Sunday Reading: Dixie's Got the Yeyo

Dixie vs. Tony Lazaro JAPW 9/13/02 

ER: Jersey All Pro Tony Lazaro wrestled less than 25 matches in his career and died tragically young, which might make him the most obscure eventual member of Special K. This was before his brief Special K run, not yet one year into a career that didn't last two. Think of this match as Kikuchi trying to rise up against Kobashi, but if Kikuchi and Kobashi were 135 pounds soaking wet. Knowing how inexperienced Lazaro was, it's another great Dixie performance, highlighting how good he was at missing offense to create openings, and how advanced he was at fueling the innovation of others. His fast missed offense to set up an opponent's sequence - like his fast spinning heel kick - was something La Parka was really good at in the exact same way. I don't think Dixie was inspired by La Parka, he just has many qualities that great wrestlers have. He's able to highlight the strengths of Lazaro in cool ways, working familiar sequences in ways that include something unfamiliar. 

I loved the way they approached their mirror sequence, with them mirroring each other so well that they actually perfectly connect the soles of their feet during the mirror dropkick. I don't think I've ever seen that. Dixie works his brilliant fusion of southern wrestler and innovative joshi worker, throwing sharp punches and multiple kneedrop variations to glue together his attacks. The knee he shoves into the side of a crawling Lazaro's head is even better than his traditional vertically dropped knee. They don't overdo big spots which makes their high end basics stand out, and makes their biggest spots pop. Seeing them do a gorgeously executed Ocean Cyclone Suplex is cool because you get to see what it would look like performed by people smaller than Manami Toyota. 

There's a great moment that really captures the feel of this era of Jersey All Pro, when Lazaro hits Dixie with a stiff mule kick to the face from the apron then hits an Asai moonsault that smashes his shins across the guardrail. He earns his Holy Shit chant for the dangerous landing, while also earning his babyface cheers when he makes it back to the ring fired up from surviving his bad landing. JAPW fliers landing brutally and fighting through pain is one of the things that made the style so cool. It turns traditional wrestling selling on its ear because we witnessed them actually surviving violent crashes, their toughness eschewing the need for theatrical limping. 

Dixie is an innovative bumper without reinventing the bump, great at taking slamming offense on his face. His small frame was perfect for being whipped into the mat on pancakes and 2002 Staten Island playground wrestling full nelson clutch slams alike. He's also great at quickly setting up and executing extremely complicated offense. His match finishing Air Raid Crash delivered over his own knee rules in its full embodiment of the promotion's highly embellished style, but it's the way he gets Lazaro into position for it so quickly that makes it the style's equivalent to an Arn Anderson spinebuster. 

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Deranged Wrestled 3 Way Dances Worth Watching

Deranged vs. Azrieal vs. Grim Reefer USA Pro 10/19/02 - GREAT

ER: This would have been better as Deranged vs. either in a singles match, but that's not what USA Pro was about and it wasn't what it would ever be about! You get the full flavor by running this three card monte and it only highlights how amazing Deranged was at the style. Seeing Deranged in three ways made his skills stand out more, made it more clear he was a step above the other small fliers. 

Grim Reefer's execution and timing wasn't as good as the others. He has good ideas on his bumps but sometimes takes them a bit early or mapped out. But his chops hit hard, and a guy like Deranged can build some special sequences around a guy with good ideas who hits hard. Reefer is wearing his snapback through half the match, and the Elk's Lodge crowd boos Azrieal when the hat comes off (after Reefer took some kind of crazy arm clutch brainbuster). To get the booing to stop, Azrieal expertly starts kicking Reefer in the back as hard as he can, and it works! 

But Deranged won't be upstaged in a three way. Impossible. Piling onto Azrieal's kicks, Deranged shows how good HE can kick backs, getting then into position with nicely executed snapmares and punctuating them both with kicks. It's kind of shocking how good Deranged's basics were. He knew how to glue flashy spots together, had great punches, had a snapmare that Bret Hart would have to rate, a strong sense of how to get from A to B. The key to his greatness is how he used all these basics to build to wild shit like a hiptoss facebuster slam, or breaking up a pinfall with a double stomp off the top. If you have to break up a pin anyway, why not do so as painfully as possible? His pop up rana is as smooth as any luchador's, and he can take a full backflip selling a facebuster without making it look ridiculous. I mean, it looks ridiculous, but he's great at making it look like that's just what his body does in response to offense. 

Azrieal is eliminated first and it gives us a chance to see Reefer alone with Deranged, see what they could cook up. I don't remember ever seeing a Deranged/Reefer singles (it must have happened but I sure don't remember seeing one) and it's cool. Deranged does more of his Great Basics when he misses a clothesline thrown like he thought it would hit, and thrown hard. If Reefer had somehow gotten crossed up, Deranged would have broken his face with it. He uses that miss to set up a spinning headscissors that at first looks like Reefer messed something up, but then I see he was intentionally laying out flat while taking it to get Deranged into a sick crossface. When Deranged gets to the ropes, Reefer abandons the crossface and runs across the top rope to hit a swanton. One of Deranged's greatest skills is the way he facilitated everyone's whims and ideas, an amazing canvas for guys with playground death wish creativity. 

Deranged vs. Jay Lethal vs. Tony Lazaro JAPW 11/8/02 - VERY GOOD

ER: As part of his entrance, Deranged flips himself into several unprompted bumps, including a cannonball into the guardrail. He wasn't putting himself through tables, but he's like if Sabu had been part of a breakin' crew. It rules. This man is truly deranged! I liked everyone in this match, but it's another instance of Deranged giving two guys a canvas to do some of their best work. You watch something like this and ask "Did Jay Lethal have a really great spinebuster...or was Deranged great at elevating everyone's offense? Did Yeyo have a really great clothesline...or does Deranged make me think it hits like a truck? Does Deranged snap off huracanranas better than anyone...or is every New Jersey resident great at taking pop up ranas?" Lethal and Lazaro do work really well with him, and with each other, and everyone in 2002 New Jersey probably did take huracanranas really well. Except for Slyk Wagner Brown, I guess. 

Early in the match Deranged backdrops Lethal to the floor, sending him pretty far away from the ring, and Lazaro saves Lethal's life with a catch. Lethal would have been busted over the guardrail without a guy like Yeyo out there catching dives like a pro. Lazaro can catch dives, and he can take a mean bump. I think every time I've ever seen Deranged throw Lazaro into the corners with an overhead belly to belly, into another opponent, it has led to Lazaro landing on his head. Lazaro will fall on his head, but he also solos over the bridge with some out of nowhere Chris Hamrick bullshit. He stops the whole match for two minutes selling an ankle injury after taking a pancake. There is not a soul in Bayonne buying it, so Lazaro just keeps it going, long enough that the crowd gets audibly annoyed when he's being helped up by referees and runs through Deranged and Lethal with a clothesline. The man points at his head after, which means we must officially Stan 4 Yeyo. I love when a guy eats up that much match time with bullshit, especially in a match that's designed to be nothing but fast action. 

There are some ideas that don't quite work due to fudged timing, but they are good ideas! My favorite - in concept - was Lazaro  trying a low dropkick to break up a sunset flip, but Deranged flattens out and Lazaro flies over him into a Fuerza bump. It doesn't quite get pulled off, the timing was off, either Deranged flattened out early or Lazaro came in late, but I've never seen a Fuerza bump set up by a guy trying to break up a pin. Speaking of breaking up pins, Deranged hits a senton onto both Lazaro and Lethal while Lethal is holding a surfboard, leading to Lazaro's elimination, and it's disgusting. Lethal kicks out of one of Deranged's sickest Code Reds, landing Lethal high up on his shoulders, and Lethal wins with a crazy pumphandle Gotch piledriver. As with every crazy move, I love how Deranged set it up. Lethal caught a Deranged clothesline then ducked a high kick, Deranged a master at spinning and twisting himself into someone else's brutal offense while making it look like he organically wound up in an impossible physical position. 

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Jersey on My Mind, Deranged in My Heart

Deranged vs. Homicide JAPW 12/13/02 - EPIC

ER: For whatever reason the Youth Gone Wild main event lumberjack match the month before didn't work, but back in Bayonne a month later with Deranged in the main event and everything works perfectly. Deranged is a main event superstar who perfectly understood what kind of little shit everyone thought he was, so went above and beyond to be even more of a little shit. It's beautiful. This boy, voice cracking, draws real heat and knows exactly what he's doing. Everything he screams at the crowd is straight out of Memphis, from an era he couldn't possibly have seen. Who was passing the Memphis tapes around New Jersey high schools? He talks trash whenever he has the slightest fleeting advantage and he got a real guffaw out of me when he started yelling, "I TRAINED THIS FOOL HERE! I TRAINED HIM!" He yells, "I'M THE MAN" like the cute Puerto Rican kid in Gloria before pathetically cowering in the corner to break a lock up, running away on his knees. When he's far enough away from Homicide he yells, "HE AIN'T GOT NOTHIN HE'S SCARED OF ME". Deranged is working a Gallagher II version of Jamie Dundee, playing the states Dundee barely wrestled. Is Bayonne familiar with Dundee's shtick? Deranged understands it perfectly. He does a multiple cartwheel escape out of a wristlock and yells, "LOOK AT THAT" before getting his teeth knocked in with an elbow smash. Complaints of hair pulls are requisite, for Deranged is wearing a du-rag. When he screeches, "YOU WANNA SEE A HOT MOVE!?!?" and locks in a chinlock, we know we are watching a wrestling genius. 

If Deranged is a wrestling genius, 2002 Homicide was a wrestling monster. Deranged may have talked a lot of shit, but Homicide made damn sure he got hit. The man fully sidesteps a Deranged rope flip dive and lets the man fully splat on the tile floor of the Bayonne Charity Hall. Good god. He throws hard kicks and chops, and a beautiful leaping kneedrop that lands perfectly worked to Deranged's temple. Homicide was hitting hard on his chops and kicks, but working everything else while making it look fully evil. His elbowdrop lands with similar form to Fit Finlay's, except Homicide also has a nice one off the middle buckle delivered the same way. He hits multiple faces washes with his knees driven into and past Deranged's head, and I watched them over and over because they are impactful, but somehow safe, while they looked devastating. They looked like they were smashing Deranged's skull in but he was somehow going in full speed while pulling every one. Homicide even makes his chinlock look punishing, leaning his weight forward on Deranged, never looking like either man was resting. Aside from all this, Homicide can also draw sympathy. When he gets baseball slide dropkicked into the railing and curses angrily on impact, a little kid leans in and sincerely asks, "Are you okay?" 

