ohtani's jacket

Los Capos vs. Los Boricuas! This was a slick little trios match that danced around the main beef of Pierroth vs. Mascara Anos 2000 but managed to stoke the fire. Cien Caras did the heavy work for his team while Pierroth was tailgating it to the safety of the commentary box when the heat got too much. The match wasn't as violent as you might expect but did show tremendous potential for a gang war. Remember, Los Capos may be rudos but they're Mexican rudos.

This was a mano a mano bout that highlighted how far Tarzan Boy had come since the beginning of this feud. Satanico attacks him while still wearing his jacket and do-rag and Tarzan Boy immediately fights back and rips Satanico's jacket in half. Now Tarzan Boy is the aggressor, beating on Satanico and making him hurt. Satanico takes a beating for a large portion of this match and Tarzan Boy's confidence borders on arrogance. You can feel the pendulum shifting even if Tarzan Boy is still a tecnico at this stage. They slip in some fouls and there are the usual shenanigans with Satanico faking a foul but it's well sold and the tecnico fans are pretty hot for a mano a mano bout. The tercera caida has some nice counters and escapes and again Tarzan Boy shows how much he's grown since the start of the year. He botches the finish, which hurts the overall effectiveness of the bout, but it's still worth watching if you've followed the Satanico vs. Tarzan Boy feud and is the missing piece between the hair match and the double turn.

The other side to Saito was the bungling yet affable commentator who often made gaffes like calling Jushin Liger or El Samurai by their real names. And his love of the Calpis soft drink was legendary. Rumour had it that he would eat the sachet without diluting it but apparently that's untrue.

This was a handicap match similar to the bouts that Andre used to have in Mexico. I'm not sure which was more surreal -- Silva hugging Porky and making him look like some kind of stuffed toy or guys like Rayo and Caras looking like minis next to the Giant. If you've even see Kamala in Mexico, or any other big man, you'll know that Mexican rudos are good at stooging in these situations. Bit of harmless fun.

When you take away the blood and the brawling, and the Jake the Snake like psychology. Pierroth is pretty limited. But he's excellent on the mic and this match was a chance for him to gather a little heat and build some momentum toward his feud vs. feud with Mascara Ano 2000 that promised a lot at this stage but wouldn't come to a head for a few years yet.

Fun opener from the minis. The tecnicos' dives at the end were spectacular. Makes you wish that the minis aired more often.

This was a heavyweight title shot for Porky. Prior to the bout there was a vignette of him at Super Astro's restaurant ordering one of those giant tortas. If you've ever seen a Porky apuestas match, or a Porky singles match for that matter, you'll know what to expect from this. Watch it purely for the novelty and nothing else.

Not the best Infernales match though it did have a nice tecnico comeback. It wasn't really earned, though, which summed up how much these guys were on autopilot.

What an awesome rudo team. The tecnicos didn't stand a chance. I feel like Televisa needs to air more Mr. Mexico and Valentin Mayo matches, don't you?

Wagner and Los Infernales made a pretty cool team. The good bits in this were good but a little bit predictable. Mind you, Televisa is editing it so that you only see the good bits which also makes things predictable. This built to a Wagner vs. Rayo singles match which I don't think we have on tape. That's a shame because it's an interesting match-up and I feel like we got shortchanged on Wagner's best run in the company during the Summer season. No Rayo singles match, no Casas matches, His standing in the year-end awards may have been higher if we'd had that stuff. Heck, we even got shafted on the trios title feud with the Villanos where we're missing a lot of the matches. Hopefully, I can find a few of those since I know that they aired.

Ringo Mendoza was out there doing his thing. He still knew how to work a fired up babyface comeback. This featured spectacular moves from Antifaz and Safari and big-time bumping from the rudos. I'm not sure what happened to the trio of Felino, Antifaz and Safari. They were pushed as an excitement machine during the Summer months but it only last the Summer. This came down to Ringo vs. Panther and I was disappointed when Panther caught him the armbar. The replay showed that Panther held onto the rope 'cos you know Ringo would have quit otherwise. Heart of a champion, Ringo Mendoza.

This was the night after Tarzan Boy took Satanico's hair for a second time at Arena Puebla. Satanico went after him a bit but not with the fury you'd expect, He wore a do- rag to begin with but lost it after the first caida and I think this is the first time that I've seen Satanico completely bald. Tarzan Boy trash talked him a lot. You can see the seeds of rudoism were always there when he does that sort of thing. The match is mostly a showcase for Porky. Did he need another showcase? Your enjoyment of this will depend on how interested you are in seeing Porky dance to his theme music for the hundredth time this year.

The rudos don't care about winning these matches anymore. It's all about hurting and humiliating their opponents with Entre Torre Infernal just weeks away. This was a quick rudo beatdown with multiple disqualifications and some in-your-face mic work to top it off. Villano III tried to get involved again but Perro waved him off and Mr.Niebla carried him away. Another crash TV match from CMLL.

Vignette with Vilano III at the doctor's office. He has a shoulder injury and is in no state to wrestle. This was crash TV but the crowd had just sat through a tag tournament so it was a welcome change of pace. The tecnicos went at the rudos hard. Rayo, in particular, was fired up and the rudos bumped and stooged for the cleanouts. An old guy in the crowd took great delight in jawing with Dantes. Right on cue, Mascara Ano 2000 ran in and began beating the crap out of Perro. Then Villano ran to ringside against doctor's orders and attacked Pierroth and Mascara with a steel pipe, which may or may not have been cardboard. Villano was escorted to the back and everyone started making threats . What's gonna happen, King, when these four men meet at Entre Torre Infernal?

