like a Pez dispenser. Finishing submission looked great although that kid did take a whole hell of a lot of punishment to end up winning. Classic stuff, in the upper tier of these matches which is a hell of an upper tier. 

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New Footage Friday: SABU~! PSICOSIS ~! REY JR! KANEMOTO! SAMURAI~! DEVIL'S REJECTS! CASKET!

Psicosis/Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Konnan IWAS 7/1/95 - FUN

PAS: This is from John Arezzi's Patreon and a cool chance to see Psic and Rey at their young peak. This is JIP which is a shame because Psicosis and Rey opening sections are usually huge highlights. This was them doing a lot of TJ/ECW stuff, like cookie sheets and chair shots. That isn't what you want really out of 1995 Rey Jr., although there were some real moments, including a nasty springboard rolling senton. Sabu absolutely eats shit through a ringside table, and sometimes you forget about Sabu, but you shouldn't. Konnan had some nice clotheslines, but was Konnan. Fun little snapshot of a time. 

MD: We come in somewhere in the segunda here and it's impossible to say that what we haven't isn't a lot of fun, even if it's not at all complete. Right at the get go, the rudos take over, and Sabu is beautifully cast as a rudo, with Rey as a perfect receptacle for his body thrashing assault. He hits all the classics, contorting off a springboard, using a non-folding plastic chair as a launching pad, twice, and hitting the Arabian Facebuster with some sort of metal tray. You have to applaud Psicosis' restraint, as I've seen him do some crazy things, but here he didn't follow any of Sabu's antics and try to outdo him (he might have been able to but at the expense of a year or two of his lifespan), though he did hit a pretty nice moonsault. When the tecnicos come back in the tercera, it's by whacking skulls with said metal tray. All of this builds to Sabu absolutely wiping out through a table as Konnan moves. It was definitely a shame that we lost the opening exchanges but Konnan wasn't exactly zooming about in the bits of offense he got in late, so maybe it's not the end of the world. What we got was more or less what you'd imagine it to be, so long as you imagined slightly more Sabu than Rey.


Koji Kanemoto vs. El Samurai NJPW 3/17/96

SR: Crazy stiff match that builds to a huge finish. A nice reminder of how good the NJPW juniors could be in the 90s. Samura is fired up to begin, slapping the taste out of Kanemotos mouth before hitting a big dive. Samurai is this weird guy who is often dull but when he‘s on he‘s pretty great. He was on here working like Fit Finlay, dropping elbows across Kanemotos face, even headbutting him in the nose. Of course Kanemoto is a right fucker too and when he comes back he cracks Samurai with nasty stomps to the skull and kicks to the ribs. The whole match was pretty much all guys stubbornly sinking into submissions, not cooperating on basic moves and brutalizing each other. It builds to a pretty big crescendo, Kanemoto is slapping around Samurai, pulling him up spitting on him. He goes for a big German Suplex off the apron (you know, this was before moves like that were thrown out 10 times a month) but hits his own head weakening himself, his hatred got the better off him. Samurai in desperation mode trying to inch out a win after being beaten to a pulp was great, hell this whole thing was pretty great. Apaprently before there was only an 8 minute TV version of this available before so praise the lord for handhelds like this so we can get the full undistilled brutality.

PAS: This was killer stuff, a lot more based around stiffness and grappling then I remember from this period. 70% of the match was hard nasty grappling and forceful stiff shots. I loved those short elbows which Samurai was throwing across the bridge of Kanemoto's nose and his cheeks and Koji of course is going to respond in kind. The Kanemoto kimura counter of Samurai's German Suplex was incredible looking and the big spot section at the end had appropriately big spots. Spots on the apron are an overused thing in wrestling today, but not in 1996 and the German on the Apron was incredible stuff. Very cool this showed up in a more full format. 

MD: Liger vs Otani from the same show has been out there and talked about but this didn't get released in full apparently, which is a shame as it's both a title change and a hell of a battle. They get time on this and work it that way, mixing holds and hard shots and then escalating into bombs. Samurai's great early on after an match-starting tope, just bullying Kanemoto all over the ring, switching holds anytime Kanemoto starts to come back. It's all both perfectly smooth while still being accented by nasty shots. While Samurai had an advantage early and Kanemoto has an advantage late, a lot of this feels very even, full of gamesmanship, even if no one can chip away at a specific body part. It's a theme throughout with them going for similar moves and managing similar counters. The bombs, when they come, are outright huge, a reversed suplex to the floor, a kick off the top to a head dangling on the ropes, the German onto the apron that crushes both guys. This leads to Kanemoto's advantage and a great finishing stretch with the sort of parallels we've seen all match where it could have gone either way. Exciting stuff.

