AstroBoy

They really pulled out all the stops trying to go for the valiant Hero overcoming the odds story. It misfired on so many micro levels, from the intensity (or lack thereof) from Palmer to the lacking bladejob by Hero and Hero throwing an El Matador tribute into the middle of his comeback. But on a macro level it kind of worked. Uneven sure, but the crowd pretty much bought in even though it took a bit to get there and the work didn't really live up to the story they were trying to tell. Still a good moment for Hero as he wins the tournament. **1/4

Nice to see Hero getting a chance to play the bully a little bit. I really like Hero as big guy trying to catch little guy and being thwarted here and there. Some of the work felt a bit scattered and aimless and the finish came off a little abruptly but this was a good match. ***1/4

I've always found Ace to be offputting for some reason. Hero feels so much more at home here working the mat as a babyface in a more grounded style of match. The opening of this is good stuff with both guys using counters and reversals and taking it to each other in a slow build. Hero misses a splash off the top and Ace controls before Hero fires up and hits a Hogan sequence before posing for the fans. Hero's Welcome gets put over well by getting the win again and I'm liking this Hero run through the tournament. ***

This had decent aura I suppose and was sufficiently gruesome, maybe even a little arduous as a struggle between dedicated hardcore guys. But largely it just felt like wandering through stabbing and weapons shots in a kind of vacuum. I can appreciate some grisly stuff but this just left me feeling pretty hollow. *

Not a real story to speak of as they brawl before getting to some dives and spots. Don Montoya was horrendously bad in this. He had an absolutely awful "roaring elbow" which the announcer likens to the roaring elbow of Masato Tanaka. His dive was also horrendous and he took a super timid and awkward bump getting slammed onto the ladder by Mack. I loved Monsta Mack's meaty clothesline from Compton. Low Ki is insane for that senton to the floor. The finishing Ki Krusher looked like it could have killed both guys. Fun spotfest. **1/2

This had a lot more charm and brutality to it than something like the Acid vs. Mondo match. At least here the big spots feel like brutal attempts to hurt the other guy and win the match instead of just put on a showy performance. There is minimal build but the spots get increasingly more crazy and Lobo takes the insane bump off the platform into the barbed wire. This hit the right line for me between spectacle and brawl. ***

Zandig manhandles Lobo after having some choice words for the Japanese competitor coming in later. Screwjob ending with Yamakawa costing Zandig the match. Not going to rate this as it was really just an angle in execution.

This was so sloppy early on, with a slow-motion looking series of botches to start things off. Not a lot of flow but they settle into trading some nice spots and getting into a nice groove. Acid's corkscrew legdrop looked brutal. The 450 breaking only the corner of the table looked painful as hell. Not a ton special about this one. **1/4

I just could not really get into this. Way too much wandering and plodding between weapon shots and, this isn't on the match, but the crowd on camera is just unbearable and grating. The culminating spot is really awesome, sure, but they also stand at the top of the truck just looking down at the table and waiting for it to get lit back up over and over again which completely killed any semblance of this being a real fight. For me, fun at best, but I wasn't feeling it much. *1/2

Shorter than I expected them to go and pretty sloppy in some places. Cabana is really a natural scummy heel and I thought he held this together pretty well through the rough parts, though Hero acquitted the tough moments like a pro too. A lot of energy and action packed into the short run time and Hero does a good job connecting as a face for this crowd. The Hero's Welcome was a great emphatic finish. **

There were an abundance of meaty punches and some off-kilter charm to this one. Sure the stakes didn't seem very high and it didn't seem like a big grudge but both guys got the danger over pretty well and took some painful looking falls here. As a kind of slow and steady brawl I liked this well enough. **1/2

The opening of this was really tight with both guys totally crisp and good with their execution. Ace gives Sharkboy a hiptoss, then a bodyslam, then an arm drag in three separate sequences. Sharkboy finally reverses and hits all three of those spots in order in a really nice callback to take over for a few. Ace drops him nut first on the ropes and goes into some standard work as the crowd gets on his case. Not a huge fan of Sharkboy's biting offense but he worked over the arm nicely enough while on offense. The finishing power bomb looked rough but fitting to end a match. **1/2

Pretty solid tag before all the shenanigans. Cornette really is going in just constant overdrive with the volume and the words per minute and the hyperbole. More than anything I just continue to think that Nick Dinsmore is impossibly hateable. It's unfathomable to me how anybody is supposed to cheer for this guy. *3/4

Lazz is a fun character. AJ really pulls off slimy heel pretty well and shows some of the type of heeling that the Young Bucks would perhaps be inspired by, adding athleticism to certain spots just to show off and be annoying. I liked this just fine but thought maybe it meandered just a bit much. **

