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I did not expect Ebessen in gimmick this soon after seeing him in Onita Pro. This match was a shit load of fun that with more time could have been up there with the great Mich. Pro matches of the 90’s. Everyone was given a chance to impress and the comedy moments were implemented seamlessly with the hot action. Togo and Ebessen in particular had great chemistry with each other and the match culminates in them battling it out resulting in Togo hitting his awesome senton for the win. ***1/4

We have arrived at the first IWA-MS match of the decade and we are Charleston with a big crowd here. This is a one camera shoot on the crows nest. Prazak is leading the heels and Fannin is the face manager which is odd pairings. After the obligatory pre match promos, things break down and it is the type of plunder affair you expect with Rico the ring announcer doing the announcments around 3-4 minutes into the actual match. Ian’s chair shots are absolutely the most vicious I can think of and he delivers a thunderous one here to Terry Bull. Obviously a one camera shoot for a match like this isn’t ideal but there are some moments where it is pretty neat just to see the mayhem that is going on in this garage type building as you see Ian give Terry Bull a DDT on the tacks as a light tube gets used in the background. Blaze and Suicide become the main pairing in the ring and they display some good spots on the tacks including a Sky High Powerbomb and a tornado DDT. Rico does the 10 minute call two minutes after the 5 minute call. Blaze gets set up on a table and Suicide comes off the stage with a flip senton. This type of match is a good spot for Suicide as he hits his spots and gets out of the way. Finale has a flaming table set up in the ring and Terry Boy taking a second rope powerbomb through it to a big pop. I had a lot of fun with this as it was quick, chaotic and the bumps were brutal. ***1/2

When does Bull come up to the main promotion? He is at Mania less than a month later but still has the long hair coming out of the back here. This was moving along better than most OVW matches with some good athleticism from Bull and Cornette being restrained. Sure enough as we go to the final section, Cornette starts yelling at the top of his lungs and of all the lame ass finishes in OVW, this one was the lamest as Dinsmore pays of the ref and he just DQ’s Bull. Big schmozz for the finish of the show with referees fighting and who can give the fuck about any of this. OVW is really filmed at this time like an advertisement for the house show but without any build that is engaging to get there. I can understand having a hook for the house show that is upcoming but every episode feels like a patience test of how much bullshit you can sit through to decide to drive down and plop down more money for the house show. **

We start with a clip of Shinzaki botching his rope walk. Fuji attempts to do the rope walk in a funny moment and he gets crotched. Crazy Max is definitely performing different being in there with the legends of Jinsei and Sasuke. The work when Crazy Max is in control is very comedic based including Fuji giving palm strikes to sasukes crotch. Finishing stretch is really entertaining with pairings and action throughout. Crazy Max really is a special unit with each member bringing something unique to the table. Fuji and Jinsei are in the ring for the finale with Jinsei beating him up and running through the gauntlet of SUWA and CIMA. Stereo dives by Sasuke and Tokyo and a straight jacket choke gives Jinsei the victory. Good match but frustrating in the sense that it felt very WWE Wrestlemania-ish as Crazy Max had been embattled in a great feud where they have been looking badass and winning the exchanges and now they essentially have to add in more comedy and get jobbed out when they are encountered with facing the legends in Jinsei and Sasuke. Even giving Tokyo the pin here would have been more beneficial. ***

All of the LCO beatdowns have culminated in this. The beginning is more of the same with LCO giving a straight beatdown including bloodying up Tomoko. Mita escapes the cage but quickly realizes she is going to have to go back in because Mima is unable to beat up both Maekawa and Tomoko. Maekawa blades as well. I know the 1997 LCO cage match has differing opinion and I am interested to see if that plays out in this one as well. Much like that match, I really really liked this one. The cage is used effectively both in grinding the face on the actual structure and really conveying the concept that this is a torture chamber that has been constructed for these four to do battle. The visual of Maekawa taking her boot off and kicking LCO in the comeback was well done. The execution of those kicks….. you can’t win them all. Maekawa is able to make it out but Tomoko isn’t so lucky. This was really dramatic as LCO swarms on Tomoko but she uses her resourcefulness and willpower to push through them. Mita slams a chair on Shimoda giving Tomoko a glimmer of hope to escape. Mita is able to catch her with an electric chair from the top rope. Shimoda scales the top of the cage but accidently hits a missile dropkick on Mita this time. The execution in the final portion is spotty. Tomoko climbs to the top slowly given her damaged leg and misses a moonsault from the top of the cage. LCO immediately rush to escape but Maekawa cuts them off at the pass. Mima is able to escape this time and this match has done a great job of showing parables from the beginning when Mita was on the outside. Right as I type that we get another moment where Tomoko hits a chairshot on Maekawa like LCO did earlier. Mita avoids a kick, busts out the mist and is able to scurry away giving LCO the win but they were in a battle and war this time. ****1/4

