Found Footage Friday: TAJIRI~! HHH~! BABA~! EIGEN~! FURNAS~! MVC~! SPIVEY~!

Dr. Death Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs. Dan Spivey/Doug Furnas AJPW 10/19/90

MD: I like Kroffat as much as the next guy, move even, but Spivey being in there instead increased the hoss level considerably. This was heated from the start too. Doc had it out for Furnas for some reason. He gave him the middle finger before the match. Furnas returned the favor by swinging a kick at him as he was squaring up with Spivey. Doc wiped his sweat in Furnas' direction. Furnas gave him the finger. Doc told him to kiss his butt. You get the idea. It's a good way to start a match. 

It doesn't let up from there. Furnas uses the three point stance to knock Gordy down, but Doc's able to grind Furnas down well enough that he makes sure to rush over and smack Spivey around a bit too, before mouthing off and maybe even spitting at him drawing Spivey in and it's just an absolutely chaotic feel early on.

What follows is about five minutes of the best wrestling you'll ever see. Doc catching Furnas in mid air and bringing him to the top rope, the two of them trading slaps and Furnas leaping over him to hit a belly to belly. Doc and Spivey smacking each other all the way out of the ring. Spivey hitting a bossman slam on Doc and boos ringing through the air as Gordy breaks it up. The place absolutely exploding as Furnas press slams Gordy only to eat a lariat. It's a hell of a five minutes before everything settles down to holds.

They take it down before building it back up and the overall effect is a hell of a thing. Gordy and especially Doc get a ton of heat. Furnas is able to clap up Spivey. There are a bunch of great nearfalls down the stretch before an extremely definitive ending but one that took that bit of extra effort. These are the sort of lost matches we hope to find.

ER: I love All Gaijin matches in All Japan because it's interesting to see how they can organically draw heat and interest without any kind of Nativism at play. No side is necessarily more loved or hated, only more established. Dr. Death understands that and leans into the MVC's established rep and for seemingly no reason goes hard on Doug Furnas. I have zero reason to believe there is any kind of animosity between Dr. Death and Doug Furnas, but everyone in this match made me believe there was. Doug Furnas was fairly established at this point. Not at the level of beating teams like Doc and Gordy, but already a two time All Asia tag champ who had beaten big teams. Doc quickly turns him into an underdog babyface which leads to a more spirited wild eyed performance from Spivey and some incredible payoff when Furnas finally starts throwing them around. 

Everyone was so good in this match that I fully bought into Doc and Gordy as two guys who actually hated Furnas (they didn't), Furnas as a guy out of his depth (he wasn't) and Spivey as a guy fearlessly telling MVC to back the fuck off and stop taking liberties with Furnas (they weren't, but at times it didn't seem like Spivey realized that). Doc was doing some performative middle fingers and phony baloney heat drawing across the ring while Furnas looked like a guy making the universal face of "Hey man I didn't do anything to you do you have the right guy?" You could tell Doc had the right guy when he sat Furnas on the top rope and slapped Furnas so hard to break. Furnas looked like Allen Covert and sold the slap by making the face that Allen Covert makes when his girlfriend leaves him in one of the few Sandler movies where that happens. Doc is great at bullying Furnas to rile up Spivey, and Spivey is that great combination of large and reckless and Just Getting Real Good so that he always gets too amped up on his first punch of an exchange and throws some potatoes before dialing back a little. He always looks ready to pop off, and it's a killer distraction from Furnas finally popping off. 

Doug Furnas gorilla press slamming Terry freaking Gordy - and the scared face Gordy makes while being held up high in that press - is an incredible spot. It would have been an amazing press slam anyway, but once Furnas added a pump it became an all timer. The crowd lost their minds at that press slam and that hyped Doug up so much he did a backflip and then ran as fast as he could into Gordy's biggest clothesline of the match. Doug finally suplexing Death was so cool. I love the way Doc bumps when he's reeling, just as I love when he decides one turnbuckle isn't enough for a stampede. MVC made damn certain that they were the bad guys here and were so convincing that the fans bought them as bullies against two of the toughest dudes. Terry Gordy out here getting booed over and over for breaking up pins and picking on Mega Athlete Doug Furnas.   

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Akira Taue vs. Harkua Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/27/90

MD: This is a recent Classics drop and a Baba 30th Anniversary match. Jumbo gives him a plaque before the match and everything. This gets a ton of time, 20+ it feels like and it's just packed full of character and comedy. It's hard to do justice to it all or even half of it but I'll point out a few things.

First, Eigen, amazing as always, really shines at the start. He faces off against young Taue to start but then darts to the corner and slaps Baba before running out. They reset, he does the same thing but this time teases Baba and slaps Rusher. Then when facing off against Rusher, he ducks and slaps him twice before leading him to the corner for a long heat segment. They kick away at him forever before we ultimately get some goofy stuff with Okuma and headbutts. There are a ton of headbutts in this match and while Rusher gets some in, a lot of them are eaten by Taue.

Taue's a lot of fun here. I've seen every bit of 1990 footage we have of him and he wasn't there yet, but here he's got this sense of wild abandon, limbs flying and flopping about, that would soon be gone from him. He looks like he's going to become an entirely different wrestler here between his selling of the headbutts and a sort of physical recklessness.

This refuses to end, a lot of the normal things you think might end it getting broken up. They run some of the best Eigen spit spot stuff ever, as both Taue and Baba get to do it, with Baba getting it on his hand and everyone almost cracking up (and Kobashi cracking up decades later on commentary). Then Rusher goes for it, but he's blocked, and Baba comes in from the other side with a chop and it's pretty hilarious let me tell you. The finish is a fun combo of Taue hitting an atomic drop sending Okuma into Baba's foot and then right back into Taue's belly to back. My only regret is that they didn't repeat the atomic drop/boot sequence a couple of times first. Great fun that no dirtsheet would have appreciated at the time but that we can absolutely appreciate now.

ER: This is one of those Wrestling Heaven situations for me. I love my King's Road, and I love my boys. Give me 20 minutes of VILLAIN SHOKAI up to their old bullshit and the nuanced twists that come with every new 20 minutes. It's crazy how many ways they found to do their same bullshit slightly different over the years. You recognize the behaviors but there are always things they do different, things I've never seen, or realistically perhaps things I've seen a million times but don't care because they all work so well together that I don't ever get tired of them. All of these old men matches (Masa Fuchi was 36 lol) were written off unfairly by morose tape traders, so now everything in them is ripe for discovery. Nobody was talking about how great Haruka Eigen was when I got into trading, none of these guys were getting any kind of acclaim. We're long past that now.

