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Really good video beforehand showing how we got here with these teams and the Gamma turn. Black Buffalo seems a bit unsure and that plays right into the match. QUALLT and Gamma have some swank matching gear and Buffalo is just doing his thing. The match continues the great run of Osaka Pro in 2000. Everyone is given a chance to shine and this feels like the great M-Pro trios of 1996. The heel faction dominates and Gamma is much better suited in this role and much more active than what I envisioned given his current state nowadays. The finish also is clever as it feels like the heels will gain the win but a shocking pinfall leaves Buffalo as the loser post. I have a feeling that will play into storylines coming up. **** (8)

I have been trying to formulate how to rank high end comedy matches and whether they should be up there with hardcore and other styles that I do seemingly have as MOTYC in many years. This was definitely high end comedy. Gordi is accurate in that it felt very classical in a routine style than the absurd style that DDT ventures into sometimes, but that classic style still produced some laugh out loud moments for me mainly Ebessen getting crotched trying to do the Shinzaki walk. Shout out to Matsui who is still an amazing ref to this day as he was on point here and helped add to the spots and comedy overall. A real treat to watch and I match I needed to see on a crap day. **** (8.2)

7 minutes of 18 shown. Fun action as is the norm. SUWA and Fuji have the size advantage especially on Dragon Kid so there interactions and utilizations as being the base really stand out as entertaining. I know Tokyo has a bad reputation but I still don’t think he really sticks out to me as being significantly worse in watching these old matches. A ceremony occurs after the match for Sumo Fuji. Perhaps someone with a better understanding can inform me what was going on there. NR

FMW was easily one of the more disappointing promotions in 2000 after having hot 1998 and 1999 years. This felt like a return to form. A match that has many twists and turns and still feels different within the Japanese landscape while also staying true to what makes a match work. Gedo is the underdog and gets worked over for the majority of the match. He botches a lionsault but otherwise gives a spirited performance. Tanaka really looked excellent here. When he receives top 100 votes for GWE, that felt like a bit of a stretch for me but he showed a lot of awareness, encouragement and execution with his moves here. Gedo winning and pinning Fuyuki felt like a big deal. The post match angle was well done as Kuroda turns on Fuyuki and sets up the big main event feud going forward. They even put lip stick on Fuyuki as an insult. This got me real excited as to what 2001 FMW has in store for us and this could be one of the better tag matches of the entire year that isn’t a gimmick match. **** (7.9)

I watched these in the wrong order so I was coming off the high of the main tag match but thought this was a fun garbage brawl. A lot of walking and punching but some cool stuff that displays the bowels of Korakuen and included a piledriver in the stairway. Then we get to the finish. Again, I watched out of sequence so after seeing how well I thought the turn in the next match was executed I was furious when Hosaka just goes a low blows on Sasaki here. I get maybe FMW is trying to reset things but two big turns in two matches feels very Russo-ish. So good garbage brawl but shoddy booking. *** (6)

Hennig’s gear is awful with a T-shirt under his singlet but they are still battling it out in front of a big crowd in the baseball stadium. Horace Hogan comes out for a closer look. Real basic mat work throughout the match. I can appreciate a slow moving match but it felt like we were still in the table setting when everything ended. Gonzalez works the leg a bit and Hennig keeps coming back. A figure four is locked in and then we get a big brawl for the DQ. Nice to see Hennig in 2001 but this didn’t look like we were missing much at all. NR

Dinsmore still presented as the ace. Match is basic tv affair. Robbie E hits a real smooth fisherman suplex floatover into putting his feet on the ropes in one fluid motion. Russ McCollough comes out and Dinsmore starts making up his comeback. Robbie flips through the German and they jockey for position before Dinsmore is able to hit it for the win. Russ wallops Dinsmore with the title after the match and gives a powerbomb. We learn Russ even challenged Stone Cold. Yeah, lets see how well that works out. *1/2

