MikeCampbell

This Hangman/Swerve deal has got to be the best "double turn" since Bret and Austin in 1997. Even before the finish, where Swerve wanted to keep going and Hangman peaced out, there were hints about it. Hangman hit the DDT on the guadrail and rolls in and tells the ref to count him out. Swerve hits the Deadeye through the table and then quickly gets Hangman back into the ring so he can win the match the "right" way. I'm loving this BCC/CMLL stuff, although I do wish they didn't rush to get some of the lower card dudes involved quite yet. It just reeks of AEW not wanting to beat any of the BCC guys, but it's not like they can keep the feud hot by always having their guys go over. Danielson is working the NJPW show on 2/11 and the NJ/CMLL tour starts on 2/12. Cubsfan hypothesized that perhaps Hechicero will be in the front row on 2/11 and will have some sort of confrontation with Danielson. I'm beyond happy for Sting, a guy I've been watching since I was six years old (and I just turned 41), getting one last title run before he hangs it up. I just worry that it means we'll get another title run from Matthew and Nicholas, and their neverending parade of bullshit.

In a freaky coincidence, I just happened to watch the match on the date of its 20th Anniversary. It's been the best U-STYLE match I've seen by a fucking mile. There's an undercard match between Kyosuke Sasaki and Crafter M that almost seems to be their attempts to pay homage to Tamura and Kosaka, but that comes off like an exhibition. This feels like a real contest. It's the first time in the history of the company that Tamura has truly looked like himself.

I'm thinking the same thing. And it's actually for the best, IMO. Perry has been gone for so long that any return outside of him being the Devil comes off like a retread. Let him spend a few months in NJPW and then do something to build up to Forbidden Door and cut a scathing promo on how the company did him wrong, and hopefully create a buzz.

I had to work at the crack of dawn on Sunday, so I wasn't able to watch live. I figured I'd watch it after work. Then, I get a text from my father at about 8:00 that morning telling me that Joe was the new champion and that Adam Cole was the devil. And there went all my urgency to watch the show. I did finally watch it this morning. Adam Cole leading a heel stable is a movie that we've all seen before, but I'm still OK with it. With MJF out for a bit, they have feuds with Hangman and the Acclaimed that can be used to fill up some time until Max is ready to come back. When the lights went out, I just rolled my eyes. It's way too overdone at this point. Hell, having the masked guys line up on and the floor and Cole hitting him with the crutch would have been better, and probably gotten a bigger pop.

This just never comes together at all. Takada doesn't seem to be in the mood to do fuckall with Nakano, a far cry from what Yamazaki did with a few weeks before. Nakano hits a huge German and Takada just leaps to his feet and starts blasting him with kicks to show everyone who the man really is. 18 minutes for these two was just way too long, they could have chopped this down to six or seven and probably not lost much.

So the first AEW Triple Crown will be decided between Eddie Kingston, who came up with the concept of the title being a Triple Crown, started the tournament going 0-2, and came back to win his block by beating the same man who proclaimed him to be "a bum." And Jon Moxley, who has a long history with Eddie Kingston, including a feud over the AEW Title, which Eddie never won, and after becoming allies, became rivals again this year. Baba or Chosyu couldn't have booked this any better.

I also had Garcia getting the upset to keep Brody out of the semi's. I was originally thinking that Claudio would upset Bryan and Kingston would beat Andrade to give them all a tie, but your way sounds a lot less chaotic.

Yet another example of the fact how great a worker Yamazaki was at this time. He more or less wrestles himself here, he puts himself into positions for Nakano to do simple counters (such as lower his base to prevent the German so Nakano only needed to shove him down to get a back mount), and he absolutely sells his ass off and makes it seems like Nakano actually has a prayer of winning this match. Of course, he's Kazuo Yamazaki and he knows that he can end it whenever he wants, which he does after a couple of hard kicks and a legbar. But it's a total blast watching him look like Nakano's bitch before that. After this match Maeda faced Funaki and Takada wrestled Suzuki, and both of those matches are surefire insomnia cures.

