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30 minute draw that we get about 7 minutes from. They really splice the highlights together to make this look pretty damn good with two bulls just waylaying on each other. Some botches but the effort and energy was there. Certainly can see from this how they were high on both going forward. NR

You could presume with the electricity of Misawa and Hash facing off that is the only important thing in this tag match and the rest is window dressing. That is severely undermining the role Ogawa plays here. Misawa shows great depth in having confidence that he could fend for his own while also acknowledge that he may be out of his league. Hashimoto is so dismissive. Ogawa gradually and gradually proves himself as the match progresses. Otsuka is one of my favorite guys but he was definitely just a bit player here and probably prevented it from MOTYC level for me. Still, an awesome match. ****1/4 (8.4)

Real good tag match showing a lot of flare. Rev Pro continues to not reach great levels due to having some nonsensical pacing overall on their tags but the strikes and energy are there. Super Dragon in particular is really supplanting himself as a force throughout the US indie scene in 2001. He bullies around TARO and works well complimenting the best aspects of Disco Machine. It really feels like these four would be having these tags for the next decade to come but by 2007, all were gone from the scene. ***1/2 (6.9)

Short run for the IWRG match as best lucha match of the year. This is where CMLL excels. They can have multiple weeks of nothing involving some of the best wrestlers of all time. Then all of a sudden, a trios suddenly has a ton of heat and feels like a big time feud has emerged. That happened here with Wagner vs Atlantis. They went after each other viciously with mask pulling and a ton of angst. Satanico is always a delight and seeing him team with his new amigos felt refreshing too and the Shocker pairing in particular feels like a great match. Overall, I hope we see more Atlantis vs Wagner interactions moving forward. ***3/4 (7.5)

Vince starts off SmackDown with a promo. Vince says he had nothing to do with Austin being screwed out of the title on Raw. Vince says he was just as shocked as the crowd was. Vince verbally reprimanded HHH for his actions. Vince lays down their back and forth rivalry and says it will end right now. Vince has ordered a 24 hour between those two. He has strongly suggested that neither appear tonight in the interest of safety. Vince says Austin is possessed with becoming champion. In the interest of fairness, Vince will consider placing Austin in the 30 man Royal Rumble. Vince says that the #1 contender is HHH and he will face Angle at the Rumble. Cole is outraged at this. Vince is trying to get them both on video hookup but unfortunately only HHH took him up on the offer. Here is HHH and Stephanie on the screen. Vince says he didn’t condone HHH’s actions on Monday. HHH says truth be told he wouldn’t change a damn thing. Austin just when you thought your problems have disappeared, HHH is back and badder than ever. HHH says this will be over when he says so and when he is happy. He will be happy when Austin is sitting on his bed in Texas and has a halo holding his broken neck. Steph says that HHH was justified in his actions because of what Austin did to her. HHH then turns his attention to Angle. HHH says he is still champion because HHH has allowed it. Taker has a promo where he spits out chew and talking about the four way tonight. He says that greatly increases his chances of winning the Rumble because he can see who is weak or who is strong. He calls the ring his yard and says whether he is #1 or #30, the safe bet is on him. Kurt promo setting up the Rumble match. He is not phased to face HHH or Stephanie McMahon and announces Trish as his manger for the match at the Rumble. Stone Cold interrupts a Dudleys/Jericho vs Edge/Christian/Benoit match about a minute in and slams a chair on whoever is in his way. He calls out Vince. Vince walks out and Austin tells him to stop right there. Austin demands that Vince put him in the Rumble. Austin also has some stern words from HHH. Vince goes into his office and Trish is there. Vince is upset that Trish volunteered to be in Angle’s corner. Trish says shes been bad and she deserves a spanking. Vince’s face at this is ridiculous. Vince rubs his hands and prepares for the spanking as the door closes. Finally, our main event match starts. Kane and Rikishi are the first two to enter and brawl during Taker’s entrance. Taker joins them and Rock has to rush down to get into the fray. Rock and Kane are focused on in the ring and Rock takes a bump outside of the ring from a Kane punch. Rikishi and Taker then enter and like usual, Taker dominates him. After two minutes or so, Rikishi smartens up and does pull Taker off of the Old School and gets some offense on Rock. Taker pulls Rock out on a pinfall and they face off now. Taker has nasty cut above his eye. Rikishi hits Kane with the ringbell and has Taker and Rock in stinkface position. Kane has recovered and pastes Rikishi with a chair but Taker breaks that up. Big series of moves culminating in Rock hitting the Rock Bottom on Kane but again Taker breaks it up. Taker and Rock are fighting on the outside and Rikishi squashes Kane and wins. Rock and Undertaker slug it out more until Kane sits up and chokeslams Rock. He gives Taker one as well. Kane ends the show by giving one to Rikishi to complete the trifecta. Fun match. ***1/4 (6.3)

