Phil Schneider

This was pretty much a popcorn match, with both guys breaking out all of their spots until there was a finish. For that type of match it was pretty good, although nothing I will remember later (unlike the British match earlier which was a similar style but with more pizzaz) . I liked how Fenix brought a little extra to all of his kicks and chops, there was one point where he toed Sydal in the eye, which was brutal looking. Sydal is good at playing the outclass veteran who used to be able to jump as high as these kids, but now is a step slow, kind of like a Grizzlies era Vince Carter. Still the match ending on a reverse rana,, into a SSP after every nearly every other match on the show through out a reverse rana as a nothing mid-match move, really hurt the finish, this show really needed someone backstage producing this tourney.

This was a bummer, I like both guys a lot and you figure they would have lots of experience working each other, but lots of this felt off, and even the big spots weren’t as big or interesting as stuff that was hit earlier in the tourney. Pentagon Jr. has a lot of charisma but this wasn’t good.

Trent ? is the former Trent Barretta and an ex Chuck Taylor partner, and he has the same junior college improv troupe approach to wrestling. After his early shenanigans he tries to have a serious indy wrestling match, and he isn’t particularly good at that either. We get the 43rd reverse rana of the tourney, and some german suplexes and shit. Lee is a guy I have liked in other matches (He had an awesome sprint with Bailey in PWG earlier this year) but he couldn’t do much here

Took a while to get going, as they did a lot of dance contest horseshit which didn’t do much for me. Had a fun finishing run, including a great dive by Angelico, but the problem with tourneys like this is, is that you get inured to all of the high spots, there has been a reverse rana in every match so far, so when Rich Swann does one, it is hard to care, same with 450s and 630s, just the same kind of spots over and over again. I liked this fine, but I could see having a problem watching all three nights of this tournament.

One of my fears about this tourney was the dreaded PWG bloat, this is a fed in the past that has had 14 minutes matches drag to 25, so I was happy this was a compact 9 minutes. Both guys had some cool ideas, that they only hit sometimes, I liked Cage doing curls with Aerostar's body, and that finish hanging Steiner screwdriver was uncalled for. Cage is good in Lucha Underground 4-Ways, and this felt like it could have used two more guys to do some stuff in between their big spots. If they had included Big Ryck and Drago this might have been something great.

This first round placed guys together who had worked each before or worked similar styles. It hurt a little on the dream match aspect of a tourney like this, but it did allow new guys to avoid awkwardness and show their stuff. This was a total blast, both guys are hitting very high difficulty flips and arm drags, I know my man Robert Bihari must have been losing his shit live, Andrews especially was just contorting his body in mid air with a variety of crazy takedowns, reminded of a taller Mascarita 2000, including one of the prettiest springboard ranas I have ever seen. Osprey was also really fast, and got crazy height on everything he did, his twirling kick looked like something out of a wire kung fu movie. Exactly the kind of opening round tourney debut showcase match you want to see.

I really enjoyed this. Busick is great as a bully against highflyers, he has had a series of good matches against Mike Bailey and this was in that style, Everett would hit some big time highspots inbetween Busick muderizing him with suplexes, clotheslines and uppercuts. There were point where it felt a little formless, but the big stuff was big. At one point Everett went back on offense with this leaping one motion backwards rana which was one of the prettiest highspots I have seen in a while, really shouldn’t have been thrown out in the middle of the match. Finish run of Busick offense looked awesome as Everett takes stuff so crazy that all of Busicks moves look deadly.