Devil's Rejects (Dominus/Iceberg/Azriel/Rev. Dan Wilson) vs. Team Anarchy (Jerry Palmer/Jason Justice/Micky Free/Abyss) NWA Anarchy 11/4/06

PAS: Dan Wilson talked about this match on my podcast it was the end of the Team Anarchy vs. Devil's Rejects feud and the start of Reject's vs. NWA Elite. It wasn't the bloodbath brawl I was expecting, this was worked mainly as a straight main event six man tag. Lots of big showdowns and some booking but mostly a traditional match. Abyss was fun as a guy getting hyped for a hot tag, but Abyss vs. Dominus punch exchanges are no bueno. Iceberg was a fun momentum eraser, just killing folks with big splashes. They really put over Palmer, as he is suplexing and spearing the heels, gets the dramatic stretcher to the back only to return, and finishes off Rev. Dan by stabbing him. Definitely left the crowd satisfied, especially with the AJ Styles cameo. 

MD: If we've learned anything from all of this Anarchy footage it's that they knew how to lay out these big matches. Here, Abyss was the special attraction on the side of NWA Anarchy's team, with fireman owner Palmer involved on one side and satanic emissary Wilson on the other. They went out of their way to shine up Palmer early on knowing he'd get taken out by Iceberg and it was a tricky balance. Azrael was in there to take his stuff and outside of a back body drop and some of the moments where Palmer just threw himself at him, it didn't look all that great. Obviously, it wouldn't have worked against Dominus or Iceberg but you didn't want him getting his hands on Wilson before he came back from being stretchered out either. If I was laying this out, I would have had him get a few more assists from his partners as he was hitting his stuff. Punching Azrael in the corner so he could hit a big shot from Justice or Free or Abyss and then Palmer could hit something. That's a nitpick though.

Abyss was a great cheerleader on the apron and it was fun when he was in there working with Justice Served. Once Palmer got taken out, Wilson served as just enough of an irritant to rationalize the heel advantage. It all built to the implement of destruction being unleashed and Palmer's return before things got cute (but in a crowd-pleasing way) with Tempers interfering and AJ Styles making a surprise appearance. I would have liked to see the Casket play into things a bit more before the finish. That's my only other nitpick. Even if it was just a few more shots in there. In general, it's no surprise the promotion lasted so long if it was giving fans moments like this and the others we've seen so often though.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki v. Abyss

21. Low-Ki v. Abyss AAW 6/17

PAS: This is about as good an Abyss match as you are going to have. Ki bumps huge for all of Abyss's spots, kicks the big guy pretty hard and they have a bunch of amusing horseshit, plus where are in and out in under 7 minutes. Abyss is the hired gun of the Killer Cult faction in AAW and cost Ki the AAW title in our reigning match of the year. Here the story of the match is the manager paying for his sins. First Ki just wipes him out with a diving through the ropes dropkick. Then they have a fun finish with Ki hurling a handful of thumbtacks into Abyss's eyes, the blinded Abyss chokeslams his manager into the tacks and gets rolled up for the pin. Kind of a waste of Ki (so many more intriguing matchups with the talent booked on the show) but I dug it.