I really wanted to like this, because they both sell like death when Nagata works the knee and Ishikawa works the ribs, but both body part segments were just filler and had no impact on the finish at all, and their execution was godawful, even Nagata's armbar toward the end looked like he was exerting next to no real pressure on Ishikawada.

This isn't even ten minutes long, but it's a brilliant match. It perfectly plays off of ther earlier tournament matches that Ito and Aoki had that got them to the finals, and the end result is the morality play that pro wrestling is supposed to be. This isn't going to get the attention, or amount of dicussion (for better or worse), that Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns from WrestleMania did. But, unlike Cody, Takanori Ito was able to "finish the story." While I sat in front of my laptop trying to piece together what all I wanted to say about this match, it got me thinking about the mentality of only wanting to see the "best" matches (and for the record I am just as guilty as anyone else of having that mindset), and this is a prime example of why that's a flawed way to look at things. If I was to show this to someone who hadn't seen any of the earlier tournament stuff, they'd probably come away having enjoyed the match (depending on their overall opinion of shootstyle) but they'd miss the context of why a lot of the little things that Aoki and Ito do worked so well.

Wrong year, bruh. Umaga and Cena's match was at the 2007 Royal Rumble. They were both in the actual Rumble match in 2008, which Cena actually won.

This is, without a doubt or any hint of exaggeration, the worst match I've seen this year! Picture Roderick Strong vs. GUNTHER in a chop battle, with nobody bothering to sell, and that's what this looks like. It gets absurd to the point that Ishida does a running boot to the corner (like Sami Zayn's finisher) and T-Hawk just stares back at him, completely unphased. Then it turns into some sort of "tribute" the latter day Misawa/Kobashi matches with them throwing each other with suplexes and popping right back up. Just complete garbage!

I'm making my way through this show to review for my website, and I have to disagree with the part that I bolded above. I'm 5/7 of the way finished, and I'd say it's actually been fairly memorable. Okubo certainly stepped up for both of his matches and the Ueyama/Ito match was a nice affair with some traditional pro-style storytelling and smartly takes advantage of the UWF-style rules by putting over Ito, and doing it in such a way that it doesn't make Ueyama look bad at all. What's most diappointing, with the benefit of hindsight, is that the tournament itself almost feels like a waste when one knows what's going to happen in the next few months. It's clearly designed as a vehicle to get Kyosuke Sasaki over, which it certainly accomplishes, but it could have been done so much better and been made to matter long term. Fujii sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the people involved. There was no reason for him, with his Vader/Albright in UWFI push, to be lumped in with this crew. Replace him with Yoshida or Murahama and let Sasaki win the whole thing and cement him as the next "guy" as far as the Tamura trainees goes. The Tamura vs. Fujii match (which happened in December) could have easily taken place on this show. Hell, after the Tamura match Fujii was done in the company for nearly two years anyway.

Two wrestlers known for their stiffness, and they don't disappoint! The thing that stuck out the most to me was the crowd, epsecially one woman who was super high pitched and vocal in her support of Wahoo. It reminded me of watching a Jay Strongbow match on an old Coliseum Video and the crowd was vocal but a good portion of their support was done through 'war cries' for him. None of that stuff here. Just traditional crowd heat, which I'm very tempted to compare to the 1992 Can Ams vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi classic, wanting to see their guy win.

For whatever it's worth, this is easily one of my favorite Inoki matches (and I've never really been a fan of his work). I can absolutely see the Ikeda/Ishikawa comparisions. This feels "legit" in a way that Inoki's 'different style' fights the faux MMA stuff he did in the 90's and 00's never did to me. The crowd was hot throughout and when Oki's headbutt busted him open, the phrase "unglued" doesn't even do it justice.

