KB8

Takayama looked like a wrecking ball in the early parts of this, especially with the big boot followed by the huge knee. Akiyama working a body part is always good stuff and I liked the leg work a lot. Also liked how Takayama responded by going after the taped up arm, which in true Takayama form often meant plain old big nasty boots to the elbow. Nice match, though like Childs I think it sticks out in part because of its un-All-Japan-ness.

Excellent match. All of Taira's strikes landed sweetly from the outset and Otsuka seemed to sell a sort of sluggishness as a result pretty much the whole match. Like he'd been caught flush early doors and struggled to fully shake the cobwebs from then out on. His kooky pro/shoot-style mishmash offence was lots of fun in this, particularly the bronco buster thing he did in the corer, and that deadlift tilt-a-whirl backbreaker looked really nasty. At a couple points he just grabbed Taira and planted him with a powerbomb, and I liked how he was determined to hit that one where Taira was trying desperately to cling to the corner. Towards the end Otsuka was absolutely hell bent on breaking Taira's back with any variation of a Boston crab, so you had Taira frantically trying to wriggle or kick his way free, and by kick his way free I mean kick Otsuka as hard as possible in the mouth. That run of near KO's culminating with the fucking backflip kick was legit one of the coolest spots I've ever seen and got a big old "holy shit!" out of me.

I've only just now realised he has full shows up and not individual matches. When I checked for 5/11/00 before, the thumbnail looked like a tag match, so I assumed that's all it was. It makes more sense now. So thanks!

Is this online anywhere?

The 7/2000 match with Taira was really good, a couple hokey rope-running bits aside (I think that's the first time I've seen a crossbody as a nearfall in Battlarts). Greco was a demon at points. It was like a football/soccer game where one team is just piling on pressure and you're wondering how long the other is going to be able to hold out. Not all of Taira's kicks landed flush, but when they did they did and I liked Greco's near-KO selling for a few of them. Still, Greco grabbing a guy and tying him up in a wicked submission is the prevalent theme of this match and if you're watching it in the first place then you're probably going to be happy about that.

This feels like something I probably watched on an early Schneider Comp. I didn't really have high expectations for it since CIMA is a guy I haven't cared about for around twelve years, and Fujita has never left much of an impression on me from the first time I saw him, but I wound up thinking this was rock solid. Thought CIMA sold the early work on his arm well, then dropped it when it felt appropriate. It's not like a ton of time was dedicated to working it over, so he wasn't going to leave it hanging by his side the whole match. The legwork on Fujita lasted long enough as well that by the time they moved into the finishing run, it felt like Fujita had mostly recovered from it. He sold enough in the immediate aftermath that CIMA's stretch of legwork didn't feel meaningless (I'll echo that neckbreaker into tree-of-woe being super nasty, btw). The match length probably helped that. I don't remember when it started, but at some point in the last ten years a ton of juniors matches seemed to go half an hour or longer, and it made things feel really wonky. You'd have someone getting their leg torn to bits for ten minutes straight, then a switch would flip and they'd move into the ten minute finishing run without the leg ever being a factor thereafter. That criticism might be old hat these, but certainly used to bug me. With this only going 17 minutes they got to stretch out and build to a hot finish, and the middle portion never felt bloated with limb work that wasn't going to factor into the finish, anyway. They used their time and laid things out really well, basically. And I don't even think they overdid it with the finishing run, either. It ended with the crowd at their hottest and none of the kickouts felt like they were too much. I'm glad I never skipped this.