ER: Yeah Abyss is one of the true, honest to goodness terrible wrestlers out there. This right here is definitely the best you can hope for from him, and it was really fun. He stayed away from his always terrible strikes (the ones that are in a permanent competition with Makabe to see who can throw them farther over an opponent's head) and focused on just using his size to smother Ki. I have a weird fascination with seeing my absolute favorite wrestlers wrestle the worst opponent, sometimes moreso than them against an actual good wrestler. It's neat seeing what Finlay can do with Boogeyman (or Davey Richards, a previous AAW match), seeing Lawler or Funk against anybody, seeing Necro Butcher against anybody, it lets them thrive in different ways. There are a dozen people on this card who are indisputably better wrestlers than Abyss, but I'll always be more interested in seeing Low-Ki against a barely mobile blob than against obviously better guys like ACH or Jake Crist. But this match was totally great. Ki stuck and move, brought some great elbow strikes, Abyss smashed him in the corners a couple times, and it had some of the best manager interference you've seen. JT Davidson hit a killer elbow on Ki while he was prone on the apron and later attacking Ki on the floor and violently throwing him back in the ring. The fans hated Abyss, which is great, and Ki played into it perfectly. Davidson got out a bag of thumbtacks and they tease some stuff around them, like Davidson pushing Ki off the top into them, but Ki adjusting his fall and landing awkwardly past them. Ki kicks Abyss around and completely obliterates Davidson with a baseball slide dropkick, totally killer spot. Ki is really good at finding ways to fit his spots in, like Abyss sending him into the buckles, Ki jumping to the middle rope and hitting his double stomp. Eventually we get Ki throwing thumbtacks in Abyss' eyes which leads to Abyss chokeslamming Davidson into the tacks. Normally those kind of blinded, friendly fire spots are silly because how often does your ally feel like your opponent, but here it works pretty terrific as Ki and Davidson are the only ones wearing their suits and dress shirts. Low-Ki is the best worker of 2017, and matches like this are just layers of tasty icing on that cake.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Wednesday Morning War Games: NWA Wildside Team NWA Elite v. Team Wildside

NWA Elite (Justice/Jason Cross/Adam Jacobs/John Phoenix) v. NWA Wildside (AJ Styles/Onyx/Air Paris/Stone Mountain) NWA Wildside 7/7/01

This didn't do very much for me. This was less a violent fight and more a chance for athletic guys in jnco jeans to do backflips. I liked the opening section with Styles and Adam Jacobs, it was juniors wrestling, but well worked. Styles took some nutty bumps into the cage, which is something he is still doing 16 years later, and Jason Cross has a nice brainbuster, but otherwise this was forgettable. Justice is Abyss and looks even dumber in an Andre the Giant singlet. Finish has Stone Mountain return to the fed as the Wildside team's surprise partner, he then turns on his team and they have a long beatdown section with Jeff G. Bailey yelling over the microphone. Wildside did War Games a bunch of times, hopefully I will find a great one, this wasn't it.

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His Rhymes are Homicidal, He'll Take Your Title He's Ricky Banderas far from Billy Idol

Ricky Banderas v. Slash Venom IWA-PR 10/18/03 -EPIC

This is exactly the kind of blood soaked spectacle I was hoping to unearth. I think I had seen clips of the finish before, but never the whole match. Slash Venom is awesome southern indy wrestler Flash Flanagan and he brings the crazy right to Banderas. Banderas works him from pillar to post early busting him open with chair shots and big bombs. Venom takes over a bit and hits a spring board elbow to the floor through the table, which gets crazy height, totally memorable highspot which is really overshadowed by the bat shit finish. Venom sets up a table and they brawl to a balcony legit 20-25 feet above the floor, they tease a couple of falls before Banderas chucks Venom over the rail, causing him to take a flat back bump on a gym floor after a 20 foot plus drop. It was as crazy, if not more crazy then the Foley HIC bumps or that time New Jack tried to murder Vic Grimes. Finish would have made it memorable no matter what, but this was a corker before that too.

Judas Mesias v. Abyss TNA 1/22/08 - FUN

This was a barbed wire massacre match, basically a no-rope barbed wire match with barbed wire weapons. This isn't a match which is going to pump up Mesais reputation. It had several gruesome visuals, and some nastish bumps (Mesias goes stomach first on a barbed wire board which had to suck). The fact they had an actual feud building to it, puts it above a throw away IWA-MS Mad Man Pondo garbage match, but not by much. Abyss will bleed a ton but man is he shitty at lots of other things you are supposed to do as a wrestler. Mesias didn't look much better in the basics category either, there is one point where they are on their knees exchanging "punches" which was about as bad as I remember seeing. Also the backstory of this some bad Russo knock off Kane shit. Apparently Father James Mitchell is Abyss's biological father, and he has brought his other son Judas Mesias in to destroy Abyss. Tenay for some reason keeps calling Mesias, Abyss's step brother as opposed to his half brother. Is the gimmick that Mitchell married Mesias's mother and help raise her blood splitting son?

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MESIAS

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Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them. Tom used his best shitty tag team name from his "shitty indy name" rolodex AND made fun of RPGs in almost the same sentence.