Cornette leads us in at 80 mph and we learn that Christmas Chaos had to be rescheduled due to snow. Bolin cuts a promo against Cornette and blaming them for facing each other. He says that he will not allow a winner to happen in this match. Cornette agrees with him and says we have a special referee. It’s the first hardcore champion in OVW history and its Trailer Park Trash. That gets a good response from the crowd. Trash’s referee shirt is awesome in a wife beater and black lines drawn downward with a marker. A pretty generic hardcore brawl here with a bunch of plunder. Black is awkward and not in the hurty, dangerous way but in the clumsy variety. Black sets up a table in the ring and a door in the corner. He misses a charge and Conway comes back with a thesz press. Conway then gets a chair and hammers Black with it. Crowd seems a bit unsure who to cheer for when Conway is clearly being presented as the face in this feud. Crossbody by Conway on Black in the chair looks awful. Black hits a sidewalk slam sending Conway through the table for a nearfall. another table is brought in and Black misses a splash from the top and goes through the table. Conway loads up the glove and Bolin jumps on the apron. Black charges and Conway moves. Trash moved Conway out of the way but they argue. Black then shoves Conway into Trash who DDT’s Conway. That gets the pin. Trash lays out Black anyway. All of this felt pretty pointless. *1/4

Maybe it’s a new year and I am in a better mood, but I actually enjoyed this which is unlike almost all of OVW in 2000. We still have problems like Cornette screaming, a screwy run in filled finish and Payne given the worst blade job this side of Lex Luger in Baltimore 1988, but besides all of that bullshit, the action here was intense and violent. One of the main tropes of WWE Last Man Standing matches is either the ridiculous contraptions that are set up and bog the match down, the over dramatic selling of the count making the match way too long, or their being a pinfall on inconsequential moves that otherwise would never be the finish. They avoided that here and had some violent stuff including a double chair powerbomb and the unprotected chair shots that Payne took. I liked the referee just being on the outside counting when told. Leviathan looked like a pretty big monster when he interferes but I did find it humorous that Rico of all people is able to go toe to toe with him. A good start to OVW in 2001. **3/4

Once again, JCW being on the same night as IWA a half of country away hurts them in this format as this three way was inferior to the IWA one. That being said, Low Ki looked fucking incredible. His strikes were on point and he brought energy and stiffness to everything he did. Montoya was one of my whipping boys in 2000 due to his opportunity vs ability and he was serviceable here but the weakest of the three by far. The finish after Montoya was eliminated was lame as Inferno comes out and gives interference allowing Youth to retain with the Ki Krusher. Afterwards, Montoya/Youth and Inferno give a promo against Low ki and seemingly are aligned together. *** (6)

Bradley is with Victoria and gives a quick promo. Who’s your Daddy is a pretty weak tag line for Bradley. The face crew comes out and King is looking slim in 2001. Shortish match that is mainly based on Abs being a FIP. Heel contingent isn’t too exciting with Slash being the best of the bunch in ring. Slash misses a somersault senton that Corey said looked like Northwest Airlines. Instead of hot tag, Abs hits a powerslam and the match breaks down. King and Sgt. Moore are having a hair vs hair match we learn. Victoria grabs Lawler with the clippers and King grabs that and threatens to cut her hair. Bradley holds him off at first but Lawler is persistent and the show goes off the air with the clippers on the verge of cutting Victoria. Weird finish and not much of a match overall. *

They consider Lance an underdog coming in. We learn that Cade is teaming with Joey Abs tonight in Bogota. Seven accompanies Vick and trips Cade up to start the heat sequence. After a minute or so, Slash runs out with a chair and tries to hand it to Vick but Seven yanks it and that allows Cade to hit a dropkick. Roll up and Cade gets the win as there is problems with Slash/Seven/Vick. Lance gives a promo afterwards and he is very generic but does show some potential. The Dupps beat up Cade with a chair to end the segment. ½*

Spanky has a nice haircut and they have Jason Sensation with them. Spanky says he hasn’t slept all week long without the belt and not the good stinky kind of naked either. The belt is coming home with daddy. Jason Sensation presents Clique 2000 and then calls Corey Eddie Murphy and Dave Brown Steve Martin. Sensation says the clique in this millennium will change the face of wrestling. Hey, 1 out of 3 isn’t bad for Jason. Jason then does a Shawn Michaels impersonation that is legit pretty hilarious. Danielson talks saying that today is the debut of the Haas brothers and talks about the tradition of channel 5. First impressions are important but they are nothing but losers. Shultz calls himself the technical expert and submission specialist of the group which is hilarious in a faction with Danielson. Russ and Charlies then come out and give a quick intro promo. Nothing much here except giving their amateur credentials. They end with their Haas of Pain moniker. Spanky on commentary says the Haas brothers look like a couple of corn dogs. Dragon starts out and the Haas brothers are looking good. Shultz cheats and Clique 2000 is on top for a bit. Spanky says this is first time Shooter and Dragon have tagged. Dragon hits a nasty kick to the back of Russ. Nice enzuiguri as well. Haas uncorks a German to Shooter and Charlie is in with the hot tag. Catapult of Dragon into a belly to belly suplex. Spanky jumps up on the apron and gets knocked down. Derrick King runs down and Shooter and Spanky beat him down. Dragon is isolated in the ring and the Haas brothers do a legdrop/moonsault combo to get the win. Fun tv match that packed a lot In 4 minutes. **