I absolutely love this match. My thoughts on it haven't changed since my last watch, so I'll just c&p what I said then: Awesome, wild, chaotic spectacle. I know the Hash/Ogawa feud is generally considered to be a colossal fuck up, but holy shit did the crowd lose their mind for every interaction they had together. They're completely nuclear for this whole thing, and a big Dome crowd like that will always put a smile on my face. Even from the intros this feels huge. Match winds up getting thrown out after a few minutes because it's basically turned into a full blown riot, so Inoki gets in the ring wearing a white tracksuit and wielding a kendo stick (I think). He gets on the mic and hell if I know what he says but I'll assume it's something along the lines of "THE SHOW MUST GO FUCKING ON." And so it does. Everything in this is brutally stiff. I don't think Murakami ever properly learned how to throw a worked strike, but here he's just full force cracking Iizuka in the face with punches and knees like a reckless headcase. Hashimoto is utterly spectacular in this. After the restart he tags in for the first time, but Marakami continues fighting with Iizuka. He has the mount on Iizuka and isn't really paying attention to Hash. Maybe he doesn't care that Hash is the legal man. Hash kind of stands there at first, like a school teacher waiting for the kids at the back to be quiet. Then he loses patience and fucking smashes Murakami in the spleen. Crowd reaction to him telling Ogawa to get in the ring is amazing, and really, this match is a perfect example of why Hash is so great. His energy is just off the charts. It's impossible not to get invested in what he's doing, and his presence alone turns something that'd already be big into something that feels truly momentous. The Hash/Ogawa exchanges are what you want them to be, and Hash winning strike exchanges really feels like the moment in a movie where the hero is able to start cracking the Big Bad's armour. The crowd start believing as well, and the louder they get the more fired up Hash gets. Incredible moment where he rips off his boxing glove and starts laying into Ogawa with overhand chops. Incredible moment #2 when he can't be bothered with rope breaks and just headbutts Ogawa in the cheek. Honestly, it cannot be stresses enough how unbelievably fucking boss Shinya Hashimoto is in this match. Finish is totally sick as well. Hash is on the floor trying to snap Ogawa's arm (after Ogawa runs through folks with killer STOs), while in the ring it looks like Murakami is having his way with Iizuka. Iizuka has heart and has the entire Dome crowd behind him, but Murakami is a stone cold fucking psychopath and seems literally incapable of doing anything that doesn't hurt you. He takes Iizuka down and starts unloading fists, but Iizuka manages to escape and lock in a disgusting rear naked choke for the stoppage. Crowd goes utterly batshit insane, the ring fills up with people in tracksuits, and then Hashimoto tries to get at Ogawa some more. This was several thousand levels of great.

Yeah, this was really awesome. I was a bit worried they were going down a route I wasn't really interested in with the very first exchange, then approximately forty seconds in Ohmukai started kneeing Fukawa in the face and they never looked back. Who the fuck is Michiko Ohmukai, anyway? She was fantastic in this, like a more supple Takeshi Ono. She threw forty yarders to the gut, a couple Wanderlei punts, a brutal axe kick, and she hit one springboard wheel kick where she landed with practically her entire body weight on Fukawa's head. There was one bit where she'd gone for an armbar and Fukawa made it to the ropes, then as Fukawa was on all fours trying to get back to her feet Ohmukai just drilled her elbow with a kick. It was nasty as hell. Fukawa was her usual spunky self and all of her tricked out submission attempts had a hint of desperation about them. It felt like she actually HAD to get creative when going for submissions just to avoid being booted in the mouth. And that finish looked like it just about ripped out BOTH shoulders. What a cool find. I need to watch more Ohmukai.

Super nifty match. I think this is the first time I've seen Bennett and I thought she was perfectly fine at playing tank. She could also handle herself pretty well on the mat. Much of that was down to the weight advantage, but she was still snapping into cross arm-breakers and such. Yoshida was really fun as usual, trying to figure out ways in which to grab a limb or work around the size difference. The bull analogy is pretty apt. Stretch run with Bennett trying to slam Yoshida through the mat while Yoshida has to scramble and look for submission attempts was really good. I noticed it when I watched a bunch of her during the GWE project and I noticed it again here -- Yoshida is really outstanding at milking submissions for all they're worth, often past the point where most other wrestlers make it obvious there's going to be no tap out. There was one Bennett choke where I thought for sure Yoshida was going to tap, then I thought for sure she was going to pass out, and I popped for her finally making it to the ropes. The more of her I watch, the more she pulls ahead of every other joshi wrestler on my personal favourites list.

