G. Badger

I'm trying to get the ball rolling again for exploring the early 2010's Puro. Let's take a look at 01/02/2012 AJPW!! (Broadcast 01/10/12) KENSO, Kaz Hayashi & Yasufumi Nakanoueno vs Takao Omori, Manabu Soya & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi - This was a very good opening match. The energy level was high. Kikuchi was a fun mystery partner that never out stayed his welcome. Kaz Hiyashi will always Shiryu from the glory days of M-Pro and he's still got it here. Akebono & Ryota Hama vs Yuji Okabayashi & Kazuki Hashimoto - You know what you are signing up for with this match. Says it was 8 minutes but it felt quicker. Hey, that's a compliment! Akebono just doesn't do much for me. Keiji Muto, Abdullah the Butcher & Kikutarou vs Masanobu Fuchi, Kikutaro & BLACK BUSHI - Skipped Masakatsu Funaki, Masayuki Kono & Minoru Tanaka vs Taiyo Kea, Shuji Kondo & Takumi Soya - This another really good 6 man match. Minoru was the bright point to me. Masakatsu turns the shooter skills on for the finish and it is sweet. At about 8 minutes, this was easy viewing. Seiya Sanada, KAI & Hiroshi Yamato vs Dark Ozz, Dark Cuervo & Kenny Omega - The Dark guys are fun but a little sloppy. Yamato was in for a good portion of the match and I got to remember how good he is. Everyone else is their normal selves and brought the goods. This was 15 minutes and ended just in time for this to leave me happy. It was almost like a FMW 6 man in that regard...it got close to going off the rails but never did. Suwama vs Daisuke Sekimoto - I think I've reviewed this earlier in the blog. This is one of the matches that inspired me to check out 2010's stuff. It was and hopefully is still up on Daily Motion. I've seen it 3-4 times and man is this still classic stuff to me! Right under 20 minutes, it eschews the "longer is better" mantra and keeps this compact yet tells a compelling story. That plus they beat the crap outta each other. I've seen more Sekimoto and SUWAMA since I first saw this and I can say it doesn't fall into any ruts or cliches. They tease or payoff and then move on rather than milk for time or over do it. It is the only singles match on the card and they really make that mean something. New Year Battle Royal - I watched this on fast forward until the last few guys. Its every guy on the show except SUWAMA and Sekimoto doing a battle royale. I don't like this after such a bad ass battle but, its tradition. Anyhow this is an easy breezy 2 hours of wrestling. IVP has it for a steal and the singles match is probably still on D.M. so if you're curious, what are you waiting for?

Man, its been awhile since watching Full Impact Pro so I've cut down the # of matches I watched and my plan to post this on Fridays. It don't matter now...here's the teaser trailer: Davey Richards vs Tyler Black - Alright these guys are not playing around. Davey kinda starts with his goofy heel over- selling but soon he and Black hit their stride. They just started doing their indy-workrate thing and that's what everyone wants to see. I skipped most of the show because I've been putting off the FIP stuff. But there's no easier way to get back into it than seeing these guys do their thing. Very good match that was closing in on greatness. Although this show is the third to last, FIP's style has caught up to ROH circa 2008. Kenny King & Jason Blade vs Jay Briscoe & Austin Aries - The YRR (still going strong) attack Tyler after the match and Briscoe and Aries come to make the save. We get a great impromptu tag title match. Tons of action and spots. This was a step up in action and excitement from the previous match. Great match Roderick Strong vs Erick Stevens (Last Man Standing) - A wild brutal brawl for the FIP title. This was absolutely vicious. Stevens has stepped up his game big time and Roderick was glad to match his intensity. I'll still put this behind Roddy vs Jack but this may be my #2 FIP singles match. Probably the best hardcore FIP bout I've seen. Only watched 3 bouts but man, this was 1 hour's worth of exciting wrestling. Definitely worth the $5 from Highspots and probably better than any wrestling on TV today. Thanks for reading!

The Chyna doc is much more of a traditional documentary film compared to Dark Side. Its fantastic IMO. The interesting part is how the filmmakers used footage from a failed/abandoned documentary film that was shot in 2015-16 in order to capture what was going on during the last year of her life. There's much more to it than that but, the format is very refreshing and certainly emotional to watch. Its shown on the Vice Versa program BTW. I was originally bummed when I head Dark Side wasn't going to cover Chyna but this film trumps anything the show would have done. I'm guessing since Vice had this in the wings they weren't fighting to have the D.S.O.T.R. episode made/shown.

I am biased and try to stay away from the WWF/E as much as I can. Other than a handful of periods in time, it is not for me. So a few years back I was watching the SWS promotion and they had a working relationship with the WWF and some of those mixed matches were pretty good depending on who was in them. After watching the Grizzly Smith Dark Side of the Ring I decided to see what Jake the Snake matches I had. Not many...but I found one from my AJ Classics and I thought 'what the heck! Let's see how these WWF vs Japan matches are!' Jake Roberts vs. Big Bossman - I wanted to like this but skip it. It was Bossman beating up Jake at a snails pace and sneering at the crowd. Jake was good but this wasn't really his forte. Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask - Full match, a lot of the reviews in the Match Discussion Archives are about a clipped version. This is a good match. I'll be frank Bret can be a boring wrestler without a good story or an opponent who he knows well. So we're 0 for 2 here. Misawa was an upper midcard guy here and wrestled like one. The problem aren't those things though. The issue is that they had them wrestle a longer match. 15-20 minutes...Bret's the guy to do it but again he didn't know Misawa & Misawa isn't supposed to be showing up Hart. 'Cause I'm going to be honest, Misawa in later 1990 had IT because Baba took off his restraints of the mask/character/position in the company...this wasn't that Mitsuharu though. Shoehi Baba / Andre the Giant vs. Demolition - This was fun but only because it was short. Demolition do nothing for me. Jumbo Tsuruta / King Haku vs. Curt Henning / Rick Martel - All right! This is a match up that I never knew I needed to see...but it did not disappoint! All guys are great workers and speak English and probably shared some locker rooms over the years so we were getting great moves and fun sequences. Not only that but some drama too! This was a very good match...scratching on the door of greatness. Randy Savage vs Genichiro Tenryu - Randy with Sherri Martel (who was as much a part of the match as the guys) vs Mr. Puroresu. And in the Dome, Tenryu lives up to that. Like New Mr. Puro Kobashi, Tenryu just embodies the style and sport. So it was a treat to have him face a lunatic like Savage...who I think is an embodiment of American style with the fashion, promos, but the in ring excitement to back it up. Like the above tag bout, this was really good stuff...the fans were loving this! Hulk Hogan vs Stan Hansen - Have no doubts, this is a great match. I avoid Hogan matches but, this is not something to miss especially if you enjoy Stan Hansen. If you have never seen Hansen then this may be your best entry point. At thirteen minutes, we get distilled Lariat - Unsinkable Battle Ship Hansen vs Hulk -I'm in Japan where they still think I'm a badass- Hogan and they live up to it all in my view. I did a big write up and took screen shots to send my dad...it was that great. I mean not to spoil it but give you a taste, we get double blood! Those last three matches are worth checking out for sure. They aren't in that order on the full show or even on the AJ Classics but this is how I would have booked it. Thanks for reading! Keep safe!