Favorite lucha match of the early year. Everyone here served a purpose and there were some neat developments throughout the match. Cerebro and Felino really go after each other with juicing and mask ripping. Dandy and Wagner also go at it but it a bit more classical and technical way minus the perfectly placed foul by Wagner at the finish. Then you get some great Super Porky comedy spots with the crying and trying to dive on Wagner and Silver King and Felino keeps getting in the way. Overall, a ton of fun. ***1/2 (7.1)

I don’t know why WCW was fascninated around this time with the four man booth. Another indicator in a failing promotion is the lack of tightness around the announcing. We had the Inferno line about Kidman needing to find a gym on Monday and now we have Duggan out for this match. He talks about how Lance Storm can’t fight at all. To make matters worse, Stevie just starts railing on the referee talking about how incompetnent he is. Again, the gimmick is annoying but Kidman and Rey are two of the best wrestlers in WCW at the moment. Add in Storm and you have an entertaining tv match. There were some shaky moments mainly involving Skipper who just isn’t very good right now but Rey and Storm also have an awkward moment too. Big brawl around ringside with the Animals and Team Canada. Stevie does at least bring up on commentary about Duggan’s past siding with Team Canada. Finish was cool as Storm catches Rey in the maple leaf for the submission. **3/4

Promo with Rection and we learn he has The Insiders as backup. Match was a slog as Rection continues to be one of the more unsympathetic FIP’s I can think of in wrestling history. Stasiak also continues to be a chore and 2001 Shane Douglas doesn’t move the needle. As a result, it was a lengthy match that ended with the Thrillers just coming out and attacking the Insiders. Douglas goes for the chain but Rection blocks it with a powerslam and gets the win. How many upset wins did Rection get compared to other more deserving wrestlers? Overall, a poor match. *