Here is my SC review of that match Wayne Shamrock v. Naoki Sano I was pretty much in shock during this match, I couldn't believe what I was watching. I have never particularly cared for a thing Ken Shamrock has ever done, so I expected nothing out of this match, and it turned out to be as good as anything on the 80's Other Japan set. So much to love about this match, as they pretty much went back and forth from spectacular mat exchanges into awesome slugfest strike exchanges, great takedowns, into more spectacular mat exchanges. The pacing of this was great, I especially loved how they paced their mat highspots. One guy would get in position and struggle a bit, and their would be a lull, and then super fast move into a choke or a kneebar. The crowd would pop huge for all of the mat spots, and it was the pacing of them which would really do it. Then after the mat near falls they would stand and just lay into each other with big shots, Shamrock's strikes looked way better here then in the previous match, and Sano was drilling him too. This was before Sano went to UWFI so I would guess this was his first shootstyle match ever, and he was a master of it. This was Sano's match, and while Shamrock was game, you could tell Sano was leading him. I also loved how Sano mixed in pro moves, as I actually bought an STF as a shoot submission, and a DDT as a shoot throw. I have never heard anyone even mention this match before and it is a total hidden classic.

Here is Shamrock v. Sano if you want to see him in a great match

He was really great in PWFG, but that was only maybe a half a dozen matches. Don't remember his WWF stint being much