Now, before this even starts, you just know Eigen is going to get up to shenanigans before Villain Shokai starts bringing headbutts and hamstring kicks. Eigen starting the match with a slap and run routine on Baba and Rusher is so classic, celebrating in the aisles with young boys you barely recognize, knowing he was going to get paid back down the stretch. A lot of these start with long heat on Kimura, eating boots and headbutts and selling the headbutts so believably (that happens here), but that's not where the match stays. I thought they did a great job integrating everybody and keeping Baba's involvement short and exciting. Villain Shokai made quick tags and this settled into me being excited watching an Akira Taue who didn't wrestle a single thing like my favorite wrestler Akira Taue. 1990 Taue is so cool as can see hints of the Taue that would be there just a couple years later but you'd only notice them if you were familiar with them. For the most part, he's a totally different guy with totally different offense and movement. 

His most important characteristic that he apparently always had, was his realistic approach to bumping. Watch how he sells an Okuma headbutt to the mouth, watch the way he falls with limbs flopping around and not in a controlled wrestling school back bump. The realistic bumps and selling were the things that instantly drew me to Taue at the end of the 90s, and with all the '90 Taue we have as evidence we can see that it's just who he is, a thing that would be near impossible to teach someone. He also has completely different offense and I love "elbowdrop Taue who doesn't use his giant feet in any way" but maybe I only love it because I know we're not far away from "big feet to face and the best chokeslams ever" Taue. 

You get so much tough guy sneaky prankster Eigen that you forget they had already started honing the Spit Spot this early. It's still early, as the front row all knows what's happening when it's happening, but nobody is holding up newspapers. People are fleeing, which only draws attention to one woman who is not moving at all while every other woman around her scurries to safety. Baba getting involved in Eigen's Spit is a thing that does not happen in most of these, and his involvement here brings two incredible moments: Baba clutching Eigen under the chin and clubbing his chest, only for Eigen to spit all over Baba's hand, leading to Baba wiping off his hand all over Eigen's head; then when Rusher is winding up to club Eigen, Fuchi intercepts his arm. While the two are locked in struggle, Baba creeps in from the other side and just knife edges Eigen. Taue's back suplex drops like a damn anchor. These 20 minutes always feel like 5 to me, something I never say about Modern Epic Wrestling. 

HHH vs. Tajiri WWE 1/25/03

MD: This is the sort of Vault drop that we're looking for, Hunter reign of terror match or no. Previously we only had a few minutes of this. With the introductions and post-match this is 30+ minutes. The biggest takeaway, past maybe how good Tajiri is here and how it's a shame we don't have a bunch of other 20+ minute matches with him from this era, is that Hunter consciously worked it differently than almost any other match of the period. Maybe even almost any other match of his career.

There's the whole bit about Hogan doing two extra bits of chain wrestling in his Japanese appearances (when it's more the reckless energy and Axe Bomber people should be looking at). To me, this was more about Hunter getting to work the sort of classic NWA Title match style that he didn't think the current WWE audience would appreciate. The problem was that he just didn't have the reps with it (which isn't really his fault). It meant he did the sort of stuff you'd expect him to be good at (feeding into headlocks and other holds) well, but when he tried some fancier escapes, it didn't quite click. The headstand escape to the headscissors was cute and all but people haven't clipped him basically comedically putting himself back into the hold to set up the positioning for it.

What did work were the transitions, the hope spots, the cutoffs. Hunter took over by clipping Tajiri with a clothesline on the handspring and that looked great. They worked a lot of hope spots given the time the match had to breathe and it meant when Tajiri did comeback, it felt momentous. Lots of moving parts and hoohah on the finishing stretch but the fans certainly got their money out of all of it. I loved hearing Earl talking up close too. That's something you'd rarely get in the heavily produced WWE, even in the early 00s. This just felt very different and refreshing in a sea of 2002-2003 Hunter matches I have memories of but really don't want to revisit.  

ER: I remember being 21 and reading about this match in the Observer and DVDVR but now I'm twice as old as I was then and my wants and priorities have changed. How far away, the post college years where my friends and I split an Observer subscription for several years and my friend Jason would use his work photocopier to copy even double issues for all of us. If this match had been taped, I would have traded for a tape to see this match. The 2025 version of doing that is me making 30 minutes of time to watch a HHH match. I'm glad I did. It closed a loop and lived up to its release. I love that it's shot handheld, I love the format, and I loved the story.  I always love the story of a guy who isn't World Title level getting a lengthy main event title match. If it exists, I'd be equally excited to see Brooklyn Brawler getting a long Shawn Michaels title match on a house show after winning a battle royal. 

HHH works this much more like a heel Bret Hart match and shows that he's better at that than when he's working his touring champion Flair match. Thank god this isn't his touring Flair match only in Japan. He's more execution focused than when he's in his Flair Entertainer mode and while I don't think he's anywhere near Bret as an execution guy there were several moments that I thought he looked a lot tighter than expected. He's better at bump as Bret than he is bumping as Flair and it made the match come off harder hitting than theatrical. Tajiri's kicks were great ways for him to storm back into the match and I liked how he would use them as unpredictable combos thrown at different body targets. HHH is bad at standing still making an "I'm waiting to be hit face" but much better at taking strikes that are less expected. We didn't have to see him hold his head a certain way as he waits to hair whip react to a punch, instead we just got Tajiri throwing kicks up and down his body. 

HHH as a guy working over shoulder back breakers is one of the coolest versions of HHH. Do more of that. Less Irish whips and more backbreakers! When Tajiri finally slips out the back of one of the backbreakers it's this great spot that looks like it's going to fall apart entirely and end in an awkward tangle but it somehow bumbles expertly into a clean sunset flip pin away from ropes. I thought for sure both men were falling and going to wind up in an ugly heap of blown spot but instead it made it all look like HHH was struggling to stop Tajiri's momentum. Tajiri using the Tarantula while the referee was out seemed like the one time where it would have been acceptable to let HHH Act. Just let him scream and NXT sell for a full minute while completely stuck, no ref to save him. I was disappointed that Tajiri maintained the 5 second rule. We didn't get enough of Tajiri maniacally refusing to break Tarantula. 

Tajiri kicking out of the Pedigree was something we all read about in 2003, but it plays far crazier than it reads. This is a detail I remember reading about. It was shocking to hear that Tajiri had kicked out of a Pedigree, but the details at the time actually downplayed what really happened. When it was reported, the reporting made it sound like the Pedigree was hit and Hebner - blinded by mist - took an eternity to make the count. That makes sense and it still sounded surprising that Tajiri kicked out. In actuality, the whole thing happened in under 10 seconds. Tajiri kicked out of the Pedigree less than 10 seconds after it was hit, which nobody else was doing in 2003. 

