ZERO-ONE Truth Century Creation 3/2/02

KENTA vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa

ER: Weird match as it gets almost 20 minutes, but rarely feels like anything more than a Takaiwa squash. KENTA had some mighty ineffective juniors offense and no strikes to go along with his awful frosted tips mushroom 'do. No strikes in a match against Takaiwa means you're going to get beat up. So Takaiwa beat him up, and Takaiwa is just a guy I totally blocked out really really liking, mistakenly mentally lumping him in with guys like Kanemaru and other late 90s/early 00s meh juniors. Wait do I also actually like Kanemaru!? MY MEMORY IS SHOT AND NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE! But Takaiwa is definitely now a guy I'm correctly re-evaluating. He has a lot of offense and hits it really hard, and KENTA and his dumb haircut is a fun guy to see get clotheslined and powerbombed a bunch. Match structure is all wonky as we basically get Takaiwa beating KENTA up for 15 mintues, then KENTA gets some flimsy roll ups and ranas before inevitably succumbing. KENTA had this annoying habit of kicking out of his every single one of his pinfalls (outside of the schoolboy that opened the match which was a real nice schoolboy). He would get a roll up and then after a 2 count he would act like Takaiwa was suddenly made of hot lava, just scrambling away from him before Takaiwa would kick out. Annoying.

PAS: I remember really digging this period of Takiawa, there is a ton all over the early 20s Schneider Comps. He was basically a juniors Kurisu, a balding little prick who wasn't afraid to be completely unprofessional. This match would have been really good if it had about five minutes shaved off. The idea of a young guy getting mauled, and getting some hope spots is a great match type, but the mauling here dragged. Takiawa is just stomping KENTA in the back of his head and trying to break small bones in his neck with clotheslines, but at some point around the 10 minute moment it stops mattering, I mean if the brainbuster on the floor doesn't end it, why will this suplex. I did like KENTA 's crazy dive into the crowd, and it is really surreal to see a kickless KENTA match.

Kohei Sato vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

ER: The title card actually bills Fujiwara as "The Wrestle Master" which....yep, that math checks out. And this was a match that would fit right in on a modern Evolve show, with the first 8 minutes being mat rolling. And now I'm just drooling at the prospect of Fujiwara as elder Catch Point statesman. There was some good rolling though it could have leaned further one way or the other. There were nice reversals though neither seemed to have an advantage and it didn't always seem spirited. Fujiwara has some sick transitions and I especially loved him planting a forearm on Sato's throat as he moved into mount. On their feet and Fujiwara starts dishing headbutts and getting that gleeful old man gleam in his eye. But he goes down for the count pretty quickly to a soft kick behind the ear. I wasn't expecting him to stay down for a 10 count after it. We've all seen him take far worse strikes, and this was essentially the only strike he took in the match so it really should have looked better if it was meant to be the finish.

PAS: Awesome grappling match, in the style of the classic PWFG and UWF Fujiwara matches. Pretty much all on the mat with both guys desperately fighting for counters and reversals. Sato is very comfortable in this relm and does a lot of cool shit. You don't often see someone who looks comfortable rolling with Fujiwara in this way. Most guys even if the action is worked even, appear carried, while Sato looks like he has his own ideas. Sato uses his height well on the mat, sort in the way someone liked Kendall Grove does in shoots, he has long legs and uses their length to extricate himself and get advantages. Of course no one in wrestling history is as comfortable on the mat as Yoshiaki Fujiwara and all of his attacks are very fluid too. Finish was slightly abrupt, Fujiwara has done good KO finishes in the past, this one didn't feel as much like a finish, the kick didn't land as solidly as it needed to, and I think it dropped the match a bit.

Sean McCully vs. Wataru Sakata

PAS: Ok Sean McCully is the hidden star of this Zero-One revisit. He looks like a Jersey City nightclub bouncer, and has this great "COME AT ME BRO" charisma. Sakata is an ex RINGS and Pride guy who ended up in Zero-One for some reason. This starts out as a shootstyle match, and McCully is surprisingly adept at basic shootstyle mat work. McCully ends up getting flipped to the floor and then they start brawling on the floor with McCully posting Sakata, and it almost turns into a Murakami match. Finish is awesome, McCully is in the ring taunting Sakata "YOU WANT TO RUMBLE BRO, YO THE PULSE IS WHERE I WORK DUDE, YOU DON'T FUCKING DISRESPECT ME A MY CLUB BRO." Sakata gets into the ring, and McCully claps his gloves together in anticipation, and Sakata hits a jumping knee and KO's him. Totally would have been a viral video if it had happened outside of a bar, I wanted to start chanting WORLD STAR.

Samoa Joe/Tom Howard vs. Steve Corino/Gary Steele

PAS: This was a super entertaining NWA v. UPW tag. A nice mix of Corino's horseshit and more indy ROHish tag work. Joe is in full super indy mode, chaining together suplexes, hitting tope con hilos, wasting people with lariats. Meanwhile Corino is hitting hard, but also talking mad loud shit, and doing the MX/Delfin armwringer spot. While a lot of the match was Cornio v. Joe, I think Howard may have been the under the radar star of the match. He hits all these weird takedowns and has these cool punch combos, just a totally unique wrestler. He also had the spot of the match, where he used a Joe suplex bridge to springboard himself into a nasty dropkick on Steele. Whole thing was pretty great, I could easily see this main eventing a alternate universe ROH show and being really well regarded.

Yoko Takahashi vs. Yuki Kubota

PAS: This was either a worked shoot, or a sloppy MMA fight. One of the ladies gets her nose busted open, and they throw pretty recklessly. Sort of entertaining because they eschewed defense, hard to rate something like this though.

