Based on personalities alone, you might think Suzuki and Murakami could have a delightfully entertaining match. That theory was put to the test here when that was about all we got -- personalities alone.
Minoru Suzuki vs Kazunari Murakami
July 4, 2004
New Japan Pro Wrestling
Summer Struggle
Tokyo, Japan
5.9
The words are barely there because the inspiration is barely there. This match intrigued me on paper because Minoru Suzuki is a bonafide legend and Kazunari Murakami i
Let the War Games, and the story of World Championship Wrestling, prologue and all, begin.
July 4, 1987
Jim Crockett Promotions
Great American Bash
Atlanta, Georgia
War Games
9.8
In the Jim Crockett era, there was an outlook on the relationships between wrestlers that wasn't entirely unique, but it was definitely distinct from the WWF's approach. Dusty Rhodes booked a more tribalist wrestling offering than that of the WWF, one where feuds overlapped and the locker room
Even if you weren't watching World Class in 1984, it's hard for this type of intense brawling to not make you nostalgic for the brawls of wrestling's past.
July 4, 1984
World Class Championship Wrestling
Independence Day Star Wars
Fort Worth, Texas
Badstreet Match
9.2
It's pretty clear what we're getting when a match is billed as a street fight or any type of brawl in modern wrestling. Ultimately, the match will build to a huge spot with someone going through a table,
Johnny Saint and Ken Joyce delivered an all-time classic without even getting too competitive or heated. All they needed was an overabundance of joy.
June 24, 1981
Joint Promotions
ITV 07-04-81
Shrewsbury, England
9.0
Wrestling is fun.
It's true. I love watching wrestling, talking about wrestling, writing about wrestling, and thinking about wrestling. It's a wonderful combination of absurdism, emotion, excess, and demonstrated skill. There's nothing quite like it. I lov
Forget everything you think you know about the effort level on WWE house shows, as these two tore the house down in Tokyo.
July 3, 2015
World Wrestling Entertainment
Tokyo, Japan
8.3
As much as we hear from wrestlers about how fun it is to work house shows, this seems to be pretty much what you would expect from a television or pay-per-view match around this time. In fact, it greatly mirrors the two matches they had on pay-per-view, with John Cena busting out the Code Red and
Old ARSION and new ARSION collided when Lioness Asuka and Mariko Yoshida used the ring - and ringside area - as a battlefield of ideas.
July 3, 2001
Hyper Visual Fighting ARSION
Tokyo, Japan
7.2
When ARSION debuted in 1998, it was a huge breath of fresh air on both the Joshi landscape and the overall pro wrestling landscape. In the late 90s, wrestling all over the world was starting to drown in its own excess with ever-lengthening finishing stretches, bigger bumps, and unneces
Wrestling fans can spend a heavy amount of time seeking hidden gems, which is great because it leads us to matches like this. However, sometimes, what we would benefit from seeing most has been right in front of us all along.
July 3, 1992
Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
Mexico City, Mexico
CMLL World Middleweight Championship Tournament Final
10
In pro wrestling, basics can go a long way. Sometimes we think about wrestling through the lens that we have to temper our expectati
Rick Martel played the role of the champion just as well as anyone, which is impossible to deny in this AWA title defense in the Great White North.
July 3, 1984
International Wrestling
Halifax, Nova Scotia
AWA World Heavyweight Championship
7.0
While the NWA World Title was the pinnacle achievement in wrestling for decades, I definitely have time for an argument that the AWA title was the next best thing. Sure, the WWF title was defended outside of the home territory occasio
Portland Wrestling has some really high-quality matches, especially featuring these two. But even the best of us have off nights.
July 3, 1982
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
Portland, Oregon
No Disqualification
5.0
Buddy Rose. More than Nick Bockwinkel, Jerry Lawler, or even Ric Flair, it's hard to think of a single wrestler who made a career out of doing so much with so little on the opposite side of the ring. All three of these wrestlers are considered shining examples of
This is unique in that Daniel Bryan carries the offense in most of his matches, but here, he has someone who's on his level in that category, so he puts on more of a selling performance. WWE often talks about Daniel Bryan as this big underdog, which is not what got him over. In fact, he was presented as more of a pitbull. This was an okay match. Nothing really wrong with it, but these are two of the best wrestlers in the company and they obviously have more in them when they aren't doing a short
This had tremendous heat, and was pretty much WWE fast-paced wrestling putting its best foot forward. It's a bit weird watching Dolph Ziggler in main events now, four years after most people were clamoring for it but are now sort of over him. Has he changed or have we? Anyway, I guess it's possible he could reverse his momentum. Stranger things have happened. I'm all about Roman Reigns-Drew McIntyre being set up with the post-match angle with Reigns adding a third current program to his workload
A good match that tried to tell an interesting in-match story, but a little too much comedy at times for a title match from my view. This is almost a competitive squash for a big part of this, but then it kicks into high gear in the last few minutes when AR Fox stops trying to out-Riddle Matt Riddle and starts wrestling more as himself. The ringside seconds added a lot to the nearfalls by getting so excited after all of the big moves, which I am convinced played a big part in getting the crowd t
This is my first time to see Austin Theory, but I have to say I don't get guys cutting promos with that scripted WWE cadence when no one is making them do it. (At least I hope no one is.) I have no desire to return to the rape culture days of early 2000s indie wrestling at all, but calling an opponent an "indie piece of trash" just might be too far in the other direction. I loved DJ Z here and think he has a bright future. I hear he's working BOLA this year, so I hope he gets a lot of matches an
This will be a shorter version of the daily match reviews I do for older wrestling. The matches I enjoy the most will get a longer look and a more detailed match review on this date next year.
