El-P

Nah, it was actually really good. If you like Raven of course.

Add in Heel Usos, and you got my opinion summed up there. I'm pretty amazed.

AJ Styles vs Dean Ambrose WTF am I watching ? MOTYC. This is insane. (and people clamoring for Styles vs Cena again, please don't, the SummerSlam match was garbage) Seriously, when going through early TNA, AJ Styles struck me a a great wrestler as early as end of 2002/early 2003. Then he had some classics later in the decade against Joe. Then fell off the radar because, well, no one really paid attention to TNA. Then was great in New Japan. Then has been mostly great in WWE. Then this fucking match against Dean Ambrose, who has not set the world on fire. On paper, Styles pretty much has 15 years of being a great worker, with an incredible diversity of opponents and styles of matches. Probably deserves to be studied in detail (and by that I mean diving into TNA, sigh), but this guy is probably easily a top 10 worker ever at this point. So, a nothing card on paper ended up mopping the floor with Mania & SS (which is faint praise, really). Good booking + good matches (Wyatt vs Kane did not happen) = good card. Easy, uh ?

Let's pretend that Wyatt/Kane + Orton waste of time didn't happen ok ? Irrelevance3, these three. Well, Usos vs Heath Slater & Rhyno was very good. Usos as heels definitely works well (they should turn Roman Reigns tomorrow... just saying...). Not too familiar with Slater, but he was ok here. Rhyno made for a good babyface comeback, although the Gore looks old. Really, the Usos made the match. Surprising and crowd pleasing finish, which is always nice. Thus far, it's been mostly a good and enjoyable card. And for those crying about the crowds, I clearly heard Miz and Usos being booed out of the building. So yeah, legit heels still work.

Wached the first half thus far. Well, Naomi did deliver the funky outfit. Thanks for that, although her work can be quite sloppy. First look on that Bliss girl. Liked the look and the work. Quite clusterfucky with nonsensical periods of ony two women in the ring, but it was still quite the hot opener with enough time to let some story developp. Nice to see Nikki still knows how to deliver an elbow. Good stuff. Well, I like heel Usos. The Hype Bros. Meh… Awful name, goofy attitude. But the heel Usos clearly give them a fresh start and they already are efficient working that style. The Usos vs AA matches could be really really good. Toilet humour… oh man… Rhyno ? On WWE PPV in 2016. Stranger things have happened, but this si still pretty bizarre. Miz vs Dolph. Damn, this is one very good match. Although Dolph's offense still looks like crap most of the time. But when the hell did the Miz got so good ?! It's too bad the use of valet seems to be a lost art, Maryse is hot as fuck but she doesn't serve any purpose. Watch some Missy, Francine, Sherry and Woman, guys & girls. Even the finish was not that well executed. And kudos to the idiotic director who chooses to show a bunch of announcers exactly when Maryse & Miz get their intro in the ring. Worst timing possible. Anyway, the match was really good and pretty much thanks to the Miz. Getting older suits him. The Bryan trolling was great, but it still begs the question, why are they seemingly building to a match which will not happen ? Oh, and the french announcing is soooo good. I have to point it out every time because it makes a whole lot of difference. Agius legit cracked me up at the end of that Miz match.

For the men, yeah, I knew they would anyway, but the women... Well, but like you say, why am I even surprised ? So, new champ : Nikki Bella ? I just hope Naomi will get another kick ass funky outfit like she does.

Yeah, but that would require some kind of thinking, you know. So, just double the titles and that'll do.

They split the rosters. Each show has a women's division, why would each show not have a women's title? Because it makes each title look less important, and the women are the last who need that after the infamous "diva revolution".

Final CIMA vs Jushin Liger Good match, with a hot finishing stretch, but underwhelming compared to what could be expected. Not as compelling as the Sano match, not as exciting as Liger's other matches because of a predictability element. Plus, CIMA's ridiculous shotei setup being repeated three times here doesn't help. That's the "indiefication" of moves that I dislike, the wasted motion culture that got rampant by that time. Still, CIMA's really good at selling and with some of his offense. It lacked a true false finish. Solid matwork at the beginning and nice ending stretch, but not enough slapping around by Liger to truly rile up CIMA, although we get a one count kickout again (was this a thing then ?). Felt kinda anticlimatic in the end. Clearly, the lack of great match hurt this third edition compared to the other two. The booking was nice though, with the two right guys in the final and some interesting match-ups. Sasuke jobbing early was quite unexpected and gave us the excellent Sano vs CIMA match, so that was cool. MEN'S Teioh looked like a king in his two matches. Liger still was the best worker of the night, and the heelish work was a bit different (although not a drastic change, especially in the final). Sano also came out looking strong. Overall, quite the very good card though, despite the lack of any classic or even MOTYC (then again, in 2000, maybe reaching *excellent* was enough). Glad I finally saw that one.

