Superstar Sleeze

Lunch time, WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO #450 - I have seen this before a long time ago. Awesome bloody brawl is my recollection with a table getting involved. This is some choice Muta. Totally different than their 2001 classic. #449- Saw this a long time ago. I am pretty sure this is the Birth of DX match. Have no real recollection of quality, Ill have to check this out. #448 - Double J is the king of **** match in the early 90s apparently. #447 - Buzz Sawyer's last hurrah. Really came to like Buzz in Mid-South should give this a watch. Also babyface Horsemen with Sting, pretty novel #446- Savage vs Tenryu. I know, I know, I know. This has been on the to do list forever! So has Flair/Tenryu. I need more time #445 - Awesome Dome style match. Just so big. That German is gnarly. Best Inoki match I have ever seen, but I have not seen many. #444 - I know Chad/Charles loved this, but I thought it was more of a good match than great match but it has been 4 years now so I will check it out again. #443 - You know what, I feel this is the most overrated of the Rocker matches. Kinda all over the place which is weird given that is Bret. There is one thing about Bret is that his matches are almost never all over the place. #442 - Love their Survivor Series 95 match, need to check this one out. #441 - Super fun, fast-paced, action-packed tag. Only thing that keeps it low is the clipping. #440 - Never seen this. I need to find it sometime. 439 - Lucha...I think this has been the first Lucha match that surprises me. #438, I really need to see this Sabu match. High quality Sabu is just the best. #437 - Just watched this 15 days ago, awesome match. Kobashi looks elite in the loss and Misawa proves "slow n steady" wins the race. #436 - One of the all-time great finish stretches, a Bret Hart masterpiece #435 - A little high for me, but a great veteran NWA Champion vs young upstart match. One of my favorite match genres. I wish Windham got more chances to do this. #434 - I always waffle back and forth on whether I like the 1990 or 91 match better either way Flair vs Pillman is electric! #433 - OH HELL YEAH!!! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Awesome Hogan MSG brawl. The end of an era, the last great MSG match. #432 - Honma has been around this long?!?!? #431 - Love the brothers vs brothers tag. Need to rewatch just because it is so great. #430 - Joshi, man, I am missing out. #429 - Dick togo, Black Buffalo & Police Man sounds like the best Village People ensemble ever. #428 - A little high for me. Rewatched this recently. Great atmosphere, but everything goes through Sherri and Flair is really presented as a run of the mill heel when the whole story is that it is HOGAN VS FLAIR, but it could have been Hogan vs any heel. Still a very good Hogan match because Flair is excellent. #427 - Have grown not to care for this match. Finish stretch is way too long. #426 - I have seen two Volk Han matches in my life and I need to see more. I will do the next 25 later today. This is awesome.

ECW World Tag Team Champions Dudley Boys vs Spike Dudley & Balls Mahoney - ECW 6/17/99 Balls says he owes the Dudz a receipt for putting him through a flaming table with thumbtacks strewn on it. Im just glad he upgraded his partner to Spike Dudley. Really tight, action-packed garbage brawl. The Dudleys have been a great heat-seeking act, but really have not been having the matches to match how good they are as asshole heels. I feel like this is the best possible Dudleys match. Great spots...loved Balls hurling Spike onto the Dudz outside the ring with force. The cheese grater stuff was violent as hell. Spike's balcony dive was a holy shit spot. The stereo nearfalls (loved the Acid Drop/legdrop combo) were cute in a very fun way that I liked. Sign Guy distracts the faces long enough to cause enough commotion that Spike eats a wicked 3D. DAMN! I forgot how badass that move could look. 3D is the one thing in ECW that is sold as death and even though match goes on for another two minutes, Spike never moves. I love that. Balls tries to fend off the Dudleys going so far as to set up the table, scatter the thumbtacks and douse it with lighter fluid, but eventually the numbers game catches up to him. Putting Balls through a flaming table never gets old!!! Marked out all over again! Double pinfall win. Great finish. Like I said super compact, never a dull moment, the finish is a great climax. ****

For those interested. there was a nomination process. It looks like the most nominating votes determined your seed. Explains the whacked out seeding and why the fuck Ellsworth is in there. Also I liked that pitted Ellsworth against the Owen Hart, the wrestled who died the most tragically. I could easily see Ellsworth doing well with ironic votes. I could see him beating Benoit for instance. By putting him against Owen, definitely will make people think twice. Cageside Seats was thinking when they put this together.