The storytelling here was awesome. Much of it was built on technical precision. Anthony Henry wasn't as skilled as Timothy Thatcher in the story that they were telling, so he tried to make up for it with as much aggression as he could muster. We saw it at the beginning of the match when he charged at
The individual parts of a great match between Konosuke Takeshita and "Speedball" Mike Bailey were all there. However, they never really joined together.
July 2, 2017
Dramatic Dream Team
Hello From Shinjuku Village
Tokyo, Japan
KO-D Openweight Championship
5.0
For whatever else one might say about this match, it was not a victim of bad ideas. In fact, most of the ideas were very good or great. It also wasn’t a victim of bad execution. Mike Bailey and to an even greater e
At a spot show in Montreal, Samoa Joe, already one of the best wrestlers in the world, met up with Kevin Steen, who had the somehow likable jerk persona down to a science from day one.
July 2, 2004
Marc LeGrizzly Presents
Midsummer Madness
Montreal, Quebec
7.6
In 2004, Samoa Joe was the greatest-working world champion in the United States. It was quite the accomplishment in the year where WWE decided to coronate Eddy Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Whether Joe was a better worker
With Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada at odds during the peak of their rivalry, All Japan did something rare -- they produced a memorable six-man tag.
July 2, 1993
All Japan Pro Wrestling
Summer Action Series
Tokyo, Japan
7.7
In classic All Japan Pro Wrestling, six-man tags were likely the most interesting matches the company produced. There were so many of them that it took something remarkable for the match to stand out as great (even when it was), but in such a hierar
Wrestling fandom requires a sense of eternal optimism, although sometimes when we think back fondly on great feuds, we forget that even the best rivalries had an expiration date.
July 2, 1987
Jim Crockett Promotions
NWA World Wide Wrestling 07-04-87
Landover, Maryland
NWA World Tag Team Championship
5.6
If any headline act suffered the most from the decline of the territories, it just might have been the Rock N Roll Express. Just like heartthrobs marketed to teenagers in
Tulsa fans were a far less unruly bunch than many ticket buyers in other Mid South markets. Their reward was to receive the ideal snapshot of tag team wrestling.
July 2, 1984
Mid-South Wrestling
Tulsa, Oklahoma
7.8
Jim Cornette has spoken in the past about how when Mid-South Wrestling came to town, Tulsa, Oklahoma, attracted a more -- shall we say -- housebroken crowd than in some other major markets in the territory. Understanding this, Ernie Ladd, Bobby Eaton, and Dennis
Well, the time has finally arrived! Thanks so much to all of you have joined us in this adventure. If you believe in the mission of PWO and want to support the site, there are many ways you can do it without spending any extra money at all that I'll talk about in this entry. I'll also talk about the content that we have up so far, along with some other content that you should expect in the coming days. There are already a lot of exciting things happening at PWO, so let's get started.
TODAY’
On the first episode of Pro Wrestling Lonely, Charles walks through the match list for Shawn Michaels: Showstopper Unreleased, a three-disc set WWE is scheduled to release in October. Hope you'll listen and let us know what you think.
Wrestling DVD Network reports that six more matches have been announced for the Shawn Michaels: Unreleased set that is scheduled to hit the market in the U.S. on October 2. They are:
Shawn Michaels vs Jake Roberts (Mid South Wrestling 02-01-85)
The Rockers vs Legion of Doom (WWF Superstars 12-28-91)
Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart vs Jacob & Eli Blu (WWF Louisville, KY 07-24-95)
Shawn Michaels vs 1-2-3 Kid (WWF Superstars 04-27-96)
Shawn Michaels vs Rob Van
It's possible that Kenny Omega and Michael Elgin made magic on this night. However, it also seems that the spell has since been broken.
July 1, 2017
New Japan Pro Wrestling
G-1 Special in the USA
Los Angeles, California
IWGP U.S. Championship Tournament
5.9
Kenny Omega, Michael Elgin, and the other stars of New Japan Pro Wrestling should be commended for creating American interest in a foreign wrestling company at a level that would have been virtually impossible at any o
Steve Corino was only a World Champion on a national scale in America one time, and in a company that had a booking style pretty far from the NWA tradition. Armed with a credible and capable challenger, Corino shows what might have been with different career timing.
July 1, 2006
1 Pro Wrestling
Fight Club II
Barnsley, England
1PW World Heavyweight Championship
7.8
Steve Corino, while a great wrestler, has always seemed to me like a kid living the dream. He lucked into opp
After Mitsuharu Misawa abandoned ship with most of the roster to form Pro Wrestling NOAH, Toshiaki Kawada and Masa Fuchi began rebuilding a company left in shambles.
July 1, 2000
All Japan Pro Wrestling
Summer Action Series
Tokyo, Japan
8.1
On June 9, 2000, Mitsuharu Misawa had his last match in an All Japan Pro Wrestling ring. Sure, he returned for a one-off match four years later, but that was for an AJPW so different that it might as well not even count. After years of pr