Josh Dempsey vs. The Predator

PAS: Man the hits keep coming with this show, this is another killer match. Dempsey is a boxer and Predator is an ex NCAA champion wrestler, but this was a nutso brawl. Dempsey jumps Predator at the bell and throws a bunch of nasty bodyshots. Predator hurls Dempsey out of the ring and he basically falls head first to the floor. Rick Bassman jumps on the Predator and gets thrown. The whole thing is completely out of control, Dempsey is throwing spuds, Predator swings around his Brody chain, and tries to hang Dempsey with it. I honestly thought this was as good as the best Brody brawls, maybe the Predator was an improvement on the original.

Kazuhiko Ogasawara vs. Ryouji Sai

PAS: This was also nuts. Ogasawara is a fun karate guy and Sai is a shootstyle Zero One young guy. First move of the match is Sai going in for a shot and eating a knee square on his nose. It looked for a second like they were going to end the match immediately. Sai passes concussion protocol and comes back and we get another heated brawl, with Sai going for takedowns and submissions and Ogasawara winging hard punches and kicks. At one point Ogasawara tosses off the Gi and busts up Sai's nose. Finishing spin kick I think legit KO's Sai, as you can see his eyes roll up into the back of his head and someone pull out smelling salts.

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: Marufuji juniors matches aren't really my bag, I am always going to prefer crazy karate guys,  but this one moved along and had enough fun moves that I ended up enjoying it. Hoshikawa throws hard stomach kicks which makes him a perfect junior for a Hashimoto fed. Marufuji doesn't have great offense, but in the age of Okada and Tanahashi it doesn't stand out as much, and he does really connect with his superkicks. I actually liked how he worked his submissions which isn't something I remember him doing. These guys had a pretty well regarded match on the first Zero One show, and they appear to be a pair of guys who worked really well together.

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

PAS: One of the all time greatest bear maulings in wrestling history. After this beating I imagine Tanaka wished he was back getting unprotected chairshots and thrown into barbed wire. It is a great kind of semi-squash match because Tanaka is always coming forward and attacking even as he gets mutilated. He even does some pretty nasty knee work, throwing some hard forearms right into the side of Hashimoto's knee, you know that guys knees weren't great. He even gets a great near fall, when he wiggles out of the brainbuster and smashes Hashimoto with a big rolling elbow. Still this was all about Hash as an absolute stalking killer. Not only does he throw those windmill over hand chops to the neck and his baseball bat wheel kicks, but at one point he jumps off the ring apron and lands full weight right on the side of Tanaka's ribs, I have no idea how they didn't crack like wishbones. There is this great spot late in the match where Tanaka backs Hash into the corner and slaps him, Hash gives this great wry grin and just full force punches Tanaka in the jaw. What a fucking rockstar Hashimoto was.

Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Naoya Ogawa

PAS: Another super heated scrap, what a fucking show. I guess Murakami was feuding with Ogawa at this point as he consistently needs to be held back from going after him. Murakami is such a superstar, when he throws off his shirt he is like Steve Austin. Ohtani uses Murakami's distraction to get an early edge, hitting his great missile dropkick and german suplex, Ogawa is too much thought and he eventually STO's Ohtani into a ref stoppage, Murakami tries to after him again and we have a great pull apart. Checking Cagematch, Murakami doesn't show up again until 2006, what a dropped ball, Ogawa v. Murakami looked like it would have been awesome

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Pro Wrestling Zero-One "Vast Energy" 1/6/02

1. Sean McCully vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa

ER: On paper, McCully and Takaiwa matches did not factor into my decision to by the 2002 Z-1 set...but man did I love this. I now need to see all of the Sean McCully pro wrestling matches. McCully is a short MMA never was who brings an awesome cocky douche aura to Japanese pro wrestling, with his baggy shorts and smirk and bare feet (not even ankle tape!). Takaiwa seems vaguely uncooperative throughout, but shows too much ass to actually be uncooperative. It's a weird vibe. Takaiwa rushes him with a lariat and McCully ducks it and throws a spin kick, then a couple high kicks. Takaiwa bails to the floor and McCully jumps over the top after him, looking like he couldn't decide to land on the apron or the floor and just kinda ended up flying down onto the apron and Tak. McCully takes a mean bump into the rail and then gets blasted with a lariat that sends him sprawling wildly ass over elbow into the crowd. Holy shit. And then McCully calmly gets up and  WALKS UP THE RING ROPES to get back in the ring. Complete & Accurate Sean McCully arriving shortly. Takaiwa really seemed like he wanted to make an example of McCully...but also took plenty of hard kicks and throws from McCully. For a guy I've never thought about much I'll have to give credit to Takaiwa for making it seem like a dangerous atmosphere. Takaiwa is a guy who I kind of forgot about and might really need to seriously reevaluate. He looked really zoned in here. At one point he goes up top for an elbow that seems like a bad idea, and McCully moves as Tak just wrecks his elbow into the mat. McCully is always throwing body kicks and starts doing some great takedown suplexes, dumping Tak a couple times on his shoulder. Tak plants him with a powerbomb and dumps him with a stiff DVD. Man this was cool. What an unexpectedly great start to the Z-1 project.

PAS: Yeah this was a blast McCully was clearly not Pro-Wrestling trained, but Takiawa is the perfect guy to come in and potato shot an untrained guy. Those lariats by Takiawa seemed like they were trying to teach McCully some kind of lesson, just wound up smashes to the jaw and neck. I also have a feeling I will enjoy a Takiaea revisit.


2. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Ryouji Sai

ER: This was a pretty basic Fujiwara match. Fun, because it's a Fujiwara match doing his thing, but not very substantial. He attacks Sai to start with a couple of brutal headbutts to the temple, and Sai eventually fights back with kicks. Fujiwara tends to absorb some kicks before going in for the kill, and that all happens here with one kick in particular flooring him and sending him rolling for the apron. Finish was odd with Fujiwara eventually just imposing his will on Sai, forcing him to the mat and bending his arm until he can get it into the armbar bearing his name. This was Fujiwara vs. a rookie.

