February 2000

It didn’t take long for Benoit’s music to get refined to its familiar sound. He has also been mixing it up with the big guns right away between HHH on SmackDown and now The Rock here. You don’t really want to be seen as a Benoit apologist or pedestal holder but he really does seem like he may have a case at being the wrestler of the year for 2000 so far. Here he is able to go toe to toe with Rock as the technical wizard which compliments the charisma of Rock nicely. He targets the arm and goes after it in a variety of ways including putting Rock on the outside and using the table and a chair. Eddy adds some flavor on the outside and did a good of making himself look relev…

Luger comes out and gloats about the damage he caused on Monday. He is joined by his close friend Ric Flair. Funk and Dustin Rhodes interrupts. Funk looks like your uncle that has too much to drink at the family reunion here and you wish he would stop talking. I can’t help but compare it to some of the moments of Piper in WCW and that is not a compliment. I mean Flair has some bullshit in WCW for sure between the mental institution and being dressed as a woman but it always seems like he does have these small glimmers where he looks like he did in the 80’s and his peak including here in this promo. The match itself isn’t half bad with everyone again worker a bit harder on…

These two after the Taue Triple Crown win in 96 had sort of a weird feud against each other. We get about 75% of this match and the best way I can describe it is it is worked like a Raw workrate match. The work is really good and logical between these two but there is certainly the indication of an extra gear that neither man is reaching into. Taue has some early success but gets greedy on the apron and that opens up Misawa for his big comeback. Misawa use of finishers is always smartly done as he goes with the Tiger Driver for the close nearfall and running forearm here to put away Taue. ***1/4 (6.3 )

Talk about it here.

Dr. Death looks game again on the outside slamming Kobashi down and getting a big throw from the top rope. Kobashi makes his big comeback and they give Doc a pretty big moment kicking out of the moonsault. Doc then fires off a flash Dragon Suplex that looks excellent. I really don’t know where this Doc has been since the Nigata Nightmare. The Backdrop Driver gets teased and Kobashi avoids that and hits a running lariat. That spells doom for Doc as Kobashi is able to hit another Burning Lariat and put him away. This match went nearly 25 minutes and I would really like to see it in full. Doc was a great gatekeeper. NR

Ikeda in AJ and later NOAH just doesn’t feel quite right and I can’t put my finger on it. That being said, the action here was good and built to a compelling finish which is nice to see with Ogawa in the mix. I think Ikeda as a tag wrestler was probably the way to best utilize him within these promotions. NR

I liked this but it is a tough match to judge. First it is really long if you include the pre match and post match stuff. I do think there is some good moments like Ian getting upset at the ring announcer for what he has to say about Corporal but it may not have justified the length of pre match festivities. Once the match starts proper, the weapons and glass are used in excess. A lot of punches and cutting with the glass. The thing that I liked best about this match was the build to the big spots in the ring into the big puddle of glass in the middle of the ring. Each move was built up so that it gained a strong reaction from the crowd whether it was a powerbomb or the f…

Rocky Marvin being the name for Ricky Marvin’s mini likeness is hilarious to me. First fall is all action and about two minutes with Parkarita winning on a powerbomb. Second fall is more of the same but with the rudos winning to tie things up. This match is a good test basis for the proponents saying the first two falls are forgettable as we have about three minutes of action combined. I liked the finish with Octogoncito being crotched on the top rope and then succumbing to a submission from Psychosis. Sagrada is able to roll off a beautiful rana to the outside in the third fall. The rudos don’t seem to be getting along at the end of things here. This was essentially just…

Aja refuses a handshake and we go right into the match. AKINO and Yoshida start out with some beautiful chain wrestling. The match never really lets up from there. There is a couple of brief clips but it doesn’t look like we miss much at all. Aja’s arm even gets worked over which I have to think is a nod to what happened in the KAORU match just a few days earlier. Hamada’s athleticism is on deep display here with her jumping from the mat to the ropes and then doing a full moonsault onto her feet. Her speed dynamic works wonderfully against the size and brute of Kong. Yoshida continues to be a wizard mixing together wrestling, submissions and strikes into a beautifully har…

