Laney

This was an excellent tag team match. Kawada and Taue look great in the beginning, but kind of fall apart in this match as Takayama and Omori do an excellent job of double teaming and cutting off the other team. Some great fire shown by Kawada and Taue in this put the other team just simply out wrestle them. Very somber promo by Holy Demon Army at the end of this one that really drives this devastating loss home. ****1/4

Solid tag team wrestling here with Doc and Scorpio working over Ogawa. I thought Scorpio was very impressive in this one and seemed like the glue that held this all together. Doc was very motivated as well and had a lot to add to this match. Ogawa on the other hand was just kind of there and Misawa has looked better than this as well. The most annoying thing in this match was Misawa taking a bit of a beating, making a comeback, and then just nonchalantly walking over to make the tag to Ogawa. If there are hot tags, then I guess you would call this a cold tag. All-in-all a good fun match with Scorpio and Doc bringing the goods. ***1/2

This a fun match with Vader just dropping bombs on Akiyama while he fights through it and hits big moves of his own. This does a great job of establishing Akiyama as a strong contender for the championship and a star in the promotion. Akiyama does a great job of going after Vader's knee, but then focuses on the arm after he is able to pull out a surprise armbar. I enjoy it when guys wisely switch focus on bodyparts based upon the advantages that they come across in the match. ****

This is worth watching for the pre-match promo alone. Smothers is awesome on the mic and plays a great bitter and slightly delusional heel here. The match is fun too. A little on the short side, but is good and effective tv wrestling. Smothers is going to be fun to watch this year.

This was a pretty good indie match that seemed to be the precursor to the style that develops in the early 2000's. A lot of back-and-forth action with both guys busting out innovative moves, but seemed to lack a cohesive story. Overall it was a nice look at the west cost indies. I was never really a fan of Michael Modest, but I remember Daniels being up there as the top indie guy in the 2000-2002 time frame. ***1/2

This is a great trios match that breaks away from the normal format that we typically see in lucha. This starts off with the technicos bleeding from the opening seconds. Tarzan Boy takes a great beating and Satanico looks awesome here. I look forward to seeing more matchups between these two. Out of control bloody lucha is the best. The rudos team don't care about the rules here and just want to make a point by beating down the technicos. Effective match to build up this feud. ****

This match is absolutely insane and I loved every minute of it. Tajiri looks like an absolute killer in this match. The decapitation attempt with chairs was awesome, a few of the chairs went flying into the crowd and it just added to the level of violence in this match. You have to give Super Crazy credit too, he was able to get the crowd behind him even though they wanted to cheer Tajiri for his excellent performance. It doesn't get much better than this in ECW. ****1/2

This was a fun match with these guys going all out to try to impress. What impresses me the most is that 4 of the 6 guys in this match are still very much active. I don't think you can say the same for most of the WWF guys who were at the same experience level at this time. People talk about this kind of wrestling shortening careers, but these guys have been going at it for a while working this style. This match had a few hiccups, but overall it was an impressive and well built match. ***3/4

I loved 3 Count, they were my favorite part of WCW's dying days. 3 Count vs PG-13 is a dream match that I never thought of. This was a short sprint, but it was fun for the little bit of time it was given. 3 Count bust out a lot of innovative moves with Helms looking the most impressive out of the three.

This was an interesting match to watch. Elix Skipper was one of my favorite guys in the last year of WCW. It was funny to see him hit the move that would eventually become his finisher within the first minute of the match. Jindrak is using the character of a former NCAA basketball player, complete with carrying a ball to the ring with him. There are some lame basketball themed taunts to go with it too(miming shooting a ball and dribbling). It served Jindrak well to drop this stupid gimmick. Surprising to see Skipper pick up the win here after the match and commentary seemed to focus on Jindrak.

This was great. A very heated trios match that is a great build to an eventual apuestas match. Both teams essentially throw away the first two falls by getting DQ'ed and they just don't give a shit. Atlantis plays a great role of just being pissed off and being out for blood after Villano. I loved it when Atlantis threw Villano in the crowd and then dumped a section of 4 chairs on top of him. The third fall is an actual match and a good one to boot. This does a great job of building the Atlantis - Villano feud. ****

This was a load of fun. The tag match basically breaks down into HHH vs Mankind and the two have some nice exchanges. Eventually HHH escalates the violence, busts Mankind open, and gets the win. The aftermath of the match is a thing with beauty as Foley snaps, takes off his mask, and beats down HHH. Foley even throws in the Cactus Jack signature bang bang. The show ends with HHH backing down the ramp with a look of fear on his face. Beautiful tv wrestling. ***1/4 for the match, but the whole angle surrounding this gets a higher rating and should definitely be watched.