Thanks to the wayback machine, I found Tomk and my road report for this show. This was 14 years ago, I am old RED! and the BRISCOES! have a future if they have a future! JUSTICE PAIN! loves the kids! JESUS! bled for you sins! DOORKNOCKERS! and other stuff from the CZW Best of the Best Tourney! Authors: TKG: Tom K. PAS: Phil Schneider BACKSTORY: TKG: Show up at Phil’s around 1:30. Being very polished as a roadtripper, I brought a map, as well as the yahoo and mapquest directions. PAS: I am completely intellectually unable to work with directions so Tom’s preparedness was a big help. TKG: We are given car, with a best of James Taylor tape in it. There is a best of Nelson Riddle tape sitting on the dashboard waiting to be played. And we hit the open road. PAS: I was able to finagle the car from the mysterious Dr. Ricardo Ligor, who you may be hearing more about in the future. TKG: Pretty early in trip, I forget to tell Phil to make a turn, so open the map and ignore the mapquest. PS: We stop off in Aberdeen, MD for Taco Bell where I use my boxing polished hand-eye coordination to win free cinnamon twists, and we observe the tremendous numbers of Baltimore Ravens T-shirts which are worn like some redneck catholic school uniform in this part of Maryland. The army appears to be running a car wash in the parking lot, which really puzzles me considering there is a Republican president and all. We also see the van painted with “Jesus Bled for Your Sins” written in dripping red paint in the style of a horror movie or IWA Japan poster, we ain’t in the city anymore boys. TKG: We stop in Delaware to get gas. Working at the gas station are two young girls in their late teens. I chat with the plumper of the two with the heavier eye shadow. She had just had a horrible prom night, as her date didn’t treat her well. I tried to comfort her. Phil tries to convince the two to quit their gas station jobs and join us on the trip to see wrestling in Jersey. PAS: Tom offered to take the chubbier of the two, leaving me to attempt to ply the anorexic one with my played out 1990’s game. TKG: Neither of us manages the presence or polish to get them to come with us. The road trip was just too much to ask. We should have stuck with the simpler “hey we’ll buy you a pack of ciggs if you…behind the station” offer. PAS: I blame myself, I think I went too “loud guy”. I should have demurred to Tom’s breadth of experience in picking up teenagers. My attempt to take the lead was like Goldberg trying to call the Regal match. TKG: We arrive in Sewell. Sewell is actually beautiful looking pastoral farm country. If this were Virginia, I’d call it horse country. I was expecting Sewell to look more like Camden, ex-industrial area with crackheads, check cashing stores, and liquor-terias on every corner. Once we got to stadium there was no liquor store in site. PAS: The lack of liquor stores, and our failure to compensate for that fact was the major failure of the trip. TKG: We look to be some of the oldest people at show. Unlike your southern indies, this is a mostly male audience. PAS: The crowd was the seediest I have ever seen at a wrestling event, innumeriable tatoos, lots of pissed off juvenile delinquents giving angry suburban trash stares from hooded brow pierced eyes, outside the couple of black guys, it looked like we were at a Screwdriver show. TKG: The oldest men at show all had John Waters-esque mustaches. I think they were recruiting for the local militia. PAS: Piercing highlights included the guy with a pair of studs imbedded in the back of his neck, and his girlfriend with the white t-shirt huge breasts and visable doorknocker nipple piercings. TKG: He also had the giant earing inside his ear. This kind of made him look like the butchest, fattest, whitest Masaai woman I had ever seen. TKG: We reintroduce ourselves to Jeff and all the board posters. “Ric Blade Mark” mistakes Phil for Dean. Phil is very polished at the whole intro bit. I think I have more presence, but am less polished. PAS: I have the kind of polish that you can only get by working nearly a hundred wrestling reports, being on the selection committee of all 3 500’s and innumerable long message board threads. Tom hasn’t reached the big leagues yet. THE SHOW: TKG: The show starts off J Cup style as all the competitors are introduced in the ring by Zandig (brandishing a weed whacker). PAS: Zandig sure cusses a lot. And is really fat for a guy who used to do an Ultimate Warrior gimmick. TKG: Well everyone comes out other than Juventud. PAS: I break out the Tijuana crackhouse joke, but I kid the Juventud TKG: All of the first round matches are going to be three ways. I really dislike 3 ways. I spent a good portion of the car ride up talking about how much I dislike three ways and cluster fucks. Someone is always left feeling out of place and not sure exactly how to connect to the action. When should you break up the action? When should you let it play out? Pro-wrestling three ways suffer from the same problems. PAS: God those stories, Tom is quite the yarn spinner, he is like the Spaulding Grey of the perverse sexual underworld. I hate three way wrestling matches too BTW. RIC BLADE vs. WINGER vs. RED TKG: I had been wondering what exactly Winger was going to do since he couldn’t set himself on fire. At least in this round, the answer was not much. He was willing to take Blades power moves right on the top of his head. PAS: I seem to remember a plancha