New Footage Friday: NECRO! MONSTA! SANTO! PERRO! NAVARRO!

Perro Aguayo vs. El Hijo Del Santo Monterey 1990?

MD: Basically 10 minutes of perfect lucha libre followed up by another five of enjoyable bullshit. This is JIP but it's joined with Perro slamming Santo onto a table that he has leaning from the apron to the floor. Twice. If you're going to come in onto any moment, that's pretty much ideal. That basically ties off the primera. The segunda has a little bit of beatdown, Santo dodging a senton with perfect timing, launching a bunch of comeback dropkicks, moving out of the way so that Perro hits his second, and hitting two perfect topes, one out of the ring and one off the top before finishing him off with the caballo. Entirely iconic and super heated. Tercera goes to the floor with some revenge chairshots and a lot of bleeding from Perro before we get a perfect ref bump and a foul that scores Perro a win that got overturned. Post match Perro goes for the mask, with Stuka making the save and they make the best challenges possible, Perro with blood dripping down his face and Santo with his mask ripped. It would have been nice to have the first few minutes but what we ended up with was plenty of the absolute best doing what they did best.

PAS: This was pretty short as we miss the opening section, but what we got was frantic violent stuff. Perro is one of the great intense brawlers, and Santo is an iconic brawling babyface. Loved the pair of dives to finish up the second fall, Santo's tope is always amazing and sends Perro into the chairs. Perro bleeds, they exchange big shots. It felt more like a set up for an iconic match, the TV angle for the big blowoff, but it was a hell of a set up. 

ER: Even with who knows how much of the Primera cut, we still get 10 minutes of two legends doing the things you'd want them to do. These two are a great lucha yin yang, as Aguayo is so good at punching Santo around the ring, and Santo is one of my absolute favorites at staggering and falling all over ringside. Santo always brings a tumbler's artistry to getting his ass kicked, taking punches and tumbling backwards on dirty floors with legs flying up, getting tossed into a skidding down a table, always a second away from a quick comeback. I love Santo brawling comebacks, as he hits his gorgeous floating dropkicks to knock Aguayo to the floor, then hits that perfect tope to send Perro flying into chairs, and then sets up the in ring rope with incredible speed. I've watched so many different excellent Santo matches from years spanning four decades, and he's a guy like Negro Casas who I'm so used to the old awesome version that I always get surprised by certain movements from the young awesome version. I had to skip back several times just to gawk at how slick Santo looked while getting to the top tope before nailing that in ring tope. I couldn't get enough. Perro misses his own tope, crashes to the floor and gets a chair jammed into his neck by Santo, and again, this is 10 minutes of all the things you want to see. We don't have the full match, but oh well, you know you're going to want to watch early 90s Santo vs. Perro. 

Negro Navarro vs. Apolo Estrada Monterey 1991?

MD: I loved the front half of this. A little bit of BS from the outside and a little bit from the ref but most of it was Navarro showing off on the mat and then Navarro showing off with a beating. Great strikes used to high effect and just the amazing personality that we're used to from his later career. He's a top ten talent in being able to express himself in the ring and here he just has this easy, laconic way of laying in a knee or working a wound that's unmistakably him. The violence, punches or kicks or headbutts, seem both effortless and brutal all at the same time. It could be the footage quality but Estrada came off like a sort of scummy tecnico. When he did get a chance to fire back, it was with a low blow and quality revenge shots. It was a bit scattered though, not as concentrated as a big moment of transition might have been. The tercera built well, with Navarro staying in it due to outside interference until Estrada had some help of his own. That moment, more than the comeback, felt like a big swing of comeuppance and was pretty satisfying in a way a BS-laden finish generally isn't. Ultimately, this was a great opportunity to see Navarro do his thing in his prime in a singles setting.

PAS: Man this was awesome to watch, the first prime age Navarro where he looked as good as he looked in his fifties and sixties. He lays a super nasty beating on Estrada, throwing these little knuckle punches to his forehead busting up his brows, big knees to the face, and a great series of combos to the body and head. He also would throw in a submission or two which felt like an expansion of the beating, then a real show of skills. Estrada was fine here, he had a very Chicky Starr look for a babyface but he bled a bunch and his comebacks were fine. Finish was a bit Monterrey, but that is kind of baked in when you see the arena you are in.

ER: This was great, prime Navarro working slightly different than I've ever seen him work, with a cool strikes and stooging style. Early on we get one of those great Navarro moments when Estrada takes him down with a single leg, but Navarro quickly grapevines Estrada's leg and twists him. From there, Navarro basically works this whole thing as Flair, even throwing his punches similarly to Flair. The more I watched this the more I kept thinking of Flair coming through Monterrey in the early 90s and having this same match with Estrada, and this is the first time I've seen Negro Flairravo. I loved his short punches, Satanico-like right hands to the edge of the jaw, cool body shots, kicks to Estrada's leg, and tons of moments where he sets up cheating from his second. Estrada bled a bunch and made tecnico appeals, while Navarro would do rudo stuff like take a shot to the leg, pretend it hit his balls, but abandon it immediately when the ref wasn't biting. I was laughing all through the interference from the floor, and I'm too much of a lucha novice to recognize Navarro's second. But I loved him yanking Estrada out of a submission he was applying, then yanking his leg off the ropes over and over while Estrada kept breaking a hold. It paid off great with Navarro eating one KO shot from Estrada's second to set up a (in theory) Bombs Away. Watch this match while picturing Navarro as Flair, and I'm confident you'll love it as much as I did. 

