September 2005

This was kind of a necessary but uninspiring end to the Eddie vs. Mysterio feud. The emotional, Mexican soap opera stuff had concluded at SummerSlam, but Eddie still needed a pin over Mysterio before moving on to a new program. A cage match gave Rey the perfect out to drop a match to Eddie and so we get this closer. Despite the fact that this feud had given us excellent character work and acting from Eddie, and rejuvenated his career to an extent, I think everyone was ready to see it end.

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Just a teaser of what these two can do but what an awesome teaser it was. Usuda has some of the prettiest kicks in all of wrestling and of course Ikeda won't shy away from taking them. My favourite moments here were Ikeda desperately kicking his way out of a leglock and dramatically punching Usuda out. I don't know how much you enjoy violence for its own sake but I love it, and these two are strong enough sellers to not ruin the match with machismo bullshit. There was a great moment where Usuda leaned on the ropes and Ikeda just Lariated him with full force and instead of backflipping outside of the ring Usuda kinda just weirdly bounced off and it looked a lot more realis…

Gordeau is a martial arts guy most famous for jobbing to Maeda in a pretty big match. That was in, like , 1988. This match is just the best, a whirlwind of random yet awesome stuff. Basically half of the match are nearfalls (which is actually really awesome and only possible because of how short the match is) and it has the classic 80s screwy "keep my heat" finish you'd expect out of an old carny. Gordeau resorts to biting to survive, which the announcer claim was some kind of callback spot to his Vale Tudo days (wikipedia says this is indeed true). Also there's a spot where Inoue goes to catch his breath after a rope break and Gordeau goes after him and slaps him on the …

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Talk about it here.

This was entertaining while it lasted. Say what you will about Universo but he was good at wrestling these types of spectacles. Must have been in the DNA. Very slow, very deliberate, very poised. Some great big man spots like his awesome tope that took out Perro. Perro ducked Garza, which was predictable. There was a thwarted run-in from La Nazi and a cool cameo from Cien Caras at the end, who looked like Iggy Pop with his jet black hair and denim jacket. Didn't settle much as far as the various feuds went but there was plenty of confetti.

This was a nothing match. The Japanese guys turned on Averno the week before for reasons unknown. They were singularly unimpressive but would have had more of a chance of getting over if they'd wrestled babyface opponents.

I've never seen this full show and based on the reviews of Danielson/Gibson, this isn't even the match of the night, but boy did I like it. From my blog review of the ROH Greatest Rivalries DVD... Jimmy Rave vs. AJ Styles with Mick Foley as the Ringside Enforcer (given this role to neutralize Prince Nana on the outside) is next from September 2005. Rave goes right after his ex-mentor, but AJ comes right back with some fiery offense. There's no referee for this match because it is being fought under the stipulation that a winner can only be declared if they hit their finish - the Styles Clash or Jimmy Rave's version of it (the Rave Clash). Styles goes for the Clash ea…

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Huge crowd for the Anniversary Show, and they're in full voice too. They don't put Mistico up against the strongest trio of wrestlers, but the crowd don't care. They're just happy to see him do spectacular spots. Unfortunately, the copy we have of his is choppy and skips key moments of action, but we get several cool replays of Wagner and Casas' moves off the ramp. Ultimo Guerrero appears afterwards to challenge Mistico to a mano a mano bout.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This almost hit the spot. Angle was a rampaging, roided-up psycho, which you love to see, and Cena was pretty good, but it quickly descended into storyline hell. This is the type of stuff they should save for television not the pay-per-view match. It didn't help that the show had featured two excellent matches in Michaels vs. Masters and Hardy vs. Edge, the latter featuring perfect booking. Not bad, but I want to see them go one-on-one without any distractions.

Shawn Michaels vs Chris Masters - WWE Unforgiven 2005 For some reason, Shawn was motivated to give a tremendous performance and Masters was awesome as a power heel. I have heard the wild stories of Chris Masters the awesome C-show babyface, but here he proves his mettle working on top with power. In retrospect, the Masterlock challenge is something I would like even though as a teenager I thought it was lame. Michaels failed in breaking the Full Nelson twice on RAW. To my recollection, this was Masters only serious brush with a top level talent as he was shunted down the card in short order and never really re-pushed. Masters is only six years older than me. Weird. …

Matt Hardy vs Edge - Unforgiven 2005 Steel Cage Match At the core of the first known story in Western Civilization is Helen of Troy having been abducted from her family and country taken to Troy launching an international Trojan War and a years long saga. Think of the countless, books, TV shows and movies centered around love and the crazy actions men & women alike do because of it. It is without the single strongest driving force in humanity. Love is at the heart of so much what we do as humans good and bad. So when JR says "this goes beyond boyfriend/girlfriend stuff" he is dead wrong. There is nothing greater than love. Love is glaringly absent in pro wre…

This was the annual CMLL International Gran Prix tournament. Quite a well-booked cibernetico. All of the feuds converged in this one match, and the eliminations had weight and meaning. The action wasn't as good as in other cibernetico matches, but CMLL storytelling has rarely been this tight. The highlights for me were Santo and Averno going at it, the wild brawl on the outside midway through the bout, and the Atlantis/Wagner exchanges. It was also a lengthy bout with very few cuts, which is a plus.

This was okay, but it was very much an abridged Arena Mexico version of their match-up. To see a better paced version of the bout, you'd probably need to watch them in Guadalajara or Monterrey. It ended with a run-in and a DQ finish, which ordinarily I'd hate, but it was my boy Atlantis and I got a kick out of him trying to act rude. They did a pretty good job of tearing Mistico's mask and even ripped his tights open giving us a glimpse of his tighty whities. Not sure I've ever seen that in lucha. I'd like to think that somewhere along the way Atlantis was exposed to a bit of Crockett NWA. Wagner made the same with the worst run-in ever. He was posing on the way to the ri…

This was one of the better trios matches of the year. You can skip a lot of the other stuff and just go straight to this. It was so good even Meltzer bothered to watch it. I'm sure Dave was on a Mistico tip at the time, but the intriguing part of this was watching Atlantis play rudo and the most exciting parts were his flare ups with Santo. Atlantis vs. Santo is a matchup I never thought I'd see as a rudo vs. tecnio pairing and it's one to savor. Atlantis isn't a great rudo, but does anyone really expect him to be? I didn't realize that KeMonito followed him over to the rudo side. That leads to some role reversal spots where it's KeMonito hitting spots on the tecnicos and…

More of the same meandering about from these fractions with the occasional flash of brilliance. Rudo contra rudo feuds are brilliant on paper but not when they're booked like this.

Tanahashi and Nakamura make for boring luchadors. it's as though they're not even trying. That said, they're being forced to play rudos, which goes a long way to explaining why their performances are so generic. I can't say I approve of Rey Bucanero's new look unless he's auditioning to be the third Hardy brother. He's lost a lot of his brilliance. Where's the Rey Bucanero who could carry anyone to a good match? Olimpico was also in this but might as well have been invisible.