Homicide has insanely great offense, and Deranged is great at making it look even better. It's not just the lack of consideration for his future, it's the way he utilizes late kickouts, and how good he is at sneaking in those late kickouts and making them work. His kickouts made Homicide's brainbuster, falcon arrow, and insane kneeling Michinoku driver all look like potential finishes. Although, the actual finish was undeniable, a Cop Killa so dangerous it could only be done by a man named Homicide. It's a running Cop Killa executed with no regard for Deranged's well being. Homicide performed the move like he was doing it to a CPR dummy, not to a living breathing human. He had no way of knowing if Deranged would land okay, he was doing this move to commit murder. He pins him with one finger to his chest because there was zero chance there could have been a kickout even if that were the plan. Earlier, Deranged did a backflip kick that instead shot both his knees straight into Homicide's chin, hard enough that I'm surprised Homicide wasn't knocked out. Since Deranged failed to knock him out, I have to imagine this Cop Killa - the most disgusting one I have ever seen - was a classic Come at the King, Best Not Miss payback. 

Hilarious note: there's a weird altercation as the ref didn't know the finish and thought Deranged was supposed to kick out of THAT Cop Killa, but it was clearly the finish to anyone watching and Deranged's body didn't move because he was not conscious. So the ref is acting like Deranged got his shoulder up, even though Deranged was still lying in an unconscious heap. The bell rings, Homicide's music starts playing, and the ref stays down on a knee signaling to Homicide that Deranged got his shoulder up while Homicide looks at him like he's a real fucking idiot. This ref, presumably, was asking why they weren't starting the damn match at Over the Edge '99. 

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Samoa Joe is Wrestling for the World Title. Here's Him 20 Years Ago vs. Super Dragon.

Super Dragon vs. Samoa Joe JAPW 10/30/04

ER: Samoa Joe will be in the main event of Full Gear in a week, and this match against Super Dragon from 20 years ago got posted recently. I had never seen this match and I don't think I saw any of the SoCal Dragon/Joe matches live. I don't know if I even knew they had a match in JAPW. Joe was my favorite wrestler in the world around this time. He was so fast and powerful in 2004. This is billed as "ROH vs. PWG in a JAPW ring", but Samoa Joe wrestles this like a guy who had done some tours with Zero-1 and was throwing in tributes to guys he rode the bus with. He buzzsaws through a legsweep like Hashimoto, rears back a headbutt like Fujiwara, he does a great magic trick of the Ole Kick into the guardrail just like Otani. Now, Otani would just actually kick guys in the face but Joe's magic is in how he builds up steam and accurately kicks just past Dragon's face into the railing, twice! He focuses on speed and impact rather than breaking faces and it's impressive as hell. I like Zero-1 Joe. It turns the match into something more than "ROH vs. PWG"; It becomes Guy Who Went to Japan vs. Guy Who Had Great Ideas With His Friends in a way I'm very nostalgic for. 

Super Dragon throws some of the hardest chops you can throw, like a 19 year old backyarder hitting his friend as hard as possible. His somersault senton tope is an insane dive to do in the Rahway Rec Center, flying past the ringpost and connecting flush with Joe while also hitting his head on the floor in a way that looked like Joe credibly reversed the dive into a sitout powerbomb in one motion. It's one of those moves and moments that defines that era of New Jersey indie wrestling, just incredible risk + innovation.  

They also weren't an easy crowd. Dragon hits a high concept enziguiri that doesn't quite read and the Jersey crowd starts chanting AVERAGE DRAGON. I thought these two would light each other up but instead I wound up impressed with how well they worked a lot of their strikes, hitting hard on chops but not killing each other with potatoes. Joe's ole kicks are an all time great worked act of violence, going in fast but only grazing. I've seen Dragon murder people with strikes and stomps but I thought it was cool how he "pulled" the double stomp off the top. That said, Samoa Joe holds onto his Death Valley Driver like a monster, straight into the pin, looked disgusting. There is nothing average about what they did. I loved wrestling so much in 2004. 

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We Need to Get Dixie on a DEAN~! Show

 

Dixie vs. Rainchild JAPW 7/13/02

ER: Why did Dixie beloved by me and all the Real Ones during the early 2000s? Who's to say but he starts this match with a long standing cravat in 2002 and proceeds to work mid 90s Jamie Dundee schtick in Seaside Heights while selling hiptosses and armdrags. He is the youngest man working rope scrapes across the eyes in 2002 wrestling and he knows how to shit talk during a chinlock as well as Tracy Smothers or Adam Pearce. Rainchild was so good for wrestling so few matches. He does "simple" offense well, like his beautiful dropkick, and aims high on his big offense. He might have bit off more than he can chew but I like his brand of go go go. A complicated DDT doesn't quite work? Whatever, he also does a shooting star press to the floor while a ferris wheel glows in the background. His offense is big, like his backpack stunner and his beautifully executed falcon arrow, and he is a dynamic bumper. His bumps are athletic, but in a way where he clearly leans into offense to force the bumps, not looking like he predetermined which athletic bump to take. It looks great because Dixie is someone who can force a mean bump. 

Dixie runs a knee into the side of Rainchild's head and hits increasingly violent back elbows, aimed at Rainchild's eye, and does single arm chops that hit as hard as Tenryu (once you scale the size accordingly). He keeps returning to that cravat he began with and hits snap suplexes with full Dynamite energy, building to his stiffest back elbow of the match. Dixie missed a kneedrop off the top that was so sweet it brought a tear to my eye. I love how Singlet Era Dixie always had the visual threat of a strap drop but he never used it as a regular spot, preferring to keep the straps secure in case the need for a strap drop arose. Finishing the match with an Alabama slam into a snug jackknife pin is a perfectly heel troll Dixie way to win a match that featured a shooting star press to the floor. 

After he's won the match, Dixie hits a fistdrop and doing that feels so on the nose for A Thing That Eric's Favorite Wrestler Would Do that it makes me believe slightly more in a Truman Show universe made just for me. I hate this world in its current state, so at what point did my show get canceled? Taking my girl out to a cheap happy hour now costs $60 but when I was 21 skinny east coast fliers were perfecting southern style and doing perfect fistdrops. The world was mine. 

Dixie vs. Azrieal  JAPW 8/10/02

ER: I don't know if wrestling gets better than Dixie wrestling in Seaside Heights. It's like a perfect Conner O'Malley bit. He's challenging guys to step over the rail, telling loudmouths exactly where they can find him outside after the show. He responds to Azrieal's side headlock takeovers like a guy who is wondering what this shit is all about. What's this Working Holds shit!? There are too many things I love about Dixie's wrestling. How was he this good? He isn't just a good bumper, he's a good bumper who can add comedy after the bump. He takes a huracanrana with 0.7 Juventud speed and turns it into a comedy bump as it's happening, taking the rana as if it quickly bumped him to the floor. It's like the comedy bumping of Chris Candido with the athletic speed of Juvy. His leaping kneedrop is something nobody in wrestling is doing right now. There's a wide open market for Best Drops because all forms of Drops are a dying breed. How strange is that? Fistdrops are barely around, kneedrops have been phased almost entirely out, even elbowdrops are nowhere near as common (or as good) as they were a couple decades ago. Think about how few elbowdrops there are in modern wrestling, and how everything is worse for it. Can you name any of the guys in the current discussion for best elbowdrop? No good ones come to my mind. 

Dixie is great at little individual aspects of wrestling, like fighting for the ropes. I like the levels of panic in which he fought for the ropes, like he has a 1-5 panic dial and knew when to start kick his legs to help him scoot faster when the dial hit 4. He is great at putting over the armbar of a man with the smallest arms on the roster. Azrieal does a wild swan dive cannonball into the aisle and Dixie catches as much of it as we can reasonably expect a small teenager to catch. I always loved how Jersey All Pro guys sold big offense that didn't fully hit. I thought it only added to the craziness of spots when one of them would stand up slowly but proudly, in pain after hitting as much concrete as man. They did the thing, they survived the impact, they'll deal with the bad joints in a decade. Dixie was great at using the Alabama slam as not just a finish, but as a move to set up the finish, and thinking about his own offense as multifaceted and not just a myopic "This is My Finish and it comes in This Order" was just one more thing he did that was a cut above the rest.  

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Found Footage Friday: ANDRE~! JUMBO~! KI~! NECRO~! CORNETTE~! A FLAIR~! LAWLER~! BABA~! TAUE~! CHRISTOPHER~!

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue AJPW RWTL 11/20/90 - EPIC

MD: Instead of reviewing this, I just want to list all the cool moments. At this point it'd been almost a year since Taue and Baba wrestled each other and Taue grew a lot in 90. He'd throw headbutts at Baba only to eat the brain chop. He'd come back with the palm strikes against the ropes and hit Baba with his own Russian Leg Sweep, only to piss Baba off so he hit him with one of his own. It had been a year (the last RWTL) since Jumbo fought Baba and the crowd buzzed huge when Jumbo tagged in. Early on, Jumbo put on the breaks so Baba couldn't get him with the big boot and Baba gave him a sort of "Aw, shucks" expression.

Then there was Andre, who only faced Jumbo or Taue a handful of times in his career. Taue tried to hit him with an enziguiri but could only get to the middle of his back. Jumbo tried to knock him over with a shoulder block and recoiled with as much over the top selling as I've ever seen out of him (it was warranted). Then Jumbo and Taue combined with a double jumping knee to trap Andre in the ropes but failed utterly to double suplex him. After the aforementioned Baba/Taue exchange, Taue was actually able to slam Baba, though he could have milked it more. Unfortunately, then Andre came in and manhandled him (being Taue!) like he was a child. Andre returned the favor from Jumbo's selling, recoiling from Tsuruta's punches and even going down (though he did toss him on the kick out), and then Taue ran into Andre's fist in the most glorious way possible. They finally got that double suplex, but on Baba, but he was able to ultimately survive the onslaught and tag Andre. Then Taue tried to waistlock him as he was going to German Suplex him and paid for it just like you'd expect.

See, all cool stuff. There was a pretty good match in there too, but that's a lot of cool stuff for a fifteen minute video and a ten minute match.