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: Obviously, Somebody Took Offense To It

Tommy Dreamer vs. Scotty 2 Hotty WWF Metal 9/1/01

ER: Tommy Dreamer might have been trying to hit Kurt Angle with his car, or, he was merely pulling into a parking space. This is the technical beginning of Heel Tommy Dreamer, although no turn was yet official. He would have been the default heel here as the crowd was not going to be booing Scotty 2 Hotty, but he does a great turn at the end of the match anyway. Dreamer is good at missing offense to set up Scotty's, and he gets crotched TWICE. There is nothing Tommy Dreamer loves more than being dropped balls first onto a guardrail or rope or turnbuckle, and here he gets swollen balls from the ringside barricade AND top turnbuckle! Dreamer is aggressive and keeps missing until he hits, rolling to the floor off a superkick and then taking a hard bump to the floor after getting crotched on the barricade. But he's got great right hands that he throws from a far back wind up, elevating his punches by landing them from a reared back slot. I liked 2001 Dreamer's moveset a lot: nice neckbreaker, a great Sky High that gets set up like a spinebuster, great missed elbow bump off a Naniwa elbow. 

The best part of the match is the official Dreamer heel turn, because it's so logical and makes so much sense, and is just so easy. Dreamer gets crotched on the top buckle, staggers down to his feet, and as Scotty runs the ropes to set up the bulldog that sets up the Worm...Dreamer merely ducks. Dreamer ducks, then just spikes Scotty with a DDT. The fans absolutely hate it. The crowd noise that started with buzzed excitement as they saw Scotty setting up the Worm, that transitions to hate-filled boos as Dreamer dodges the Worm and then mocks them for loving the Worm, is sublime. Dreamer does a fantastic impression of how stupid Scotty looks when he's about to do the Worm, does the shittiest/perfect one legged hops, and while doing those hops Scotty gets up and plants him with the Bulldog. Even better, is that when Scotty does hit the Worm, he immediately finishes off Dreamer with a springboard DDT that I don't remember him regularly using. I appreciate when guys try to put unique twists on played out spots, and this was a great version of that. 

Tommy Dreamer vs. Tajiri WWF Heat 9/9/01

ER: A cool 4 minute match with a surprising, earned Tajiri win. This was an unexplored ECW TV bout, but we have a ton of fancam singles matches. This is their only WWF match, and it was a tight version of their ECW house show feud. Dreamer controls and bullies Tajiri around, and I have no real memory of any hierarchies during the short Invasion window so I have no clue where either of these guys ranked in comparison to each other. Tajiri was with Torrie Wilson, Dreamer had new pants with a barbed wire design down the leg. Who's to say. Dreamer works a cool bearhug where he lowers Tajiri's shoulders to the mat for a pinfall, Tajiri tries to pull a can opener, then get a guillotine, then just opts to bite Dreamer's nose to escape. As Dreamer is stumbling around holding his nose, screaming like a man who chose the worst possible time to tell a distasteful joke about Tongans, Tajiri flattens him with the most perfect crescent kick. Tajiri gets spiked nicely on a DDT, and the crowd got into Tajiri snapping and just hauling off on Dreamer with a flurry of punches and kicks. Dreamer jaws with leather pants Torrie Wilson and gets kicked in his hamstring for it, dropping his head enough to eat a buzzsaw right. They were 4-4 in their ECW singles matches, so Tajiri goes up in the corporate rubber match. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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New Footage Friday: JOE MALENKO~! INOUE! TAJIRI! CICLON! MOGUR! STYLES! CROSS!

Joe Malenko vs. Mighty Inoue AJPW 1/25/89

MD: We're just starting to see the dividends with this new run of Classics. Previously we just had the last few minutes of this title change and while it was good, it, and other Malenko and Inoue matches from 89, always had me wanting to see the full thing. It didn't disappoint. Both wrestlers were extremely good at chaining one hold or opportunity into another while dealing and adapting with engaged struggle from their opponent. Early on that was Malenko with the arm (including an 89 Crossface), and later, Inoue with the leg. Shortly thereafter, they'd end up tied up a few times, an even match. Malenko had the bridges and the bombs and was so good at chaining a move out of a suplex. Inoue had the somersault senton and even creeping towards 40 could still absolutely go. This had the usual block-and-counter laden finish you'd get on these late 80s AJPW Jr. matches and while it was a finish partially set up to protect Malenko, it still felt like a big moment for Inoue and the fans reacted accordingly.

PAS: Loved this, a real chance to watch Joe Malenko ball out. I loved the opening with him leaping over Inoue's leg sweep attempts like he was doing the Kid and Play dance, and finishing it off with a scissors kick takedown. Lots of nasty counter wrestling on the mat, including Inoue putting on a sick Indian death lock, and some really cool looking arm locks by Malenko. I thought the roll up finish worked good with the way the match was going, Inoue showing he had a little funk to his game as well. 

ER: I thought this was fantastic, an awesome juniors match with matwork more interesting than anything you'd ever see in a New Japan juniors match. My only complaint with the match at all is that they felt the need to break away from the matwork. This was a 15 minute match, and the first 13 are up there with the coolest Muga clinics I've seen. Joe Malenko really is one of the all time mat guys, doing almost minimalist Bob Backlund type holds only wrenched in and played small and tough rather than long. Malenko isn't really about quick movement, and his style is so engaging that it doesn't really need it. You can see every step of his holds, and he builds through each of his holds in snug ways that are easy to follow and make simple holds look agonizing. Malenko is not without flash, as he begins the match doing little MPro hops to avoid Inoue's legsweeps while locked at the arms, and after hopping over a few he spins into a killer leg-scissors takedown. Malenko's bridging neck work is always impressive, made both guys look tough watching them go through slow motion Cirque du Soleil poses. 

Malenko cranks in a couple of nasty cravats across Inoue's face, locking his hands under Inoue's armpit and behind his back, and all of his holds look grinding and painful. Inoue's return fire looks good, especially when he butterflies Malenko's legs on a standing deathlock, he works Malenko's arm in some simple but painful looking ways. Malenko refuses to go into Expected Juniors Matwork, doesn't do kip ups out of knucklelocks, doesn't do monkey flips when you'd expect them, and his knucklelock takeovers look like expert judo throws rather than part of a rolling exchange. And I wish they would have stuck to that. It made for a great 13 minutes. Joe Malenko is much cooler on the mat than he is running ropes, and there were a couple things that didn't look quite right once they were on their feet. But we also got a tight fisherman's suplex from Joe, a slick reversal into a German suplex, Inoue's none-better somersault senton, and a great flash pin title win out of an Inoue rolling cradle reversal. Inoue's reversal was really strong, and the 13 minutes of bridging matwork by both men really established how good they were at forcing each other into bridged holds, you get the real sense that Malenko really couldn't have escaped the pin. Great match, with several things that modern acolytes of this mat style could learn from. 

