April 1995

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Manami brings the WWWA belt with her, presumably just to troll Kong. That adds a personal bent to this right off the bat, as Kong & Inoue go to town and Toyota & Yuki can do underneath sympathy selling, lending a storyline to this that the good but exhibition-y opening 8-woman tag lacked. This is an absolutely terrific match, blowing the Double Inoue March tag out of the water. Everyone is all-out here in an effort to steal the show, but at the same time the match never becomes bloated or spot-heavy. The undercurrent of Toyota & Yuki working as underdogs having to fight and claw their way to having an advantage stays strong throughout. Terrific near-falls down…

This of course starts with all 6 guys on the entrance stage, with the ring announcer not having been clued in that he was supposed to do a countdown for the guys to race for the barbed wire baseball bats. A visibly annoyed Cactus eventually takes off on his own and then the countdown starts. Most of the highlights of this come from the Headhunters flying all over the place with their big fat lucha offense, mostly directed towards abusing poor Nakamaki. At one point Shoji is sandwiched between two barbed wire beds and moonsaulted by a Headhunter. This gets better as it goes, as Leatherface, having walked out early in the match, makes a pivotal save with his trusty chainsaw…

The Weekly Pro Wrestling Tokyo Dome show was the biggest wrestling event of 1995, the most historic, and the Observer readers' choice for Card of the Year. So I figure it should be looked at. I didn't want to watch the whole card but enough matches look interesting and/or have a rep that I'm going to come close... The opening ceremony is pretty comical, with the cheesy glittering curtain and electric organ music. This is a 64,000-seat domed arena and it comes off like a local TV quiz show or Rotary Club banquet. Reviewing this matches may prove a little difficult, since by necessity they're sort of "out of context" and presented for outsiders rather than playing…

I hate to keep using "fall out of bed good," but that's what this is. You get the familiar arm-pumping comedy spots, and the double surfboard to triple surfboard to triple pin attempt spot, and the dive trains. What jumps out in this match in particular is the star-making performance from TAKA. He fits into this seamlessly, throwing some vicious strikes and of course wowing everybody with his spaceman planchas and springboard dropkicks.

UWFI can't have run many 6-mans in its history. This has the most heat of anything on the show that I've watched, and it starts from the beginning with Yamazaki desperately trying to get at Takada before the bell has even sounded. It's a good, heated match that follows but doesn't quite fulfill the promise that it had at the beginning. When Yamazaki and Takada finally hook up, it doesn't quite live up to the hype. The Takada/Albright match-up goes much better, as does Albright murdering Scott. In the end, six guys is just too many for a UWFI match--with no saving or double-teams or anything, guys were getting lost in the shuffle.

Hilariously, Lou Thesz is brought out to make a speech right before this. As showmen and card planners go, the editors at Weekly Pro sound like fine magazine writers. I don't know what these guys did to earn a spot on this show, but I feel like I have to watch this one time before I die. The four aliens (very slowly) come out to "Mars--The Bringer of War," which is certainly a kickass entrance theme, and two of them are dressed in red longjohns and overalls--like the alien rednecks visiting Fyffe, Alabama that Bill Hicks spoke of. The other two are dressed like imitators of Jason the Terrible, or Lord Humongous, or the Gaspars. They do lots of spooky alien stuff like drop…

Few guys have undergone a more beneficial transformation during this time period than Chono. Only Doc's transition from tag wrestler to singles star compares, but Chono's career was in worse shape than Doc's. This starts off great, with Hash psychotically kicking Chono to death in the corner and abusing Tiger Hattori in the process, with Chono having to fight back just as hard. But then this just dies, with a lot of meandering and punch-kickery. Chono is charismatic in this role but this really feels like a WWF or AAA-style New Japan match. Lots of playing to the crowd between moves clubbering, and Hash does an unconvincing Hulk-Up routine. The crowd seems really restless…

So the story is that AJPW really wasn't enthused with this whole project. They were isolationist to begin with, and they were smack in the middle of their Champions Carnival with guys having a bunch of hard-hitting (and long) singles matches. They were planning to just send some undercarders, but with fan backlash and New Japan trotting out a main event with its two hottest singles stars, they changed course, provided an all-star 6-man tag, and from what I understand stole the show, or at least stole the thunder from NJPW. Ace is a substitute for Dr. Death, who was going through his drug/arrest troubles and was out of wrestling entirely, putting an end to a great 18-month…

Talk about it here.

Backlund and Hart are obviously very capable wrestlers, but the stipulation hindered this big time. They trade some nice holds, but the mid-90's WWF audience aren't the type of crowd who are going to pop for submission wrestling. Bret locks in the winning submission by countering Backlund's finisher into a crossface chickenwing of his own. Piper screaming into everyone's face every few seconds didn't make this anymore tolerable. To make matters even worse, Backlund doesn't even say 'I quit!' when Piper calls for the bell. ★½

Talk about it here.

This was a fun title defence built around Jarrett and Roadie always trying to cheat, with it always blowing up in their faces. The 1-2-3 Kid is in Razor's corner and he stops the heels from trying to leave. I've said it many times before, but Ramon is such an underrated puncher. Jarrett works over Razor's leg, who sells it well. Ramon has this one won, but the Roadie runs in and causes a disqualification to save his client from losing his title. 1-2-3 Kid lands some nice looking spin kicks to save the day and the faces celebrate, despite Razor didn't win the championship. Everyone was good in this, even if the finish did stink. ★★¾

Talk about it here.

A completely forgettable opener that is severely lacking in energy. Jacob and Eli Blu bring literally nothing to the table, with the exception of being twins with a good size and look. They do the twin magic spot twice to little reaction. The crowd come alive, albeit briefly, once Bulldog is able to get the hot tag to Luger. The finish was decent enough, with Bulldog surprising one of the Blu Brothers by countering his powerbomb attempt to Luger with a top rope sunset flip after sneaking a blind tag. ★¼

There's part of me that thinks that this is actually worse than Undertaker's match with Gonzales. That was laughably bad, this was just downright bad. The action consists of punches, kicks and a good serving of rest holds. Kama comes down and steals the urn. Jim Ross interviews Kama on his way to the back, and he cuts a promo saying he's going to melt the urn down. I feel like this was here to distract us from what was happening in the ring. We're even robbed of a satisfying ending, as Undertaker is unable to scoop Bundy up for a Tombstone or a Chokeslam, so he instead pins him after a flying clothesline. DUD

Well, this is going to be the most balls-out TV match of the year, I expect. This is worked at a joshi-level pace the whole way, for better (the advanced moves, the pacing not seen on WWF TV) and for worse (Bull takes a German suplex on the floor and sells it like a hip toss). Not much of a psychological masterpiece but for a 7-minute TV sprint loaded with big moves, this is fun as hell and a must for any supplemental set. Blayze regains the Women's title and has her nose broken afterward by a debuting Rhonda Singh. Singles match of Madusa's career?

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.