ER: Man this was awesome. This is the biggest bumping Andre performance of the 90s, and I'm not sure how far back into the 80s you'd have to go to find a match where he bumped more, but it's pretty far. It's amazing. To think, they aired the Andre/Baba RWTL '90 match against The Land of Giants, but their match against the Funks, this match, and the drool worthy Abdullah/Kimala II match all happened on house shows. This show was not officially taped, but was a house show the size of a TV taping, and obviously our intrepid cameraman saw how important this was. I'm so glad he did. I've gotten used to seeing inactive Andre performances, and seeing just how much he can add to a match with as little movement as possible, relying on body language and his incomparable selling and acting. There is so much to gleam from minimalist Andre, that seeing him get in and out of the ring multiple times and taking 4-5 bumps is downright shocking. When he and Baba entered the ring and I saw how Andre was pulling himself up onto the apron and climbing the turnbuckle rungs like a ladder to get the rest of his body upright, I assumed this was going to be a lot of Andre punching people from the ring apron. I've seen plenty of matches where just getting into the ring past the ring ropes looked like Andre pushing a boulder up a mountain, and I'm always excited to see how he can integrate his body's pain into a match. Instead, he made this into so much more. 

There were still great apron Andre moments, like the way he kicked at Taue's foot when Taue was breaking a submission, but I was surprised at how much Andre did in the ring. He worked really well with both Jumbo and Taue, and that first showdown with Jumbo felt special. I loved how Andre sold for Jumbo, how their first exchange went so much differently from their later showdown. When Andre squares off with Jumbo for the first time, Jumbo comes barreling in with a shoulderblock that hits a wall and sends Jumbo recoiling back into the ropes, and when he tries it against Andre just grabs him by the neck and face and squeezes, then blasts him with a headbutt. When a weaker Andre squares off with Jumbo late in the match, it's all about Andre's selling. I loved how Andre staggered around for Jumbo's hard elbow smashes. Andre is a man with somehow impeccable balance, who is able to sell as if he's a man with no center of gravity, always in danger of toppling over. Jumbo hits him with a couple elbows and sends Andre staggering, and Andre has to lunge for the ropes just to dodge Jumbo's big knee. The dodge does not deter Jumbo, and seeing that Andre is still staggered, he knocks him to the mat with a definitive elbow smash. It's wild to see Andre getting knocked down by a strike, and I couldn't even guess the last time it happened before this. 

Taue/Andre was fun in a different way, as Taue is the young punk (I like how a young punk in All Japan is someone who has wrestled almost 500 matches) who boldly fires off shots against the biggest man in Nagoya. I thought the Taue enziguiri looked great, catching Andre in the base of his neck (Andre sold it perfectly, like he just got punctured by a larger than average mosquito), then throwing a couple of jumping knees into Andre's torso before sending Andre careening backwards into the ropes with Jumbo's help. Andre had a great look of panic while stuck in the ropes, and was freed relatively quickly so that Jumbo and Taue could try an ill-advised tandem suplex. I loved how Andre dropped to his butt to block the suplex, as it made the suplex look that much more threatening. Andre did not frequently wind up on the mat during his All Japan run (he winds up on the mat more in this match than in several other available Andre AJ matches combined), so him willingly dropping to the mat only made it look like Jumbo and Taue were *that* close to suplexing him. 

I know I'm focusing a lot on Andre, but I thought this was a tremendous Baba match too. Really, it was a tremendous Everybody match, but I digress. Baba had some fun small stuff with Taue to start, giving Taue a great oldhead "okay, okay!" look after Taue backs him into the ropes and chops him. He does a slick armdrag takedown of Taue and works the headscissors, then later breaks out a rolling ankle pick on Jumbo, rolling down Jumbo's leg from a hammerlock to force Jumbo's momentum forward. It's always weird fun watching first couple years matches from guys like Taue or Tamon Honda, as they have 100% different movesets than during their peak years, and it's barely like watching an early version of the same wrestler, it's more like watching a completely different guy. Taue does Jumbo kneelifts instead of big running kicks, hits Baba with a bodyslam/elbowdrop/legdrop combo that he completely dropped, even throws a great lariat that I don't remember him using past 1992. I loved their dueling side Russian legsweeps (a move that always looks like it might cause Baba to shatter), and how Taue and Jumbo pulled off the tandem suplex on Baba, then took turns seeing who could hit him with a harder lariat (jury is out, both Taue and Jumbo really aimed to wreck their boss). Taue has Baba on the ropes and keeps that energy when Andre tags in, and it goes terribly for him. Taue chops away on Andre until Andre has had enough, then just shoves Taue into the corner and triumphantly squishes him over and over again, whips him into Baba's boot, and then drops that elbow. You can see Andre digging that elbow into Taue's chest as he presses down on his sternum with his palm, making sure the punk stays down. Another 90s Andre classic.

Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher vs. David Flair/Jim Cornette 3/31/2002

MD: There's a moment in here where David has Lawler backed in the corner and lays in some punches. He'd developed pretty decent ones at some point and Lawler might be the best guy in the history of wrestling when it comes to sympathetically taking offense in the corner. I've seen him as an old man build matches over the last couple of years just around that. Anyway, afterwards, Flair goes over to Cornette and eagerly asks if he did good before getting nailed from behind and stooging. That, right there, was probably David's ceiling, but it was a very effective moment. David looking for fatherly acceptance from Russo or whatever obviously didn't work, but a couple of years and a number of matches later, with Cornette in that role? That might have had some legs.

Having Christopher in there (and I have to admit, he sort of felt like 80s Greg Gagne, after he'd already had some success, teaming with Verne) makes you think that David's best was sort of as a poor man's version of him. Where he stood out the most wasn't trying to be Ric Flair but the slightly off-kilter stooging, just how Christopher was best as an over-the-top stooge. Still, he had a pretty decent cut off punch and got some heat with pile drivers. He also took a neckbreaker in an ugly manner. Bumping just wasn't his strong suit. It didn't need to be here, though, since Cornette carried a ton of weight: with the pre-course promo, with the super padded trunks, by trying to coach instead of wrestle until Christopher tossed him in, by getting shaken up and tagging Lawler hilariously, by using the powder and getting believable shots in on the outside. This was pretty close to the whole Cornette experience and the Lawler family knew how to get the most out of it.

ER: This was great, and really there was only one reason to think this wasn't going to be great, but it's a pretty important reason. That said, this is probably the most complete I have ever seen David Flair look in a wrestling ring. Flair is a complete unnatural ("The Unnatural" would be a really funny gimmick for someone like Renegade or Flair to have worked), a guy who looks like he's never moved athletically in his life, who always took the weirdest bumps while having no idea what to do with his body on offense. Here, more than any other awful David Flair performance I've seen, he knew exactly what to do. Before the match, Cornette got on the mic and talked a lot of great hyperbolic BS about how "David Flair is going to be the best wrestler of the 21st century!" And, you know, I gotta say there are nothing but fascinating matches from the last 100 matches of Flair's career, so maybe he was onto something Has anyone here seen any of the Puerto Rico, All Japan, or even remember if the TNA stuff was any good? Any lucky souls get to see Regal/Flair in South Carolina, taped as a Velocity dark match? I hate how I'm talking myself into seeing more David Flair. 

My favorite part of this was how everyone got to show off their right hands, and honestly, every person in this match had a good right hand. Lawler having a good right hand won't surprise you, and he used it well here (including blindsiding Flair with a right before dropping to his knees with a fistdrop), and Cornette at this point is someone who is established as having a great right hand. But they aren't the ones who throw the most punches in this match. We get two actual punch outs between Christopher and Flair, and they were good! They each showed a bit of light on two of them, but the form of Flair was what stood out the most. This was a man who, just a couple years before, did not have good form on ANYthing. And here he is throwing actual punches to the chin and jaw, not cheating by trying to throw them past Christopher's head or doing that weird Abyss punch where he sands the top of their head. David Flair was throwing actual worked punches in 2002, and they were good. He has a nice gutwrench slam and an even better pair of piledrivers, and you can color me impressed. He still looked like he couldn't really bump, taking a neckbreaker like a baby wiggling in his high chair to avoid the mashed carrots. Also, I love how Cornette was the biggest bumper in the entire match. Every piece of Cornette shtick was great, like tagging out to Lawler after getting punched around by Christopher. Cornette even took a big bump to the floor, and all of his big back bumps to sell punches were perfect. I always love how good Cornette is at bumping despite looking like, well, a guy who would be filmed berating a Wendy's employee.  

Low-Ki vs. Necro Butcher JAPW 5/19/07 - EPIC

PAS: This is honestly one of the great all time match ups in wrestling history. I am not sure how I had no idea they wrestled in JAPW in addition to the two IWA-MS classics the year before and the fun brawl a few years later in IWA-EC. Having this show up is like finding a new Santo vs. Casas or Lawler vs. Dundee match. Necro is really the perfect opponent for Ki: he is willing to meet his recklessness and stiffness with recklessness and stiffness of his own. Ki throws full force kicks to his head, and Necro responds with hard shoot punches to the jaw, just sick stuff both ways. FUTEN shit. There is a moment where Ki lands a double stomp on Necro's back and you can see his spine invert. Necro punches his way out of the Warriors Way double stomp and hits a crazy looking top rope rana. They do the thumbtacks spot with Necro getting Irish whipped and stepping on them with his bare feet. It is an incredible spot the first time you see it, but Necro went back to the well a couple of times with it. Still that is a minor complaint for an otherwise hellacious monster of a match.

MD: This was as good of a brawl-with-plunder 2000s match as you'll find, really, two guys who just threw everything they had at each other and did everything they could to prevent the other from doing the same. Violence and struggle from beginning to end. What made this better was that it was at St. Joseph's gym, with a priest obviously holding the keys to letting JAPW run there and getting to do the ring introductions in turn. So, he got to introduce Necro with his "Choose Death" shirt. That's as pro wrestling as you get basically. You can almost imagine Fat Frank reassuring the guy it was okay because Ki was going over so it was a parable about good vs. evil, with good overcoming the excesses of evil...or something. I especially appreciated the fight out of the Warrior's Way set-up because Necro had previously sort of sat around draped on the top rope for the double stomp. It was a great double stomp, but that had seemed a bit off given the match they were having. The fact he refused to allow such a thing to happen again was great and pulled me right back in. It was the sort of a match where the announcers and the crowd would go just as nuts for Necro taking the Cactus Jack plunge through a table as they would for something like Ki hitting a power drive elbow on the floor. Agreed with Phil on the thumbtacks spot, though it obviously worked for the crowd on that night and they used it effectively in setting up the finish. Necro probably went to that well as often as he did because it protected him in a loss.

