February 2000

Take the two hottest feuds in wrestling and combine them in one trio is a recipe for goodness. I didn’t think this quite reached the level of some of the other stuff based mainly on the lack of double and triple teams but it was some great stuff. I like how Atlantis vs. Villano has a hate feeling to it but a more classical feel. Satanico vs. TB is straight Jerry Springer hatred. The snippets of Atlantis mixing it up with Satanico made me hope they tangle it up one last time. TB gets his revenge on Satanico for the first time in a while and Emilio piles on with his signature dive from the apron. Tarzan Boy goes for a dive and wipes out clutching his knee. Atlantida and tha…

Becoming a weekly tradition seeing Olimpico get the shit kicked out of him. Just when I think it can’t get worse, he is a bloody mess here and seems to have a new feud brewing with Panther. I’m game. Panther presents the bloody Olimpico around for the crowd to see. Panther is licking his hands with the blood of Olimpico. Rancor gets in on the action and also holds Mr. Niebla at bay. Tecnicos come back and Olimpico gets a big measure of revenge with a huge dive to the outside. Niebla gets a good chance to shine now and he looks impressive in there with Panther. He wins the first fall but after a hot bit of action, Panther locks on the arm breaker to obtain the second fall.…

Liger is still wearing the boss black suit. Tanaka looked a hell of a lot better here than in the BattlARTS match IMO as he takes it to Liger and they have really strong chemistry. The other two competitors were mostly there as apron decoration but Samurai also has a good sequence with Tanaka at the finish where Tanaka picks up the win and then gets chippy with Liger again. ***1/4

Wagner and Koji are a boss team. Tons of angst in this one with intense staredowns and hatred throughout. I will really miss Otani rising up to heavyweight because he provides a punkish spark that I assume will be missed. In particular the Kanemoto and Otani segments here were just brutal. I enjoyed Takiawa catching Kanemoto in mid air and changing the trajectory to a powerslam. Tell me if you have heard this before but Otani gets overconfident in his abilities. This allowed Wagner to hit the tombstone finisher and pick up the win. I was a little down on the junior tag on the Dome show compared to Charles but I thought this was a complete blast and kicks February off with…

A fun match to close out the night of NJPW action. Hashi and Ilzuka continue to be a good team together and the Nakanishi & Nagata tandem feels right on the brink of being main event players. I especially liked seeing Hash and Nagata mix it up as really that doesn’t seem like a played out pairing at all. I was wondering who was going to take the fall here and was a bit surprised Nakanishi ended up dropping it. I guess momentum had to be built for the pending match vs. Ogawa and Crew. ***

The flying pendants in the entrances in a nice touch. This has the chaotic elements that make it feel like GAEA at points but something about the visceral nature of Onita and his overall demeanor make this stuff more tolerable to me. Around Korakeun we go. A wild brawl ensues with a ton of blood, chairs, the whole drill. I must confess that within this structure it is a situation of me caring about Onita and then everyone else. The finish does end in a brutal powerbomb onto a chair and barbed wire leaving Onita and his buddies coming up empty handed. ***

Really strong tv match. Benoit looks like he honestly could be the best wrestler in the world. I think it is fair to say that Sid and HHH can be limited workers and Benoit has been able to gel with both in the past month and compliment their strengths. HHH for his part is on easily the run of his career and while his 2000 may not be as great as the WWE only fanatics may have you believe, I would be lying if I didn’t say it hasn’t been pretty damn good so far. With the blown tag finish, this didn’t have as large of the stakes but it was important to see Benoit get a visual pin over HHH with the referee down and Michael Cole was really strong on commentary talking about how…

Long promo starting out with Foley speaking on behalf of the Radicalz. Stephanie has good heat although this is the taped show. They essentially tell the Radicalz here they are B+ players. HHH sets the matches for tonight which does make this SmackDown seem like a big deal. Tori has just turned on Kane to go with X-Pac. Good action here. Tori pays dividends immediately as she low blows Malenko allowing X-Pac to hit the X-Factor and take the 1-0 advantage in the DX vs. Radicalz battle. I thought Malenko’s cloverleaf especially was clenched really snuggly here. **

There is a good sense of urgency to this match with the Radicalz down one contest. Road Dogg and Saturn in particular had way more chemistry than I would have imagined with Saturn doing some nice looking armbars. Gunn and Eddy are mostly paired off and Saturn has to make the save after Billy this the fame asser. Eddy hits his frog splash and has the elbow broke. Eddy pretty much freaks out and works to keep his arm in tact understandable so. Match breaks down and the NAO win which was not the way it was booked in the back. **

