I need some kind of format or guide to help me talk about this 'zine 'Wrestle Void.' A blog is in the same vein as a 'zine, right? Its me talking about things I find interesting. What interests me with Wrestle Void? So, I suppose that's my hook with this little publication, right?! Let us begin...
This is a really fun rag to read -Straight and simple! The letters from the editors/co-founders at the start of each issue are a reminder that we as fans are real people. Gravy's letters especiall
This is a continuation of my "get through some DVDs I bought a couple years ago" project. Ha! Who am I kidding? That's 90% of my reviews I just can't seem to keep up. I'm starting to put a dent in it this year. This week I'll be looking at some early battles of Bryan Danielson. These ones are lesser known for one reason or another. For folks that are only aware of his WWE or AEW stuff, this might be something you'd be interested in checking out. My guess is you may have seen some of his better
Booyah! 2010 16 Carat Gold Tournament is a wrap! Let's jump in to the matches for Day 3, Disc # 3 'cause this entry is gonna be a doozy.
Zack Sabre Jr. vs Munenori Sawa: Light Heavyweight strap on the line. A bit of a letdown to get started with. I suppose they were going for a shoot style-ish match but, it came across as winging it. It was fun but, not particularly memorable. Diez minutos.
Matt Jackson vs Nick Jackson - Battle of the Bucks: I have never heard of this hap
Man, it has taken me a long damn time to get through this set. That's on me and not the quality of the wrestling. I've been distracted by the WWE network stuff and YouTube. I've clearly got the attention span of a 3 year old At this point, I don't know what's tournament and non tournament. Also if I skip something it's because I skipped the match intentionally. I'm just trying to get finished...It's like I'm trying for my 16 Carat GED at this point!
Big Van Walter vs Erick Stevens:
Sorry for the delay! Work the past few weeks has been really crazy with the increase in online retail due to the Corona Virus pandemic. So, I didn't feel much like watching another computer screen after staring at my work monitor all day.
You didn't come here for excuses though! You wanted to find out about how the 2011 16 Carat Gold tournament wraps up. Well, after a long wait, here we are -the finale!
Night 3 starts with a bang!
Sami Callihan vs Davey Richards - An all action ma
Without further ado, let's take a look at Night #2 of wXw's 2011 16 Carat Gold Tournament!
Axeman vs Rico Bushido vs Tommy End vs Bad Bones - Hard hitting wXw guys doing a fun spot match.
Jay Skillet vs Jon Ryan - I like Ryan from his match with Davey but, you can skip this match. It wasn't bad. It's nothing special to me though.
Colt Cabana vs Marty Scurll - Another outright comedy match. Marty is much better at this than Zack just because he's more vocal and outgoing. Fun stuff
I have been meaning to watch this tournament for awhile now. I bought this along with the 2010 tournament so, this has been a long time coming. The box art of the DVD set features all of the participants in this year's event. It is pretty damn stacked even compared to the previous year. We have stars from ROH, Big Japan, NOAH, Independent US talent as well as European wrestlers. This 16 Carat Gold event may be the most diverse and globally representative tournament assembled in recent memory.
I watched this because it's still covered under my free month of the Network from Wrestlemania. Not bad...got 3 PPV shows for free. So tonight, I watched Backlash sorta in passing. It was really clear from seeing the card some of the matches could be good and some sucked at "go."
Anyone that had hopes that this was going to be awesome was delusional to some degree. Here's the card and my brief takes.
Seth Rollins vs The Miz: IC belt. Liked these guys in WM, Saudi Rumble,
I haven't been watching anything lately but wanted to post something. I've been messing around with old AJPW footage and flares and distortion from the bright lights. I take whatever halos, prismatic effects, after images or saturation of light that occurs when filming (and temporarily blinding the camera men no doubt) and further manipulate it.
Baba
-----
Kabuki vs Flair
-----
The Funker
Holy cow! Its been awhile since I've posted. I've finished watching the 2013 AJPW Champion Carnival but just haven't done the write up yet. I guess I'm on a bit of a wrestling break with the weather getting better. Been trying to get out and go for walks/hikes as well as get some skateboarding in as well. But you don't care about that, you want some wrestling reviews! Well you're gonna have to wait a little longer but I've got some sweet wrestle-art to feast your eyes on in the meantime.
The Good, the bad and the Ugly - Snuka, Hogan & Flair
Andre vs Inoki
Choshu applies the Scorpion Death Lock with Inoki looking on
Andre vs Killer Khan
Flair vs Steamboat
The Dream vs The Superstar
I hope that you dig this stuff. If you're like me, you really enjoy old wrestling photography. It really captures the gritty action of the ring.I want to incorporate more art into my blog and
I've been watching some TNA Year One which wasn't really something I thought to blog about. The Low- Ki, Styles & Jerry Lynn ladder match is fantastic though!
In the meantime, I wanted to post some more of my fractured photos :-)
TNA Double J
-----
AJ, Sting & Earl
-----
Wahoo & Tully...bleeding
-----
Sekimoto Maddness
I should be posting some actual written materials shortly...probably some ROH stuff.
The Iceman vs Miguel Perez Jr. (02/92 W*ING): Man oh man! We only get clips of this match the worst fact is that all of a sudden both guys are covered in blood. Come on W*ING! If anyone knows of a full or even less clipped version that'd be awesome.