Bret Hart talks about this match a little bit in his book 'Hitman' (I'm going off memory from 10yrs ago). He thought this Tiger Mask was good but not as good as the original. He doesn't mention Misawa by name or even that he would go onto bigger things. It was almost as if this Tiger Mask #2 just faded away. I found this to be odd since Misawa was such a star in Japan that it might be interesting to the reader and give some reference. He clearly was into WWF and had his blinders up...I can't recall what his thoughts were when he worked with Jinsei Shinzaki. I like Bret and he does have some fantastic matches in the WWF but for someone who is The Excellence of Execution its telling he seems to be completed ignorant of Misawa. Bret never updated his moves or style after this time period whereas Misawa would continue to improve and stay fresh for a decade plus. This is an OK match with some neat moments. It would have helped if they went for a shorter match and a double count out.

Here we are at the half way point of 2021...wait what!? Really? Where the heck has the time gone? Maybe 2020 just seemed to be forever. Anyway, here's my top picks for 2021 so far: Tiger Mask vs Pete Roberts (09/10/82 NJPW) Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Gannosuke (01/06/98 FMW) Hayabusa vs Masato Tanaka (03/13/98 FMW) Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke (04/30/98 FMW) Tetushiro Kuroda vs Masato Tanaka (06/19/98 FMW) Hisakatsu Oya vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda (12/12/98 FMW) Abdullah Kobayashi vs Daisuke Sekimoto (07/22/05 BJW) Roderick Strong & Jack Evans vs. Jimmy Rave & Shingo (FIP New Year's Classic 2007) Tyler Black vs Roderick Strong FIP Heatstroke '07 Night 1) Honorable Mention Tag Matches - Gotta show some love to the tag matches that just missed the cut: Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Black Tiger & Pete Roberts (08/27/82 NJPW) Jado & Gedo vs Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka (05/05/98 FMW) Hayabusa &Tanaka vs W*ing Kanemura & Kodo Fuyuki (05/27/98 FMW) BxB Hulk and Yamato vs Roderick Strong and Jay Briscoe (FIP Third Year Anniversary) Thanks for reading and stay safe folks!

I felt like watching some stuff from the 80's after watching 80's wrestling commercials on YouTube. I've got tons of stuff so I went through and cherry picked a disc from my AJPW collection. Only one match actually is an AJ match which is nice since that smattering of wrestling was what I wanted. Jack and Jerry Brisco vs Bob Orton Jr/Jimmy Valiant (06/12/83 in Savannah, GA): This was a high energy tag match but there wasn't a lot to it. That and three of the guys had red trunks on! It was very good stuff but not much than I can recall. Orton does a great back breaker. Jumbo Tsuruta vs Brad Rheingans (08/30/83): This was a fantastic technical match that AJPW isn't always known for at this time. This is more like what I've seen in NJ at this time. It makes sense since both are former Greco-Roman Olympians. There were plenty of reversals and escapes and I don't recall one rope break. This is really my favorite type of stuff to watch. Great match Harley Race vs Kevin Von Erich (NWA Title on 06/17/83 in Dallas, TX): This was a great title match. I've only seen Kerry Von Erich so it was nice to finally see Kevin. This is especially true after watching the Von Erich Dark Side episode a few weeks ago and as the only living brother, I guess I feel for him. So he's a true babyface in this case if that makes any sense. He's up against Harley Race which I think is a good match up since Harley has a more deliberate orthodox style that transfers well regardless of his opponent. Kevin is more like a Ricky Steamboat heavy weight and his awesome dropkicks look devastating against the champ. Mixed with his body scissors hold (something we don't ever see anymore) and the Iron Claw, he's got Race reeling. Eventually Harley gets Kevin to the floor where he crashes into TV equipment (I think) and hurts his shoulder. There's blood in the water for the shark. The champion is a great white in his attack - ax handle smashes and viscous knee drops are the best. The ref wants to stop the fight but Kevin refuses. He still has his big weapons and won't be told to quit...not even when big brother David comes out. What a great match to introduce the Von Erich clan and a great bout overall.

So here we are...the end of 1998 for FMW. Let's see if the year ends as well as it started. Its the 12/13/98 show and the Over the Top Tournament. Mr. Gannosuke vs W*ing Kanemura - A great match! I saw this in full and man Gannosuke is so very underrated. Kanemura too...this story has Gannosuke and Kanemura's friendship and team success threatened as Gannosuke wants nothing to do with Team No Respect and is a dark monk like early Jinsei Shinzaki. Its exactly what you want...blood, table violence, brutal finish - I love it! Hayabusa vs Oya - I own this in a clipped version but, I found the full version. It actually wasn't clipped more than like a minute...weird. Anyway, this was a very good compressed match with all killer wrestling. Hayabusa working with a fit & smart opponent like Oya is just easy to love stuff. FMW is looking a lot better than the last couple months. -spoilers - Gannosuke vs Bad Boy Hido - Super fast but effective match with both guys going for the quick win. Fun stuff. Hisakatsu Oya vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda - Wow...just wow this is a classic match to me. We have Kuroda who's essentially the FMW Kojima vs Hisakatsu Oya who is the in house technician (who throws a mean suplex). So Kuroda does his thing as the fire plug but man...Oya is amazing here. Perhaps I'm not as familiar as I should be but there is a lot to like here. There are a couple transitions from one hold into another that it was really masterful. All that can still lose a match when a guy who throws lariat-o's, right? But even Kuroda had nuance by attacking Oya's leg...and actually sticking with it and when he finally hit his Raven drop toe hold it fed into Oya's weakened knee. He just crumbled. Oya then knew that to overcome Kuroda he would need to break his arm or deliver neck death. As this was the main event, it got the time to build and deliver. Yeah, this show was a return to form for 1998. I was dragging my feet on this show for a variety of reasons but am so glad I watched it. I fitting entry for blog post #200!!! Thanks for your patience and I appreciate all of you who've been reading. It means a whole lot to me. Stay safe folks!

