March 2000

Fun little match. Barbarian is exactly the type of guy WCW should have been pushing hard, repackaged and as a headliner. He was a veteran who could still be fresh, he could work, he could be paired with someone who could cut promos, and he was still young enough to not be seen as old hat. He could have been a workhorse. Finlay is always reliable too. Of course, the precision of the strikes and kicks is soooo good here, and that's always a given with Finlay matches, and Barbarian does the best big boot in wrestling.

These matches are so good. This one is every bit as good as the last one, but different enough to be good on its own merits. More of the same in terms of double team moves, a fast pace and lots of crowd pleasing spots. My favorite C-show series of the year. ***

Do my eyes deceive me or am I gaining faith in AAA. This was helped by the setting of a wet mat from the rain that would splash with each suplex and throw. Add to that double juice and really compelling rudo work from Apache and you have a really pleasant surprise. Apache kept looking for various submissions and I really loved the surfboard tease of how he had to keep turning over to prevent his own shoulders from touching the mat. All of that groundwork gets rewarded with a victory. Afterwards, both seconds come in and brawl and it looks like this feud is far from over which is fine by me. ***1/2

Liger is continuing his squash tour of juniors and here he faces one of his biggest rivals throughout the years in Otani. We cut to Liger dominating with about 10 slaps rapid fire across the face of Otani and a brainbuster with Otani gaining some fighting spirit in firing back. Otani goes for a dragon suplex from the apron to the floor in a panic movie. He ends up getting a German on the apron that looks awkward. Otani hits his dropkick and is feeling cocky now. A palm strike from Liger stunts all offense from Otani. A flurry of those and a powerbomb and the hits keep on coming with Liger demolishing the junior division one by one although this did get 9 minutes in full. …

Probably my favorite Kojima match ever and Sasaki is really having a great start to the year. This featured some great limb work from Kojima in the early going where he looked aggressive and like a shark going after his prey. I really appreciated the factions hanging on the outside and threatening to intervene but never fully doing so. The back end of the match was a bomb fest but a highly dramatic one and I was in pure elation when Sasaki secured the victory. A great match that I would love for New Japan World to put in full. ****1/4

I said in the Barbarian match thread that hardcore Finlay doesn’t interest me. That was on display here. Dragging each other through the arena, into the bathroom, outside. This was all of the tropes rolled into one of ECW style brawling. As a result, it was a match I pretty much outright hated. Vampiro wins with the coffin drop on the concrete that didn’t look good at all. *1/2

We cut to the finish of Sid vs. Jarrett. Slick Johnson tries to make the count but Hogan prevents that. Hogan beats up everyone and Sid gets the pin to retain the title. Scott Steiner whacks Hogan with a guitar and they call him the insurance policy. That is interesting at least but why did he wait until NOW to interfere. This leads right into our main event. I have to question a strap and bullrope match booked on the same show. This was better than the previous stuff but that wasn’t a high bar to jump over. As far as these two together, this was still on the lower end for me and felt more like a tribute of them going through the motions of the glory days than an actual m…

Funk is making me sad man. He comes out here talking about a chicken and has both a literal chicken in his hand and the San Diego Chicken to come out and get the early advantage on dustin. This is straight shit. The sad thing is that a compelling feud could have happened with Dustin taking up his family name with honor but the comedic stuff just ruins it and makes the whole thing seem sad. Dustin is called the American Nightmare which is funny since Cody is using that moniker in Bullet Club currently. The heat here is completely nonexistent and while the actual isn’t really atrocious once they start going, I didn’t think it was particularly inspiring either. Chicken comes…

Really solid match here. Hyuga continues to be someone I really look forward to seeing more and more of as the decade progresses. She gets her arm worked over here and does a really strong job of selling the damage in the later stages as she performs any type of power moves. Amano was also strong with her strikes and pin point focus and her having control for most of the match until she gets greedy or over aggressive. JWP is a really unheralded promotion but it usually delivers something satisfying for my personal tastes. Weakest moment of the match was the finish as Hyuga hits a knee from the top but the impact and camera angle aren't that impressive. ***1/4