 Necro Butcher vs. Monsta Mack GHW 10/20/06

PAS: This is a super sexy on-paper match up, two of the great 20th century indy crowbars wailing away on each other, and it totally delivers on that promise, even exceeds it. Both guys spend the entire match just escalating the force of the shots. Necro opens up with his classic straight right to the jaw and Mack fires right back, these are two guys who utterly refuse to stand down. Necro also takes a Necro in the mid-2000s level bump, as Mack hits a running powerslam right on the concrete, he also eats some gross thrown chairs which land legs first into his eye. Match ends with a bar fight, as they both throw increasingly psychotic shots at each other, until Monsta springs off the chair with a nutcase headbutt which looks like it dimmed Necro''s running lights. Mack just kind of pins him, and for a apparently blown finish, it is exactly what you want from these two guys. Awesome shit, loved every second of it. 

MD: Intimate, personable few-frills violence. Necro sets the tone immediately with punches up and down Mack's body. You can see flesh crater in the wake, a high-low assault that lets everyone know what they'll be getting, not like they had any real doubt. It never stops from there. Necro is resilient and unyielding but Mack's a monster and when ferocity is this close to equal, size is going to win out. The ambience helps make this, with a fan asking the ref about the rules at one point, with suggestions for violence from the crowd that pales to what they're actually going to do, with the camera man complaining about trying to get back over the rail when they head back to the ring; it's like a found-footage version of a bum fight, except for one of the bums is a 300 pound killing machine. There wasn't a lot of narrative here except for that. There was a moment of transition where Mack went to the top because he couldn't otherwise put Necro away and misses, but that just leads to the bar fight finish with two chairs, two men sitting and meeting one another with no filters and no remorse, and hubris like you'd never see elsewhere in wrestling.

ER: Any time any new vintage Necro is unearthed, obviously it needs to be discussed. There were few wrestlers in the world I loved more in 2006 than Necro Butcher. Experiencing the fun and violence and chaos of a live Necro Butcher match was the kind of thing I wished every wrestling fan got to experience. I saw him three separate times, including a few years after this match, in a San Francisco night club against big fat King Dabada (in a match that has never been released beyond a few highlights, so maybe that one will show up here someday. It was two big sweaty men brawling around a snug nightclub, falling onto fans, going up into the balcony, and I ran around the building following them everywhere. Who would love running around following Necro's Tasmanian devil crash. He and Mack beat the shit out of each other from first punch, and this whole match was filled with close fists to the jaw. The crowd brawling was as hard and reckless as you'd want, and Mack kept hitting Necro with expertly thrown chairs. Necro is usually the guy with the best chair throwing range in wrestling, and I liked how Mack kept beating him to that punch. Necro took some classic Necro hard spills on the floor including a brutal powerslam, and they built to a climactic punch off. I usually hate those sit and punch sequences, but I can't really argue with one that ends the match with a seeming knockout headbutt/punch combo. They punch each other one at a time, and then build to left-right combos, and then throw in headbutts. Mack laughs to himself before lunging in with a headbutt straight to Necro's jaw/orbital bone, then decks him right out of his folding chair. 

JR: If you believe in the idea of home turf advantage in pro wrestling, Necro’s home turf would be any building that looks like it previously held a now defunct indoor mini golf course. I have no expectations for this other than Phil sending it to me and saying it’s better than you expect it to be, which is incredible because I would expect this to be life altering. It’s a rare Necro match that features the vaguest hint of a feeling out process (and some trash talk) but it quickly shifts into exactly what you’d want from both of these people: wild looping punches that connect full force and a complete disregard for their own well being and the well being of others.

While there are some great Necro performances in companies that had actual cameras, there is always a wonderful quality when you find a Necro match like this. He feels like a cryptid, this monstrosity that should be caught on camera and if he noticed someone filming, it’s unclear what would transpire but it would probably be horrible for all involved.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t write about Mack being absurdly, preposterously reckless in his own right; throwing open chairs at Necro (with a fan sitting in the bleachers like 8 inches from where the chair lands), flailing and falling on top of people in the crowd. Through the first five minutes of this, each transition is essentially built around one person or the other doing something that pissed the other off a little too much. It’s a wrestling match with a few tiny fights breaking out for good measure.

While the match loses steam a little bit heading into the bar fight section, and the finish feels as though they were going for a surprise tko type thing that didn’t land as effectively as it would’ve if they had played it more straight, I don’t think anyone is watching this because of the narrative escalation or whatever. It’s exactly what someone would expect from these two 15 years ago.

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Ki is Carving Initials on Your Forehead, So Every Night Before Bed You See LK Shine Off the Board Head

Lokey vs. Monster Mac vs. Ken Sweeney vs. Indian Chief Tango LIWF 10/10/98-FUN

ER: I used the name spelling used by the Long Island Wrestling Federation's own graphics department, and this absolutely has to be the earliest Low-Ki match that I've seen. He and Monsta Mack are both fresh faced teenagers (!) and this is a fun snapshot of a transitional period for east coast indy wrestling. There were guys like Ki and Mack who in just a year or two would be accepted as the new popular style on the indy scene, and here they are as teenagers working an indy show underneath Bill Eadie and Jimmy Snuka. Nineties indy cards were littered with old WWF guys in their mid 50s (or worse, guys in their mid 50s who were never even in WWF but they owned a ring). Phil once described going to a late 90s east coast indy show as "You'd leave going 'Well, Axl Rotten threw a couple of nice chops.'" So something like this - four guys throwing out a bunch of spots in a chaotic Texas tornado style match - would have really stuck out as something fresh.

