Work was busy and the weather was nice so, I didn't get around to watching day #2 of wXw's 2010 tournament
I thought about skipping today but, figured I'd share my take on the most popular wrestlers not in WWE- Kenny Omega & the Young Bucks.
Although both are sort of the antithesis of the blog as they are just so darn well known and praised by Dave M. And that's cool because I do like them both. No, they're not my favorites or wrestle according to my stylistic prefer
I'm having a hard time thinking about how to introduce this post. It's really hard to put into words what Sabu means to me as a wrestling fan...as an ECW fan, as a Sabu fan. I think I've told the story elsewhere but Terry Funk vs Sabu's barb wire match is the match that hooked me into watching ECW. It's a seminal moment for me as a wrestling fan. It made me a fan of both men instantly. Sabu is foundational for my interest in wrestling as a young adult and a middle aged turd now. I admired his hi
Kuniaki Kobayashi has passed away recently. If you've read my Tiger Mask posts or my 1985 AJPW posts, you'll find that he's one of my favorites. Hell, even if you go back to my 1988 NJPW posts, he still was having some of the best matches of the year. He's one of those underrated wrestlers that makes his opponent look great. A kind person has put up the following matches so I thought I would give them a look:
vs The Cobra (01/06/84): This was rough around the edges but as as result had a
Hi, not taking a break from 2013 AJPW but wanted to share something in the meantime. This is a review of ZERO1 07/31/08 & 08/03/08 from Samurai TV. Its the last 2 days of their Fire Festival which is their Champion Carnival or G1Climax. A side project that I'm working on is checking out Zero One, Zero1, Zero- One Max and every iteration of that company. Its not going to be a deep dive since there's no ready made compilation that I'm aware of. In fact there's not a ton out there in general...
We're back with more WCW in 1994!
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Stars And Stripes vs. Bad Attitude (09 03 1994 WCW Saturday Night) - Fun match! I think Keirn & Eaton are the reason it's enjoyable. Bagwell does most of the work for his team. Patriot just kinda cleans up at the end but hey, it's fun TV stuff. I don't think Bad Attitude has had one sub par match.
Cactus Jack vs. Kevin Sullivan (09 10 1994 WCW Saturday Night) - A super quick "match" but Sullivan does a tope, Jack does his elbow to the flo
Sorry for the delay folks! It's been a busy week. Let's get to the wrestling!
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Harlem Heat vs. Brad and Brian Armstrong (Road Dogg) (08/06 WCW Saturday Night) - Two pairs of brothers square off! This was a blast. Both teams got a bunch of offense in and then a helluva finish to cap things off.
Pretty Wonderful vs. Stars And Stripes (08 13 94 WCW Saturday Night) - OK face/heel match but was too long for how it ended. I like the corny U-S-A gimmick especially since everything t
Keep that 1994 WCW train chugging along baby!
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Cactus Jack & Kevin Sullivan
Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan (w/ Dave Sullivan) vs. Nasty Boys (07 02 1994 WCW Saturday Night) - Fun short match but also shenanigans that loops Pretty Wonderful into things for Bash at the Beach.
Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan vs. Bad Attitude (07 16 1994 WCW Saturday Night) - Bad Attitude is Bobby Eaton & Steve Keirn if you're just joining us. So much bleached blonde hair - Keirn, Eaton,
We're back with more of WCW 1994! It's a heck of a year so far and really is an end of an era since Hogan eventually comes in and wrecks the shop. But don't worry, I'm not going to be looking at a single match of his. Instead I'm going to focus on the tag division, Ricky Steamboat, Steven Regal and the man they call Vader. Same as before
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The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags) vs. Cactus Jack & Kevin Sullivan - Slamboree 05/22/94 - There's a few Slamboree '94 match
I think this project was prompted by the WCW YouTube page started recently by WWE. They came out the gate with some great stuff and have been trickling out Hogan era schlock lately. Anyhow, 1994 seemed like a really interesting year in terms of their roster and matchups. As usual, I'm going to cherry pick certain wrestlers and matches. I want to focus on Steven Regal, Ricky Steamboat, Vader & tags that look interesting. I know I'm missing some stuff. I was going to do a comprehensive 1994 bu
This is a big post today so let's get going!
Kyoko Inoue vs Lioness Asuka (04/29): So these two have had a couple/few acclaimed matches in other companies. I think it was fun but definitely not up to standard set by the others (or so I've heard). Where the best GAEA matches remind me of the best that FMW/ECW offered, this one felt like a TNA match. It was like half the match was Lioness on offense and then the second half was Kyoko. And honestly I don't this Inoue did that much whereas Lion
I am going to keep going with GAEA for the New Year. As I've done for the past few posts I'm going to split the wrestling year up. So let's look at early 2001!
Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka (01/27): This was a great under 10 minute match. The energy of the bout is what makes this so enjoyable. Its in Korakuen Hall, its noisy, there's blood, chairs flying, dives etc. Its not out of control but there's that energy. And even when the match is over, that
I'm just jumping right in:
Sonoko Kato vs. Akira Hokuto (09/15): Waaayy too short of a match but it was fun. Seems like more of an angle than a match. I dig it though.
Meiko Satomura vs. Devil Masami (09/15): I liked this pretty well. They did a good job telling the story that Satomura couldn't go toe to toe with Devil. So she uses her quickness and technique to weaken Devil's arms. Masami sells this pretty well and although she's able to power bomb Meiko, we can tell there's some
We're almost at the end of the year and we're going to take a look at the first part of 2000 in the GAEA promotion. 1999 was great so let's hope that they keep it up!
