KB8

I wouldn't expect this to work as a concept anywhere other than Puerto Rico. Even then I figured it might be rough, because logistically it seems like a bit of a nightmare. You eliminate someone by throwing them out the door, but the problem is there's only one door. In any other battle royal you can be eliminated from anywhere so there's always that lingering danger or sense that someone could get tossed at any moment. In this I guess you could just stay away from the door. If you're over in the other corner there's no danger of you being thrown out. That would maybe kill the inherent drama of a battle royal, though. People are more likely to pay attention to whatever's happening over by the door and forget about the other stuff, so in theory you'd end up with a bunch of guys not doing much because they're not really "involved." Except in Puerto Rico everybody bleeds and brawls and so you can't really help but pay attention to what's happening over in that other corner. Muta and Kendo Nagasaki might be trying to boot Invader III out the door but over to the right there Bobby Jaggers is trying to scalp Chris Youngblood. Even the eliminations worked better than I'd have thought. Nobody got thrown out without a fight and a few times it took more than one guy to eliminate someone. You had folk trying to grab hold of the ropes while two assailants tried to kick him out. I don't even know who all participated, but it was hectic and it was Puerto Rico.

I could've sworn I remembered Cena doing springboard Stunners a few years ago so I'm glad I never made that whole business up in my head.

Yeah, this wasn't close to the highest highs of the style, but it had a nice enough story and plenty of the elements integral to what made Battlarts to great. Ishikawa/Ikeda is the main event pairing and this was a decent enough introduction to what that match-up would entail going forward. I quite liked Funaki resorting to the pro-style offence as a means of taking Ikeda off his stride, and then again when Ishikawa had him occupied, but this was at its best when Ikeda was beating on the little fella with kicks. That Usuda back fist was a cracker as well. Fun way to cap off your debut show.

A total riot. There was no slow build here, none of the Fabs' usual entrance with the bow ties and tuxedos, high-fiving fans as 'Everybody Wants You' blared through the Mid-South Coliseum. They stormed the ring while the lights were still off and for the next ten minutes these guys tried to murder each other. I had this at #15 on the Memphis set, but as a match it barely goes two minutes. As soon as the bell rings it's carnage, then two minutes later Jerry Calhoun gets hit with a chair and a plank of wood and the match is thrown out. I guess everything after that is technically the post-match. Still, like your concession stand brawls and empty arena fights it was included on the set as a match, it was ranked as a match, and so it's only fair I judge it as a match. I don't make the rules. But yeah, it's mayhem from start to finish. Everybody gigs and gets assaulted with bits of furniture, including Calhoun who is walloped about a dozen times by everybody involved. He keeps trying to interject and ends up getting smacked with a chair or stabbed with a table leg. I don't think I've ever seen a match make better use of a table, in fact. Nobody took a bump through it, instead it got hurled in the ring early and from there everybody kept coming back to rip a piece off and use it as a weapon. At one point a Moondog just dropped the full thing on Steve Keirn's back, and you know it sucked because it was clearly one of those bulky fuckers that weighed a ton. Like the mahogany dining table your granny had, just dropped clean on top of someone. Randy Hales was furiously ringing that big bell to try and stop the madness and Steve Keirn grabbed it like "mate will you shut the fuck up with that?" and bonked a Moondog in the head with it. Lane diving off the apron onto a Moondog's back was amazing, perhaps only slightly topped by Keirn trying to gouge an eye out with a splintered 4x4. Memphis did these out of control alley fights better than anybody and this was right out the top drawer.

I thought this was very terrible. Everything done at half-speed, lots of Latin Lover, a Lover/Garza stretch where Garza looked like he couldn't really be bothered, some Tirantes silliness...yeah, AAA wasn't too hot in '97.

Fairly standard Hollywood promo, but standard for him at this point is better than most folks' best. I don't actually remember when Savage turns heel (I know it's before Spring Stampede, obviously), so I'm guessing this was another hint that it might be coming soon...

I can understand why folk would hate this, because it's pretty much rambly Piper at his rambly worst, but fuck it, it's Roddy Piper cutting a promo from inside a prison that hasn't been a prison since the sixties so there was no way I wasn't going to find it at least amusing. Shouting "did you hear that, Hogan?" down his toilet, I guess implying Hogan is a big old turn, was a...neat touch, I guess?

This was obviously too daft, with too many plot holes even for pro-wrestling, to be anything more than dumb fun, but dumb fun it was. Production on it was clearly really well done too.

