Loss

Rico looks good here, but I think he may have had a ceiling even if WWE hadn't given him a gimmick that limited his upward potential. He strikes me as a regional talent more than a national talent, in some ways like a more athletic Brian Lee. I get sad every time I see a Bradley match because I do think he had the goods to succeed on a bigger scale, though. Solid short match. I do think if they were going to do two run-ins and a title change, they should have gone at least seven minutes or so.

The beatdown of Atlantis to start this off is among the most convincing I've ever seen in CMLL. They basically mug him and leave him for dead while holding Casas and Niebla at bay. Atlantis is unmasked and uses his hands to cover his face in quite the emotional scene. We start the second fall with Negro Casas trying to split his time between defending himself and helping protect Atlantis' identity and having a great deal of trouble balancing the two. Atlantis is literally being tossed around Arena Coliseo with his hands over his face while the rudos bend Casas and Niebla in pretzels in the ring. When Atlantis manages to re-secure his mask, he so recaptures his ability to fight and immediately comes back hard with a vengeance, going for Villano's mask and attacking him in a fit of rage. The technicos isolate Villano III so Atlantis can give him a dose of his own medicine. Interesting atypical finishes to the first two falls with the rudos getting DQ'd in the first fall for overreach in their hatred and thus refusal to listen to the refs, and the technicos meeting the same fate in the second fall. Still, the technicos begin the third fall with momentum on their side, the highlight of which was Atlantis picking up an entire row of seats and hurling it directly at Villano in an awesome visual. We finally get some semblance of normalcy in the last five minutes and the other pairings -- Casas-Pierroth and Wagner-Niebla -- get some spotlight, with Wagner-Niebla in particular being fun for the showmanship from both and Niebla's big dive to the floor. Casas works his character to the very end, showing a little hesitation here even during all the violence, but it does bring the match down just a little only because everyone else seems a bit fired up. The finish to all of this was great, with Villano III scoring a clean submission win over Atlantis to begin the road to March 17. Great match, easily the best trios so far, and it looks like we have a hot feud on our hands. ****1/4

To this point, Los Infernales have definitely been the highlight of 2000 CMLL. I really like how they work so efficiently as a unit, and I also liked how their run of dominance was long enough to really matter, so that the technico comeback really meant something. It's formulaic, sure, but there's a reason for the formula in this case: it works! I am still enjoying the Los Infernales vs Tarzan Boy feud especially, and it's good to see El Satanico start off two decades in a row with some really good stuff. I was a little skeptical of a lot of these matches in spite of the talent involved when I saw the shorter match times, especially compared to 1990s lucha where most of the best trios matches seemed to go 20+ minutes, but so far, most of the matches have had those involved really making the most of the time. ***1/2

Good match. I never get the sense when Jerry Lynn wrestles that he is in a real struggle or competition, but he is a very smooth worker and hits his spots well, and his matches are usually laid out very well. I like how the second time Taijiri tried his backspring elbow, Lynn was waiting on him. And I always mark out for Center Stage. ***

This was fun. Rhino strikes me as a better big match performer even at this point than Mike Awesome, who just wants to get his shit in with his contrived chair and table spots, even though he does come off as a dominant champ. Rhino sells really well, builds comebacks really well and builds to his spots exceptionally well. I think had he not lost his way in 2001 after his injury, he would have eventually developed into a great worker and could have been a real top guy. This would have been a better PPV main event than what we got with Awesome and Spike Dudley I think, not only because Rhino gave such an inspired performance, but also because I think this did more to get Awesome over as a worthy champ because of it. ***

Raven and Corino brawl into the bathroom, but this match isn't much otherwise. I remember when brawling into the crowd was novel and indicative of escalated hate. At some point, it became a way to cover for uninspired brawling. I think there are limitations to what a fancam can capture in a tag match that's basically being wrestled under a tornado rules format.

I included this because it was Super Crazy and Taijiri but I really didn't need to, I suppose. Total mess of a match -- partially because of the crowd and partially because Super Crazy and Taijiri have a third wheel they don't need that's dragging them down.

Match was shaping up to be something very good, maybe even great, until Lynn hurt his ankle on the dive to the floor. Hard to tell if that was on Big Sal not catching him or if Lynn missed his target. Little Guido is so great. I keep hoping to see him in a showcase match that fully exploits his talent.

This is more good angle-driven TV wrestling, a refrain that it sounds like I'll be saying again and again on these WWF matches. Show and Rock are having dissension and Show is slow brewing a heel turn, so he backed away when Rock was about to make the hot tag, which left him vulnerable to an HHH pedigree and clean pin. The match built nicely to the hot tag and HHH was a good antagonizer.

Okay match. Always interesting seeing Benoit work with Nash because it's just a reminder of everything about WCW in a microcosm. WCW just feels like the Jeb! of wrestling, very low energy.

