Migs

It's a clothing store for teenagers. So like A&F in that way, but much more casual - lots of pop culture shirts, less "stylized." Very trendy. And apparently the Young Bucks are really on trend for teenagers right now.

As a New Yorker, I'd obviously be in if it were here. Or Philly (although it feels like that's died down a bit as a hot bed). I'd consider Chicago, though, if the flight prices were right. And it feels like the wrestling culture there right now is very strong.

I have no problem admitting that I would wear wrestling shirts in public. I might look a bit out of place shopping in a Hot Topic but then again, who is going to see me? No one goes to the mall anymore & I could just shop online anyway. My biggest issue is finding shirts that I like. Wrestling shirts usually have some big, gaudy crap on the back or only come in black. WWE shirts have that giant super annoying tag on the front bottom & are overpriced. Plus last time I ordered from Shopzone it took almost three and a half months for the damn shirts to arrive. I like nostalgic shirts a lot, especially wrestlers from my childhood but those are even more rare to find ones that I dig. Even on websites like ProWrestlingTees. You don't even have to go in to Hot Topic! That Black Friday deal online was great.

Man are these guys intense. The way they work the collar and elbow at the start sets this up as so much different than what else is going on in indy wrestling at the time. The fun thing is that they understand that they can get big pops out of smaller highspots because of the way everything is fought for. I enjoyed this way more than the Dragon-Spanky match from the same day - Dragon's on his way to wrestling in a way that keeps up with these guys, but these two are already there and having classics. Love the spinning elbows into the chairs - it's like a Van Daminator but not as a contrived! That kick that Hansen took looked and sounded wicked. If you're going to do a ref bump, that's a fucking ref bump. I didn't mind the gaga here as the awesomeness of the 2/3 of the match was so great and they had wrestled to such a stalemate that it felt like something weird needed to happen to actually end the match.

Somewhat more suitable competition for Psicosis than Michael Shane. The opening section is some really classic Tajiri being a lovable dick work. A bit of a missed opportunity that they didn't try to elevate him a bit more in the end, as his charisma could have worked in the upper level of the card I think. Maybe an uneasy alliance with Corino to let someone else do the promos? Aligned against the Network, long history together, new respect from Corino after the Hardcore Heaven beating... would have been fun. (Also, I was doing a lot of fantasy booking in this era and that thought made me want to fire up TNM7). These guys are really keeping things crisp and tight. Just an absolute clinic. The brawling kills the momentum a bit, as there's not a big enough spot to justify the pace slow down. The back half is pretty nice again, though. Surprised but ot upset to see Psic go over.

Excited to finally dive into the Corino face period. He's not getting a particularly big reaction for his entrance yet, although the crowd is into his promo. I don't think ECW ever got Scotty over as anything above the joke he was in WCW, which really hurt the Network angle when we were supposed to assume he was at least in range of the top guys. Corino's work slides nicely over to the babyface side, as he can focus on selling and has pretty nice fire in his comeback. Can't believe they put Anton over here when the TV was clearly building Corino up for Credible.

Dragon is really starting to find his movement in the ring and is looking more like the worker we'd all get to know and love. The counter with the flip off the ropes was pretty great. He's also starting to use submissions in a more recognizable way. Great way to break the Cattle Mutilation while keeping it strong. The pacing here compared to the January matches is so much better. Fast but logical. Great build in the spots, to a finish that would have been good if not for the ubiquitous ref bump. I'd have this a little shy of ****, but this is still pretty great.

Punk is still a babyface here, although I'm guessing that doesn't last long in IWA. It sounds like Cabana is using "Gold Bond, MN" as a hometown, an early Gold Bond Mafia reference I'd assume. The work here isn't always crisper than earlier in the year, but there's certainly a confidence that these guys are developing. They're not so bothered by a sloppy moment and keep moving nicely. They're also starting to incorporate some bigger high spots into the match without anything being too elaborate (like the tornado DDT).

I keep noticing all the empty seats at the Bayfront Center, but according to Wikipedia, it held 8000, so ECW could have a pretty good crowd for them and still not be close to filling the place. This apparently drew 1700, which was in-line with the upper tier of ECW crowds at the time. The setup here, with a DQ threatened and then Dreamer being brought out, is cute but pretty non-sensical. In kayfabe, if he's watching your back, why not bring him out to start? The match was mostly late ECW Dreamer junk, with the standard spots. The other 5 guys do fine but feel pretty overshadowed by Dreamer's presence. They all hit their spots, but Dreamer does the biggest damage. At least they let York and Matthews get the pin. I do like the crowd member who calls Hamrick a "Michael Bolton motherfucker."

Was hoping the run-time meant this would be a bit more fleshed out than their first match against each other, but there's a lot of stalling to start. Tajiri and Mikey are starting to work in some double teams, though, which is nice. I thought they were better as a team here than the FBI, who didn't get a lot of their more interesting stuff in - brings the heat segment down a bit, more generic than the other FBI matches I've seen recently. Tajiri is terrific in taking a hot tag. Good finishing sequence, too. I liked this, but it still feels like they're putting together the building blocks of the better matches they'd have.

Shane is VERY indy (although, to be fair, he's probably only like a year into the business at this point, right?) and it brought this down for me a bit. Psicosis was good here, though. Shane he didn't have a more extended run, although I'm sure Paul was not in the position to pay at the time.