ER: Athletically, these two couldn't be much more different. Low Ki has maybe the best body control in American wrestling history (I used to say "in wrestling history" but all of our unearthed French Catch footage kind of popped that balloon) and Necro Butcher wrestles like the proverbial bull in a china shop. It's one of wrestling's great juxtapositions, and they meet in the middle with stiffness. Necro takes so many kicks in this match, all to the body and head, and no matter how many times he punches back at Ki and sticks digs his fingers into Ki's mouth, nose, and eyes, those kicks keep coming. I loved Ki kicking Necro right in the eye, causing Necro to get stuck in the ropes like a death match Andre. Necro has a lot of fun ways to fight back, seems like he was always punching while off balance, from his knees, from his back, even hanging upside down. But I thought what set this apart wasn't just the stiffness, it was the way they each sold strikes and how they each fought for offense. A Necro punch is always a great thing, but when Ki slips out of a powerbomb and gets decked right after, Ki - limp bodied - bounces and flops down to the mat while hitting every rope on the way down, and that's just wrestling perfection. When Necro tries to powerbomb Ki into a table, Ki tries to fight out, making Necro fight against physics to re-lift Ki and finally drop to his knees with a powerbomb. when Ki goes for the Warriors Way, he tries to keep Necro in the tree of woe by grinding his boot into Necro's kneecap, causing Necro to reflexively punch up at Ki until he breaks. Necro getting run barefoot through the thumbtacks is a great way to set up offense, distracting Necro long enough to shotgun dropkick him through a table. Their stiffness was often used as a means to distract, not as a means to an end, and I think that's something that really elevates their feud to all time status. Monsta Mack's screeching Chicken Lady impression over every single awesome part of the match couldn't hold this one back. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LAWLER

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW KI

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Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Smack 'Em Whack 'Em (+ Bonus JAPW!)

As has happened the past few years, my friend Josh came over on Thanksgiving and we played video games and watched a Coliseum Video. I'm not sure we intended this to become a tradition, but whenever Josh comes over he tends to want to either play old NES games, Silent Hill 2, watch a Coliseum Video, or watch old WCW. This time he chose to just wear a Silent Hill 2 long sleeve while watching a Coliseum Video, and this was the one he chose. It's a pretty legendary tape, often regarded as the best in the series due to the selection of Bret Hart matches. I will not spend any sentences beyond this one writing up any of the Bushwhacker segments that happen between every single match of this tape. 

Berzerker vs. Crush 

ER: Oh my god this was GOOD! It was also WEIRD! Because Crush appeared to be completely zonked out of his mind on something, anything. His eyes were really shut and it felt like Berzerker had to keep kicking him his the face a bunch just to keep him awake. Berzerker has to put in a real overdrive performance, Crush taking a beating that only built to his big comeback. I am not trying to paint too negative a portrait of Crush, but there was just something very off and very far away about his mannerisms in this match. Kona Crush was one of my least liked guys in WWF. I hated his look, hated his fluffy frosted mullet, hated his chubby baby fat face. Crush was not a wrestler I looked forward to seeing. But this was arguably the most I have enjoyed him, and we can point directly to Berzerker as the reason. Berzerker put over Crush's strength HUGE, and it was great. They do a couple tests of strength, one ending with Berzerker getting thrown backwards and taking his fast backwards bump over the top to the floor, and then a shoulderblock exchange sees him also quickly whip himself over to the floor. I love that bump. Berzerker comes back in with a big boot and the Crush admirably takes his own bump to the floor, opting to go out through the middle ropes but taking it more like a luchador, which looked weird but cool. 

Berzerker controls things with these great annoying boots to the head, not letting Crush get to his feet, just stalking around him and needling him with these push kicks. He hits a big delayed piledriver, and it's a shame (and also logical) that he didn't break out the piledriver more as he has a nice one. He misses the big kneedrop which gives Crush an opening, and Crush hits a really nice atomic drop and a side slam, before squeezing Berzerker's head until he passed out. I was realllllly hoping for one minor Berzerker comeback during the head squeeze, such as him looking as if he might fight out of it, before eventually succumbing. It did take Crush awhile to finish him with the vice, so perhaps we were supposed to be interpreting that as Berzerker fighting through it, but I would have liked that visually represented better. Still, this match was so good, which is a strong upgrade over every single online review I found. Those reviews collectively described this match as essentially the saddest fart sound in the world. And they were wrong. If anything, this was a joyous, confident, trumpeting fart sound, delivered in front of your friends and family, who would go on to share in your joy. 

Earthquake vs. Repo Man

ER: I was hoping for more Earthquake here, and the crowd is really quiet for a lot of Repo Man's control. Repo tries to use his verbal skills to get the crowd engaged, and I thought it was hilarious when he locked a headlock on Earthquake and said "I got him now!" Gorilla Monsoon calls Earthquake "Mr. Quake". Which would make his first name Earth, I suppose. "Mr. Quake is my father's name. Call me Earth." To be fair to Repo Man, Earthquake doesn't sell his offense very engagingly. He falls down a couple times, but is a little quiet in his emotion. He catches Repo off an attempted top rope axe handle in a bearhug and hits a nice powerslam, nice elbowdrop, does that awesome Earthquake thing where he just steps on and walks over someone's chest, and then brings that big Canadian butt down on Repo's chest. Babyface Earthquake might make more sense against a bigger heel challenger, but Repo Man was not someone the crowd was interested in seeing give Mr. Quake any issues. 

"Cooking for the Single Man"

ER: This is a segment with Yokozuna eating a comical amount of food in a Japanese restaurant. It was not discussing his relationship status, but we were rather seeing just how much food one single, solitary man could eat. Okerlund is there doing kind of running commentary and seeming genuinely amazed by how many buffet size portions of sushi Yoko manages to quickly engulf. They grill up 6 pounds of shrimp, 10 ribeye steaks, just a huge amount of food. Gene keeps bringing up how there is no way they could eat this much food, and Yokozuna just stares directly at the food the whole time. Gene is talking to Yokozuna and asking questions, but Fuji answers all of them while Yoko just stares mesmerized by the grilled shrimp and steaks. It should be noted that Yokozuna used chopsticks to eat this massive amount of food, and he is really great at using them. That is some unexpected dedication. He houses so much food in this clip. It's the most method performance, just a man filming a home video segment on his day off where he gets to eat 25,000 calories without getting up. Gene, Fuji, and Yokozuna were all perfect in their roles. Top end Coliseum segment.  

Ladder Match: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This is one of the reasons this tape was so popular, a ladder match before the more famous Michaels ladder matches. It's probably my favorite era of Michaels to watch, as he's more of a conniving big bumping heel and still has Sherri singing his theme song and looking like a smokeshow at ringside. He takes nice bumps into the turnbuckles, into the ringpost, and a great shotgun blast bump after Hart leans full body weight into a European uppercut. There's some strong Sherri distraction that leads to Shawn quickly climbing a ladder in ring and come fingertips away from grabbing the belt, and the climbing is a real strength in this match. A lot of ladder match quality really hinges on climbing for me, because as uninteresting as climbing something can be, it's an important aspect of this stipulation. The best ladder matches have climbing that doesn't insult your intelligence. Michaels gets knocked off the ladder and gets a real lucky break when the ladder falls over directly onto him but the ladder bounces off the middle rope before getting to him. That top step would have dropped right onto his teeth. Both guys take nice bumps off the ladder, and Michaels continues flying around for Bret's final stretch run, takes a great teeter totter bump into the ladder, and there's a nasty moment where Hart hooks his leg in the ladder bumping off it. I think it was exactly how to take the bump, but it looked like his knee got snagged in a disgusting way. They really take turns taking painful bumps around the ring, and Bret finally grabs the belt after Michaels lands crotch first into the ropes, hitting the ropes, apron, and floor in three successive great bumps. 

Kamala vs. Bret Hart

ER: This was a real favorite of mine when I rented this tape as a kid. I always loved Kamala and this might have been his best full match during his 90s WWF run. Hart is someone who is just going to be better than most at working around Kamala, and Kamala really tightened things up against Bret. Bret knows how to stick and move and the moments where Kamala catches him are great, hitting big overhand chops and catching Bret right under the chin with a mule kick. Hart does a bunch of great things like stomping on Kamala's bare feet (why wouldn't anyone do that??) and I adore Kamala selling his stomped toes. Kamala really plays up the savage role here, and really does an awesome job working up to Bret's pace. There's a dropdown/leap frog exchange that some wouldn't believe, a great leap from the Ugandan giant, in a match filled with cool cutoff spots from Kamala. Kamala was always catching Bret with a cross chop to the throat or a bearhug, and Hart's comebacks were all so satisfying. Hart hit maybe the finest side Russian legsweep I've ever seen in this match, knowing that he would have to throw it completely on the much larger man. You see Bret working through every single step of the move, and it's so gorgeous. He traps Kamala's arm, hooks his neck, grapevines the leg, then hits it. These two are a wonderful pairing, and I loved how logically and interestingly this match worked through its story, a really strong way to fill an 8 minute match. The Kim Chee botched distraction leading to a high leverage school boy is the most believable way you can beat a monster like this. I love this match. 

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: This is undeniably a match that could make a Coliseum Video tape infamous. An actual World title changing hands in a match that hadn't been seen before. The tape makes no effort to hide the fact that Hart wins the World title on this tape, as Lord Alfred Hayes reveals 30 seconds into the tape that later on we WILL see Bret Hart win the World Wrestling Federation Championship from Ric Flair, in a match that is available ONLY on this release. And for two guys whose egos will not allow them to acknowledge their in ring chemistry with each other, I think these two were a real natural pair. This is a great match and maybe the best time for these two to have crossed paths. I don't think you can get a better crossing of career axis, just the best time for these two to have their best possible singles match. 