Tajiri/Ciclon Ramirez/Fantasik vs. Halcon Negro/Mogur/Guerrero de la Muerte CMLL 12/23/95

MD: Tajiri had a few month excursion to CMLL when he was about a year into his career and there's not a ton to see of it, so this was a fun thing to pop up. He had a nice, long opening exchange with Guerrero de la Muerte (Toxico) and they were fine, basic but smooth. Late in the tercera he hit some solid kicks and had a nice tope. This was pretty standard fare otherwise, though lacking a central underlying storyline. Mogur stood out out with some good dropkicks and a great knee in the corner, plus leaning hard into the missile dropkick which led to the tecnicos taking the primera. The beatdown wasn't very memorable, with the comeback spurred by the rudos all mounting and posing Tajiri. Fantastik seemed to be straining to his his offense at times but disappeared from the match at the end with a pretty spectacular slingshot swanton bomb to the floor. It ended with a pretty unsatisfying foul which wasn't built and didn't seem to be leading anywhere.

PAS: Fantastik is this super cool luchador with a hairy chest who basically spent his entire career in Japan. I don't remember him working CMLL at all, and here he was with his Big Japan buddy Tajiri. There is a more well know match later in this tour where things break down between Tajiri and Mogur and they start stiffing each other, but there isn't anything like that here. I enjoyed the opening Tajiri and Muerte mat work the best, real chance to see how skilled Tajiri was as a kiddo. And that Fantastik swanton to the floor is one of my favorite high spots ever, what height and extension he got on that. It might have even been better than Super Astro's. 

ER: Matt mentions that this is pretty standard lucha fare, and he's right, but it's also really exciting watching just standard lucha fare from guys from this era. I've seen a stupid amount of standard lucha from the last decade of the CMLL roster, so a different era of roster going through their routines can be a real sweet panacea. It's cool seeing Tajiri and Fantastik in the CMLL mix, to see Tajiri do a pretty good job of understanding basic lucha caida structure. He's tasked with being the first mat exchange of the match, he comes in at the end of the segunda with a high spinning heel kick, and then lands a nice dive on Mogur at the climax of the tercera. Fantastik had the wild spot of the match, with a gorgeous slingshot swanton off Halcon Negro, perfectly lined up down an aisle. I really liked Negro here, a great theatrical bumper, and if that slingshot swanton wasn't in the match I think my favorite moment would have been Negro getting bumped to the floor, sliding out after a headscissors and landing on one leg, then hopping on one leg to slow his momentum until landing in the front row. He looked like a Looney Tunes character who skidded to a stop before running off a cliff. Ciclon Ramirez was a super graceful tecnico, great height on headscissors and bumps, and Mogur is a classic rudo in the vein of Mocho Cota or Satanico, all short right hands and nice traffic direction. This was probably a typical Saturday night for all of these guys, but it played with the right amount of freshness for me. 

AJ Styles vs. Jason Cross NWA Wildside 8/15/01

MD: This had a few things going for it. First and foremost, they were working it as an evil mirror image sort of match (or more accurately, as Cross stealing Styles' act), so there were a bunch of parallel spots that were effective and creative and well-executed, but also that meant something because there was an underlying story driving them. It wasn't an exact tit-for-tat, but was defined enough you couldn't miss it. Cross would hit one sort of tricked out arm drag, Styles would return with another. At one point, Styles hit a huge over the shoulders alley-oop on Cross that caused him to hit his head on the screen above the ring. Cross returned the favor later with one onto the top turnbuckle snake-eyes fashion. Late in the match, they both hit top rope splashes. That sort of thing. The second thing would be the theater itself. It let Cross hit a crazy dive of the stage, less crazy for the twists and turns and more so for the damage he would have done to himself if Styles didn't catch him well (he did), and they followed it up with brawling on the floor, with a green tinted, security footage looking sort of night-vision effect, and Styles spectacularly hitting a wall step-up standing moonsault. For the most part, everyone's stuff looked good. There were a couple of physics defying moments from Styles, like a bump off of a top rope 'rana that took me out of it. I thought Cross' strikes looked really good and it's too bad we didn't see more of them. They didn't wear out their welcome here by any means and that helps to justify the your move, my move nature a little (as does the mirror image underlying story), but if they shuffled things around a bit and had Cross lean on him a bit more towards the end, it would have made Styles get the moral win, before the "1988 WWF Manager on the apron so let me chase him around the ring" screwy finish, mean more. Still, this was very good for what it was and what it was trying to be.

PAS: Cross was working a Mike Davis as Dusty Rhodes version of AJ Styles here, which was a fun gimmick. The athleticism in this match was pretty off the charts, both guys had tremendous snap and execution on all of their big spots. This would have been pretty mind-blowing at the time, I mean we were just starting to see Low-Ki,  Red  et al do this kind of thing in the Northeast, and this was at or even above that level. The Cross dive off of the stage, the Styles wall walk moonsault and spiked headscissors, totally wild shit even now. I did think this was aiming to be an all time lost classic until they returned to the ring where they lost the string a bit. I don't think we needed that chase around the manager spot, and a fast ref count felt like one too many booking things for a match which didn't need any of them. Let Cross win clean or have Styles win clean, the match was good enough that no one would have been hurt by it. Cross is one of those weird wrestling casualties, no reason he should have been lost to history. He was like a taller AJ Styles and should have at least had a ROH/TNA career.  

ER: This is an era of indy wrestling that will always have the warmest place in my heart, as it was right when I was really getting into wrestling message boards and was the peak of my tape trading. This match had all of the things I loved about getting tapes in the mail, with a perfect wrestling venue for starters. This was in an old (?) movie theater, with the ring up on the stage and all the crowds seated below watching the show. I'm always interested in seeing how guys perform while having less sides of the ring to play to. This set-up has them essentially playing to one side of the ring, which brings unique perspective and focus to some of their exchanges. 2001 was fertile for getting a random selection of indy tapes in the mail and being surprised at so many styles happening all over the country. This was inventive as anything else from 2001, and Cross wasn't that far behind Styles as a talent at this point. Bobby Quance is a guy who gets brought up as a "what should have been" guy with under 100 matches, but Cross's stuff ages even better for a guy with a similar career. Cross is great at taking offense, and I love the heel gimmick of aping a popular face's wrestling style so well that is gets under the babyface's skin. Cross is great at being that smug and backing it up in ring. Cross hits an insane corkscrew plancha off the movie theater stage, and takes all of Styles' craziest 2001 offense, like the spike jump up headscissors and a Styles Clash off the top rope. Styles has been doing this level of great match for over 20 years now, and seeing how many indy guys are working for major promotions now, 2001 Cross is more polished than most of them. He was slightly too late for WCW, and for some reason didn't catch on in TNA after getting semi-regular shots. You always hate to see a cool talent fall through the cracks. 