Wait, the women's multi-body match is a *title match* ? They're having another woman's title on SD ? *facepalm* Hey, this stuff is on free TV here. DVR.

Intermezzo Chapparita ASARI vs Hiromi Yagi They were having a feud around the horn, in MPro, ARSION and maybe other indies, so they knew how to work together by that point. ASARI still had those spots where the opponent had to kinda wait for it, but she was way better than a few years earlier. Yagi. Oh man Yagi. I almost had forgotten. This really is the first "joshi puroresu" match I've been watching in almost 13 years. Hey, I remember why I used to love it. This is very good, usually super smooth and Yagi fucking up the arm of ASARI and trapping her in submissions seven ways to Sunday was fun. Semi Finals Naoki Sano vs CIMA Interesting pairing. So Sano is too strong, too big and too good on the mat for CIMA, who may be a punk, but he's MPro's audience's punk. So he sells like a babyface and takes some brutal offense like a king. Strong performance by Sano here, who's always been kind of a dick anyway, stoic as he was. Headdropping again. He was made for NOAH. Leads to stumbling selling by CIMA, who's finally showing why he was choosen to advance. His offense may not always look the most devastating, but he sure sells well. Counters to CIMA's finisher. Then advanced finish. Excellent match devoid of CRAZY*MAX bullshit, as CIMA had the Gedo role here. Jushin Liger vs Gran Hamada Anoher interesting pairing actually. Hamada tries to get Liger's left arm. Ace selling. Then slaps on the floor again. Ok, so that's a thing he does. Still cool as hell. Some bomb throwing too. The old guy surely brings it, despite a weak lariat at one point. Ayako cheering for her daddy at ringside and reacting only makes everything much more fun. Hamada works harder there, he knows he's got Liger. Kick out at one to show up the black angry God, ok, I've seen that already but it does work too with Ayako cheering on. Very good match, mostly super crisp and well paced. Veteran work. Well, the semi finals delivered for sure. No great match, although Sano vs CIMA came close, but simply really good stuff all around with good booking too.

2 PPVs a month ? And this is one ? *jaw drops* And yeah, that whole Orton taking straight elbows deal is beyond ridiculous. Use a fucking blade already. But I guess cutting yourself slightly with a clean blade is dangerous but getting a concussion from legit elbows in a fake match is a-okay. WELLNESS.

Round 2, on another night, in a rather empty looking Kokugikan. 2000... CIMA vs Onryo Typical japanese indy junior match for the times. Better than the previous match because CIMA is a good punk heel and not a goofball gimmick, but it's still basically spot-spot-spot. Onryo was goofy himself (the sleeper which makes him fall straight down was funny though), but they kept it short and moving, with fine execution. Fine short spotfest. Ricky Fuji vs Gran Hamada Awww, I forgot about Ricky singing his own godawful Shawn Michael ripoff theme himself, pretty awfully too. Never got how this chubby looking bastard with late 80's pants got a cool hearthrob gimmick. He's got a good looking young woman with him. Oh yeah, that was Sena Wakana, who was an AV actress (that was Fuyuki's FMW touch). Gran has Ayako, who's so young ! Well, it's quite decent, Fuji didn't look bad at all and Gran, well, did his usual stuff. And a top rope swinging DDT to boot. Kinda funny that Fuji had a much better match with old-ass Grand Hamada than he did with Negro Casas. Quite the watchable effort. Great Sasuke vs Naoki Sano This really is kind of a dream match on paper. In actuality, not so much. Nice matwork although Sasuke really sold the legwork by doing a spinning kick. Sano was a bit off catching Sasuke's flying, but he was game to drop Sasuke with brutal suplexes. Actually ended on a headropping galore which led to a KO, which was a nice and surprising finish. Good match, but some execution issues and shaky transitions (that suplex on teh apron was awesome ut Sasuke came back imediately countering Sano's next move) makes it a slight disapointment of sorts. Jushin Liger vs MEN'S Teioh They work it toward an upset, as Teioh really is like a junior Gannosuke, with super crisp pinning combinations and some wicked elbow shots. Liger his from the darkside, so he's super agressive and does a little bit of no-selling too. I dig the slap barrage on the ground though, Liger's badass doing it. They really make the audience buy one of Teioh's pin attempt as a false finish. Simple, greaty executed and intense. Short, but very good. Ok, this is clearly not the quarter finals of either two previous J Cups. Gedo vs Delphin from 94 was worse than anything here probably, but Liger vs Teioh, as good as it is, just isn't enough to compete. The undercard had a very good/excellent 10 men tag with a bunch of losers from the first round plus Tanaka, Porky, KaShin, Motegi under a hood (what would a J Cup card be without Motegi ?), well, it was all lucharesu and shooty and fun.

