Edwin

Increible match. Sakuraba shows his resiliency here surviving a brutal elbow to the jaw from Kanehara and a brutal head kick near the end. All of the grappling exchanges were excellent as they kept it moving and all of it was nice and tight. Aside from the bombs thrown by Kanehara, my favorite bit from the grappling exchanges was the sweet ankle pick sweep he pulled off.

I dug this a little less than most of you folks, I still enjoyed this and would say it's very good specially for guys with as little experience as these two had at the time. I dug the early grappling exchanges with the helicopter armbar being by far my favorite spot from it. It seemed like two guys rolling around for fun and letting themselves get caught in moves they've drilled during a break in a BJJ gym. Cain getting frustrated and resorting to more straight up pro-wrestling tactics was great. Was kind of turned off by some of the strikes and I honestly would have preferred if they have kept rolling instead. My favorite bit was the odd hammerlock Cain caught Garrini in the finish though as that was great.

Online footage I can find on YouTube is from someone's phone and the quality is pretty bad. Was listening to Rico Suave and Dennis Rivera on a separate podcast. Rico told a story from a personal experience of his with Abdullah the Butcher. Abdullah was working some dates in Puerto Rico and he asked Rico for some photos of his to send to bookers in Japan to try and get him booked over there. Rico gave them to him, but didn't make much of it. The following Monday morning Rico gets a call from Atlanta and it's Abdullah, but Rico thinks it's a prank call and he hangs up on him. He receives another call from Atlanta and again he hangs up. Then Carlos calls Rico and tells him to call Abdullah back at the number that was calling him from Atlanta that he kept hanging up on. Rico calls Abdullah back and Abdullah tells him Mad Man Pondo was scheduled to do a tour of Big Japan along with him, but he had to cancel the tour and Abdullah had suggested Rico as a replacement and that he needed to send his passport express mail so Abdullah could have that same afternoon to get the paperwork started with the Big Japan office. Abdullah also told Rico to go buy a plane ticket to Japan and that the office would reimburse him for it once they arrived in Japan. Rico calls Carlos back and tells him about the offer and Carlos directs him to a traveling agency in Puerto Rico. Rico arrives at the traveling agency and the agent tells him it's $1,982 for a two way plane ticket. Rico leaves and calls Carlos and tells him how much it is and that he doesn't have the money to pay for it as he was working undercard matches and managing so he wasn't making that much money at the time. Carlos tells him to call Abdullah and to talk with Abdullah. Rico calls and Abdullah tells him to go back to the traveling agency and to call him once he was there. Rico returns and calls Abdullah and Abdullah puts his wife on the phone and she organizes the flight and Abdullah pays for Rico's ticket. The agent hands Rico the receipt for the reimbursement and it's $2,700. A couple of days pass and Rico flies to Japan. Upon arriving he meets Abdullah and they both meet with Kojika at the Big Japan office and Kojika reimburses Abdullah for plane ticket. When they leave the office, Abdullah tells Rico he knew the travel agent and he told him to make the receipt for $2,700. Abdullah gave the extra $700 to Rico so he could spend the early part of the tour without having to ask for a payment in advance as Rico only had $138 to spend for the early part of the tour until he got paid. Rico worked several Big Japan tours as Crazy Sheik. He also told a story he had on one of his tours of Big Japan with the young lions. He said he saw them building the ring and he was going to help them and Abdullah told him not to because he was a main eventing foreigner. Rico insisted in helping them. A couple of days later they have a day off and he is training and after the training he showers and when he gets out of the shower, his ring gear was missing and he asked around and no one knew where it was. Before the next show on the tour, one of the young lions comes up to Rico and he hands him his ring gear all washed up and folded and told him they were thankful and they respected Rico because despite being in the main event, he still set time aside to help them put the ring together and after that he grew closer to them and that opened the door for him to do several other tours with Big Japan. He also said he met Stan Hansen on one of his tours and Hansen asked who he was and he said José Estrada's son. Hansen said he was a friend of his father and he took him drinking that day with him and Rico said it was the biggest mistake he made on tour as Hansen could drink like crazy.

Aside from he jabs on Twitter, Cornette and Last also said on their podcast that Meltzer had Omega on his podcast once for an interview and before it ended Meltzer began asking Omega about Cornette just so he could take more jabs at him. Cornette does go overboard with his reactions, but Meltzer also needs to learn to let things go and keep drilling them for no real reason. I get it keep folks keep asking about Cornette, but he can easily ignore them.