It's a shame that this doesn't seem to have a payoff, because the pop for Randy Anderson punching Bischoff in the mouth would've been wild. This was an awesome segment from start to finish. Randy getting pyro for his entrance, Patrick acting like a complete goober, Bischoff being a terrible human being afterwards, etc.

What a fucking match. I'm positive I'd seen a clipped version in the past, but this is the full version that became available a while back, possibly as part of the 70-TV.com footage released a few years ago. I'd already watched the build up on those 70-TV discs and it really is wonderful. They went back to this feud countless times over their careers and the way they managed to find new ways of keeping it fresh is pretty amazing. The opening here is more cagey than usual for them, but the stakes are as high as they've been in their eternal feud to this point. So it's understandable. Dundee's hair is on the line, but more than that if he loses he'll have to listen to all of Lawler's grandstanding on TV about how he told everyone he'd beat the little runt. Lawler's title and car are both at stake and what's a king without his crown? And in Memphis, a king without his Cadillac? So is his dopey manager's hair but I expect Jerry cares substantially less about that (I don't even remember the manager's name now and I don't think he was around very long. He was no Jimmy Hart, obviously). So it's real tentative and Lawler spends most of the first five minutes skirting the peripheries of the ring, always arm's length from the ropes. I love how Dundee played it cool, though. He never got riled, never got drawn in, just kept patient and waited for his chance. He eventually gets it by kicking Lawler in the knee - which was apparently damaged in another of their recent matches - and going to work on the leg for the next few minutes. Lawler does this great sell of it where he keeps the bad leg turned away from Dundee, still staying close to the ropes in case he needs to grab them or outright escape the ring. Dundee is dogged in going after the figure-four, gets closer to applying it with each attempt, but Lawler manages to fight him off every time. The one time he just about managed it Lawler turned onto his side and yanked Bill off his feet by the tights, so Dundee improvised and applied a sort of side of side on figure-four using his hands for pressure instead. Lawler takes over with a short bit of revenge leg work, but it doesn't last long before we get to the fists. He brings out the chain, opens Dundee up, chokes him with it, grinds it in his cut, bites him, the full playlist. Then before the ref' can catch him in the act he drops it back out to his manager and goes about the rest of his business with bare knuckles. You know what you're getting with the punches. Both are GOAT-level punchers and several dozen GOAT-level punches are thrown. There was one awesome Dundee flurry where he was peppering Lawler with shots, circling around him as he went before dropping him with an absolute jaw-jacker. But Dundee is losing blood and before long he's on his last legs. This was some truly incredible last legs selling. At one point Lawler had him in the corner just lacing into him and you bought Dundee only being upright because Lawler's presence in front of him kept him from falling on his face. It gets so bad the NWA representative in attendance calls a halt to the match, but of course Dundee is having none of it. Lawler is naturally pissed at the restart, immediately jumps for the mount and unloads with this unreal barrage of shots. Just a total "will you fucking die already?" response, the kind of thing you see in a big dramatic murder scene when a character's pushed beyond the brink and they're left staring at their hands, all their fury spent, wondering how they were capable of doing that to someone. Except Lawler knew from the start he was capable of it and he still had fury to burn. The finish might've been a wee bit anticlimactic, but you soon forget about it with the post-match, which was very Memphis in its execution (thus, awesome). I'm not sure where this sits among the very best of Lawler v Dundee, but it's an absolute corker and probably somewhere around their top 3 singles matches.

Happy for Roman, glad he's back. I don't have much interest in watching Batista wrestle Helmsley at this point, but Dave's instantly the best actor in the company and he'll probably cut some decent promos in the build up. So that could be pretty cool, I guess. He also seems like a jam up fella. I skimmed the rest of the show. I think barely paying attention these days makes it more of a struggle than it would if I was watching week to week like the rest of you (or most of the rest of you), but I thought it was sort of unwatchable at points. I can't sit through most of the segments where someone has a mic. Like, I sure never finished the show and thought "that was maybe one of the best RAW episodes ever." I kind of miss being that immersed in what they're doing.

