March 2005

You look at a match listing like this and you hope for an extended sequence between Blue Panther and Black Tiger. That's something you instinctively learn to do as a lucha fan. Unlike other styles of wrestling where your forefathers have already critiqued every match under the sun, lucha remains this Wild West where a random IWRG match could have ammo to add to your case for such and such a wrestler being the greatest of all time or a complete dud. It's fun, but it can also be infuriating. Here, I didn't get anything close to the performance I wanted to see from Panther, but I did see him work fairly effectively as the lead face-in-peril for the tecnico side, which isn't…

It's been an age since I've seen the Capos work a regular match. It's not their calling card but they have it in their bag. It's been a while since I've seen Magica do anything either. I can't remember whether he's been injured or if they've just reduced his role. He's such a fantastic worker, but it's so easy to get lost in the shuffle in CMLL. I enjoyed watching Casas work with the Capos in this match as it's a matchup I can't recall seeing that often. Given that Casas isn't doing a lot at this point, it's probably the most enjoyable stuff he's been involved in during 2005. Match ended up being run-of-the-mill, but I enjoyed it.

This was an entertaining trios match, albeit done in the "Televisa style" (as I like to call it.) Dos Caras Jr looked much better in this. His execution was still awkward, but he was so much taller than his opponents that you have to give him a bit of leeway with that. Wagner carried the match with his charisma, and the Mistico vs. Ultimo exchanges were entertaining reverse cat and mouse sequences with Mistico chasing Ultimo all over the ring. Ultimo ended up getting frustrated with Mistico and repeatedly elbowed him in the head, leading to a DQ finish where the doc hit the ring and Mistico was stretchered out. Wagner lost his shit over this and beat the crap out of Ultim…

This was the slowest lightning match ever. It wasn't bad, but the crowd didn't get into it until Black Warrior did his tope. Not sure why Vampiro was in this match. It doesn't seem like CMLL have any use for him anymore.

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Another really fun match. They fly around, they hit hard (KENTA absolutely murders Sugiura with some strikes and he's out cold on outside for about 5+ minutes), they entertain. SUWA is the best bit of the match, and a flying elbow drop to the balls is a new one on me. Not a terrific finish but puts over SUWA. I'm certainly having fun going back through NOAH in 2005, but what's not to love? *** 1/2

They blow their load early with some bombs and brawling. Whether they were gassed after that, or the just didn't have a lot of ideas, they trundle along without doing much for the next 20 minutes. Still, they do a few interesting things in this time to keep my attention. I love spots on the ramp, but my word, going out just for a move on the ramp five times is a bit too much. They come back firing for the finish, with Kobashi unloading but unable to put the challenger away, followed by some heavy powerbombs and slams dropping Kobashi on his head. Your mileage may vary on this match, and it probably wasn't the way to end Kobashi's epic run, but it was pretty good. ****

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Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxYD9xBKhIE&feature=youtu.be

This picks up where they left off the week before in terms of energy but it's ridiculously short for a match of this magnitude. In fact, it's so short that reviewers at the time were wondering if the workers finished too early. The post-match is the usual hot air, but I do wonder what a Wagner vs. Ultimo apuestas match would have looked like.

Steve Grey is one of my wrestling heroes, so I was happy to finally make the time to watch one of his maestro performances. It would have been more entertaining if he'd wrestled a fellow vet, but I was pleased to see he could still go.

Not a fan of the finish whatsoever, but this is a great tag team match otherwise. The first Punk vs. Joe interactions after their legendary rivalry are awesome & Lethal as the fip rules. The attack on the ribs by Spanky & (especially) Punk is so good. I really wish this would've ended with Punk delivering that Pepsi Plunge after the fantastic spot where he catches Lethal mid-air with that dropkick. The Stevie Richards finish definitely ended it with a sour note. ***3/4

They sure are strapping a rocket to James Gibson. He's barely been in the promotion for a month and already they're pushing him into the title picture. He's a good wrestler but that seems a bit much. These guys match up well and it's a pretty decent match. There was potential in ROH to have a strong lightweight division but I guess they didn't want to pigeonhole guys into different weight classes.