Predicting who will win by whatever polling method is pretty easy except the top left. Shawn, Flair and Savage are mortal locks for the Final Four. I will be shocked if any of them falls off before the Final Four. Shawn's biggest competition is Bryan and Angle. I think Angle has fallen quite a bit in last couple years. Bryan may be able to do it. I think that would be interesting. Flair's biggest competition is Eddy and Bret, but I think Flair's rep and the fact everyone loves the Nature Boy character will get him the bracket handily. I could easily see Brock upending AJ in the first round. Savage in a fucking cakewalk in this bracket. Maybe Rey can challenge him. Macho Man will crush. Top left is the most up in the air. I could see HHH, Taker or Austin winning. I think HHH and Taker have been pushed like Michaels as a great wrestler so that will help them. I think it is a close call between Taker/HHH. I could really see it going either way. Going with Taker. Savage over Taker easily. Shawn over Flair in a squeaker. Savage over Shawn in a squeaker. Are the results up?

Im glad you are doing only 50. I love lists. I love lists about pro wrestling. I love lists about pro wrestling matches. IM SO EXCITED! I was going to tweet about each match because that seems en vogue, but feels like it would be disorganized and cluttered. I have no idea why so many people are flocking to twitter and leaving message boards behind. #500 - KNow its rep need to see it. #499- Im an M-Pro noob and need to remedy that. #498 - Awesome clash of the titans match. Goldberg had great presence should have been a tweener. Great Sting match in absolutely abysmal year for him. I missed this match by one week. I went to Nitro after it, which was the Nitro one week before Flair's return. I got to see Raven break one of the Villano's neck. Bad luck. #497 - Joshi noob. Shoot-style, M-Pro, FMW, Joshi, World of Sport then Lucha. #496 - Sounds fucking awesome. Need to see this. #495 - SMW noob. Put that between Shoot-style and M-Pro. #494 - I remember this. Fun TV bout. I am totally alone in thinking their Bash at the Beach match is great. That's an awesome Austin performance. #493 - I don't think of Jake when I think SMW. Ill check it out. #492 - USWA noob. Damn have even ever watched wrestling? #491 - Always on the lookout for this one. NJPW is the hardest thing to find on youtube/dailymotion. I should sign up for NJPW World already. #490 - Awesome violent brawl. Would have this way higher. You can literally hear Regal's nose smash into a million pieces when Finlay hits him and up until that it was just dripping with hatred. #489 - I know have seen this. I found all the Shawn/Marty matches to be around ***1/2 and kinda forgettable. #488 - PG-13 is something I just gotta see. #487- FUCK YEAH! So happy Jericho/Eddie vs Meng/Barbarian made the list! Awesome power vs speed tag team match. Highly recommend this. #486- Jeff Jarrett killing it in USWA. What happened, bro? #485 - M-Pro, yeah #484 - Larry Z vs Saito, why have I not seen this? #483 - Remember loving Savage vs HBK someone really milks a knee injury probably Savage since he was the babyface. Need to rewatch. #482 - One of the greatest 5-minute sprints ever. All you have to say is that and I bet 95% of people on here know the exact match I am talking about. #481 - Need to see Tamura like yesterday. #480 - PG-13 came to Waltham, MA, that much Southern white trash greatness was just 20 minutes from my house at one point. #479 - Joshi, brah, gotta see some. #478 - Never seen this and was not planning to watch it, but since it made the rankings Ill take a look. Liked the Hansen & Spivey against MVC at 4/18/91. #477 - Joshi, I'll see you eventually. #476 - This would probably be a borderline pick for me. None of their matches stand out they are all around that ***3/4 & ****. I think I go with the Superbrawl I match. #475 - I used to LOVE this match then it didn't do much for me. I think it would make the list if I did one like this. Shawn did well in these David vs Goliath matches. #474 - A good Kerry match in the 90s is what I need to see. #473 - Flair vs Morton in 1990, drool. #472 - WAY HIGHER DUDE! Wow really shortchanged this one in my opinion. Especially knowing you will have Rey/Dragon way higher, shaking my head. #471 - Good pick, liked the placement. I think Shawn vs Owen gets underrated. It is high quality. #470 - WAY HIGHER DUDE! Parv & Chad have already taken you to task on this one. So I am going to lay off. #469 - Vader vs Tamura, fuck yes! #468 - Been watching a lot of ECW recently, I should watch this one eventually. #467- M-Pro, brutha, need to make it happen. #466 - Very famous match feel like I have seen it, but don't remember it. #465 - I honestly cant believe a good Eliminators match exists. They may be the worst tag team ever. But if they were to have a good match it would be with the FBI. #464 - I need to see more Liger/Ohtani outside the wicked famous match. #463 - ANother match I am always on the lookout for. Maybe it is on the Network #462 - OH HELL YEAH! Great pick, brutha! Rey/Juvy vs La Parka/Psicosis absolutely kill. Everything that was great about the cruiserweight division in one delicious Nitro match. #461 - Two Carolina boys stiffing the hell out of each other in 1990 yes please. Garvin vs Valentine is one of my all-time favorite match ups. #460 - One of my all-time favorite matches. There is nothing I love more than two big uglies fucking chucking each other around. Vader/Boss is a match after my own heart. #459 - Jarrett what the fuck, brah. #458 - Oooooooo I think you shortchanged this one too. Eddie vs Jericho Fall Brawl used to think whats the big deal, watched it again and was blown away. #457 - Hashimoto The Destroyer! NJPW so hard to find shit. Hope I can find this. #456 - Need to see more Fantastics in AJPW #455 - I just checked this out today because of the list. Check out my thoughts in the thread! #454- ZUBAZ~! ALL THE STARS IN THE WORLD!!!! #453 - Fucking killer face vs face match, which is of course Bret's speciality. #452 - I am going to say this is a little high and would not make my list. Liked Steamboat/Douglas vs Blonds matches, but didn't love any of them. Could see why you would feel they need to be represented. #451 - Hashimoto The Destroyer needs to be more present in my life.