The FINAL snippets from TomK's review of ROH's "Take No Prisoners":

Vulture Squad v No Remorse Corpse

TKG: Huh? Why? The bonus match from other show on ROH PPV is kind of a staple, but why this match? Did someone say “hey this show is missing a big moves workrate tag”? This whole entire card has been really well paced with every match being different than the one before, and matches ending without long finisher exchange sequences and excessive kickouts to protect the main event. There is a reason not to do a workrate tag with hot finisher train. The opening Ruckus v Rocky Romero mirror missed stuff was every bit as laughably bad as you’d expect. Where is Julius Smokes? Jigsaw without the mask looks like a guy who should have been on the second season of the Wire. Maybe not White Mike, but White Mike’s skinny cousin. When Ruckus eventually joins Eddy Kingston, I want a Smokes managed Jigsaw/Grim Reefer tag team. Is “Eight Myle” a shitty enough tag name? I also don’t think I’ve mentioned the shitty “pokemon” style tales of the tape that they’ve been doing before each match. I didn’t mind this when they used it for the Aries v Nigel main event as they where actually building the match around the idea that the two knew each others stuff. But really if these are the talking points, give them to the announcers to make. Putting it up on the screen really feels like someone is laying out the profile pages from a role playing game.

Notes for Phil: I think you liked this more than I did and thought the spike piledriver was a good finish and finish train wasn’t too long or something like that. You're wrong. But that's what you were arguing.

Phil reviewing IWRG 6/17/10:

Bombero Infernal v. Dr. Cerebro

PAS: This really felt like heavyweight professional wrestling. Just a pair of big guys throwing big bombs (indy lucha big, I am sure Dr. Cerebro is like 5'4). Infernal jumps Cerebro outside and whoops on him for the first fall. Cerebro has a really great looking trickle of blood rolling down his face. Cerebro fires back with some soup bones, including a spectacular elbow smash plancha which looked like the ghost of Misawa. Finish was decent, although the low blow finish is such a lucha cliche, I don't want to see it infecting IWRG.

Mickie Segura/Trauma I/II v. Los Gringos VIP

PAS: 2010 IWRG is so good that the baseline for an average match is pretty high. It will consistently put out solidly worked excellent matches with occasional flashes of brilliance, that it is kind of hard for a match like this to stand out. This was six very good wrestlers having a very good trios title match. We got a long first fall of mat work, it isn't normally what you expect out of the Lucha Libre VIP team (outside of Avisman, who is the guy who doesn't work the mat in this match), but they are pretty good at it. I especially liked El Hijo Del Diablo v. Trauma I, which was really a pair of powerhouse using their strength to move in and out of hold, Diablo is having a hell of a year. Second fall was rudo triple teams and brawling, which was done well, although there was no huge bump or blood or anything to distinguish it. Third fall was a traditional title match third fall, down to the step over toe hold comedy spot which you see a ton of in classic lucha (the spot which ends with the Technico wiggling in a pinning all three guys.) Good workman like lucha libre, which won't register when we look back at 2010, but is certainly well worth spending 20 minutes watching

Notes from EricR watching the 3/27/14 TNA iMPACT:

~Davey/Edwards vs. Magnus/Abyss: Wow Davey Richards is just a hilariously bad wrestler. I mean, not as horrid as Abyss, who seems to fight every natural way to take bumps and go against every body instinct to fall in the most ridiculous way possible. So Eddie Edwards always does a spit take bump in his matches, and here he took an elbow from Magnus and ended up accidentally spitting directly into Davey's (on the apron) eyes. And what's amazing is Davey sold it! He didn't just casually pretend another human being, his partner, didn't just accidentally spit directly into his eyes. He sold it. But he didn't sell it like a normal human would sell the indignity of feeling another human's warm spit hit your eyes and face, he sold it like Eddie Edwards was a Dilophosaurus and he was Nedry getting acidic mucous spit into his eyes. The goggles! They do nothing!!! He also later took the most hilarious back bump, where it looked like he was jumping up and landing back first on a big trampoline, just 11 year old me getting bounced higher and getting sick air, landing on my back. Or doing a cannonball into a swimming pool, with all the grace of a "mom watch me dive!" child.

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Giving TNA Credit Where Credit is Due

TNA is the Springfield tire fire of professional wrestling. It feels like it's been around forever and no reasonable person can justify its existence. At this point it just exists. It's there. It's stink can be smelled from many states away. It's useless. It's ugly. It somehow will not die.

But as the old saying goes, even a burning tire yard is right twice a day. And last week while watching TNA something happened to me that I'm not sure has ever happened to me while watching TNA: I was genuinely interested, engaged and excited about what was onscreen, for all of the reasons intended.