Weird set up as they announce everyone and then exchange a sheet of paper. We then cut forward to a tag match involving Araya/Fuchi vs Yone/Nagai. Good little tag match actually with Araya showing something and Fuchi being a prick like usual. I guess its just once you are out, it is next man up as it’s the same tag teams in the next match with Kakihara replacing Yone. Kaki disposes of Araya and we get another entry into the Fuchi torture dungeon. He has a swift exchange against Kakihara and then is vicious against Nagai. Grinding his fist into his nose and sending him to the outside for Araya to do more damage. Araya’s highspots are impressive as he hits a spinning back kick that lands on Nagai. Fuchi locks on a leg submission but Kakihara has had enough and breaks that up. Kakihara also gets beat up a bit by Fuchi. That leads to an awesome finishing sequence of Nagai and Kakihara teaming up and trying multiple submissions on Fuchi. They keep Araya at bay and then end up submitting Fuchi in the end. Pretty awesome. Okumura is fresh and comes rushing in with a flurry. This is a short 4 minute tag with a ton of striking exchanges. Nagai and Araya are battling at the end and Araya has taken too much damage and goes down to a German. Kawada comes out as he head to break as the match is really weighted on his shoulders now. Kakihara wants a piece of Kawada but will take it out on Okumura instead. Nagai/Kakihara are dominating now and really grooving as a team. They work over Okumura big time and even cheap shot Kawada on the apron. Kawada is having to break up pins. Then Okumura is able to get a back suplex, make a tag and the fight is on. Kakihara and Kawada have a bad ass stand of. Nagai comes in and its more of the same. Everything is even until Okumura hits a missile dropkick. That allows Nagai to be in big trouble. He barely escapes a stretch plum attempt but Kawada kicks him right in the head and locks it in again and Nagai is gone. Kea is the last man to enter the match and he locks it up with Okumura right away. Final tag is about whether Okumura can survive. He gets beat up on relentlessly and is finally able to make a hot tag to Kawada. Kawada is back with another quick flurry but that is short lived and Kea is able to secure the victory for his team. Overall, a really strong match that helped increase the notoriety of Kakihara/Kea and Nagai, Fuchi was the master in the beginning of the match, Kawada felt like the ace and Okumura showed some toughness. I think if it would have been a drawn out Elimination match with a bit more time and Kea getting a big win over Kawada, we could reach really great match territory but with what we had, it was super enjoyable. ***3/4 (7.6)

Steiner lets us know this match is not going to happen tonight. Jarrett calls Flair Jurassic slap ass and says when he makes the rules, him and Steiner break them. Flair’s music comes up and he demands the match take place. Scott gets stripped of the title and Jeff loses his spot at Sin. Madaja is moved out of the way and Scott attacks from behind. Steiner has good offense and is posing and has his presence. Jarrett works this match as defacto face and hits a great dropkick at one point. Steiner chokes Jarrett out in the corner and jaws with the crowd. Jarrett comes back and takes the fight to Scott on the outside. Steiner recovers and slams Jarrett onto the announcers table. He does the jack off gesture for the young lady sitting next to the announcers. Back in the ring, a stroke gets blocked and a belly to belly is hit for a nearfall. Sid comes charging in to cause the DQ and we go off the air with the mystery man also charging in. *1/2

This is a Minnesota Massacre match. Mike Sanders comes out to announce the 4 participants in this match. We are told repeatedly that this is a “random” selection and if your name is not called, you are barred from ringside. Sanders does have his gear on in a good bit. Sanders is the first representative and he looks shocked. Participant #2 is Chuck Palumbo and Sanders is shocked at that too. Hudson says they should check for dangling chads. #3 is Sean O’Haire and finally Disco is suspicious. This was supposedly a set up for Kiwi and Vito to be beat up form earlier in the night. The fourth contestant is DDP to the surprise of sanders. #5 is Nash. We did see a clip earlier where the envelopes were switched. Nash/DDP are happy with themselves and Sanders mouths to them that this is bullshit. Pier six to start and Sanders uses the tag title to slam it against Nash and take the advantage. Disco talks about a feature in WCW Magazine where Page was doing yoga. Palumbo and O’Haire hit each other and Sanders is the last one standing until DDP gets a low blow sending him down. Everyone is back up at 7 and DDP hits a nasty floatover DDT on Palumbo. The Thrillers come out but here is Vito and Kiwi to keep them away. Diamond Cutter and Jacknife combo and Silverman calls for the bell without even putting a 10 count on. Disco asks that. ½*

Sarge is a liability here as Goldberg is risking his career tagging with him. Brawl starts in the entrance between Adams and Goldberg. Not a bad strategy by Kronik as they could have had Goldberg occupied in the aisle and hope they could get a pin over Sarge inside the ring. Tony says as much and brings to the attention of the fans how dumb Kronik’s strategy is. Goldberg gets put into the steps and they do return to attack sarge’s arm. Goldberg gets the tag in and Adams gets a good looking full nelson slam on Goldberg as they go for the High Times. Goldberg powers out and spears Adams. We barely see a good looking leapfrog from Goldberg. Spear to Clark, Jackhammer and that is it. 35-0 for Goldberg. Sarge is getting beat up meanwhile on the outside by Totally Buff. They rip the cast off and slam it on the steps again. Luger whacks Adams too just for good measure. *