Charles put this in his Top 500 so I had to watch. Found the July match online. This is the date 7/25/99 that ECW Smarkschoice poll lists as the good one. Prowrestlinghistory.com has both dates as plausible as both dates have Sabu vs OMG matches. An above commenter says Rod Price as OMG's second, here it is Justin Credible. So maybe a watched a different match... Sabu vs One Man Gang - ECW 1999 One Man Gang looks better here then when he was Akeem ten years prior. Fun, energetic brawl. Sabu hit his spots cleanly and his straight right looked great. OMG looked menacing. Good cat and mouse early with Sabu using speed and aerial moves to gain advantage. Good crowd brawling M-Pro style by clearing out chairs. OMG taking a rana off the top was impressive. Nice table bump by OMG. Vicious scissors stab by Sabu. I love Sabu! Loved Cane shot on OMG by accident by Credible and then a wicked chair throw by Sabu on Credible. Love the heel comeuppance. Tight finish to send crowd home happy with Triple Jump moonsault and a Arabian Facebuster. Great brawl! ***1/2

I don't love Sid in an ironic way. He is legitimately awesome as a badass wrecking ball. Oozes charisma and just kills muthafuckas. The segment with Justin Credible at Hardcore Heaven 99 is awesome. I get why he does not draw. At the same think I think he could have been leveraged as a combination of a 911/Andre character that should have ruled the world! I think people would hear those pops and say put the belt on him. I think he is great as a top monster heel for a month or two and then extended run as a monster babyface that just kills chickenshit heels dead.

Sid vs Justin Credible - ECW Hardcore Heaven 1999 This was fucking awesome. Way better than that awful RVD/Lynn match. Sid killing muthafuckas is the best thing ever. Credible was actually a pretty damn good punk chickenshit heel. A DQ in ECW!!!! I am laughing! Sid must not have wanted to job to the punk and you couldn't have your top heel (lets face the Impact Players were their top heels, maybe could argue the Dudleyz) eat a pin either. Then Impact Players ballshot Sid and beat him. Now Sabu is out. What the fuck!?! I thought they were feuding with Dreamer and Douglas. Sabu legdrops Sid though a table that's crazy!!!! Sabu destroys a random security guard through a table! Sabu/Sid as a tag team and then feuding would be pretty much the greatest thing ever. Wicked entertaining segment!!! SID IS DA MAN!

