[2002-03-09-Zero One-Vast Energy] Shinya Hashimoto vs Dan Severn

[Superstar Sleeze]

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Shinya Hashimoto vs Dan Severn - Zero-One 3/9/02

The penultimate NWA world title defense before TNA took the belt over. The match is pretty heavily clipped even though we get the 6 minute post-match in full. They go with a screwjob finish to protect Hashimoto. The NWA President which I assume is Howard Brody at this time gets up with like two minutes before match ends and tell the ref it is time to do business. The ref had been calling it down the middle until that point. He slow counted Hashimoto couple times and fast counted Severn German Suplex for the win, They seem to intimate that Severn was not happy about the finish and wanted to come back. I forget did TNA strip Severn because he didn’t want to play ball or did they just want to do a reboot? Hard to tell if they were planning to continue this angle or they already knew TNA was coming down the pike. 
 

As for the match, clipping didn’t help. I’ve seen Severn a handful of time. He seems like someone I would like: big, burly dude with legit credentials but he didn’t connect with me here. His clubbering needs work and more charisma. His overhead belly to belly suplexes looked good. I liked all the trips Hashimoto was using. Hard to rate. I liked that Japanese crowd found the American ref’s call of two funny and started to get in on the act. Shouting two very loudly and then laughing. 
 

Weird piece of history but nothing worth seeing.