I watched the Dark Side on the Collision in Korea. It was a thankful return to form for the show. Anyhow it got me thinking about the steiner's match over there and here's a spotlight from the wrestling notebook grooveyard. Everyone has an opinion on the 1991 match vs Hase & Sasaki so I'll omit that...let's get into some lesser known stuff of -The Steiner Brothers in NJPW!! Steiner Brothers vs. Power Warrior Sasaki & Jushin Liger (New Japan 2/17/94) A pretty good tag match with Liger being the real spark plug of this match. Sasaki is only really capable of a few moves but he used them real well here. Cool finish. ***3/4 (very good match) Steiner Brothers vs. Jushin Liger/Chris Benoit (New Japan 4/4/94) The junior team was out classed here and Benoit mainly took bumps but once things got real competitive it was fantastic and really exciting. This is why I love tag-team wrestling. **** (Great match) Steiner Brothers vs. Chris Benoit/Scott Norton (New Japan 10/8/94) A joined-in-progress match that was not very memorable but by no means bad...just not up to the standards of the other two. Once again Benoit was bump-boy...which is a total misuse. (No rating but must be at least fun) Steiner Brothers vs. Keiji Muto & Hiroshi Hase (New Japan, 1/4/95) The best of the matches here and you could tell from the get go that the Steiners were taking this one seriously. Mutoh was awesome here as the fire plug MF'er that I've heard so much good stuff about. The strikes were never the Steiners strong suit as they either go too stiff or not enough but if you can get past that it's an awesome tag match. If they were responsibly stiff then this would be 4.25+ but as it is I'll give it ****+. Still fun dramatic tag match as Hase's trademark suplex does the Brothers in. This is an added bonus as I'm a fan (Great match...I'll say near classic here in 2021) Steiner Brothers vs. Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan, 4/29/95) This is from the Korea Supershow and it's not too bad as Kensuke brings it to who ever gets in the ring with him and Hase is just great. Unfortunately the native team jobs in essentially a squash match but without the killer double team moves and the producer/editor thought it'd be a good idea to switch to Kensuke & Rick brawling on the outside as Scott hit the Screwdriver on Hase for the pin?! What the fuck!? Steiner Brothers vs. Scott Norton & Power Warrior Hawk (New Japan, 5/3/95) I wish Kensuke was in this but as it was it was alright. Scott Norton bumps like someone 100lbs lighter and well Hawk was alright at times. Still no one here to supply psychology. The spots were good but they didn't know what to do to carry the drama from one spot to the next. Still we got to see the Steiner DDT & Bulldog to put Hawk down. Would have been better but 2 Amer. teams are working too friendly and comes across as a WCW match. (Guess this maybe this is explained by the Dark Side episode as this takes place a couple days after. Hawk had Hep A and was on medicine and it sounds like the experience for all of American guys was very very rough). Hope you dug this! I'm working on getting to finishing my ongoing stuff with FMW '98. I've been watching the Darkside stuff, Pillman matches from the WWE dvd, and listening to Cornette's podcast moreso than focusing on the task at hand. Sorry! Also I wrote a Thank you New Jack post but that never got posted or removed and that was discouraging...so anyhow thanks for reading! Getting close to post #200. Stay safe folks!

Finished the Nick Gage episode and its rough watching. Its not the death match stuff but, he just isn't likable at any point. Even with Snuka and Benoit you could find points in their stories/lives where you could empathize or relate to before they commit their crimes. They didn't start out as bad people from the get go. Gage comes across as a psycho who never should have been booked in a pro match from the start. All the crazy stuff that happens is indeed dark but, you kinda don't care because he sounds like a bad person. All that and he just doesn't have the star power to even make this a "big star gets destroyed by his demons" story like Benoit or whoever. He just seemed like a guy who wrestles to hurt people and then hurt people outside of wrestling too. This felt like too much of a fan request episode than anything else.

This is the start of Disc #4 of 6 and man, I'm really happy that I got this set a year ago. Its taken me awhile to watch it but, I think that's for the best. This stuff has been a real blast to watch. OK let's get to the matches: vs Villano III (09/03/82): Joined in Progress, This was a fun match with some good moves from Tiger but nothing of much substance. Still a good match to start out with... vs Pete Roberts (09/10/82): Black Tiger Rocco tried to jump Tiger Mask before the match but he and Roberts handle B.T. and get onto their bout. Interesting since Roberts and Rocco/Black Tiger teamed up earlier in the year. Anyhow, that aside we get a slight skip ahead in the the tape (not much) and wow! We get two technical wizards having a good old fashion duel! Tons of holds, counter holds, escapes and reversals are in this match. This was technical marvel! Classic match...this is Tiger in his element. vs Chris Adams (09/17/82): The mix of styles here was rather pleasant. Adams could do Tiger's mat stuff but, also had good punches and of course the Superkick/Thrust kick. This busted Tiger Mask's mouth open. I think it loosened a tooth frankly. TM responds with kicks of his own and tries to fight his way out of hole. Not quite a heel/face match but, Adams was no Gentleman Very good match where Tiger has to go for broke! Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino vs Villano III & Black Tiger (09/19/82): This is a much better showing of Villano III than the singles match above. He and B.T make a great team. I wonder if they were teaming regularly in Japan at this time. There was no problems here despite one guy being Mexican and the other being British wrestling two Japanese guys. That being said, this was a high energy match that is really easy to watch. Everything just seemed to flow together. Now, I would have like a little more drama to have been built by working to a hot tag but that's my opinion. There were some good pinfall break-ups but, they should have been a bit more conservative with them to really make the later ones more thrilling. That is do fewer of them so it gives greater meaning & purpose to them. That's my complaint but, overall another very good go-go match. This was much more of a showcase for Black Tiger & Villano III than Tiger or Hoshino. And there's no complaints there! 6 DVDs of one guy can be pretty repetitive but Tiger Mask is not that repetitive of a wrestler. I was really worried about that and is why I held off on buying this set for a long time. In all honesty, I think I got that feeling from watching the Dynamite matches. And I don't want to knock those (we got one more fight in '83) but, I prefer these other match-ups. Those TM DK bouts stand out stylistically from his other matches and those laid the ground work for much of wrestling that would follow. But I got the feeling Tiger Mask was a flippy-floppy wrestler who did some dives and that was ahead of its time BUT 40 years later...that's old hat. This set and shoot! even the above bouts put that misconception to bed. Its worth the time to watch some of these just to do the man some justice and say "yeah, he's more than just his Dynamite matches." But I think it's worth watching these to see great wrestling in a style that you don't see anymore...and frankly I don't think most folks lack the skills and patience to do it. Oh before I forget! -BONUS- Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Pete Roberts & EL Solitario (09/04/81): A year earlier we find this match. Its NOT on my big Tiger Mask set but on Archives.org. Thanks to the person that posted this! Its 13 minutes of fantastic chain wrestling, rope running action. I'm really not sure why folks don't do this today. Its as athletic as the stuff nowadays and a whole lot more interesting to watch. This was a very good match and Roberts had two amazing chain sequences with Tiger & Fujinami. Thanks for reading! Stay safe everyone