When people stereotype indy wrestling as guys killing themselves for 40 people in a gym, IWA-MS is what they're talking about. I like Cabana not just complaining about the hair pull but saying he doesn't want Hero to pull his hair out because he gets it highlighted every week. Very solid work here. Cabana looks very polished and Hero's no slouch either.

I feel bad about how much I like old XPW. I'm not sure how good any of this is if you weren't 17 when you first saw this stuff and embracing of the sleeziness. I'm more excited to eventually get to the Philly run, which was a lot of fun, but the early stuff is welcome too. I enjoyed Rivera attempting to explain how Rob Black got Funk from WCW. Very funny. Energetic brawl but some of these spots, like the piledriver on the chair that Funk misses badly, were dumb. Even the X going down, which looked cool, seemed like an excessive risk for how it looked. Total car wreck, but these guys do know how to keep it engaging. Doesn't overstay it's welcome, either. The fire spots to finish were crazy.

Punk has finally ditched the basketball jersey, which really improves his look. The promo is impressive considering how green he is at this point, as he's finally dropped the bouncing babyface act he had in the other matches I've seen from this year. He does a great job selling for Sherri early on, too. It feels like we get to Sherri v. Prazak very quickly here, but they pay it off with Sherri going through the table and Prazak going one up on her here. The second fall is fun, but there's way too many "no, you can't pin the guy, it's a tables match" spots. The brawl feels a bit too meandering and the big spots don't totally feel big enough to justify the lack of structure. The Prazak bump to end the second fall looked awful, and the shooting star took way too long to set up (although it looked nice when he hit it).

Reckless, interestingly, is showing more personality here than he did back on the indies the next year. He's really good on offense here, too, with Dragon doing a solid sell job, although probably rebounding a bit too quickly when he goes on offense. Crappy finish.

I think with the pace these guys cut at the beginning, this might have been better off as a sprint? About 8 minutes in, it already felt like they were close to a finish. That finish was wonderfully absurd, though.

RVD's entrance at this point is Sandman-length without the fun sing-a-long and beers. Truth telling: "He's going to set him up for some type of kick. He loves to kick." - Fonzie The opening part is fine, although mostly Corino working the standard Van Dam match. The match picks up a bit with Corino on offense, although it's nothing particularly exciting. Work-wise, Corino is better as a face, where he can work from underneath. A lot of his better offense here is the comedy (like the chair -> chinlock spot). As a result, he never really feels like a threat here, although that was a problem for a lot of guys against RVD at this point. The spots with Fonzie and Jacko towards the end are cute, and a nice use of the two managers. RVD gets ALL the spots in for the finishing stretch. Good enough for a 2000 RVD match, I guess.

Is this the first match these two teams had? What's apparent really fast here is that the dynamic is pretty good - you have two over babyfaces up against heels who can generate real heat (a bit of a rarity in ECW at the time). They start with the most reliable pairing in Guido-Tajiri and build pretty quickly from there. The speed is the main critique here - everything feels a little bit rushed and the heat doesn't build quite as well as it could (of course, they'd get more time later). Finish was wonderfully put together. Side note: I kept getting distracted by the super polite looking people in the first row, who seem so un-ECW.

Digging into this version of the FBI's run is one thing I'm very excited to do in the back half of 2000. They're already working pretty nicely together here (I liked the double team Russian legsweep off the top and the armbar off the sunset flip) and Guido leading the FIP sequence is a really good role for the character he's developed by this point. I liked the DDT reversal spot they used for the finish as well. Nothing spectacular but a fun 8 minutes.

Well, I guess Shane deserved to get paid after however much money Paul Heyman stiffed him on, but WCW really made him earn it in humiliation here. Madden makes nothing but jokes, which is probably what this whole bit of booking deserves (although frankly, the entire card they describe probably deserves that). The match itself is pretty solid. Even the finish is dumb but not so insulting. Good outing from both guys to work past how dumb the stips are.

Francine joined with Credible the night he won the title (it's her turning on Dreamer that gets him the win). Rough one to watch with my wife - shockingly, she was not into the crowd chanting "she's a crack whore" at Francine. Awkward to explain how normal that was in 2000. Corino is great here, not just setting up everything but getting heat all the way through. Weird to see this not devolve into a brawl quickly, but the FIP sections work reasonably well (particularly the one on Dreamer, who if nothing else at this point is a good seller). Disappointing to see Tajiri barely get into this one, though. I was also surprised the finish wasn't more over the top, but it was impressive enough as a way to put Rhino down (although why he took the fall and not Victory is odd, considering their relative positions at the time).

The Mark Reil segment starts weird, with Ki taking way too much of his offense when he's going to brush it off. The Ki offense section was pretty fun. The Berk segment was also pretty meh, with Berk not really being able to match Ki's intensity. As a result, match never really seemed to build momentum and Ki never seemed in danger. Good example of Ki really needing to find the right guys to work with him to make the style click.

Couple from the last 2 weeks: Steve Austin - v. Bret Hart, Wrestlemania 13 http://theatlantictransmission.com/podcast_episode/wwe-hall-of-fame-part-ii-steve-austin-v-bret-hart-wrestlemania-xiii-with-dennis-holden/ Dusty Rhodes - War Games I (this was one of my favorites from the season) http://theatlantictransmission.com/podcast_episode/wwe-hall-of-fame-part-iii-dusty-rhodes-in-wargames-the-match-beyond-great-american-bash-1987-with-allen-mcrae/