It is cool to see LCO go against each other and I liked the little stare down they have when they first enter in together. According to cagematch, it looks like Fukawa only wrestled a few months after this match so this is probably our last look at her. Ohmukai is someone I was unfamiliar with as well. The clipping is again annoying but I did like many portions of this and the novelty of seeing LCO battle it out against each other make this worth watching overall. NR

This was a nice trios match. I really liked the make up of the rudo side and thought the tecnicos jelled well together. Nice action throughout with the right balance between flashy tecnico offense and bludgeoning rudo tactics. It helped that the match aired on Fox Sports so we got to see it in full.

This was a Relevos Increíbles match featuring the two hottest feuds in CMLL at the time. It played out like a WWF style quarter hour segment but it was entertaining for what it was. The tecnicos tried to work a clean, technical match, paying respect to each other and watching one another's back, while the rudos were busy hatching a plan. It all came to a head with a Finger Poke of Doom moment where Satanico lay down for Villano. Decent TV so long as you're not expecting an amazing find or the missing piece of the puzzle.

This starts out with Corino vs. Dreamer in a singles. I did appreciate Corino setting up the chair to do the spot where he locks on a front face lock and sits down in the chair. Jack Victory comes in and interferes at will as Corino grabs the cowbell. Steve gets cut open with the cowbell and then Dreamer brings out a ladder and delivers some shots to it. Francine ends up interfering taking out Victory and giving him the Bronco Buster. Corino decks her to a lot of heat and asshole chants. All of a sudden Sandman emerges from the top of the entranceway as Enter Sandman fires up. At least during this five minute entrance, Corino and Victory continue to put the boots to Dream…

At the point with these ECW matchups that I feel like I am really saying the same thing over and over. This had a couple of new highlights including Tajiri hitting more knee strikes than usual. Why does Guido always trust Tajiri? Tajiri is again the first guy out to a lot of boos from the crowd. Guido has been able to get a lot of pins on him in these multi-mans. It seems like Crazy is tapping out to an arm submission but the ref says no. Guido slams Crazy through a table which kind of made me roll my eyes. The other action between Crazy and Guido had some nice technique around it and Guido is really proficient at making all of his moves and his bumps look really strong. …

These fucking guys again? It kind of felt like a little crowd sweetning was going on but I am not positive. As a match overall, this was not their best effort. I liked the beginning as a more wild, intense brawl with strikes but then Tanaka completely no sells a chair shot and here goes Awesome setting up the furniture because he of course has to. Tanaka hits a DDT from the apron through the table and the crowd gives a big holy shit chant. Awesome does hit a really great looking big splash which honestly had more impact and looked more dangerous to me than the table spots because I am so immune to them. When Tanaka kicks out, he grabs a table of course. Back and forth on …

Charles knows my opinion of Don Montoya and apologized to me ahead of time that this was coming up. There is a healthy crowd for this show. Horowitz is playing heel here shaking off the handshake from Don. I appreciated the way this one took its time to develop. Horowitz gets showed up on the early arm work and the crowd harasses him for it. Don even cuts a promo on him halfway through to rile up the crowd more. Barry gains the advantage and I was extremely impressed with his work on top. I am so conditioned to Barry either being a JTTS or working 4-5 WWF tv matches that it was really excellent seeing him fill out the time here in a compelling manner. He has double stomps…

I don’t think I have ever seen Sullivan before. Marty gets a hero welcome. Sullivan jumps him from the bell and then Marty and him brawl to the outside of which we can’t see anything of. Back in the ring a spot I don’t understand at all happens where Marty hits himself with something on the outside and takes a bump off of it. I appreciated the camera work in Don vs. Barry but it is distracting here as we keep missing moves that have a lot of motion to them due to the camera being zoomed in. Marty’s comeback was fine and he still has a lot of speed. He even jumps to the structure above the ring and hits a crossbody that Sullivan is able to reverse for the pinfall. Marty lo…

