November 2005

WWE Intercontinental Champion Ric Flair vs Triple H - WWE Taboo Tuesday 2005 Steel Cage Match I have fond memories of this feud as it was well-built with lots of hatred and blood. Like many feuds in this era, I never saw the PPV match. I thought this was tremendous. Unless the Michaels match is a lot better than I remember, this is hands down the best Flair match of the 2000s. Buckets of blood and hate. I thought Flair was his old energetic self. Even the usually milquetoast Triple H feels like a violent bully in this. Liked the beginning with Flair taking it right to Triple H with his big hammock right chops and punches. He was pissed from the beatings from HHH a…

This was disappointing. It wasn't very satisfying from an Angle vs. Cena perspective. or a Michaels vs. Angle perspective, and was no better than a typical RAW main event. I expect a bit more from a PPV match even if it is Taboo Tuesday. The part that bothered me the most was when Michaels and Angle took out Cena by suplexing him through the announcers' table. Michaels and Angle worked a mini-match, and one of them was about to beat the other when Cena stormed the ring like a house on fire. Cena's selling was weak, but what really annoyed me was that we never cut to a shot of Cena on the outside while Angle and Michaels were having their match. Why wouldn't they give us a…

This is probably one of the best televised matches all year, as Raw was more promo-heavy than usual (which is saying something) this year and Smackdown wasn't quite the wrestling show that it would become in 2006. This is a "moves" match, but there was a purpose for it being one as it was TNA's first prime time show ever, and thus more people would be watching so it's smart to have an exhibition match to show off the innovative offense of these wrestlers, so they can know what to expect every Saturday night and one Sunday a month. And for a match full of high spots, it's still very well paced and contains a story (which is to be expected with great workers in the match), …

I'm not sure what they were doing bringing Canek in. i guess he was a running mate of Wagner's on the indy circuit. This was a whole bunch of nothing. Even Santo couldn't salvage it. Bucanero & Tarzan Boy were there for the workrate but produced zilch. Bucanero continues to be a disappointment. I don't know what happened to the guy. He used to be one of the best workers in the company and must-see viewing, but he's fallen off badly. I can only assume it has something to do with injuries.

This was the second eliminator cibernetico for the Leyenda de Plata. I didn't find it as engaging as the first eliminator. There wasn't a lot of high level talent in the match, and for the first time I found Atlantis' rudo act kind of boring. Ultimo Dragon did better than expected, but even with editing the match plodding along in fits and starts. There were a lot of miscues from Mistico and Sagrada, including a suplex from Sagrada that appeared to knock Maximo out cold. Things appeared to heat up towards the end when Mistico eliminated Mephisto and squared off against Atlantis but a terrible finish ruined that matchup. Santo run in to make the save at the end, which was …

More of the same. They brawl a little, one side gets disqualified and there's a beatdown followed by promos about hair matches. This feud is dragging on forever.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Genichiro Tenryu vs Mitsuharu Misawa - NOAH 11/5/05 Talk about a dream match ten years too late. I hate to use the word to describe this, but when Tenryu fell backwards on his ass on the Powerbomb attempt I chocked it up to bad luck, but then the next suplex you could just tell something was wrong. The old gunslinger had fired his last rounds. Misawa honestly did not look much better. Matches like this with big names on a high-profile show that no one talk about can lead to hidden treasure or great disappointments. This was definitely the latter. Tenryu gets a cheeky back heel trip to embarrass Misawa on the first rope break. Misawa spooks Tenryu with an elbow.…

Talk about it here.

Kind of funny that they first match ever for an all-female promotion is a dark match featuring a number of relatively big name male wrestlers for the time. The match is basically a parody of Royal Rumble type matches with everyone coming in street clothes and several guys taking their sweet time to get to the ring. I love Claudio taking a nap during the match and later using his pillow as if it were a steel chair. Ending is pretty funny as everyone gets eliminated before Jimmy Jacobs can come in, so he gets declared the winner by default and acts as if he just won an Olympic medal. No rating, but very enjoyable comedy.

Different week, same match. They're not even bothering to flip the script at this point. Universo snaps and piledrivers poor Damian, but it just leads to the same apuestas challenges, etc.