Atlantis jumps Villano III in the ring and takes his mask right off. What a brutal hate filled feud. Atlantis is even aggressive with the referee and beats up Villano as he goes to the back. The rudos come out and Satanico decides to take the boots to TB once again. A nice bald head that Satanico is sporting. Brutal rudo beatdown that was reminiscent of a lot of the stuff we saw in January but still entertaining. Rayo and Cien is great given their history together. Bestia gets in a low blow as Satanico has TB by the hair. All of a sudden, the tecnicos make their comeback. Cien gets thrown into the announce booth and Rayo has some words to say. We get some brief Atlantis vs. Satanico interactions and I clamor to see them in a long form match around this point. TB gets his revenge but Satanico yanks him by the hair to take over again. I like that bit of psychology that plays into their apuestas match. Rayo rolls around avoiding contact and Atlantis gets the Atlantida to win the match. Afterwards, he helps stretch out Villano III when the rudos back up come out led by Villano III. You knew he was going to have a receipt for Atlantis and he gives it as Rayo is handcuffed. All roads are now leading to the big 3/17 show and stuff is peaking perfectly. ***1/4

Pretty extreme stip for ECW actually that doesn’t usually do fire, bombs or light tubes. Im really surprised how light this crowd is now with this unique match happening. So this started out with some actual decent wrestling from Balls. He has a good back heel kick as well. Then we move to the slice and dice portion which consists of Vic using a pizza slicer and Balls a fork. I can already see Loss checking out of this match because of that. I liked the spinebuster that Balls delivers right after that for a nearfall. They actually showed some good restraint before teasing the boards but after 7 or 8 minutes, it is long enough for Balls to retrieve the first one. Gabe or whomever is taping retreats to the stage to get out of the way. Grimes is able to push Balls off the second rope into the board and it looks impressive with the smoke going up in the air and the barbed wire sticking to Balls. Vic thinks he has it in the bag but Balls kicks out to a huge pop and cheers for Balls. The second board comes in and this time Vic takes the same bump. This one doesn’t explode like the previous one which is unfortunate. Balls quickly grabs a chair and hits a legdrop with it to pick up the win. This was the type of garbage brawl that I enjoy as I thought the spots were built too well. ***

The way this is filmed provides a weird haze over the top of the camera angle. These are two of the bright spots in ECW at the time so I was looking forward to this one. Tajiri is so great at interacting with the fans in each arena and getting heat right away. Opening sequence was quick and things were moving along nicely when Kash botches a dive and I’m not sure quite what he was going for. You Fucked Up rains down on him for a few moments before he throws out another dive. Tajiri gains control inside and has some vicious looking offense and crowd interaction including spitting on a fan at ringside. Those chops he delivers in the corner also look brutal. There is a lot of empty seats for ECW tonight in this arena. The finish of this was effective in giving Kash just enough hope spots in a roll up but Tajiri was pretty dominant throughout and wins with the brainbuster. The botch was rough but the rest was good stuff here. ***

Not really a match but Crazy gets attacked but reverses everything and beats up Erik Watts and gang culminating in him giving a senton to Lou E Dangerously through a table. Joey shoe horns in a Living Dangerously reference for the upcoming PPV. We return with Crazy busted open and getting beat down. That doesn’t last long as Crazy hits a DDT on Anderson through another table. Table #3 is retrieved. Anderson gives him an Ocean Cyclone suplex through that one. The crowd is hot as shit and eating it up with ECW chants but this is one where the stuff feels hollow to me. Beautiful Billy gets superkicked through another table and a chairshot right to the hand and moonsault win it for Crazy. 4 tables broken in five minutes. Efficient if nothing else. *3/4

I have enjoyed the Show vs. Rock feud more than I thought. This starts off with a good Shane promo and again things set up tonight while also having a long eye towards Mania. Rock has back up in Rikishi and they come down for the tag match. Shane has one more trick up his sleeve as he recruits HHH to tag with Show. Good, hot action follows and the finish was clever in that Show inadvertently whacks HHH with a chair allowing Rock to get a Rock Bottom and win the match. Steph and Shane bicker at each other afterwards. HHH clocks Shane and these two are going after it. **3/4