Yeah, this was pretty average, but as someone whose lucha experience has largely been a Greatest Hits experience, I'm glad I'm seeing some week-to-week stuff like this as we go through this project. It's giving me a better idea of the bigger picture and allowing me to have a clearer picture of what a normal match looks like without having to dive into every single match from every single show. There's nothing wrong with this match, it's just not particularly memorable. Maybe that's a compliment -- if every match is memorable, then no match really is. For whatever it's worth, the fans are far more into this match than they were the technically superior match on 1/1.

This was Russo's last Nitro of his first WCW run. It was also Bret Hart's last match ever. I didn't hate the match, and I think of the things that mattered, this was probably pretty far down the list, but I do think it's telling that the main event on the other channel had guys working a fast pace with blood and over here we see a match built primarily around selling and working a body part. Don't get me wrong, as the latter definitely appeals more to my tastes as a wrestling fan, but I do wonder if main events like that only further contributed to WCW's image as a place for old guys. To answer your question, soup, they were teasing dissension in the NWO, but it was revealed to be a SWERVE on Thunder. It was just a weekly Russo storyline du jour. In a funny turn of events, both the WWF and WCW were running the exact same storyline with their top heel factions (fake dissension) during the same week of television.

We haven't even really scratched the surface of 2000 WWF yet, but a consistent theme is already emerging that the company knew how to do fun TV matches at the time and this definitely falls into that category. Rock brings so much energy to every match he's in. DX walks out on HHH due to dissension in the ranks and the Acolytes and Rock follow them out. The brawl between HHH and Mankind turns ugly with HHH giving him a pedigree on the announce table, rendering him a bloody mess, before securing the pin back in the ring. The post-match brawl is better than the match itself since the hatred has escalated by this point, but all of this taken together is excellent, and once again, really good TV wrestling. ***1/4

This didn't connect for me at all. The interference doesn't work in the context of what they are trying to pull off, and the psychology is weird with Dynamite using a clawhold for a long time as a point of offense. That alone doesn't bother me, but when she's the babyface and she's using that in the "opening" matwork sequence (I realize there's some clipping), it's a bit bizarre. Add the hardcore section in and this is very much a match that doesn't know what it wants to be.

I liked parts of this, but I think both guys have offense that's way too repetitive. Spike is worse than Randy Orton about going for his finisher way, way, way too often in the course of a match. As a match to establish Mike Awesome as a killer champion, this was a great piece of a business. As a match, it seemed like they ran out of ideas after three minutes or so, so they just kept repeating them.

It's Sabu vs RVD, so you sort of know there are certain things you'll get and certain things you definitely won't. This doesn't break expectations, but I do think it gives us a good version of the expected matchup between these two. It's hard to fault them too much for stuff I may fault others for just because they are giving people what they'd expect to see in a match like this instead of dictating a specific type of "right" match to the crowd, so for that, I'll give them credit. It's not my preferred type of match, but it works. Their fundamentals are just so awful though. Bad strikes and non-existent transitions between moves, and at one point, Sabu has RVD in the ropes while the ref counts for him to break at five. Moments before that, RVD went through a table and we're supposed to care about breaking at five? That's one reason I always found ECW booking so impossible -- nothing really meant anything, so there were no conventions to really break that would matter other than just saying "fuck" repeatedly and bleeding a lot. I am being negative, but this wasn't a bad effort from two guys that I usually see as needing a less flashy base as an opponent to have a good match. I wouldn't call this good, but I would call it better than expected.

Thanks, that's very much worth mentioning. I don't think it subtracts from the overall points, but I'm going to make some edtis.

1. Tell Dylan what PWO2K is. 2. Continue PWO2K.

I do feel disconnected, but it doesn't really bother me. Sometimes, you have to forge your own way. I go on Twitter and talk about matches from 2000 during Tokyo Dome shows and Raw because that's what I feel like talking about. Just do what you enjoy. For me, that's making sense of it all. I used to worry about larger trends taking hold and the future of hardcore fandom and all of that nonsense, but it's all just noise. The actual match talk is where I choose to spend my time and energy now. I do like to have at least some social connection to other fans, but I have that here, so just remember that as long as we've got each other, we've got the world spinning right in our hands.

This was solid. Too long with way too much at the end, but solid. When I saw Lynn and Super Crazy doing pretty sequences at the beginning, I thought wow, this one's going to be tough to sit through. But then the always trustworthy Little Guido tagged in and started slapping Taijiri in the face and I knew all would be well. That and the post-match angle with Dusty and Corino were the best parts of this one.