So let me start by saying I'm not 100% on the episodes because Highspots has them as #41 & 42 (Daisuke Sekimoto Special) and the actual DVD menu has them as #39 & 40 with the dates being 08/02/05 & 08/09/05 respectively. That should hopefully help you should you be looking for these episodes on DVD or in some other form. My goal of this blog is to help people find their way to older /andor perhaps overlooked wrestling. I think 2005 BJW is a good fit for that since I had never really heard much about this time period and really only could relate BJW to the Deathmatch tape I bought im like '98 or '99. I've gone on about that elsewhere. When I got Fire Pro Wrestling returns back in 2007 for PS2, I don't think I recognized anyone on the BJW (NITRO I think was the fake company name) roster. I've become familiar by looking at the match listings on Cagematch or where ever when doing my prelim research but, we're going into this one relatively blind together. Anyways, I did some digging and it seemed like 2005 would be a good place for me to jump in. Again, no one really talks about this time period anymore and really not a lot in the late 2000's early 2010s. But there are names that I know from more recent BJW stuff that I see on their Youtube page (clipped matches from 2011-2014ish) and guys from FMW and the Indies from the 90's. I'm down with that So let's start: 07/22/05 - Korakuen Hall Daikobubo Benkei & Asian Cougar vs Mammoth Sasaki & Hyoma - This was a good match. I'm familiar with Mammoth Sasaki from FMW and fellow user Gordi has shared some great stories and pictures of he and his pal Asian Cougar here So this should be a lot of fun! And it is. Both Mammoth and Cougar are the best here. Cougar stole the show to be honest. He took a sick bump off the apron into the crowd and did a spectacular tope con hilo ( over the top somersault senton if you will) to his opponent lying prone on the ring floor...on a pile of chairs no less! Gran Hamada & Men's Teioh vs Katsu Inoue & Hiroyuki Kondo - This was cool to see Hamada and Teioh in the ring again. I love that 93-97 M-Pro stuff. I look forward to seeing the younger guys in future matches they have potential. But this was only a good match since Hamada is getting long in the tooth and Teioh is only going to work so hard with youngsters. Hamada does his back body drop flip though! Abdullah Kobayashi vs Daisuke Sekimoto - From what I could tell after the match (which isn't a lot since I don't understand Japanese), this was fought as a Strong Style match. Kobayashi wanted to prove to Sekimoto that he could beat him at his own style, let alone in deathmatch style. Holy crap! This was like early '98 FMW greatness! Stong style but with hardcore rules which is perfect for the ECW kid in me. And frankly this is as about as perfect a ECW/FMW athletic style match as you can have. Sekimoto at this stage is like Masato Tanaka...he hits hard and can get hit even harder. Abby Jr. drops him on his noggin a couple times to make Dangan shudder. In the end, both guys are bleeding, and this is an All time classic match in this style. Both guys were absolutely brutal and not a light tube or roll of barb wire to be found. So glad this was shown in full. -Now we're on to the next show which is called the Daisuke Sekimoto special but also features some clipped matches of Jaki Numazawa. This will make sense at the end of the show. Again, if I understood Japanese, it would have made sense from the beginning! Daisuke Sekimote vs Ryuji Ito (08/10/99) - Baby match- wow! Ryuji is a string bean! 5:30 match vs Naoki (Jaki) Numazawa (03/01/01) - 6+ match..possibly Numazawa's debut match? Looked nothing like how he does nowadays (or even'05 for that matter). vs Men's Teioh (02/03/02) - 10 minutes and the best one so far. We're seeing shades of what Sekimoto will become later on. Very enjoyable match and Teioh is very generous. vs D. Benkei (08/18/02) - Benkei is as big as a port-a-potty. JIP but this is good and represents Sekimoto's style of lariats, fighting spirit, etc. He wins the BJW Hvy Wt. belt here. Now this is when I get confused as they show the following: Mad Man Pondo vs Numazawa (11/10/02) - Numazawa looks completely different from a year ealier with Daisuke. He's a fine wrestler but gave that up to be put through glass tubes. Numazawa goes to the hospital for his injuries. This has some sick spots but the execution could have been better. Numazawa vs Ryuji Ito (01/15/04) - Lights out electric lighttube deathmatch. I always liked these at it seemed more dangerous and stuff This too was clipped but this was crazy! Ito has bulked up and he's mixing his kicks in with the light tube stuff. That looks awesome. Numazawa was impressive here as well. Numazawa vs Sekimoto (01/28/05) - OK so full circle now...the focuses of the show meet here in 2005 (earlier in the year of this TV tape). This was clipped was well and I wish it was shown in full. It looked amazing. Still I'm not complaining on what was shown at all. *Looked this up on Cagematch and it looks like the next show was a Numazawa produced show and the main event was Numazawa vs Sekimoto in a Prison Hall Deathmatch. SO this episode was building up to that show...cool! And thats the end of the DVD. I would say both episodes had their merits. The first one had the classic Daisuke vs Abby match and the second episode had a lot of material that was condensed to the best stuff. All in all this was a great into to BJW at this time period. I know Ito is a big deal and I've seen Jaki Numazawa on BJW clipped stuff so this was neat. I totally want to hook up my PS2 and go through the BJW roster and play some matches. There'll be more on the way. I think the next batch is from 2006. Also I've not forgotten FIP and Tiger Mask. TM stuff should be coming out soon. There's a real doozy you'll want to see on there. Stay safe!