ECW World TV Champion Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn - ECW Hardcore Heaven 1999 Kinda crazy to think a mediocre series of matches made Jerry Lynn a star and extended his career for another decade. Jerry Lynn is just so damn generic. This was pretty terrible. It was exacerbated by how fucking long it was. It just dragged and dragged. None of the spots really stood out like the Living Dangerously match. The sunset flip powerbomb through the table and Fonzie taking a chair throw were probably the best spots. The spots just were meaningless. There was no selling at all. It was a total my turn, your turn match with none of the fun spots. There was a tumbling sequence in this that reminded me of the tumbling sequence we saw during Owens/Rollins that got a huge pop and so did this one. It is amazing this is what people associate "wrestling" with. This a barrage of rollups. I thought they were cosplaying Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada, but I think it all stems from that Eddie Guerrero/Dean Malenko series. I think that may have been one of the most influential series of matches of all time. Anyways this sucked.

ECW World TV Champion Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn - ECW Living Dangerously 1999 Never seen this series before been meaning to for a long time. I was prepared to hate this, but you know what, it was not half bad. Some of the spots were actually pretty nifty and I was really enjoying them on their own. I think the most frustrating thing about RVD is that he could have been a great wrestler. He has the best balance I have ever seen out of any wrestler. He is a great bumper; he really throws himself into every bump and is the best DDT/piledriver bump taker ever. He is super underrated in his feats of strength. Dude was ridiculously strong. His non-chair related offense is actually pretty good. He just has zero sense of psychology. Like it is incredible he has no grasp on why things should happen in pro wrestling. I thought the beginning story of the match was pretty damn good that if they continued with this could have been legitimately. It was cocky RVD constantly getting caught hot dogging. First it making fun of Lynn for being double over, then it was trying to duck using his split and then with a springboard. Each time, Lynn would make RVD pay and it was a great way to get Lynn over and RVD was a really effective heel as a great bumper and hot dog. Then they did five straight minutes where the chair was involved in every spot. The Mexican Surfboard throw him up in the air and land on chair made MARK OUT! Insane! The sequence with all the missed kicks and then Lynn legdropping RVD's head into chair actually felt organic. This was spot, spot, spot with no transitions but the spots were good. It was RVD as Carrot Top at its best, weirdly enough. Once the chair went away, I thought it got boring. They kinda just hit a bunch of spots. RVD was consistently better than Lynn in terms of bumping and cool offense. Lynn felt very basic. RVD's little back heel kick to Lynn's head on a suplex attempt was awesome! Draw outta nowhere was weird. Ref was going to award the belt to Lynn. Um fuck no. That's not how this works. Tie goes to the champ. Lynn wants five more minutes telegraphing his loss. At least they made it quick afterwards. Lynn gets his nearfall with a piledriver. Horrible setup for Van Daminator and Five Star Frogsplash finishes it. I thought first half was pretty good, got worse without the chair weirdly enough. Not a classic, but hey it was not bad. ***1/4

I think Shane's point was that he was NOT tapping out; HE WAS REACHING FOR THE ROPES! HE WAS REACHING FOR THE ROPES! Fuck The World Heavyweight Champion Taz vs Bam Bam Bigelow - ECW Heat Wave 1998 Fun fact when "FTW" became an popular acronym in the mid-00s I thought everyone was saying "Fuck The World" because of Taz not "For the win". Way better than the Loving Dangerosuly match. Bigelow has a great powerbomb. I actually like Taz's no-sell to really add some fire to his babyface shine. I think a well-timed no sell can really add to a match. The crowd brawling ranged from very good and heated to stupid that cross armbreaker was horrible. An actual proper heat segment was nice with Bigelow looking like a monster. The table shit was stupid, but it is fucking Taz. They crash through the ramp playing off the Living Dangerously finish. They really milked it and got a great crowd reactions. Taz's no sell was perfect and exactly the fired up spot to really put the finish over. The submission was not great and the tap out was not existent. I agree with Douglas: "HE WAS REACHING FOR THE ROPES!". I didn't see a tap out. Odd way to put over their monster babyface character. Good match. ***