This is closest that I've seen a Lidet UWF match come to feeling a UWF match from the old days. The work is simple, but very well done. Nakamura has the striking advantage, Matsui has the advantage with his throws, and they use the mat to settle the tie. Neither seems out of their element on the mat, and they're both able to knock off points with their submissions just as well as with their striking/throwing. Nakamura wins after throwing kicks at Matsui and taking him by surprise with a flying juji-gatame, but Matsui's loss doesn't cause any hit to his aura or credibility, and it feels like a rematch between them could just as easily end with Matsui winning.

For a 39 second match, they certainly packed a lot of intensity into it. Iizuka jumpstarts with a flying knee and when Izuchi gets back up, he unloads with more strikes. Iizuka shoots in for a takedown and throws himself right into Izuchi's knee and his lights go out. It certainly begs for a rematch (if GLEAT ever decides to run another Lidet UWF show, since we're coming up on five months since the last one), and leaves questions about both of them coming out of this. Was this a fluke strike or was Izuchi ready for it? What does this say about Iizuka after his second straight main event loss?

This was just complete domination by Tamura. He shuts down Fuke with middle kicks and quickly burns through all of his points, despite strikes not even being Tamura's primary strength. After two matches against lower card workers, where he genuinely found a way to work with them and make them look good, Tamura wrestles one of his contemporaries, with a decently long run in Pacrase, and just decimates him. Ideally, Fuke should have pushed Tamura further than Sakata and Mishima were able to, and possibly set himself up to be the U-STYLE version of Yamazaki, the guy who the upstarts go through before they can challenge The Ace. But, if anything, this makes Fuke look no different than the likes of Naoki Kimura or Kazuki Okubo.