Ki and Mack are still in a gestation period. I found an angelfire page saying this was Ki's FIRST MATCH, and that page was also selling all 3 volumes of BUDMAN316's Ric Blade compilations, which is a sentence funny enough that I couldn't have actually thought of it myself. It's fun seeing early footage of guys you've watched for almost 20 years, see how completely different their moveset is. Ki's moveset here wasn't any more or less spectacular than his current moveset, just different, like when you watch Wildside era AJ Styles and he does a lot of legdrops. Ki hits missile dropkicks different, does a springboard frog splash and a frog splash off the top, hits a moonsault press off the top to the floor, moves entirely different on kicks (appears to be throwing X-Pac kicks in the corner) and even tries an ill-advised RVD terrible looking single leg dropkick off the top. It could have gone terribly as Mack tries to catch the kick meaning Ki lands awkwardly on one leg. Mack is such a baby here, hadn't yet grown into a true monster, but still had no problem yelling at a Puerto Rican girl at ringside and dropping guys with powerbombs. The Indian guy has the worst chops in the match, which I think might constitute a hate crime, but he has a nice standing spinning heel kick and so naturally does that to the other three.

Ken Sweeney is perfect. He's such a flawless New Jersey metalhead cosplayer that there is zero chance of any cosplaying actually taking place. There is a dearth of speed metal indy wrestlers, and here's Ken Sweeney showing up in sick as hell torn pink tiger striped fringe tights, Iron Maiden shirt, apology mustache, and a thick as hell blowback mullet. I'd bet a days wages that Ken Sweeney has a vest with a Saxon patch on it, and I'd love to drink tallboys and talk Piece of Mind with this dude. Watch him almost trip on the ropes getting into the ring, and then back the fuck off because he's mine. And Sweeney works like a dude amped up on British speed metal, working a fast pace. He doesn't have the technical precision of say Adrian Smith, but he comes at you like Bolt Thrower, trying guillotine legdrops and a superplex and a plancha to the floor. This match inexplicably goes to a time limit draw, but we're all made better for watching it. Up to you whether or not to stay for the Eadie match. I'm staying (and Eadie fought Tito Santana and it actually ruled because 1998 Tito still ruled).

PAS: Cagematch has one earlier Ki match listed (9/25/98 JAPW Nation of Immigration (Homicide/Kane D) vs Low-Ki/Ron Zombie) but this is definitely baby Ki. Ki and Mack are cousins and they basically matched up 95% of the match, Ki has eye black under both eyes and looks like he is at JV football tryouts. This had a bit of an ambitious back yard feel to it. They didn't blow anything, but it felt like they were just running through every spot they practiced, with out a ton of thought put into the sequence. There were some fun moves, Mack press slams Ki to the floor, Ki hits a couple of big height frog splashes, and a spinning double arm DDT. Mack also splats him with a couple of big powerbombs. The other two guys in this match kind of matched up with each other and stayed out of the way. Sweeney looks just like I imagine Cyrus and Jeff looked like in The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton.


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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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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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Hit Squad v. H8 Club

23. Da Hit Squad (Mafia/Monsta Mack) v. The H8 Club (Nick Gage/Nate Hatred) Beyond Wrestling 10/28

PAS: This was a 2000s Jersey dirtbag indy dream match that never happened, and it was as uncouth and violent as you would have hoped for. Potatoes being tossed out left and right, unprotected chair shots, slaps right in the mouth, just a pleasure to watch. I always thought Hatred was kind of big goof, which is still sort of true, but he took a beating and looked the part of a Golem Nick Gage drew from clay. Gage is amazing, he has an unhinged aura, like a modern Bruiser Brody if Brody was the stabber rather then the stabbie, he is also at his prime as a wrestler. He was great here, taking insane bumps (he flies over the top of the rinngpost to the floor, gets presslammed head first into a wall) and dishing out big receipts. We even got a cool bit of selling, Monsta and Gage are exchanging big tooth loosening foreamrs and Gage just collapses like he was in concussion protocol, this allowed Monsta to stand over a dazed and glassy eyed King and talk spicy, it also led to a great finish as Monsta got too confident and got caught with a piledriver. Rare dream match which totally delivered.

ER: Yeah this delivered everything you'd want from four bald and burly thugs punching mouths for 14 minutes. This was a wild brawl that never settled into a traditional tag-in match structure, but still benefitted from some traditional tag saves...but nobody wants traditional tag wrestling from this match, we wanted meaty shots to cheekbones and edges of chairs hitting ulna bones and huge men hitting concrete in awful ways. I was impressed with everybody here, even Hatred, who as Phil correctly points out has always been a big goof. His lummox tendencies played nicely off of Gage, who works like the Energizer bunny with a rap sheet. I love Gage's selling in this so much as it's much closer to Eddie Kingston, with a big great theatrical moment (him trading forearms and then just falling over before a sure deathblow from a running Mack could land) and other moments of him not staying down for long, but holding at aches and pains while being hit. He moves quick and lands hard, takes an insane bump over the ringpost on a backdrop, gets thrown full bore through some doors to the outside (which was a truly great visual in the match, as the building was dark and outside was bright, so you get Gage crashing violently from blackness into bright light and disappearing, as if he broke the space time continuum. You could almost hear Gage saying "Oh my god, it's full of stars!" Maff and Mack somehow haven't lost a step, Mafia especially is shockingly agile this many years on. I flipped out for his tope but he had several other moments of quickness, like that fast low spear off the ropes (actually the best spear I've seen hit in wrestling this year). I really loved this, as it brought plenty of crazy spots, plenty of mean shots, plenty of stiff arm lariats, a crazy caffeinated (or other) performance from Gage, really great brawl.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