TNA has been around for a long time. I still lived with my parents when TNA began to exist. I own a home now. I was still in college when TNA began. I work for the government and have some gray hairs now. Beck came out with "Sea Change" around when TNA began. Now he just released "Morning Phase", which is his only other album that sounds a lot like Sea Change. Many of my friends have gotten married and had children since TNA's existence. Others have married and already divorced. My first pet, Inky the cat, did not live as long as TNA has lived. TNA has still not ever done anything as cool as Inky a) catching bats, b) catching a rabbit, c) learning how to turn on/off a light switch.

But they got me excited for 7 minutes. Last week the show started off with an Abyss/Eric Young brawl, and it was awesome. Abyss is clearly the worst worker in the world over the last decade. I'm sure there have been some individual performances that have been worse, but he has turned in a full 10+ years of shockingly horrible work. I'll save more Abyss talk for a future post dedicated to Abyss and nothing else. This "match" was all about EY and he looked killer. A lot of his shots really landed hard on Abyss, and TNA's stupid faux-NYPD Blue backstage camera work actually made this look, dare I say...cool? This felt like one of the most violent things in TNA history, culminating with EY getting choked out over the ropes with a chain. EY took nasty spills the whole match (including getting tossed face first into a chair) but good god his face was turning purple while getting choked. The whole thing actually felt unique and interesting, which is something TNA has NEVER felt like to me. It actually made me want to tune in the next week...

And they started the 3/27 Impact with 27 minutes of talking. Never change guys. We'll always have those 7 minutes on 3/20.

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TNAiMPACTwORKRATE rEPORT 12/21/06

WHAT WORKED: 

 STING ~!! Sting is a guy who has been wrestling for about twenty years at this point. Heavily pushed charismatic babyface for most of that time. But never really a guy known for his mic work. I can’t think of a single angle he was in, in all that time where he was asked to carry the bulk of the mic work. Surfer Sting could get over youthful enthusiasm on the mic and would cup his hands around his mouth and do a war whoop. Crow Sting was all about him being silent. So it’s really odd to watch how great Born Again Sting is at presenting conviction on the mic. Really Sting is single handedly carrying this Abyss storyline. It’s pretty clear that he’s writing his own stuff as his mic work is on such a different level from everyone else in this angle. Sting plays down the title stealing and concentrates on the possibility of saving Abyss. Sting reframes the whole “mystery” angle in Christian terms. Providing Abyss with a “different road” “Stop worrying about the past…the “Good News” is that you can change the future [through the power of Redeemer].” 

Sting vs. Serotonin was a fine squash match. If you’re only going to run matches that go under two minutes then having them be squashes makes more sense than having them be competitive two minute matches. 

James Storm’s sit down interview was good too, but why are they having ambient music playing during sit down interview? The Griot’s drum circle played during the interview trying to match Storm’s intensity and passion as the beats sped up and slowed down. Does the audience need background music to make it through an interview? 

Don West is great as he does nice job early in show putting over the ankle lock, talking about how he still has an extreme sprain but returned to work out of love for the job. Meanwhile Slick Johnson who was ankle locked on a staircase is bouncing around the ring like nothing happened. 

For some reason the idiot bookers decide to keep Angle face and turn Joe heel in their main event tag booking and West has to sell that he’s still behind Angle even though Angle attacked him. He does a commendable job talking about how he “can’t take the attack personally.” West is good at covering for shitty booking but that doesn’t make the booking any less shitty.  

WHAT DIDN'T WORK: 

And the booking was SHITTY. The non-Sting matches and booking weren’t any good. Ron Killing’s Christmas rap isn’t Santa Clause Goes Straight to the Ghetto or that David Banner Christmas rap but still better than a lot of Christmas rap, unfortunately Hoyt’s body waves make it difficult to say positive things about it. And what the fuck was up with the drug motifs throughout the show? Show opens with Serotonin match, Ron Killings raps about trying to quit smoking over Christmas, Nash makes steroids jokes, notorious drug abuser BG James and Kip James joke about how they are on the road with WWE only minus the “wellness program”, Lance Hoyt “dances” while stuck in a K-hole, and Shane Douglas talks about how his fathers death from lung cancer kept him from ever smoking. I guess someone should applaud the audacity of attempting to do a wrestling show as reflection on a theme. Russo got a hold of some art films from the video store and realized that narrative is passé and that cinema as essay is the future. “Hmm I suck at narrative anyway maybe I should try this visual exploration of a theme thing.” And well iMPACT has been about drugs from the beginning (http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/ index.php? showtopic=2964& hl= ) “ADRENALINE RUSH! ADRENALINE RUSH!" 