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Kotaro Suzuki vs. Tajiri

68. Kotaro Suzuki vs. Tajiri AJPW 1/2

ER: I really liked this. Makes sense that a modern Japan match I really like is going to be between two guys I watched 15-20 years ago. But it felt like more of a modern Japan match, just done really well. Suzuki has really grown into a cooler large junior, the added muscle since his earlier NOAH years making him more interesting. Here they work a simple story around Suzuki battering Tajiri's ribs and body, in a match dominated by Suzuki, but they integrate Tajiri's comebacks as effectively as possible. Tajiri is a game old guy, but this is also a smart way to craft a match around a less game old guy, real smart way to showcase Tajiri (both guys are in their 40s, but at opposite ends). They open with some cool standing grappling that feels more like something from a Regal match, wrist control and Tajiri crossing Suzuki's arms in attempts to control his torso.

Suzuki goes after Tajiri's torso in retaliation, starting with a hard body shot and graduating up to gutbusters and hard knees and more punches and elbows to the gut; he even breaks out a 619 right to the ribcage and a sensible frog splash off the middle buckle. Tajiri uses his kicks to max effectiveness, going right at the collar bones with a running dropkick in the corner and having great aim on all of them, and he's one of the only guys still tossing out a classic Memphis piledriver. Suzuki shoves his hands over Tajiri's mouth when he wisely suspects mist, but Tajiri eventually took advantage of the distracted ref to nail the mist and a great spin kick to the face to finish. I thought these two complemented each other really well, their similarities play well off each other, and this managed to have a lot of movement, but a lot of effective movement.

PAS: Yeah if I am going to watch a Japanese juniors match, I want them to be Senior Juniors. Suzuki isn't great (he wasn't great 20 years ago either), but he did some effective things, although his elbows to the head were so-so, those body shot elbows were nasty, and I liked how he kept Tajiri off of his game with them. The opening matwork section was really cool and something which doesn't exist in major fed Japanese wrestling. Much of the match was Suzuki bottling up Tajiri, including blocking the mist with his hand to set up some very cool magistral roll ups. Tajiri is still a heck of a one shot wrestler, and when he finally hits the mist/buzzsaw kick combo it looks as great as it did in ECW in the 90s. I think I would have rated this higher if Tajiri was unleashed a little more, but this was entertaining well executed stuff, which isn't super common in Japan these days.




2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Road Report 3/9/19

ER: Jun Akiyama has been wrestling for 27 years, and he decided to work his first ever match in the United States on a Saturday night in San Francisco high school for a lucha fed that doesn't have any actual lucha on it. Why not? We hit up Papito on the way down, me, Tim Livingston, and our friends Sean and Jason. A good crew for a wrestling show. Papito is this great Mexican place owned by a French guy who makes fantastic food. I foolishly had a late lunch, so just sat there sipping sangria and munching chips while Tim got shrimp tacos, Sean got a pork/duck meat combo, and Jason got a great big burrito. I was jealous, but it was my choice and being gluttonous at 38 isn't as fun as it was at 21. That chorizo hamburguesa with queso fresco, avocado, and caramelized onions was staring me in the face on the menu, tempting me with greasy memories. But eating that close together would have had me feeling like total trash through a 3 hour show, so I sad eyed my way through it. We got to the show a little late, and then there was a very long line for being 20 minutes past listed door time. Our saint from above, our friend Brian was inside having come from a different direction, SAVING four other seats. This show was genuinely PACKED and that move probably got him a couple aggressive stares. It was loud as hell throughout a large portion of the night, real cacophonous gym with a full crowd, lots of air horns.

We got there late from dinner and the long line in, so we missed a 6 man scramble match. Our friend Brian - who had saved FOUR seats through a 20 minute late start time AND a full match - when asked about his opinion of the scramble match, wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head a little. A wordless, unimpressed dismissal of six men's nights' work.

Papa Esco/El Dinamita vs. Viento/Rey Leon

ER: This was a perfectly fine tag. One of the tecnicos comes out to Sweet Child of Mine which is one of those cheesy things that means your brain is wired to become a professional independent pro wrestler. Papa Esco is a fun fat guy with a singlet that even says Fat Boy. He has a good fat guy build, nice and sturdy, bald head and big beard. He's not mega fat, but he looks like someone left Monsta Mack in the dryer a little too long. Viento appeared to be the better of the tecnicos as far as fluidity, but he was also in there more with Esco, who is the much better base. Dinamita was really clumsy during some sequences, especially poor at taking offense (which is not a good sign from a rudo), but Esco is really good at taking armdrags, has that great chubby base pendulum style bumping down. This was fine. Esco is one of the PWR homegrowns that I like, so was at minimum hoping for a decent showcase for him, and got it.

Puma Negro vs. Sonico vs. Arkedy Federov vs. Matt Fury

ER: Matt Fury was originally supposed to be Jungle Boy, but due to the week's circumstances Jungle Boy was obviously not here. I didn't catch the name of his replacement, but he was a black flier who my friend Sean kept referring to as "athletic" and wasn't sure why Jason and I kept giving him a hard time about it. He didn't repeatedly refer to Federov as "hard working" so the likely scenario is that Sean doesn't know sports code. Fury got good height on some things and hit a pretty spectacular springboard shooting star press into the entranceway onto everyone, but felt like he put more thought into ways to do high leapfrogs instead of transitions. My favorites in the match were Puma Negro and Sonico. Federov was okayish, but had some really clunky set up on indy offense. There was a moment where he did some awful 9 step set-up kind of move, grabbing an arm, dipping opponent back into a backbreaker, pulling them to feet before locking into a pumphandle, you know one of those moves that needs someone to be perfectly still while you do your 9 point pre-check before dropping them on their face. But Sonico was a real pleasant surprise, a guy I'd love to see again around here. He got real high height leaping off the ropes for ranas and had a really great fast dive. Puma Negro was an Arkangel type rudo, had a nice stiff arm southpaw lariat just like Arkangel's, good base for Sonico's ranas, had a cool sunset flip variation. Federov ends the match with an awful waffle that looked super dangerous. Overall this is what you'd like from a 10 minute 4 way.