Not sure how many of you on here speak Spanish, but La Malicia (Dennis and Noel Rivera) have a podcast and the guests in this weeks episode were Los Fugitivos (Niche and Lynx). They talked about their starts in the business and the Caguas Screwjob. It's a two part podcast. This is the first part. I believe they will be uploading part 2 next week. It's worth noting, Dennis is the brother of Savio Vega who ran IWA and Noel is the son of Victor the Bodyguard who used to be Chicky Starr's bodyguard in WWC and then his tag team partner in Starr Corporation in early 2000's IWA. Dennis, Noel, Niche and Lynx also came through the business together, so they knew each as they worked smaller indy shows together before making it on TV in WWC and IWA. Before the Caguas Screwjob, IWA and WWC tried to work an invasion angle and they had some invasions occur, but ultimately WWC backed out and didn't want to continue the angle. At the time, Dennis and Noel were the IWA tag team champs. Despite WWC backing out of the invasion angle, Carlos Colón wanted to bring La Malicia in to have a 2 match program with Los Fugitivos. La Malicia agreed to meet with Carlos to talk about the program. They met in Santurce and Carlos made them a good financial offer and they agreed to work the angle. However, given WWC's past of not paying wrestlers or checks bouncing, Dennis and Noel said they would have to get paid before the matches. Once they reached an agreement for the program, Dennis began thinking they should take the opportunity and stick it to WWC for backing out of the angle by shooting on them and stealing the titles. Despite having reached agreement with Carlos, Dennis and Noel kept it quiet and Dennis opted not to tell Savio. After they reached an agreement to work the angle, Dennis and Noel called Niche and Lynx and they talked about changing whichever finish they would be given and turning into a full blown shoot with Dennis and Noel stealing the titles. Niche and Lynx weren't receptive as they were hot at the time and they didn't want to burn any bridges with WWC, so they turned it down. However, Dennis and Noel had already made up their minds and they were going to steal the titles regardless. Dennis also said he spoke with Moody who does commentary for AAA and who is his friend as they worked together in IWA. Dennis said Moody suggested they shouldn't go through with it as they will end up burning that bridge if they did steal the titles. A couple of weeks before the match, Carlos contacted Dennis and Noel again and asked them to record some promos for the match. Dennis and Noel reiterated in their promos they would be leaving with the WWC titles one way or another, however no one knows this is their actual plan and not just a line they are dropping in their promos. Dennis and Noel planned this out entirely as they knew the heat between the two companies was legit. They knew if they stole the titles, WWC would not air the match on TV, so they organized with someone secretly who would come to the arena and record the match so they could later share the footage of occurred. They also knew they wouldn't have much time to abandon the venue once they had the titles, so Dennis told Noel to bring as little things possible so they could grab them and rush out as soon as possible. Since the heat was legitimate between the companies, Dennis and Noel knew they needed to have backup in case someone pulled a gun on them before they got to leave the venue, so they had two people with them armed with guns just in case. Given they knew they would be tight on time, they had someone drive to the venue and wait for them outside, so they could leave the venue as quick as possible. The day of the event Dennis and Noel arrived early at the arena and met with Carlos and they got paid. Orlando Colón also known as Epico Colón on WWE gave them the finish and it was supposed to be a double pin draw and a representative from the athletic commission would come out declare the match a draw which would vacate the titles and lead to the rematch. Before the match, Dennis and Noel cut another promo and again reiterate they will be leaving the venue with the titles one way or another. In the closing moments of the match, they call for the finish, but La Malicia decide to go with their own finish and the end up hitting a shoot sunset flip and the referee counts to three and Dennis and Noel win the match and win the titles. After the match they storm out of the venue and WWC has a locally well know security guard who they call Carlos Bocachula. He is standing in front of Noel and Dennis, but he's out of the loop of what's happening so he doesn't try to stop Dennis or Noel as they are leaving. Meanwhile Niche and Lynx chase behind them and Niche said he was legit mad at them and they were going to get into a fight if they could catch them. That's where the podcast ends. Next week they should be uploading the second episode and I will be posting it on here and I will also be posting cliff notes along with it.

This is one of Gulak's final matches on the indys before taking off and being with the WWE full time. He mentions in a promo before the match he was asked some weeks ago who he wanted to face on his final run on the indys before he took of so they could try to put those matches together and Quack was the second opponent on that list. The match itself is fantastic. They develop a teacher vs. student story throughout the match with Gulak's more gritty grappling vs. Quack's more flashy faux WoS grappling. They start off with a great double knuckle lockup and there's a bit where Gulak tries to trip Quack, but Quack is smart enough to see it coming and counters it by moving backwards and then flinging Gulak with a monkey flip. There's also another great bit with Gulak leg kicking Quack and Quack convinces Gulak to continue throwing leg kicks making him think he will engage in a you turn, my turn exchange with Quack catching one of Gulak's kicks and hitting a nasty dragon screw leg whip. Despite Quack being Gulak's trainer, Gulak still works super stiff and he puts some heat behind strikes blasting Quack with a great diving clothesline and some brutal grounded elbows you could hear the thuds from him landing them. Loved how they cutback on the false finishes and the only big false finish came from a roll up that got a big pop in near the finish. One of the best matches in the companies history.