MATWATCH July 4, 1988 Steve hopes that he’ll have the new Matwatch logo by next week but wants to start off by previewing the upcoming “Great American Bash” PPV. This is Crockett’s first chance to put on a first class PPV show, and he can’t afford to blow it. Crockett has everything going for him right now: Ted Turner has cleared more then ten million households for access to the PPV, the price tag is much lower than the WWF’s, there’s no competition from the WWF, the Flair/Luger main event has been built up on TV like no other main event, since Flair defending against 14 various opponents during the 1986 Great American Bash tour and Baltimore is the NWA’s top drawing city, so they can expect a sellout. Steve thinks they should get at least a five-percent national buyrate, which would put 1.8-2 Million dollars in Crockett’s pocket, with Turner taking a similar cut. The marketing for the show has been first-rate and if your area has been equipped to receive the show, then there should be print ads in the local newspaper. The card is as follows: Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger – Steve expects this to tell everyone whether or not Flair is staying in the NWA. As of now, there’s not a title change expected, but if Flair does decide to move to the WWF, then expect Luger to win the title here. Steve thinks it’ll take roughly four weeks to see that Luger won’t draw, but Dave Meltzer jokes that Dusty still hasn’t figured out that Ronnie Garvin didn’t draw last year. Steve predicts Luger to win by DQ, to keep Flair as champion, and to set up a series of matches throughout the fall. Dusty Rhodes vs. Barry Windham – The NWA usually doesn’t tip their hands at upcoming title changes, unlike the WWF, but a recent campaign of NWA themed Mello Yellow cans lists Dusty as being the U.S. Champion. Steve expects Dusty to win the title here, and then do a retirement at Starrcade. Triple Tower of Doom – They’ve tried several times on TV to explain the rules, but Steve still doesn’t fully understand them. He expects the good guys to win, in order to settle the angle with Sullivan and Precious. Tully and Arn vs. Sting and Nikita – Tully and Arn are set to defend the tag titles throughout the summer, so Steve expects the babyfaces to be disqualified for hitting the ref, or some such nonsense. Midnight Express vs. Fantastics – With the fans paying $15 a pop for this one, he expects to see Jim Cornette get ten lashes with the belt here. There’s also a couple of undercard matches, Larry Zybyszko vs. Brad Armstrong and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express vs. The Sheepherders, but Steve isn’t sure if they’ll be on the PPV. He thinks the tag team match might, and the Zybyszko match won’t. Even with all of its talent and organizational issues, the NWA is still the cream of the crop in workers and overall performers. Flair is still one of the greatest names in the history of the game, so they’ve got a strong anchor, but they cannot afford to make any mistakes. If Jim Ross isn’t one of the lead announcers, it’ll be a mistake. If Dusty tries to steal the spotlight, it’ll be a mistake. If the ending to Flair/Luger leaves the fans unsatisfied, it’ll be a mistake. Steve wants to see an outright victory from either of them, but he thinks this is where they’ll foul things up. Steve thinks the Crockett group, despite all of the criticisms that they’ve received in 1988, deserves a lot of credit for putting together a show that gives them a chance to break out into a lot of big money markets, which is something very few people thought was possible back in January. COMINGS AND GOINGS Matwatch believes that the sale of the NWA to Ted Turner is imminent, probably by August 1st. Crockett and Turner had a meeting two weeks ago and were said to have made an agreement in principle for a complete buyout from Turner. There are a few remaining details, such as the prices and the terms of the payments. Crockett will stay on as GM for at least one year, and no word about Dusty staying on as the booker. Steve thinks Crockett could pay for the company with his share of four successful PPV shows. We should expect a much more aggressive marketing campaign due to Turner’s new licensing and merchandizing company. - The 7/18 Bash event in Columbus, GA will be taped for the Worldwide Wrestling TV show, which is the first time a TV show has been taped in Columbus. - If Flair does jump to the WWF, don’t expect him to be Harley Race’s replacement as the King. The plan is for Bobby Heenan to do a 4-6 week search and announce Haku as the new king, and then kill off the angle. - “Isn’t the stuff that Bruce Prichard is doing as Brother Love just awful?” Not only does it distract from the wrestling (not unusual for the WWF) but he also can’t get off the broken record of “I Love You.” Steve prefers Brother Ernest Angel in Continental, talking about “Sister Hyatt” and “Brother Platt.” - Scott Putski showed up on NWA TV and is getting a small push for the Bash shows in Houston and Dallas. Steve thinks Crockett might just be trying to cash in on the name of former WWF star Ivan Putski. Scott seemed to be emulating Jimmy Snuka instead of his father, but the fans seemed to go for him, although his interviews stunk. - If you call 1-900-909-4LOU, you’ll get to hear Bruno Sammartino’s diatribe of how Vince screwed over his son David. Vince asked Bruno and David to team up in March of 1985 against Heenan and Orndorff, and then used David as undercard preliminary guy afterwards. It’s nothing new, but Steve finds it interesting that they’d use the 900 number for that. - Dave Meltzer ought to sue the 970-RING service in Atlanta, since they essentially read information verbatim from the Observer. - Steve saw footage of Big Van Vader in Japan. He comes to the ring in a half-suit of armor and then takes it off to reveal another mask. He obviously looks like Darth Vader. The character is supposed to be a heel, but the kids love him. - Anyone who can’t get the Bash PPV and would like a copy can get one from Steve for $10 (which barely covers the cost of mailings and a decent quality cassette tape) but the cost of waiting for Turner’s official release is $35. - One final note regarding the sale to Turner. If it goes though, then all talent negotiations are expected to be held by Steve Kasten (president of the Hawks and Braves) and the balloon payment setup by Crockett will be replaced by a more orderly schedule. Crockett will be responsible for paying the talent all monies owed from his 1987-88 contracts. PROMOTER PROFILE Jim Crockett made a calculated decision in 1985 which