Rock does a great promo and then Kurt comes out and just kills it saying that if there was ever a town than can relate to him about losing, it is Detroit. Good three way dance that plays off Raw. Tazz comes out and beats on Angle until the Rock can come out. When Rock does come out, Tazz and Angle work together for a few seconds stomping down Rock. Tazz is still being billed strongly here in the week following the Rumble. Some good triple threat action and here comes Big Show with a brand new haircut to beat up Rock. Angle reaps the reward as he fell on top of Tazz for the pinfall. Segment ends with a Big Show chokeslam on the floor. **1/4

I am so over Mike Awesome matches right now. They just never seem to really dictate. After some back and forth and maybe even a bit of surprising offense from the challenger de jour, Awesome takes over and rolls through his routine including an Awesome Bomb through a table in the ring. That may please each local yokel that came to these shows, but it leaves me hollow almost every time. **1/2

This is why I really love this type of process. Stuff will of course be missed but this is a match that never would make MOTYC lists. In addition, if you watch EVERYTHING, it can be a big chore. Finding that balance of watching just enough is key. We won’t be perfect and will miss stuff but we do get to see this type of workman’s type match that had a lot of interesting stuff going on. I like Mikey as a heel portraying himself as the original underdog character to compare to this johnny come lately Spike. The opening moments were really good and mat oriented and the ratcheting of the action felt more organic here. A couple of spots where things almost went awry like the t…

Another absolute war. Since we don’t see the beginning of the TV match, this was nice to see Crazy rush the ring and everything just goes right from there. Tajiri sends him sailing through the crowd with no regard. Tajiri always has something interesting to do that feels different and here it was slamming the chair at the fan in the crowd and spitting at them. When the fan responds, Tajiri calmly eats the spit. Both guys bleed and do some nutty spots including the signature moonsault into the crowd from Crazy and the beautiful kicks from Tajiri. Like the tv match, they were able to build to a stunt show spectacle ending that didn’t seem too contrived as the visual of Craz…

Kenzo Suzuki…. Lol. Someone I haven’t thought about in ten plus years but here he is in a trial series matchup with Sasaki vs. Tenryu and Koshinaka. Sasaki starts out with some good fire and taking the fight to Tenryu. Suzuki even shows some good glimpses here and he is the main whipping boy for Tenryu as he gets his throat chopped repeatedly. Suzuki is able to gather his bearings and tag in Sasaki. Sasaki again comes in fired up and I know a lot has to be the pairing against Tenryu but Ive enjoyed him more so far in 2000 than any year in the 90’s. Suzuki spears Tenryu and the crowd goes nuts. Koshinaka just says fuck this tag structure and comes in with a flying butt but…

I was really critical of Liger blowing through Kanemoto at the Dome but I kind of secretly loved this because Tanaka is not that established and he really brings it to Liger. As a result, this felt like a five minute war that essentially could have been a glorified shoot in some instances. Liger is a prick and takes the battle destroying Tanaka but he doesn’t go down easy. Excellent sprint. ***1/4

A really good card from New Japan and we haven’t gotten until the real big Inoki era of worked shoot style stuff. However, there are leanings mainly in that the stiffness has been ramped up. This was mainly used by me to check out Fukuda who unfortunately will pass away two months from now. He looked really solid here and complimented Koji well within the team. Samurai seemed to be taking the blunt of the beating during this match and ends up taking the loss. ***

We cut to one of the best superplexes I have ever seen with Takiawa taking a great bump bouncing off the mat. Ka Shin much like Suzuki before him may be a whipping boy for the decade to come but he looks actively good here and crisp. Takiawa makes his own comeback and has no problems dropping Wagner on his dome with a DVD, powerbomb and brainbuster. Ohtani comes in a house of fire and here responds Wagner. Everyone is just killing each other with bombs in this match. Ohtaini is able to get the win on Wagner with a big bomb. Nothing really significant from a storyline perspective but a big bomb fest that was fun to watch. ***

