gordi

Ladd yelling at Reed for merely beating Beefcake was pretty funny. Mil Mascaras getting himself over like that feels accurate I like Magnum all fired up like that And a good TV main event building up,toward Houston. I know I'm pulling for Doc and the Barbarian to win that tournament.

Maybe the biggest match of Steve Doll's life. Kind of a nice story there.

JWA Presents: Middleweight Tag Team Championship Tournament/ International Young Lions Showcase Day 1: April 14th, 1986 – Tokyo, Korakuen Hall Aired on tape delay on Asahi TV World Pro Wrestling (ワールド・プロレスリング) Commentary Team: Ichiro Furutachi and Takashi Yamada YOUNG LIONS SHOWCASE MATCHES Hot Property (Travis & Savoldi from MACW), & Spike Huber (MACW/Wild West) vs Triple H (Rocky Hata, Hirokazu Hata, & Mach Hayato) A fast-paced, exciting bout that got the Korakuen crowd heated up nicely. A lot of rope running, hip tosses, arm drags and drop kicks to start off with. Then, Billy Joe Travis got to show off his bumping and selling as he got caught in the Japanese team’s corner and played the Ricky Morton role for a while. The Hot tag to Spike Huber got a pop from the fans, which continued as the muscular youngster threw all three members of Triple H around the ring. Mach Hayato, in particular, bumped spectacularly for Huber’s Backdrop. Huber then picked Hayato up in an Airplane Spin, tagged in Travis, who hit a nice Neckbreaker and then tagged in Savoldi. A Double Hot Shot from Hot Property put an end to the high-energy action. Chris Candido (Lutte/Wild West) & Owen Hart (WWC) vs Yoshihiro Asai (from the JWA dojo) & “Thunder” Yamada Yoshihiro Asai is the future Ultimo Dragon, and Thunder Yamada is the future Jushin Liger. So, it’s not like the action started to slow down with this bout. All four men got to showcase some big moves, with Yamada hitting a Hurricanrana and a Frog Splash from the top rope for nearfalls; Asai debuting his soon-to-be-famous Asai Moonsault (Springboard Moonsault onto a standing opponent outside of the ring) and hitting a nice Handspring Back Elbow on Candido in the corner; Candido nailing Asai with a Suicide Blond (Diving Headbutt) for a 2.999; and Owen and Yamada trading some very intricate, float-over and flip-intensive limb work near the ropes in a spot that eanred them a nice little ovation. The match went back and forth with neither team gaining a clear advantage until Candido and Hart lost patience around the 15-minute mark and started cutting corners, going after Asai’s throat and eyes. An enraged Yamada tried to break that up, but got tossed to the outside, leaving Asai to eat a nasty Blonde Bombshell (Superbomb) and the 1,2,3. Youngbloods (Wellington & Blackman from the AWA) vs Yoji Anjo & Osamu Kido It wasn’t advertised as such, and nobody made a big deal out of it, but this match was worked as an almost pure shoot style bout. No rope running, no fancy stuff. Just kicks, suplexes, and mat work. Wellington & Blackman more than held their own working that style. Their kicks, in particular, were pretty impressive. Anjo (who was part of the original UWF training class under Fujiwara and Maeda) and Kidoh (who trained directly under the legendary Karl Gotch) were clearly more experienced in the style and held the advantage for the majority of the match. Eventually, they isolated Blackman in their corner and wore him down with strikes and holds. Anjo manoeuvred Blackman into the middle of the ring and was about to finish him off when out of nowhere Blackman nailed a Flash Bicycle Kick that knocked Anjo clean out. Brian Pillman, Scorpio (AWA), & Pegasus Kid (Chris Benoit from Lutte) vs Yoshinari Ogawa, Akira Nogami, & Shunji Kosugi Unlike Owen and Candido, who wrestled a clean match until they got frustrated, Nogami and Ogawa didn’t hesitate to start cutting corners. Pillman, Scorp, and Pegasus each got a brief opportunity to shine, but the Japanese team kept cutting them off with quick tags and questionable tactics. Even Kosugi, who is more or less the Barry Horowitz of Japan, got in on the cheap-shot action. Scorpio was the first to lose his temper and start replying in kind. Of course, that got him a warning from referee Verne Seibert, which in turn fired up the crowd and got them boo-ing. While Scorp was debating with the ref, Ogawa attacked him from behind. That, of course, led to the ref being knocked down and everything going Bonzo Gonzo. Red Shoes Unno made his way to the ring to help Verne restore order. Once that was accomplished, Benoit and Kosugi were the legal men in the ring and Benoit was setting up for the Dragon Suplex. Ogawa and Nogami interfered to break that up. As the referee walked Ogawa back to his corner Benoit tossed Nogami out of the ring, nailed Kosugi with a Jumping Tombstone Piledriver, and tagged in Brian