Nicole Savoy vs. Heather Monroe

ER: A 13 minute match that probably would have been much better off settling in around 9. Monroe showed a ton of charisma and personality during her ring entrance, really looked like someone who owned the ring and would be a great heel. Once the match started that completely vanished. The way she was stalking the apron and dismissing the crowd during her entrance felt like the kind of confidence that would immediately translate to the match, but the bell rung and she was completely silent. The middle of the match was a long Monroe control segment that was easily the most quiet the crowd got all night, and her stuff didn't look great. Savoy's moments where much better, nice high kick, even better German, tough fisherman buster, big tope (that Monroe caught nicely) but Monroe took way too much of this. It's only a matter of time before Savoy is in NXT, and she's super easy to root for, but the structure of this was all off.

ER: We had an ongoing bet over how long the intermission would go. I had 33 minutes, I laughed at Tim's guess of 25 minutes. To my shock they ended up coming back right at the 25 minute mark. I HATE intermissions, while begrudgingly understanding their purpose, and PWR's intermissions are filled with incredibly loud music blared into a cramped gymnasium. If I sound old, I genuinely don't care. So I leave to stretch my legs and in the hallway I run into Roy Lucier. Roy has been the true MVP of the online wrestling community these past few years, as he's been uploading a wealth of rare and unique wrestling footage in easily searchable categories, at an incredibly fast pace. Old tape traders seem like they always get along when meeting, and he and I got to chat for a good 20 minutes. He told me about a few things he's recently received that are VERY exciting. We even talked about saving it for Christmas because some of it is a gift that has been seen by very few of us. Talking about wrestling with people is fun, real glad we bumped into each other, been a long time coming. You'll be seeing plenty of Roy's uploads written about by us over the next several (!) years.

Tajiri vs. Super Crazy

ER: This feud was pretty important to late teens me, really was some of my absolute favorite stuff at that time and really worked as one of my gateways to wanting to see more and more wrestling from Japan and Mexico. It was cool seeing them run it back now that both are in the back end of their 40s, and this felt like a fun take on the familiar Tajiri/Crazy matches only done by guys in the back end of their 40s. The speed wasn't going to be there, but the ability to work a crowd was there and they knew what they could get by with. Tajiri was getting good reactions just stalking the ring, and he amusing worked the match like a Repo Man match. Tajiri kept going for headlocks and it was pretty great, due to their expert veteran timing. It really could have killed a crowd, as the buzz would be building, fans would start loudly anticipating a Crazy comeback, and right when the comeback was about to happen Tajiri would trick him into a headlock again. Every time the crowd reaction would get louder before the headlock, before Tajiri would quiet them. Tajiri doesn't do fast roundhouse wheel kicks or high kicks anymore, but instead threw a few nice front kicks, just pushing off with a couple stiff kicks to Crazy's chest or chin. Crazy is definitely chubbier these days, but he still gets the exact same height and rotation on his spinkick, hit a moonsault off the middle that looked just like a moonsault of his from '99, and even missed a moonsault off the top that had some of the absolute best arc and grace of anyone to have ever done a moonsault. His form is still that impressive. The finish was really fantastic as the ref gets briefly bumped, and in that brief moment where the ref isn't looking, Tajiri swings off Super Crazy with a cool armdrag...and mists Crazy while midair in the middle of the armdrag. Great visual.

Jun Akiyama/Ultimo Dragon/Misterioso vs. Vinny Massaro/Colt Stevens/JR Kratos

ER: So before the match they ran around passing streamers to ringside fans, and then promoter Gabe got on the mic and explained to the crowd how to throw streamers, and I think it comes off pretty silly to do a quickie "okay Japanese wrestlers only know you respect them if you throw neon garbage at them". Akiyama does come off like a boss during his ring entrance, wearing a large robe, clearly a guy who felt like a big deal to people (actually many in the crowd) who had no idea who he was. But damn if those streamers didn't look cool during his ring introduction (poor Ultimo was a Japanese man who was apparently shown zero respect, streamers for Akiyama only. We felt bad for Ultimo). Bay Area indies have been kicking around "Border Patrol" teams since at least the mid 90s and I'm thankful as hell we don't get any bad "build the wall" shtick from Stevens and Kratos. Vinny is in for a lot of this and the fans are way into Akiyama, which felt great. This wasn't going to be some wild match, it was going to be worked like a NOAH house show match, which was just fine, all that was needed. The rudos worked over Misterioso nicely, especially loved a long full arm lariat from Vinny, and a big release snap suplex from Kratos (a snap vertical suplex, but he let go so Misterioso flew across the ring, looked great). Akiyama came in on two occasions, laid in some nice knees including a great leaping knee into Stevens, and you knew we were getting at least one exploder. They mix it up and don't just go straight for the finish when he tags in the second time, and we even got a cool surprise nearfall from Stevens. I would have loved to see the reaction if Akiyama got pinned. But of course that wasn't REALLY going to happen. This was a perfectly fine crowd pleasing main event, and nothing more, and it didn't need to be.

ER: I've still yet to see a GREAT match from PWR, and they've been around for at least a decade now. But this was a packed house, a genuinely sold out show, with a crowd that stayed loud and invested throughout the whole card. That's a special thing.

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They Say Dan Severn Has a lot of Water on His Brain

Dan Severn vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri NWA New Jersey  6/24/95 - EPIC

PAS: This was probably a bad match to start this project with, because it really sets an impossibly high bar. This was on a high school football field in Williamstown New Jersey, and Tarzan Goto is sitting on a folding chair on the track watching the match. This is worked like a super amped up PWFG match, with Severn aggressively shooting in for takedowns and suplexes and Tajiri throwing kicks and using his speed to counter Severn's power, it feels like I was watching an Earth 2 Tajiri where he ends up trained by Funaki and fighting in Pancrase. Tajiri hits a plausible shootstyle enziguiri. Severn is awesome in this, he is totally amped up and just hurls Tajiri with suplexes, he reminded me a bit of peak Brock here especially in the where he walks through a low kick by Tajiri, hurls him with a belly to belly suplex, right into a german suplex, right into a choke. I couldn't believe how good this was, I would have lost my shit watching this in the bleachers at a 1995 indy show.