changed the face of wrestling almost as much as Vince McMahons national expansion did. He upped the price for NWA Champion Ric Flair to appear on World Class events. World Class owner Fritz Von Erich balked and refused to pay, and WCCW withdrew from the NWA. In the coming months, Crockett cut off all relations with Jerry Jarrett in Memphis, Mike Graham in Florida, Bill Watts in the UWF, Bob Geigel in the Central States and Ron Fuller in Continental. Don Owens in the Northwest does continue to run cards as an NWA member, but he hasn’t used Flair in two years. Crockett decided to make his own attempt at going national and swallowed up the UWF and Florida in the process, while also sending talent to the Central States to help bail them out. By the spring of 1987, Crockett had nearly 175 wrestlers employed, those of us who have followed the shutdowns of Florida and the UWF know what happened to the talent, which could have eaten McMahon’s group alive for wrestling and working ability. The NWA still has a highly regarded talent base, but if one person, namely Steve Beverly, was in charge of restructuring the company then here’s what he would do to fix their issues. - Dump Dusty Rhodes as the booker, he may still have promotional abilities, but Dusty can’t keep pushing himself as the biggest star. The failure of the Midnight Rider showed that. - Develop fresh young talent. Steve feels like Sting ought to be a top star right now, and that Tim Horner and Brad Armstrong as vastly underutilized. He’d also make a play for talent like Curt Hennig, Owen Hart, and Paul E. Dangerously. - Make Jim Ross the lead announcer. David Crockett is as talented as Oscar Robertson used to be. Ross knows the holds, has a good grasp on the history of various feuds and nobody generates excitement from a hot match like Jim. - Get rid of the Four Horsemen and turn Flair babyface. It’s long overdue and would generate a lot of interest with Flair traveling the country against his former friends. - Re-establish relationships with other companies, which Steve concedes will take a new owner to do. The Crockett Cup and Starrcade need fresh faces in order to market a fresh flavor. There was a chance to get talent from Stampede and World Class for the Crockett Cup in April, and it didn’t happen. - Dump the Bunkhouse Stampede show. Nobody cares. This was just half a dozen thoughts. Steve sees the sale to Turner as the best thing that could happen for the NWA. Turner is a broadcast professional, who saw the success of wrestling on his old WTCG station. He also sees home video and PPV as a gold mine for the company. The biggest criticism of Crockett is that he’s still using his old cronies, while McMahon has branched out and hired on young and hungry media market specialsts. Ted has several people like this in his employ and there’s no love lost between Vince and Ted after Vince’s failed attempt to take over the World Championship Wrestling slot in 1984-85. Turner is a very shrewd communication professional, and Steve would like to see a war between them, and guess who he thinks would win. I REMEMBER . . . Steve first met Mario Galento in 1968, he’d been around for thirty years mostly as a villain. He left most territories after disputes with promoters, and he traveled with a “brother” by name of Al Galento and created an image which actually led to his getting arrested in New York City. Mario’s first wife, Lucille, had written a book about him called “The Gentle Brute” which he always sold at live shows. He was born with the name Bonny Lee Boyette, and with a name like Bonny, he learned how to fight very quickly. During the 1950’s he’d had wins over Bruno Sammartino, Buddy Rogers and Wilbur Snyder, all of whom would wear the NWA or WWWF Titles. He turned babyface during the 1960’s in a boxing match with Buddy Fuller when Rocky Marciano knocked out Galento while the referee was down. After his turn, he showed his affection for children. He would show up at bookings hours before the show just to entertain the children. Steve recalls seeing him at an event in Waycross, GA where he demonstrated the sleeper hold and the Hangman. Many of the wrestlers would use the kids to sell their photos and send them home with their own photo as payment. Mario Galento sent them home with 15% of the earnings. Steve feels like he’s one of the few old-timers that could still go in today’s age. His battles with Butcher Vachon are legendary. Steve isn’t sure of his whereabouts now, or even if he’s still alive. But in today’s high gloss programmed world of wrestling, we need more people like Mario Galento. TV TEMPO Reviewing the key happenings on TV for the weekend of July 2-3: NWA: On NWA Pro Nikita Koloff gave Al Perez the Russian Sickle, for a mild amount of heat. On the Saturday TBS show, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express returned and said they were after their fifth World Tag Team Title. On the Sunday Main Event show, Sting and Steve Williams had a twenty-minute draw with the Midnight Express, and Nikita Koloff beat Barry Windham by DQ after the other Horsemen interfered. WWF: The Rougeaus beat the Killer Zzzz’s with their new rule breaking tactics but were still cheered. The only other highlight was seeing Jesse Ventura without his earing or head scarf. CWF: Tom Prichard and the Dirty White Boy had a wild brawl that ended when White Boy’s valet, Lady Mystic, interfered. But Bambi (a former POWW wrestler and valet in Memphis) showed up to help Dr. Tom. Expect to see the ladies have catfights. Southern: Mr. Wrestling II and Buck Robley had a bad match that saw Dick Slater interfere after less than a minute and Chris Adams make the save. Robley is simply awful and it’s sad to see that II is reduced to doing this. AWA: Robert Gibson and Greg Gagne challenged for the AWA Tag Titles in a match that was taped three weeks ago and showed that they’d never teamed up before. It shows the lack of immediacy in the AWA with Robert already back with Crockett teaming with Ricky Morton, and he’s on AWA TV demanding a rematch. World Class: Jerry Lawler and Terry Taylor had a good match for the AWA Title. Kerry Von Erich challenged Lawler for a Title-for-Title match afterwards. USA Pro: Wendell Cooley and Buddy Landell had a short brawl that was triggered when Landell’s manager, Terry Adonis, wanted to buy out Cooley’s contract for the match. Northwest: Jesse Barr is back as Jimmy Jack Funk and beat Al Madril. Dave Sierra (Cuban Assassin) has left for Japan. Blooper of the Week: Gary Hart for crediting Kevin Von Erich (instead of Kevin Sullivan) for inventing the Triple Tower of Doom.