or something, Winger spends most of this tourney looking slightly out of place, he is pretty electric in garbage matches, but it seems like a waste to fly him over for a wrestling tourney. TKG: Red takes everything on his face and head and is insane. PAS: Red looks about 12 years old and is a hell of a smooth highflyer, his spots are comparable to Jody Fleish or Ricky Marvin or Dragon Kid, and his standing shooting star press is pretty flawless and impressive, not much in between spots, but this kid has a future if he has a future. Blade hit a bunch of nice spots and a really cool freaked out submission thing, but his was more a cameo as he was off to the JAPW show later in the night. TKG: At end of match Blade does a speech about how tough Winger is. Blade put over Wingers toughness by pointing out how Blade had almost “accidentally ended Wingers career” in Japan. Ok exactly how many Japanese workers have had their careers almost “accidentally ended” by CZW workers? PAS: I believe he said he accidentally almost killed him, boy Kojika is just going to be left with Sekimoto and Shunme Matsuzaki unless he kiboshes the CZW deal. SICK NICK MONDO vs. MARK BRISCOE vs. JAY BRISCOE TKG: Clearasil is sponsoring this whole tournament as none of these guys looks over 17. TKG: Briscoes are a tag team. They come out with their heel manager Discount Dewey Donovan who doesn’t want the Briscoes wrestling each other. That story never really got followed through on. The Briscoes rarely used any double team moves on Nick. It pretty much starts off every man for himself, and the Briscoes don’t really pull out the double teams till end. Everything about this match felt a step and a half off, as spots just took too long to get set up. PAS: I liked this match better then Tom, but they did do a double Van Damniator which was about the most preposterous thing I have seen live. I believe I audibly snorted. The Briscoes mom nervously had her hand on my shoulder as they were setting up the table spot, I found the presence of the Briscoes parents rather unnerving, especially when people would go up to them after their singles match and compliment them on the job their kids did, when one of those kids had a concussion and both nearly broke their necks, but hey they aren’t my kids and I did enjoy the wrestling. TKG: I am a strike mark so while rest of crowd pops for an ugly looking corkscrew, I pop big for Sick Nicks punches and kicks. Sick Nick may quickly become my favorite indie garbage worker. Sick Nick has surprisingly good worked strikes. Not really stiff looking strikes but just well worked, like he had studied Billy Joe Travis tapes. I mark out for Nicks punches. PAS: I think Tom is overstating the greatness of Nick Mondo, he ain’t Dick Murdoch. TKG: No he ain’t Murdoch. Murdoch throws punches were you believe hes actually shoot punching his opponent. Mondo’s punches aren’t stiff, just really believable. Roddy Piper wishes he could throw punches like this. TKG: Nick works a “guy who NEEDS to be a hardcore worker because of voices in head or whatever” gimmick. His strikes are good enough that he doesn’t really need to be a hardcore worker if he chose not to. Of course Little Spike Dudley’s matwork is good enough that he shouldn’t need to…..Screw it, it’s a lost cause. PAS: Mark Briscoe also does a nice springboard plancha. And the powerbomb that Mondo took through table looked nasty. MINORU FUJITA vs. NICK BERKE vs. JOSE MAXIMO TKG: Ok so I was happy with Mondo’s punches and in comes Nick Berk. As Berk throws actual stiff strikes. Nick Berk works a Texan gimmick I guess. He comes in at a worked weight of 220, which makes me laugh. PAS: I liked Nick Burke all though his Texas gimmick contrasted with his Erik Watts Special K dealer shirt and necklace. TKG: Berk and Fujita exchange stiff good-looking strikes. PAS: Yeah those were neat, Maximo did very little. TKG: Maximo does an Asai moonsault to Phil’s chin. And then stays out of way. Match ended way too fast. PAS: Yup and it was shaping up to be the best three way of the night too. TRENT ACID vs. JOEL MAXIMO vs. RUKKUS TKG: Acid had lots of “polish”. For a guy who I expected to be all bumps, he was very well rounded, leaned in on his strikes, could work the mat, and take the nutty bumps. Ruckus was replacement for Juve. He supposedly dropped weight for tournament. PAS: Yeah Acid looked pretty good, although facially he looked like an emaciated Rhyno which was kind of disturbing. TKG: Ruckus is chubby guy with highspots. He is pretty big over among the CZW crowd. Most of his spots looked pretty awkward to me. PAS: Rukkus sukkus TKG: And it’s INTERMISSION TIME PAS: And we geek out by calling Dean and giving him a real time report. EDDIE VALENTINE/JON DAHMER/RUCKUS (ACCOMPANIED BY MACSMACK) vs. DANNY ROSE/ADAM FLASH AND JEFF ROCKER TKG: Jeff Rocker takes a beating throughout this match. It looked like the kind of beating Bill Watts would book for people leaving the territory. PAS: Yeah Rocker was the Mike Bell of the evening TKG: Dahmer and Valentine do a lot of neat and painful looking double team spots. The thinner of the two looks to have had ptomaine poisoning and I think he’s going to vomit any minute. The bigger gets blown up pretty early. But still a fun tag team. PAS: I liked those two, although I would like to see how they would do in a traditional southern tag style match, rather then in the Public Enemy on Sunday Night Heat match. TKG: I continue not