Pillman who finished things of with the Air Pillman (Springboard Clothesline). Leon White & Ron Simmons (AWA) vs Kensuke Sasaki & Shinichi Nakano Nakano is maybe the most talented young Japanese heavyweight wrestler not currently on the JWA roster. He definitely got to show off his talent for bumping and selling in this one. The powerful American rookies used Forearm Clubs, Shoulder Blocks, and Spinebusters to batter Nakano. The powerful Japanese rookie – Kensuke – fared a little better, dodging a Leon White Body Avalanche in the corner and chopping the big man down, but he only got a 2-count out of it. Both men tagged out, and after a quick shine segment (including a nice Dropkick) and little more punishment, Nakano ate a Seminole Slam (Spinning Side Slam), and the pinfall. Sting (WWF) vs Mike Shaw Sting is already very popular with the JWA audience from the long run he had here in 1985 as Blade Runner Sting. He even competed in our Japanese Championship tournament (losing in the first round to Riki Choshu in a good match, where Sting may have learned a certain finishing move). Phil Hickerson also lost in the first round of that tourney (to an Ashura Hara Superplex) and he accompanied his Danger Zone Team-mate to the ring here. This was worked in a semi-comedy style, with Danger Zone absolutely cheating up a storm. Shaw attacked Sting’s eyes and throat, pulled his hair and tights, and begged off every time Sting went on offense. Hickerson interfered blatantly and constantly. After 14 minutes of this, Sting whipped Hickerson into the corner, then crushed him by whipping Shaw into the corner after him… then crushed both men with a huge Stinger Splash. Shaw fell face-first into the middle of the ring. Hickerson collapsed to the mat and rolled out to the floor. Sting let out a whoop and applied the very hold that Choshu had used to beat him in ’85: The Sasori-Gatame a/k/a the Scorpion Deathlock. Shaw had no choice but to tap. ***BREAK*** JWA MIDDLEWEIGHT TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT MATCHES Top Guns (Misawa & Hase) vs Los Nómadas (Fishman & Hamada) A completely clean, highly technical match. The Korakuen crowd hung on every move and counter (and there were quite a few). Hase and Fishman put on quite a display of mat-work, and Hamada got a very close near-fall with a Tornado DDT on Hase, but in the end it was Misawa who got the win for his team, with the Tiger Suplex '85 on Hamada. Shining Wizards (Mutoh & Chono) vs Mighty Animals (Inoue & Hamaguchi) Mutoh and Chono fought from underneath for almost 15 minutes while Mighty Animals alternated between beating on the youngsters and working their smooth 70s-junior-style float-over offense, to the joy of the crowd. The end came quickly, as Inoue swung Chono into the ropes to set up a move only to get caught with a running Kenka Kick. Chono then tagged in Mutoh, who came off the top rope with a Diving Overhead Chop, dropped the staggering Inoue with a Low Dropkick to the knee, and finished him off with the Figure Four. The Invaders (Invader #2 and #3, from WWC) vs Tiger Hunters (Black Tiger & Kuniaki Kobayashi) This was an extremely close-fought match. With their experience dealing with the heels in WWC, The Invaders had a counter for every dirty trick that Tiger Hunters tried to pull. Invader #2 was not afraid to go toe to toe with either of his opponents, at one point brawling all around the ring with Black Tiger. Invader #3 worked a more traditional babyface role, bumping big and throwing crisp Dropkicks. Of course, #3 eventually got trapped in Tiger Hunters’ corner and got beat up before making the hot tag. #2 went on the warpath, throwing stiff Double Chops to his opponents’ throats and Slamming Kobayashi into the mat again and again. #2 then rolled Kobayashi up for the pin, and when Black Tiger tried to break it up #3 flew off the top rope with a High Cross Body Block to stop him. Footloose (Kawada & Fuyuki) vs Shootstylists (Takada & Funaki) Due to his knee injury, suffered at the hands of Danger Zone, Samson Fuyuki was unable to participate in this match. In his place, Kawada introduced his now tag team partner: Masa Fuchi. Their new team name: The Facekickers. This match was ridiculously stiff. Takada and Funaki just hammered The Facekickers with various kinds of kicks and strikes. Fuchi had to save Kawada twice. Once after a High Roundhouse Kick from Funaki, and once while Takada had him trapped in a Crossface Chickenwing. Kawada threw several stiff kicks of his own, and (perhaps inspired by their injured friend) the Facekickers fought their way out from underneath. After several minutes of hard-hitting action Fuchi hit three consecutive Belly-to-Back Suplexes on Funaki, and bridged up after the third one to hold Funaki down and earn the pin.