25. Da Hit Squad v. Low-Ki/Homicide Beyond Wrestling 12/27

PAS: Tom and I drove way too long to watch this matchup live back in 2001 (Road Report Here), and it is a trip that this is still so good 15 years later. The 2001 match had DHS working as stooging heels, and this was closer to the potato fest we were hoping for a decade and a half ago. Ki and Monsta especially unload on each other, including some very heavy Jerry Blackwellish forearms by Mack. Ki continues his awesome 2015 where he had an almost Volk Hanish schedule, show up 5 or 6 times and have all of them be awesome, he works really hard here including getting thrown into the fourth row. I am not sure if Maff and Homicide have been in a ring together since the weird Maff blackballing, but they had some nice exchanges. Kind of a BS finish with Pinkie Sanchez running out and then getting smashed by all four, who do kind of a Puerto Rican clique salute in the middle of the ring. Would have like to see this have a proper finish, but as an exhibition of classic JAPW it was pretty great. RIP Fat Frank.

ER: Now these are 4 guys I like, and they all match up nicely. I also like the vibe of the building with fans right up next to the apron. I do not like Rob Naylor on commentary. But mute buttons exist and it somehow makes the shots being dished out look even more stiff. Low-Ki has been kind of under my radar the last several years, whether he was working promotions I don't much care about, or just plain not working much, but damn if he isn't just as good as he was when I first saw him. Feels like I potentially have several years of really fun Ki matches that I may have missed. DHS really feel like guys who still shouldn't be this much fun. Normally heavyset guys don't age well over a 15 year period, but Maff looks to be in shape and both have no problems leaning into all sorts of strikes, and Ki and Homicide have no problem dishing strikes. A lot of this is nice and sloppy, but I don't want precision when I watch Hit Squad matches, I want sloppy brawls and stiff shots thrown at unsafe parts of the face and body. DHS always throw really great shoulderblocks and body work, but they did little things that surprised me like when Maff pulls out a single leg on Ki, drops a bunch of elbows and then grabs a body vice. Ki is great throughout at sticking and moving, and while some of DHS double teams are a little rusty the stiff shots by everybody more than made up for it. Run-In Finish stinks as things looked to be moving into an insane peak, with DHS lawn darting Ki into an empty swimming pool and Homicide hitting an insanely fast flip dive through the ropes. So crummy finish aside, how could you not have fun watching these guys crash into each other?


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Segunda Caida Classic: Phil and TomK's JAPW 10/13/01 Road Report

Beyond ran a rematch of this tag 14 years later, so I drug out this old school road report

ALLIGATOR JERKY! works stiffer then the HIT SQUAD! LAITHON! hits a RANA! MAFIA! is the meanest Puerto Rican JOHN TATUM! ever! SCHNEIDER! meets the cops of NEW JERSEY! and more stuff from the longest road trip ever.

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Jersey All Pro Wrestling (10/13/01)
PAS: Phil Schneider
TKG: Tom K

BACKSTORY
TKG: I meet Phil outside of subway station. When I get out of subway, I am met by college kids giving out free cans of tuna fish as part of some sort of promotional campaign. They shove the can into my hand. I meet Phil and throw the can away. And we’re off to Hackettstown.
PAS: I borrow the good Doctor’s car, and go swoop up Tom. I was up till about 4 a.m. DJing and disposing of a clinging college girl, so I was a bit fatigued, thus explaining the embankment.
TKG: Phil drives and eventually we get out of DC.
PAS: And drives, and drives and drives.
TKG: We talk and joke for a while. Phil nearly drives us up an embankment and we keep on going.
TKG: Note: driving up an embankment is a good way to get the car behind you to stop tailgating. He kept far far away from us after that.
PAS: Also almost driving up an embankment is a good way to wake your self up. The adrenaline rush was like doing a packet of mini-thins.
TKG: We drive some more miss an exit and end up driving past all the old ECW house show towns. We’re in a part of the map that’s covered with pictures of Skiers. The fall foliage and the mountains are pretty beautiful.
PAS: The exit was very unmarked and we end up driving into the Pocanos. I wanted to go stop and see a ventriloquist and meet a rich homely Jewish girl and fall in love, but we decide to go to the show instead.
TKG: At one point, I panic as the signs tell me we are near Scranton.
TKG: We decide to stop at worlds largest General Store which I think I saw on an episode of Road Rules or something.
PAS: I actually drove past this, and then hit a U-turn, figuring a visit would add some color. It in fact added quite a bit of color to my stomach.
TKG: The funnel cake is preposterously expensive. I try to find out if there is any wrestling at the Pumpkin Festival. I decide that if we can’t get to see JAPW I want to at minimum get to see Todd Morton vs. The Stro.
PAS: It seems to me that Julio Deniro would be working a pumpkin festival somewhere, although not this one.
TKG: Alligator Jerky~! The can of tuna would have been a far better choice.
PAS: Alligator Jerky has a very spicy initial taste, which is an attempt to mask the overall fishy flavor. That attempt is a failure.
TKG: This trip never ends.
PAS: No, no it doesn't
TKG: I am a passenger. And I ride and I ride and I ride. I watch the bright and hollow sky. You know it looks so good tonight.
TKG: Shockingly we make it to Hackettstown skating rink before bell time. Even more shockingly the show starts on time. An indy that actually starts at advertised time!!!!
PAS: No 10 minute intermission which goes 45, and no Crowbar gimmick table either.
TKG: Audience of about 60 people. Lots of young kids who are showing off their abilities to curse. Easily worst wrestling crowd I’ve been to a show with as they go for all the “smart” chants including “Your mic skills suck”, “RVD!”, waving dollar bills at the valet who is young enough to be even MY daughter ( we left show quickly before any paternity could be proved) and going to try to get Crowbars autograph while the main event was taking place.
PAS: Jersey fucking sucks, what a bunch of smarmy little pricks. I had to move my chair because I was about to pound some obese teenager, who spent the entire opening claiming he could wrestle better then Reil and Jobber, when it seemed unlikely he could even climb the ringsteps without puking on his shoes.
TKG: My favorite chant of night to a guy wearing tights that looked like Electro-Shock “NOVA RIP-OFF! NOVA RIP-OFF!” Nothing is as unintentionally funny as calling someone a Nova ripoff.
PAS: Someone also claimed that during Dixie’s, air raid crush variation. It might have been Donnie B.
TKG: Also preposterously low ceiling.
PAS: Which didn’t stop anyone from doing highspots, ahh the hubris of youth.