You knew you were in for something special before this even officially started. The Headhunters are full blown tecnicos here and come out hugging children and high-fiving parents, then Brazo de Plato comes out at a rapid waddle and bum rushes the EVEN PORTLIER Gran Markus Jr. as the Loony Tunes theme song plays. You'd maybe think the match could only go downhill from there, but then you'd be dead fucking wrong because this was an awesome seedy brawl built around a couple fatboys bleeding like pigs. The first caida lasts about a minute and a half before the rudos literally kick Porky into submission. Or the refs DQ them for excessive cruelty, I'm not really sure. Either way Porky gets thrown into the ring post and bleeds, so Markus Jr. punches him in the cut and hungrily laps up his blood like a disgusting wee ghoul. Porky making his comeback was of course phenomenal, as it tends to be. I'll never tire of Super Porky losing his marbles in fit of rage and it looked like he was trying to kick Markus Jr. to death. He was also measuring his punches before landing potato shots right to the cheek bone and digging his thumbs into the cut forehead like he was trying to peel a particularly stubborn tangerine. The Headhunters were a blast in this as well, throwing their ample weight around and splatting guys with beefy clotheslines, one of them crushing Cien Caras with his entire body weight, the other doing an awesome fatboy plancha off the ring apron. Steele is Val Venis in a dodgy Shredder mask made of cut up cereal boxes and he was a pretty fun rudo stooge. He had a couple impressive power spots, like picking up a Headhunter and ramming him into the post, and he had a nice brawling section with that same Headhunter where he tried to cut a mid-match promo only to get his face smashed into a table. The finish is deflating as we finally get to the mano a mano section with Porky and Markus Jr. on level footing, but the ref' sold the almighty hell out of that splash and if the apuestas lives up to the lead in then you can accept the trade off.

Yeah, the idea in theory is fine and could've worked pretty well with the right guy, but Iaukea felt like a total WTF choice. Also WTF was the assortment of folks who came out to celebrate with him. I'm probably reading too much into it, but it sort of made Eddie look a bit lame, going from beating one of the main nWo guys on PPV and winning the US belt to just being another dude celebrating with a guy nobody really cares about. Regal's shtick with the ref' post-match was pretty amusing, at least.

I prefer Sid/Benoit from Souled Out 2000 as Sid's best match, but this was worked in the same vein with Bret plausibly working from above for spells by taking out Sid's leg. Sid sold it pretty well too, and of course the ring post figure-four will make any match worthwhile to me by its very inclusion alone. Austin will not be denied, though, and I'm sure Bret won't absolutely lose his shit about being screwed yet again (though, tbf, he's well within his rights to at this point).

Chyna always did make that 'swing her like an empty pillow case' stuff look wild. Marlena took it like a trooper as well and her short little promo beforehand was effective enough. Lawler getting the ECW dig in there was pretty cool as well. Nice angle.

Lawler and Heyman are two guys who can spit vitriol at someone so naturally this was full of venom, and believably so at that. Heyman's neighborhood watch comment almost went over my head at first but then I twigged and made that Andy Dwyer face from those Parks and Recreation memes you see on twitter and shit.

Austin's obsession with Bret has him acting like an even bigger lunatic than usual, which of course rules. I kind of like how they're positioning Sid as more of a tweener in that he clearly wants no help from Austin because he's motherfucking Sid and doesn't NEED help from anyone. Gorilla's sly dig at WCW by promising to deliver on a match as advertised was pretty amusing.

This was pretty fun, but largely messy and not always in the good way. At times it came off chaotic, but then at others you could see they were struggling a little to adjust and they'd sort of get in each others' way. Aside from a couple ropey moments where he either no-sold something or ran into the timekeeper's table, Vader was really good. He seemed super motivated and game to try a bunch of interesting things, which is more than you could say for Bret. I agree that this felt more like an extended finishing run of a royal rumble than a great match, but I'd still probably take this over the majority of later fatal four ways and their micromanaged nature. Vader's bloody eye definitely added to this and actually made it feel a bit like the war JR was trying to sell it as on commentary.

Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 5/5/98) This had a few cool moments, a few weird moments, a few rubbish moments. It wasn't the best. Ohmukai starting out by using a handshake to yank Tamada into a tiger suplex was great, but then they went and did a bunch of suplex-trading and no-selling and nobody has time for that shit. Ohmukai has some killer strikes but hardly any of them looked good here. Her kicks were all over the place, the ones that connected often looking light, the ones that missed looking like that was always the plan anyway. She did throw one punch to the jaw that kind of ruled, though. Tamada was just as sloppy and some of the miscues between them were glaring, resulting in awkward fumbling with neither seeming to know who was supposed to be hitting a move and who was supposed to be taking it or moving out the way or what. When she's on her game Ohmukai can be a pretty great Battlartsy shitkicker, but this was not that. I don't know what this was. Mariko Yoshida v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 5/5/98) What a cracking little bout. Where the last match started with a minute of ropey fighting spirit guff, this started with a minute of sprawling and scrambling for limbs that ended in a stalemate. Yoshida was an absolute marvel in this. She mostly works dominant and it's because she's such a dynamo on the mat. Futagami is the more accomplished striker, but most of her big hits land almost surprisingly. She has to get tricky with them because Yoshida seems to have them largely scouted, and once or twice, probably out of frustration, she throws a couple that could be considered cheapshots. Early on they engaged in a knuckle lock and Futagami started throwing kicks, thinking she'd keep hold of Yoshida's hands so she wouldn't be able to block. Except Yoshida used her arm and managed to corral a body kick anyway, which she then turned into a rolling kneebar. On the couple rare occasions it looks like Futagami might have Yoshida in a dangerous spot, Yoshida will spring a counter and apply an ankle lock with her own feet or a kimura to escape a choke (and I love that she coughed and spluttered a bit afterwards to sell it). I'm not sure what prompted it specifically, but at some point Yoshida started selling her taped up wrist and it gave Futagami something to target in times of need. Some of her hits started landing a little more flush as well and they had me convinced she was winning after the brutal koppo kick. But really, Yoshida did about five things on the mat that I don't think I've seen before. There was one point where Futagami tried to pull some Manami Toyota neck bridging out of a pin shenanigans so Yoshida grabbed a choke with her legs. A couple beats later Yohida hit a folding powerbomb, and as Futagami kicked out Yoshida instantly transitioned into an ankle lock. The way she wound up with a gogoplata out of a gutbuster at the end was absurd. ARSION had such a cool house style and this was a superb ten minutes of it.

I'd say this is definitely a great match when taken in its entirety. Those first six-seven minutes give you a better idea of how the leg work materialised and ultimately why Yamazaki switching to the arm made sense. Sleeze touched on it as well but those first couple minutes have some really cool setups that they pay off later -- the overhand that floors Yamazaki straight away and the attempted German they go back to around midway. Obviously the leg work makes sense initially because why wouldn't you want to neutralise the kicks? For a while it works too, and it feels like Hashimoto's having to react to what Yamazaki's doing as opposed to forcing the issue himself. Hashimoto's the champ, but Yamazaki's implementing a strategy and Hash can't settle into any rhythm. I agree that the kneebar isn't the most compelling, but I appreciate that it at least makes sense to work it and doesn't come across as a time-killer, plus using thr armbar attempts to transition back to it was really cool. Knowing the history between them adds to this as well. In '96 they matched up a few times and in the June tag title match Yamazaki picked up a rib injury that he sold for the remainder of the year. It'd even play a part in matches outside of New Japan because it became a theme in a WAR v UWFi tag taking place in WAR. Of course the injury was sustained in the first place because Hashimoto tried to punt his liver into the stands. So Hash just front kicking him in the guts repeatedly here was an amazing "fuck this" transition. I think they played it up enough with a few more kicks to the midsection later that it was a deliberate part of the story as well. Everything from then on out was exceptional, I thought. We already saw how effective Hashimoto's overhands were earlier, and clearly going after the leg wasn't working terribly well, so it made sense for Yamazaki to switch it up and go after the arm. It's easy to compare Hashimoto and the overhands here to Misawa and the elbow considering I watched the 1/20 Misawa/Kobashi last week, but I think the comparison fits well enough. I mean, the selling from both is incredible, though still different. Hash is more expressive whereas Misawa is stoic and determined, but the overall point is much the same -- the opponent is trying to take away the arm and a huge weapon into the bargain, but as long as that arm is still attached to their body they're going to keep using it, even if it causes themselves damage at the same time. Yamazaki's targeting of it ruled. The armbars where he'd switch between arms, the kicks to the arm, headbutting the shoulder, punching the bicep to break the brainbuster; all of it ranged from cool to awesome. Hashimoto responding with his own brutal headbutts was amazing, and of course the moment where he lost it and reeled off those overhands, dropping to a knee in agony afterwards, was absolutely spectacular. The mother of all brainbusters to end it was some exclamation point. I thought this was tremendous. It might not be there by the end, but to me it feels like a dark horse top 10 match of the year. What a show New Japan put on that night, btw. Between this and Liger/Kanemoto they'd have won my ticket money for months to come.