PAS: I don't really disagree with anything Eric wrote but a Fujiwara squash is always something I am going to find awesome. I loved those vicious headbutts to the temple, they were very much of the Fujiwara shoot variety rather then the big worked ones, and they looked super nasty. I also loved the finish, Sai unloads with really fast multiple strike combo in the corner, great looking handspeed which isn't something you see a ton of in wrestling, Fujiwara gives him this little shrug, like "good job kid" and then just grabs and wrenches his arm down for the submission. Like he saw what the youngster had to offer and decided he was finished for the day.

3. Kohei Sato vs. Steve Corino

ER: I loved this period Corino. He was absolutely one of the best in the world at this point, for at least the year surrounding. And this is weird because he and Sato are kind of bizarro mirror image with their bleached blonde hair, black trunks and even remarkably similar body shape, height, everything. It's weird. Corino worked a southern cheating heel schtick here, but the schtick felt a bit too schticky after awhile. I loved it when Sato was throwing kicks and Corino was tossing punches at Sato's forehead, headbutting him and lobbing back elbows, but Corino would always revert to getting the feet on the ropes, choking with wrist tape, low blows, etc. It was amusing to a degree, but never as good as the actual ass beating, which I'd rather have more of. Sato had a nice takedown into an armbar and I liked him going after Corino's arm. This was overall good, but could have been really damn good.

PAS: I think I liked this a little more then Eric, I liked Corino trying to go toe to toe with Sato and failing, and having to resort to cheap shit to get an advantage. He gets caught in a triangle and tries to counter, fails and has to get to the ropes. I remember loving Sato back in the day and am really looking forward to revisiting him, nasty kicks, cool takedowns a fun poor mans Takayama vibe.

4. Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

ER: Wonder what the story was behind Kikuchi working this show. He didn't work any other Z-1. And the match was fucking weird and confusing and maybe if I was Japanese it would make more sense, embedded in the culture and interpersonal relationships? Because I don't know man. This was weird. It was essentially 10 minutes of Hoshikawa being asked to kick Kikuchi as hard as he could, while Kikuchi showed boredom at just how little damage Hoshikawa was doing. It starts good with Kikuchi jumping him at the bell with a kick, but Hosh kicking him to the floor, Kikuchi taking a tough bump into the rail, and Hosh hitting an out of control dive that sees him fly way to fast headfirst into the rail. And then back in the ring Kikuchi plops down on his butt like a kid playing with blocks, and Hoshikawa starts kicking him. Kicks him in the back, the chest, stiff low soccer kicks. And Kikuchi just sits there, unfazed, acting like nothing is actually touching him. Hoshikawa starts bouncing off the opposite ropes and throwing stiff low dropkicks, which kind of knock Kikuchi momentarily onto his back, but he always just pops back up showing no facial emotion. More sitting, more kicking. At one point Kikuchi makes Hoshikawa look like even more of a jackass by dodging one of the dropkicks, with Hoshikawa clearly not expecting him to move as he thigh slaps a missed dropkick. What the fuck is happening. The whole match goes like this. Kikuchi takes a furious beating, but most of the time acts like he's dreamily sitting in a field, not getting his chest and back kicked in. We get a couple nice German suplexes, but they don't matter as neither guy is going to give the other the satisfaction of acting like they hurt at all. The only time Kikuchi even sells an eensy bit is late in the match after getting dropkicked in the face, and Hoshikawa starts teeing off with kicks to a grounded Kikuchi. The rest of the time is spent with Hosh trying to get a reaction, dropping an elbow on the throat, anything. Eventually Kikuchi just decided the match was over and locked on a nasty kimura for the tap, and then held onto it for several seconds after the tap and Hoshikawa flips out and tries attacking him after the bell, but Kikuchi acts like nobody is even touching him and looks right past him. What in the actual fuck. I have no idea what any of this was. Was Kikuchi sent by NOAH just to show what pussies all the Z-1 guys are? I've never seen no selling to this degree before. Kikuchi was like a guy whose sexual fetish was getting kicked as hard as possible, but at the same time he is numb to his own fetish. He took what looked like some brutal shots and he just showed boredom the whole time. Clearly more to this, but I have no idea if we'll ever know. Hoshikawa worked a couple NOAH tags opposite Kikuchi the year before this, could be worth investigation (plus Taue/Kikuchi vs. Hoshikawa/Takaiwa just sounds like something I would want to watch anyway).

PAS: Really weird match, it was a couple of degrees away from being an awesome match. First minute or so was great, the match had big heat and a lot of violence. Kikuchi's gimmick was a guy who could take a hell of a beating, so I guess that was why he was no selling everything in such a weird way. He was actually selling fine during the final run, flying around for Hoshikawa's big kicks and I dug the Kimura finish, but the middle section with Kikuchi just sitting there was super weird and killed the match. Felt a little like the stinky Fujiwara v. Kawada match, where I am sure there was some Yakuza power play in the background of this match which explains everything.

5. The Predator vs. Josh Dempsey

ER: Oh man this was a blast. Dempsey is a former boxer and Terkay has yet to go full Brody, and they wisely kept it to 4 minutes. Dempsey is limited but willing to take some bumps (some unintentional, like when he clotheslines Terkay over the top and goes over with him) and doesn't hold back a lot when he's punching Terkay in his gigantic head. Predator keeps things to a lot of knees and slams and Dempsey just throws punches. But Dempsey had a lot of punch variety, like when you play as Balrog in SFII. Dempsey threw cool body shots (that Terkay could have sold better) and really blasted him with some hooks. Terkay had some big slams, loved his ring post wrap around and at one point he chucks Dempsey over the guard rail and into some chairs with a bodyslam. Dammmmmn. both men get counted out and there's a great pull apart after with both men spilling through chairs. Real fun mixed style bout.