This was incredible. I'm a little stunned that this match has been so panned through the years because I think it was easily the best I've seen so far in this project. Hase brought New Japan to All Japan's door in this one in a big way. He knows Misawa can't compete with him on the mat, so he's determined to keep him there. He spends most of the match targeting his arm and elbow in an attempt to get him in position for the cross armbreaker. Each time he tries, Misawa senses it and is able to just barely block it. Each time Misawa tries to take the match back to the usual All Japan style where he's comfortable, Hase refuses to let him, immediately grinding things to a halt, grabbing his arm, and taking him back to the mat. I can't say I've ever seen Misawa dominated quite this way in a match -- I've seen other guys eat him up, but not quite the same way. I counted at least four times that Misawa tried to slip into the rote All Japan finishing stretch and Hase simply would not allow it to happen. NO. SIT DOWN. I AM GOING TO HAMMERLOCK YOU. So in terms of action, this may be the least "busy" match I've seen from Misawa, and if people can't get into it for that reason, I can understand that. But there's some really great storytelling going on in this one that I think has been missed. There's the underlying psychology of NJ vs AJ (even though Hase had been in the company for over two years at this point), but more than that, the approach is Hase sticking to his gameplan no matter what Misawa throws at him to try to take the match in a different direction. Finally, Misawa realizes he needs to give Hase a false sense of security and make him think it's safe to abandon his laser focus on Misawa's arm, because if the match stays in that direction, Misawa will lose his title. So Hase ends up in a vertical strike battle, which is exactly where Misawa wanted him to be, then he's able to hit a knockout elbow and win. This was a great way to put over the contrast in styles, along with Misawa's resourcefulness in terms of facing a very different type of opponent and having to outsmart him since Hase was very much outwrestling him. As I mentioned, this is slower-paced than the usual All Japan fare, but I see that as a key part of the appeal. The match wouldn't work any other way. ****1/2

Only 10:39 but they did a lot with the time. Akiyama has always worked over a leg really well and that's what he did to Takayama here. Takayama only really sold it when he felt like it, which brought it down some considering that Akiyama returned to the leg a few times, but I would still put this on any short list of strong sub-10 minute matches considering the match's positives. Takayama countered by going after Akiyama's bullseyed arm, which was bandaged up. Efficient as a wrestling match could be, where everything both guys did counted from the opening bell. Good stuff. ***1/2

This was pretty great. I am usually not a fan of Omori at all, but I liked him from the very beginning here, taking the fight to Kobashi right away. I loved how much battle there was over every single thing, including the vertical suplex on the apron which culminated in Kobashi putting him in a sleeper and just powering him over the top rope to the middle of the ring in a tremendous sequence. I also liked the smaller detail work like how when Kobashi applied the figure four headlock and Omori tried to break that once again Kobashi's strength was too much to overcome. So they effective made clear that Kobashi was the more powerful guy of the two. In the end, it looked like Omori might get the win, with one particular close call done exceptionally well, and Kobashi's facial expressions showed he knew Omori could have had that one. The sequence after that with Kobashi doing the rope-a-dope into the finishing lariat was outstanding. In losing, and in making a better showing than expected -- with two very specific and well-timed kickouts -- Omori got over quite a bit. This may be the best I've seen him. This may also be one of Kobashi's finest performances in terms of taking a lower-ranked guy through a match and elevating him even while still going over in the end. Lots to love. ****

I got way more out of this than Chad. I caught myself paying lots of attention to the details in the matwork, which was almost Regal-like in its execution and subtlety. There were some interesting dynamics at play here, with Sasuke and TM as the stars of now -- Sasuke paired with the veteran and TM paired with the star on the rise. Sasuke and Hamada were the heels and did a great job of it, sneaking in cheating when they could and isolating TM as FIP until he could tag Mochizuki in and they could clean house. They mostly grounded TM when he was in the ring, working over his arm with some nasty looking stuff. I also liked how they got the story over of Mochizuki's footwork as the great equalizer and of Hamada's headbutts as the great counter-equalizer. I think it's tough to do a traditional Southern style tag when the conventions of the style are that new guys can come in when the legal guys hit the floor, but they managed to do it seamlessly, pulling off a tough balancing act. This isn't my favorite venue, which made the heat pretty incongruent with the work, but in Korakuen Hall, this would have been off the charts. As it stands, it's still pretty great. ****1/4

This was outstanding. I get the sense watching this that CIMA was a huge fan of American wrestling. He does an obnoxious entrance, throws a great working punch, places a priority on being a great heel and sells the shit out of everything done to him. They also start the match by Fujita running to the ring during his entrance to brawl, which is not a match start you see very often in Japan. Both guys are very capable of escalating the pace when the match calls for it, but have a good sense of when to speed up and slow down. CIMA in particular seems years ahead of his experience level. Fujita of course does really well for himself too, and they both occupy time going after body parts -- for Fujita, it's CIMA's arm, and for CIMA, it's Fujita's leg. This is the first long singles match I've ever seen from CIMA and he looks phenomenal in it, going more in the tradition of Dick Togo than Ultimo Dragon in terms of his working style. They probably did a little too much at times or I might have gone higher, but this was awesome and gets me excited for what's to come for both guys. ****1/4