Lioness Asuka & Aja Kong vs. Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki (01/16): Great start to 2000! 10 minute sprint of chaos. Heel team has their gang, face team has there's, all kinds of crap is going on. This isn't what you would expect if they met in '95 but it is still super enjoyable and exciting wrestling. The fans were goin
Let's just jump right in!
LCO vs Hokuto and Ozaki (09/15/99): This is one I hadn't seen recommended. It's a battle of badasses...it's worth a try, right? Oh yes, its so very worth it. Oz & Akira ambush LCO at the entrance way. And it is mayhem from that until the finish. Chairs, blood, guard rails, no actual tagging, 16+ minutes long...if you're a FMW, ECW fan then this exactly what you want. It isn't always pretty. Everyone looks legitimately beat up. It's '99 so if definitely is more
We're FINALLY on to 1999 which has some of the best matches in the company's history according to many fans. I've got access to all of those but there are a couple others that are right out of that top tier that I can't seem to locate. Therefore I'm going to do my best to find some reasonable replacements. It's been so long since I made my watch list that I'm not sure which these are though Also I'm at my busy season with work so I'm going to break it up into two parts.
Lioness Asuka &
Here we are with Part #3 of the very best of GAEA. We are looking at '98 which features a lot of Meiko Satomura and not so much Chigusa Nagayo. Don't think that's intentional just Meiko along Sonoko Kato seem to be the featured in the best stuff.
Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato (01/15/98): Great match with Satomura and Kato getting plugged into the LCO vs young team equation. So this is very much Mita and Shimoda's match with the youngster team hanging on
I'm back with part #2 of the Very Best of GAEA. This time we're looking at 1997 which is a big year in Joshi. The whole landscape changes and you'll see that here with more familiar faces from AJW.
Akira Hokuto & Toshie Uematsu vs KAORU & Kiyoko Ichiki (01/19/97): Wow! That was awesome! For a good portion there they had a classic match on their hands. Things got a little loose with the younger wrestlers towards the end (disruption to the flow and not so much unforgivable sloppiness)
Here we are with the second half of 2002 GAEA. If you're new to this project, I am cherry picking what looks to be the very best that GAEA has to offer. This is based on reviews others have given and now that I've watched a good chunk, some personal preferences.
Meiko Satomura vs. Chikayo Nagashima (06/02): Who the fuck is clapping when they trade finishers and no sell them? Do they actually believe it would be a pin? Talk about killing their moves off and not thinking. It makes no damn sen
The time has come when nearly all of the 2002 GAEA matches that I have wanted to watch are up on YouTube! It's been a year and I'm in the middle of another project but dammit! we're getting back to GAEA for Joshi January!
Meiko Satomura vs. KAORU (01/14): Unfortunately only half was shown but it was really good stuff. Ozaki and Police (their toady) were interfering and it really seemed like a handicap match. But it was great seeing Satomura repelling their attacks. A strange outcome given
I am really glad to be watching more Joshi this year. I got burntout/jaded a few years back when watching some of the 1996 AJW tag matches with Double Inoue and my 1997 AJW DVD purchases weren't exactly as expected. See the previous post. So I just turned of the whole thing for years. I'd watch a match here and there but other than a couple odds & ends matches, I figured I'd seen what I wanted. Clearly this year, I've found out that I was wrong. 1997, 2000-01 AJW, Megumi Kudo, 1990-91 JWP h
This is a small project that I've been pushing back for awhile. No big plans for June so let's take a look at the Briscoe Brothers in NOAH.
Briscoes vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Takashi Sugiura (01/07/07): I'm not sure if the fans knew what to make of The Briscoes. This looks like it might be their first appearance in NOAH. They dominated the home team early on with their high energy offense and team work. Eventually the NOAH team has their chance for some payback. The fans are into this and
I'm back with the second and final installment of the Samoa Joe - World Champion DVD released by ROH in 2004. Let's pick back up where we left off.
vs Christopher Daniels (Glory by Honor II - September 2003): A fighting champion for sure! Daniels used his speed & agility to take Joe to the limit. In a way Daniels maybe should have won because he showed tons of toughness withstanding Joe's awesome offense. If you've seen their TNA battles then you know Joe can really toss The Fallen Ange
I very much wanted to call this post "The Champ is Here" but that is the title of Joe's second volume ROH DVD. Today we'll be looking at volume one which looks at Joe's first defenses of the ROH World Championship after defeating Xavier. These are the matches that really put that title on the map and really establish the prestige of that position. You may forget that Low-Ki was the first champ and his climb to the top was greater than his time there. That's OK since Xavier was a project for Gab
This is a two birds with one stone post. I wanted to get a little more Zero One in this year as well as get back to early 2000s NOAH. I was going through my 2001 list and realized I had a mini project with Zero One vs NOAH in 2001. There's some better known stuff and a couple I'd never heard of. Let's jump in!
Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Alexander Otsuka (January 13th, 2001) : A good match that goes a long way on the Misawa vs Hashimoto interactions. Ve
In all honesty, this was going to be a quickie post of just a few matches that I stumbled across. But then I became intrigued by the match ups or was impressed by a worker and wanted to see more. And here we are! The entire 2003 Differ Cup watched out of sequence reviewed out of sequence. I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. Sit back and read on:
KENTA & Kotaro Suzuki vs Great Takeru & Kappa Kozou (02/08): Was going to skip this since I'd never heard of the IWA Japan team. But