Lou E. Dangerously is getting pretty grating. I still like CW but honestly if he can’t get much from Crazy, I may lose hope in him. Really hot start for Crazy culminating in a Quebrada to the outside. Lou is able to distract Crazy enough for CW to take over after a superkick with a chair. CW calls in for tables and I am not too fond of him doing a Sabu tribute act of going for tables immediately. Crazy fires back and looks like he has things into control until CW gives him a spinebuster through the table. I loved the way that was set up with the heel taking over. Crazy snaps off a tornado DDT pretty quickly and then retreats two more tables. After bonking CW’s head with a…

This actually looks like the start of the show with Randy coming out and taking charge before being talked down by Mr. Badstreet himself, Brandon Baxter. Baxter is fine but a little sporadic in this role. We cut to the battle royal at the end of the show and Ali still hasn’t shown up. Tracy is out there again, he had a busy day on Power Pro. Ali makes it in and its Seven and Tracy vs. Ali. The crowd is really behind Ali and he has a big chant fire up in his name. Seven is powerslammed and Smothers in press slamed awkwardly on top of Seven. Smothers is able to skin the cat and go to work. Seven knocks Tracy out and Ali clothesline Seven out to win the match and remain the …

Cornette is in his wrestling singlet and delivers a promo. The lumberjacks are all hand picked by Corny and have a vendetta against Randy Hales. Hales is in his business casual best. Power Pro is one hour later because of an NBA special that Cory first calls the playoffs. In February Cory??? Randy still has an awkward quality to him but this is your usual manager affair. Randy hits a bulldog and picks up the win before being waylayed by Tracy with a chair right across the head. Mayhem ensues. *1/2

Cory says enough with the talk, lets get to some wrestling. That of course leads right into a Tracy Smothers promo. I love Smothers character around this time as he has been a rambling man in 2000. Tracy calls the locker room a bunch of fairy pansies. Scotty Sabre comes out and Tracy says he wants Goldberg or The Rock. Tracy tricks Sabre and then sucker punches him. Brilliant. Sabre gets caught going for a tope and takes a nasty spill onto the apron. Tracy being the professional, beats on him quickly to cover up for the awful botch. Tracy’s dancing and juking gets laughs from the crowd. Referee gets wiped out on a slam and Sabre gets a visual pin. Seven interferes on Smot…

Frye with long hair is throwing me off. Really shoot style heavy opening with Frye working a choke. I don’t think this segment will be for everybody but it kept me engaged. Sasaki tries to open things up with more strikes but Frye is not interested in that as he takes the opening provided and works toward an arm submission. Build to the finish is really dramatic as Sasaki starts going after Frye’s leg. Sasaki does the Bret Hart to Mr. Perfect kicks on Frye and Frye takes almost an identical bump which I don’t think is a coincidence. The Scorpion does play well into the leg work that has been done. A flurry of clotheslines is able to put Frye away with the last looking rea…

Kojima and Saito amazingly just teamed up again with a Team 2000 reunion on the New Year’s Dash show. Koshinaka and Kojima feel cut from the same cloth to me at this point as I don’t exactly hate them but some people think they are really great and I have never gotten that sense. Koshinaka hasn’t won me over in the 80’s and 90’s stuff so we will see with Kojima here. That being said, this was a really good contest. Kojima is flying around more than I am used to and has a 1990 Misawa quality to him in the mix of high flying offense to strikes and bombs. Tenryu was grumpy and that results in him taking any stiff shot he can. Saito gets worked over for the bulk of the match …

We cut to AKIRA getting choked out and having to recover out on the floor. I really enjoyed the Hash vs. Chono mat sequence that happened next and it was really intense. Ilzuka gets in there and holds his own too. I don’t know when he will fall off in the decade but he has been a welcome addition to everything so far. AKIRA has recovered for five minutes and he comes in and dropkicks both opponents and then just goes at it with Hash on the outside. Once the tag is made to Hashimoto he decides this is enough and taps out AKIRA. Really spirited work continues in New Japan. **3/4

I have no idea who the Convict is. A search on Cagematch and I still have no idea who this guy is. Necro empties out the grocery cart and Convict pounces on him when he enters. Entering into competiton with mr. Hughes as toughest gear to work in is Convict who remains handcuffed throughout the entire match. Two fun garbage brawls for Necro with no names in two months. This included some unique weaponry. Martial Law is an interesting second as hes not a manager for Necro persay but he is there to ensure Convict doesn’t escape the venue. Convict busts out a really good looking dropkick off the turnbuckle to the floor. Martial Law gets decked with a trash can shot but then t…