Not much to say about this work. Mostly standard fare brawling only kind of harder to follow due to the video guy. Robinson impressed me with his punches and I liked his presence here a lot. I didn't really get much into it but it was completely fine and wasn't bad at all. The nail bump looks really painful and Robinson seemed to be in some pain as Bambino gets the win. **

This was proficient and fine but lacking in any kind of strong substance to really make it interesting. Punk is a good heel and does a nice job of utilizing little cutoff moments and selling well but this kind of starts with a whimper of a transition from shine to heat and from there is just kind of goes without becoming anything whole. Sloppiness is not a huge deal in many ways but you get the sense that maybe Punk's mind is ahead of what he can actually put together coherently in the ring at this point. Best part of this is the ref getting bumped and then Punk just casually and unceremoniously dropping Bambino onto the mat. Good simple heel finish. *3/4

So I still owed dkookypunk43 a review from forever ago. I went ahead and wrote a review of Kobashi vs. Omori from the 2000 Champions Carnival and the link is below. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/25752-kenta-kobashi-vs-takao-omori-ajpw-championship-carnival-041500/

I didn't quite know what to make of a few things in this match. I'm going to start with Omori, who I thought had a really strong performance in this, in some ways stronger than Kobashi. From the dropkick to the knee to his first big nearfall, Omori was all over the leg with varied offense, intensity, focus. It was just great. It's not like the legwork meant a ton ultimately and it wasn't the most overly exciting but it was interesting enough and the build is the important part here too. Kobashi begins to mount his comeback with the chops and in comes the moment where Omori ducks the lariat and uses two consecutive dragon suplexes for a really hot nearfall. This was just perfectly timed and a great splash of cold water after the leg work that had preceded it. So then Kobashi kind of takes over for most of the stretch and starts throwing Omori all over the place. This is not a criticism -- but it occurred to me here just how much more Omori got out of that dragon suplex than Kobashi did with a german suplex, a diving lariat, and a half nelson in quick succession. Even after this point Omori does a great job pulling down the knee pad and making his diving knee drop as big a deal as possible. I get the difference between the two status-wise. Kobashi has more ammunition, he can kill Omori with any number of things. I am just not sure I appreciated all that after the gradual build to the Kobashi comeback. Still, the finishing stretch is really good and I loved Omori lunging for a weak lariat and being just destroyed by the lariat that ends it. ****

The whole thing just felt pedestrian to me. Could be personal bias but Lynn felt passed by as the hot hand so to speak, and Corino seemed ready for the main event spot. I know with Minnesota coming up that Lynn made sense, and they ended up going to Corino soon after anyway but Lynn feels like sort of a placeholder during this time period. The action is fine and Lynn does a pretty nice bladejob before getting eliminated. The Corino and Credible stuff didn't come off as organically as their singles match earlier in the month. There it felt chaotic in a good way. Here it felt like a trainwreck of way too much going on and it just couldn't be convincing enough to matter. Still a solid match but didn't hit all the right notes. ***

I loved this. Whipwreck and Kash have a fine face vs. face match where both are pretty aggressive and testy with each other before Rhino comes in and gores both. Back from commercial and it's a total balls to the wall sprint between Kash and Rhino. Kash with intensity and urgency here that I haven't seen from him in other matches. Rhino is just vulnerable enough while also being a bruiser. They really get over animosity and hatred and it feels like a tooth and nail fight. Kash hits his out of control step up rana and Rhino lays him out with a short-arm clothesline in a great takeover spot. Finish is great with a sort of flash Gore and then one through the table to regain the belt. Rhino is awesome. I know it was short but as a whole package this was a blast. ***1/2

CW was pretty good here but just way too much "stuff" from RVD. He takes forever on offense to start, setting up one flimsy high spot after another through an endless series of feather light punches and Irish whip reversals to get CW into position. Things are good when CW beats RVD down for a bit but then RVD is right back to fitting in as many flips and dumb shit as possible while posing like nothing happened. It had a kind of reckless charm to it but this could have been better. **3/4

This isn't the strength of Rhino at all and it was too long to maximize him. Lynn isn't really natural as a underneath babyface type in this kind of match and so it was just bland. Rhino was better served in short bursts of action at this point and Lynn doesn't present an interesting enough style counterpoint to him to make it compelling at all. **

This was a snooze for me. RVD is nothing but flips and crowd interaction here and Kid Kash does an admirable job doing the heavy lifting for his team but Da Baldies are not credible at all against them and the crowd could care less. I really do love Kash's top rope rana, he gets insane height on it. *