ER: I don't think my brain would have actually understood this match had I seen it live in 1995. I'm almost positive I would have thought it was a UFC fight. Just think how much this match must have stood out on this card, which was likely littered with Ace Darling and Tommy Cairo and Metal Maniac and Johnny Gunn matches. Those matches would have looked like normal pro wrestling to me. In comparison, this glorious 4 minutes would have looked like something vaguely unprofessional was happening. I had no idea these two ever even crossed paths, had no clue Tajiri even worked in the states in '95, and felt bad for the promotion since apparently they only sold one ringside VIP ticket and it was to Tarzan Goto. I assumed Severn just worked local heavyweights, or top heavyweights for whatever promotion brought him in. And I've never seen Tajiri work anything close to shootstyle, and from this match he seems really good at it! The whole thing is perfection. The ring is outdoors on a high school football field, Severn is warming up on the track in between the ring and bleachers, an old woman who looks like an overly nosy neighbor is holding Severn's belts, and the camera lingers on Tarzan Goto - arms crossed, pantless - sitting ringside. God, what if Goto fought Rockin' Rebel on this card?? The match itself is hot, Tajiri throwing low kicks, Severn throwing his major size advantage into takedowns, and some of the best grappling I've seen all year (and right now we're not exactly lacking in guys working a grappling style). Severn tries to sandbag Tajiri to the mat and seeing Tajiri reverse was really exciting, felt like seeing Royce maneuvering guys into danger. The enziguiri was really great and reminded me of shootfight nonsense that Sakuraba would pull. The final roll through was awesome with Severn trying to choke and roll, moving to mount, and then we get a couple Lesnerian throws with a huge belly to belly and a low fast German, locking in the choke for good measure. I had not heard one note of this match's existence until now, and here we are, witnessing 90s indy greatness.

Dan Severn vs. Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart 10/28/95 NWA New Jersey - SKIPPABLE

PAS: This would be sometime in between the Anvil's two WWE stints, right after his brief WCW run. This was pretty basic stuff, Severn out powers Neidhart, Anvil stalls a bit, takes over with a cheapshot, hits some forearms and more cheapshots, eventually gets caught and beat. Severn didn't really do anything to distinguish himself outside of the final throw and armbar. Most of this match was worked like Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart v. the masked WHO. Anvil does have really nice forearms and the finish was ok which almost kept this out of the skippable realm

ER: That other match felt beamed from another dimension, but THIS match feels like a perfect representation of what 1995 indy wrestling was all about. Neidhart works like a name guy who doesn't really want to bump, and Dan Severn's part really could have been played by any half trained meathead babyface. It felt like a minimal bump veteran working against a local popular former football player who set the state high school rushing record 15 years prior, or a match against the owner of a popular local chain of pizzerias. But that's not really a bad thing. I've watched and enjoyed plenty of those kind of matches. Neidhart wants to avoid getting thrown by Severn, and there were a couple moments of him scrambling for ropes once Severn gets his mitts on him. I wish after getting to the ropes Neidhart had thrown more cheap shots instead of stalling on the floor. The match could have used much more of either guy in control, or more of either guy doing anything. The finish is great though, as Severn upends Neidhart with a big throw and locks in a side choke and armbar.

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WWE Cruiserweight Classic 8/10/16

1. Tajiri vs. Gran Metalik

ER: This felt like a match that would have got 10 minutes on Nitro while the crowd went nuts and Schiavone talked about the nWo the whole time. I really liked a lot of this, even though the ending was really unimaginative, anticlimactic and flat. Tajiri looked real good throughout, loved his momentum shifting armdrags and sneaky kicks. Tajiri had a bunch of fun kicks (you heard it here first!), and that moment where he kicked a kneeling Metalik in the chest, and Metalik just stood up, slapped him, and Tajiri just stood there? That was the best. I really liked the mat stuff, had some smooth lucha flow and some vaguely unprofessional behavior, made me want to see Tajiri match up against guys like Blue Panther or Virus (and made me realize that we've never gotten to see an extended matwork run from Tajiri before). We get one of Metalik's big beautiful dives, Tajiri gets his leg dragon screwed through the ropes in a nice spot.....and then the ending just felt flat as hell. Tajiri kicks Metalik in the head, Metalik falls down....then just gets back up and does his finisher to Tajiri. That's just about the most uninspired way I can think of to end a good match. It was like they both remembered they left their stoves on and had to get out of there as fast as possible. Did my Network feed jump ahead or something?

PAS: I dug this more then Eric, I thought the opening matwork stuff looked like Negro Navarro or Solar maestro stuff which was crazy to see on WWE TV. Tajiri's mat counters looked awesome, that lifting press headscissors counter was truly beautiful, Metalik stuff was fine, but Tajiri looked world class on the mat. Feels like Tajiri v. Jack Gallagher is the dream match that came out of this tourney. I loved all of his kicks as usual, and he has so much more character then most of other guys still in. Metalik is fine, he has cool spots, but this feels really clearly like the wrong guy went over.

2. Kota Ibushi vs. Cedric Alexander

ER: Sometimes when watching a match I can see that the crowd is into it, and feel myself not seeing whatever it is they're seeing. But this match? I was right there with them, and it was an exciting and unexpected reaction. Ibushi and Alexander are two guys who I don't really have strong opinions on. I have liked matches with both, I have disliked matches with both. In matches of theirs I like I typically don't get driven to seek out more of their work, and in matches of theirs I dislike I don't get turned off from watching them in the future. They operate in that zone of guys who don't surprise me when a match is good, but I never expect it. And this match wasn't really the kind of match I like, but damn if that crowd didn't just draw me right into the whole thing. I surprised myself by how much I suddenly wanted Cedric to win, and that is a testament to the emotional performance that he put on. It wasn't because Ibushi was playing subtle heel, it was wholly because Cedric just worked like he deserved to win, and I wanted him to get that win. There were a couple kickouts I didn't care for, but who can really argue as obviously it slayed the live crowd and I totally get it. Both guys did things I dug, especially Cedric's early match back elbow. I wish Ibushi didn't leap up so quickly after that big ass brainbuster, but it was soon in the rearview as I flipped out over Ibushi's massive powerbomb and big kicks and that death wish German suplex. These guys got me invested and made me really excited for everything that was happening, despite having minimal opinions on them beforehand. It's a special reaction that doesn't happen often.

PAS: People really talked up this match, and I figured I wouldn't like it, 2016 near fall juniors wrestling is very much not my thing. Still I got caught up in this, I am giving a lot of credit to the announcing, the match had a simple story of a young guy with a family getting his big shot, coming so close and falling just short and both Bryan and Ranallo did a great job spelling it out without Joey Stylesing it. This tournament is pretty unique in wrestling history, as most of these guys in here aren't signed, for many of them it is their one shot. I can't think of any thing like it. This felt like a semi-final match at Wimbledon where a guy ranked 85 makes it to fifth set against Nadal before succumbing.  The last minute was really great, the quick kick after the brainbuster kick out was an awesome near fall, and I totally bought into Alexander's devastation at losing. HHH's little thumbs up at then might be the only thing he has ever done I actually liked. Emotional wrestling is something that the WWE normally does terribly, it is usually hammy Shawn Michaels horseshit, here we have two weeks in a row where it has been done well.