Love the finishes to Orton vs Adams and Piper vs Cactus. Just the right choices for the people involved, and I'll bet the crowd was white-hot or both of those.

I bet that Big Dust showing up in person got a reaction that blew the roof off of Billy Bob's!

Kokina Maximus, The Great Samu, Botswana Beast, Lord Humongous, Killer Khan... just a ton (literally) of big nasty heels, all going down to defeat in what I imagine were hard-fought matches... Which means Floyd Creatchman having another bad day, and also means the fans in TO going home very happy.

Another great match for you all. Three of the four guys are on the JWA main roster, and the other is a free agent in our game. It's from 1989, but it gives a very good idea of how the veteran wrestlers like Giant Baba and Rusher Kimura were booked in Japan in the 1980s. Tenryu takes Baba out before the bell, Rusher is forced to take on two of the baddest wrestlers in the world on his own... can the old guys battle back?

Watched the show last night with my one gaijin friend who is a big WWE fan. We watched it on a well-known video-sharing website (The one based in San Bruno, California) in a format that cut out a lot of the between-match stuff so it was "only" three and a half hours or so. I watches the pre-show and the post-WM RAW after I got home, reading through this thread in the down spots, so I could share in the "staying up all night to watch WM" vibe. The first 50 or so pages of this thread were great. I wish I could have watched the show live and commented along with all y'all. I was totally burned out by the end of the main show, even in the abridged version... but after the 30 minute bus-ride home I was ready for more (and curious enough about where they were going with Nicholas) that I got right on to RAW. I was half-asleep and paying more attention to this thread than to the show but I enjoyed the (also abridged) pre-show enough that I managed to watch the whole thing before passing out. My main (hot) take on the whole thing: Very very unpredictable. I didn't see the Matt and Bray team-up coming. That could be fun for a while until we all get sick of it. Hopefully they don't beat it to death too quickly. I enjoyed Jeff's surprise return on RAW and laughed at the backstage interaction between the three of them (or, more accurately, I laughed at Rollins and Baylor's reaction to it). Cruiserweight Tournament Finals match was OK. The "Heart!"/"Soul!" stuff felt a little forced, but I hadn't watched the build-up and so I had no context for it. Women's Battle Royal was really good. I liked the story at the end with Bayley screwing over her friend, thinking she'd won because of that, then ultimately losing anyway. Triple Threat IC match was better than I expected. The pace and split-second timing was pretty impressive. I really enjoyed the hell out of Flair vs Asuka. I'm a huge Asuka mark because she's from Osaka and when he was called Kana she often showed up at local indie shows and events. I'm not too upset about the streak ending, that kind of thing can become an albatross eventually, and I think they let it go on long enough that she's established as a legit threat to anyone in the division. I liked how Flair kept selling the shoulder right up through the finish. I LOVED the top rope counter into the Triangle Choke! What a great spot! Fatal Four Way: Yikes. Jinder going over Russev clean is pretty much straight troll booking. At least they kept it short. Up to this point, I would have lost all of my money had I been betting on match outcomes. Just surprise after surprise so far. I agree with all of the praise being heaped on the Roussey match. She really came through. The whole thing made me happy. That was the good kind of surprise Triple Threat was in a death spot. It sounds like they at least gave New Day and Usos the chance to tear it up on the post-WM