The October '97 minis match feels like as good a pick as any. I also remember thinking one of the May 1990 trios was maybe the best lucha trios I'd seen, but I couldn't tell you which one it was, either. The 11/26 trios that follows on from the Santo heel turn feels like it might be in the discussion. Honestly, I'd probably have the June 2013 Casas/Rush trios up there as well. I remember pretty much nothing about Brazos/Infernales. I know I've seen it, but I couldn't tell you what I thought about it.

If we're doing straight up favourite match ever, I think I'd probably go with Michaels/Mankind from Mind Games. It's been my go to for about fifteen years and it always holds up. If not that then Eddie/Rey from the 6/05 Smackdown! Or Rockers v Powers of Pain. Or the big 2/93 WAR V New Japan multi-man. Or maybe Damiancito el Guerrero v Cicloncito Ramirez. I'd have to think harder about this than "greatest." Was the version on those Memphis discs a bunch of us got in a bulk buy a few years ago any less clipped, or was it just a VQ upgrade? I moved a bunch of stuff around my house at some point and I don't even know where I've put them, so I can't even check this myself.

I'm actually leaning towards the '85 LLT. Either that or Chicana/MS-1.

Watching this live I thought it was a blast, too. I thought their Summerslam match got a bit long in the tooth, but they never really bothered with any feeling out process here and went into the bomb-throwing early, and they cut a pretty hot pace until the last few minutes when they started to slow it down some. At points it felt like I was watching them work a joshi bombfest sprint, which ordinarily is not my bag at all, but I liked it a bunch here (everybody in the place going apeshit probably helped, tbf). For all of that, though, Cena punctuating the bomb-trading by throwing some plain old huge clotheslines to the face were maybe my favourite moments. Styles is really great right as well, from the offence to the bumping. I really ought to check out those matches with Reigns from last year. I've watched all of about eight matches from 2017, but this is pretty handily my favourite so far.

I already mentioned in another thread that it was around this point that I got back into following WWF after checking out for most of '99, and I remember being pretty stunned at how over Rikishi was - and to a lesser extent how Too Cool were as well - when I started paying attention again. I took to Rikishi almost right off the bat, though, and I was gutted when Helmsley managed to slink away with the belt after the DQ. I don't really remember him going very deep into the year with the same kind of momentum he had here, but for the first couple months of 2000 Rikishi was as over as anyone in the company not named The Rock. Loss touched on it in this thread already, and he's brought it up on twitter as well, but it's super refreshing to see crowds legitimately biting on HHH nearfalls in sub-ten minute TV matches. I thought the booking of this was really strong overall. And I'm a bit less down on Stephanie doing commentary than our PWO2K founders. She wasn't amazing or anything, but I didn't think she was outright awful, either. She definitely improved a good bit as a character over the course of the year, though. Watch her during Helmsley's Last Man Standing match with Jericho at Fully Loaded. So, so hateable.

Yeah, this is a really fun TV segment all round. Rock dropping his catchphrases, Angle picking up some nice heat, Rock dropping more catchphrases - with the crowd eating up all of it with the biggest possible spoon - and a short and sweet match. Angle celebrating the dodgy DQ victory like he'd won a world title was amusing, and of course Rock came back again to give the people what they wanted. I also had no recollection of Angle and Stephanie having any interaction so early in the year. That's some pretty exceptional long term booking if they were planting seeds for that way back here.