Like Joe/Sabin, this is another highly underrated X Division match in the midst of the AJ/Joe/Daniels matches. The story was basically "Will Joe and Daniels coexist?", and unlike the Impact match two weeks ago, they do coexist here, and are the sole survivors, which is the right move. However, things fall apart between Joe and Daniels after the match, as Daniels got the final pin on Sabin, which Joe felt he should have gotten. As a result, Joe destroys Daniels, and gives him the musclebuster on a steel chair, turning Daniels face after a month's hiatus and catapulting Joe into the #1 contendership for the X Division title, which I assume was Joe's reason for wanting the f…

This was much better than the previous Canek match. In fact, it was actually a decent little match with some nice momentum swings and some cool side beefs throughout. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Mr. Niebla is a name I haven't typed in a while. A quick search reveals he hasn't been on TV since March. I assume it's because of an injury, but I'm too lazy to check. Casas puts in one of his best performances in a while and is the glue that holds this together. Ultimo struggles to begin with, but as soon as he starts brawling with Perro, and throwing a gazillion kicks, it almost feels vintage Ultimo. Perro acts a bit odd throughout, but he has great chemistry with…

This should have been better. Let them brawl and bleed a bit. As it stood, it was little more than an angle to set up their hair match. It was basically WWE style programming only I'd argue that the work was better in WWE TV matches. I'm not getting my hopes up about the hair match.

AJPW Triple Crown Champion Satoshi Kojima vs Kensuke Sasaki – AJPW 11/19/05 TAKE THAT DREAM! Always gets me pumped up! I cant believe in 2005 Stan Hansen cant correctly pronounce “Kensuke”. Kojima is over like rover with this crowd. The All Japan crowds are basically cut in half from the 2003-2004 era, but man these 5000-6000 people fucking love Kojima. I have to admit I have really grown fond of the hip soccer mom about to do the Numa Numa dance mutafucka. However that being said… This is an incredible Sasaki offensive performance and it is Kojima that brings this match down a peg. Kojima does not bring anything different to the table. He comes across as a poor…

Talk about it here.

I was surprised to see Frank Shamrock's name pop up on this card. This wasn't a very exciting fight, but it reminded me of what an incredible worker Shamrock would have been if he'd worked for RINGS fulltime. After the bout he said he'd like to fight Tamura. I wonder if there were any serious discussions about that.

I really enjoyed the opening portion with them battling for positions and Barnett attempting a few cool leglocks but the match just went into another dimension once Tamura hit Barnett with a big counter knee. Barnett just unloads on Tamura here, hitting some of the most beautiful suplexes I have ever seen that combined a perfect combination of power and technique. The matwork is exactly what you'd want out of a big Tamura match, there isn't anything I find as beautiful in pro wrestling as Tamura's lightning quick seguences on the mat. Tamura's kicks provided a great means of feeding for Barnett's throws, and even something as nonsensical as them saying to hell with it and…

I had no idea that Kawada turned up in U-STYLE! Ilyukhin is your bog-standard Russian shooter. He's the kind of guy that would have turned up in NJPW during 1989. Great on the mat, but dryer than a Steven Wright stand-up. Kawada knocks him on his arse early and to Ilyukhin's credit, he sells the urgency of the situation well and he jumps right back up to his feet in a successful effort to not lose a point. The story of this one is seeing if Kawada can adapt to U-STYLE's ...style. He throws an elbow and this causes the referee to yellow card him. Kawada's no spring chicken at this point in his career and his opponent is able to score a few submissions that cause Kawada to…

I had half a mind to skip this, but it wound up being the most exciting match on the card. Was Orton trolling Michaels at the start when he oversold Shawn's offense? This was well booked considering the talent involved -- an easy fact to overlook considering the squabbling that the commentating teams were doing. The eliminations were well planned, and we got a lot of cool touches. I especially liked JBL's performance both on offense and his look of bewilderment when Big Show wouldn't stay down. Shawn hammed it up on the apron and again during the finishing stretch, but he ate the TKO for the finish. The Undertaker returned for the billionth time doing the same old superna…

This was a decent match. I like that they had these guys work another Best of Seven series. It's kind of strange that they put the first match on a major PPV and ran it as the opener. There was some nice grappling even if they don't get a ton of heat.