PAS: For an ex-boxer Dempsey's boxing form was pretty terrible but his shots were pretty stiff especially his body shots, he also wasn't afraid to take some big bump, getting hurled over the rail and kneed in the head. I also thought Dempsey had a fun frat boy douchebag charisma. Totally fun nutso match and exactly the kind of thing we hope to excavate.

6. Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka vs. Samoa Joe & Tom Howard

ER: Howard and Joe were two of the guys I was excited about seeing on this project, as I remember liking Howard a lot and was curious how good Joe was 14 years ago. And this was a fun tag, even though it was really an awesome first half combined with a kinda sloppy disjointed second half. Howard gassed hard at one point and the structure totally fell apart, so that everyone was just lying around and/or getting in everybody else's way for what felt like a long time. But for a lot of this I dug Howard and all his sliding and standing side kicks. Joe was also far better than I remember, laying in stiff strikes and breaking out all kinds of suplexes I don't remember him using. He was also really quick, and really he worked like the best possible Taz. Otani has tons of personality which makes up for that thing Tanaka does where he sells a suplex by just sorta standing back up and looking vacant. Otani was mostly tasked with holding this thing together and trying to get it to a logical conclusion, and he was good running around making saves and I liked him paying Joe back for an earlier face wash. But yeah things did fall apart, but overall the match had plenty of charm. These teams should have a real good match in them.

PAS: I liked this a bit more then Eric too, I loved the UPW team as heel, Howard had so much fun nasty offense, I loved his brainbuster and his boot camp crawl to break a submission, I thought he did gas a bit, but Joe made up for it by being a total dynamo. You forget what an explosive athlete young Samoa Joe was, crazy hip strength on all of his suplexes and big nasty elbows and clotheslines. Finish run was a puro tag finish run, but the big moves were pretty huge and I didn't have a huge problem with any of the kickouts. I think I am going to like the weird Josh Howard matches more then the Ohtani/Tanaka workrate tags on this rewatch, but this was really good workrate tag.

7. Shinya Hashimoto vs. Nathan Jones

ER: So ummmmmm I kinda loved his. How was Jones so much better here, over a year before he was in WWE? Yeah, he was wooden in this, and yeah he had Hash staggering around setting stuff up, but he looked far more workable here than in any of his WWE stuff (outside of that awesome 4 on 2 match from Smackdown with Benoit/Angle vs. Lesnar/Jones/Matt Morgan/A-Train where Jones looked like everything was really starting to click), and he looked far more workable here than Khali did at any point in his WWE tenure, and Khali had a gig for practically a decade! But damn I really loved this. Hash was so damn good, at everything. Loved him getting bullied around by Jones, loved some of the weird situations they ended up in (Jones holding him in an over shoulder backbreaker, leading to Hash pushing off the tope rope and flipping back over Jones), and by the time we got to Hash beatdown I was flipping out. Hash launched all sorts of brutal kicks to Jones' thigh, chest and back (Jones leaned into all of these shots like a psycho), started tossing out his DDTs (which Jones took shockingly well), suplexed him over the top with Jones taking a wild "Vince MacMahon has no idea how to bump over the top rope" bump, and this was just all sorts of awesome. Jones certainly looked like a wooden stiff at times, but most of the time he was breaking out offense you didn't know he had (where did his high jump elbow drop come from??) or getting murdered by an arguably best wrestler in the world at this point Hashimoto, and this thing was just laid out flawlessly for max effect. I'm sure there is going to be tons of awful Jones throughout this project, but this wasn't that. This was killer.

PAS: Yeah this was totally dope, I remember loving this match back in 2002 and it totally held up. Jones should have been a bigger star, he is a crazy looking guy, cut like a bag of dope, 7ft tall and really athletic in a weird way. He isn't afraid to lean into big shots and Hashimoto lays in huge shots. He is far from a good wrestler, but has a set of tools. Hash shows his greatness, because he takes a guy with some very limited assets and builds a compelling match around those assets. Hash gets bloodied up with nasty slaps to his face and really looks like he can't solve this monster. Really impressive entry on Hashimoto's resume.

ER: Well I couldn't have asked for a better show to start out with. All the non-wrestling guys were fun, their native stable is diverse and also fun, the gaijin are unique and clearly busting ass, just a real satisfying roster that makes me excited for tons of different match-ups. No way the promotion keeps things at this high a level throughout 2002, but I'm excited for what's to come.

PAS: Yeah this was a really fun show I am very excited about checking out what this roster will do.

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ECW One Night Stand 2005

Wow. This was 9 years ago. I guess without counting some of those weird 1997 Raws (also from Hammerstein) or that weird business where Tazz as ECW champion lost to HHH on Smackdown (which prompted some guy from back east to call into my college radio show at the time and rant about it for what felt like a very long 15 minutes), I think that most would agree that this is the first WWECW show. It's weird to think that this started a long, sad parade of ECW reunion nostalgia that is impossibly still being milked today on actual real television by a somewhat real wrestling company. I remember watching this show years ago when it came out on DVD, using the JBL commentary track which featured a drunk JBL throwing every ECW worker under the bus in hilarious fashion (and if you didn't think it was hilarious, maybe you would by the 8th time you heard one of his repeated jokes).