This struggled coming after the IWA three way. It was inferior in every way from the crowd heat, the camera catching the action and the pace of the brawl overall. The commentator was awful. I am unsure why the crowd was so dead but they didn’t react for much at all even the bumps that looked brutal that the camera barely caught. Moondogs 2000 are pretty generic and trashy and not even at Bad Crew level of brawlers of Molsonn does at least look the part of a Moondog in 2000. Add to that the lame finish where the match talking about needing two referees and the finish sees each member of one team getting the pin with one referee counting. The announcer is confused as to what is going on. End result is that the titles are held up and a rematch is needed to settle the score. They brawl to end things with more intensity and urgency than at many points within the match. **1/4

I echo most of my thoughts above but I liked this even more this time. I think that is a combination of I do feel like I have gotten progressively more lax on my match ratings over the year. The second reason is watching a lot of the 2000 indies and even IWA matches beyond this, they have some really fun brawls but they also have some long and plodding stuff that just takes forever. This did it’s job, had creativity, Sabu was on point, and they kept the big angle going between Ian and Smothers. A highlight was Tracy grabbing the mustard and squeezing that on Ian to give the match overall a Memphis flare. ***3/4 (7.3)

An insane promo from Todd starts off saying he is pissed they have to fight three homosexuals. He hates homosexuals just like he hates everyone else in the crowd. Alrighty then. Paul E. Smooth is doing his grinding stripper gimmick on the IWA faithful and Punk and Cabana feel out of place with the whole ensemble. Prazak also does a promo talking about how gold bond mafia is a lame gimmick but what is the Resistance resisting? Punk says he is wrestling a monkey, referee and a midget in a pretty funny line that gets the crowd to pop and is the least canceled of the promo work in this match so far. This isn’t a great match per say but it is good and more importantly does feel pretty important in one of the early indications of the direction IWA was heading into the next year or so. Gold Bond Mafia has their gimmicks but especially with Cabana and Punk, there is going to be a reliance on workrate. Ditto Hero who is fun here as the bruiser on the heel side. Wolf and Morton are the southern brawlers with Morton bringing more due to his experience but this match showed that style did compliment the indie style in a weird way. The match is southern in formula in that Smooth is worked over for the majority and there is frequent tags in and out from the Resistance. We learn this is an elimination match which I was unsure of at first. Match breaks down and is all action and Punk ends up getting pinned by Hero after him and Morton do a neckbreaker/backdrop double team. Colt is isolated against Hero and Morton. Colt fends off Hero and Morton and gets the quick pin on Hero. He then takes a nice beating on the outside by Morton but is able to get a quick win on him. Colt continues to be the most polished of all these guys IMO and overall this was a fun match and snapshot to watch. ***1/4 (6.5)

This is Rave’s first appearance in WIldside and they say he looks 11 years old. Rave looks good here and has a lot of offense. His flying bodypress in particular look good the way it was filmed in that he hit Coleman with great impact and looked like he came from the roof of the barn. Coleman is able to catch Rave with a springboard clothesline and a slingshot falcon arrow that looked really cool. Coleman wastes a lot of time and allows Rave to hit a top rope sunset flip but he misses the corkscrew senton and the Thermal Shock for the win. **1/4

Probably my least favorite of the four matches I watched from this show as Kobashi definitely looks like he is hurting. It was fun seeing him and Kikuchi mix it up but otherwise, it is kind of sad and he is in need of a break for sure that was upcoming. KENTA is fiery and showing strides in his progression but not at the level of Rikio at this point. Rikio overall looks strong here and I continue to think he will be much better in retrospect right up until he takes the title from Kobashi in 2005. Solid match but pretty dry overall. **3/4