Two of the better WCW workers in 2000 mix it up here. Before hand, Lance lays out the stipulation for the penalty box match at Sin. Like Helms before, Konnan jumps on commentary and him and Disco jab at each other making the announcing overall pretty unbearable. Storm continues to get good heat with a USA chant breaking out as he is on offense. Disco sucks saying Kidman needs to find a gym, how does that help anyone? Quick match but good action throughout. The chair was propped into a corner and played into the finish when Lance went into it. Major Gunns breaks up the pin and the two factions battle. Back inside, Kidman hits the Kid Krusher and picks up the win. **1/2

Chavo lays out a promo beforehand that if Shannon wins, Shane Helms doesn’t get a shot at Sin. Decent match as I have enjoyed Chavo during this run. Shannon Moore continues to be spotty and pretty reckless including botching a springboard dive. Chavo had good ring general skills taking advantage and putting Shannon away shortly afterward. **

Vince starts the show with a new year resolution for us all….. respecting authority. A sign cuts to shut up you jackass and King yells WHAT at the sign saying that. We get footage seeing Rock hit the Rock Bottom on two referees from SmackDown and how he doesn’t respect authority. We learn that Rock is in a handicap match teaming with two referees to face Rikishi and Kane. Stephanie is backstage with all the referees. She lets them know that they are under contract with WWF and therefore will do what she says. Teddy Long and Jack Doan get selected for duty. Rock interview with Kevin Kelly. Funny moment as Pat Patterson comes out of the locker and realizes he has messed up so he retreats. Rock does push the Rumble which is good. Calling Kevin Kelly a hermaphrodite is less so. Kane walks by Long and Doan backstage and shoves them right before the match. Teddy starts the match with Rikishi and JR says Rikishi has had sushi bigger than Teddy. JR says its good he is wearing black pants. Teddy is given the stinkface. Rock is able to tag in and that helps things. Rock dominates and even the referees get a few licks in. Rock runs into a chokeslam from Kane but he is able to kick out. Rikishi keeps working over Rock and goes for stinkface, but Rock gets a low blow and clothesline that Rikishi takes a great bump off of. Match gets thrown out when both just keep dominating Rock including a bevy of stomps and chair shots. All three referees get wiped out. Taker runs down to help out and chokeslams Kane. This is set up as a preview of the Rumble. Pretty hollow fodder here and Rock was on a good run early in the year. *1/2 Backstage Vince tells Steph that Taker will learn respect too on SmackDown. Rikishi vs Kane vs Taker vs Rock. The winner is #30 in the Rumble.

King claims that Matt has the hots for Lita. JR agrees and says a lot of people that don’t have the hots for Lita are not married. Fun shot at King at Malenko. Radicalz start working over Hardy and each member is given some moments to highlight. Benoit is presented as the most proficient technician with a neckbreker and nearfall. Saturn actually looks motivated and game in this match as he gets shove off the turnbuckle and Jeff hits the swantom leading to the hot tag with Jericho. Jericho and Benoit now battle it out. Terri is on the apron and Jericho sends her to the floor. Saturn belly to belly suplexes Jericho after that. Benoit tries to take advantage with a Crippler Crossface and a roll up by Jericho gets the pin. Lita pulls Malenko off the apron and Malenko pulls a concession cart and dumps it on Lita. *3/4 After the match we see Lita taking a shower and Dean being a peeping Tom. Hardy’s attack Malenko and try to break his leg using a table.