Mike Awesome vs Masato Tanaka - ECW HeatWave 98 That table bump was INSANE! The table did not really break his fall and his head looked like it hit the concrete hard. Awesome should have been a bigger deal in the US. I don't think he had much charisma, but with that size and coordination he could have been at least a top level heel (thanks, Vince Russo). I thought this was an awesome offensive exhibition for the big man.. For Masato Tanaka, he of course takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. I have never seen an FMW match before, but it seemed like a pretty good ECW match. Awesome was hitting his spots perfectly. He was really showing off his balance on the top rope. Those dives were great. The steel chair war was fun, which I know is their trademark. Those exposed steel chair shots to Tanaka's head made me cringe. Love the Awesombomb! Thought for sure Tanaka was going through table on the floor, pretty crazy Awesome took it. Surprised Tanaka went ove but strong finish with the Tornado DDT on steel chair. Very good garbage brawl. ***1/2

Chris Candido vs Lance Storm - ECW Heat Wave 1998 Watched this before and thought it was pretty good. Did not age well. Storm lacks any sort of fire or pizzazz. Like just nothing. So mechanical and cold. Everything feels thought out, artificial and mechanical. I can see him being a good trainer for technique, but lacks that attitude. This is supposed to be a grudge match of two tag partners that hate each other, but instead when Storm rips off Candido's head gear (Candido's ear was injured by Sabu/RVD in their title loss) nothing. No heat. Just nothing. Candido for his part was definitely too 80s Southern stoogy for a grudge match BUT at least it was entertaining. A lot of the moves lacked consequence. I did think Candido had a lot of good offense and took some really nice bumps. He clearly was a very good worker, just never really in the right environment. I will tell who was awesome and salvaged the entire match: SUNNY! From the opening strut to AC/DC with Candido to losing her top at the end, she was incredible in this. So entertaining. Loved the ring introduction. Loved the trash talking of the ref. The cheating. The interference. All great. Candido wins with the Blond Bombshell, a top rope powerbomb that is pretty cool. Just a collection of moves and Sunny being all sorts of awesome in this.

I need to rewatch Charlotte/Sasha I think this one of those matches better seen on TV to get the details. Crowd heat was great. Rollins/Owens was the better live experience match. Wrestled bigger. Finish to women felt abrupt

I know! That was drizzling shits. As a lifelong wrestling and soap opera fan bad acting does not bother me, but I thiought that was atrocious

Great spotfest. Match of the night. Suicide dive into cage was great. Table spot was insane, fun finish. The wicked annoying WWE finish run of "my turn, your turn" was ever present but spots were fun.

At the show live Thought Roman/Rusev was great. Romam selling was great. Meaningful momentum shifts using cage. Not an MOTYC but a great match a little slow lacked urgency. Women -characters are over but not work we will see during main event. Dana, take me to Flex City BABY! Enzo & Big Cass got one of the loudest pops I've heard live in a loooooong time.

ECW World TV Champion Taz vs Bam Bam Bigelow - ECW Living Dangerously 1998 So Bam Bam turned on Douglas to get the championship and then lost the title. Taz is on the hunt for world championship. Taz and Bigelow team up so now Bigelow turns on Taz and rejoins Triple Threat. I have never seen this match. Thought I had, but I have just seen the Heat Wave match. Taz is legitimately one of my least favorite wrestlers. It is not just the horrible monster face character, it is his horrible selling, his horrible ring movements, the ridiculous suplexes that aren't cool in a Steiner way. But I always go into any match with an open mind (see Bigelow/RVD). In fact, I thought the first five minutes of this were very good. Not as good as Bigelow/RVD because they were wrestling without urgency and moving at a crawl. However, I thought Bigelow bumped well for Taz early then caught him and played the monster heel really well. Once they did that STUPID, STUPID bump where Taz suplexed Bigelow off the ramp into the crowd causing Taz to nail the back of his head on the railing. It went downhill in a hurry. They were already plodding, but this turned into an incredibly pedestrian brawl around the outside. There was just no rhyme or reason to anything. Bigelow slipping was funny. The spot that everyone remembers is going through the ring when Taz locks in the Tazmission and Bigelow falls back, which was a badass spot legitimately. Bigelow crawls out, drags Taz with him and wins the match and the belt. Shitty match. Between this and his actually pretty awesome couple months in WCW at the end of the year, this may have been Bam Bam's best year as a monster heel.