THE SHOW

TKG: The Hit Squad, their manager Johnny D, Dixie and Dixie’s valet Valentina come out for a promo. Monsta does pretty good comedy mic work while Mafia does the serious mic work. Johnny D mugs around the ring like your best friend’s really embarrassing uncle… which is a good thing. Dixie doesn't look old enough to shave. The same can be said of Valentina.
PAS: I really liked the Hit Squads mic work, although they were working against the role which they play the best. Hit Squad are scary motherfuckers, and making fun of the crowd - especially the way they worked the main event - plays against the type. It is nice to see diversity, but they should be working like twin Vaders not like the Heavenly Bodies.

Billy Reil vs. JT Jobber:

TKG: Reil tells ring announcer that he no longer wants to be introduced as Billy “Highlight” Reil. From now on he is to be known as Billy “Kiss My Ass” Reil.
TKG: JT Jobber works a Mickey Whipwreck circa 95 gimmick and is not good. Reil heels it up for most of the match and looks great. Reil does fun theatrical selling bumping twice in ring and then falling to floor for Jobber’s crappy tornado DDT.
PAS: I was really impressed by Reil. Jobber was pretty poor, but Reil did a very good job of making him look credible and passable. Great brainbuster - the best I have ever seen live. Plus a neat dive from one ringpost to the other end.

Skinhead Ivan vs. Judas Young vs. Chino Martinez

TKG: It’s a three way dance with elimination rules. I can’t identify Young’s entrance music and that pisses me off. Martinez is the face in this match and it’s a mess. No one punches well.
PAS: This match really sucked, I kind of liked Young last time I saw him, but he wasn’t good here. Chino had ridiculous pants, and was really green. Ivan seemed to be able to hit his spots crisply, but had some of the worst punches I have ever seen (which is a real business exposer for a guy with a skinhead gimmick) kind of like a crappy indy nazi Saturn.
TKG: Ivan might have some understanding of how to work a match and I would kind of like to see what Homicide was able to do with him. But so not good.

Insane Dragon vs. Dave Greco:

TKG: The match starts with a quick mirror sequence that ends with both guys even and a round of applause. I HATE THIS SPOT! DAMN YOU MALENKO/GUERRERO!!!!
TKG: Despite my hate of said spot Greco manages to keep up with the superfast Dragon which is pretty impressive. Greco works a nice sequence out of a knuckle lock. In general Greco looks a little too deliberate in ring like he is trying to give an instructional on how to put on octopus hold. I dig Greco and he tries to reel some of the match in. He isn’t quite successful but it’s a noble effort.
PAS: I thought Greco seemed pretty slow, especially compared to Insane Dragon. This match had some really nice stuff and some very poor stuff. Insane Dragon is really flashy, although flashy doesn't really do it for me so much in 2001.
TKG: Insane Dragon sells well and when he hits his highspots they look really impressive.
PAS: The finish was Insane Dragon trying a springboard 450 and landing ass first on Greco’s chest, which may have fractured his ribs. This was Matratsian.
TKG: Post match Dixie comes in to beat down Insane Dragon. Dixie does a air raid crush onto his knee which is the nastiest move I’ve seen live (next to THE OKLAHOMA ROLL). It’s an awesome move that someone should steal.
PAS: I imagine NOVA will invent it soon. Dixie’s match wasn’t very good, but his run-ins were great.

Laithon vs. Magic:

TKG: If you always wondered why the Zambouie Express never broke up to run the Elijah Akeem vs. Kareem Muhamed feud, this here is the answer.
TKG: Laithon is a tall and awkward but so so not Taue. He is better than Big John Studd in his prime. He tries a hurricanrana which looks really bad and amusing.
PAS: The hurricanrana was great, in a completely ill-advised way. Laithons chops were stiff. Magic hit a ludicrous dropkick.
TKG: Magic is Tony Starks dad. He left Starks' mom at a young age and is now trying to reconcile with his son by incorporating the Wu Tang pantheon/philosophy/orientation into his indy wrestling. It seems like a legit effort to reach out but is still sad and pathetic. It reminded me of that movie where the Allan Thick plays a dad who tries to study up on opera so he has something to talk about with his son who he kicked out of his house four years earlier for coming out. When the father tries to discuss opera, his son (Danny Pintauro) doesn't see the love that his father has put into this effort and angrily rejects him, “I may be queer, but I’m not a QUEEN!”. Stark has come to one or two shows but still won’t talk to his estranged father. It’s a touching story but it doesn't make for compelling wrestling.