1. Lance Storm vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho is nerdily announced as "Lionheart" Chris Jericho, and is wearing his old tights and vest. Crowd is crazy hot for this, flipping out after an opening arm drag sequence. They also are so desperate to shit all over women that they immediately chant "She's a Crack Whore" at Dawn Marie, who decidedly looks nothing like a crack whore. Jericho levels Storm with a face high dropkick and this is starting really good actually. They're pretty good at working Storm ECW nostalgia spots (high dropkick, springboard back elbow from the turnbuckles) into the match with a more modern indy style worked in. Old ECW had a lot of exhibition style work, with guys doing their familiar spots without so much regard to segueing smoothly into those spots. One moment a guy would be taking offense, the next he'd be on his run of signature offense. Here Storm hits his long vertical suplex, but Jericho kicks his legs a bunch to try to reverse it, and when Storm runs up for his back elbow, Jericho dropkicks him on the way down. We do eventually merge back into classic exhibition style, and Storm's comebacks leave a lot to be desired here. His comebacks mainly just involve him standing up after taking moves, and then doing moves. Jericho plants him with a mean Tiger suplex and some nasty knees in the clinch, Storm just shrugs it off with a spinning heel kick. Jericho reverses a piledriver with a backdrop, Storm just pops up and hits a superkick. Jericho tries to glue this together, but Storm just wanted to hit all of his moves. He hit them all nicely, but his insistence on hitting all of his moves made the match mean less. Storm wins when Jason and Justin Credible interfere and Joey Styles hilariously starts using JR's Owen voice, talking about what a horrible shame it was that Storm had to win things that way, in what could possibly be his last match ever. Styles goes on for well over a minute. "Shame. Just a shame. Why did it have to be this way, Lance? You're better than this."

Pitbull Gary Wolfe gets a weird payday for showing up in full Pitbulls garb to introduce a tribute to the fallen stars of ECW, and shockingly there aren't too many at the time this show happened. I wish I knew what song originally played behind this package (since I assume most music has been changed for the Network airings) as I really want to hear some Sarah McLachlan playing while they show slow motion clips of Big Dick Dudley flexing through clenched teeth.

2. Tajiri vs. Little Guido vs. Super Crazy

FBI comes out to an instrumental loop of No Sleep Til Brooklyn, and Smothers is awesome waving the flag and doing all his weird Smothers mannerisms. This show needs more Smothers in the ring, but I'll settle for Smothers at ringside. Full props to Tommy Dreamer for managing to get JT Smith a WWE payday in 2005. Mick Foley is absolutely horrible on commentary here, playing up a folksy late career James Stewart persona. "Aw shucks Joey, they're going to be doing a lot of moves I've never seen here, but I-I-I I'll just try to keep up, best I can." Actually, now that I think about it, he may be just mimicking Terry Funk. Re-read that sentence in Funk voice. That adds up. That awful commentary is a running theme throughout the match (and the show) "you know I've known Tajiri for 11 years and he's just the nicest guy you could imagine". Kewl insight. This match is really fun for the first few minutes, as every single person at ringside (Sinister Minister, Mikey Whipwreck, Smothers, Smith, Tony Mamaluke, Big Guido) all interfere at some point in the match, but it's actually done in a way that's integrated perfectly into the match. Big Guido goes to powerbomb Tajiri, gets low blowed by Minister, Tajiri sprays mist at Little Guido, Smothers runs in with karate and gets leveled with a superkick, Mikey hits the big top rope Whipper Snapper on the misted Guido, all the while Mamaluke and Smith keep Crazy busy by sweeping his legs on a rope run and crotching him around the ring post. Interference doesn't usually add to the match but I can't think of a way to better integrate 9 people in one match within 1 minute. Match as a whole is fairly short, at barely 6 minutes, which had to disappoint most. Tajiri looked somewhat lost at points and was kinda awkward getting into position for his offense, but Crazy and Guido were on point. Guido did some of his big silly bumps, and Crazy's stuff looked good, hitting some big moonsaults with heft (including a wild one off the balcony) and nasty seated dropkicks. Still, too short to mean much. Also, I couldn't tell if it was two unfortunate tongue slips, or if Styles was throwing out hack racial humor, but two different times in the match he distinctly said "soo-prex" after Tajiri threw a suplex. The first one could have been an accident…but twice in the same match?

3. Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis

I remember a lot of people being disappointed in this match at the time, but the match was perfectly fine. If this was on WorldWide it would definitely make a WCW B-Sides comp. Psicosis takes some nutty bumps as you hoped he would, doing an insane guillotine legdrop off the top to Mysterio (who was draped over the guardrail), doing his trademark missed corner attack that ends with him dumped on his head, and taking a nice Cassandro bump, wrapping himself around the post and flying into some ladies in the front row, which Mysterio follows up with an awesome Thesz press from the top into the crowd. Psicosis also draws boos by locking on a headlock. I didn't put on my good hockey jersey to go out and see Mexicans do rest holds!

Then we get JBL and Angle coming out to plenty of boos and chants, JBL stiffing Gertner with a mean shove and kick to the ass, and RVD coming out and cutting the best promo of his life. He had a knee injury and couldn't compete which was tearing him up inside since this show was something he worked years to make happen. I mean, I fast forwarded through some of his promo, but it was about the most life-affirming promo you can get if you were ever an ECW fan. RVD showed actual real passion and it was nice to see. Joey Styles threatens to ruin everything with his awfulness: "Gotta love a shoot promo on live TV!!" Ugh. And then Rhyno came in and absolutely folds RVD in half with a Gore. The lights go out and while everybody hopes for a return of Midnight, Joey dorkily starts going "we blew a generator! We lost power!" Which naturally leads us into...

4. Sabu vs. Rhyno

…which starts out awesomely, with Rhyno hitting a big belly to belly and going to the top rope (for reasons?) so that Sabu can just brain him with a chair. Rhyno takes a massive bump off the top and Sabu hits a sweet chair assisted springboard dive. The whole match was pretty crazy, and both guys complemented each other nicely. Sabu threw a bunch of great right hands, tossed chairs at Rhyno's face and hit all the spots you'd want to see Sabu hit. Rhyno was a monster, not only taking all of Sabu's stupidity, but dishing out a bunch of cool stuff you don't remember Rhyno doing. I remember he had a nice piledriver and he really spikes Sabu with it here, but he also does a cool running yakuza kick on Sabu, and leans way into all of Sabu's stuff (including a bunch of neat Sabu legdrops and springboard stuff). Sabu throws Pee Wee into the way of a Gore and he takes it like a man, almost bouncing his neck off the bottom rope. At this point RVD gets in the ring in real awkward length jorts (not baggy, but not ironically short, just that horrible relaxed fit/above the knee jort style), white socks and cross trainers, limping horribly on his bad knee. I have to assume his knee is absolutely wrecked, or else it's the only time he's ever consistently sold a body part in his career. He comes in and actually works spots with Rhyno, including nuttily skateboarding a chair right into Rhyno's face and setting up a table spot for Sabu. Sabu drops a chair through Rhyno and the table just explodes, and this whole thing was a great spectacle. Awesome stuff that I have to believe is the best possible match that could have happened .