Sorry for the delay! Let's get back to 1998 in the FMW promotion in Japan. Hisakatsu Oya vs Kodo Fuyuki (10/06): This was a more traditional match with Fuyuki trying to get the better of Oya at his own game. A good match especially if you have the patience for Inoki type stuff. W*ing Kanemura vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda (10/06): I loved Kanemura's 'dance routine ' to The Offspring. This got really good when Kuroda got his comeback. It was real cat & mouse stuff. This is #90 on BAHU's list. That seems fair to me. Koji Nakagawa vs Hayabusa (10/06): I jumped ahead in this because Nakagawa isn't beating Hayabusa but I want to see what's up. And this ain't bad! Nakagawa is going at Hayabusa with a fork and this is something different. T. Kuroda vs Mr. Gannosuke (11/20): Gannosuke is back! The version I saw was clipped but this was good. I feel like the Kanemura one was better. Hayabusa vs Kodo Fuyuki (11/20): I was going to go into Fuyuki's role in FMW and how he changed the direction of FMW away from the deathmatches and really even the traditional style of early 1998. He changed the style to Entertainment style which was what WCW & WWF were doing. You can see that the mat has changed and there's fancy U.S. style entrances now. But I'll leave it there but let's say the outcome of the match is indicative. This was a very good title match. Hayabusa was was really going after Fuyuki's lariat arm & early on Fuyuki was keeping 'busa grounded. Bird man was doing what he could with fat Fuyuki so not everything worked like it would have with someone more agile. Again it was very good and even great at times. But could have been better and well the outcome changed the direction of the company (kayfabe) but also was an indicator of things to come. I've been kinda bummed out about this later stuff because the year started out on a real high note. I mean, it was AJPW level classic stuff but as guys like Tanaka and Gannosuke were out of the picture, the matches suffered. There's one more installment and will cover 1998 FMW Year End Sensation which is a tournament. Let's hope it's good! Thanks for reading and stay safe!

So I'm going to pick back up my project of watching Tiger Mask #1 in NJPW and I was having trouble finding where I left off. Little did I remember that I'd actually a few matches for part 5 already watched! I got into a giant ROH tangent and been doing those reviews along with FIP. Anyhow here's part #5! Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid (08/05/82) - I watched this twice and know I've seen it at least a few other times. It's a pretty good match still but, the set-up and pacing is where I have a problem. In fact its one that's a common problem nowadays...there's no real build or story. There's problems with the psychology that keep this from being great. It is a collection of neat sequences & the finish was sick...so this doesn't lack action or excitement just substance. w/ Tatsumi Fujinami vs Black Tiger & Pete Roberts (08/27/82) - Oh yeah! Rocco Black Tiger (R.I.P.) is just there to throw shade & mug Tiger every chance he gets. Even Roberts has words with Black Tiger at one point. That said, this is fantastic fast paced technical tag wrestling overall. These type of bouts is where TM Sayama shines brightest. Even more so with Rocco acting like a dirt bag villain amongst the technicians. Great match! Something I would skip over had I not got this DVD set. vs Dynamite Kid (08/30/82) - The steroids are really kicking in for the Kid now...holy crap! So this is the widely known MSG match and is a condensed version of what they're doing in Japan. So, their getting their stuff in without killing for time and it works. I wouldn't say it's as complete as their NJ stuff but, if you want to show someone classic puro without taking up too much time - it's a good start! I believe that there's only one more Tiger vs Dynamite match left. They are still very good matches and the Kid is probably the most consistent opponent our hero has. So, they might not have the best match thus far, he's a quality opponent and I know that they "wow" the audience and first tim viewers. I don't think many people can say they did love the Tiger vs Dynamite stuff the first time around. Thanks for reading! Looking forward to picking this project up again shortly.

I guess its called Third Anniversary Show but that sounds lame compared to Third Year Anniversary. So I'm keeping the title!

Sara Del Ray vs Lacey vs Daizee Haze - It was a good triple threat match with nice action. It started out slow but improved as it went on. It was just nice to see women's wrestling especially in this setting. Necro Butcher vs Gran Akuma (NO DQ Match) - Good but not great. I didn't think that Grand Akuma got a lot of offense in. It was a fun match nonetheless. Erick Stevens vs Jack Evans - Very good to almost even a great match. Lots of great moves from Jack. Erick provided a great base for Jack's aerial moves. Not everything hit 100% perfection but it all still looked good and worked great in the setting. This was where the show got started in my opinion. BxB Hulk and Yamato vs Roderick Strong and Jay Briscoe - This was a great match. Lots of fast paced action with good moves. BB Hulk was all over the place and you couldn't even tell it was a small show since he was doing so much. Yamato was still coming into his own but was hitting as hard as Roderick. Yamato had some good moves with excellent German suplex on Roderick. Briscoe and Roderick on offense was really good stuff and everyone really brought their A game. Probably could've been a classic but the structure of the match was more American than the typical ROH/Dragon Gate matches. Black Market and The Heartbreak Express vs The YRR - Good fun brawl the night before the Cage of Pain 2 match. I don't think anyone was going all out considering they had that on the horizon. There were a couple good moves but I would not have made this the main event. However, the booking makes sense in the context of the story lines. In summary, a good DVD. It wasn't blow away awesome as I would have hoped. You can tell from the reviews and the number of matches that I skipped that I wanted to get to the meat of the show. Even then only 2 of those matches were truly memorable. The Erick vs Jack and the Tag match were worth the $5 on Highspots especially if you're looking to get a taste of this era of ROH without hunting for DVDs. Thanks for reading!! Stay safe P.s. I used a different pic for the entry since they advertise the DVD as Dragon Gate vs FIP...change things up a bit.

I'm a fan of Gran Hamada so, I really enjoyed this match. These two had a very good bout and like I said about Hijo del Santo vs Fuerza Guerrera, this helped laid the groundwork for fast paced yet hard hitting lucharesu of the 90's.

I'm with soup23 & Zenjo on this. I thought it was a very good sprint match. Everything looked like a struggle but still very smooth and clean. Something like this is what laid the foundation for Jr. lucharesu of 90's Michinoku Pro. Since I'm a big fan of that then, I really dug this. I've seen better matches with these two but, its been awhile so, this was a nice treat.