Deranged vs. Ghost Shadow:

TKG: Deranged is not the Deranged from IWA-MS King of the Deathmatch. I am disappointed but in actuality this is a huge improvement.
PAS: I felt like I was going to hit the KOTD Deranged signature spot after eating the Alligator jerky.
TKG: Deranged works the crazy guy gimmick that has him giving himself a bunch of back bumps because he's crazy (like Crowbar). Axl Rotten would be disgusted.
TKG: They do several joshi spots which you don’t tend to see in US indy jrs matches. Ghost Shadow does a Kyoko Inoue style pendulum swing. The set up for this is really cool as it looks like hes going for a lucha submission and then pulls it into the pendulum swing. He swings Deranged against bottom turnbuckle which is cooler in concept than it looks in reality. Deranged does a series of Ito like double footstomps. I dig the joshi.
PAS: This was a basic trained together indy highspot match. Ghost Shadow did very little memorable, but Deranged has some very nice jawdropper spots, including ending the previously mentioned double stomp sequence with a standing shooting star press while starting on the guys chest. They also had a loony Shannon Moore/ Willowish roll up combo which looked really neat.

Dixie vs. Exploited Child:

TKG: Exploited Child I think maybe doing a huffing gimmick. He seems to laugh a lot and has that “Big sale on butane at Home Depot” look in his eyes. He does a bunch of comedy stuff.
PAS: Exploited Child was the least of the JAPW teen division. I think the guy who exploited him was the guy who took his money for training.
TKG: On the DVDVR 900, I’d put Exploited Child right underneath XPW’s Pogo.
TKG: Dixie sells really well and is able to make this into a match. He is the Matt to Dragon’s Jeff.
PAS: Match was not so good, although Dixie looked like a keeper.

Crowbar vs. Kid Kruel:

TKG: I never understood why Storm would keep his shitty Russo name after he left WCW, but he is way over with the kiddies.
PAS: The crowd was into this the most, cause Crowbar used to be on TV.
TKG: Kruel has a body that Meltz would like and looks to be a little old to be calling himself Kid.
PAS: Crowbar however seems to have replaced his polish with Polish Sausages.
TKG: I expect Crowbar to not take any bumps in this match but he takes a bunch including 4 suplexes. Phil decides to start counting types of suplexes.
PAS: Kid Kruel broke out four types of suplexes, including a high end side suplex. While Crowbar had a Northern lights and a German. If this was the 70’s Idol would be going apeshit.
TKG: There is this odd Battlarts section where Storm reverses a fujwara armbar into a lucha roll up and Kruel reverses something into a rolling knee bar.
PAS: A fitting tribute to the erstwhile worked shoot promotion on the day of its demise.
TKG: Crowbar hits a dvd on Kruel which Kruel pops right back up from. Crowbar then hits the finisher.
PAS: Damn you Kobashi

Low-Ki/ Homicide vs. Mafia/Monsta Mack:

TKG: This is the match we came to see. Half the crowd clears out to find Crowbar to get his autograph. The Hackettstown show was clearly a houseshow and so while we came expecting a preposterously stiff stiff match what we got was a really really fun house show match. It was stiff as hell but not what we expected at all.
PAS: Yeah I was figuring this was going to be stiffer then Hash vs. Corino, but instead it was a basic southern tag stuff. Which was well done and all, but not what I wanted to see from these four. This was kind of like the Tajiri vs. Minoru Tanaka match in Bat-Bat where they did all of that lucha, or those Lucha six man with Blue Panther on one side and El Dandy on the other, that don’t go to the mat and just get worked as brawls.
TKG: The Hit Squad come out and act like scared heels, which is somewhat tough to buy given that they look pretty legit. They go through all the Zbyzsco motions including walking to the back and then they work a southern tag match. With Low-Ki/Homicide as the stiffest Rock n Roll Express vs. the Hit Squad as the stiffest most willing to bump Jack Victory/John Tatum.
PAS: It strains credulity for the Hit Squad to do a chickenshit heel act, considering their size and demeanor. They did it well however.
TKG: Mafia works most of the match and does all kinds of goofy amusing John Tatum-esque selling. He hides in the ropes, crosses himself before taking a bump and makes me laugh. He takes most of the beatings as Low-Ki/Homicide do the stiff face kick double-teams (so much nastier than a double drop kick).
PAS: Low-Ki did most of the work in this match as well, as he was face in peril, which he did fine, but again Low-Ki as Ricky Morton is not the Low-Ki I drove 6 hours to see.
TKG: Monsta mostly comes in for offense, which is a weird reversal of the mic work at beginning of show where Monsta was all comedy and Mafia was all intensity.
TKG: They worked the face double teams early in the match
as opposed to saving the double drop kick for the end. This was a good variation as it told a different story than the cliché and built up well towards both Homicide’s “house a fire offense” and Low Ki’s finisher.
TKG: Homicide/Low-Ki can’t beat the Hit Squad with your traditional southern flash pin (double drop kick quick pin). The Hit Squad won’t allow for that. Double-teaming is used to weaken. But the Hit Squad can’t be beat by double-teaming. They are a team and the only way to beat them is to isolate one member one-on-one while keeping the other away. Of course this leaves the face one on one against the member of Hit Squad. This story makes all of the face teams non-double team offense seem far more important.
TKG: Ref Hanson does a good job of getting shoved around by both teams and never quite seeing what he shouldn’t see.
TKG: Low Ki works Ricky Morton and takes a great high back drop that legit puts him through a ceiling tile. Low-Ki goes for the hope offense before making the hot tag to Homicide. Low Ki is able to knock down both members of the Hit Squad independently in the hope offense section before the hot tag and I think this lessened the heat for Homicide coming in House-a-fire.
PAS: I am with the house of fire criticism, and it was the only artistic flaw in this match. They did a nice counter spot with Homicide breaking up a Mafia attempted burning hammer by putting him in the STF. Cool spot which did not get the reaction it deserved from the dogshit apathetic crowd. Fuck Hackettstown
TKG: There is a table spot post match and Low-Ki gets on the mic setting up the rematch for the belts.