to be impressed by Ruckus. PAS: His highspots looked kind of like the stuff Kronus used to do. And so did his wrestling. WINGER vs. RED TKG: Winger comes out in new mask. Red did a bunch of spots into nothing destroying knees. Somehow its one thing to destroy your skull and it’s a whole other level of insane to destroy your knees. I mean you can still have a wrestling career with no functioning brain. PAS: I like Red, I need to get more of him on tape. TKG: Red hits skytwister press that hits Winger right in head, almost taking out our chairs in the process. I am not sure if Winger just really sold this well or was legit concussed. PAS: This was like 6 inches from us too, and that was one of the big fun things of the night, being so close to insanity, grabbing your coat as Trent Acid flies into the chair you are sitting in. That kind of close approximation to violence isn’t something you get at a Smackdown taping, and is one of the reasons why Indy wrestling is so fun. TKG: Winger wins with a senton. Winger’s senton is just great looking: it gets a lot of altitude and lands deliberate and hard. No it doesn’t involve corkscrew or rotations but it’s infinitely more impressive than the 450 the crowd popped for in the previous match. PAS: Yup, although the rest of Wingers wrestling left something to be desired. MARK BRISCOE vs. JAY BRISCOE TKG: Donovan comes out and demands that this match not happen. Donovan is banned from ringside for rest of show. TKG: The two lock up (always collar and elbow lockup-no knucklelocks). When two brothers wrestle you expect them to work stiff on each other, neither Briscoe leaned in on their strikes for most of the match. This kind of makes sense, I guess since this wasn’t a “brother feud” but rather two brothers working each other in a tourney (although they threw strikes at each other pretty early in 3-way). The older brother seemed less tentative with his strikes. PAS: Yeah they did have a chop section in the end that was pretty stiff, I do think it should have been a little more viscerally violent, like it is when brothers really fight. TKG: Match began with fun really good mat work. Schneider who has always thought I was a pederast, now thinks I am a homosexual pederast as I mark out for young boy riding sections. But the matwork was great. Beautiful tight looking “polished” armbars. PAS: Yeah the matwork ruled it, we started a Holy Shit chant for the armbar. Not a ton of highspots for a bunch of young kids, although Mark did do a moonsault onto a prone Jay who was lying on the floor, which he is lucky he didn’t shatter his kneecaps doing. TKG: They do start a huge headdrop section. For guys who didn’t strike each other hard, they sure were willing to drop each other right on their heads. Any of the headdrops would have worked as an ok finisher. I was ok with them kicking out of some of the headdrops, some of the kick outs were done well (took a lot of time to go for cover after drop, etc.) others weren’t. PAS: I seem to remember a Cham Pain style pedigree, a burning hammer, and two Tequila Sunrise suplexes, their may have been a released German in there somewhere, It got to be a little much, as they were just burning through legit finishers, and the match could have easily ended with two less headrops. MINORU FUJITA vs. NICK BERKE TKG: That last match got a standing ovation and just left the crowd drained. I felt sorry for Berk and Fujita having to go on after that match. I would have booked an intermission right here. PAS: Yeah this was death to follow. TKG: Fujita and Berk decide the only way to go on after a mattastic match is by taking it right back to the mat. And it works. Fujita went after Berk’s arm, Berk went after Fujita’s knee. PAS: I don’t think the previous match was mattastic, we may have dug the matwork the most, but the crowd remembered the neck trauma. Working a mat match was a smart move, just because it was very different from the previous match. TKG: Fujita really knows how to smartly work the crowd. He has them in the palm of his hand yelling at the ref to “shut up” during every rope break “five count”. TKG: Berk decides that as a Texan he’s obligated to do a Brody tribute and yells “huch” after every punch. TKG: Again this match ended quickly. I’d like to see these two go longer. PAS: This match had really nice counter wrestling for an indy show, and if it wasn’t for some real awkwardness near the end, it would have been the best match. TRENT ACID vs. JUVENTUD GUERRERRA TKG: Juve is a very “polished” worker. He mailed this match in but still was tight. Juve did his Rock shtick. Thankfully the Juice unlike the Rock actually knows how to throw good punches, brawl meaningfully and drop a mean elbow drop. PAS: This was sort of Juvi by the numbers, but he had a certain presence, which was really neat to see. Juventud is probably one of the top ten most talented workers in the world, and although this match had a WCWSNish feel to it, it was still fun to see him up close and live. AND ITS INTERMISSION NUMBER TWO WINGER vs. FUJITA TKG: I didn’t expect to see this match. I couldn’t see most of the brawling in the crowd. Still Fujita has the fans in the palm of his hands. His charisma translates easy. PAS: The wrestling section of this was pretty great although the stopped the wrestling to do some very pedestrian 1999 BJW style crowd brawling which sucked and was uneeded, the crowd had already shown they would buy into a wrestling