This week's episode had more pros than cons. The con was a returning Eli Isom beating TV title contender, former 6-man champion Rey Horus. Although I am all for pushing Isom, they could've had him lose but put up a good fight and that still would have worked. Instead they made Horus look like a chump going into the PPV. The positives were Jay Briscoe's awesome name dropping promo showing just how long he's been in the business. EC3 slowly becoming the Scott Steiner of promos. And the LFI vs Foundation 8 man. It was the type of very good match ROH TV needs every couple weeks to be worthwhile. It came close to making The Foundation look weak...heck maybe it did just that BUT it gave us all of the big players in one match. As I said above, these multi man matches should be on every show either tag, 6, or 8 man. Anyhow here's the Briscoe/EC3 promo:

Man, what is going on with Ring of Honor again? They just seemed to go right back to where they were before the pandemic and the Pure Title Tourney. The problem as I see it is: They have too many wrestlers for the amount of TV time and PPVs they do. They've got one hour of TV to fill and a PPV every three months right now. As I've followed it some guys are making an appearance once a month on TV and frankly this isn't just the low end guys like LSG, The Bouncers, and others. I don't know the last time I saw Jonathan Gresham, Tracy Williams, Rhett Titus, Mike Bennett, Vincent and it goes on and on. These are supposed to be their upper card guys. Same with Brody King who other than a little scuffle the other week has been off TV for sometime. I mean he was the # 1 contender at Final Battle and he's just made like a couple appearances at most in the past two months!? ROH doesn't put enough content out right now/past year to be having as many lower end guys in singles matches as they do. Does Dak Draper, Tony Deppen, Eli Isom need a singles match on TV where they feature 2-3 matches a week? I don't think so when it means we don't see guys from their "big" story lines once or twice a month. I say this because it is really hard for me, a weekly viewer, to even remember or care about the "big" matches on the PPV. I'm too busy watching fun throw-away matches that don't amount to anything again - just like pre-pandemic ROH was doing. Case in point is Dak Draper beating Fred Yehi in a Pure Rules match. Firstly, Pure Matches have nothing going for them anymore because they are not wrestled any differently than regular matches. OK there's the closed fist thing but, there's no real danger there because no one has been DQ'd for doing it twice yet. That being said Fred Yehi, who was THE standout of new comer to ROH during the Pure Tournament, is a fantastic talent for ROH to get behind. Dak Draper is a recent (somewhat) winner of the Top Prospect Tourney which isn't saying a lot but, he's in good shape and he's tall. Why is this guy beating a Yehi, who beat vet Silas Young and took Tracy Williams to the limit? It doesn't make any sense if you've been watching the show. And I think ROH or Sinclair think that people don't watch the show regularly enough to actually follow/remember/care about such things. Why show this match instead of Yehi vs someone from Los Ingobernales? That would at least be Foundation vs LFI or at least Pure Rules vs LFI's rudo-ism... Where ROH hit a type of gold was limiting their roster and having a tournament during the Pure Title stuff. A tourney has built in drama because there are stakes to every match and we see the results of those wins and losses. I got used to them throwing in non-tourney matches like a 6 man or perhaps a segment (like with Taven & Vincent) to keep things fresh or different with the wrestling style. Unfortunately, ROH did exactly what I was afraid of when they started showing promos of Rush & crew. It became the same old crap and the big reveal of The Foundation group has turned to be a whole-lotta-nothing like most of their factions the past couple years. That is unless you actually want to feature them on your one hour of TV a week. So now we have all of these little story lines that are not very interesting and the ones that actually have the potential to be good are so few and far between I can hardly remember what happened last. And from what it seems to me, it is because ROH wants to get their money's worth by showing every wrestler they have for a singles match or two over the course of 2-3 months...regardless if that wrestler is any good, anyone wants to see that person, or there is a story involved for a PPV. Now, if they are doing this due to COVID-19 safety then, that's OK. But they have got to be a little bit better in how they plan things in terms of story. If anything pepper in a little footage or a match every week from their top 2 stories per week. I've admitted that ROH is pretty much running midcard type matches and their TV show is like WCW Worldwide but, honestly it isn't even fun anymore. The draw of watching stuff like that is that every once in awhile something very good or great will be shown. A match or an interview that will suck you into the world their presenting. The Pure Tourney had moments like this, matches after the tourney like had this like Dalton vs Brody King and Woods vs Castle...perhaps Dragon Lee vs Rey Horus (IIRC). So they have it in them to do this...and I think if they ran more tag matches (2v2 or 3v3) then they could still use their roster BUT keep people fresh in the fans minds. And this would keep matches exciting and cover-up any weak spots for newer guys...and you could make a tournament out of it! So, the booking is the story line (I'm no genius). Tag teams to fight for Dragon Lee & Kenny King's belts are: Woods & Young (they seem to want to put them back together...but we'll have to wait a month to see if that to happens), Moses & Kaun, The Bouncers, anyone from The Foundation (Rhett and Lethal?), Rey Horus & Flamita, Bennett & Taven, Vincent and Bateman, Dalton Castle and Tony Deppen (why not?). Boom...there you go eight teams. Two matches every week and their using two more guys/week so they're getting their value there. Plus they could have the LFI, Foundation, or other stable mates come out a ring side if they need more folks. That's a helluva lot more interesting than random mis-matches. Anyhow, here's what ROH's 19th Anniversary line-up looks like thus far: Dalton Castle vs Josh Woods - OK this makes sense. Its their 3rd match and they mesh well with one another. Danhausen vs Brian Johnson vs LSG vs Eli Isom - Freebie match in hour 1 of 4. Maybe don't do 4 hours... Mark Briscoe vs Flip Gordon - I could do without Flip anymore. This was some convoluted set-up where EC3 (remember him?) paid off Flip to interfere in a Briscoes match. Who cares... Gresham vs Dak Draper (Pure Title) - See above...no reason Draper gets a title shot for beating Fred Yehi. This looks like a B.S. match no fan asked for. The Foundation as a gimmick would be fine with two like-minded athletes fighting for the belt. God-forbid we get a potentially great pure match with Yehi & Gresham (what I wanted for the Pure Tourney Finals). Titus & Williams vs Lee & Kenny King (Tag Titles) - What should be a TV match to build the feud has been fast tracked to a PPV match. This is EXACTLY the problem I have...there has been no build for this particular match. Which is fine for TV but asinine for PPV. Williams vs Lee (TV title) - That's right folks! Lee and Hot Sauce face off again or for the first time (?) for the TV title. Here's an idea...maybe only give 1 person a title at a time ROH. They are giving belts to people in order to justify matches on their PPV but are afraid to give them to anyone different. Again fine for TV but asinine for PPV. Also, they probably can retire the TV title. Vincent vs Matt Taven - Fight without Honor match. They call it an unsanctioned match and will take place off site in Boston. Its supposed to be the blow-off to the feud but, we've hardly seen enough of this lately to anyone to be invested in this. Probably still will be fun though. Shane Taylor Promotions vs Mexisquad (6 man titles) - Isn't this the match where STPromotions won the belts? Did they even defend them once? Is ROH just going to give them back to Mexisquad here? When everyone has won the championship then, it kind of makes the championship meaningless. Can probably retire this title as well. Jay Briscoe vs EC3 - Final Battle Rain check match...then I'm guessing EC3 will be gone. He seemed to come back just for this PPV...I'm guessing that was in his contract. Who knows...he's on the ROH roster page. Rush vs Jay Lethal (ROH World Title) - They might give it back to Lethal since it seems he's the only person who can carry it and the company right now. If they don't then perhaps they can drag a quality program out of Rush vs Lethal for a couple months...if they do some of the things I mentioned above. Otherwise, they will have to stick with it for half the year and have multiple interactions (tag, 6 man, brawls etc.) to keep the heat up. It might actually be great stuff and give some prestige back to the belt. Not optimistic though... They are having a Foudation vs Ingobernales 8 man match the week before 19th Anniversary (this upcoming show) so, perhaps that will fan the flames of interest for the 4 Foundation vs LFI matches on the bloated PPV card. Again trying to get in as many guys as possible at the cost of match quality or fan interest But! At least other than Draper it features the company's many players...so again why is Draper on it? I'm guessing Yehi is paid on as needed basis where Draper probably is on contract. But still why not Brody King, LSG or Deppen? All would actually have a good match at least. All this being said, ROH still isn't using their signed Women of Honor wrestlers as well as their UK talent in Joe Hendry and big player and #1 contender prior to lock down Mark Haskins. Where the heck do you fit all of those folks in AND try to get a more cohesive narrative for your company? If you don't do more 6 man matches and tags...you don't get better, you get worse. It will be a jumbled mess like AWA on ESPN or MLW Underground (from what I watched). Thanks for reading my rambling Apologies for typos and that kind of stuff. Should be back on track for more FIP next week and the final installment of FMW 1998 soon thereafter.

