Monday WarGames: AWS Total War

Aaron Aguilera/Babi Slymm/Human Tornado/Sexy Chino vs. Adam Pearce/Al Katrazz/Crayz/The Plague AWS 3/18/08 - FUN

PAS: IWTV put up a bunch of AWS, a mid 2000s SoCal indy, so I grabbed this War Games. This match had a lot of Rick Bassman trainees (or Bassman style dudes) who were big and athletic, but not really good wrestlers. Aguilera, Al Katrazz, Slymm, and The Plague all had some spots, but it was kind of a mess when they need to fill time, and War Games requires some time filling. The match also ended in a pinfall which always sucks in War Games. Great Pearce performance though, he was a guy who really felt like he was in a War Games match, flying into the cage, bleeding a ton, throwing great punches on open cuts. I was always a bit lukewarm on Adam Pearce, but this match felt like he lived up to what he promised. I was most excited to see Human Tornado in here, but he came in with a foot in a walking boot, so he gets laid out before coming into the ring. However he does come back in the finish and hits an insane flip dive off the cage to the floor. The height and distance he got on the dive was truly shocking, and doing that dive in a walking boot is even crazier. Cool discovery with a couple of real high points although overall it didn't really work.

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All Time MOTY Head to Head + Wednesday Morning Wargames : ROH: Team ROH v. Team CZW Cage of Death

Team ROH (Samoa Joe/BJ Whitmer/Bryan Danielson/Adam Pearce/Ace Steel/Homicide) vs. Team CZW (Claudio Castagnoli/Chris Hero/Nate Webb/Necro Butcher/Eddie Kingston) ROH Death Before Dishonor IV 7/15/06

ER: This was sooooo good. The very first 90 seconds kind of annoyed me as Claudio/Joe worked a standard rehearsed indy sequence, and then with no warning Joe punted a trash can into Claudio's head and they never looked back for 40 minutes. There was a lot of this that I had totally forgot, and it was stuff that had I been told, really wouldn't have sounded good: "Danielson turns on Joe, ROH gets to use an extra man because I guess we feel bad that one of their men turned, BJ Whitmer is in it..." It has tons of stories happening all at once and could have been a complete mess, but all the bullshit of the match works really great, and a lot of guys have arguable career performances.

Potential career performances include: Chris Hero, Nate Webb, Homicide, Ace Steel, and Adam Pearce. Chris Hero was such a perfect smug jerk, setting up potentially violent moves only to end them with uncomfortable cravates (jumping off the middle rope with two of his men holding someone, setting one up on top of a chair), disappearing when things would get messy, but really the whole match - which had already been violent as hell - kicked into an entirely new gear when Hero got on the mic to start the CZW chant, and really inciting a lot of hate. "It's going to take a lot more than that to take out Chris Fucking Hero!!" is a great thing to scream maniacally at a ROH show, and the shots of he and his invaders ruling the ROH ring as trash gets thrown in is a pretty unique indy wrestling visual. They really did seem like conquering kings in that moment and without Hero I don't know that they get that.

Nate Webb is a total bump freak and he broke out some of his all time craziest stuff here. He and Kingston were the guys who truly felt like outsiders here, and Webb looked like a dirty, unhinged version of clean cut ROH fliers. Webb takes a disgusting Pearce press slam from the ring through a table, hits an absurd coast to coast moonsault mule kick into a trashcan, and he's right there at the end battling with Homicide, taking a horrific cop killa on a bunch of barbed wire. Necro brings all his great Necro attributes to this, never really standing out as the main guy, but always around to get wrapped in wire, take a shot to the ear, literally RUN through thumbtacks barefoot (in an all time great Necro psychology moment), just doing all of the things you would hope he'd do in a match like this. Pearce comes out dressed like a man who belongs in a match like this, and does his big part by brawling and bleeding all over the place, hitting a big piledriver on the floor and that press slam on Spider. Ace Steel had a real superstar performance, really feeling like a "big stage" performer the whole time. The cowbell he brought out was a great prop, but his facials and movement came off big league and he had a grounded performance that the match needed. Homicide enters because of a strange rule and the crowd is going crazy, while he immediately pulls out forks and spikes and a freaking boxcutter, and in that movie the ringside area resembled the orgy of violence in Event Horizon.

There's tons of violence and tons of crazy spots (Claudio's Russian leg sweep off the cage through a table!?), JJ Dillon hams it up extraordinarily at ringside, the crowd is riled up the entire time, everybody bleeds all over the place, and this is just the best wrestling.

