Loss

This was okay. No heat really, but admirable that once again, Misawa is in a tag where most of it gets ceded to the younger guys in the ring, in this case Ogawa and Mossman, who has come a long way since the last time I saw him. The match probably would have been better with no Misawa-Akiyama, but doing this type of dollarwise thing is rare in wrestling, so I give them credit for that.

Not a bad idea to do a two-day show each year, but I don't think Wrestlemania is the show to do it. They could probably make Survivor Series a big deal again using this as part of a new concept, though.

Negro Casas with his first real breakout performance of the year. Aside from Tarzan Boy's attempted dive where he tripped over the top rope, everything else clicked really well. Wagner and Panther make a great team. Negro did most of the work for his team and look awesome doing it, setting up a few potential programs for himself. I liked the number of big nearfalls at the end, because the way the match was laid out, I really was expecting Casas to come back against all odds, but he did eventually fall prey to the numbers game. Great match. ****

This was a fun match. I think CMLL is still in the rebuilding period after 3/17, so they are allowed some grace time as they start building to their next peak. While it is clear Perro's best days are behind him, his legend is such that savvy wrestlers can do a lot to build a match around just that. All of the matches he's in seem enhanced tenfold just because of his presence. It reminds me a lot of Baba, Choshu and Hogan. Shocker has looked good lately. ***

This struck me very much as a match all three guys will feel for a few days. Wow. Maybe the odd-man-out problem crops up later, because thus far in 2000, it hasn't been an issue in three way matches. I thought this was pretty great, and I'd credit that to the violence level and constant fight for scraps when it came to every single piece of offense. The fast pace was less about showing off and more about a constantly escalating sense of urgency. These guys were desperate right away and had to think fast and react fast or they would sink. This was also laid out in a really smart way to leverage Sabu's stardom while still showcasing Low Ki's talents. Billy Reil was there sort of in the Little Guido role, but looked awfully good and I wish he had gone farther. ****

This didn't last long, but while it lasted, it was tremendous. Ian took most of the offense and looked great doing it. I loved the lariat where he hit Ramos squarely in the nose with the bone side of his forearm at the beginning, and I even though the attempted suplex on the chairs where the chairs moved looked good because it showed how fatigue had set in already. This was more fight than stuntshow, which is exactly what these matches should be. I don't know that going short was a weakness in this case. These two were cutting a hard pace and the blood was flowing early, so it makes sense that it couldn't last all that long. ***1/4

Taking out all the stuff about this feud's positive or negative impact, which has been debated to death, and just focusing on quality, this is an outstanding match. It nicely demonstrates how it's always possible to re-educate fans on a new style and that was my favorite thing about this -- seeing just how much fans understood the details of the work and popped for things which in a normal non-Hash/Ogawa match would be seen as transitions if they happened at all. If you judged this as a shoot-style match, it would pale in comparison to the best matches in the style, but if you judge this as a pro-style match that is capturing the zeitgeist, it's a masterpiece. Hashimoto went down honorably, but this feud of course killed him as a money-drawing headliner, which is a shame. We've talked a lot about colloquial ends to decades and maybe this was when the 90s truly ended for New Japan. See you in Zero One, Hash. ****1/4

Pretty great match. Murakami's heeling mixed in with his awesome shoot-style stuff is really tremendous. Iizuka has really assumed the old role in the company held by Hiroshi Hase as the guy who can work any spot on the card against anyone and make it work. I also definitely notice a shift in New Japan's working style throughout this card, with most matches having quite a bit of matwork. I think after the excesses of the late 90s, this would have been a welcome change in every company just to make some of the styles a bit more sustainable. I'm sure it's going to make me angry at some point, but right now, I do think they are getting the balance right between that and the pro-style jaw-jacking and character stuff that makes wrestling fun. ****

You would think he'd get "Please retire" chants and huge boos at this point, at least from crowds like that.

It's working out great for WWE, but I really don't get how the so-called smart fans in attendance make sense of booing Roman for booking decisions while popping for the guy who runs the company and who made those decisions?

I thought this was solidly worked for the most part, but it was pretty slow-paced and honestly boring for big chunks. Lousy finish after serviceable but really bland action doesn't do it any favors, either. Cool seeing Miss Madness do her missile dropkick in heels to a big pop in the post-match.

All that Black Liger squashing for this? This is a solid match, but I hate it anyway, because the tradeoff for getting it was so disproportionate. They really went out of their way around this time to emphasize how useless smaller guys are. If there is a bright side, maybe it means this is all in the past? We'll see.

I appreciate that Kojima let Otani take most of this since he'd be going over in the end anyway, but yeah, he was completely unmotivated while Otani was giving an inspired performance. How do these heavy vs junior matches still manage to get heat when the junior never wins? ***1/2

This had me engaged the entire time. There was nothing especially unique or special about the matwork, but they sure did a hell of a job telling an effective story with it. The previous Liger-Frye match was in some ways a dry run for this, but the difference was that Kanemoto didn't get in nearly as much offense as Liger did there. Kanemoto's selling and the laser-focused sense of strategy make this a winner. I wouldn't go as far as to call Frye a great worker, but in terms of knowing how to use what he has, he's kind of amazing. ****

The NXT, Wrestlemania and HOF threads all have had way too much name calling, personal shots and hostility, but not in a way that consumed the majority of the posts in any of the threads.

I remember excitedly thinking the long show was finally nearing the end last year, only to realize the two things left were a Rock promo and a HHH main event.

And when you're done, try doing it again.

Try that.

Let's not do this.

1. Stro, I don't think anyone is coming at you quite like you are responding. It's okay. 2. PWI was notorious for doing this. It was one of my favorite wacky things about them. Stuff like calling Sunny "Tammy Fytch" during her entire WWF run.

The action was really good here, but I didn't like this one at all, I think mainly because of Omukai. I do like her, but I don't like her tossing Aja around and working her the same way she'd work with anyone else. There was plenty to enjoy about the match, but nothing really happening that pulled it together in a cohesive way, which admittedly could be clipping. I won't rate it. I'm probably being too hard on it, but I hate seeing wrestlers with a size difference work each other and pretend a size difference doesn't exist.

I'm sure it's happened other times, but this is the only time I recall seeing a father-daughter vs father-daughter tag. This was a total blast, and we get about 7:08 of 8:47, so not much is clipped. Gran Apache is quickly earning a special place in my heart. Great mix of comedy and athleticism here, and very much worth seeing. Both Ayako and Mary are great talents. Gran is way past his peak, but he's able to keep up with the other three very well. ***

Short, decisive and absolutely an upset based on their relative positioning at the time. Rikishi gets his heat back, which I think is fine considering he was at this point their number two babyface and Benoit's push is still going strong.

Pretty good storyline development here, which takes precedent over the match, but I think that's justified, and I like the direction it's going anyway, as Villano III is seeing trouble in paradise with his fellow rudos after Atlantis beats him yet again. Fuerza loses his mind and gets in a shoving match, which results in Villano storming out. Good stuff.

Quite the disparate collection of talent here. This is actually not a 14-man tag so much as it is a 7x7 series, and it's not nearly as fun as it sounds based on the 13 minutes of clips we get. Pretty rudimentary, which is an odd thing to say about a match where Tracy Smothers is on the same team as Kyoko Inoue. But I don't get the sense that not getting this in full is any type of injustice.