Rewatched this today after several years and I thought this was OK at best, but nothing truly special. Marufuji is the guy I like the least in this match, yet he had my favorite moment in this when he and KENTA locked in the dual octopus hold and he did the finger guns at Hidaka. I maybe alone, but a lot of the early segments in this felt somewhat meaningless as it was a lengthy beatdown on Fujita that got thrown out later as he was back and hitting spots like crazy for 10 or so minutes in the finishing run and it also led to a somewhat mild tag to Hidaka. Hidaka and Marufuji barely holding onto each other to prevent the the saves did not look good as you could tell they were barely just touching other and not even putting any effort into holding themselves back. I think it's also worth noting that KENTA's strikes leading up to the Busaiku knee kick look really weak as he is barely making any contact (if any at all) and just running through the motions leading to a running knee. The doomsday Busaiku knee kick is a unique spot, but I'd gladly take a stiff Road Warriors doomsday device with a lariat over this or an assisted Steiner Brothers bulldog over this. I don't want to sound cynical or put anyone off this as I am sure there's folks who love this and I get why they would love it, but it's just not appealing to me.

Seems like Rhea is off to RAW or SmackDown.

"Do they do bake sales?"

This 100%. I like listening to pro-wrestling podcasts for the same reason I like watching pro-wrestling; as an escape from the real world. Tuning into Cornette's podcast only to listen to his political commentary isn't why I listen to it, so digging through his YouTube at least gets you that, but even then he still finds ways to make some of those wrestling clips about politics and I have to FF them a bit. I also agree with some instances he has on modern pro-wrestling, but sometimes he just goes way overboard and proves he truly isn't the wrestling genius he thinks he is. I legit cringed a few times listening to the way he'd book the FTR vs. the Bucks match. Not that I thought if it was well booked or not, but his booking for that match was legit worse than what they actually did. Aside from his wrestling talk, I will say sometimes he and Brian have some entertaining conversations about food and random occurrences such as Jim mentioning he used to eat ice cream as a child, but he wouldn't eat the cone as his hands were all dirty and the random tree from his yard extending into his neighbors yard story.

I'm not super high on either guy, but this quite a neat surprise. This began felling at bit exhibition-y early on, but ZSJ start trash talking Quack when he's dominating with a top hammerlock Quack can't get out of, but Quack eventually turns it around and toys with ZSJ for a bit and he gets frustrated and blasts Quack with European uppercuts and this starts heating up. Quack also blasts ZSJ with maybe the best strike I've ever seen him throw as it's a vicious right hand slap. There's a really neat bit in the striking exchanges as ZSJ throws a European uppercut and Quack dodges it and hits ZSJ with a German suplex. There's a minor botch on a lucha submission attempt, but Quack is smart enough to catch him in a cross face chicken wing. Finish is great with ZSJ countering Quack's attempt of a piledriver variation and catching him with the European clutch.

I know this is a stipulation that usually gets frowned upon as they lack psychology a lot of the time and are harder to put together, but this is one of the best three way matches ever and it also benefits from being an elimination match as you can get a proper 1-on-1 match after an initial elimination. Worth mentioning the booking leading to this match is fantastic with Whitmer and Jacobs being in a hot Jimmy loves Lacey angle and both men trying to kill each other with some dangerous powerbombs off the top rope through the ring apron or the crowd. They start with a standard three way and they work portions of it as handicap, Whitmer and Jacobs vs. Danielson and then Danielson and Jacobs vs. Whitmer and both portions work as Whitmer and Jacobs is the two lesser ranked opponents trying to get one on the Best in the World who's impossible to putdown and then other portion is the two smaller opponents trying to partner up to putdown the bigger man. The first fall ends perfectly with Jacobs pairing up with Danielson to eliminate the bigger man. Then the match turns into a 1-on-1 and it gets hot with Danielson, the dominant world champion and Best in the World to defend against the local Michigan native and much smaller challenger and underdog. The do such a fantastic job at putting this segment of the match together that the fans are split as usual, but hot for Jacobs and even buy into him pulling off the upset and winning the title and you can see fans literally jumping up and down on a hot near fall of a counter roll up. They avoid going overboard with the excessive 2.99 false finishes a lot of indy matches suffer from and the finish is fantastic as Danielson taps out Jacobs to a crossface chicken wing to which Jacobs pass outs to and doesn't tap and thus keeps over his image of being a tough to put away, ruthless and violent wrestler. Also you can hear the crowd actively booing at the finish.