Vince then moves onto Austin. Vince says he made the count on SmackDown not because he is intimidated but because he is a new man. His new year resolution is to be fair. Here is the onus of “in the interest of fairness.” If Vince and Austin can get along, why not Republicans and Democrats, why not peace in the Middle East. Glass breaks and here comes Austin. Austin isn’t buying it and says hes not buying that bullshit either. JR even says wow at Austin using this harsh language. Austin calls Vince a jackass. He tells Vince to stay out of his life and that he is going to beat Angle and become WWF champion. Angle’s music fires up at the end of that. Angle brings up 1996 and what honor and glory he was doing for America while Austin was wrestling strap matches. Austin interrupts and flicks Angle off and says he is going to whip his ass tonight. As he goes to retrieve a beer, Angle nails him with the title. Lengthy opening segment but Angle continues to hang with maybe the best heel and face in company history as far as on the microphone and not seeming as a downgrade. This also was important in putting over Vince and his “fairness” which carries a lot of air time in the weeks to come. E&C give Kurt some well wishes for the night. They let Kurt know that he will love what he is going to do for the Dudley Boyz. That ends up being a long drawn out lame segment with the Dudley Boyz “mom” Vince sends steph away for some coffee and then gets giddy taking off his jacket. Steph is back with a fresh cup of coffee and the toilet flushes and out comes Trish. Steph puts Trish in a match later tonight teaming with Albert vs Test and tells her that she heard she is used to 2 on 1’s. WWF NY Patrons give their predictions for tonight’s main event. I wonder how many of these patrons have a podcast currently. Vince is pacing in the back before Trish’s match. We see the finish of the match involving Trish which occurs when Regal runs out to ringside and stun guns Test to give Albert the win. That pisses Trish off as she knows that Vince sent Regal down. Big hype packages for both the Austin/Steph/Vince stuff and Angle’s rise to the title and his title run so far. They are really selling this as a big time main event for tv. This is a great match. Full of action and Austin really is in rhythm now busting out all sorts of suplexes and high impact moves that he wasn’t doing before he got injured. Ross picks up on it and it really feels like an evolution of his character in ring. Angle had this important match too as he hangs and isn’t as swallowed up by Austin as he is by Taker. He shows some resourcefulness and feels like a defending champion that is maybe outmatched at points but not outwitted. Ross loses his voice and him and King give a classic call. All in all, this is the best aspects of the attitude era. We even get a real well done shit finish. Austin has the stunner and the title in his hands when HHH pulls him out of the ring causing the DQ. We haven’t seen HHH since the Hell in a Cell so it was good that he took about a month away and then came back. They milk them interacting and then when they do, the crowd explodes. This is so much better than the bullshit we saw at Survivor Series. Brawl onto the announce table and HHH finds a pipe and way lays on Austin busting him open. Game towers over Austin to end the show. Great stuff. **** (7.8)

Cyrus announces Rhino as the champion and is very proud of himself. He lays down a challenge to anyone to come out. RVD answers the call to a huge pop. RVD and Rhino are face to face and Rhino puts the belt in between them. Jerry Lynn attacks from behind. Lynn says he only wrestles main events and the match is on. They do a quick flurry and then really milk it and mug for the crowd. It is crazy that Joey talks about how RVD hasn’t been ECW champion. Talk about waiting too long to pull the trigger. Match has a few good wrinkles in it with Lynn in the heel control spot but also some slop as to be expected. Finish doesn’t get too ridiculous as Gertner comes in and DDTs Cyrus right away to put him out of the picture. RVD looks better than Lynn here to me which is surprising. RVD overall is interesting to track in 2001, he for sure wasn’t in my top 100 wrestlers of 2000 but he has ample opportunity and a high profile in 2001 to surprise me. Van Terminator gets the triumphant babyface win and essentially puts a bow on ECW for good with a just over 2 hour PPV. ***1/4 (6.5)