Black Nature Boy is one of my favorite 2000 indyish guys. No particular reason really, he just felt like a personification of the type of indy guys you saw as a baseline in the 2000’s. Peterson is someone I am only familiar with from the Jeff Peterson Memorial Cup in the wake of his death. He has an All American gimmick. Him and Jet start off and have a good, junior style sequence that didn’t end in them staring at each other which is always a plus. Collyer isn’t as thick as he would become in a few years going for the Pure Title in ROH. A strongly structured tag match results. Andrews hits a really good dropkick and floatover suplex as Peterson is the FIP. This makes a l…

Cool looking venue for ECW here. An all action match with no wasted motion. This differs from the night before in having Sal involvement. Tajiri pins Guido first in this one and I’m interested if there is something to the fact that Guido seems to win a lot of these 3 ways on the strict fan cams but loses the matches shot for tv. Crazy mooonsaults to the outside and hits a great superkick from Tajiri. Crazy actually gets a low blow that may or may not have been on purpose and wins with a lionsault. ***1/4

I was really looking forward to this after last night’s matches. The camera work is pretty bad which holds this back but from what we do see, this looks like another strong Barry performance. He works over the leg this time and again finds a variety of ways to fill the time. The match goes to the outside right as Marty makes his comeback and the camera work gets essentially unwatchable. I suppose a double countout happened. Marty sells the leg work like a champ and limps to the back before getting attacked by Barry again. ***

MCW feels like a player having Lawler and Dundee in the mix. I do like the KAW contingent still being mentioned. This had shit like the previous OVW match but I found it more appealing based on the character work and Bull and Lawler being more polished at making it work. Also, Lance works as an announcer calling that style over Cornette. Lawler drops the strap and whips ass until we get interference from Morton and a big brawl to end everything. Fun. **1/2

Rico looks like the love child of Tom Zenk and Ultimate Warrior. I hadn’t really thought about Cornette OVW commentary but Loss talking about how over the top it is can now not stop me from thinking that every time. Rob Conway adds commentary and isn’t very good. Can we have one OVW match not be a complete bullshit finish? The action was fine here but my patience of this era of OVW is honestly running pretty thin. I don’t really connect to many of the characters and the matches are such bullshit without any of the hokey appeal that Memphis can pull off. *3/4

‘Janitor’ Jim Duggan found the WCW TV title in the garbage and has declared himself the Television champion. He makes an open challenge should anyone wish to face him for the belt, a challenge which is met by Robert Gibson, because apparently no-one knows more than him what that title means! After all these years he still doesn’t know that you need to speak into the microphone so I pick up little of what he says bar “Rock & Roll Express”. A week after appearing the WWF affiliated Memphis Power Pro Wrestling Gibson turns up on WCW, it’s no Tommy Rogers he’s facing this week though. Oh how things have changes since these two were in their prime, as evidenced by…

HDA returns to the drawing board. This was a perfectly fine match but it suffered from me watching the tag title match first. This didn't seem to have the urgency or the stiffness and even things I typically enjoy like Smith's nip up didn't come off as well here. Taue wins which was surprising to me as Hansen and Kawada brawled on the outside. **3/4

I am loving this pairing right now and this match didn't disappoint for me. I think in watching all of the 2000 stuff all together they have been able to connect with me on a stiffness level while also integrating some layered storytelling that is the net result of these guys facing each other many times before. Williams and Akiyama is the most unfamiliar pairing and they start the match off well with some neat mat work with Akiyama's arm getting targeted. The match also had some extended work on Vader's leg which I thought he sold like a champ. The finishing run was dramatic as it looked like Williams was about to get Lariat'd by Kobashi and defeated when Vader on the ou…