I enjoyed this, but it's more so good than great and not the MOTY it's being portrayed. It's nowhere near being as good as the King of Trios match from the same year between Team Uppercut and the Masters of a 1000 Holds with the great Johnny Saint performance. I thought everyone was good here, however Danielson put on an incredible performance and is easily my pick for MVP of this match with him exploiting Jigsaw's bummed knee, heeling it up and hitting Jigsaw with some vicious mounted elbows. Jigsaw does a good job fighting from underneath and selling his bummed knee. I dug the little bits where he turned around and slapped Danielson while he was trying to set it up a surfboard stretch and when he broke up the Cattle Mutilation with a single stomp because his knee was too bummed for him to do a proper double stomp. Dug Claudio bumping around for Quack and being a general powerhouse here. That airplane spin he does where he does it with no hands is an incredible spot. And as goofy as CHIKARA can be, you have to love how protected the CHIKARA Special is as a move there.

This was setup to showcase Johnny Saint as the MVP and it delivered just that, although everyone was great in this, his performance was the standout. Crazy to think he's in his 60's at this point and he was just making his US debut that weekend as he had spent most of his career wrestling in Europe with the one tour with Michinoku Pro. Regardless of his age, he didn't wrestle like someone his age (benefits of working most of his career taking as little bumps as possible) as he was just endlessly pulling out the same great looking submissions and counters whenever he was in that he was pulling out back in the 70s in the UK on Joint Promotion shows. He did take a bump over the top rope here which he isn't known for, so that got a pop out of me. His exchanges with Danielson were phenomenal and it makes you wonder what a fantastic match those two could have had in their primes. As I mentioned before, everyone else was great in this, but I'd say the runner up for MVP in this was Danielson. He was incredible just heeling it up on the other side and showing signs of frustration as the match went on and he kept getting outclassed in the grappling department.

These two are absolute lunatics known for entirely different characteristics, yet they are both very resilient, can absorb ridiculous amounts of punishment and are both insane bump freaks in their own ways. On paper this sounds like an odd pairing and you're not sure what to make of it, but in real time, it delivers. Usually Necro thrives when he's paired with other reckless death match wrestlers or with folks who aren't afraid to take work overly stiff, here however he is in a match with Evans who is mostly known for being a breakdancing contortionist who can do some incredible flips that no one has been able to replicate and despite Evans not being able to punch or kick Necro in the jaw like Samoa Joe or Low Ki would, Evan still drags Necro to some ridiculous spots with brutal bumps such as a code red off the ring apron to the floor. Some other wild stuff in this include Necro bending Evans in half with a nasty backbreaker across two chairs which is a spot Necro usually takes in his matches. The finish was a bit over the top with Lacey, Julius Smokes and Mercedes Martinez interfering, but in storyline context, makes sense.

Rewatched this just now and man, does this not hold up well for me. I would say it's because my taste in wrestling has changed through the years, but it's not because of that solely as I still love those famous Michinoku Pro multi-man tags and there's a ton of Toryumon JAPAN multi-man matches I still like that I've rewatched in recent years. This however didn't do it for me upon this rewatch. This is a more a Dragon Gate exhibition match where they focused mostly on showcasing all the cool spots they could do and not much else, so I get why the crowd ate this up and I get why folks who've never been exposed to Dragon Gate previously would love this, but it's just not for me and there's other multi-man matches in Toryumon JAPAN/Dragon Gate history that I feel are far better than this such as the 3 way and 4 way trios matches, for example.

This match rules. It's for the WLW heavyweight title which is the title from Harley Race's WLW academy. With the ref. bumps, the chair shots, the table bump and the brief ringside brawling, this feels more like a big FMW Korakuen Hall main event title match than a Noah match and that's not a bad thing as there's plenty of those matches that delivered and this delivered as well. Aside from the FMW Korakuen Hall spots, both men brought the aggressiveness. Morishima was blasting Ikeda with some neat lariats and even catches him with a pretty brutal running big boot, but Ikeda of course one upped him when it came to aggressiveness as he was constantly blasting him with brutal Dai-Chan Bombers. That finishing run was fantastic with the 4 punch left and right hand combo leading to the big knee lift was my favorite bit of it. Very, very good match.

