Calvin

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Shoot, I'mma need to find time to re-watch Night of Appreciation before listening to this. Good to see this back in my podcast feed for the week, though.

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What does everyone think about the Mutoh/Kawada match from AJPW 02/24/02? I'm not the most knowledgeable Puro fan, but this just seemed so underwhelming for a match between two of Japan's biggest stars (I think).

The ending is classic WWF booking of heels like they're mentally deficient, but this is otherwise another strong outing from Angle and Austin. We all know how beat up Austin is at this point, and the fact he's still producing these types of quality matches is impressive.

Halfway through the second episode - and coincidentally halfway through the actual show, as well. Great stuff, guys. Keeps my commute interesting.

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The Dudleyz isolate Spike and target his injured neck, but this match only gets five minutes so they rush from spot-to-spot for the most part. Taz gets the big hot tag and tosses out his usual array of suplexes. This is mid. **1/2

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This match severely lacks stakes for what's supposed to be their biggest match on their biggest show of the year. From what I understand, it's last minute booking due to Kazuyuki Fujita injuring himself and vacating the IWGP championship, leaving Nagata with no opponent. NOAH steps in to bail them out, but they're not sending Akiyama, their GHC champion, to the Dome to lose. There's some genuinely exciting moments in this one (Emerald Flowsion, hello?), but the odd pacing choices here hurt the escalation leading up to many of those offensive exchanges, and the dual neck selling segments wasn't exactly the most compelling match structure. A more compact, shorter bombfest would've worked better here, but what we got instead is a match that was unsure of itself and these two lacked the in-ring chemistry to overcome that obstacle. **3/4

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You guys did an excellent job breaking the show down. I re-watched Era of Honor Begins earlier -- well, bits & pieces of it anyways -- the main event was still the classic I remember it to be. (I wrote about the match here). Great job - and I'm looking forward to the next show!

I'll give it a listen during my commute & might even watch along with you guys! Would love to see how these shows hold up.

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