EPILOGUE

PAS: Rat report card
Girl in the red shirt: B-
She had the chubby delinquent look down, and was continually absent during the show to go smoke, both of which are rat pluses. But she refused to blow Laithon to get to the back, which violates the rat code, no ass no backstage pass darling
Missy Hyatts aunt: A+ :
She had the 45 year old rough stripper look down pat. I expected Vince to put her on a Divas poster. Looks like she may have ratted for Unpredictable Johnny Rodz at one point
Loud Mouth Fat Kid C+:
Went to go get Magic's autograph during main event. Did not offer him head though. Did have appropriately large bosoms.
TKG: We leave Hackettstown and we drive and we drive. The jerky does its damage as we both realize that alligator jerky is not digestable. Our bodies continuously try to reject the jerky. The car odor becomes un-breathable.
PAS: Usually I like the smell of my own gas, but the Alligator jerky did bad bad things.
TKG: We try to find an open gas station, which is an adventure in and of itself.
PAS: New Jersey police are the nicest police in the world.
TKG: The partially digested fishy taste in my mouth becomes so bad that I decide to eat a Roy Rogers bacon cheeseburger to attempt to cover it.
PAS: While I spent much time ruminating over the evening in a Turnpike rest stop bathroom.
TKG: The trip home takes forever but at least we don’t get lost or drive into an embankment.
PAS: I believe I got into bed at 5:30 a.m.
TKG: I am the passenger and I ride and I ride I stay under glass. I look through the windows so bright I see the stars come out tonight. Fuck it I felt far less Iggy and more like Dave Dudley at this point. Unfortunately I can’t find any little white pills to keep my eyes open wide but we were going to make it home tonight.
TKG: Phil starts to hallucinate at one point. Unfortunately, I don’t. I take a big breath of the foul alligator jerky scented air hoping that I can join Phil on his “trip” but still nothing.
TKG: We get back to DC pretty delirious from the experience.
PAS: You got to love the wrestling.

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JAPW Awaken 3/21/2015

JAPW has been around in some form for 15 years or so, and has been one of the great under the radar indies. They seem to run really sporadically, and I was really excited to see a new show pop up in the dark corners of the internet. I am watching this without a match list so I am pretty excited to see who pops up.

Opened with a 10 bell salute to Perro Aguayo, which Chris Dickenson comes out to interrupt. Dickenson is a really hit or miss guy, but he is apparently working Low-Ki in a grudge match, and he seems like a guy who will have a fun unprofessional grudge match with Low-Ki. Low-Ki is with MVP and Samoa Joe as part of their TNA stable, and I see Teddy Hart and Necro Butcher ringside, that is a bunch of guys I like (and MVP).

Silver Ant v. JT Dunn

Silver Ant used to be Green Ant and JT Dunn I have seen before as a member of indy workrate tag team Juicy Product. This was a Beyond Wrestling showcase, and very much felt like a indy wrestling showcase match. Lots of counters and dramatic two counts, and blah blah blah. JT Dunn is very much an indy wrestler, and he does lots of convoluted ways to hit cutters and faceplants. Nice tope by Dunn, but otherwise very forgettable

Steve "Monsta" Mack v. Jaka

On paper very exciting stuff, I am long time Monsta Mack fan, saw the Hit Squad live a bunch of times always enjoyed them, there is an awesome early Low-Ki singles where he works like Vader, loved the Hard Hitters team with a big white guy whose name escapes me. Jaka is Chris Dickonson's tag partner who kind of works an indy Haku gimmick. So this should have ruled. Unfortunately it starts with both guys no-selling german suplexes, and Mack badly blowing a jumping rana, and then right into a bad forearm exchange. One of the worst opening couple of minutes I have seen in a while. It gets a little better at the end as Mack just kills Jaka with some huge throws and clotheslines before pinning him with an awkward nasty powerbomb, still they couldn't dig themselves out of that early hole. Still love Monsta though.

Archadia v. Bandido Jr. v. Smiley v. Joey Janela v. Kimber Lee

Juniors five way with all the flaws that style promises. There were a couple of cool highspots from Bandido Jr. who is a undercard JAPW guy I have always liked, he did a crazy springboard rana, and a cool dive. Otherwise this was kind of mess. Finish was especially stupid, Joey Janela just randomly climbs to the top of a really high pillar, Smiley follows him up for some reason, and the throw some bad punches, and Joey Janela does a flip onto a bunch of security guys, I guess it was supposed to be a bump off the pillar, but it really looked like that what was he was trying to do, looked super fake and dangerous for no reason. Then when those two get back to the ring, everyone else is gone and Janela hits a suplex and pins him. Total mess.

Christopher Daniels + Frankie Kazarian v. Bravado Brothers

Indy wrestling workrate tag, which is a style I just can't get into. Everything was executed slickly (it is a Chris Daniels match) but it didn't add up to a ton. Kazarian does have some cool springboards, and the Bravados have some double teams which look good, but I forgot everything about this a minute after it was done.