Flair is super expressive throughout the whole long title match, and his yelps and screams really help put over a Bret hammerlock and other surprise Bret offense. Flair is a guy who, at this point in my wrestling viewing, I have seen so much that I no longer get excited for. But I can still get sucked into a strong Flair performance, and this was a strong Flair performance. He doesn't undersell himself by stooging around, and really acts like a guy who knows all the tricks and knows when to apply them. He's really smart at reversing Bret's offense, with the absolute best reversal coming on a sunset flip attempt. He basically  moonwalks with the momentum of the move until he regains his footing and punches downward to break it. Everyone always instinctually sends their weight forward, working against the move, but Flair treats it like a treadmill whose pace you have to match to keep your balance. Now, we do get a spot where Flair gets his full ass shown while Bret yanked his trunks down (and Hart really holds those trunks HIGH) and Flair takes a backdrop bump while still fiddling with his trunks. You would not believe how loud a Saskatoon crowd can get after seeing the toned buns of a man in his mid 40s. Hart's bumps make Flair look like a guy who knows how to utilize his strengths, and he uses two different sick sternum bumps into the turnbuckles to create openings for Flair. 

All of the work around roll ups, backslides, and the leg work to set up figure fours or sharpshooters was always engaging. Flair works a cool "stalking" portion down the back side of the match, dragging Hart around the ring by his arm or leg, holding Bret's arm while shooting a kick right across the jaw, throwing short uppercut punches that are my very favorite Flair punches, and Bret is always smart enough to know to grab a leg for a flash nearfall. All of Flair's offense looks fantastic here, everything looking like it just rocks Bret. It's genuinely impressive to me when Bret is able to shrug off Flair's chops, as they all look like really lightning bolts. We get an awesome moment leading to Bret's triumphant title win, when he takes a HARD chop and looks Flair straight in the eye while calmly removing both of his singles straps to invite one last chop. This whole match is so well worked, the time filled so well, building to a conclusive and deserving title win in Canada. This match deserves its reputation, and is the kind of match that would make an entire Coliseum Video worthwhile. 

Razor Ramon vs. Undertaker

ER: Ramon has to work a pretty generous match here, as he works the whole thing as if he's a lot smaller than the Undertaker, except he's at worst the same exact size as the Undertaker. Taker is a pretty big lug in this one, and Ramon doesn't seem fully used to being the "smaller big bumping guy" for a guy who is the same size as him. So the ropewalk smash doesn't look great, and Ramon does really well to make some of this offense look effective. But Ramon wasn't fully comfortable in the character at this point (just a few months later he was so much more comfortable in his gimmick and mannerisms), and there wasn't a ton to work with in a zombie Taker performance. There was one long spot where Ramon hits three straight very nice elbowdrops, and Taker just takes them like a real dead fish, not acknowledging that any offense is being done in any way. And that's just not an interesting gimmick or match development for me. 

BONUS THANKSGIVING  JAPW!!!

Homicide/Sandman vs. Da Hit Squad JAPW 2/3/01

PAS: IWTV put up 30+ JAPW shows as a special Thanksgiving treat, so while I am crazy busy today I thought I would add something to Eric's Thanksgiving post. This was in the ECW arena and it was clear that these guys were the spiritual successors to ECW. We get a full Sandman entrance and it is crazy how much taller he is than the doghouse guys, he looks like Robert Fuller. Much of this match is Hit Squad as big bumping heels for the triumphant babyface team. I tend to think of the DHS as guys stiffing rookies and tossing them into walls, but they are also great as stooging guys taking flip bumps and getting stiffed by the Sandman. Apparently Sandman was really into swantons in 2001? Great looking Swanton's too, he hits one with Monsta under the ladder, and one to put Mafia through a table. Finish was nuts with Mack getting lifted for the Cop Killa and Sandman adding a little momentum by shoving his legs, making Mack over rotate a bit so he takes it right on his neck. It's about the nastiest bump I have seen for a move that always ends up nasty. 

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RIP Xavier

Xavier vs. Homicide JAPW 8/24/01

PAS: This was a death match, and a great example of these two at their athletic primes. We had some really nifty wrestling early, including Xavier flipping out of the cop killer countering into a grounded cobra, which Homicide broke with a kick to the knee. Young Homicide was really explosive, even just a run into a corner had so much pop, and his flip dive was as crazy in this match as I ever remember it.  Xavier was great in this too, he was a natural unlikable heel and had his shit talk game down. I loved him pricking his finger on the barbed wire bat when he grabbed it, such a great little heel move. I didn't love the finish of this match, felt kind of cheap to end it on the distracted heel banana peel, but otherwise this was great stuff.

ER: This match ruled so hard. JAPW guys really beat the shit out of each other (there was probably a reason why I glommed onto JAPW and IWA-MS when I was tape trading), and this match really highlights the violent athleticism of this perfect era of JAPW. Both guys take some shots that look like they'd put someone on the shelf, just an awesome level of trust and fearlessness and craziness on display. Homicide gets a rope around Xavier's neck and chokes him over the ropes, then snaps him around by the neck. A lot of necks and bodies looked like they were getting messed up throughout this match. Homicide threw several kill shots, and Xavier leaned into all of them. Homicide's yakuza kicks, big lariat, and corner elbow all looked like they hit Xavier square in the jaw. And while the hits in the match are big, I'm not sure any hit was as big as Homicide hitting the guardrail on a tope con hilo. I don't know if I've seen a man crash faster into a guardrail, he just flew past Xavier and I have no clue how he didn't break or tear anything. Xavier wraps a chair around Homicide's neck when he's crazy enough to go for a dive right after, then kicks the chair while it's still on Homicide's neck. I loved Xavier's corner cannonball, and his somersault legdrop while Homicide's head was under a chair was nasty as hell. I said necks and bodies looked like they were getting messed up, and Homicide's manager Johnny D gets in on the fun. He didn't look like a guy who knew how to take a neckbreaker, but Xavier made sure he took a brutal looking neckbreaker. The cop killa looks like it could have punctured a lung, just a match filled with sick shots. I love the violence this crew are capable of with each other, truly a special era.


Xavier vs. Christian Cage NEW 4/5/08

PAS: This was the second phase of Xavier's career with him working these 90s WWF style main events as the NEW champion. It didn't have much of an internet profile, but NEW drew (and still draws) big crowds. Xavier wasn't doing any of the athletic stuff he was doing earlier in the decade, but was really great as an undeserving champion willing to take any shortcut. Christian is great at working babyface in these kind of matches, times his comebacks well and bumps big for Xavier's shots. I really liked Xavier's short forearms, added a bit of violence to this match. Full on Dusty finish which works well for this crowd, especially because it wasn't a finish run into the ground in 2008.

ER: This was real satisfying, a well worked title match with some big moments, and a fun engaging performance from both. NEW crowds must be really nice to work for, as they are always enthusiastic and respond loud for crowd work. Xavier's style would be completely unrecognizable if you had seen any of his early 2000s indy work, but he knows the crowd he's performing for and has a completely different bag of tricks. A few years prior he was a super fast athletic bumper who leaned way into strikes, here he is a classic stooging heel who still has some explosiveness but doesn't show it off as much. There was a really great turnbuckle gag, a gag you've seen before but with an additional crowd pleasing twist: Christian slams Xavier's head into the top turnbuckle a few times, works his way down to the middle buckle, throws him into the bottom buckle (we've seen this, it's a good gag), but then works him back up the buckles, which I have never seen. It was great, the kind of spot any stooge heel wish they thought of. Xavier always went the extra stooge mile on bumps here, not simply falling to the floor after taking Christian's teeter totter kick in the ropes, but leaping to the apron and then making a comical face after hitting the rail. Christian bumps to the floor off a hotshot (I thought Xavier was going to throw him to the floor with a belly to belly, too much French Catch has been seeping into my brain and wrecking expectations) and Xavier does a good job dragging Christian around ringside to give all sides a show (Christian did this earlier and even posed for photos while dragging Xavier). He crushes Christian with a clothesline, and his neckbreaker finisher is just as nasty as it was in 2001. The Christian kickout after the 2nd ref came in was really unexpected, a big babyface moment that got a huge reaction. The finish is something that I am into, but it works great on shows like this, and Christian is pro enough to know exactly how to handle the post match in a way that fans weren't even thinking about him getting DQ'd.

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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 22: Ki vs. Necro in JAPW

Low-Ki vs. Necro Butcher JAPW 5/19/07 - EPIC

PAS: I still have one more singles match to track down and watch, but so far this is an unimpeachably all-time great series of matches. It is like the US version of Ikeda vs. Ishikawa if Ishikawa was a homeless drifter. This had some structural issues which kept it from being at the all time great level of the second IWA-MS match, but this was just as stiff and had as many eye popping moments. Ki just brutalizes Necro as one might expect, he laces him with chops so stiff they bloody his chest a bit, and throw these full force kicks right to Necro's mouth. Necro responds with full force punches right to Ki's jaw, he does the Tenryu chop/punch combo stiffer than fucking Tenryu does it, and I have seen Tenryu straight break a guys nose with those punches. Necro also takes two horrifically violent spills through wood doors, including missing a cactus elbow off the apron through a propped up door, and getting John Woo kicked through the door where he looked like the victim of a car bombing. There is a great spot where Necro fights out of hanging double stomp by punching Ki square in the mouth, and then Necro's hits an awesome looking sloppy top rope rana for a near fall. They do some stuff with thumbtacks at the end, which is really redundant, stepping on tacks is nasty, but Necro was taking full force kicks to the ear, a tack in the foot is nothing in comparison.

