Glory By Honor VI: Night 1
Out of the nine matches on the card, I found four to be standard for ROH. Nothing bad, nothing great, but everything was fine.
The top of the class trophy match between Ernie Osiris and Mitch Franklin wasn't good, but I didn't expect more. The other below average was Hero v. McGuinness since Nigel was working hurt. I just think they shouldn't have had the match at all.
The tag titles match (Briscoes v. No Remorse Corps), The Austin Aries v. Danielson
ROH Survival of the Fittest 10-19-2007
This wasn't a bad show, but compared to the previous three Surivival of the Fittest shows, this was disappointing. The qualifying matches were full of debuting wrestlers such as Karl Anderson, TJ Perkins (debut outside of wrestling as Puma), Human Tornado, and Tony Kozina which, to me didn't make much sense being that it was a tournament designed to elevate full-time talent. None of the above really were impressive although none were outright awful e
Notes on the last few matches from 2000 that didn't make final cuts.
Triple H v. Chris Benoit - Non-Title Match - WWE Smackdown 2.3.00
Cool that it is Benoit's first official match in the WWE, but this is short and nothing special compared to many other matches within the year.
HHH v. Chris Jericho - RAW 6.12.00
These two had better matches against one another within the year. It's heated and a fun pop with the temporary title change, but nothing "best of" about it.
HHH
These are all matches from 2000 that were cut after all viewing for the promotions were completed and the reasons why.
ECW
Super Crazy v. Tajiri - Mexican Death Match - ECW on TNN 1.15.00
I went over this in my last post.
CW Anderson v. Tommy Dreamer - I Quit Match 1.7.01
I know this was from the year 2001, but since ECW only ran three shows before going out of business, I went ahead and finished it up. This is actually the only match from 2001 ECW that I thought wort
After I finalized my North American List for 2000, I thought it would be interesting to look in the Wrestling Observer and see if any matches Dave rated * * * * or higher were missing from my list. Here's what I found.
HHH v. Mick Foley (WWE, 2/27, Hartford) ****1/2
I am a Mick Foley fan, but as much as he fights against the label of "glorified stuntman" it seems that this decade is not something he'd like to reference as part of any kind of defense.
Arguably, the best matches of
As of today, I'm about 1/3 of the way through TNA's October 2007 PPV offering, Bound for Glory. Not much in the way of good so far and most of the focus has been on Karen and Kurt Angle's marriage. It doesn't do anything for me in terms of good matches, but man is Karen Angle one beautiful woman.
In WWE land it's Cyber Sunday that is up next. John Cena had just been injured and so the title picture shifted to Randy Orton and Triple H. At No Mercy, HHH won the title from Orton (who was g
I've always wanted to do, or participate in a "Best of" something in regards to wrestling. The reason(s) I had not is due to lack of time, footage, knowledge, etc (excluding two 80's DVDVR projects I simply had to do). After realizing if I were to do something in that regard myself, then I wouldn't have to deal with any deadlines and could complete it at my own pace. This is what has brought me here, to the decade of the 2000's. I chose it for many reasons which include:
* I've seen 80
I'm going to be completely honest: WWE Monday Night RAW sucks. It's bad television. It has been that way for at least a year, sans one or two moments, which don't make up for the ridiculous amount of time given to us that is just terrible programming but I would argue it has been that way since about 2005.
That being said, the one constant question that comes up over the years is "if it sucks, why do you watch it?" and then people/posters try to make comparisons to other television shows li
Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. (CMLL 2/20/98)
This was rudo contra rudo from what I could gather, but since Emilio was about to turn it was set up to garner him face heat. Broken down Emilio had his moments (as we'll see later), but a match this length was beyond him. He kind of struggled in that '93 hair match against Dandy let alone in a singles match five years later, and while I like Wagner he wasn't a good enough worker to make this interesting. They did all the things you're su
Mascara Año 2000, Fuerza Guerrera y Herodes vs. MS-1, El Dandy y Astro de Oro, circa '89
For some reason El Dandy and MS-1 were on the same side here. That didn't last long. Match was pretty much an angle to set up Dandy vs. MS-1 and Mascara Año 2000 vs. Astro de Oro matches. Wouldn't mind seeing that Dandy/MS-1 match if it ever took place.
Satanico, Apolo Dantes y Dr.Wagner Jr vs. The Head Hunters y Emilio Charles Jr., circa '98
This was a lot of fun. Satanico was sporting a ski
Ultraman, Stuka & Kung Fu vs. Herodes, Masakre & El Satanico, Arena Coliseo 80s
This seemed like an exciting match on paper, but it was very much a houseshow match. That wasn't so bad, however, as there were a couple of good laughs. The first half of the match featured a bunch of physical comedy designed to make the rudos look foolish while the second half was a beatdown where the technicos paid for their cheekiness. I love how rudos from this generation could switch from comedy to
La Fiera vs. Babe Face, hair vs. hair, 8/15/86
This was a good match. It didn't really deliver like a great hair match does, but still worth a look.