PAS: This felt like a super violent version of one of those Pat Patterson produced WWF Attitude brawls. They build so many different story lines in this match, the Danielson and Joe confrontation, the Homicide surprise, the Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero feud, the beginning of the Homicide v. Cornette fued, and even little things like J.J. Dillion being the master of the coin toss or the Necro thumbtalk run, I have pretty mixed feelings about Gabe as a booker, but if he put this together this was his peak. The ROH team minus Homicide ended up being kind of a scrub squad, but this was pretty much peak Steele, Pearce and Whitmer, I loved Steele coming out with the cowbell and waylaying everyone, Pearce achieved the Arn Anderson he had been shooting for his whole career, and Whitmer took some horrid bumps. Nate Webb was an underground favorite of mine from his IWA-MS days, so it was cool that he got a semi-big stage showcase, and man alive does his kill himself with insane bumps. Hero was such a great prick too, I loved him getting smacked in the head in the middle of his speech, jumping up stomping fools and yelling "It will fucking take more than that to stop me." I did think this went a little long in the Match Beyond section, Homicide's entry was such a huge moment, and I think they should have rid that wave into the finish quicker (also no way should a Wargames end on a pin.) I would have also liked to see Nick Gage or even Zandig in this match, a real CZW original would have made it even hotter. Great match though, one that I remember loving in 2006 and loving again on rewatch.

Verdict:

ER: That NWA Anarchy WarGames is a real revelation, a true classic that deserves praise and a bigger viewing audience. Cage of Death edges it out though. It sustained the fever pitch violence almost twice as long, everybody contributed in big ways, you had tons of storylines and successfully converging (which almost never works in wrestling), and front to back you're left with an all time classic hour of pro wrestling.

PAS: This is a style preference thing the ROH v. CZW match is an slickly produced studio album, and the NWA Anarchy match is more of a gritty live recording. I am a guy who will always prefer the rougher version, so I am sticking with the champ.

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Phil's UPDATED 2006 MOTY LIST

PHIL SCHNEIDER'S ON-GOING TOP 20 of 2006

Here is the current list, reviews for the older matches are in previous DVDVR's

1. Chris Benoit v. Finlay WWE 5/21
2. Jun Akiyama vs Masao Inoue NOAH 4/23
3. Rey Mysterio vs Randy Orton WWE 4/4
4. Chris Benoit v. Finlay WWE 5/3
5. Finlay v. Rey Mysterio WWE 3/20
6. Chris Benoit v. JBL WWE 4/11
7. Homicide v. Necro Butcher 5/13
8. Chris Benoit v. William Regal WWE 5/8
9. American Dragon Brian Danielson v. Samoa Joe ROH 8/6
10. Chris Hero/Necro Butcher/Super Dragon v. Samoa Joe/B.J. Whitmer/Adam Pearce ROH 4/22
11. La Mascara/El Hijo Del Santo v. Blue Panther/Tarzan Boy CMLL GDL 1/1
12. Rey Mysterio v. Mark Henry WWE 1/15
13. Damien Wayne v. Sean Denny NWA-VA 5/6
14. L.A. Park/Marco Corleone/Johnny Stamboli v. Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. CMLL 5/19
15. Yuki Ishikawa v. Hiroyuki Ito Big Mouth Loud 5/4
16. Low-Ki v. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 4/1
17. Rey Mysterio/Bobby Lashley/Chris Benoit v. JBL/Finlay/Randy Orton WWE 2/23
18. Samoa Joe v. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 1/12
19. Minoru Suzuki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara Big Mouth Loud 3/22
20. Juventud v. Kid Kash WWE 1/3


Previously on the list

- A.J. Styles v. Matt Sydal ROH 1/14
- Samoa Joe v. BJ Whitmer ROH 1/14
- Chris Benoit v. Randy Orton WWE 1/24
- Shadow WX/Mammoth Sasaki v. Abdullah Kobyashi/Daisuke Sekimoto BJW 1/27/06
- Finlay v. Chris Benoit WWE 1/30
- HHH v. Big Show WWE 2/13
--Finlay/JBL v. Lashley/Chris Benoit WWE 2/16
-KENTA/Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v.Kenta Kobashi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Tamon Honda NOAH 2/17
- Undertaker v. Kurt Angle WWE 2/19
-KUDO & MIKAMI v. Yoshiaki Yago & MIYAWAKI Chikara 2/24
- Milano Collection AT/Skyde v. Claudio Castagnoli/ Chris Hero Chikara 2/26
-Finlay v. Bobby Lashley WWE 5/8


1. Chris Benoit v. Finlay WWE 5/21
This list looks like it is going to end up the top 20 Finlay matches of 2006. 20+ minutes on PPV between Benoit and Finlay and of course it was amazing. I loved the early build of this match, their Smackdown match had a lot of matwork at the start, but this was built more like a Memphis main event. They start with a really tight collar and elbow, which they roll to the outside while holding on to, then they face off and talk trash, with Benoit grabbing a super quick double leg and an amazing fight for a sharpshooter. Sharpshooter is a protected move in the context of the WWE, but I have never seen it sold like death like it was here. Finlay was struggling like his life depended on it. Then they go back to their feet and Finlay does a really great fake of a thumb to the eye. If the match ended with the ref DQing Benoit for poking Finlay in the eye, it would have probably been 17 or 18 on my list, instead they go another 20 minutes.