We see a quick clip of HHH booting Billy Gunn from DX on Raw. I continually hate Road Dogg going through his pre match stuff every time. WWF in 2000 has been so solid that this may honestly be the most consistently annoying thing happening in the promotion. Terri comes out to join us. I don’t know why/how she became this great sought after manager. I did like the action here and think Road Dogg and Pac are more fresh as a tag than NAO were. This shows how deep the division was at this time as we have had two solidly entertaining tag matches on this episode so far and haven’t seen arguably the two most over teams in the Dudleys and Hardys. E&C continue to be better faces than I remembered as they head towards their heel turn. Terri slaps Edge and gives him a mouth full as X-Pac hits a low blow and X Factor on Christian for the win. **1/4

Good solid action here. Radicalz are still mixing it up with the upper mid card and besides losing at No Way Out I don’t really have any complaints about the booking decisions. Too Cool is still over as well. Eddy and Chyna start their interaction with each other and the Radicalz are able to pick up a big win. **1/2

Kanemura, Gedo and Jado do a synchronized dance to start. Move over Too Cool. This was kind of a weird match in that it started into a brawl and then settled down into a more traditional tag match. Neither portion was that captivating to me but it also wasn’t awful. Things break down at the end and Jado steals a pinfall which is still a problem in 2017. This also didn’t really do a good job of setting up anything in the future as Yamakawa has beating Kanemura. I have been probably a bigger fan of Yamakawa than others going through the stuff so far but he really was just a guy here. **1/2

BJW has a N W O knockoff group too? This was a sad crowd for them as I don’t think there was more than hundred people here. This was sort of a weird match overall for me. It was good to see Teioh and he looked well enough. Motegi was a step below but not awful. The match overall though was just a 8 minute undercard affair that will be impossible to remember in a project of this scope. **1/4

tl;dr - the promotion is slowly transitioning out of a grapple-heavy style Which is highly unfortunate. Hope Thatch never drops the strap. Even if you think Thatcher sucks, I do think this is unfortunate. The time frame from the Royal Rumble shows last year to the Thatcher vs. Hero match and that first show with the TNA invasion were some of my favorite itemized promotional runs I can remember. A grapple heavy style but with engaging characters (Thatcher aside) and overall a different feel that felt like RINGS in 1997 and 1998. I am not as invested in the current crop of talent including guys others are high on such as Kincaid and Darby Allin.

This face side looks like a lethal lottery draw. Kidman looked good to me working his quick spots vs. the Harris twins and it not looking shockingly good. He also bumps like crazy for them when he was FIP. Short segment with everyone coming in and clearing house. Sid chokeslams Jarret and powerbombs him. Harris pulls the ref out and Kidman accidently missile dropkicks Booker allowing Jarrett to get the sneaky win. Only 4 minutes or so. The Fargo crowd has had enough and starts pelting shit in the ring. *1/4

Flair is running the B level gauntlet on Thunder between Vampiro and now Buff. A pet peeve of mine is how cartoony and corny they made Uncensored right down to the logo that looks like it should be on cartoon network. WCW excelled in the themed PPV’s but Uncensored screams of the WWE model of hey, its October so we must have a Hell in a Cell match. Not much of a match and Bagwell still feels odd as a face for me. He does hit a brutal Blockbuster that is whiffed on. Total Package comes out and whacks Buff with the bat as Liz distracts Little Naitch allowing Flair to get the win. Hennig makes the save to no reaction. Yeah, WCW is pretty bad right now guys. *1/2

Possible 1/30 was the air date. I am not sure but cagematch has the event as 1/30.

Holy shit its Broken Dustin Rhodes as he calls the crowd a bunch of drones. Dustin is talking about kicking Funk’s ass. When did this partnership come to an end? Dustin calls the crowd marks and cuts a typical Russorific shoot promo. Some habits die hard. We go back to catering where Funk gets attacked by Dustin including pouring the punch bowl on him. Dustin says come on and get some. Terry waddles in and takes forever where Dustin should clearly be able to see him. Anyway, Terry bops Dustin with a chair and man I thought it was depressing seeing Flair vs. Funk until I witnessed this. Dustin calls Funk a piece of shit and then hits Funk across the head with a chair multiple times. Not much heat at all for this. Finally, Dillenger and company come in and break things up. Not really a match but this was atrocious.

