February 1995

Good match! Toyota and Maekawa feed off of Jungle Jack's brutality and physicality exactly the way you would want them to here. Toyota is just so good at timing pace changes - I love the way she operates in tag matches and how she'll completely shift the momentum of a match with her explosive offense. Maekawa's interactions with Kong are great David vs. Goliath-esque moments, and Ito brings an array of cringe-inducing foot stomps that she's well known for. ***1/2

This match has its moments, but it's marred by Muto being .... well, Muto. It's filled with pointless limb-work that ultimately leads nowhere. He's popping up and down constantly without much consideration for selling. And it's plodding -- Muto tries to wear down the big man to neutralize his power, but I'm the one getting fucking tired. **1/4

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This is for Douglas' ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Heyman's ballsy for putting these two together after they were booed out of the arena the last time around. (I don't think that match ever made tape.) The crowd is clearly ambivalent to Tully despite his best efforts, so this doesn't really work because the dynamics are all off, but mechanically speaking this wasn't awful. Given these two's limitations, it's better that we ended this in ten minutes. **1/2

This is for Hashimoto's IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Tenzan is fresh off of some foreign excursion, and management is high on him, so he gets a title shot -- the first big match of his career. This actually isn't dissimilar to the Hashimoto vs. Sasaki match that happened last month at the big Tokyo Dome show in the sense that it's Hashimoto doing his best to make the up-and-comer look as good as possible before putting him down. I thought this was *only* fine, but Tenzan isn't really my cup of tea, so I'm biased. **1/2

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It's these two for almost ten minutes, so of course this rules. Dustin works the arm a bit, so Arn targets the leg in response .... these two have the television formula down to a science. We get a fuck finish, so I can't entirely get behind this in good conscience, but this was worth watching. **3/4

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Taped on January 11, 1995 South Padre Island TX. Aired on WWF Action Zone 2/5/95 This is for Diesel's WWF World Heavyweight Championship. More B-show goodness, and so far the best WWF singles matches have come from these side shows. We had Bam Bam Bigelow vs. 1-2-3 Kid last month, and now we have another match where the smaller wrestler ping-pongs in and out of the ring for the bigger one. I would say this is a much sprintier version of Diesel vs. Bret Hart from last month, and the brevity is very much appreciated. ***

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This is from a commercial tape called "Total Caos" and boy is that title fitting. Not even 3 seconds into the match Terry goes through a table after a punch by Virgil on the apron this is a wild brawl with them taking the action all over the place and Funk being the madman we all love, he hits the color commentator, uses a photographer as a shield, gets into a fight with a "fan" - it looked as if it was legit but no idea if it was a plant - knocks out the ref with a headbutt AND brands him on the back once the match is over. Virgil was pretty good showing fire and beating The Funker up all over the arena, and he had the crowd really pumped up for each of his comebacks. …

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