October 1993

Hat tip to Dylan for pimping this on Twitter. I'm going to have to re-evaluate the Satanico/Pirata Morgan match from 11/26--I had that as the #9 Match of the Year worldwide and the top-ranking lucha match, and I think this compares favorably. This is every bit of the war you'd want to see between these two--I don't know if both are rudos (though Casas is the crowd favorite) but it doesn't much matter. Both guys happily beat the living shit out of the other and both guys provide some great sympathetic selling. Each fall gets time to breathe, and Casas is absolutely unreal working both on top and underneath. He takes an awesome bump over like 3 rows of ringside seats, and h…

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Loved everything about the initial encounter between Albright/Hashimikov - the clash of titans tease, the intense tie up in the ropes, the first belly to belly suplex thrown. In fact, Hashimikov was the easy standout. Him pulling Severn around the ring by the ankle was good stuff. Tons of suplex attempt struggling throughout this. Poor Berkovich gets the shit end of the stick in this match. Him being scared of Albright was good stuff and then Severn manhandles him and busts his nose open.Severn was okay here. Bad kicks. Hashimikov comes in to take care of business, tapping Severn,. Not a great match but a great build to Albright/Hashimikov.

Bobchick has goofy hair, a goofy stance, but he's not bad. He's got good enough takedowns and he's not as clueless on the mat as the other white dudes. But he can't take suplexes and Lydick is a suplex machine. That's what he's good at -- although he does catch Bobchick in the face with some knees. Lydick hits a German and Bobchick sandbags him and lands right on Lydick's face. The second German, Bobchick lands very awkwardly but Lydick rolls through anyhow with the armbar for the submission. Okay match.

Typical undercard match with Cairo slapping a lot and throwing Kanehara around with a couple of suplexes. Kanehara blocking the enziguri was cool, and then he lets loose on the knee strikes in the corner, wins by KO. This was okay.

Yet another shitty Allen match, which means a lot of laying on the ground. Oh, he does grab a single leg crab and Yamazaki does too. And it's enough to submit Allen so there you go. Boo.

Great scramble to kick things off, with Tamura coming out on top, of course. His transition into the rolling armbar attempt was very sweet. He's just so good at working around his opponent and finding the advantage. Now, Miyato's no slouch. He's able to work a double wristlock momentarily and delivers a nice uranage slam and rolling solebutt. They play up the underdog overcoming the hot commodity, as Miyato keeps going after Tamura's gut with knees and kicks, and by the end of it, Tamura's struggling to maintain balance. But then Tamura finally slams him down and taps him with the head-and-shoulder lock. Fun match!

Kaki is slappy, his leg kicks and palm strikes are on point, he sinks the choke in. Koslowski's just looking for a suplex answer and he's able to deliver a pretty sweet one off of a kneebar attempt. Kaki's aggressive and stays on him, catching him in the face with a rolling koppou. Dennis gets kicked in the nuts and is very nervous about getting kicked there again, can't blame him. The finish with the leg kick catch into the crab hold by Dennis for the immediate tap out was funny. This was solid.

A very strong championship squash by Takada, thanks in big part to Billy Scott, who made Takada look like a million bucks. That's not to say Takada doesn't work him hard because he absolutely does but Scolls selling of the kicks and submissions were great. Of course, Takada isn't going to give Scott much and Scott's comebacks aren't very big. I mean, Takada doesn't look too distressed about the single leg crab but his reaction to Scott's big belly-to-belly is incredible. But Takada looked good - his submissions better than usual, his knees quick and dirty, and he murders Scott's legs with kicks. The final backdrop suplex>armbar finish looked brutal. Dominant showing by…

This was less shoot-style and more pro-wrestling but it was still a pretty fun match-up. There's a pretty great part where Vader catches one of Sano's kick attempts and Sano repeatedly slaps him in the face and...Vader doesn't do anything. He lets him go with a warning. Sano's able to get in a few strikes before it turns into the Vader show. Palm strikes, Samoan drops, a chokeslam and a powerbomb wrap this one up.

Of course, this is a blast. Anjoh being a smug shithead and throwing spitfire strikes while trying to avoid Nakano's German suplex is an easy but fun narrative, The stuff on the ground isn't very compelling but that's okay because they make up for it on their feet. Lots of feisty hands from Anjoh and it wouldn't be a Nakano classic without a busted nose. He dumps Anjoh with a dragon suplex but by the end of this, Nakano looks busted. The mustard on those strikes gets spicier and Nakano keeps trying for that German but can't and instead, gets choked out. Anjoh doesn't immediately let go of it either, in true Anjoh dick move fashion.

Burton's haircut is very sick. He throws Takayama around with waterwheel drops and double arm suplexes. He uses a side buster to counter an armbar takedown. The stuff on the ground is a mess but whatever, you can't expect much else from Burton. Takayama wasn't great here either.. He totally whiffs on a flying knee but finally taps Tom with a rear armbar. Meh.

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