Eric Bischoff and the Raw crew arrive, including future ECW superstar Gene Snitsky. Joey does uncomfortable and sad and just plain poorly delivered play by play as they walk to their seats. "There's Raw superstar Edge. I'm glad I didn't bring my wife tonight [long pause]. Because Edge is a wife stealer."

5. Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

Well speaking of uncomfortable. Mick Foley immediately completely misreads the room "This is the match that never got to happen in ECW. The dream match that never happened because Bischoff lured both of them away. And now finally the fans get it and want to see nothing more" as the fans proceed to direct all of their attention to Edge in the balcony while chanting things about Lita being a whore for over half of the match. Seriously at any given screen shot about 2/3 of the crowd is turned totally away from the ring. Eddie is pro enough to get at least some of the fans to actually watch the match, and damn does he look great here. His mat exchanges are quick and powerful and he really snaps the fans into it by outstiffing Benoit on chops and grinding his boot over Benoit's face. Benoit bumps maniacally through the ropes to the floor on a missed charge and Eddie really seems pissed at the crowd. Mick and Joey really put over just how suicidal Benoit is after he does the diving headbutt, talking about his neck surgery and really putting over how he has a real death wish. Good grief. Thankfully they didn't point out the hanging vertical suplex he did earlier. Match ends fairly abruptly with Eddie tapping to the Crossface. Match was really weird. Eddie seemed genuinely pissed the whole match (and understandably so, if it was directed at the crowd), and purposely ground the match to a halt on a few occasions with chinlocks until the fans stopped chanting at Edge in the balcony. Things were short and didn't really flow, although Eddie looked really good and to a lesser extent so did Benoit. This is probably the most recent Eddie stuff I've seen since it originally aired (by recent I mean within 6 months of his passing) and his body is just shockingly freakish. He was freaking huge here and just looked like he had no flexibility whatsoever. Watching him take suplexes and bump was painful as it looked like he physically couldn't bend his spine or bend at the waist. I remember at the timing reading how riddled with injuries he was and how he needed time off, but damn 9 years of not rewatching him during that period really opened my eyes to just how bad off he looked.

6. Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka

So this is a pretty famous match - I think - within the WWECW canon. People were pretty split down the middle on this one when it happened. Some thought it was incredible and that both men would be hired immediately by WWE, others thought it was a laughable collection of dangerous spots thrown together with no build-up that ensured neither man would *ever* be hired by WWE since they wouldn't want reckless workers like that on the roster. Both sides make sense. I certainly sided much closer to the latter at the time. The match has major flaws, and neither guy would have made sense in WWE as anything crazy they did in this match they would not be allowed to do in a WWE ring. JBL infamously mocked the match the whole time on commentary, repeatedly stating that Tanaka looked like his doorman, and after Tanaka had kicked out of several finishers started shouting at other people about what a badass doorman he had. But watching the match within the context of the show, within the context of the crowd, and keeping in mind who both men are in regards to their feud (which I'm sure many ECW fans would rank as a favorite from the fed) then I think the match totally and completely works. It's probably very hypocritical of me, as I've seen plenty of matches like this on the indies where guys kill themselves with no rhyme or reason, no selling, no build to anything, and then at some point the match ends because of a move that for whatever reason made a guy keep his shoulders down for one extra second. And I've hated all of them. Even while watching this match and enjoying two men try to cripple each other in the name of fond memories, I pictured some clown like Davey Richards doing a match like this, and I would certainly hate that match. But in the moment it came off more like a violent and entirely stupid (but awesome) IWA-MS match. If this match happened in front of 60 people in the back patio area of a rural bar, between two guys named Dick Nasty and Tony Sack, I'd be yelling at Phil to go out of his way to watch the Tony Sack match.

I've criticized plenty of matches that I thought were garbage, but worked for the crowd they were presenting to. This match could easily fit into that category. "Bad match, awful structure, crowd loved it." But I'm with the crowd on this one. Despite being unreasonable and selfish, I remember the complaints at the time about Rey, Benoit, Eddie, etc. not working "like they were in ECW". Rey was booed for doing his 619, Eddie didn't...I don't know, do any Malenko/Guerrero roll-up sequences? Whatever it was, fans were agitated that some guys looked like they were working the show like any old TV taping and not the GREATEST EVENT OF THEIR LIVES. Again, it's wildly unreasonable, and illogical. They had real wrestling jobs and would go on to those jobs after this show. So within context of this show, Tanaka and Awesome going out there and just completely destroying themselves for the crowd, for ECW, to try and get a job, to stick it to JBL in the balcony, whatever they had to prove I don't know, but they clearly pulled out everything within their abilities and threw it out there. And I thought it worked for that reason. Again, stuff that's context-dependent doesn't always hold up, but I can say I enjoyed this match more now than I did at the time. Granted, there were still moments I laughed out loud during the match, and I fully get why JBL was laughing about it in the balcony (his fake cheerleading and shock when they keep kicking out of stuff is still funny to me), but on this show, at that moment, with these guys, this was the best they could have possibly done, and they did more than they probably should have, more than anybody else on the card, and more than anybody probably needed. Within a minute or two of the bell Tanaka gets powerbombed from the apron through a table, head and shoulders first. Things get more ridiculous from there. Both guys get brained with chairshots, more tables explode in insane fashion, Awesome hits one of the nastiest gores I've seen, and then more tables explode. Awesome's knees had to be pencil shavings at this point, and he's still doing his big splash off the top and dives into the crowd. Tanaka's brains had to be mashed potatoes at this point (still unclear how he's managed to work more than most Japanese workers for the last decade) and he willingly takes every stupid powerbomb and finisher Awesome pulls out of the hat. Match ends spectacularly with another powerbomb from the ring through a table on the floor, and then Awesome ridiculously following up with a straight up nosedive of a plancha, just dive bombing Tanaka and coming in vertical. Ridiculous structure, none of the moves meant anything, both guys needlessly killed themselvs, but it was the perfect match for this show.