ER: I thought this was great, as great as any of their other singles matches. It is notable for being the most slender I have ever seen Necro. He's never been a fat guy, but this is definitely the leanest I've seen him. He's almost fully Lead Singer from Spin Doctors here, and he's awesome. Also, we have Monsta Mack on commentary and I had no idea that Mack sounded liked Bobcat Goldthwait mixed with Don Knotts. And that voice happened a LOT throughout this match. But this was a total brutal beatdown from both guys, and nothing will keep you from enjoying that. Ki throws some of his best kicks here, with a ton aimed right at Necro's face and head, with several more right to his chest. There's a kappo kick that is the most deserving thing of a Necro stumble sell. Necro punches to offense and kicks at Ki, flies through a table set up at ringside, hits a nasty folding powerbomb that Ki almost reverses, and punches some more. We got a cooler version of Necro fighting out of the tree of woe, with Ki grinding on Necro's kneecaps from the top rope leading to Necro decking him, and that sloppy rana was dangerous and exciting as hell. I liked how they used the thumbtacks, personally. Necro brings them out then starts stumble stepping into them, tries to powerbomb Ki on them but Ki wriggles out, then Necro hits the punch of the match (punch of his career??) and Ki takes this spectacular falling bump into the ropes, hitting all the ropes on his way down before lying slumped in a pile. He didn't go full Bernard Hopkins, but he didn't need to. The thumbtacks were used as a great distraction for Necro to allow Ki to recover. Necro stumbles through them, and while the kicks to the head earlier, this was a good way to occupy Necro. Ask Phil how he feels when he inevitably steps heel first onto a LEGO when his boy is old enough to play with them. So while Necro is trying to sway tacks out of his feet Ki hits his shotgun dropkick to propel Necro through a table like he was making an airbag test video to post on YouTube. Necro takes that killshot, Ki lands in the tacks back first performing the dropkick, but the shelled table leaves Necro prone for the Warriors Way. Awesome, awesome match, right up there with the best they've done.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 4: Fat Frank's Suicidal Games

54. Team Doghouse (Low-Ki/Homicide/Da Hit Squad vs. Team Pazuzu (Chris Dickinson/Jaka/Team EYFBO) JAPW 4/30/16

PAS: This was a War Games style match without a cage and a fans bring the weapons stip (more ECW style weapons like stop signs and ironing boards, then the kind of CZW style barbed wire and glass basement hooker torture devices.) It had the kind of chaotic fun that the best ECW fights had, lots of fun charismatic, talented guys, grabbing everything they can to try to brain each other. Really impressed with Mike Draztik from EYFBO here, he bled the most, took some nutso bumps and hit a crazy tope. Dickinson and Ki had a match in 2015 which I loved, and they had some awesome interactions here, I really wish this was a touring indy matchup. There was some really fun bumps by everyone, Dickinson was delivering cool old school piledrivers, Mack gets blockbustered through an ironing board.

Finish was a little goofy, Mack does a very 80s wrestling "you accidentally hit me, so I am going to turn on you" thing where he pushes Ki off the top rope (Mack turned on Ki on the 2015 show, although they didn't acknowledge it, which is kind of like Terry Taylor joining the York Foundation on every WCW Syndie, he turned on Dustin like three times.) Then instead of that causing Ki to be pinned, Ki ducks the clothesline from Compton and they have a stare off, Joker comes from the back and hits a nasty running knee on Mack, and Mack does a great open eye KO sell, the ref calls the match and awards it to Pazuzu. The knee was awesome, but the whole thing was super confusing, Mack felt like the heel initially, but then came off sympathetic because he was sucker punched and KO'ed, Pazuzu also felt Shelton holed, disappearing completely to set up the big important angle, after how much they killed themselves, they deserved more.

ER: This is 8 guys I really like in an unhinged brawl, so the odds are high I was going to like this one.  This is worked like a WarGames without the cage, with Dickinson and Homicide starting, and one new entrant every couple minutes. Dickinson was awesome throughout the whole match, you want someone working with intensity if they gotta be in there for 30 minutes and Dickinson always brings intensity. Jaka is in next and I love Doom Patrol stuff, the dudes mesh really well together and they were my favorites in this. They were both the glue here and always bring out clever offense in brawls (Jaka had some awesome throws, big capture belly to belly, headbutts, kicks with his heels, Dickinson dropped a huge piledriver, huge running kick at ringside to a seated Homicide, threw sharp chops and was super active the entire match) but they also know how to work through everyone and eat offense to let other team shine, Dickinson especially just eating all of Ki's strikes when Ki came out as the final man. I was also super impressed with EYFBO, especially Draztik. Draztik was a real ham (in good ways), bled way more than anyone, and both EYFBO guys basically got beat around by Hit Squad the whole time, and all built to them hitting a pair of dives down the stretch. The dives were nuts as security was trying to hold the guardrails with their backs to the action, and the dives were coming right at them, would have been real easy for security to get rolled up on. We get fun moments like Mack giving Jaka a cannonball while holding Ortiz on his back, later Mack takes a bump through an ironing board. In fact the true MVP of this match was the camera crew and whomever edited this match together. We jumped around perfectly to all the action happening at ringside and in the ring, never felt like we missed anything, never felt like the cuts were jumping from one to the next too quick, just excellently timed bursts of violence. It helped the chaotic feel of the whole brawl, really seemed to find the best action currently happening. Now the finish sucked a lot of wind out of this, took way too long to set up, and required everybody in the match not directly involved in the finish to just disappear. And it wasn't worth it. Mack turns on Ki for an errant dropkick moments earlier, then stands in the ring forever to set up his big clothesline, which eventually misses. The Joker stuff looked fine but felt so dumb coming as the end of a 30 minute match. Suddenly 75% of the guys in the match are selling damage and not working for the first time all match, and it just ground everything to a halt. The KO knee from Joker looked good, Mack sold it great, but it came off like a super flat and confusing way to end what had been such a wild fun match.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 3: Ki vs. Callihan 1

Low-Ki vs. Sami Callihan JAPW 3/26/11 - GREAT

PAS:  This opens with a pretty great angle with Sami getting into Ki's face at the merch table, including menacing some kids and flipping the table and them having to be pulled apart (Sami yells "Your a Hero? I'm an Anti-Hero" he was always a total cornball). This is a classic Ki asskicking match with moments that verge on unprofessional, in the early moments of the match Ki flies through the ropes with a dropkick and total jams Sami's neck and sends him into the guardrail. In the most famous moment of this match Callihan slaps Ki in the face and Ki responds with a receipt which looks like it knocked Callihan unconscious, couldn't tell if it was legit or great selling and I don't really care. Match went on for a long time after that, and it really felt like that should have been closer to the apex, we also had kind of a weird finish with a Dickinson run in and a roll up for a two count and then Ki just making Sami tap with a face lock (he might have broken his jaw with a kick right before that which would make it a rad finish, but it was hard to tell.) I love this match up so much, Callihan is a nut, and willing to take a uncalled for beating, and willing to strike back just as hard, its what made the Finlay matches so great, and what makes him such a great Ki foil.

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Matches from JAPW Halloween Hell 10/30/04

This show showed up on my internet, and it has a bunch of C+A guys in matches, and a opening salvo for my mini Homicide vs. Teddy Hart RIVALS C+A

H Effect (Dixie/Deranged) vs. The Solution (Havok/Papadon) - GREAT

ER: This is pretty much exactly the 7 minutes you would want out of these two teams. Solution are better than you remembered them being, like a more generous High Voltage. Havok is the slightly larger of the two and had a big fallaway slam, spinebuster, a couple big throws, but would also sell. Papadon dropped elbows and a nice kneedrop, and was also game to take Deranged's big flipping kicks. H Effect had such great energy and it's fun to watch them against a team that easily could have opted to steamroll them. Deranged really is deranged, flying to the floor with a freaking 450 legdrop while Dixie is also diving out onto a target right next to his. Dixie was so special because he was a great flyer and a great junior, but didn't skimp on things you usually don't expect from juniors. At the bell H Effect gets jumped and Dixie is immediately firing back with these great punches from his knees. Nobody pays any attention to making their punches from the knees, or elbows to the gut out of a headlock, look good. Dixie does. It makes his hot tags even better, as he comes in with his big speed but isn't just hitting weak flying forearms while pinballing between Solution, he's coming in throwing great punches. The finish is great as Deranged gets caught doing a rana off the apron to the floor, and eats a powerbomb into the ringpost, then gets tossed in the ring for a Blockbuster Doomsday Device. That's a finish and since it's Deranged of course he takes it as vertically as possible. But Dixie straight up almost died post match. The Solution bring in a chair and set it up, and give Dixie a tombstone onto the set up chair, starting with Papadon standing on top of the chair. So you had him jumping off the chair while dropping Dixie headfirst onto the chair, just looked insane and also looked like an incredibly stupid idea. Dixie never seemed like a guy to turn down a bad idea though, and it's why we love him.

PAS: I remember Havok being really fun in the Hard Hitters tag team with Monsta Mack, and he is really good here too big spinebuster and great looking diving elbows he looks like he is caving in Dixies chest, he seems like a lost big boy wrester of the 2000s. Dixie and Deranged are perfect pinballs for muscled up gym rats, the bump insanely and have some big spots, the Deranged flipping legdrop dive was great looking, and Dixie has such great execution on simple spots. The double team block buster and tombstone on the chair were both certifiable bumps. I could watch H Effect gets mauled everyday.

Low-Ki vs. CM Punk - GREAT

PAS: This was a nifty match which basically served to highlight Ki's shift from respectful martial arts Ki, to Strong Style Thug Ki. I am a big fan of heel Low-Ki and he was in full fuck you mode in this match, flipping off the crowd, constantly shit talking to Punk, and constantly breaking up Punk's momentum by thumbing him in the eye. Punk really didn't have the flexibility or athleticism to keep up with Ki in a showcase match, so something built around character work like this fits with his strengths. Ki was working really stiff as you might expect, including two super high double stomps which really pulverized Punk's toxin free liver.

ER: For two guys who I lump into the same East Coast Indy Revolution barrel, I certainly don't think of CM Punk as a Jersey All Pro guy, and wracking my brain I cannot actually think of a time I saw Punk match up with Ki. They were all wrestling the same guys during the same time period, so it had to have happened, I just don't recall seeing this match-up before in any form, before writing this entry. I was surprised that Low-Ki took so much of the match, and I wish we could have had a more interesting structure than Ki mostly dominating Punk for the first 80% before Punk just comes back full speed. I liked Punk's comeback, thought his long armed chops looked good, thought he had impressive pulling strength on an Irish whip, and he threw one of the best swinging neckbreakers. But it felt like he spent way too long getting his back and core worked over in brutal ways to come back so suddenly. Or maybe it was just that Ki looked that devastating on offense. Ki was great trash talking Punk, and making the fans clear space for him to throw Punk to the crowd, only for him to throw him to the ring, isn't something we see from Ki and I liked the Fuck You attitude as much as the expected silent warrior mode. I loved him taking apart Punk's core, dropping him on the guardrail, a really great gutbuster, a pair of double stomps with insane height (and another from the tree of woe that started with some clunkiness, which Punk recognized and totally saved it by punching back while getting put in woe), a really mean, targeted attack. Ki took Punk's stuff great (he's one of the best offense takers in wrestling history, and several guys who were JAPW regulars were also great at it) and I love him getting planted with that DDT earlier gave a nice reversal when Punk went to that DDT later. All in all it was a super fun contest, from an uncommon pairing.