There were so many little pieces of Finlay greatness in this match, Finlay grabbing his own ankle to block the sharpshooter, shooting the half by the ropes, the constant shots to the back of the head, the hammer lock Dragon sleeper, eating the German suplex on the floor. This may be the first Chris Benoit match I can remember where he was clearly the second best guy in the match. Benoit ruled here, but this was Finlay's show, 49 years old and the best wrestler in the world. Who would have thought it.

2. Jun Akiyama v. Masao Inoue NOAH 4/23
My favorite thing about NOAH isn't really your big matches between big stars, it is when they elevate random undercard guys into a big run or two. They do a great job of making the crowd believe and even guys who have underperformed for years really step it up. Ogawa's GHC title run, Kikuchi battling the New Japan Juniors, Tamon Honda challenging for the GHC title and winning the tag belts, IZU battling for respect. Masao Inoue's big run is one of the strangest and probably the coolest, I think he had long been considered one of the worst big league wrestlers in Japan. In the last year or so, he has found a way to harness that shittiness into a formula that delivers great matches. The Dark Agents tag title challenge was one of my favorite matches of 2005, and his GHC title challenge is one of my favorite matches of 2006.

Inoue is perfect as the lovable heel loser getting his improbable big match. It starts with Inoue (who has visable indentations from his reading glasses) jumping Akiyama at the bell and hitting a big suplex and a roll up. Akiyama is established as a guy who can get upset quickly and the crowd buys the near fall. Akiyama locks on the choke, and you also buy Inoue going down quickly. Inoue then spends the next couple of minutes with some awesome stalling, and then some really great eye rakes. When Akiyama responds to the eye rakes with rakes of his own, the crowd starts booing him unmercifully. Akiyama is great as a guy who can't deal with the crowd booing him. There is a point where he just decides "fuck it, you want to boo, boo this" and just murders Inoue, including a calf branding into the steel barricade. Inoue is working as a guy with a limited number of options, he can't go toe to toe with Akyama, and he can't out quick him, out wrestle him, or out power him. He needs to either catch Akyama in a mistake or outsmart him. The rolls ups, and the stalling fit into that, and he keeps getting near falls by tricking Akiyama into almost getting counted out. Near the end Akiyama is just killing Inoue, but Masao won't go down. It isn't no-selling because he is so tough, it is more like he knows this is his only shot and despite all of his flaws wants to die on his sword. Not a ton of cool moves or fancy sequences, but still one of the best matches of the year.

7. Homicide v. Necro Butcher 5/13
Alot of people still dog ROH as a promotion full of indy dream matches, but this was a match built around booking more then dream matchiness, and was pretty awesome. It starts with about eight minutes of Necro v. Joe which is always great. Joe gets jumped by Hero and Claudio and sent back, and Whitmer and Pearce come out and we have a two on three brawl for a bit. This was the weakest part of the match, but was still pretty fun. Pearce's piledriver on the floor was really nasty looking, and really should have taken out Claudio for longer. The heels take over leading to Homicide's music coming on to the crowd going nuts. The long term booking of this feud led perfectly to this point.

The Necro v. Homicide sections of this match were great, just craziness. The crowd char toss ended up being a really cool visual, and both guys took nutso bumps on the ring of chairs. My favorite thing about both wrestlers is the tightness of their brawling. Most of the shots from both guys land solid, yet it has the ragged feel of a real fight, when stuff misses, it misses in the way punches in a real fight would miss. I don't know if Necro would work as an every show guy, he would be kind of worthless in your throw away Chris Daniels 4-way dance, but it would be really stupid for ROH not to bring him back as a special attraction. He is one of the few guys you could bring in every couple of months, and stick right in the main event.