SmackDown. Looking forward to watching that. Again, I was a bit surprised by the result. The Elias troll job was pretty damned funny, and the "We are scum-bags" chant on RAW legit cracked me up. When Cena vs Taker started, I said to my friend, "If this goes long it will be horrible. I hope they keep it short." I got my wish! Definitely did not see a straight-up squash match coming. Crazy! I loved DB getting the hottest of hot tags. Love seeing him back, but I cringe every time he takes a bump now. I LOVED angry monster Nia Jax. The James beat-down was horrifying, like my exaggerated memories of some Vader match. I thought Bliss going after her eyes was exactly the right heel move. Surprised that match didn't get more love in this thread. All through AJ vs Nakamura I kept thinking, "Maybe I'm just tired." I popped for the counter-into-the-Styles-Clash finish, but otherwise... Turns out, it wasn't just me. Post-match was great, though. Yet another big surprise, and heel Nakamura could be really fun. Braun going out into the crowd and picking a 10-year-old to be his partner was so predictable. How many times have we seen that one? As I said, I was so interested in seeing where they went with this that I got started on RAW as soon as I got home. I texted my friend that Nicholas failed his drug test and so he and Braun were stripped of the belts. I actually liked how they handled it on RAW. Main Event was mostly terrible. Everyone came out of that looking worse. I never could have predicted that the Rousey match would blow Roman vs Brock out of the water, but here we are. As has been said already, total video game finisher spamming. Complete waste of the Crimson Mask. Poorly booked, and poorly worked. Still: Possibly the best first half of a WrestleMania ever. I enjoyed the show. Probably enjoyed the first 50 or so pages of this thread even more.

I completely understand the hometown aspect. Differing viewpoints don't bother me in the least. It's refreshing that I can dislike Asuka, Joe, Kassius Ohno, etc. without being accused of trolling like I probably would be on any other board. It's why PWO is great. P.S. Was your "Renee" an ex-girlfriend or something? I can't stop replying I'm pretty sure that what I was picking up on was Renee maybe being disappointed by her demotion but still trying to show enthusiasm. I wasn't aware of that whole side of the story. It most likely isn't that she was being phony, but that she was feeling a bit sad and so her enthusiasm came across as kind of forced.

Yep, because Renee seems pretty beloved and appears to be a genuine wrestling fan. Yours is literally the first cross word I've ever seen against her anywhere. And Asuka isn't over, or at least her streak wasn't. Unlike Goldberg's, it was forced, completely inorganic, and - here's the important part - no one gave a shit. Don't wanna derail this thread so I'll stop with this post... but I am surprised that Renee Young comes across as genuine to anyone. Maybe her voice reminds me of someone I knew in Canada who was a phony or something? It was an immediate, visceral, reaction from me. And I was totally, deeply, interested in the Asuka streak as were all of the WWE fans I know over here. Of course, to us, she's a local girl made good so that has at least something to do with it. (I live in Nara City, which is close to Osaka and Kyoto, so Asuka and Nakamura are both local "guys"... Asuka even more so, since she often showed up on Osaka indie shows when she was still called Kana, and even came to some of the same parties as me) Your idea that "no one gave a shit" is a s odd to me as my idea that "Renee Young seems like a big phony" is to you. Agree to disagree? Edit: Yep, it could just be that she's bummed about the demotion but still trying to work up some enthusiasm, and that's what I'm picking up on. That actually makes a lot of sense.