ECW World TV Champion Bam Bam Bigelow vs Rob Van Dam - ECW 4/4/98 Awesome monster heel performance by Bam Bam I don't know if he ever looked this monstrous. He was this Creature of Black Lagoon that would keep rising and rising and all of RVD's crazy bombs couldn't not keep him down. Loved RVD's offense here too it was all about creating space to create a chance for an aerial assault. Great shit! Like really impressive how good escalation was and how committed each was to his role. RVD's dives into crowd were insane and Still Bigelow keeps coming loved that leg drop on railing. RVD full court press! Bugelows clothesline was great. Feels like a horror movie. RVD reopening BAM BAMs cut was great. If the finish was the missed moonsault into Five Star frogsplash. I'd probably go scary high on this match but the finish is overwrought and fucking stupid. RVD is here to soften up Bam Bam for Sabu for upcoming PPV. However RVD is a cocky prick and has kinda been an asshole to Sabu. So Sabu comes out helps RVD win the title and then is all pissed when it happens. Wouldn't it make sense for RVD to win on his own look selfish and get Sabu pissed? But a match without run-ins is passé ugh! Up until the run-in incredible match just total commitment to a monster vs aerial assault of RVD. Shocked how good this was, highly recommended! ****1/4

ECW World Tag Champs Chris Candido & Lance Storm - ECW Waltham, MA 3/6/98 For those keeping track at home Candido & Storm hate each other but are tag champs. Storm was turfed from Triple Threat in favor of Bam Bam (upgrade to me). If they purposefully lose the tag titles they are both fired. FBI are already awesome. Even though Candido is technically a heel his chemistry with Smothers it never drags the match down. I like the fake into a heat segment ok Storm with a blind knee and jumping karate kick by Smothers. The real one is Rich pulling down top rope and critching Storm on railing. Heat segment is too short. Candido house a fire ending with a Powerbomb and Lance Storm leap was great. Finish was a little long in tooth but got the we hate each other but protect each other damnit over. SUPERKICK into a German was a good finish. Take most of the end and stick on heat and this is a great match. FBI are such great heat-seeking heels. ***

Sandman vs Sabu - ECW House Party '98 Of all the ECW matches I've seen, I would say this and Sabu/Funk Born to be Wired are the two best. But I'm a Sabu Mark. Great straight right, love his way of selling, he always seems like he is in pain, I love the sense of danger and urgency and his of course his mystique. I believe this an offshoot of the WWF (RVD & Sabu) vs ECW (Dreamer & Sandman) where Sabu used a fireball. At November 2 Remember they apparently they had the worst match ever and then turnaround and have a legitimately great match ever. Insanely violent. I think the big positives are how organic this feels and the urgency and how legitimately violent this is. I am not too into overt violence and part of me wonders why I even liked this because it is disturbing two humans put themselves through it. I thought it was well-segmented and flew right by. I loved Sandman's drunk staggering selling. No reasons for snap back bumps. He has been knocked loopy. Sabu was violent and urgent. He set up his spot and went no waiting to make sure Sandman was in a safe position. Even the crowd brawling wasn't bad with good Sabu punches. Would've liked more Sandman struggle and a better Sandman transition. I think a long Sandman transition was great like the table Suplex and leg drop across ladder but thought Sabu started selling too early. Still an incredible war of attrition. Perfect timing for Sandman to go for barbed wire but he takes a MASSIVE BUMP from top of ladder to floor through table. Holy shot indeed! Not to be outdone Sabu tries to leap on him and breaks his jaw on the railing! OWWWWWW! Two massive bumps! Sandman has time to set up the barbed wire in corner so he goes through it. There are some stupid things like Sandman holding the barbed wire on his face and other contrived barbed wire spots. Still drop kick chair into barbed wire into the face is another OW! Sabu goes face first into barbed wire and then CANED in the face! Broken jaw! Shit! Fonzie tapes his jaw. Sabu actually gets in some more offense before a wicked cane shot to the broken jaw polishes him off. I usually don't like brawls over ten minutes but this was an excellent war of attrition. This was like the Mutoh/Tenryu '01 of ECW. Sandman gets knocked loopy at the beginning and sells loopy throughout and in this case needs weapons and a major mistake by Sabu to win. Fittingly violent for these two ECW stars. Contender for best ECW match ever and great brawl. ****1/4