Samoa Joe vs. Super Dragon - EPIC

PAS: These two guy had a pair of wars in PWG, but this war more of the touring indy version of this match. While this might not have been as epic in scope, they didn't tone down the violence even a little which makes it epic to me. The fact that Super Dragon throws such uncalled for shots really unleashes Joe's violent side. I have never seen a Muscle Buster look as spine damaging as it looked here, and he crushes SD with a death valley driver, and hits this jumping knee which looked like might have severed Dragon's head. Dragon of course unleashes nasty kicks and slaps and backhands, JAPW was and is a fed with potato chefs and these guys took it to a higher level.  I especially loved all of the leg sweeps, both guys where just flinging their legs recklessly at the ankles and knees of their respective opponents.

ER: This was really the peak of Super Dragon being king of all bump freaks. Indie wrestling was filled with tiny guys dying hot death (just look at H Effect earlier in the show) but Super Dragon was a heavyweight (still lean in 2004) that was just regularly taking moves on his neck. And if you were willing to eat a beating, this era Joe was a bad opponent for your body. I was surprised at how much this was dominated by Joe, but Dragon never felt out of it. Joe really was a beast here, that kneedrop Phil mentioned was one of the best I've seen Joe drop, and he had some absolutely devastating looking facewash kicks on the floor, plastering Dragon's head into the guardrail. Dragon had a great sell of one of them, seated in a chair, Joe lands the kick and Dragon just kind of slumps into the chair, holding his face. We build to a big dive where Dragon hits his insane tope, flipping through the ropes past the ringpost, and ends up falling on the back of his head due to the way he fell into Joe. Nasty. He hits a gorgeous springboard spinning heel kick to the back of Joe's head, and a nice double stomp/kneedrop off the top to the back of Joe's neck. But Joe is not a selfish man, and doesn't want to hog all that neck pain to himself, so he plants Dragon with a wayyyyy too snug death valley driver, and then yes, one of the nastiest muscle busters ever done. It's a shame we don't get Super Dragon the wrestler anymore, but after watching this 15 years later, it's kind of amazing we got him for as long as we did.

Homicide/B-Boy vs. Teddy Hart/Jack Evans - EPIC

PAS: This lived up to it's on paper promise. Teddy did lots of crazy flips, took a bunch of nutty bumps and clutched his knee a lot. Homicide chopped and punched people a lot and made crazy faces, Jack Evans did some wacko dives, including a moonsault to the floor bounding off of B-Boy in a fireman's carry. I loved the shooting star press version of Demolition Decapitation which the Matrats team pulled off, and Homicide just flapjacking Evans to the mat and flipping him right into a cop killer was nasty awesome stuff. Finish had some silly bullshit which JAPW would unfortunately fall victim to, the lights go out, and the Carnage Crew is in the ring (which has to be the most underwhelming, light go out guys in the history of wrestling), this is playing off of some early ROH locker room drama between Crew and Teddy, but then they have a swerve and the Crew turns on the SST and joins up with Teddy, big yawn, just end in a double DQ or something, this felt almost Russoish, and almost kept this match from EPIC status, still this is a magnetic match up and I can't wait to watch it all.

ER: I loved this. I think it's one of Hart's best performances. He absolutely dies so tragically on a few bumps that the crowd at the freaking Rahway Rec Center starts actively rooting for Teddy Hart and starts BOOING Homicide. B-Boy and Homicide came off like total assholes, and Evans/Hart have bodies that bend in ways that just shouldn't be possible. Hart and Evans get crumpled all over the ring and floor, Evans getting dumped by an Exploder, Hart getting launched into the crowd and taking out a fan and tumbling off the top to the apron and bouncing off the ring steps. It was crazy hearing the fans get so behind Teddy Hart, and Homicide/B-Boy were relentless. Evan's double stomping B-Boy and vaulting off of him into a moonsault was nuts, and that shooting star Demolition Decapitation was really breathtaking. There's no way that move should have looked that good and not seriously injured someone. It makes no sense. But a lot of stuff in this match looked like it would hurt like hell, like B-Boy's dropkick through the ropes or Evans getting folded in like 8 spots by the Cop Killah. This match also has an immaculately timed stupid spot that was timed so perfectly that it no longer looked anything like a stupid spot. Hart was setting up a shooting star press on B-Boy and as he starts it Homicide rushes in out of camera right and hits a perfect cutter. Those complicated precision timing spots usually just don't work. There are always seams. You see a guy frozen and waiting to hit his mark, because the window is so small. This was the most natural the spot could look, and really should have finished the match. We do get some match ending silliness, but I liked Homicide taunting Hart by locking on a sharpshooter, and Carnage Crew can NEVER be the most underwhelming lights go out in history because 1999 WCW gave us THE GIFT OF MIDNIGHT which will assuredly never not be the answer to that question. Hart cuts a hilariously 2004 post match promo about how Gabe Sapolsky thinks he's a piece of shit (because he did a bunch of flips or something and then pretended he had a concussion so didn't remember doing a bunch of flips) and then Devito says "Yeah but he's OUR piece of shit". This is gonna be great.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DIXIE AND INSANE DRAGON

HOMICIDE VS. TEDDY HART RIVALS

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Matches from JAPW Redemption: 2/24/18

The Hooligans (Devin & Mason Cutter) vs. The Private Party (Isiah Kassidy/Marq Quen)

ER: I like the Hooligans, squat chubby guys who will take a couple big reckless bumps, set up junior offense nicely, have a couple nice high spots of their own, and have a great throwback wrestling hillbilly look. I'd never seen the Private Party, and came away wanting to see more Kassidy. He's an Amazing Red trainee and had several Red-like moments of stringing together some unexpected and beautiful offense. Hooligans have some thump and can work like Nise Necro Butcher (even dropping Quen over the back of a couple chairs at one point), loved their hip attack/cannonball combo, loved the assisted standing "corkscrew" moonsault, they're good at catching dives (and Kassidy and Quen each had a couple big dives, with Kassidy hitting a wicked tornillo that could have fallen short, and later hitting a cool plancha running up the turnbuckles and shifting directions to land on Mason). Private Party had a few killer moments that Eric Corvis (gotta call out Corvis by name, as Phil was the big drum beater for him) on commentary called "Rewind Moves" that feel like something they both worked out with someone like Red. Not just simple reversals, more like getting hiptossed into your partner, and your partner flipping your momentum back the other way leading to a cool headscissors or kick. There were lots of neat "momentum reversing" moves, a cool Electric Boogaloo way of delivering your offense that's more than welcome in a tag like this. 8 minute tag, plenty of fun spots, basically exactly what I was hoping for when I went out of my way to check it out.

Da Hit Squad vs. Team Tremendous (Bill Carr/Dan Barry)

ER: This started out mildly joke-y and I was considering just going forward to the main event, but I'm glad I didn't because this turned out to be a total blast. Team Tremendous is a team I'd pretty much written off; never did much for me in their Evolve run (though while I hated the stupid 70s cops gimmick, I do gotta say Carr looks cooler as Big Bubba), and they don't always turn up in places that I frequent. But I cam away especially impressed with Barry, naturally when they say that he's going to be retiring soon. He's been around the indies for years, and this was the best I've personally seen him look. He's chubbed out a bit, and he really controls this match (which is crazy considering the guys across the ring from him). He was hitting DHS hard with chops, busts Maff's nose, throws a jab with great snap, nice vertical suplex on a big fat guy, nice running forearm, all good stuff. Then starts breaking out highflying that lands on point, hits a nice tope on Mack, hits a wild Fosbury Flop running moonsault to DHS on the floor, lands a great moonsault back in the ring. It's odd not seeing DHS as the aggressors in a match, I always expect them to steamroll dudes, but I liked Tremendous controlling a lot of this, made Hit Squad's big stuff seem even bigger. Mack hits a great fat guy dive, and even a rana (leaping off the middle rope onto Barry), and Barry deserves tons of credit for catching that dive, catching that rana, and taking a brutal double cannonball from DHS. The visual of Hit Squad doing the piggyback double cannonball is always so great, feels like a double team move you'd do in the old Simpsons arcade game. Barry himself even does a big man flip dive! There was no overkill, everybody got their moments, Barry was a freaking workhorse, and the match ends simply after Barry eats a Burning Hammer. Just the match I needed.

Homicide vs. Dezmond Xavier vs. BLK Jeez vs. Teddy Hart

PAS:  Really a tale of two different matches. We open with Cide, Xavier and Jeez in the ring and the commentators saying Hart no showed, there is some really stinko juniors wrestling to start, with Xavier looking especially terrible. Then Hart comes from the back and we get a classic psychotic Hart vs. Cide JAPW arena brawl. Eye gouging, fish hooking, awkward chairshots to weird parts of the body, everything you want from those two lunatics try to kill each other. At one point Homicide places Hart's foot in between a chair and smashes it with some fans backpack, Hart pries open Homicide's jaw with his hands and punches his square in the open jaw. Xavier and Jeez take some bumps too, Xavier gets hurled into the bleachers back first, Homicide takes Jeez's head and cracks against the wall like he was trying to open a coconut. All of this is going on while Julius Smokes (who is managing Jeez now) is running around whipping Hart and Xavier with his belt while his pants are falling down exposing his bare ass. It goes back to ring we get another terrible looking juniors run between Xavier and Jeez, while Cide and Hart are fighting on the floor. Hard to rate this, because the brawling was fucking amazing, and the wrestling parts were mostly awful. On a pure enjoyment scale though, this was pretty high.

ER: What a confounding match. Genuinely terrible at times, genuinely exhilarating at times. Homicide is possibly the best wrestler who also has a bunch of bad performances. He's so hot and cold. Within this match he's out of place and completely in his element. Xavier and Jeez looked bad. This was the worst I've seen Xavier look, even though he got better down the stretch and I've liked other stuff I seen from him, and he still took some big (maybe too athletic) bumps here. I don't know if I've ever seen Jeez before, and I do not want to see him again. He looked bad in almost every part he was in, other then hitting a springboard stomp right into the lower abdomen of Xavier. Every other part he looked awful, with some truly putrid strikes throughout, strikes that fell short or looked slow and soft if they did land, he was constantly out of place for stuff, looked like he had never taken juniors offense before. My god he looked bad. Julius Smokes was fucking insane. I love Park matches and old Pierroth matches where there are long belt whipping sessions. And here's Smokes running around with his belt and his towel, whipping everyone who wasn't Jeez, and showing his bare fucking ass the entire time. Julius Smokes shows more ass in this match than Mathilda May in Life Force. His belt was a NECESSARY accessory to his outfit, and he sacrificed it just to get in some whippings. All while showing so much ass. 