A garbage brawl that encapsulates ECW pretty perfectly. Not everything looked good but it was entertaining enough and for 420 style wrestling consumption, you can make the leap that it is innovative and something more. It is a style that did help transcend and we see ramifications of that with numerous ladders and other instruments first brought to the national stage with ECW. Credible was kind of on the backburner for most of this and to me the main players were Sandman and Corino. Corino along with Tajiri and Roadkill are the three biggest prizes that are still young and on the rise with ECW folding even above the likes of RVD or others. Sandman winning was a nice moment and felt like a fitting ending moment until the post match occurred. ***1/4 (6.3) Rhino vs Sandman Rhino slips on the first gore attempt. He demands a match now, but Sandman says fuck you. Rhino says if Sandman doesn’t give him a match, his family dies. That seems pretty extreme. RVD is chanted for but Rhino says there is no surprise. Sandman then says to ring the bell and the match is on. Table is set up in the corner. Sandman gets gored through that but kicks out at 2. Piledriver from the apron through a table on the floor that looked pretty nasty. That also only gets two and the crowd is up for this. Another piledriver on a piece of table and that wins the title for Rhino. ½*

First part was a disjointed spotfest. Some stuff like Kash’s dive was amazing, some was a train wreck. It was ok but not high end psychological stuff. Once things boil down into FBI vs Tajiri/Mikey, we get the typically good tag with those four although I agree that it does feel like we really should be beyond all of this for all parties involved. There really is no good excuse in a floundering promotion that Tajiri is still lumbering around in these mid card tag matches. Unholy Alliance win and it feels so hollow seeing them celebrate like its such an accomplishment. A good match but a tone deaf one inside of a dead promotion. ***1/4 (6.4)

I realize that stating that Roadkill hot tags are probably the thing I will miss most about ECW going away is an indictment on the product overall and why they are going under, but dammit it is true. This certainly had some indie shit with Doring looking worse than usual and blowing a dive and Dinero missing the Jalapeno Popper by a mile. The crowd was also easy to get on the wrestlers tonight with loud YOU FUCKED UP chants. Still, Money was pretty damn good here as obnoxious but flashy and damn good when he needed to be and Roadkill nailed the final moments with an excellent hot tag. Overall, a fun tag match that isn’t exactly executed flawlessly but feels like a match you can shut your mind off to. *** (5.8)

Another beginner lucha match that didn’t progress any big storyline developments but was interesting enough while it was going on. TB and El Dandy had some fun interactions with each other and its also good to see Pimpinela. Otherwise, nothing much of note, just a basic Monterrey tag. *** (6.1)

Lesser than the November match but still really good and I’m still here for the Ishikawa vs Murakami interactions. This felt more understated until the waning moments of the match when they took it to the outside and it had the out of control aspects most of the match in November had. Otsuka and Yone did well here getting in their shots. I expect that from Otsuka but was pleasantly surprised by Yone throughout. He looked energized and stiff with his strikes. The aftermath with Ishikawa offering a peace offering to Murakami and him having none of it felt true to his character. Very good shoot style main event that just barely misses being great. ***3/4 (7.7)

Good juniors BattlARTS. Junji.com has a simple strategy of mainly focusing on the right arm of Usuda and Usuda sold it well. He is fine utilizing his kicks and late in the game, junji realizes he probably should have been focusing on that and tries to pivot. Some really slick transitions and finishing submissions in the final moments with Usuda not relinquishing a cross armbreaker and eventually picking up the victory. ***1/2 (7.2)

An awesome Osaka Pro show overall. Two great matches and this one which is really good too. Liger and Samurai play their invading NJPW heel role well and Zeta Mandora did well holding his own and then taking his beating as expected. The main showcase is Liger vs Delphin and it is really a shame they don’t have a high profile singles match coming up. Delphin continues to be a great underlooked worker who looked just as poised as the legend Liger throughout this match. Mandora gets a few nearfalls on Liger and then Delphin is able to surprise Samurai with a nifty rollup for the surprise win. ***3/4 (7.6)