I popped for this.

I just watched them. They were all very good, cage match flirted with greatness. I think we can do something.

Low Ki vs American Dragon - APW King of the Indies 2001 I am always impressed by how mat based the early 2000s indies can be. I really think it was a true smorgasbord of pro wrestling unliked the homogenized WWE product (I don't watch much of the indies anymore so I don't want to generalize). The first 15 minutes of this was an excellent mat work clinic that was just dripping with struggle. The highspots were all interesting escapes and holds. Very like in the way of throws and flips. I loved the symmetry of the blocked shots on the ropes and how each man was going for chokes, but the other found escapes. I loved Low-Ki's escape out of the Texas Cloverleaf with his feet and the way he broke down Bryan's bridge was incredible and drew Ooooohs and Aaaaaahs. Liked Dragon stealing the Tidal Wave only to piss off Ki, who hit with more tremendous force. Everything was earned like the test of struggle, which turned into a battle of headbutts. Everything was sold well. I really liked that upside down contortion that ended up in with them slapping each other. Or stuff like Ki holding onto a suplex after hitting it to go for the choke. They felt very evenly match and that first one to make a mistake would cost them. I thought both felt fully invested in the match. Even at the 15 minute mark, it still felt even, but it was not due to move trading, it was just that these were just two very equal wrestlers and both were wrestling hard to be King of the Indies. As the time progressed, I realized what they were attempting to accomplish a match without a shine-heat-comeback. A departure from that formula is very rare and can be very rewarding but it can lead to a match that feels like it has no rising action and no build to climax that's how I felt here. Bryan gets an arm drag and then a deep double wristlock. Ki is able to get a Kappo Kick to the head, but no Phoenix Splash. A kick to the head on the break of the Full Nelson on the apron allows Ki to hit a Phoenix Splash (waits a little too long) on Bryan on the outside. Then Dragon is the first up doing moves, strange. He hits a super back suplex for two and then a Dragon Suplex, but cant cover because his knee is hurt when did that happen. He goes for a second one, but Ki shifts his weight and ends up with the Dragon Clutch (that's how he won the Super 8 against American Dragon in February). Even when Danielson makes the ropes, he is tenacious about putting it on. Nice counter into Cattle Mutilation, but back into the Dragon Clutch. KI KRUHER~! But his arm is messed up, Ki is selling that arm quite a bit. The selling and struggle has been how the charts. Just does not feel much in the way of progress. Ki goes for the Tidal Wave and Danielson meets him with a baseball slide to the arm. SICK! Cattle Mutilation, Big time Low-Ki chants as the crowd gets into it. But Dragon is too exhausted to hold it. Another Dragon Suplex into a Cattle Mutilation. Cattle Mutilation is a visually impressive submission at first but the way Ki is selling it (not moving) is boring as fuck. Needs to be a quick tapout, no drama in that hold. Ki gets his one big hope spot a top rope Ki Krusher before on a Tidal Wave he gets Dragon Suplexed and then taps out to Cattle Mutilation. Loved all the struggle and thought the first 15 minutes was excellent. They went for something unique with the competitive start and a finish run with no shine or heat. Never fault them for that. It just did not click for me. It felt pretty heatless (regardless of the crowd) because it did not have that sense of build. Cattle Mutilation is a bad, boring submission when it is not a quick submission. On the strength of the beginning, I give this a good rating and it should be checked out because of the novelty of the layout. ****