Necro Butcher + The Hooligans v. The Viking War Party

The wild Necro brawls around the Rahway Rec center were my favorite thing about the latter day JAPW, this was in that spirit, but was surprisingly subdued. Necro actually spends a fair amount of the match in the ring, instead of reckless fling chairs in the crowd. There was some good craziness including the fat Viking getting smushed through a guardrail, and the Littlest Viking eating a running powerbomb in the rail. This kind of thing is always fun to watch, but this wasn't close to  the level of the great Necro/Brodie Lee matches from a couple of years ago.

Azrieal v. Black Jeez

Surprisingly solid juniors match. Haven't seen a Black Jeez match in years and while he was pretty terrible in CZW back in the day, he was OK here, definitely should have put him on the list of black guys LU should have brought in instead of Killshot. He works pretty stiff here, and applies his stuff well. Azrieal was one of the solid JAPW juniors back in the day, he was no Dixie or Insane Dragon but probably a bit better then Elax the exploited child, he had a nice tope and some solid mid range juniors offense, still nothing about this leaped out at me and didn't stick out in my brain 10 minutes later.

Teddy Hart/Chris Hero v. Samoa Joe/MVP

There are tons of indy wrestlers in the world doing "crazy guy" gimmicks, but how many of those guys spend time training their cats. Teddy Hart is such a legit lunatic that he is compelling to watch. Teddy's valet comes down with a fluffy Persian who seconds him and Hero during that match. Joe and MVP are working their TNA gimmick with Homicide at ringside, pretty fun match. MVP keeps refusing to take any of Teddy Harts moonsaults including moving so he smashes some fans on a dive, it almost felt like a weird inter promotional Puro match where guys are not cooperating. The match was mostly shtick, although Teddy had some nice brawling with Joe. There was also a great moment where Homicide just decides to break a chair over Teddy's head for the hell of it, I love that feud, and hope JAPW runs some more of it. Postmatch had Hart making a lot of jokes about his Pussy and thanking Jesus, what a kook.

Low-Ki v. Chris Dickinson

PAS: I was pretty low on Dickinson in the past, I described him as a fake Davey Richards which is about the worst way you can damn somebody. He has removed a lot of the extraneous bullshit, and is now mostly working on stiffness and his despicable charisma. He has to be one of the most hatable wrestlers I can remember, he feels like the kind of high school linebacker who would organize a gay bashing or gang rape, and add in the crew of creeps he runs with and you get a really compelling act. Low-Ki, especially in JAPW is a guy you want to see beat the shit out of someone, and man does he beat the shit out Dickinson, although Chris dishes it out too. Match starts out with some karate sparing, which is an interesting way to open a match, and then some decent takedowns and mat wrestling before the asskicking starts, Ki would blister Dickinson and he would fire back with some big shots, and also some fun cheap shots, Dickinson has a great looking eye poke. One point Dickinson kicks Ki really hard in the back and Ki fires back with this awesome four punch combo which they replayed from five different angles, so awesome, and really fit the somewhat ragged and uncooperative feel of the match. This match also had one of the cool superplexes I can remember seeing as Dickinson through Ki almost to the other side of the ring.

ER: Really cool match with some inventive asskicking and painful stretching. We get some nice early mat stuff with Dickinson controlling Ki and Ki almost going for broke early with a couple of double foot stomps. This was a nice change-up as Ki doesn't normally go for those so early so it was a neat indication that he thought he was in trouble, outmatched. Dickinson counters Ki's early attempts to finish with nice little cheats, a low blow here and an eye poke there. Dickinson keeps trapping Ki in this nasty submission with Ki's arms hooked behind his back and Dickinson's feet pushing against Ki's neck. At one point Ki does a great job of getting to the ropes, but facially expressing that it's hurting him WAY more to get to the ropes than was maybe worth it. Dickinson ups the stiffness by booting Ki in the back, and Ki puts it over great by slowly standing up back turned to Dickinson, clearly in pain but not wanting to show it. And then he punches Dickinson a bunch in the face and chest and everything is great. There was some good struggle throughout, especially loved Ki desperately grabbing behind Dickinson's knees to block a powerbomb. Later Ki went for a vertical suplex but Dickinson tried to sandbag him, which backfired and ended with him taking a sort of brainbuster DDT that looked vicious. There were a lot of nice little things like that, and those little things elevate a match. Even the finish had one of those moments with Dickinson hung in the tree of woe and Ki going for the Warriors Way. Now usually guys have to just kind of hang there like dinguses and then find a way to look up before getting their chests stomped in, but here Ki stands on Dickinson's knees causing him to sit up in pain, and then Ki hits the Warriors Way. Nice.


Post match was fun with Dickinson's crew brawling to the back with Joe, MVP and Homicide and Monsta Mack saving Ki from a sneak attack, only to do a big turn on him. Could really dig heel Monsta Mack against Ki and Homicide, and I hope JAPW runs again soon.

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Saturday Night Digging In The Crates

This week we take a trip to an Armory in scenic New Jersey and watch Puerto Ricans beat the bricks off of each other



Da Hit Squad v. The Shaolin Wrecking Crew JAPW 6/7/02

PAS: I used to love watching DHS beat the ever loving crap out of little dudes, the one thing better might be watching them beat the ever loving crap out of giant dudes. This was basically like a Moondogs v. Moondogs match. Suba is a giant fat dudes and he takes a bunch of suplexes right on his ball park frank looking neck, and gets the leftover chili dog juice slapped out of his mouth by an especially nasty Monsta Mack. Might be a bit one sided, but a total blast.

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