But Teddy Hart was that flat out savior of this match. He comes out dressed in something a wrestler would wear to a Pajama Jam, and proceeds to inject all the chaos into this match, and punches everybody as hard as he can in the forehead. All of his strikes look so damn great in this match, stiff body blows and rough shots to the face, and he makes every move he takes look painful as hell, even if it's not. He gets hit with a bunch of nasty chairshots, shit to the back of his hands and his fucking ankles, gets his leg and ankle and foot slammed in between a chair, Homicide weakly shoves a clothing rack or something at Hart and Hart makes it look like he got hit by a Yugo and got his fingers slammed in a door. He continued throwing nothing but great strikes, it made me really want to see more matches between Hart and other guys who can throw hands. This match started with the crappiest slop juniors exchange you've seen, reached stiff vaguely unprofessional brawl in the middle, and then ended with slightly less offensive but sorta stupid flipping piledriver juniors wrestling. It somehow worked both as sleeze fed pain pill crowd brawl, and a parody of Japanese jerk off juniors learned behavior east coast early 2000s indy debris.

ER: Well, while I didn't love every part of the stuff I watched, JAPW delivered goods that still felt like JAPW, and that's really all that I wanted. They've been one of my favorite feds since the tape trading days, and they still bring that sloppy, stiff, wrestling for wrestling fans vibe, which is the reason we'll continue to seek out new JAPW and review old JAPW. The Teddy Hart match had too much good shit to not include it on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, so we threw it on down towards the bottom. Teddy Hart, gunslinger, y'all.

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Dixie has Explosives Duct Taped to his Spine

Dixie v. Insane Dragon JAPW 11/8/02 - GREAT

PAS: This is a lumberjack straps match for the JAPW light heavyweight title and is the climax of a Dixie v. Insane Dragon feud I had no memory of existing. Total crazy sprint, with some awesome lumberjack work by the JAPW roster, most lumberjack matches have guys throw a weak forearm or two before they push someone into the ring, here every time either guy gets toss out they get stomped like a gang initiation. Outside breaks out into a wild violent brawl with the whole promotion, leading Insane Dragon to do a crazy dive on to the floor on the crowd. The ref gets caught up in the melee and bumped. Insane Dragon does a low angle springboard 450 (the Charity Hall ceilings are really low, so there is no height) where he lands his shin across Dixies face. Deranged grabs a ref shirt and counts the pin, only to turn on Insane Dragon and CTE him with some chairshots. Whole match was maybe six minutes, but it was a nutso six minutes.

ER: I have no memory of these two ever fighting each other in a singles (apparently it happened a couple times) but they go after each other just as hard as they go after everyone else. Izzy does his flipping kick right under Dixie's chin, Dixie makes Izzy bite the bottom rope and then kicks him in the back of the head. The action outside the ring is just as much fun as a bunch of big fat dudes throw stiff shots to the brothers and to each other, total chaos. Papadon and Mack slug it out, Magic and Suba look gigantic and throw bombs, EC Negro eats a punch, and tons of fat guys in XXXL football jerseys make up the fanbase. These two are nuts, always finding new ways to spike themselves on DDTs, making up weird moves out of botches (at one point Dragon goes for a springboard 450 and overshoots a bit, winds up dropping his shin over Dixie's throat), and bounce around like they're covered in flubber. More!


COMPLETE & ACCURATE DIXIE/INSANE DRAGON

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H Effect Are Losers and Users So Don't Need No Accusers

Wasted Youth (Insane Dragon/Deranged) vs. The SAT (Joel/Jose Maximo) vs. Rainchild/Jay Lethal JAPW 6/7/02 - EPIC

PAS: This is just what you want from a turn of the century skinny Jersey fliers match. Rainchild is a guy who wrestled for maybe six months, but he looked good here, especially early doing some nice fast arm drag and rana exchanges with Wasted Youth. Maximo's were working pretty stiff I don't remember them as Dynamite Kid/Beniot style juniors, but they were all about stiff chops snap suplexes and head drops. The match finishes up with a great dive train right next to the Bayonne wall, so lots of height but not a lot of distance, Lethal hits a tope where he basically piledrives his head into the concrete, but all the other dives were beautiful. Insane Dragon then gets finished off with some truly harrowing head drops, the kind of thing which you want to watch through your hands like a horror film.

ER: This was right in the middle of when I was most excited about indy wrestling, with tons of skinny hyper athletic freaks all competing to see who could take a more dangerous bump on their head, shoulder or neck, and everyone wins! I always like Rainchild, he was in an early match of the first JAPW tape I bought (against Ghost Shadow!) and I thought he was really good, was shocked to learn years later how little he actually worked. It's great seeing Lethal when he was working as a Waltman disciple, just a skinny guy dropping fast legs and dives with bad landings. I also didn't remember the SAT as Benoit disciples but I liked that here. I think they were better at dangerously dropping skinny guys with fast suplexes than working quick sequences with them. And for quick sequences you can't really do better than Wasted Youth. These guys were so fast and so damn clever, falling in ways you wouldn't expect and working sequences you had never seen before, adding new twists to familiar wrestling. I flipped when Izzy came off the topes with a double ballshot, then did a flipping dropkick (one guy for each foot) with no regard for his landing. And there were a dozen moments like that, like Rainchild doing cool dodges for Maximo clotheslines, or Izzy jumping and flipping backwards over guys to set up ranas, Deranged flipping himself onto his shoulder with a spinkick, these guys are all just fearless. The dive train is one for the ages, into the Bayonne wall as Phil said. Everyone tries to one-up and they were all a blast, even Rainchild's Space Flying Tiger Accidental Rope Bounce Tope en Reversa. Izzy not only has the best punches in the match, but also takes the nastiest bumps, getting absolutely dismantled by suplexes at the end. I can't wait to watch more of this stuff.

H Effect (Dixie/Insane Dragon/Deranged) vs. JAPW Legends (Magic/J-Lover/Skinhead Ivan) JAPW 11/12/16 - FUN

PAS: Insane Dragon comes out of a nearly decade long retirement to land an awesome looking tope con hilo and take a few crazy bumps. Dixie (who had come out of retirement on the last show) still has great execution, and took Magic's insane Tiger Driver 98 style finisher right on his neck, there was some goofy over bumping by Deranged and a not great section built around J-Lover's hard head, but it was really good to see all of these Wes Hatch comp tape legends back and doing their thing.

ER: This was the match that started the idea for a Dixie/Dragon C&A, seeing these two nutbars come back and still bring their specific brand of rich kid stoner crazy was so much fun, I called Phil and suggested we revisit their entire output. We were both fans of the early 2000s NE indy scene, and shoot one of our earliest interactions was me buying Phil's Low-Ki comp tape off him. It feels appropriate. Skinhead Ivan really should be wearing a khakis and a white polo these days, needs to be more in touch with his people (though their uniform hadn't changed at this point, so he gets at least a pass on the uniform, nothing else). Deranged hits a deranged flip dive that flings him hard into his opponent AND the guard rail, Magic is still a compact powerhouse, and Izzy and Dixie still know how to die. That Tiger Driver '98 was just an insane bump to be taking, and I'm glad these guys haven't changed.

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki/Cide (and Joker) v. Da Hit Squad in a Cage!

4. Low-Ki/Homicide/Joker v. Da Hit Squad JAPW 11/12

PAS: Wild bloody brawl with the Boricua Four Horsemen trying to murder each other. The match starts with Cide (in old school Natural Born Killaz jumpsuit) and Ki (in his Hitman suit) coming out and getting jumped in the aisle by the Hit Squad. We have a bit of really great crowd brawling, including Homicide busting open Maff with Harley Race style knuckle punches (the camera really focused on Maff and Cide, but in the corner of your eye you could see Ki and Mack brutalizing each other, I really wish I had the alternate view as well). Homicide takes a big bump into the stairs and stays down, while Hit Squad throws Ki into the cage and double teams him. Joker comes out from the back and takes Cide's place in the cage match (not sure if this was an improv, or a planned spot to work around a previous injury). The in the cage parts of the match were really great too, with Ki taking a huge thrown belly to belly bump into the side of the cage and doing some crazy Kung Fu avoidance spots. Finish of this was nutso Maff spears Joker through the cage door nearly killing them both, Cide runs back out to start brawling with Kyle the Beast and they bump the cage causing Ki to crotch himself on the top. Then Maff climbs back into the cage and DHS hits a double splash off the top rope smushing Ki like a wine grape. Best match I have seen these two teams have, and a total under the radar MOTY candidate.

ER: Fully agree with Phil, this is the best match with this combination of guys. This was a full on violence spectacle, and it was glorious. The way it was going, this would have easily made list if they had never made it into the cage, as we get some inspired ringside brawling. Ki immediately gets plastered hard into the barricade, Maff gets busted up, Mack takes a nice running shot into the ringpost, Homicide gets tossed into the barricade, it's all great (and yes, an alternate view would be great in any Low-Ki multiman). Mack tosses Ki into the side of the cage, but since he's basically Spider-Man he just grabs the side of the cage and scrambles up to the top in about 2 seconds. Sometimes Ki moves so freakishly that he feels like an alien in a sci-fi movie trying to blend in with humans. Eventually a detective figures it out, and there's always that scene where they go "There he is! Grab him!" And that's when Low-Ki the alien just leaps up the side of a building leaving all the authorities looking like idiots. After wrestling Low-Ki just needs to start getting motion capture movie gigs that Andy Serkis doesn't have time to do. Ki gets into the cage (again, impossibly quick), but Homicide gets laid out with a nasty bump into the stairs, and DHS get in the ring and corner Ki. But then Ki breaks out some insane moves, including sliding over Maff's back like Luke Duke sliding over the hood of the General Lee (Maff not *quite* the size of the General) to deliver a sliding kick to Mack. The announcers scream that it's like a freaking action movie, and they're not wrong. Joker runs in, and he and Ki have a contest to see who can take nastier in ring bumps, with Ki getting lawn darted into the cage, Joker taking a flipping backpack cannonball into the buckles (!), Ki getting belly to belly suplexed upside down grossly into the cage...and then Joker officially winning their contest by get speared to his certain death out the cage door. Spot of the year? It's up there. The whole thing is chaos. Ki gets crotched on the top of the cage, Mack ends up perched dangerously on the top, Maff climbs over impressively fast, and the double splash from those two is a certain finisher. Crazy, great match from four indy legends.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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