Silver King vs Texano (05/23/94 IWA Japan): Cagematch is showing it as a very early show...perhaps the 3rd and looks to be the first tape they released. It is a highly recommended match. Lucharesu style, Los Cowboys stiffing the heck out
Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita vs Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa (W*ING 08/02/92): Who knew this match took place in a W*ING ring? Not I, I sing! Dr. Seuss...It's a pretty darn good match too. Sure, it gets the standard W*ING buzzcut in the middle and it starts raining but, its these 4 in 1992. So, if you ever needed an incentive to check 90's joshi out this might be it: 4 greats, tag match, sopping wet babes, insane dives in the rain, and not a super long epic. Thanks W*ING!
Now o
The Japanese garbage wrestling scene in the 90's is really interesting. One that I was ignorant of until a while ago was W*ING. I'd seen the wrestlers before in IWA Japan, FMW, or Big Japan. Honestly, the matches aren't too different as essentially IWA Japan was started from the ashes of W*ING. BJPW upped the kooky death match stipulations but, many of the guys were there in the early days like Mr. Danger Matsunaga & Nakamaki.
W*ING featured some really exciting matches though. I
Super Strong Machine, Tatsutoshi Goto & Yoshihiro Ito vs The Great Kabuki, Shiro Koshinaka & Kengo Kimura (06/17/93 WAR): The inclusion of Kabuki made this one a must watch. Glad that I did! This was a nice quick paced brawling-in-the-ring six man. It was fun but became memorable when Kabuki's team started beating up Ito toward what seemed to be the 2/3rd mark. Koshinaka was elbowing him in the jaw, and 'buki snap punched him the in the same fashion all Strong style as the kids say. Ragi
In the grim darkness of the the near past there is only WAR! Yes, I'm back to Tenryu's playground to check out more wrestling that I may have missed or just forgotten.
Takeshi Ishikawa vs Great Kabuki (09/15/92): Oh man, so I was hoping this would be a very good match but, eh it was just sluggish. There was no build to a climax just a lot of sleeper work and bleeding. It was OK but, I was disappointed.
Let's get this back on track! Same show...
Ultimo Dragon vs Negro Casas (09/15)
Many of these matches I have commented on in the Everything Else match archives or the Yearbooks, if you will. I wanted to make a record of them all in one place here on my blog though. If you have similar wrestling tastes or just like to read what I have to say, I thought I would make one entry of my recent wrestling habits. It's pretty 1970's and 80's heavy but, we dip our toes into the 60's and 90's as you'll read shortly. Let's start with a doozy!
Johnny Valentine vs Bull Curry (06/20/6
Isami Kodaka vs Kenji Fukimoto (03/05/17 BJW) - Gusset Plates & Sawed Off Cans 2-Sided Death Match: Stumbled across this match online and the sawed off cans (as in tin cans) caught my attention. Surprisingly un-gory (as modern death matches go) and tons of fun to watch. A ladder shows up and the tin can board spots are cringe inducing. As an infrequent deathmatch watcher, I would highly recommend this.
I've been watching death matches more since I first watched this and it has be
Fang Suzuki vs Sumie Sakai - Chain Rope, Chair pit & ladder match (12/29/2000 JD'): Not sure if that's the official name of the match...but, it presents a helluva visual, right? This was a great match. I'll just say that right off the Louisville. There were dives, blood, moves on the chairs...it was right there with ECW, FMW, or WWF at the time, in terms of inventive gimmick and actual execution. Even better, they didn't give us the fucking tour of the arena as was the fashion of the time. I
My first exposure to Japanese wrestling was through ECW. So, it made sense that once I could get my hands on real to life VHS tapes of the stuff, it was going to be hard core death match stuff. The first tape I got was the awesome yet, grainy as hell History of BJW death matches. This had all kinds of insane and yes, wacky stipulation/gimmick matches. The piranha and cactus & scorpion death match stuck out in terms of that "what the hell?" factor. To lose, you have to get dunked in a fish ta
I would have to think that Tenryu's WAR promotion has the most love themed name. Wrestle and Romance...ah yes, that is passion!! I feel like they were also Wrestle and Roses too. I could have made that up, I dunno. I love it anyhow!
Other Valentine appropriate wrestling names in my opinion are the AJW tag teams Tokyo Sweethearts, Crush Gals (crush like a school boy not as in skulls) & Honey Wings.
That was just an aside. Here are some of my favorite Romance matches:
My old friend TNA from the 2000's always helps ease me back into watching wrestling. Here I'll review their Best of the Bloodiest Brawls - Scars and Stitches DVD from 2008. In addition to my normal review, I'll give a scars rating for how bloody and extreme the match is. That doesn't always translate into a worthwhile match so be forewarned.
Jeff Jarrett vs Rhyno (Turning Point 2005): This was a good to very good hardcore match. It was a lot fun as it was mainly a bunch of different spots a
Are you like me and remember important dates in wrestling? Its almost like they are holidays or birthdays for friends past. You're not necessarily celebrating anything but, when the day comes, it feels a little special. Its like the numbers in that particular combination mean something to you and a few others. For everyone else, its just a Thursday.
That brings me to today, May 7th or as I have it burned into my brain 05/07. Twenty five years ago AJW's Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue had an h
This match is now 20 years old - wow! I cannot believe that to be honest. I can do math and probably can remember a few things from each year to prove to myself that 2000 was 20 years ago but, this still seems somewhat modern to me. Perhaps its the green ring mat? That's probably it. But man what kinda gets me is that I've been meaning to see this match for probably 10 years now. Its one of those matches that doesn't quite reach the essential viewing list of many folk like their 2004 match or t