9. American Dragon Brian Danielson v. Samoa Joe ROH 8/6

You can't really go wrong with the two best wrestlers in your promotion wrestling in a main event for a title. I really enjoyed this match, I haven't seen a ton of 2006 ROH so this was my first chance to watch heel champion Brian Danielson, and he was a blast. The opening had Joe just dominating and Dragon kept bailing out to regroup. His regrouping stalls were really great, as he would do deep knee bends or slap himself in the face. He eventually takes over on Joe, by smacking his knee with a chair and working over that knee. This may have been the one part of the match that dragged a bit, you are going to have down spots in a 60 minute match, and I did enjoy Dragon's shit talking, him starting the "boring" chant was pretty inspired. Still it was obvious from the start time of the match, that it was going 60, and this part felt a little like a time killer.

Last 20 or so was pretty spectacular. Joe's tope was as good as I have ever seen it, it was almost Popetekisish like some one dropped a couch out of a four story walk up. Dragon's springboard into the crowd is the craziest highspot on a show with Jack Evans on it. The near fall section was great, I especially loved the head and arm amateur takeovers by Dragon into the cattle mutilation. Joe powering out of the Big Daddy elbows, into landing his KO knees was sweet as well. Final spot of match was great too, as Danielsons goes for a roll up off the ropes which Joe counters right before three right into the choke. Just great timing on the spot, and made the crowd go ballistic. This was probably the best 60 minute draw ROH has run, but I do think that these two have a better 25 minute match in them. Still it had three separate "This is Awesome" chants, so Meltzer really should drop the 5 on it.

10. Chris Hero/Necro Butcher/Super Dragon v. Samoa Joe/B.J. Whitmer/Adam Pearce ROH 4/22

This was the first match in the CZW v. ROH feud and was a totally fun all out brawl. Pearce and Whitmer are a pair of guys I don't really care for, but they both brought it pretty hard in this match. Pearce gets his head split open early and wrestles the match with a bloody vagina opened up on the side of his head, and Whitmer takes huge bumps including getting his head double stomped in a chair and getting Psycho Drivered off the apron to the floor. Super Dragon was fun in this too, although allot of the interactions with the fans I read about didn't make the DVD. If I got to see him monkeyflip a dipshit fan, or beel a bisexual, I imagine this match would have ended up higher on the list. The stars of this match were Chris Hero, Samoa Joe and Necro. Hero was such a great pussy heel in this, knowing exactly when to hit a cheap shot, run away or cockishly slap on a cravate. Necro was Necro, he took lunatic bumps, bled alot and threw really nice combos. Joe was a total maniac here, just killing everyone he gets his hands on. The Joe v. Necro showdowns were awesome, and I hope we get another real singles between the two at some point. My favorite spot of the whole match was when Necro sets up two chairs with the seats touching to suplex Joe through, Joe counters that, knocks Necro down, and switches the chairs so the backs are touching, before powerbombing Necro through the backs. Just the look on his face and the timing of the switch was awesome. I liked the Claudio turn, and the CZW boys really needed to go over initially.

14. L.A. Park/Marco Corleone/Johnny Stamboli v. Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. CMLL 5/19

Man alive is primed up L.A. Park just about the best thing you are ever going to see. This was an absolutely insane brawl with Parka flying across ring and just beating the holy shit out of Wagner for the first couple of falls. Really reckless stuff, Parka would just fly through the air and it really looked like he had no idea what he would do when he landed. He ties tape around his face and hands. One of the recent additions to Arena Mexico is Tony the caracturist, he draws little pictures of Mistico and Dr. Wagner, so Parka just beals Dr. Wagner Jr. right into Tony, grabs his easels and just smacks Wagner with it. After getting pounded for a two caidias , the technicos take over when Corleone hits his partners with a running dive from the ramp to the ring. Wagner comes back and just starts wailing away on Parka. Including ripping off his mask and apparently breaking his nose with a narsty enzigiri to the face. The third fall briefly turns into a match with Lizmark and Stamboli actually doing some nice exchanges, before going right back into Wagner and Parka killing each other. After this match both Parka and the two refs got suspended by the commission. There were parts of this that were really awkward looking, but it really just contributed to the insanity of the whole thing.

15. Yuki Ishikawa v. Hiroyuki Ito Big Mouth Loud 5/4

These are my two favorite wrestlers in Japan, working my favorite Japanese wrestling style. It probably should have ended up higher on this list. This was a lot of fun, but was really hurt by my expectations of it. Ito works a really agressive style, where he will either knock you out or make a mistake. Teddy Atlas would call him a TV friendly fighter. Ishikawa is the crafty veteran here who counters Ito's agression and tears him up on the mat. Some nasty shots by both guys, and some great tricky mat counters by Ishikawa. Ito gets two knockdowns and looks like he has the match won with a choke, but you don't want to take Ishikawa to the mat, as he outmaneuvers Ito and gets a sweet ankle lock out of knowhere. Great match, although I really think these two guys have a classic in them. This is a second match on a card, and the guys work it like a second match on the card. Ishikawa v. Otsuka from the first BML show was a semi-main event, Ito v. Tamura was the main event of the show it was on, and thus both matches should have been as good as they were. This wasn't set up to be that and it wasn't, although fans of both guys would still really dig this.

