Loss

Probably the best MCW match so far unless I'm forgetting something obvious, which is a credit to both guys, but also to Todd Morton, who has some pretty creative ways to interfere in matches. I liked how this continued with all the interference until Youth took Morton and Al Kee Hall (what a stupid name) all out with the big dive to the floor. They did some variation on a top rope Vandaminator for the finish which didn't look good at all because Youth had to stand there holding the chair for a few seconds looking like an idiot. I wouldn't call this good, but I do think MCW is hinting at going in the right direction.

The storyline is that Jericho sent Hughes to Memphis. They haven't been connected for months, so that's pretty funny. Typical Lawler vs big man match where Lawler gives the big guy most of the match. Okay match. They are setting up Lawler, Regal and Bull Pain as the top three guys in the territory in the post-match, which is a very interesting three for sure.

I got a kick out of Regal's pre-match promo. Oh, how glorious Regal working prime Lawler at Mid South Coliseum would have been. I've always thought of Regal, and I've said this before, as the wrestling barometer, where you see how good other wrestlers are by seeing how they look against him. That's definitely true for Blue Meanie, who I've never been a huge fan of because of the gimmick, but who is pretty fundamentally sound and had a solid match here. Around this time, he had dropped a lot of weight and made a real effort to become what the WWF wanted him to be, but I just don't think it was in the cards for him. I really enjoyed all the stuff in and out of the hammerlock and wristlock, and one thing I like about that ring is the acoustics. All the bumps get a little more reaction out of me because the ring is so well mic'd that it gives off a nice sound effect each time there was a bump. Bruce Pritchard on commentary seemed more interested in putting over Bruce Pritchard as commissioner, but the work in the ring wasn't bad at all.

New Japan has always done these 10-man elimination matches well and this is no exception. On TV, they showed 19 minutes of a 34 minute match, in highlight form instead of JIP so we were able to see a good chunk of what led to every elimination. The big things that stood out were: - Chono still had it when I think going into 2000, I didn't expect him to have it anymore - People really want to see Sasaki vs Chono. Really, really, really ... - Obviously the bookers didn't want Liger to win this and they didn't want him beating a heavyweight either, but they also wanted to protect him and make him look good, so they were stuck in neutral - Nakanishi was being pushed really hard, just as he has been in every match, but he just doesn't have the goods Taken on its own terms, this was a terrific match. The booking issues are really the only issue with it, as the match itself is super heated and action-packed, with pairings you don't often see, just as the 10-mans usually are. Each elimination was built to in a way that made sense and with each guy pinned going down fighting. There's lots to love here. I just wish they'd decide for sure where they want Liger instead of trying to have it both ways, and that they'd face the truth with Nakanishi. ***3/4

Well, this definitely came out of nowhere and blew me away. The story here is that Murahama is an outsider in Osaka Pro, pushed as a shooter in a pro wrestling world (I'm guessing it's a minor league attempt to copy Hashimoto-Ogawa), and this is a match on the road to Delphin-Murahama, which comes this summer. The match is fought on Murahama's terms -- in rounds, in something that vaguely resembles shoot style but that I wouldn't quite label that way. It borrows from it liberally, but it's even more of a smorgasbord than BattlARTS. They rip off the technique from UWFI and RINGS, but they rip off the dramatic aspects from pro wrestling. Now, RINGS and UWFI did that too -- through and through, in fact -- but the difference is that this match makes zero attempt to be covert about what it's doing. These aren't guys trying to convince you that what they are doing is real so much as it is guys putting on a hell of a performance. I don't quite know how to describe it, but I do know we'll see more of Murahama and I'm curious where exactly his style will take him. He wears boxing gloves and throws rapid fire punches, and Hoshikawa stays with him stylistically, but we also see things mixed in like the Otani-style comeback when he thinks he's won a match and hasn't. I guess it's kind of a match that goes full blown cafeteria wrestling, taking what it wants from every style, and leaving the rest. A 15-minute jaw dropper in so many ways -- technically, Murahama is phenomenal, but he is also better at using the goofy-but-generally-accepted aspects of dramatic pro wrestling than most guys who don't even have shooter gimmicks. Pretty close to a masterpiece here, and something that really broke the mold. ****3/4

Either they worked the time-limit draw or a couple of minutes were shaved at some point, but we still got 28 minutes of action. I was really excited for this because it's kind of impossible to have a match with these four guys and mess it up. This is kind of a veterans vs young athletic guys dynamic that gets played to the hilt. Sano in particular is more resourceful than someone who tries to go hold for hold, but in the process, he makes a really good showing and finds his way back from peril, even when Murakami and Otsuka completely overwhelm him a few times athletically. There was a Murdoch-Nightmare thing going on near the finish with Murakami sort of pushing the boundaries and testing both guys from the beginning when they are trying to wrestle a sportsman's match, only to finally get a secret low blow at the end as a payoff. This had the great mat exchanges you'd expect from these four, but there was also some really cool character work to make it compelling, and a match layout to pull it all together. Every pairing possible gets plenty of time, and it's definitely a match made both by great offense *and* great selling -- without either one, the match wouldn't have worked as well as it did. ****1/4