I loved this match. Hase completely dominates Misawa throughout the match and destroys his arm with multiple submission holds. Misawa stubbornly continues to try using his injured arm, but Hase manages to counter it every time. Misawa wrestles so poorly in this match and continues to use his right elbow with no success that I felt myself rooting against him for his stubbornness. However, Misawa is eventually able to get Hase rocked enough with his left elbows that he is able to finish him off with a right. I can see people criticizing this for Misawa continuing to use his right arm that was targeted throughout the match, but I thought it was worked brilliantly into the story of the match as I interpreted it. Misawa truly believes that his right elbow is his best offense and he can beat anybody with it and continued to stubbornly use it even though it wasn't working for him. When he finally is able to connect with his running elbow, he proves that this is true and shows why he continued to go for it the entire match. ****1/2

This was a good compact match with the time given being utilized well. Takayama overpowers Akiyama and brutalizes him with knee strikes. Akiyama counters this by focusing on Takayama's leg. A fun and quick match that is worth a watch. ***1/2

I thought this was great. Sasuke and Hamada did an excellent job of working over Tiger Mask's arm with some brutal ground work. Tiger Mask did very well in his role as FIP. Mochizuki's kicks were made to look killer in this one and he did a great job hanging in there with everyone else. Mochizuki looked like a star in the rise in this one. The match picked up in the end and they built to a great finish without doing too much. ****1/4

Very good match here. CIMA is early in his career and is already looking great. Both guys do a good job of working body parts (Fujita goes after CIMA's arm and CIMA goes after Fujita's leg). Fujita does a great job of selling the leg and continues to do so throughout the match. CIMA showcases a lot of charisma in this one and he seems to have already established a moveset that we still see today. They may have done a little too much in the finishing stretch, but I enjoyed this one a great deal. ****

This was kind of slow and hard to get into in the beginning as Omori isn't someone that I've ever really cared about. This builds up though and the crowd is absolutely nuts in the ending stages of this match. They did a great job of building the crowd up and Kobashi is impressive here as he makes Omori look like he is a great wrestler that can hang with him. ***3/4

Spanky & American Dragon look better here than in their previous match. This is a pretty good tag that I think is held together by Rudy Boy who was one of the trainers for TWA. I really enjoyed the reversal of Spanky's springboard into an electric chair. Spanky took some nasty looking bumps in this one and I think he still looks more impressive than American Dragon here. Big botch from the referee here that detracts from the match. A few awkward exchanges here too, but overall this was a good match. **3/4

This was disjointed and awkward at times. I didn't think Dragon Kid was too bad in this though. However, he did do an awful looking kick that missed by a mile. It seemed obvious that they were trying to make Dragon Kid out to be the star. Kenichiro Arai impressed me out of all the green Toryumon guys though. This match was at its best when Santo and Panther faced off. **1/4

This wasn't that good. Rukkus looks like someone that had potential to become something bigger. There was a lot going on and the camera didn't catch all of it. It's annoying when the commentators are calling moves and the camera is focused on something else. Commentary is pretty awful in this too. This match is 11 minutes long and it seems like at every minute they mention that you are watching Wildside and you can catch their shows live on the first and third Saturday of every month. It was a bit excessive. *1/2

I didn't enjoy this all that much. Estrada hits a scary looking back drop right into the ropes, but nothing else was of note in this. Estrada looks kind of awkward in the ring and botches an armdrag in the very beginning of this one. *3/4

This is the infamous scissors match where Ian and Pondo have an old blunt pair of scissors that they plan on using, but Zandig buys a new pair and tells them to use that instead. These guys get shredded with the scissors and Ian gets so pissed off about the incident that he doesn't return to CZW for another three years. That's all according to Ian Rotten, so take it for what it's worth. Other than that, this is just two guys beating each other with weapons. Not the best for this style of wrestling, but not the worst either. **1/4

Ric Blade matches are always fun to watch, but for all the wrong reasons. You're just waiting for him to botch something horribly. We get that here late in the match, but unfortunately the camera man misses the shot. This match would fit on most indie shows today as it was a bunch of big moves and dives. Ric Blade even kicks out of a top rope Ki-Krusher through a table. A bit too ambitious but this is fun in spots. **3/4

This was a fun hardcore match, but it was a bit short. I think these guys could have put something really good together if they were given more time. Trash looks as scummy as you would expect and is a guy I would like to see more of. I remember always reading around this time period about how good Steve Bradley was and how he was going to be a star in the WWF. Unfortunately, I think the WCW buyout hurt his career. Bradley looked good in this and you could see that he had a lot of athleticism and potential. **1/4