Well, I liked this way more than the Ohtani match. One of the very first comps I ever bought had the clipped up version of this on it and I remembered reading about it on the old DVDVRs. It sounded spectacular and was a bit of a dream match for me. Kanemoto was one of the first guys from Japan I became a fan of and Liger was maybe the very first, being familiar with him as I was from the WCW appearances and some old magazines. So naturally the eight or nine minutes I saw of it blew me away. I watched it again about ten years ago, probably the same JIP version, and still loved it. The full version isn't exactly a holy grail for me at this point and I never figured one would ever be made available anyway, but I guess New Japan decided to throw us Kanemoto fans a bone and drop the unedited version way back when. And hey, the full version was great! And those missing minutes added rather than detracted from the match! It's not a perfect match by any stretch and there are some iffy parts. A few bombs could've been sold better, they could've made a little more of one or two elements, maybe the brief limb work could've had more of a payoff, that sort of thing. I think this being about eight minutes shorter than the Ohtani match kept me a little more engaged as well, and in general I thought they used their time better (though I understand that Ohtani and Liger probably needed longer to tell their story). This had some matwork in the first half, some targeting of Liger's knee and arm, but it was mostly Kanemoto kicking the shit out of Liger. Kanemoto never exactly worked over the knee and/or arm, he just briefly went to the kneebar or armbar in between those longer bouts of striking. Liger acknowledged that the arm was giving him some grief, but it wasn't the central focus of the first half and it was all the other grief Kanemoto was giving him that had him sweating. It's sort of amazing how a guy in a full bodysuit and ridiculous mask can be so expressive, but Liger is awesome at conveying the story through body language and his body language said "what the fuck am I even doing here?" He'd been put through the ringer a week earlier and straight from the bell he's being booted out of his costume. Isn't The Ace supposed to be given a break once in a while? Why be The Man if you can't flex some political muscle now and then? The first half is like 90% Kanemoto and even the moment where he basically no-sells a powerbomb didn't annoy me because it was the first bit of real offence Liger had mustered (and also it wasn't done on the floor). Plus for any questionable moment like that you get two or three awesome ones in return, like Kanemoto flipping Liger the bird mid-Figure Four or chucking him around by the horn on his mask. Or generally being a wee prick and punting him in the spine and such. I thought the transition into Liger's comeback was a much better bridge than what we got in the Ohtani match. Kanemoto comes off the top with a moonsault, Liger moves but Kanemoto lands on his feet, then Liger absolutely drills his nasal bone through his brain with the meanest shotei ever. This was just hideous and again it establishes the shotei as Liger's most reliable and lethal weapon. Liger is really awesome from here on out reasserting himself and repaying Kanemoto for all that horseshit earlier. The big spot on the floor here felt a hundred times bigger than the powerbomb in the Ohtani match as well, largely because Kanemoto milked the count out and only got back in the ring at 19 (and the concrete brainbuster itself looked wild to boot). Liger briefly going after Kanemoto's knee during the stretch run felt a touch out of place initially, but it had a payoff later as Kanemoto builds up another head of steam before missing a moonsault, and ends up being unable to quickly follow up because he dings the knee on landing. Liger using the shotei to set up the avalanche brainbuster was a great finish as well and there's that trusty palm strike getting him out of bother again. I doubt this is even top 10 for the year, but it's a match I've always had a soft spot for, have fond memories of even reading about, and the full version totally delivered everything my teenage self could've wanted.

Yeah, this looks a bit like the WCW/nWo Revenge game from a year or so after this.

Fun five minutes as Lawler and Dundee teaming together will never be old. Some Dundee on Dundee violence will also never be old and Bill pops Jamie with a corker of a right hand. I may not have been the smartest kid in the world at ten years old, but if I could visit that kid right now I'd tell him he was on the money for choosing Sunny as a first true love.

This was another peach of a promo, though nowhere near as emotional as the one a couple weeks back. This time he tells the story of some old rodeo man and a bull called Tornado. It sounds like something you'd hear in a Chris LeDoux song, told like your granddaddy would as you sit by the fire. He's the old rodeo man in ECW now and the world title is his Tornado. How in the fuck can you not love this man? He honest to god comes across as the most likeable man in all of wrestling, which is an incredible sort of ironic given the promotion he's in and where the wrestling business was headed at the time.

Not the best looking match and a surprisingly un-Austin-like response to Bret jumping him mid-match. I wonder when they pulled the trigger on going with Bret and Austin at Wrestlemania. Seemed pretty clear the initial plan was Bret/Michaels, but obviously Shawn and his smile threw a spanner in those works.