The first time I watched it I thought the first two falls were a bit innocuous looking. I always get defensive when people say the first two falls in lucha are nothing falls as most of the time I think they work within the rhythm of a lucha libre match, but with these 80s matches the crowds are so poorly mic'ed that it's difficult to get a
El Hijo del Santo vs. El Hijo del Solitario vs. Angel Blanco Jr., Triangular de la Muerte, 3/31/12
There are about three or four handhelds of this available on youtube. The handheld with the best angle is broken down into half a dozen parts. It's also the most complete, from entrances to post match unmasking and celebrations. A couple of the other versions are clipped.
This was fairly typical for a Triangular de la Muerte match. As soon as a three-way match was announced I had an inkli
El Hijo del Santo & Villano IV vs. El Hijo del Solitario & Angel Blanco Jr., Todo X El Todo La Venganza, 3/23/12
This was nowhere near as good as their first match, but as the middle part in the feud it was still pretty good.
The February tag defied a lot of lucha libre conventions, whereas this was more along the lines of a traditional pre-apuestas match. The rudos milled about drawing heat while the technicos bled, then they switched roles. The rudos didn't care so much abou
Virus vs. Guerrero Maya Jr., CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship, 7/6/11
This was a great match. It was almost assuredly the Match of the Year for 2011 and hasn't been topped since.
The early part of the match was a clinic from Virus. There's plenty of matwork where you get a more even contribution from both participants, be it Navarro and Solar, Casas and Panther or even Virus and Valiente, but in terms of carrying a guy this had as much rhythm as any of those match-ups and was
Blue Panther vs. Negro Casas, hair vs hair, CMLL 3/2/12
This was the match that pretty much everyone expected it would be. I won't go into too much detail about it as I assume everyone's seen it by now, but I'll share a few thoughts:
There wasn't any blood and it wasn't a hair match. You're not going to see blood at Arena Mexico, but it's still worth mentioning that it wasn't a hair match. The workers lost their hair but that was about all it had in common with classic lucha. It was a
Angel Blanco Jr./El Hijo del Solitario vs. El Hijo Del Santo/Villano IV, TXT 2/25/12
This was an excellent match and a vintage Santo brawl. I guess the surprising thing about that is that Santo didn't feature prominently. With the focus squarely on El Hijo del Solitario and Villano IV and an excellent performance from Angel Blanco Jr, Santo was left to do his bits. Santo being Santo it was all very crowd pleasing.
The most outstanding thing about the match was the amount of blood. All
Blue Panther vs. Negro Casas, lightning match, CMLL 1/27/12
-- for a lightning match this was extremely good. Ten minutes can either be too short or too long in a lightning match, and many workers struggle to deliver something substantial, but this was as close to a proper match as you'll get with this stip. It wasn't perfect as they couldn't transition into the finish very well and the finish itself was contrived, but what shone through was how good these guys are at keeping things interes
This was a reply that I made, amongst friends, in reply to the Summerslam HBK Vs. Razor ladder match which was posted in the "Match-Of-The-Week" group that I'm apart of on Facebook. I just wanted to re-post it here so that I can save it for later:
"The first thing that really grabs me about this match is that the midcard was fucking over. This is for the Intercontinental Title...but it was obvious that they were both going to keep climbing up the ladder of success. In that regard, the damn
Pierroth vs. Mascara Sagrada, Mexican National Light Heavyweight title, 2/1/91
If ever there was a test of how good Pierroth was during this time frame then this is it. Mascara Sagrada was not... very good... After a while, you accept him as part of the crew and sometimes you're impressed with what a rudo can do with him in trios, but we talking about trios. This was a twenty minute, two out of three falls title match. It wasn't exactly a miracle match, but it could've easily been a disaste
Hoping to keep more up to date with lucha this year.
Black Terry/El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan/Skyde vs. Negro Navarro/Trauma 1/Trauma 2 Arena Neza 1/1/12
-- This was ok. I read some criticism of the Terry/Trauma II matwork but it was nowhere near as frustrating as it can be. Navarro vs. Skyde was a nice change of pace but they could've done more. The best parts were the Terry/Navarro exchanges. Ever since those clips of Terry and Navarro fighting each other cut to Metallica's Unforgiven
Black Terry/Negro Navarro vs. Trauma I/Trauma II, LUCHA POP 8/27/11
This was a fairly typical match between these workers. It was bare bones in terms of layout and structure; Navarro dominated, Terry played second fiddle, and yet it was still pretty good. When Black Terry Jr's videos first started appearing it was Trauma II who showed the most potential among Dinastía Navarro, but for the past year or so Trauma I has been beastly. I don't know if he's overtaken Trauma II, but it sure looks