ER: Both matches were clearly wonderful, probably the most unanimously beloved hour of TV wrestling I've seen since some of the high end Lucha Underground episodes. Both matches landed on our 2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST, and it's starting to feel like this tourney will be producing many more that land on that list.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE CWC

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WWE Cruiserweight Classic 7/20/16

1. Tajiri vs. Damian Slater

ER: I know nothing about the Australian indy scene, so again I love how far reaching WWE actually made this whole CWC. It's about the last move I expected from them when this was announced. And I liked Slater in this. There were really basic things that he didn't do very well, like he seemed tentative on wristlocks and lockups, seemed to be some hesitation during sequences. But he did some nice dead arm selling off Tajiri's kicks, hit a really slick and awesome fireman's carry roll through into a bridging pin, tossed out a tornillo that Tajiri caught kind of awkwardly, and most importantly he fed into Tajiri's trademark offense. Tajiri was sort of a let down as he ran through a standard 4 minute Tajiri Jakked/Metal match, even doing things in the same order as he used to, just a little slower. He just kind of skulked around waiting for Slater to get into position for his signature offense, when I thought he should have been a little more aggressive about getting Slater there. He felt a little sleepwalk-y. Plus all those teenage Tajiri fans watching ECW in 1999 went on to become indy kickers, so he kind of came off like a Jerry Lynn or Christopher Daniels, still working the same game that was novel in '99 but not as effective in 2016. That said, I'm excited to see how he looks in a non "showcase" setting in later rounds.

PAS:  I liked Tajiri way more then Eric did here, I loved all of his little carny counters like reversing the hammerlock by walking through the ropes and his hammerlock where he used the knee to hold down the opposite arm. Those kicks are still nasty looking and really nicely timed. Slater was fine, had a couple of slick moments, but had such a generic look and offense, nothing that made him stand out.

2. TJ Perkins vs. Da Mack

ER: Thought TJP looked really great here, didn't care much for Da Mack's 2000s indy tribute gimmick. TJP has tons of tricks to show off, so a showcase to potential new eyeballs works nicely. Him hitting his usual stuff so crisp only added to things. His spin kicks looked great, his roll throughs into subs looked good, the way he maneuvered off of and through the ropes looked kung fu flick smooth. Mack hits a really nice flip dive over the buckles and almost landed grossly face first on a spinning flapjack, but also threw a bunch of weak uppercuts, cribbed Human Tornado's old jive kicks (I get stealing spots from your favorite guys but man is that a super specific thing to lift) and overall didn't come off like a guy I'm going to seek out.

PAS: Yeah fine TJP showcase, I have seen a ton of him before so his stuff wasn't new to me, but for folks who weren't trading for NJ Dojo tapes 10 years ago I imagine it looked awesome. Mack had a really nice dive but his shtick was pretty bush league.

3. Mustafa Ali vs. Lince Dorado

PAS: This felt like an IWA-MS showcase match from 2005 with green indy guys busting out a bunch of their big spots to earn the post match Ian attaboy speech. The big spots were big spots, that reverse rana was seconds away from breaking Ali's neck, but looked awesome. Still the connective tissue of the match was pretty bad, these guys have been doing this along time and they really should have had better looking simple stuff.

ER: This match kinda won me over by the end, even though I fully recognized it as an Eliminators style "stand there and take my shit" type of match. Dorado has some big spots but usually doesn't hit all of them clean. So for him to go go go and not actually flop was pretty exciting. It made every spot seem bigger, wondering if THIS was going to be the one that was going to murder himself or Ali. Plus seeing a freaking springboard reverse rana and a double jump springboard Spanish Fly on WWE TV is just totally surreal. Ali almost lost me towards the beginning as his missed moves to get into position for Lince's shit looked flat out baaaad. That slow motion spinning backfist was so ugly that Danielson had no choice but to bring up how terribly slow it was on commentary. Then he missed a charge in the corner, when Lince jumped to the apron, so Ali somersaulted out of the corner and then just slowly stood up and turned around. It looked so terrible. "Well, gotta stand up and turn around and take some more offense I suppose." But Ali won me over by taking all sorts of stupid shit and missing some flying moves in ways that alllllmost look like he barely rotated in time. He flopped painfully on a missed moonsault and later on an inverted 450. The springboard reverse rana was nuts, dug Dorado's little sliding kick that planted the flat of his boot into Ali's forehead, Ali was a nutjob for taking that big ol' headscissors off the apron to the floor, and yeah. I knew what this was, but they busted ass and won me over at the end.

4. Akira Tozawa vs. Kenneth Johnson

PAS: Really dumb for both of the last match of the last two shows to have the exact same match layout. Japanese overdog having too much trouble finishing off green kid with lots of heart. Johnson is pretty sloppy and green and parts of this were actively stinky. Tozawa has a bunch of charisma and that final pair of german suplexes looked great, but I thought this was the worst match of this show.

ER: I...actually didn't dislike this. Johnson does do too much choreographed sexy dance fighting, has some offense where you aren't actually sure if he did a move or took a move, and good heavens that missed flipping whateverthefuck off the top (that landed 5 feet from where Tozawa would have been even if he hadn't moved) was atrocious. But compared to his first round peers I thought he showed way more acuity than Ho Ho Lun. I actually enjoyed the very opening with both men rolling wildly while in a wristlock, reminded me of when my cat accidentally got a paper bag hooked around her neck and ran wildly through the house to try to get the bag off. And even in some of his more aimless mat reversal segments he would surprise me by doing a competent hammerlock into side headlock. He ate Tozawa's stuff nicely, ate that nice high jump senton, took some kicks to the guts. Tozawa is going to be fun in later rounds, those scoop and delayed Germans are arguably spot of the show so far. The snap on that scoop one and the way Johnson folded through it was like the floweriest poetry. If someone had a looped gif of that as their sig it feels like something I would get stuck watching like 6 times through every time I scrolled past their posts. But then that delayed German where he just pops him over like nothing, just awesome. I liked Johnson here more than I've ever liked Killshot. That's not saying much, but it's not nothing.


COMPLETE CWC GUIDE

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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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Saturday Night Digging in the Crates

We take a trip back to a couple of months ago to check out a rare bit of good Japanese wrestling

Osamu Nishimura v. Tajiri WNC 8/8/13

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1irq6m_tajiri-vs-osamu-nishimura-c-wnc_sport

Always happy to see either of these guys show up, and it is pretty cool to see them match up. Nishimura works a very specific kind of match, full of cool takedowns, grappling and stretching. Tajiri is mostly on defense in this match, Nishimura works over the leg with some awesome looking uppercuts right on the patella and cool indian deathlock variations. Tajiri spends most of the match selling and trying to escape, and he gets the win, but only by a flash rollup. I think this would have been even better if we had gotten a little more cool offense in, but I really enjoyed what we got.

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