I mean I guess these are some interesting themes being explored: Serotonin vs. the meditative quality of Sting’s Christianity perhaps…as Sting doesn’t represent the speaking in tongues fevered Christianity that would share space with/or feel in competition with the power of serotonin but rather a reflective one; Killings is trying to end addiction to drug consumption over holiday built around consumption; The James Gang and Lance Hoyt are reflections on the lack of self awareness that drugs provide…as fun is had as the result of not worrying about how embarrassing your behavior actually appears—and that behavior is really shameful; and well Meltzer has implied that the Franchise made himself impotent during ECW period as result of drug use so the idea of Douglas as guy who turns down cigarettes but can’t turn down anything else is an interesting one. “Damnit Sandman, I’m trying to shoot some smack here and you’re second hand smoke is bothering me.” These are interesting themes but it is not enough just to throw a motif out there, you need to do something with it. Interesting theme unfortunately not really explored or presented in an interesting way. I guess we’ll have to wait for Chris Marker or Godard to take up wrestling booking before we can hope for booking wrestling as essay to supplant booking wrestling as narrative. 

The booking that didn't directly reference drugs (although probably still drug inspired) was shit too. The Dudleys beat the Naturals in under two minutes, in what was essentially a squash. Supposedly the Dudleys were humiliated by loosing in their own signature match and so wanted the rematch. So instead of doing this as a PPV match they do it as a throw away squash where Douglas post match ends the “Naturals experiment". They don’t even do a Naturals must disband stip. End this thing in a meaningless squash. Chase Stevens is one of the top ten guys in the fed and Russo can’t find a reason to push him? I’m sure he can do a prescription drug abuse gimmick. So they break up the Naturals and debut another ECW veteran  who manages a stable through tough love gimmick on same show. Konnan is a shitty Riley Freeman “Santa gonna pay”. Don’t Cubans and Puerto Ricans celebrate Three Kings Day instead? Spike is right there he will take a crazy bump on a Christmas tree filled with glass ornaments. but instead we get a weak beatdown. And why are LAX running from the comedy wrestlers in the PCS and Eric Young? 

Styles tried to save the main event tag a couple times and I always dig Styles the heel but that match was nothing and the booking is nonsensical. Why is Angle still a face, why is Joe on a heel team, I think they were trying to do a both tag teams don’t trust their partner thing at one point but you can’t squeeze all that in. 

Shit. And then there was the non-Sting portions of the Abyss angle. Hey Tomko has a DVD. Nice, I remember when Jarrett was lugging around a VHS tape a year ago. Glad to see that TNA has spent some money on moving to digital in their backstage skits. Tomko and Christian appear on video screen outside prison talking about Abyss’s old cell. Idiot Mike Tenay announces “That must mean that Abyss was in prison”. Hmm Christian and Tomko film outside a prison point to a room and refer to it as Abyss’s old room…and somehow Tenay is able to deduce that Abyss used to be in prison. Ok so I was wrong last week. Angle isn’t Cyril. Abyss is. Christian and Tomko as Timmy Kirk and Jazz Hoyt could be entertaining but at this point it isn’t. Sting is better than Luke Perry and James Mitchell is still useless. 

Really no one should be allowed to talk in this angle other than Sting. Everyone else really feels like they are doing amateur theatre. I mean there is some good amateur theatre, but this wasn't even fake Up With People in mental institution bad, not even Guys and Dolls in an old folks home or Macbeth in prison. This was shit. Amused that they ran something like three Christian vs. Abyss PPV matches already and they decide that the way to freshen that match up is to have Christian work heel and Abyss work tweener. 

Lance Hoyt freestyle dancing. FUCK!!! I mean I already mentioned it once but it needs to be mentioned again. Hoyt's dancing destroyed my mind. K-Fed started as a back up dancer. If K-Fed did that Lance Hoyt dance I would join the K-Fed greatest heel in wrestling today bandwagon. My guess is that Federline is too professional and has too much natural rhythm to ever be able to dance that badly. But still, K-Fed learns that dance and you can print money, he could main event Mania, he could solve NJ's problems, he could fill the Tokyo Dome.

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