We get a long, fairly lame Heyman promo (with SHOOTS!) filled with a bunch of flat disses (yelling "Matt Freaking Hardy" at Edge, which Joey Styles points out is a SHOOT because Matt isn't even employed by WWE!!!!!!!!).

7. Dudley Boyz vs. Tommy Dreamer & Sandman

This was a chance to get more guys a payday, and it was fine for that reason. Sandman takes years to come out, which is certainly an accurate ECW throwback. The bWo comes out and Styles over laughs the whole time, worse than the absolute worst possible Jimmy Fallon bit. While the bWo are just walking to the ring, just normally walking to the ring, Styles literally says "This is the funniest thing I've seen in my life". This guy is terrible. We get Balls & Axl, The Impact Players (with Francine looking better than at any point during the original ECW), Spike Dudley comes out, Kid Kash hits a wild and awesome flip dive on about 10 people, Beulah makes her wrestling return, and people got hit with trash cans. At one point Bubba raked Dreamer's forehead with a cheese grater which is just the grossest. I don't know if it was worked or not, but Dreamer had tons of color and Bubba made it look great. God thinking about a cheese grater on flesh is just disgusting. Beulah and Dreamer have the most revolting hug I've seen, with Dreamer covered in blood and Beulah pulling away when it's over with blood caked in her hair. Yuck. Match ends with a flaming table spot, and then all the Raw and Smackdown crews get called out and there's a big schmozz. This is where JBL infamously roughed up Blue Meanie (even though it wasn't really caught on camera). Tracy Smothers stood out to me during the brawl as really looking like he was having a ball out there, jumping in and punching people at will. The crews get run off and Bischoff ends up alone in the ring with the ECW guys, but it's pretty anticlimactic as he takes a couple finishers but still gets to yell "Fuck ECW!" Really should have had him take more finishers, or not allowed him to look so fearless and never say die.


WWECW MASTER LIST

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Daisuke Ikeda was the Champion of Forgive Forget

Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono v. Masao Orihara/Mohammed Yone BattlArts 6/25/99-EPIC

Man remember when Japanese wrestling was awesome? You can pretty much watch any BattlArts tag from the late 90's and it would be the Puro MOTY if it happened this year. Ikeda and Ono are maybe my favorite tag team in wrestling history, just nasty violent smarmy asskickers. Orihara and Yone were working heel in this match and we get a glorious battle of shitheads. Ono is amazing here, he has some great fast punch and kick exchanges with Orihara where both guys throw really quick hands, and slip and avoid, while mixing in nut shots. Meanwhile Yone and Ikeda are just trying to rip each others heads off with clotheslines and kicks. Watching Yone and Ikeda kill each other makes their current NOAH run even more disappointing. They have a great finishing run against each other, with Ono running around and clearing out Orihara. An example of what these guys do the best


Daisuke Ikeda/Mohammed Yone v. Takashi Sugiura/Masato Tanaka NOAH 4/2/14- FUN

This was a really good looking on-paper match, but Ikeda in NOAH is a very different beast unfortunately. This was pretty much a bog standard NOAH tag, lots of elbow smashes and clotheslines. Yone was member of the Bat-Bat team who the spotlight was placed on, and he didn't do much. There was a couple of nice Ikeda moment, one nasty kick a good headbut, but he seemed to be coasting a bit. There was a cool spot where Sugiura and Tanaka were forearming Yone at the same time on different sides of his head, but that is the only thing I am going to remember.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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My Flesh and My Heart May Fail, But Yoshiaki Fujiwara is My Strength

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Super Tiger 7/17/85 UWF-EPIC

TKG: They air ten minutes of a fifteen minute match here but the ten minutes we get is really great. Sayama is wrestling without his mask at this point and really facially resembles Billy Joel and I think my visceral dislike of Billy Joel kind of effects the way I watch all his stuff. I don't know what I'd think watching a Pete Roberts vs. Sayama match. Who do you root for when William F Buckley and Billy Joel get into a fight?

Sayama is pretty much just all stiff kicks in this and doesn't really have any answers for Fujiwara's submissions and this is like the best possible Dick Vrij vs Volk Han match. As this really is a one man Fujiwara show. They do do a couple of Sayama gets crab on Fujiwara spots which get a big pop, and Fujiwara does a couple variations on his signature Santo style headspin escapes. When Fujiwara gets a hold on Sayama, Syama really dives for ropes. But for the most part this match is built on Fujiwara's standing defenses. Fujiwara is all about the defense, trying to catch the leg, catching Sayama in clinches, trying to dodge and feint to avoid kicks, and roll with strikes trying never to get hit cleanly.

The dodging and feinting is really neat visual and something he doesn't do a ton in the other matches. It reminded me a lot of Yosuke Nishijima vs. Mark Hunt. The story that people tell about that match is that it was the equivalent of Takayama vs. Frye where two crazy guys are just exchanging. Not accurate description.Nishijima was a journeyman pro-boxer and he's turning and weaving to avoid taking any punches cleanly while hitting his punches at will. Nishijima is over 50 lbs lighter than Hunt and really had no power behind his punches. So the story is if Hunt hits a punch cleanly he will hurt Nishijima, but will Hunt gass before he can do that.