So there was another J-Cup in 2000. MPro putting it together. It was not muhc talked about. Dark days for puro ahead, it was already crumbling down. Back then, you had to buy tapes. It was slow and expensive. So, that's why star ratings mattered. So you knew what tape you'd buy. My regular tape dealer didn't rate this show very high I seem to remember. I had to make a choice, so I never watched that MPro Super J Cup. Time to see what I missed. CIMA vs Ricky Marvin Oh oh, Marvin's outfit screams that we have finally passed the 2000 line. CRAZY*MAX. Hey, I remember being a part of a board that was named like that ! This is pretty much spotty but quite good for what it is. Marvin and CIMA get all lucharesu, with no matwork and all flying around. I remember CIMA as the rising star from Toryumon who was working regularly in MPro at that time. Well, this is fine, although we get to see some "modified" spots (CIMA's useless ass bump on his finisher), which I don't like. Ricky Fuji vs Sasuke the Great Ah, the era of the Nise characters. Sasuke is Masao Orihara, who was good as a punk WAR junior in interpromotionnal matches, but quite the terrible nutshots steampunk brawler once he got into the sleaziest of japanese indies. He's got a hot masked valet, so we get upskirts shots. This is Japan. Awful match with nutshots. Bad work from the valet. They just don't know how to do this shit over there yet. SUWA vs Naoki Sano How wasn't Sano involved in the first two ? Oh yeah, shootstyle. THat whole CRAZY*MAX stuff with a manager interfering maybe was new and hot in Japan, but it doesn't seem quite right with the Super J Cup theme. Times change. Still, it's pretty good, with Sano fighting against the odds to punk out young punk SUWA. SUWA's work is nothing special at all, while Sano looks really, really good still. MEN'S Teioh vs Katsumi Usuda Men's Teioh was working in Big Japan at the time, doing a Terry Funk tribute act agin Abby. Kind of a waste considering how fucking good he looks here. Katsumi was the name of a famous french pornstar, so that's who I think about first. Usuda is a BatBat guy. This is really good shit, if you don't mind the lack of limb selling. Matwork, smooth counters, stiff kicks and shit, and Teioh going Misawa on Usuda's ass with terrific looking rolling elbows. Best match of the first round thus far. Both looked really good. Curry Man vs Onryo Onryo was a spot worker disguised as a ghost. So there was dust flying from him each time he would get hit. Neat. Curry Man was Christopher Daniels being goofy. Spot spot spot. Nicely done though, but Onryo will only get you that far. It certainly was better than Delphin's first two matches from Super J Cup 1. Gran Hamada vs Shinya Makabe Makabe ? A junior ? He looks awfully tall, even next to Granpa Hamada. New Japan = good basics and matwork, which is a nice change of pace. But after a while, it kinda goes nowhere especially since Hamada just let Makabe work on him, the goes into the spots part of the match. Whic is solid, but I do think Hamada gets a pass because he's cool and Ayako's father. He kinda did exactly teh same stuff all the time. Well, at his age, it's still impressive, but it won't give you a very compelling match. Decent. The Great Sasuke vs Kaz Hayashi Kaz is representing WCW. Cool. He's also in total Benoit mode. Which wasn't the worst idea, although he's kinda doing it too much. Still looks realy strong against a Sasuke who was excellent during the spot exchange, not so much selling submissions. He did it kinda like Mutoh on a bad day would, by laying around. But the sutble heeling of Hayashi, disrespecting his elder and showing too much arrogance which will cost him the match at the end, coupled with really smooth work, made the match really good. Those ex-Kaientai guy surely delivered. Jushin Liger vs Tiger Mask Black Liger ! Now this is it. Shit's on. Not much flying, also Tiger tries a bit. A whole lot of kicking around and shoteiing the fuck out of your opponent. Liger is all evil and grumpy and the moment he slaps Tiger who's on the floor with brutal shoteis is pretty great. MPro crowd clearly favors their own Tiger. Liger doesn't sell those shootsyle submissions like Sasuke, meaning by that, he makes everything looks dangerous (see him flap like a fish when he's in that sleeper). Tiger kicking out at one from the finishers worked because of his selling, he was clearly trying to show up Liger despite being KOed on his feet. That will cost him too, finish was terrific. Excellent match that showed how good Liger was still by that point and working a full fledge heel style (even more than the usual "interpromotional asshole" than he used to do). No wonder Liger signed Tiger to New Japan later. Well, apart from a little bit of US-like bullshit in a few matches and the slight "indy" style creeping up, I thought this was a bit better than the original J Cup first round. Ricky Fuji had a terrible match but it was against a terrible worker and not Negro Casas. The Teioh & Hayashi matches were very good and Liger delivered the super main event which was better than the Hayabusa match I'd say. Not as consistent as the 95 version, but it was still quite the good show (the card was split up in two this time around).