This was disappointing. These were two of the best guys in Japan in 2000 and should have had a better match. I just wanted to see them wrestle but Togo slowed things down unnecessarily with the chair shot and legwork. I don't care that Delfin blew off the legwork since it was shitty work to begin. What bothered me was Delfin calling out the name of each move. Once or twice may have been bearable but he kept doing it over and over again. By that stage, I didn't really care about this bout. The only consolation I could draw from it was that both men would go on to have much better matches with other people through the course of the year and that Osaka Pro would get a hell of a lot better.

Tony really wants to talk about what happened at Souled Out but first he must concentrate on the match at hand He reminds himself of this two or three times so it must have been a mandate of sorts. Kidman and Psicosis always had good chemistry together so it wasn't a surprise that they could have a decent walkthrough here. I like the fact that WCW were trying to push Kidman as a rising star but the likes of Jim Ross and Michael Cole did a much better job building stars than the WCW crew. Not enough adjectives and superlatives here. Gotta have more adjectives and superlatives if you want to someone to be a star.

Ohtani is awesome. He puts on a one-man show here while the others bumble about lost in the moment. You can only imagine how bad this would have been without him. Hell, you can see for yourself when he leaves the juniors division later in the year. In retrospect, every great performance he has in 2000 is a last hurrah. A winding down of his juniors career. And we're worse for it. But at least he confirmed his status as juniors legend and not some flash in the pan that peaked incredibly high. He was more of a tag specialist in the waning years of his juniors career but you won't find a better one. Salut, Ohtani.

This had no right being so good but Miho had just won the Tag League with Toyota and had some momentum coming into the bout. She produced an uncharacteristic performance -- head down and focused on her strategy. And it was a pretty solid strategy as well. Her game plan was to take out Maekawa's leg, keep her grounded and avoid those kicks of hers. She didn't have much of a plan beyond that point but so long as she had Maekawa on the mat she was out of danger. The match became a battle of wills which is what any good singles match should be. Miho was dogged in a way that I didn't think she was capable of being and Maekawa also showed plenty of steel. The finishing stretch was great. Back and forth each with opportunities to win. It was great theater and great sport. I surprised by how much I liked this mainly because Miho comes across as such a clown and Maekawa can be annoying at times as can most wannabe shooters. But the chemistry here was pretty special and the singular focus on the leg deviated from the company norm. A pleasant surprise this late in the year's viewing.

This was pretty good. It had plenty of Hyuga vs. Ran which was the match-up I personally wanted to see. Devil set the tone for her better-than-you-would-expect 2000 mostly based on her size and charisma. She was out of shape and wearing this ridiculous outfit that looked like Peter Pan crossed with the original Undertaker costume, but she's Devil and can get away with that sort of shit. The work was good but structurally the match had some flaws. I didn't buy Bolshoi neutralizing Devil. She doesn't have the size to do it and it doesn't utilize her skill set. Instead of focusing so much on Hyuga vs. Ran they may have been better off having Bolshoi trade holds with Ran while Hyuga used her athleticism and high impact offense to try to take Devil out. That would have made more sense than Bolshoi somehow being able to hold Devil back for what seemed like an eternity. The finish was pretty awkward as well. Still, I'd watch Hyuga vs. Ran again in a heartbeat and it was entertaining from that standpoint.

Decent enough. It's hard to imagine Tenzan and Benoit having a better match than this.

This was surprisingly decent. LCO had no respect for their opponents whatsoever and it showed in this brutal and extended squash match.

So, the Osaka Pro run began here. It's a shame it lasted for only 11 months but it became one of my favourite promotional runs of all-time. Different style matches like this one were a huge part of the promotion's appeal -- the ability to blend lucha, shoot boxing and traditional pro-wrestling all on the same show and sometimes in the same match. They did hybrid wrestling better than BattlARTs and any promotion that's tried. Murahama was still working his shoot boxer gimmick here and would become more of a junior as the year wore on. I wouldn't call it this the best debut in wrestling history as it was worked under special rules. Rules that favored Murahama's background, And there was nowhere near as much work involved as there would be in a regular pro-wrestling match s it only lasted three rounds and mainly featured striking. Perhaps a more useful comparison would be shoot style debuts. Regardless of where it ranks, it was a good match and kickstarted one of the better things in 2000 wrestling: the rise of Osaka Pro-Wrestling.

These teams went at each other hard from the get-go, which is the perfect way to work a Los Capos bout if you ask me. Rayo vs. the Capos is the eternal feud and you wonder how many aches and pains and career niggles Rayo has just from working with these guys. And how many times Atlantis has been in Rayo's corner against the Capos. I liked the way Atlantis guided Tarzan Boy through this trios. It was nice to see someone lend Tarzan Boy an ear and teach him how to be a tecnico. I'm sure most people would rather watch something else than Rayo de Jalisco Jr. and the Capos on endlessly repeat but I thought it was a breezy main event and enjoyed it for what it was.

Pretty cool mano a mano between these two. Perhaps not as much hatred as folks would like but Villano was hell-bent on winning the bout and Pierroth was channeling his inner Jake Roberts by toying with Villano. Both guys bled but there was nothing decisive about the bout. If it had been longer and a blowoff match there's every chance it could have been great. It reminded me of Villano's work with Rambo the following year. Pierroth was one of favourite performers from the first half of the year but he disappeared for some reason after the Capos took him out -- an injury perhaps? Or some other health problem/personal issue. It was fun to see him snake his way through another sleazy performance even if the scope of the match was limited.

A lot of big men in this match. Alushe is a member of Los Boricuas. I'm not sure why but Pierroth fucking loves it. Match is short. Some nice dives from the big guys.