match, and in CZW the bar had been raised for brawling, as far as crazy bumps and such, tossing each other impotently into walls, wasn’t going to cut it. TKG: Winger wins with a variation of la majistral, which involves him hooking the leg slightly differently than your normal La majistral. I’ll need to see it on tape to figure it out. Cool looking roll up. PAS: In the ring this match rocked, out of the ring it sucked TRENT ACID vs. JAY BRISCOE TKG: This is the match of the night. Mark Briscoe comes out with enormous knot on his head. Trent continues to impress. PAS: That knot was knarley and Mark had that thousand yard stare thing too. TKG: Jay and Trent do some mat work as wrestling fans never get burned out by more mat work. TKG: Acid leans in on his strikes. The whole chair set up spots actually didn’t seem too contrived and were impressive manly bumps. PAS: Acid was really laying it in, which is why I liked this match the best, the two chair spots, Acid laying out Jay on a series of chairs and doing a legdrop off the top to the floor, and Jay spearing Acid out of the ring into the chairs, were both insane and really innovative and neat looking. The end was better then the other Briscoe match too, as Acid just wastes an ascending Briscoe with a yakuza kick and gives him a reverse razor’s edge thing (The Acid Bomb) off the top. Real good match, and props need to be given out to Jay Briscoe for delivering a hell of a pair of matches. WARGAMES GARBAGE MATCH JUSTICE PAIN/ WIFEBEATER/ LOBO vs. SICK NICK MONDO / NATE HATRED / HARDCORE NICK GAGE: TKG: Justin Pain does his Tommy Dreamer-esque speech PAS: He blathers on about how great these highflyers are, and what amazing talent these kids have, and then talks a little about how they are going to show us some ultraviolence, but doesn’t say ultraviolence in a Malcolm McDowell voice. TKG: Nick Gage starts the match off with, I think, Justin Pain TKG: There are like three piledrivers in opening minutes. I’ve watched too much lucha and Memphis. I am disappointed that no one riots after all the piledrivers. PAS: Triple piledrivers as a transition spot suck ass TKG: It’s a MARTINETE! And the ref is right there. TKG: Sick Nick Mondo’s punches didn’t look as cool in this match, but he’s still the star of match. PAS: I like his gimmick and look and he will take a beating for you TKG: Discount Dewey Donovan is back out for this match even though he had been banned from ringside. PAS: Wifebeater looks like Sean Stasiak. He wrestles like him too. TKG: Lobo looks like the guy who you would expect to run the “Ferengi Fan Club” table at a Dr. Who convention. He kind of wrestles like that guy too. PAS: Lobo was fucking awful, he must own the ring or supply the painkillers or something. The crowd really turned on this match which is sort of pathetic considering the beating these guys laid on each other. Although the elitist in me enjoys a vampire crowd marking out for matwork and disdaining chairshots. FINALS: WINGER vs. TRENT ACID TKG: Worst match of tourney. They Russo up the finish by having Johnny Cashmere come out in the Winger mask. PAS: This match was an abortion, the whole crappy Kashimere angle killed the crowd, and then Winger spent way too long setting up the balcony senton, and then the do some roll ups and Winger wins. Bad match and it really left a bad taste in my mouth. This kind of masturbatory booking sucks no matter where it rears its head. TKG: Post match Zandig comes out to congratulate all the tourney participants and give Winger his trophy. Zandig surprises me, by not turning heel and smashing trophy over Wingers head. PAS: Zandig then gives this weird kayfabe break speech about how the kids (Briscoes) really laid out a match and didn’t just bust out highspots, I thought I was reading Powell’s Take or something. Lots of cussing too, forget the mustard they need to have a wash your mouth out with a bar of soap death match. Post-Show: TKG: We go to Pizzeria Unos for food. We talk wrestling. I call the payphone at a bar outside of the college I went to, to see if anyone’s there that I know. We go. There are next to no women out at bar, bartender who I haven’t seen in about two years gives me a hug and a free pitcher, and I learn about bets I had made with freshmen when I was a junior. Pretty disappointing all around. PAS: I was really expecting more debauchery, I think the error was made by leaving the bar to go to the house party as the house party was basically lamer hippies bong passing, and the scattering of girls were very in need of sammich. Tom almost gets left in Philly to attempt to fulfill his word by drinking an entire keg in a day,, but is able to weasel a stay of execution. The attempted TKG guilting of pony tailed Phish fan into procurement was the comedic highlight of the afterparty. TKG: Phil drives back to DC. PAS: And comes very close to nodding out TKG: Taxi companies hang up on us. “Can we get a taxi”…”hey she hung up on me”. I get home around 6:30 AM, filled with energy and excitement about this amazing art form known as THE pro-rasslin’. PAS: It was quite the fun time all around, CZW has some talented youngsters although I wish they would take more of a “less is more” approach in some of their matches. I would like to see kids like the Briscoes and Red working in two years and they are really burning through their bodies at a frightening rate. I am cyked to see Fujita working the US though, he is fun as all get out.

