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
Three event recaps and digging into the Mentai Kid archives in light of his retirement.
Kyushu Pro AEON Omura Shopping Center 30th Anniversary 03/05/2025
Held at AEON Omura Shopping Center in Omura, Nagasaki Prefecture. Not aired. KPW do a number of these “community-side” events, presumably as a result of sponsorships or where there is a charitable upside. No announced attendance, and it’d be hard to know because the ring (per photos) is literally in the mall forecourt next t
Series Outline
Part 1: The Noble Art of Jerking Curtains (You Are Here)
Part 2: King of Comedy
Part 3: The Heir to Rikidozan
Introduction – Who On Earth Is Mitsuo Momota?
On CageMatch, Mitsuo Momota has a fan rating of 4.71 out of 10. He mostly seems to turn up in six-man comedy matches with arthritic old men. For Mitsuo Momota’s official 30th Anniversary match, he wrestled a rookie in the first match on the card, and it was even clipped when shown on TV. He
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
Kyushu Pro Super Genki Festival ~ 17th Anniversary 27/04/2025
The biggest show of the year so far, in Fukuoka City’s Fukuoka West Japan General Exhibition Hall’s New Hall. Declared attendance of 2,576. This is a pretty big show by modern standards. All Japan’s Champion Carnival 2025 opener at the Korakuen (9th April) drew 1,105, and their biggest show of the year so far was their 24th February date in Hachioji, with an attendance of 1,870; KPW has two bigger than that. NOAH had
Okay, this 2004 post came a lot sooner than I thought since there wasn't a lot to 2004 or what I could find online. Only two shows and only one that's worth a full look at.
I started out with 09/25/04. This is an outdoor show...and wow! That is an amazing building across the way. But honestly, I can't truly recommend anything on this show. Kintaro Kanemura & Ryuji Yamakawa vs. Katsumasa Inoue & Shadow WX was exactly the type of straight tag match you know they can wrestle. Fast si
I'm moving forward to 2003 in my very cursory look at turn of the century era BJW. These cards are looking pretty cool. Let's take a look!
03/30/03
Darkness Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match
BADBOY Hido & Madman Pondo vs. Gosaku & Ryuji Yamakawa - Oh ho, that was good! About 10 minutes of really fun stuff, nice old school foreign object forehead carving, a few sick spots..this was an easy watch for most anyone.
WEW Hardcore Tag Team Title Ryuji Ito & Daisaku Shimod
This is the second post in the series and I've skipped 2000 & 2001. That's because the company is gummed up with CZW...like the dregs of Zandig era CZW. I'm not interested. There's a couple CZW names still here but these guys actually have some talent, skill or something. Let's take a look!
BJW Harder Than Hardcore Series 2002 03/03/02
Match
Trent Acid vs. The Winger - Eh, I'm glad I half watched this and a Bob Newhart Show episode. They go outside and do pile driver on the sidew
I think I was motivated to watch this era of Big Japan because I've been playing Fire Pro Returns again. And I've been enjoying this era of GAEA & NJPW. I really like the energy in turn of the century puro & joshi. Production sensibilities were changing, outfit and general aesthetics were changing and the changing of the talent guard was just beginning. It's all really appealing because I think a lot from this time is worthwhile. I have been pleasantly surprised with AJPW, NOAH, joshi, a
I'm continuing to take a peek at early 2000's New Japan. Early on we're going to look at some NJ vs NOAH that I didn't cover back in my NOAH 2002 posts from last year (I think). Some might be in a NOAH ring but I'm counting them. But overall this is just a mix of matches from 2002 New Japan that I thought looked interesting and were online
Yuji Nagata vs Jun Akiyama (01/04) - Oh, that was a great bout! No way you would guess this is their first time working together and at the Dome no less
I'm really digging 2003 NJPW even with the MMA Inoki-ism. Well I'm avoiding the legit MMA that is shown. Here I came across a commercial compilation showing things from the summer of 2003. It starts with the Best of the Super Jrs. X which I'm happy to find. The matches they have included only have the last few minutes shown. It's a nice taste of the action. I believe I've seen some matches NOAH's Takashi Sugiura wrestled...maybe I really dug he vs Kanemoto from 06/11. Also there's another tag L
This seems to be right in the middle of Inoki-MMA which wasn't necessarily a terrible call given how popular PRIDE fighting/K-1 was around the time. But that's not really what pro wrestling fans wanted and no one really benefited. I generally feel like I have a good handle on booking ideas until it comes to a promotion like NJPW or WWE. It seems like a tremendous balancing act along with a bit of luck.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Hiroshi Tanahashi - Opening match to a Dome show but I think it wa
Here we are for the final post for my very narrow look at Ring of Honor for 2009. This should be a good one! We're looking at DVD events only.