Word. (but then again, all Punk wanted was to be a pro-wrestling star. He did it. Then all he wanted was to fight in UFC. He did it. Plus he probably fucked all the super attractive girls he came across. And he gave Vince & HHH the finger. Yeah. Haters be haters. I say more power to him.)

Yeah. I kinda gave up on the whole thing because knowing it's Omega going to the finals… He's a better comedy worker than a legit one. Mucho potential, but settle the fuck down.

Punk told HHH and Vince to shove it and got a nice sum of money to realize another of his dream. More power to him. What did people expect ? He's 37, was never a great athlete, has never fought before. Of course he got slaughtered. He's Takada in Pride. The only question is, did he draw ? The rest, like I said, more power to him.

He pimped dwarfs ?

Did Liger just had two MOTYC in the same week ? I can see how someone would think Kanemoto took too much at the beginning, but really, Kanemoto beating the shit out of Liger made sense and built to the counter of all counters. Really, that missed/not missed moonsault welcomed by the mother of all shoteis is one of the best sequence I've ever seen for a comeback. And it turned into a bombfest like no other. Kanemoto was much higher on the totem pole than Ohtani and it showed, and at the end (and what ending !!) it's really that one match that made Liger finally look like the junior God that he was before. Awesome work by Liger and Kanemoto was quite the dick here too, with terrific timing and execution as always. Greaaaaaat.

Odd how nobody mentions Ohtani blowing off Liger's legwork during the first part, Sasuke would have got hell for this. Apart from that, this was fantastic. Liger clearly had toned down the flying by that point and is still great. He's all about the shotei. Ohtani had matured somewhat, he wasn't your crazy young lion he used to be and was still one of the best wrestler in the world. Fantastic match that built and built until Liger gets a bit too arrogant, lets Ohtani sleep in a comeback before the final shotei barrage and the final pin which looked terrific. MOTYC and certainly one of the best junior match of the decade.

Golden Liger is the best. The creepy mask during the intro was pretty great too. But Ultimo coming out with 8 models, each carrying a different belt was just, well, the ultimate entrance. Really good match which suffered from a lack of heat. Liger was still coming back from a brain surgery, so cut him some slack as far as maybe not being as crisp as he could have. Not as good as the JCup match in 95 but some nice call backs to the J*Crown quick match with Liger himself trying La Majistral to win at one point. Junior match at the Dome show never translate the best anyway, this is underrated (well, maybe not in the Observer, not sure I'd have gone ****).

Well, seems like it's already beginning. There's nothing more than a director name and people are already hating on it, ah ah. Well, I for one am quite curious about it.

Hollywood is gonna make a movie about Chris Benoit ? Holy shit, and people "in da business" didn't like The Wrestler... This is gonna be fascinating on so many levels.

Like it's been said : the WW3 match without the matwork to ground Mysterio building to the spots. But hey, what they do is so good that it's still a very good match. One big difference, Ultimo does the Majistral pin attempt early on as it's really over in Japan. Yep, Rey was kinda formulaic against the same opponents while touring, as showed by his matches with Dragon or Psychosis. But hey, so was Ric Flair, and Rey was so much in advance in term of prime flying offense that he didn't need more while working in front of new audiences.

Good matwork to open the proceedings. Hell, they do refer to Sasuke cracking his skulls (which kinda shows in his work too) with a brutal brainbuster, followed by a not less brutal DDT. So, psychology, people ! Sasuke doing the insane kick from the top rope to the outside in his condition was all kind of Sasukesque. not going into the epic it could have been without the injury, but all things considered, this was really really good. That finish too. Gotta love when something looks like the finish, should be the finish, and ends up being the finish.