soup23

OJ and myself have certainly been if different opinions on puro in 01 so far. I don’t think it has been any grand year but I’ve certainly been higher on most of the matches so far. This is the opposite of that. They certainly didn’t over reach but Duk was slow as molasses here and took70% of the match. Kea vs Tenryu continues to be a mice feud but as a semi main in Buddokan, this was a poor match. **1/2

Powers and Giovanni make their entrance and I thought they had some promise as a shindie tag team I could get behind like Bad Crew in 2000. Then they introduce Feinstein and this falls right off a cliff. Mikey has been one of the laziest workers of 2001 and Corino is just lost in the wilderness right now.

I didn’t like this as much and thought Morimatsu was too heavy on the sloppy vs violent spectrum with her overall strikes and positioning. She misses a good punch by a country mile on the outside that Yabushita sells anyway. Finish was too much bombs without the drama. This started promising with the arm grappling but fizzled pretty heavily afterwards.

The brawl was good and felt like finally some interesting and logical booking from CZW. Match until then was pretty dreadful. Dreamer was unmotivated and Zandig was business exposing calling spots and lacking any intensity.

The action here was probably better than I expected as Shane’s strikes were merely pretty bad compared to his absolutely awful offerings later. The rest is storytelling perfection.

Cool to see RnR in 2001, not much else here and Main Attraction were pretty appalling.

This match showed off Homicides strengths well. His matwork was logical and violent and he was way undersized but compensated for that with his arsenal of offense. Agree that the finish is terrible but the forethought and positioning Homicide interjects in makes him feel like he is still ahead of the promising young indie stars breaking out that are just spots first.

I enjoyed this for what it was. The ref dive was dumb but otherwise this was a pure spotfest when these moves felt fresh and everything was hit cleanly. I can’t recall seeing the Spanish fly before this. ***

Loving the WCW series. A lot of fun picks with Justin skewing more towards moments and emotion which I can appreciate.

A real WTF with GOrdy and Ishii teaming. Overall, this was missing a charisma thread that keeps things together like ONita but Ueda, Gordy, GIlbert and Ishii all had their moments here and for scuzzy Japanese indie action, it was entertaining enough. **3/4

Money is a fun spotfu guy that probably should have been utilized more. He seems to know when to stay in his lane and know what he does best. This match got real slow when Youngblood was on top and overall it suffered. *1/2

THis one didn't click for me. They had some good ideas and the King/Wagner duo had some nifty double teams but there was a lot of resets and the awkwardness didn't result in intensity and improvement like it sometimes can. *** (6)

Dragon is unmasked which is the biggest development here. I watched this after the MCW Cade/Abs match and liked this one better. It had better energy and Dragon fed better into Abs weak strikes. It was also shorter which helped hide the limitations of most of the workers involved. **1/4

Smothers is the master of working the crowd here. I had watched this before and was disappointed because Guido can go but he really stayed in the backseat here and let Tracey shine. Overall, the crowd is really rampant against Tracey and this felt like the perfect mixture of old school shtick and updated moves. ***1/4 (6.7)

Way better than I expected with these guys. THe energy was there and it didn't overstay it's welcome. In addition, the spot by Kid from the rafters is the spot of the year so far and looked certifiably nuts. *** (6.2)

Horowitz was fine here and should be in a higher profile spot but Rastaman was atrocious and as a result this became a slog to get through and mostly unwatchable. *1/4

Real cool seeing Sandman's entrance in this setting but not much else and JAPW has to be real careful about doing that for the Bayonne hardcores in making those shows seem like advertisements to them starting to run the ECW Arena.

Some clever spots and also some that looked brutal. This was a great follow up to their Rumble match and actually did an impressive job of presenting a fun and satisfying match on tv while also leaving stuff on the table. The Dudley's look like they are really taking a step forward as the leaders of the division currently. ***1/4 (6.6)

They keep raising the tension for the Austin vs HHH match and overall this wasn't too far behind the SummerSlam match which I seem to like more than most. THe energy was good here and Angle continues to exude more confidence in there with the big guys. We did get some call backs from attitude era tropes like Austin counting the refs hand but overall this was a fun way to end the show. *** (6.1)

RIkishi and Haku get jobbed out again. THis was again fine for Kane/Taker to do something for a bit but yeah, it is time for something else. Haku isn't someone I can recall blading much before so seeing that was at least a novelty to put over the hardcore aspect of this SmackDown. *3/4

This is the Dinsmore I have been waiting on although being in there with Benoit can't hurt. Benoit works it as a ferocious heel that is surprised at how well DInsmore is able to hang in the early going. His aggression is well presented and DInsmore is sympathetic with his hope spots and selling overall. The finish was shit but I was expecting that considering this show otherwise had more clean blowoffs by comparison of OVW standards and neither Benoit or Dinsmore could really lose here. ***3/4 (7.4)

Lame match here and the ass kissing stipulation does nothing for me. I love BUdro but he looked like he would rather be anywhere else. I don't this match accomplished much in making any of the up and comers look specifically impressive. *1/2

Well my hard drive took a big ol crash so most of the stuff I have watched in the next week chronologically over the last month calendar wise are lost but I will do my best. I thought this was a cool big vs big matchup. Leviathan having his undefeated streak being lost to Kane coming in on a one off is weird on the surface but its not like he lost any credibility. Kane is looking pretty spirited in 2001 and I am surprising myself that as I come to the close of the month overall, he is in position to be in my top 100 WOTY. The Leviathan vs AUstin showdown was cool just given the gravity of both men in retrospect and their popularity over the years. **1/2

That Shooting Star Press was amazing. Match otherwise was fun in seeing development of stretching crew but struggled in cohesiveness as an overall match. **1/4

Cool to see Frye vs Nagata grapple a bit but besides that, this was long even though it was clipped down. Super J is really bad and Iizuka becomes more limited with every appearance. A vanilla match that hopefully will set up more interesting stuff for Frye down the road. **