Crazy Max are still the biggest bullies in the Japanese schoolyard. This starts with a brutal beatdown on Tokyo including him bleeding which really added a wrinkle into everything and got over the violence. Magnum is able to tag out and TM comes in. A really good exchange with him and Taru culminating in a back kick right to Taru’s face. Then Fujita and CIMA come in and have an even better sequence than that before. One thing I appreciated about breaking up the tropes was Fujita came in again and they teased doing the pairings and stuff until Crazy Max has had enough of that and uses their number advantage to take back over. Magnum is really selling the damage and has wrapped a towel over his head. Magnum’s pride gets the best of him as he comes back in but gets worked over by the CM stable. A quick flurry and he is able to make another big tag to Fujita. This starts the match into the finishing stretch. Big dives for the faces which I appreciate because them getting the shine is a face move and not really needed for the CM stable. Fuji and Mochi continue to battle and it continues to entertain me every single time. That gives way to Magnum and CIMA. I again keep waiting for Magnum to suck but much like HHH, it hasn’t happened so far. In fact, he was for sure the leader of the face side for me in this match just from the sympathy he built up from the blood. Heat is a little off in this match as in Korakuen, it could possibly be a MOTYC for me. TARU’s kicks looked brutal here and even TM is showing some surprising fire getting a nearfall on a Tiger Suplex that needs a Fuji save. Big tombstone to Fuji and a dive for Fujita and now TARU has to save him. Great stuff and shows Crazy Max sticking together even though shit is going awry. Just when the faces look like it is in the bag, CIMA hits his palm strike and a huge lariat from Fuji gets 1, 2, …. NO! I bit big time on that one. A chokeslam from Fuji and Crazy Max prevails again. What a great fucking match to start the month. The long term critic in me could say that this makes Crazy Max look just a tad strong again but knowing that M2K is coming as a way to counteract that has me really excited and it has been a hell of a ride getting to that point. ****1/4

A match that just sits there to wet your appetite. Good action throughout but the falls are criminally short. They do play that in fairly well like in the third fall, Casas takes advantage of a big miss by Warrior but while this was a good way to pass 10 minutes, it made me yearn for a whole lot more. This match was sort of the fear we had in the beginning when we saw the lucha match times. **1/4

Flair and Luger cut a promo and Flair gets offended when Luger says he is from here. Hennig interrupts as a face and says if he can’t beat Flair, he will strut down the street butt ass naked. Kind of a weird stipulation if you ask me. Quick match but they pack a good bit in here. Ref bump of course and Flair gets kicked low although it looked awkward and gains the win. Pretty rough finish there. *1/2

Pretty crazy they were already back to MSG for a relatively big show this close removed from Rumble. HHH comes out for an interview and has some touching words and a video for Foley. This of course is a bait and switch but it was well done and before these totally became the norm so I enjoyed it. Steph and Hunter yucking it up in the ring helped as well. No Chance in Hell fires up and out comes Shane and Show. There is some animosity between them because as of now this is the Mania main event. Yeah Right. Rock comes out and cuts a promo but HHH tells him that he has hit Rock Bottom and must face the Brooklyn Brawler tonight. I loved Show laughing at that. We get the match which is quick and easy with Rock killing Brawler and winning with a Rock Bottom. Afterwards, we get the main event set up with the handicap match and if Rock pins them, he is the #1 Contender. ¼* Main event match was good action throughout. They did a good job of showing a little dissension between HHH and Show and Rock right now is at the top of his game as the ace of the promotion. In some ways, this is worked like Hogan title defense from the 80’s. I liked the finish too with Shane intentionally getting the DQ preventing Rock from being the #1 contender. Chants come for Foley as Show chokeslams Rock as the show goes off the air. **1/4

Angle challenges anyone to come out and take the Olympic challenge. Rikishi comes out to a big pop and this was a great way of having these guys mix it up. The match was really more of an angle as Rikishi cleans house and Angle hightails it earning the countout. Jericho and Chyna come out to send Angle back in but the Radicalz come out and we have a little scuffle before Too Cool, Rikishi, Jericho, and Chyna all dance. Pretty fun moment. *1/4

In thinking about the groups that match up the most, I'd say this and Ricochet vs Chuck Taylor are probably the most common