Yet I still have to argue with blockheads who say he isn't charismatic, isn't over, elicits little reaction, and is only capable of golf claps. Dude, you don't HAVE to argue with them, let idiots be idiots

I was pretty bored by the six-man on night one, I thought it was a classic PWG bloat fest that just kept going and going until I stopped caring. Was really surprised at how much I liked Andrews v. Osprey and thought Everett v. Busick was really good too.

I admit I only watch the big shows, but when I saw the mechanics live I thought they sucked. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a good southern heel team. those guys aren't even frank and c.w Anderson much less Ole and Arn

I remember loving this in 2003 and damn does it hold up. Tremendous, tremendous match, there are a bunch of very well respected wrestlers who have never been in a match this good. Honda's knee selling was awesome, I loved how he kept slapping at it to work out the kinks. Finishing run was bonkers, all of the counter work around the Olympic Hell variations was insane. I especially loved Saito's suplex counter to the Olympic Hell, and the Honda getting uranaged and slapping on the Hell from the bottom.

This was a 2/3 falls taped fist match for the Brass Knuckle Title. Rocky came to the ring with 70's Heavyweight Cleveland Williams who they said was in charge of taping his hands, cool old school touch. The match itself was well laid out, with Brody doing more selling then I am used to seeing from him. Still the execution just wasn't there, if you are going to do a taped fist match, I am going to need to see stuff land, and both guys punches were really loose. I liked Brody ripping up the turnbuckle, and was surprised to see Rocky go over, but this wasn't nearly violent enough. Brody continues to be the biggest old school lie.

I am loving all of the Gino. He is a guy with a mixed rep as a wrestler before this, and I think this footage is really pumping up his rep. Lothario and Gino are definitely the two guys with the biggest reputation boosts from the service so far.

Another true hidden gem. 2/3 Falls NWA title match, with Gino as the local heel challenging a heel champion. It was a pretty great performance by Gino as he turns the crowd over to his side by the end, kind of a devil we know better then a devil we don't situation. I am not the world's biggest Harley fan, but he looked pretty boss here, all of his offense was super nasty looking, his big headbutts looked like they smooshed skulls and he had this awesome looking big right hand in the corner. Gino was a total boss, jumping Harley at the bell, piledriving him on the floor, spraying blood as he goes for his giant back elbow. He was so good as the local heel, it really makes me want to see more Southwest Tully to compare them in those rolls. More Gino please!!

The Race 2/3 falls match is another feather in Gino's cap, he is really awesome in it, bleeds a ton, is vicious when he in on offense, takes some big bumps, really great performance as a local heel who gets the crowd behind him against the champ.

Will and I did an all NWA Classics Digging in the Crates podcast, we broke down what we liked about Fabs v. MX, Lothario v. Hector, Andre v. Harley and JYD v. Reed dog collar. Digging in the Crates #4

Awesome!!

It's been a couple of days since a new Houston upload, lets hope Bruce has a corker lined up for us.

Off the top of my head, of new stuff not counting things like DiBiase v. Duggan which has been out there Lothario v. Guerrero Lothario v. Gino Lothario v. Gordman Andre v. Harley Spoiler v. Wahoo Wahoo v. Gino Fans v. MX JYD v. Reed Dog Collar Wahoo v. Flair TA/2 v. MX

Hang out after the song for a post credits easter egg, Marvel style!!

I am not sure how much is out there, but fuck is the Spoiler good in that Wahoo match and we might need to investigate him further