She's not having as much airtime as she used to, BUT her role as the host for Talking Smack was amazing. You should give it a watch sometime, basically all the deserved praise she gets has to do with her role there. Also, particularly, I thought she was also a good commentator. A lock for HOF to be honest. I've never seen Talking Smack. I'm a total fair-weather WWE guy. Mostly just tune in for RumbleMania season then drop out after the post-WM RAW (though it sounds like I'll definitely have to check out today's SmackDown, too). It's a tough call whether Young or Corey Graves has gotten on my nerves more these past two months, though at least Graves has had his moments. I can buy the idea that, if I'd seen Renee Young at her best I might have given her faux-excited PPV pre-show act a lot more leeway.

This is a weird hot take.Weirder than "Asuka isn't over"??? What is the general take on Renee Young? In what little I have seen from her (from the Rumble through WrestleMania) she has sincerely come across to me as someone who doesn't believe a word she is saying and who is doing a terrible job of pretending to enjoy being at a WWE event.

I am really looking forward to heel Shinsuke. That interview was a great first step. Also: Renee young accusing someone else of being disingenuous involves a degree of cognitive dissonance that is almost physically painful. I don't think that woman has ever uttered a genuine word in her life. When she says "I'm Renee Young" I think, "No you aren't, you big phoney."

Love that main event. Great brawl with a crazy finish.

Man, your roster is so stacked. You could practically just pull names out of a hat and get one good match-up after another. Both of those cards look like so much fun. Very well booked! I think my top 3 would have been: 3) Bigelow vs Lafon 2) Regal vs Taylor 1) Steamboat vs Bock

Huge win for Big John. Imagine choosing Maxx Payne and Jeff "Worst Interviews Ever" Gaylord over Brian Pillman. That's Sullivan for you, though. He's nothing if not unpredictable. Looking forward to Pillman working as more of a good guy once he returns from Japan. Snake Pit vs Piper's Pit continues to bring the goods every week. That's a great feud. Garvin vs Adams will be a good one!

Not to get off track, but I think that's one of the really fun and entertaining aspects of this project overall: pretty much every promotion has a distinct feel, and generally that feel reflects something of that particular territory in the 80s without going so far as to be a carbon copy. I kind of think that if you scrubbed all of the names and locations out of three or four randomly chosen shows and got someone from this board to read them... they could probably figure out "oh, that one's WWC... and that one's maybe Mid South... and that one is Japan..." WWC would definitely be one of the easiest ones to pick out. You've created something really distinct, here.

A lot to like here. I agree with LowBlow that you gave Bundy the right kind of TV debut. I like how the Assassin handing out foreign objects worked the first time but backfired the second time. Austin Idol as a baby face is actually working really well! Good baby face wins from Hot Property and Terry Taylor, as well. I like the Travis & Taylor pairing. Travis & Idol might make a good team, too, some day. Nice to see Youngblood get some payback on the Cobra. And finally two intense, heated brawls to finish up strong.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey... ...and recording artist Chris Jericho

I love all the different heelish ways the bad guys win their matches here. Great booking with the battle royal furthering several storylines (Boogie Woogie vs Paul Jones, friction in American Made, and so on) and with Duggan getting the big win after being screwed out of victory earlier. That's some nice story telling.

Like spaldoni and Kevin, that insane visual of JYD Pwerslamming the giant John Studd is the memory that will stick with me from this show. A lot of good tag action on the show as well.

I like how you (and Jim Crockett) handled the announcement of the Four Horsemen's departure. Classy and straightforward. The JJ Dillon angle was very well done as well, killing two birds with one stone: Starting a face turn for Ole and introducing the new monster. "Caspian Empire number one!" With guys like Sheik, Idol, Bundy, Boogie Woogie, and so on you've got so many colourful larger than life characters on the roster right now. Hot Property are kind of like a fresh version of the Rock n Roll Express. Who will be their Midnight Express, Studd Stable or the Fabulous Blondes? Spring Spectacular is looking really good!

I never realized, until right now, that I'd really like to see The Hillbillies vs The Freebirds!

Lots of great stuff here, including Kobayashi looking good... But I wanted to focus on how great it is that you actually booked Barrabas' team to lose the NWA 6- Man titles in another territory and now there are repercussions back in San Juan. That is awesome cooperative booking. You guys pulled that off beautifully.

The Horsemen with Bobby Heenan. It's almost too beautiful.