Sterness explodes. Its bizarre to see Akiyama now be the complete ring general with the three young upstarts. Every exchange Akiyama is involved in here, he gets the better of his opponent. Shiga was a logical whipping post for the Kanemaru/Akiyama team to target and they do just that. Kanemaru strikes me as a good underneath partner for Jun showing flash and some aspects of cheating to mix in with the aggressiveness of Akiyama overall. I didn’t care for the finish here as it felt like Akiyama’s team really dominated and I thought the finish coming against Kanemaru with Shiga getting the arm submission came a bit too easy. I guess overall at NOAH at this moment in time though, Shiga was #2 in this match even though historically he will end up as #4 within this match. Akiyama shakes hands with Morishima and Shiga afterwards and they go about their business as staying a stable. *** (6)

These NOAH matches are generally tough to rank. They are entertaining and have a lot of good on them but they are also long and NOAH mixed in one of the bigger guys with underneath guys so in this type of setting, you still feel like you are watching the entire show which can be a bit jarring. I think there is misnomer that Ikeda didn’t mix well with the NOAH guys but I’m prepared to debunk that as both him going toe to toe with Misawa here but going down to the forearm like everyone else and him overtaking Marufuji and him and Ogawa going on a long attack of him fit. Once Misawa gets the hot tag, Ikeda actually takes back on offense on him and gets some nearfalls. Ogawa vs Misawa was something to watch throughout this match as you had some vibes of Marufuji being Misawa’s new understudy and Ogawa trying to placate how that makes him feel. Overall, coming in cold this is probably just a run of the mill decent to good tag match, but within the confines of knowing all the characters and where their career arcs had been and would be going, this felt more like a substantial time stamp than just a semi-main on the first show of the year. ***1/2 (6.8)

Weird match in a way. Omori and Vader start off and Vader has lost his athleticism a bit but he can still clobber with some of the best of them. From there, the match becomes a squash almost for the Scop/Vader team. They beat up Omori for 95% of the rest of the match and while what they do is fine, it was just so bizarre unless they were really pushing this new gaijin tag team. The finish complicates further as Omori gets one big lariat on Omori that is treated as a knockout blow and that is it. A really strange match where I sort of see what they were going for, but yeah still fucking odd. *** (5.8)

So close to a great match. This viciousness that led to the transitions in this match particularly by Dragon showed more maturity than what we saw in the tag match earlier. There is some brutal bumps here including the throw into the wall that is just disgusting. Rising Son is an interesting guy as he certainly has some potential. I agree with GSR that he isn’t as refined as Dragon but stuff like his springboard rana where he just hangs on enough to execute it sort of added to the danger and excitement of the match as a whole. The crowd was pretty molten and they willed their way throughout this match to where it felt kind of urban legend-ey if Super Dragon would have become a world renowned star like Punk, Joe or Danielson. The angle at the end set up what should be a pretty damn fun tag match too at the next show. Highly enjoyable and one of the 00’s at this point. ***3/4 (7.4)

Gallinero is in fact Joey Ryan here. So that puts three workers that had/have a nice long career but none that I am too fond of and then Pinoy Boy. As a result, the match was what I figured in that it featured some good sequences and moments but never felt cohesive enough to really come together as a good match overall. B-Boy in particular feels like someone I am lower on than most in our little circle but I have found him to be too inconsistent at points. Reyes was actually probably the best guy here hitting some good strikes and mainly being in the right position for the double team moves. B-Boy ends up picking up the victory. **1/2

You know the drill with these matches. 15 minutes of pure chaos and then the aftermath of Onita getting in his leather jacket and riling up the crowd. Maybe time has made the heart grow fonder of this stuff but I enjoyed this one more than most of the 2000 iterations. I think Onita brought a viciousness that we haven’t seen with nasty piledrivers on the tables and using the piece of the table to just demolish his opponents. Nakamaki does a disgusting blade job and the aftermath is interesting as Tarzan Goto makes an appearance and goes after Onita. I had a lot of fun with this one. ***1/2 (7.1)

If the IWRG was a good intro to lucha overall, this was a strong first match to show what was heating up in CMLL. Tarzan Boy is mixing in well with UG and Bucanero and they have some swank triple team moves to win the first fall. Second fall has the inevitable miscommunication and then the tecnicos are able to take advantage as the rudos have to talk it out amongst themselves. Third fall has a weird finish as Satanico comes in, tries to rip the Infernales patch off Tarzan Boy’s pants and then turns tecnico by raising hands with the tecnico team and the new Infernales regroup on the outside. ***1/4 (6.3)