Here we go again! I actually liked the opening quite a bit, them brawling outside the arena was surprisingly fun, probably because I'd much rather watch them slam each other onto walls than exchange weak punches. Jeff Hardy most certainly jumped of a high place. Match seemed to flow really well until the dreaded obvious setting up of spots began. Lots of things I disliked there: Hardy going for a Twist Of Fate with a different arm to set up a counter, Abyss running the ropes one more time so he could be in position for Hardy to kick him in the balls (I did like that as a counter even if they did give it away), pretty much any time Hardy sets up a chair when he could do th…

This was billed as a "Pick Your Poison" match where Bischoff let Batista choose an opponent for Triple H. Apparently, Triple H had never beaten Benoit before in a one-on-one match, and this was fitting the one year anniversary of Benoit's big moment at WrestleMania XX. Long story short, Triple H gets his win over Benoit but it takes a distraction by Flair and a low blow to get the pinfall. Benoit squeezes in a ton of offense before jobbing, including 10 German suplexes. Not their best match together, but a decent TV bout. Triple H is in full Lemmy mode with his facial hair. I believe he chose Kane as Batista's opponent, which is poison for everyone.

I was hoping to see more of a long form trios match here. We got that, but it was lazy trios match wrestling. I can't really blame them for taking a night off, but there were too many spots based around Tarzan Boy and Heavy Metal flashing their asses for my liking. I was hoping for more from Casas, but this wasn't the environment for it.

Talk about it here.

International Showdown was a supercard produced by The Wrestling Channel featuring several overseas stars wrestling in front of a red hot Coventry crowd. This was the main event of the show, and despite a stacked card, the crowd were far from spent. And who can blame them since Styles vs. Daniels is one of the best rivalries of this era. They worked this just days after Daniels had won the X Division title in a fatal four way match giving the bout an extra bit of spice. It was very much a TNA Styles/Daniels match, as opposed to some of their longer, more mat-based indy matches, but these two do a pretty good greatest hit match. Why this rivalry isn't talked about more is …

Maybe it's the fact that ROH made such a big deal of the CM Punk vs. Joe series, but I wasn't particularly impressed by them having a short match in a tiny ring after their long broadway matches. Perhaps others will enjoy this highlight reel version of a typical Punk/Joe match, but to me this felt like the Clash of the Champions version of a PPV Punk/Joe bout.

This was wrested the night after the Coventry match for some sort of Irish super show. I expected them to do a house show style match, but the Dublin crowd was even hotter than the Coventry crowd and I guess the workers decided to pull out all the stops. This really is the best match up in wrestling at this point in time. Neither guy is my ideal wrestler, but their matches are hugely entertaining. I particularly like Daniels. He does a great job of riling up the Irish crowd. The finish is badass with AJ standing over Daniels telling him he doesn't want the X Division title as he's going after the World Heavyweight title instead. That's exciting.

This was part of some random show Chigusa produced in Differ Ariake that was all mixed gender matches. It was JIP, but I'm not gonna miss an opportunity to see Ishikawa trade headbutts with Fujiwara. The men didn't want to wrestle the women at first and their interactions were mainly sex jokes that probably wouldn't fly in the US but are slightly more acceptable in Japan. That's a shame because I would love an actual serious Yoshida vs. Ishikawa contest. We did get some grappling between them towards the end but it turned into a crude sex joke. Fujiwara is a dirty old man in case you'd forgotten. GAEA folded a month after this show. I have no idea what was on Chigusa's mi…

This was a decent match marred by the usual FIP shenanigans. Punk has greatly improved as worker, but I'm enamored with this heel character he's playing in FIP. Plucky James Gibson puts up the good fight seemed a bit predictable given they're pushing him to the moon in ROH. Punk's spot calling sticks out like a sore thumb. He really needs to stop whispering into his opponent's ear.

IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Satoshi Kojima (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura - NJPW Nexess V 26/03/2005 On one hand, both of these two are favourites of mine. However, 2005 Nakamura is someone that’s very raw and way below the level he would reach later down the line. Kojima is pretty much his first peak of his career being in the middle of his Triple Crown title run, having an absolute classic with Kawada at AJPW Realise. But he’s not exactly known for being able to career lesser wrestlers. So can a peak Kojima offset a raw Nakamura? Off the bat, they establish Nakamura has the better technique, with him taking Kojima to the ground with ease where he chokes him out. A…

Slick little match-up with both guys trading throws early on before scrambling around the mat. Really loved the back-and-forth with TK mostly getting the better of Nagata. After a quick takedown, Nagata's able to put on the crossface hold before TK works his way out of it and into a rear naked choke. The finish was strange but worked, with Nagata putting pressure on the knee of TK while he's in the choke but ultimately passing out as Kohsaka grabs the rope.