This match is incredible. They do a fantastic job of establishing the classic Otsuka superior wrestler with superior throws and Ishikawa being the superior grappler on the ground who is extremely tough to put down. The early portion with the grappling exchanges is great as it's nice and tight. The bit where Ishikawa just blasts Otsuka with a right hand before hitting a backdrop was incredible. Otsuka's throws are a sight to behold, so the finishing run is beautiful with Otsuka endlessly throwing Ishikawa around, yet Ishikawa being resilient enough to continue fighting. A true Battlarts classic.

This is from the Santino Brothers Battle Arts gym, but worked under Battlarts rules -- no pins, just KOs and submissions. Solid old fan favorite vet vs. cocky young rookie story developed and for the most part a one man performance from Yuki Ishikawa with the British Brawler just coming along for the ride. Ishikawa brings the brutality he usually brings and for the most part the Brawler is timid and holds back which is noticeable as there's a bit where he drops Ishikawa and he hits some strikes on the ground which Ishikawa whiffs off and just stiff kicks him back as an indication to bring the heat as well. Ishikawa also brings his great and brutal looking body shots featuring some particularly nasty shots to the kidney on the ground. Brawler isn't particularly Daisuke Ikeda and I mentioned earlier, he was timid for the most part, but he does blast Ishikawa with 2 brutal lariats on the jaw near the finishing stretch. Also the Canadian fans love them some Ishikawa. Not an all-time classic by any chance, but def. worth watching if you're a fan of Ishikawa.

Deep in the bubble.

Excalibur and Larry Rivera suck on commentary. Excalibur and Disco Machine didn't do much in SDs corner. They somewhat buried the ref. who clearly saw them intervene and didn't do anything to discourage it. Nice gritty collar and elbow tie up, sucks it was very brief and didn't lead to a takedown. Low kick and slap exchanges were weak/sucked. The flying armbar counter to the elbow from SD was great. Loved AD showing desperation rushing to the ropes to get out of it. The arm work from AD was neat. Loved the counter hip toss into a modified Russian leg sweep and the arm stomp. Decent selling of the arm work from SD. Loved him not being able to pull himself up for the springboard and not being able to pull up AD for the piledriver the first time around. SD's butterfly lock with his legs and face kicks are always neat to watch as he knows how to make them look convincible without being excessive. The indy strike exchanges are played out at this point as it's been happening in the majority of indy matches. Loved AD going back to the arm and his clothesline to cut off SD's attempt at a comeback. The lariats from SD look great usually and AD is great at lariat bumps. The springboard double stomp was a cool spot, but not sure why it'd crush AD and not Disco Machine's knees as well. Super blue thunder bomb spot was pretty crazy. Could've been the finish, but since this is built as a first time ever dream match and this being during the period of AD's run where he was impossible to put out, it made sense for him to kick out. Seemed like a botched finish (if it wasn't, Excalibur didn't do a good job covering up for it on commentary. Makes sense for AD to win with the cattle mutilation, but I think they could've milked this a bit more as it was somewhat anti-climatic. Very good match overall and they left plenty on the table for future matches.

Rollerball Rocco is one of my top 10 all-time favorites to watch in WoS, but his stuff as Black Tiger in New Japan doesn't really cut it for me. He had far better matches in the UK against Dynamite Kid, Marty Jones and even Chris Adams than his matches against Tiger Mask, Kantaro Hoshino and Kuniaki Kobayashi. From what I've seen, the most memorable match he had in New Japan was a match where he teamed with Peter Roberts against Tatsumi Fujinami and Gran Hamada and even then that wasn't that great. There's a match he had with Liger in New Japan that I haven't seen yet, but have queued up, but I don't have high expectations for it as they had a match in the UK and it wasn't memorable.

Paige and a few others have said they could keep their third party deals, but they would have to be under their real names and not under their wrestling names.

They kept it short and simple with Daniels going back to attack the previously injured neck which Dragon did a good job at selling. They also had Danielson kick out of the Angels Wings to keep the story going of him being tough to put down and kicking out of everyone's finishers. I'm not a big Daniels fan, but I thought he was good here and this was a good opening match overall.

An absolutely bonkers ringside brawl with 8 dudes just going at each other recklessly. Not exactly Onita & Goto vs. Kurisu & Dragon Master, but still a wild brawl in it's own right. Some absolutely brutal bumps featuring chairs such as Fast Eddie hitting a brutal German suplex on Masada on top of a chair and Masada hitting Fast Eddie with a Spider German suplex through a chair. Plus a ton of nasty unprotected chairshots and a spike piledriver off the ring apron through a table on the floor. This lacked blood which would have elevated this, but it didn't lack intensity for a second.