Here you had a same dynamic of guy with knock out power vs. guy who is avoiding and turning with the strikes. Of course here Sayama is the smaller guy. So while the Hunt fight kind of exposed Hunt, this match really really puts Sayama over. As its all about Sayama having KO power if he can connect. But Fujiwara for most part is too skilled to allow him to connect.

When Fujiwara lets Sayama slip out of a takedown, Sayama is able to stand up quick and nail Fujiwara with a kick to the kidneys and its essentially over. Once Fujiwara starts taking clean hits, he's knocked off his game and less able to defend. The match ends with spectacular knock out where Fujiwara still tries to defend and catches the back of Sayama's ankle on the way down. But at this point he's been hit cleanly too many times and its too late.

PAS: Much like Tom, I truly loved this match. Fujiwara working around a kicker may be my favorite style of Fujiwara match. He has such great sense of placement in the ring, he is great at moving both too far for his opponents to hit him or too close to hit him cleanly. We got a great sense of that place here, right up until the kidney shot which slows him down. Sayama is a guy who was really over, and when he lands these wild kicks the crowd gets into it, the way crowds would get into a Tyson fight. He becomes this vicious force of nature, and Fujiwara is amazing at conveying the guys being overwhelmed by the wave. Excellent stuff.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa v. Tom Howard/Sean McCully Zero One 7/13/01-GREAT

Very entertaining match. I have really started to dig early 21st century Tom Howard. He looks perfectly comfortable working hold with both Fujiwara and Ishikawa which is no small feat. He also does a great job working spots around his Dolph Lungren Universal Solider gimmick. McCully is a potbellied cross eyed midget working a shooter gimmick, but Fujiwara is a guy who can working a compelling shoot style match with pretty much anyone. Take any guy teaching Tae Kwon Doe at a strip mall dojo, and I bet Fujiwara could pull a three star match out of him. The Fujiwara v. McCully stuff was fun, but the Fujiwara v. Howard was the class. There is a great mat section where Howard is fighting for a kimura, while Fujiwara is attempting to work an ankle pick, it is awesomel to watch the different was that they parry and counter each attack, simultaneously working offense and defense. The finish was both awesome and preposterous, Howard steps on the interior part of Fujiwara's knee dropping him down, then he does some goofy looking action movie neck snap, the kind of thing Sly Stallone would do in Cobra and the ref quickly stops the match. Kind of silly, but Fujiwara sold the fuck out of it and it really got over Howard's whole Commando vibe.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Alexander Otsuka v. Shinjiro Ohtani/Masato Tanaka Zero One 7/6/03-FUN

This was a match which really didn't live up to it's promise. The story they were telling was that Otsuka was trying to prove himself. He refused to tag out to Fujiwara no matter how bad a beating he took. Otsuka takes a big beating, including some impressive bumps on clotheslines and suplexes and he really sold the story he was trying to sell. Still this is a Fujiwara project and this match really had minimal Fujiwara. Also we didn't get to see very much of the different things that make Otsuka so fun, as he was basically a punching bag. I get what they were doing, and they did it well, I just wanted to see something different.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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Dick Togo Conversates a Bit About Your DNA, and His Salmon Suit From the VMAs

Dick Togo/Shoichi Funaki/Danny Collins/Shiryu vs. Gran Hamada/Super Astro/Alexander Otsuka/Super Delfin MPRO 9/23/96 - GREAT 

PAS: What an awesome weirdo lineup, it was like someone took a bag of my favorite wrestlers, shook it up, and drew eight out at random. Your MPRO regulars were as great as usual, Shiryu was just blindingly fast at this point, his flip out of the german suplex looks like it is in 8X fast forward. Hamada wasn't featured, but man is his signature stuff beautiful, that high rana he hits is just crazy, how he can get such ups off of such stumpy legs is a mystery. Your special guest stars were all awesome. Collins is a stubby little pissed off British guy, he wrestle similar to Dynamite Kid at his best, all nasty knees to the face, uppercuts, suplexes and scowls. Otsuka is a little out of his element, but we got to him rock some sweet mat wrestling with Shiryu and chuck some folks with suplexes. If anyone is tailor made to be thrown into a 96 MPRO 8 man it is Super Astro, he is such a breathtaking wrestler, and watching him and Togo match up is a portly dream match. Two tiny pot bellied men moving with a totally unexpected grace and beauty. Stunning stuff. Dick Togo/Men's Teiho v. El Hijo Del Santo/Super Delfin MPRO-11/10/96-FUN Perfectly enjoyable professional wrestling, although ultimately disappointing. Santo v. Togo is such a tremendous on paper match up, but it never really kicked into the next gear. This was worked much more like a Puro tag, rather then the awesome lucha tag it should have been. There were a couple of nifty moments where Santo and Togo do some rope running and we get to see Santo rip off a headscissors and see Togo fly for them. Still Santo felt like a bit of an afterthought, and the match was mostly Delfin being worked over by KDX. Again I want to judge the match on what it was, not what it should have been, but it is hard considering how good it should have been. 

Dick Togo/Sonjay Dutt v. Alex Shelley/Masato Tanaka Z-1 3/15/05 - FUN 

PAS: Lots to like in this match, but enough to hate to drop it below great status. This is a TLC match and those are what they are. Match starts out looking like the weird bifurcated Santo/Onita matches from LA with Togo and Tanaka doing some nasty brawling on the floor, with Togo sprinklering blood out of his head, meanwhile in the ring Dutt and Shelly are running through their horseshit. Match gets better when Tanaka and Shelly double team Dutt smashing him through tables and such. Togo makes an awesome hot tag, with a bloody white towel wrapped around his head like zombie Lawrence of Arabia. He just explodes with an awesome run of offense ending with a phenomenal tope con hilo That was the high point of the match, as the rest is a bunch of prop bumps, some of them cool, some of them awkward. Hard to avoid getting drawn in at points, also hard to be drawn out. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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