This was ugly and nasty in the best way possible. I've always loved the highs of this anyway, but on re-watch it had less downtime than I remembered as well. There was the headlock segment early doors, but that's really the only point I can think of where they weren't at least smacking each other in the mouth. Old man Tenryu being a bastard to people is the guy I'd pick if I could only watch one wrestler for the rest of my life, so obviously I loved him chopping Sasaki in the throat and punching him in the jaw, but Sasaki being as much of a bastard right back was equally great. He was laying in some of those shots even harder than Tenryu was, and it led to that great moment where Tenryu just sits on the bottom rope, half in a daze, with this amazing "fuck my life already" look on his face. On top of it all you had the meaty lariats, the one or two bombs being used to full effect, and the sub-15 minute length so as to prevent much fat. This is pretty much shorthand for Tokyo Dome main event to me and I don't think I'll ever not love it (and it isn't even the best match on the card).

As far as bombfest sprints go, that was pretty dang great. Cena's lariats when he tries to rip a guy's face off are just the best.

Charlotte gets more and more fun every time I see her. I thought she was fucking awesome in that.

I fucking love Estrada/Cruz. Like, truly love it. Estrada being so minced he falls face-first into the ring post because he can't properly walk along the ring apron >>>>

I'm a fan of what Mutoh's done with his hair here. He looks like the little monk from the first season of Vikings. His gear is of course very cool. It took me a bit to get into this, with the first ten minutes or so not being all that engaging, but I thought it picked up when Chono started going after the neck. A couple of those piledrivers looked pretty ugly. I kind of struggle with these two in general, but I did at least like the story they went for in the last two thirds, and I do agree with Loss' point that Mutoh sticking to the dragon screw actively added to it, even if it wasn't necessarily the most dynamic way of dishing out offence. I haven't watched the '91 Climax final in about a decade, so I have no idea what I'd think of it now, but other than that (I mean, I guess) this might actually be my favourite Mutoh v Chono match.

Tanaka and Kashin having the cross-armbreaker as their answer to everything was cool, especially with how they were able to grab it from almost anywhere, but my favourite parts of this were the bits where Tanaka or Kashin would get fed up being treated like scrubs and just smack someone. Tanaka's flurry of kicks that ended with Takaiwa selling almost being KO'd was a great response to that monster lariat. Ohtani doing the facewash bit only for Kashin to grab his leg and chuck him dismissively across the ring was cool, too. I wasn't super high on this as a whole, but I did like some of what they were doing and if nothing else they certainly laid into each other.

I went Martel, but I really only looked at this from an in-ring standpoint. The more of him I watch, the more he feels like one of the very best babyfaces ever (I haven't watched heel Martel in years, but I don't imagine he sucked in the role).

60s: Gilbert Cesca & Ben Chemoil v Anton Tejero & Inca Peruano (French Catch, 3/12/65) 70s: Bob Backlund v Greg Valentine (WWF, 2/19/79) 80s: Jerry Lawler v Bill Dundee (Memphis, 12/30/85) 90s: Damiancito el Guerrero v Cicloncito Ramirez (CMLL, 1/7/97) 00s: Daisuke Ikeda v Yuki Ishikawa (FUTEN, 4/24/05) 10s: LA Park v El Mesias (AAA, 6/18/11)

I remember watching this for the first time about thirteen years ago, at a point when I was super high on the junior heavyweights, and my take on it was basically, "well, that wasn't what I wanted at all." I wasn't following Japanese wrestling in 2000, but reading about that period I think the prevailing take on Liger was that he spent most of the year in no-sell mode, with this being the match that kicked it off. Should be interesting to see if that's how it comes off while revisiting it (or most of it, anyway).

Yeah, Benoit was really swinging for the fences with those knife edges. We can probably put Tenzan in with Finlay, Regal and Daniel Puder as the guys that got absolutely shredded with Benoit chops. This was a perfectly solid ten minutes. I've never cared much about Tenzan, but he gave Benoit a decent amount and the crowd at least responded for his stuff, especially the Mongolian chops. Crowd reaction for the triple Germans suggests this was aruond the time Benoit started using it. From memory it feels like he has a pretty big year ahead of him, and this was a fine way to start it.