16. Low-Ki vs Necro Butcher-IWA-MS 4/1

I am loving all of these Necro indy dream matches. I usually hate dream match wrestling, but Necro is a guy who brings his own thing to every match he is in, in a way that you get to see a bunch of random guys work a Necro match, rather then just watching two athletes have a contest. Low-Ki is a guy who will beat the shit out of you, and Necro will take a huge beating so that is what we got to see. I was live for Ki knocking out Dan Maff, and some of the shots on Necro looked worse then what he hit Maff with. Necro was able to land some of his big shots too, and his punches looked totally awesome here. Still Necro really works better in 10-15 minute matches, and this lasted too long. Matches this brutal tend to get a little repetitive. If someone is taking a KO level beating 5 minutes in, and is taking a KO level beating 17 minutes in, it kind of makes the guy giving the beating look like shit. It was always my problem with the Momoe Nakanishi v. Kumiko Maeakawa matches, and this wasn't as egregious as that, it was still bad. Still this match had alot of goodness in it. The double stomp through the table was the spot of the year so far, and this had a ton of holy shit moments in it.

19. Minoru Suzuki vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara- Big Mouth Loud 3/22

These guys have a couple of matches on the upcoming 80's Other Japan set, this may have been as good of either of those, and Fujiwara is nearly 60. He also neither looks or wrestles particularly different then he did 17 years ago. Fujiwara is a guy who looked 57 when he was 27 and now still looks 57. He is some weird Dorian Grey thing, where he aged all he was going to age immediately and will stay that way forever. The matchh had some awesome mat counters, inlcuding the first move of the match which had Fujiwara counter a Suzuki shoot into a Fujiwara armbar. Fujiwara also had some sweet counters for Suzuki's sleeper suplex and piledriver.The speed that Fujiwara moves is shocking at his age, I mean he is as quick as tiny effeminate Ultimo students in their early twenties. Suzuki tones down his dickishness working his trainer, but still was enough of a cock for a Minoru Suzuki match.

Hidden Gems

One of the things I enjoyed about the early part of doing my 2006 MOTY blog was writing up some matches that might be under the radar. Now that I have watched more wrestling I have less room for those hidden gem type matches. So I am going to do an addendum for stuff that might fall under the radar of your average fan (i.e. no big show NOAH, WWE, TNA or ROH)

Katsushi Takemura vs Virus- AJPW 6/25

Virus is one of those hidden wrestling geniuses, guys like Yuki Ishikawa, Hiroyuki Ito, Preston Quinn, Negro Navarro and Solar, who are doing brilliant stuff below the radar of even obsessive wrestling nerds like us. So anytime any of those guys show up anywhere you could watch, you jump on it. Here Virus carries mediocre MUGAist Katsushi Takemura to probably the best match of his career. Virus is just ridiculously fast, and has some crazy offense, including some nutty hammerlock front facelock neckbreaker. Outside of one armdrag to the floor where he got caught on the guardrail (no guardrails in Mexico or Big Japan) he hit his stuff perfectly. He really made Takemura look great too, eating his tope nicely, and making Takemuras U.S. Indy offense look nasty. Takemura wins with a F5 which Virus eats better then a Hardy.

Pequeno Halloween/Pequeno Damien 666 vs Ultimo Dragoncito/Pequeno Olimpico- CMLL- 6/30
Really fun mini’s match from Guerreros Del Ring. Mini Mexicos Most Wanted are fucking insane. I mean they are out bumping actual Mexicos Most Wanted. They also have a ton of fun nasty double teams and take all of Pequeno Olimpicos fancy armdrags really well. Pequeno Olimpico needs to switch gimmicks, his fancy armdrag stuff would work fine as a Pequeno for 2002 Olimpico, but current Olimpico really needs an Shane Twin to work as his mini.

This was an especially impressive match because Ultimo Dragoncito keeps hurting himself, in the first fall alone he messes up his neck on a simple snap mare, and then after hitting a gorgeous Asai Moonsault cracks his face on a front row chair. The match builds real well with each fall ending on something crazy. For the third fall Pequeno Halloween takes a reverse suplex on the floor which is Necro Butcher crazy, and was probably the fourth insane bump he took in the match.

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