Demolition and Strike Force had a rematch for the tag team titles on Superstars, which ended by countout when the Demos gave Martel their finisher on the floor. I don't believe that this was the catalyst for Martel's turn the following year. Martel was back by the Royal Rumble in January, and the turn wasn't until WrestleMania, a full two months later.

The pacing, structure, and storytelling seen here would look right at home in the mid 1980's, and just reinfornces the notion of FTR truly being the best tag team in the business. Everything they do feels natural and expected, even when things don't quite seem to go as planned, they're able to make them work without totally killing the flow of the match. Anyone who sees Lucha Bros vs. Young Bucks or Usos vs. New Day and thinks "That's great tag team wrestling!" needs to watch this and see what great tag team wrestling really looks like!

I enjoyed this on a visceral level, with how much Wheeler bled and the lengths in which Mox had to go in order to finally beat him. But, those were the two main takeaways for me. The idea is that Wheeler earns Mox's (and by extension Regal and Danielson's) respect and joins the BCC, but instead of doing it by pushing Mox as far as he could and proving he can hang with them, this is Wheeler showing how much of a beating he's able and willing to take.

Mark Sterling as Jackie Chiles?

It's rare to find much of a story within shootstyle matches, since storytelling has always been more of a pro-style staple, but these two pull it off well enough. Mishima is all about the flashiness and showing off with cartwheels and overly showy spinning kicks, and the experienced legend uses simple techniques in order to shut him down. Mishima gets a chance to finish him off with a juji-gatame, but Tamura is already working his way toward escaping before he can even get it on, and when Tamura gets the same opening, he makes sure to position himself in the center of the ring so that Mishima can't do the same to him.

When talking about Maeda's various in ring incidents, I'm surprised this isn't brought up more often, especially with how legendary Tamura would become. But then again, compared to the Andre and Chosyu stuff, roughing up a rookie with only a few matches under his belt seems relatively tame. Also, considering that Tamura would jump to RINGS in 1996, there must not have been hard feelings.