Claudio Castagnoli vs Davey Richards (Final Countdown: Dayton 09/18/09) - Good stuff especially at the end. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a mid card match. It lacked the intensity and pacing of anything else. But it's been awhile since I've seen Claudio. He did some really cool strength moves. Yeah this was good.
American Wolves vs Briscoe
This week features ROH on HDNet matches predominantly. Let's see how they are
Austin Aries, Kenny King & Rhett Titus vs Jerry Lynn, Kenny Omega & Erick Stevens (ep. 16) - It sounds like Jerry Lynn already lost the strap to Austin Aries. Man...for all of the complaints... Lynn barely had the title especially in comparison to Nigel, Danielson or Joe. Anyhow, very fun match...lil FIP reunion with King & Stevens, Omega & King have history, Jerry & Austin do too. Yeah this w
We're getting into the main chunk of the ROH on HDNet DVD now.
Chris Hero vs Jerry Lynn (ep. 13) - You know another reason Jerry Lynn was champ, beyond Nigel's injuries, beyond Nigel probably already planning going to TNA but specifically giving it to Jerry was this TV deal. Lynn is pretty much the only recognizable face in ROH at this time. They are trying to grow and get new fans and Mr. JL is someone watching TV is going to remember. A lot of folks wanted them to pull the trigger on Tyle
I came across this commercial DVD compilation of the '01 G1 Climax. I was going to just do a small selection but there's too many neat match ups. Since it's a commercial compilation, assume everything is clipped/joined in progress unless noted.
(08/04)
Tadao Yasuda vs. Minoru Tanaka - This was good stuff mainly due to Minoru fighting from underneath with heart and guts. Yasuda is no ring wizard but here he's the bigger, stronger man and he nailed it. I liked it.
Jushin Liger vs Hiroy
The second post is Davey/American Wolves/Steen centric post. So I'm only looking at 4 matches this week. I was going to watch American Wolves vs Bryan Danielson & Tyler Black (Tag Title Classic (Double Feature) 2009) but it's a long ass match. I don't have time for that. I'm not in my 20's...I'll get around to this at the end if I have the will to continue. Seeing as its called Tag Title Classic, I'm not really unearthing anything new, overlooked, or forgotten...which is an objective of thi
I'm still trying to get through my pile of DVDs. A big blind spot is Ring of Honor starting with the HDNet era stuff. I'm going to start with 2009 and I'm going in with the DVDs that I got: Best of ROH on HDNet vol. 2, American Wolf: Davey Richards comp and Best of the American Wolves that was a bonus DVD compilation with Champions vs All-Stars 2011 (pretty obscure place to put a Best of Comp). I think I have 3-4 matches from YouTube. I'm not going to find more...there's way too much material to
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'm doing a quickie this week even though I've got some stuff ready to go. I always think about the New Japan Tokyo Dome show for January but - nah! You can get that somewhere else. Let's do an old TNA show instead! 20 years ago there was TNA Final Resolution 2005. If you're getting long in the tooth like me then, 2005 seemed like just a few years ago.
Christopher Daniels, Kazarian & Michael Shane vs. 3 Live Kru (BG James, Konnan & Ron Killings) - Fun but pretty muc
I really thought it would be worthwhile to check out the matches of Jerry Lynn outside of ECW. That's really where I know him from. Since I'm starting to look at ROH in 2009, I'm coming across a few matches featuring the man. It dawned on me that I really dig his work. He's really what holds the best RVD matches together and his stuff in ECW with others was always very good to great. Anyhow, I combed through YouTube, an old review and heck through in ECW match I missed in order to do this Spotli
It's that time of year where I like many people look back at the past year and make lists or hand out superlatives My reason for doing this is to provide a guide for people looking for new or different wrestling especially starting out. All the different lists people made helped me either get started in watching old wrestling or helped me decide where to go next. HR stands for Highly Recommended or honorable mention... near classic match, stars denote an all time classic...these are the front