Pretty bummed about Fred Yehi jobbing to Dak Draper on TV. Draper looks like a guy who can't wait to get in the WWE system whereas Yehi seems like someone who would be a good TV champ in the old ROH mold. I mean he almost made it to the Pure Tournament Finals and ugh...whatever direction ROH had after the tournament seems to have run out. As much as I enjoy their stuff being 'midcard' fun, stuff like this is stupid. This week's episode was poor all around...cheap finishes for uninspired stories.

I watched these in a different order since I kinda know how FIP is booked and they don't really escalate as expected. Sometimes the main event isn't the biggest match of the night from a drama or work rate perspective. That was the case here so, I'm going to post the matches I watched in the order that I watched them. The Briscoes vs Irish Airborne (OI4K aka OvE): Quick action packed tag match with lots of good moves. The teams of brothers clearly are in sync so they were able to execute everything cleanly and quickly. Not a story match but a good to very good tag bout. Nice start to my show Necro Butcher w/ Dave Prazak vs Delirious: A very good anything goes match that had a bunch of moves done on the piles of chairs. That seems like an odd thing to say but, its true. Everything looked really hurty. It definitely would appeal to the ECW fans without being overly gory like perhaps the Necro/Pondo matches with the Briscoes were...No one is getting staple gunned for instance. Its more family friendly lets say. That being said, it was good grudge match with Delirious breaking away from Prazak and was good in both that story and execution. Davey Richards vs Erick Stevens: FIP Heritage title match...Great match! This was fought like it could have been the main event of the show. Tons of stiff strikes, very great arm work by Davey as he actually has an arm submission with the Double Wrist 14:59 lock. Stevens sold it throughout the match without over-selling it.Really good finish and a great encounter...Stevens is really coming into his own now. YRR vs Black Market & Heartbreak Express: This was the show's main event but, these are mainly mid card guys but "locals" so they do get the top slot from time to time. Here we have an Bunkhouse Brawl...its a street fight with a bunch of chaos in the audience for 85% of the match. A couple guys bled, good action and stuff going on most of the time. A very good match and a good send off for the live crowd. It wasn't a good match in the truest sense but, with 8 guys and SoCal Val all over the place it was very entertaining. Again, if you're an ECW fan (I say that a lot) but, if you can appreciate the whole being greater than the sum its the parts then, you would like this type of match. Tyler Black vs Roderick Strong: My main event and the 2nd from the top is for the FIP title. This is a near classic bout with lots of hard hits from both guys. This was a match that really escalated into a high octane ROH level match and is one of Roddy's best defenses that I've seen. His second best singles match next to the Jack Evans one from 2006. Tyler was really game to have an FIP classic and I think it really was. They didn't empty the tank like Evans vs Roddy and that's probably what stops me from putting it up there but, man Tyler was hungry at this time and Roddy was more than happy to go toe to toe. Overall, probably one of the best shows (cherry picking matches of course) that I have. All of the above matches are worthwhile but the Stevens/Davey and Roddy/Tyler matches are excellent and just what you would want or expect. No shenanigans or cutesy playing to the crowd. They came to wrestle. The same goes for the other 3 matches I watched. If there's one show to pick up from Highspots for $5 if you're on the fence, I would go with this one. If you want to spend $15 to get 3, get this, New Years Classic 2007 and Strong vs Evans. A fourth would probably be In Full Force 2007. FIP seems to really be the true sister promotion in terms of style and match quality to ROH in 2007. If you're fans of these guys, you won't be disappointed. Thanks for reading! Oh I actually remembered to include the promo video! See below:

So AEW did their barbwire explosion match and it was a bust. I kinda saw that one coming. If you've seen any recent Onita explosion stuff its not really the same quality of boom-boom explosions from the 90's. Its more sparkles on speed than scary !BANG! type stuff. I also heard that they didn't time the match properly and the had to stall for 4 minutes for the finale. That sounds worse than the big explosion not working. But for real...it was not going to be early 90's FMW explosion stuff...people had to know that in 2021. Those ones looked damn near illegal...even for Japan. That's my G. Badger hot take that no one asked for Anyhow lets get on to the Frontier Martial Arts wrestling! We go to May of 1998. Jado & Gedo vs Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka (05/05): This was the match you expected from all four guys. It was all action with Gedo & Jado being the heels to the max and our heros have to overcome their cheating ways. It feature a bunch of great exchanges and really would be on my Top 100 FMW list. It was a ton of fun. A great match to me! Masato Tanaka vs Hayabusa (05/19): Bahu's top singles match of FMW so I had high expectations. But man, I was disappointed. It was not as good as their 03/13 classic. It wanted to be consciously epic by having a load of false finishes but, it just does not work in 2021. I don't think it works in 1998 to be honest because the lay out was all wrong. It starts with a wonderful opening exchange then gets to the wrestling to injure a limb type stuff but, that goes nowhere because it leads right to the false finish portion. This is the MIDDLE of the match mind you because then we get to the strike exchange and 2-3 move sequences. These things are the logical escalation when mat wrestling/joint locks aren't working. A guy gets angry and starts throwing bones. The short sequences work because they have enough energy/stamina to still counter/parry/reverse. This does NOT make sense after getting dropped on your head a half doesn't times. Maybe one or two strike exchanges that are out of desperation OR going for a knockout blow. But that should be the finish. Even if they kept the layout, it could have been shaved down to 20 minutes (five minutes from the middle) and it would have been very good to great. It was good on the things mentioned above and maybe you would like it more than me so, I can't trash it. But, their match from earlier in the year is the classic to me. Hayabusa/Tanaka vs W*ing Kanemura & Kodo Fuyuki (05/27): Thank goodness another great all action tag match with a tried and true structure to cleanse my palette. This is sort of the big stakes version of the Jado & Gedo match. It was a near classic to me as FMW seemed to have their tag matches down like 88-90 AJPW...I would give Fuyuki some credit there as he was right in the thick of many of those bouts. Ricky Fuji vs Gedo (05/27): Another face/heel match but, this was not as crazy or anything. Fuji is a midcard star so this pretty much what you get. Tetushiro Kuroda vs Masato Tanaka (06/19): This was like 95-96 Kobashi vs Misawa in that it pits lariat against elbow. Plus they laid a good foundation with arm work then escalated in the fast paced action with counters, reversals, and improvisations. Although Kuroda & Tanaka have about the same experience, Kuroda is the up and comer at this point so, again the Kobashi/Misawa analogy works to some extent. That being said, these two's chemistry is just as good as Hayabusa/Tanaka IMO. This was Classic stuff. Hayabusa, Daisuke Ikeda, H. Oya & Ricky Fuji vs Fuyuki, Nakagawa, Kanemura & Gedo (06/19): Multi-man matches are usually pretty good and this is no different. At the very least, you get a little bit of everything here and that's pretty much the best way I can sum up this bout. It went on after the above singles match since it was Team No Respect vs Team FMW. Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs Hideki Hosaka (07/10): Dull-ish start as Hosaka wanted to work the arm and Kuroda wasn't having that. After that though things got entertaining and they traded moves and it was good opening match and was only 10 minutes. W*ing Kanemura vs The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) (07/10): Of all of the matches I've seen so far, this one is most like a "FMW match." It is very reliant upon the table & chair spots and other highspots as opposed to the more NJ Jrs./AJPW athletic matches we've seen. As a Mike Awesome fan, I'm going to say this is because of Mike Awesome (RIP). This is what he does and this is what you're getting in a bout with him especially a singles bout with a bigger name opponent like W*ING. His 6 man and tag matches are more dynamic and brawling but, in these big encounters you'd better believe his opponent is getting bombed through a table to the floor. That all said, this is no problem to me! I'm game for all types of wrestling and if you're going to do that kind of match then these two are some of the best at this time. Pretty good match and much better than their 12/11/96 match IMO. Hayabusa, Daisuke Ikeda, H. Oya & Ricky Fuji vs Fuyuki, Nakagawa, Jado & Gedo (Elimination Match) (07/10): This was the fancier and longer verion of the 06/19 match. It was a good match but honestly nothing tremendously distinguishable from that match. I didn't keep notes on this one so, that perhaps is my fault for having these blur together. I tend to enjoy elimination bouts so, I would say check it out. Its not some 80's NJPW level stuff but, its fun and now that I remember it - it has a surprising finish. This was not a mind meltingly awesome of an installment as FMW '98 #1 but, if you're a Masato Tanaka fan then, you really ought to check the matches out. The two great tag matches with Hayabusa and the classic with Kuroda are totally worth your time. Then you have an old school spot match with Kanemura & Awesome that will still impress you. Search Bahu FMW and you will find a wealth of FMW stuff online. Thanks for reading! Sorry for any delay too - I've been watching odds &ends stuff and pulled my old copy of Fire Pro Returns out. I've been messing around with playing my edits of FMW and BJW guys Keep staying safe!

Yeah, I'd prefer Lethal over Rush but yeah they should use him as a transitional champ..but they probably won't have him win. I'd still like Brody King as champ who is a monster. You're right about it being a mid card company now (for awhile). Its probably why its a fun hour of TV to me...I'm going in with low expectations and am excited for a few good moves and a great tv clipped match every few weeks Re: Castle..man I'd really hope they do something with his character. Again a heel turn could be something exciting. He's got a physicality that I think he could tap into that would work well alongside Brody, Woods, Silas, Yehi, Hot Sauce. Just thinking out loud

Hey Dalton Castle got a win!! Found it interesting that he mentioned in his promo that if he couldn't win then he was going to leave. Who knows if they are actually going to use that as an angle. I really think that a heel turn could be fun...his win hinted at that. EC3 is back and looks better than he did prior to Final Battle. ROH clearly want to get their Jay Briscoe/EC3 feud payoff. The Foundation needs to be pushed a little bit more along with the Pure Rules division. It seems like after they got Rush & co. back they just wanted to focus on that and the mission of the Foundation lost steam. Lethal vs Rush for the Anniversary show might bring it together. Rush has been a mediocre champ imo so, I'd like to see Lethal on top again.