This didn't get a ton of time, but wow was it a great match, maybe the second or third best of their feud. I liked how they incorporated more wrestling than in any of their other death matches, and really built to every table spot, so they satisfied the mutants while still giving them an actual wrestling match instead of just a stunt show. Both guys were at the top of their game. Crazy was a bloody mess. ECW crowds booing table spots where the table doesn't break is so stupid because those spots look way more brutal. The post-match angle is a bunch of stuff with various people running out. I am curious when we're going to see the Tajiri turn, because I know it's coming fairly soon to set up the May PPV, but I'm not exactly sure when. Not really a fan of The Network stuff, although that we're supposed to believe Jack Victory and Rhino represent a television station by beating people up is one of those goofy pro wrestling things I love. ****

Yeah, this thread really isn't the best place for it. This is a thread also to post examples of his curmudgeon side more than it is a Jim Ross catch-all thread.

Shiga had a good showing here. Between this and the Akiyama match, he's having a nice, semi-quiet 2000 so far. Kobashi cedes most of the match to him, which probably sacrifices some quality, but also is an admirable choice for helping Shiga get some ring time and attempt to get over. I love the slowness of Takayama's German suplex at the finish. Solid match. ***

Another match we'll see repeatedly over the next few years. Jericho does commentary here and is a bit distracting from the match, which isn't much. I think he was trying to channel The Rock here in rattling through his catchphrases and insulting Michael Cole. The segment I think is designed for him to get some of his heat back from Monday, as he lays both guys out with belt shots, then does a Walls of Jericho to both guys. This is a good hype segment for their WM match.

Pretty sure this is the only time this match has ever happened. Good match, way better than anything Dustin did with Terry Funk and suggests that if these two crossed paths at the right times when both of them were on their game, Dustin could have been one of Hogan's best opponents. Dustin cutting off Hogan's comeback was genuinely awesome with the lariat and cowbell, and I liked the restart also. Great pop for the finish. I think Nick Patrick deciding not to DQ Dustin and restart the match proves the Hogan-Patrick conspiracy theorists correct. Sid chokeslams Jimmy Hart through a table to close things out, and it's like Hogan learned nothing from what made people sick of him before he turned in the first place. ***

Candido is in WCW, which is a good place for him in theory, to the extent it can be a good place for anyone at this point. He mentions winning a handicap match against Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch in his pre-match interview with Gene Okerlund, which amused me. The match is going well until The Artist shows up and messes up his run-in. Not sure the purpose of jobbing Candido here, nor am I sure the purpose of putting him in the cruiserweight division when they really needed younger heavyweights who could work and talk.

One of the bright spots of 2000 WCW has finally arrived. The triple somersault plancha was awesome just as a visual. If this was the WWF, that would have been in highlight packages for the rest of the year. WCW will never so much as acknowledge it after five seconds. I loved all 3:30 of the match, but WCW being hellbent on not giving their good workers ring time is starting to get old.

I'm guessing this is clipped down considerably, but I'm always horrible at noticing such things. I want to comment on how well these guys have learned to do such short matches, but that may not be what this actually is. I am a big fan of Mr. Mexico, with all his personality and in-ring precision. He reminds me a tough guy next door who keeps himself in shape that no one would dare mess with, even if that's not exactly his gimmick. Strong charisma too. Tony Rivera is sort of a Tarzan Boy that people like, probably because he's not as insistent on broadcasting his own sex appeal. There have been better wager matches this year for sure, but this was a fun ride while it lasted. ***1/2

Sid starts off with a focused and seemingly sincere babyface promo. Very atypical for him, and very good. The setup for his turn on Hogan here, which is the big story here, is well done. We never got the payoff to this because there was yet another regime change in WCW before the next pay-per-view. Shouldn't Hogan know better than to tag with Sid by now? This is the second time this has happened. Okay tag match and Hogan continues to excite shrinking audiences -- going from recreating a 1995 feud with Luger to a 1994 feud with Flair to a 1992 feud with Sid.

I'm astonished you would think this wasn't even good. I don't know what's bland about really unique matwork that no one else is really doing, and I always appreciate any attempt to put an opening lockup over as something dramatic. They didn't even start any nearfalls until over 15 minutes into the 22 minute match, and even then, the pops were driven by the timing of Ran Yu Yu's kickouts happening at the perfect millisecond more than they were going the cheap route and using big moves for an easy nearfall. I agree it didn't have much crowd heat until they got to that, but part of that is how they built to get to that point. I will probably watch this again at some point toward the end of the year to make sure I'm not crazy, but I'm reasonably sure I'm not.

They do their standard match, but in about five minutes. Flair is working so hard and Sting looks so bored. Quite the contrast. Luger runs in to attack Sting but Sting fends him off on his own. The numbers catch up to him in the post-match. More heat for all of this than anything in a long time. Vampiro (still so weird) makes the save to chase Flair and Luger away.

If Tank Abbott could even halfway work, this match would have worked, because Barbarian gave him a great template to do a short, barfighting shoot style match, for lack of a better way to describe it. They were building up Abbott for a match with Meng, but they could never explain Meng's unique toughness without breaking kayfabe, so most fans never got it.