Kurt Angle vs Shane McMahon - WWF King of the Ring 2001 Street Fight Call me crazy, but I thought this was a really great match, haters be damned. I had never actually seen it before and was totally prepared to hate it, but I thought they pretty much hit this one out of the park given the circumstances. Lets get to the main criticism: Kurt Angle, Olympic Gold Medalist Wrestler has a pretty even struggle with Shane McMahon the pudgy, untrained Greenwich-born boss' son. First I think people hype up the Olympic Gold Medalist thing too much to unnecessarily widen the gulf to prove a point. If you take it to its logical conclusion, the only person with enough credibility to stand in a ring with Angle is someone like Brock Lesnar. On top of that, Angle very rarely uses his amateur mat background. He wrestles like a pretty conventional pro wrestler. It just so happens that in this match he acts more like Olympic wrestler than usual, but I think they cover that well. I think the story of the plucky underdog trying to survive against the wrestling machine was really well-executed from an offensive standpoint. Now MY main criticism: I think there is a ***** match lurking in here, but this falls very, very short of the mark because Shane McMahon is absolutely atrocious at eliciting sympathy from the crowd. If he could sell how in over his head he was, this match would have shot up the charts. Still, I think the good far outweighs the bad in this match. This is an all-time great Kurt Angle performance and I don't even like Angle as a wrestler that much (see how much I trash him in my reviews of his TNA matches, he is pretty much the only person alive who cant have a great match with AJ Styles) Lets bear in mind, Angle has already had two matches going into this match. Angle totally overwhelms him to start. Taking him down with ease and generally manhandling him Olympic freestyle. I think Shane getting the Dragon Leg Whip and the slaps to the back of the head (which he could have done way better) was just your routine fun babyface shine where the babyface shows up the overconfident heel. So Angle being an overconfident heel doubles down and leaves himself in a prone position to have Shane see if he could wrestle him and Angle just totally overpowers him. So Angle again lets himself be ridden, but this time Shane-O Mac is wise enough to just punt him in the abdomen and then mount him and reign down the haymakers. Angle bucks him off and Shane turns it into a track meet and from there he uses the barricade as elevation to use an aerial assault to gain more momentum from his moves. With this all working for him, he now goes for the Kendo Stick and brains Angle. PERFECT! Totally credible. If Shane McMahon had any chance in hell, it was to do that use Angle's overconfidence against him, turn it into a track meet, use his surroundings and weapons. Angle was totally on fire as a wrestling machine. If Shane could have just sold, this would have been an insanely great opening. I loved the Angle bridge outs on Shane's covers. Such a cool, macho hot dog thing to do. Shit on Shane the wrestler all you want, but he has a better Sharpshooter than the Rock. I was not in love with Shane being this dominant, but I think it was more than covered by the amount of weapons shots. Shane knows he needs a home run so he goes for a Shooting Star Press on a trash can on Angle, but only gets the trash can, OW!!! Great transition. Angle then leads Shane up to the entrance way. I had seen one of the Belly To Bellys where he goes through the glass because it was on the don't try this at home, but I had no idea the first time IT DID NOT BREAK AND HE LANDED RIGHT ON HIS HEAD! HOLY SHIT! Then when he went through, he and Angle got cut up bad. I was hooked. It was some Foley-level crazy shit, but it worked for me. Angle's pride was severely wounded this punk kid was spitting in the face of Superman and he had snapped was going to destroy him. Then again inside the Gorilla Position, I had no idea about this section. Two more suplexes into the glass and didn't break, landing with a thud before Angle chucks him through the glass. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Angle is so beat up, he needs a cart to wheel him to the ring. I would have loved it to the end there, but I have no problem giving Shane one last hope spot with a LOWBLOW (another great setup for Shane Offense) and an Angle Slam. Angle beating the tar out of him with a piece of table and then the Super Angleslam to finish was great. If Shane was any way at all sympathetic, I would say this is a serious MOTYC. One of the all-time great Angle performance, total sadist on top, but looked vulnerable when he needed to. All the Shane offense was very well set up and led to his big chance on the trash can, but he missed. Gets destroyed in a violent fashion through glass, one last hope spot set up by a low blow before a nice finish. Really could not have been better laid out. Awesome, awesome match. ****1/4