Setup for this match is interesting, as they do the planned main event of Wrestlemania two weeks ahead of time on the Chicago Raw. I think trying that now would be a dead giveaway an angle was coming to change the main event, but I suppose these were slightly simpler times. Match isn't anything special (although as a sports entertainment spectacle it's *****) but it is well laid out to give Chi-Town fans heart attacks, but WOW is it super heated. The key here is the post-match angle, where Linda McMahon adds Mick Foley to the main event. It didn't bug me so much that he came out of retirement at the time, but it did bug me that it was for such a lame match. A McMahon in every corner! Regardless of all of that, this segment is really hot and I can't deny that the match's spectacle exceeds its quality in a way that not acknowledging that is unfair. ***1/2 EDIT TO ADD: Before anyone asks, the difference between this type of great spectacle and something like Hogan-Andre not being a match and would even call *** at all is that this match I don't see as actively bad so much as just there.

The first of a few dozen (if I had to guess) Benoit-Jericho matches in 2000-2001 that we'll be watching. Jericho's pre-match promo has an edge to it that I like, and Benoit ambushes him to make this pretty intense right away, immediately making clear this is a strong rivalry. This was really good. I think this is good for them both in different ways -- Benoit needed to work with a guy who was over, and Jericho needed to log some good matches. While this is all action, it's also pretty empty, but that's typical of most WWF TV matches in the time period, so I don't hold that against it too much. ***1/4

DX debuts the Run-DMC feud, which was far superior to the original. This is a qualifying match to set up Wrestlemania, and they don't even team Gunn with Road Dogg (not sure if he was injured or what), which is interesting. Really awkward sequence with Road Dogg and Jeff Hardy, although it ended up looking good at the end. There is a lot of sloppiness here that we haven't seen from the Hardys thus far this year with other teams, which makes me wonder if these teams had problems working together. Kane comes out (the music starts, the lights go out, and flames come from the ringposts, yet the ref is solidly distracted) and paves the way for the Hardys to take the win. Not a good match at all but the right team won.

12:21 of 24:26. What we see is kind of jaw dropping great, in large part because of the atmosphere, which is not a major show, but which I expect to be better than Wrestlemania in a few weeks. Chono plays a large part in that, kind of taking on the "an asshole, but our asshole" role, getting name chants, getting cheered for his sneaky low blow and that sort of thing. Nakanishi comes in to stop quite a few submission attempts on Nagata until he is able to get the hot tag, and he's presented as the savior of his team. I still don't get Nakanishi, but I also don't think there's anything really to get. Fans were biting on everything here and as a result, everyone in this had some extra fire. All Japan is still very good, but New Japan has also been very good this year, to the point that I think the question of which promotion is better is officially a toss-up ... at least for now. ****

Well this matchup is certainly an interesting idea. Fun stuff with Frye taking Liger lightly to start by putting him on the top rope and sort of patting him on the shoulder, and Liger responding by mounting him, slapping him in the face multiple times and immediately locking in a cross armbreaker. For the first few minutes, Frye put over Liger in every exchange and only got the advantage through cheating, which got great heat, proving the old Dave Meltzer adage about shooters always getting great heat for cheating very true. Liger's performance and selling was awesome here. Frye is pretty limited in terms of what he can do in the ring, but he has great charisma, is a strong heel and New Japan fans accept him as a tough guy, so he gets by and is very effective. This worked. ***

Outstanding sprint, maybe the most action-packed match we've seen so far from these guys. This was the Toryumon guys interpreting Michinoku Pro's glory days and doing a tremendous job of it while adding their own spin, with all six holding their own and giving strong performances. And the best part? Crazy Max finally lost a match! There were two minutes left on my file after this and I was hoping they weren't going to run in and get their heat back and they didn't, which was great! They needed to do a job right about now to keep things interesting, and they did it in a match type that a novice would probably think is far more typical in Toryumon than it really was. ****1/4

Well, this was quite the revelation. Outstanding match, one of the best of 2000 in fact. This was worked as a classic world title match all the way, with an extended collar and elbow at the beginning like I haven't seen in years. Genki is the dominant one, which makes sense considering the size difference, and I like the unique approach she takes in her matwork. Instead of using a side headlock in the early stages, for example, she uses a freakin' Argentine backbreaker! I also like how she chops when they break in the corner. Everything about the pacing of this suggests that this match is a big deal. I was a little discouraged when they did 15 minutes of such great build and then ended up outside, thinking they were about to throw it all away, but they quickly got back in the ring, so my fear was for naught. Ran Yu Yu has Ric Flair-like timing in terms of kicking out at the last millisecond -- at this point, I'd argue her as maybe the best in wrestling at that. Total nailbiters. There was a moment near the end of this where they both struggled to get to their feet and socked each other right in the face at the exact same time in a tremendous visual and a great dramatic moment. I also loved all the variety around the pin attempts, along with the frequency, since it's a title match. Ran Yu Yu channels the unrelenting power of Misawa's elbow to get the win at the end but wow did she deserve it. Thus far, she has been my favorite new discovery in Joshi this year. ****1/2