Well, this was quite the revelation. Outstanding match, one of the best of 2000 in fact. This was worked as a classic world title match all the way, with an extended collar and elbow at the beginning like I haven't seen in years. Genki is the dominant one, which makes sense considering the size difference, and I like the unique approach she takes in her matwork. Instead of using a side headlock in the early stages, for example, she uses a freakin' Argentine backbreaker! I also like how she chops when they break in the corner. Everything about the pacing of this suggests that this match is a big deal. I was a little discouraged when they did 15 minutes of such great build …

Well this matchup is certainly an interesting idea. Fun stuff with Frye taking Liger lightly to start by putting him on the top rope and sort of patting him on the shoulder, and Liger responding by mounting him, slapping him in the face multiple times and immediately locking in a cross armbreaker. For the first few minutes, Frye put over Liger in every exchange and only got the advantage through cheating, which got great heat, proving the old Dave Meltzer adage about shooters always getting great heat for cheating very true. Liger's performance and selling was awesome here. Frye is pretty limited in terms of what he can do in the ring, but he has great charisma, is a stro…

12:21 of 24:26. What we see is kind of jaw dropping great, in large part because of the atmosphere, which is not a major show, but which I expect to be better than Wrestlemania in a few weeks. Chono plays a large part in that, kind of taking on the "an asshole, but our asshole" role, getting name chants, getting cheered for his sneaky low blow and that sort of thing. Nakanishi comes in to stop quite a few submission attempts on Nagata until he is able to get the hot tag, and he's presented as the savior of his team. I still don't get Nakanishi, but I also don't think there's anything really to get. Fans were biting on everything here and as a result, everyone in this had …

Outstanding sprint, maybe the most action-packed match we've seen so far from these guys. This was the Toryumon guys interpreting Michinoku Pro's glory days and doing a tremendous job of it while adding their own spin, with all six holding their own and giving strong performances. And the best part? Crazy Max finally lost a match! There were two minutes left on my file after this and I was hoping they weren't going to run in and get their heat back and they didn't, which was great! They needed to do a job right about now to keep things interesting, and they did it in a match type that a novice would probably think is far more typical in Toryumon than it really was. ****1/…

Sid starts off with a focused and seemingly sincere babyface promo. Very atypical for him, and very good. The setup for his turn on Hogan here, which is the big story here, is well done. We never got the payoff to this because there was yet another regime change in WCW before the next pay-per-view. Shouldn't Hogan know better than to tag with Sid by now? This is the second time this has happened. Okay tag match and Hogan continues to excite shrinking audiences -- going from recreating a 1995 feud with Luger to a 1994 feud with Flair to a 1992 feud with Sid.

They do their standard match, but in about five minutes. Flair is working so hard and Sting looks so bored. Quite the contrast. Luger runs in to attack Sting but Sting fends him off on his own. The numbers catch up to him in the post-match. More heat for all of this than anything in a long time. Vampiro (still so weird) makes the save to chase Flair and Luger away.

If Tank Abbott could even halfway work, this match would have worked, because Barbarian gave him a great template to do a short, barfighting shoot style match, for lack of a better way to describe it. They were building up Abbott for a match with Meng, but they could never explain Meng's unique toughness without breaking kayfabe, so most fans never got it.

The first of a few dozen (if I had to guess) Benoit-Jericho matches in 2000-2001 that we'll be watching. Jericho's pre-match promo has an edge to it that I like, and Benoit ambushes him to make this pretty intense right away, immediately making clear this is a strong rivalry. This was really good. I think this is good for them both in different ways -- Benoit needed to work with a guy who was over, and Jericho needed to log some good matches. While this is all action, it's also pretty empty, but that's typical of most WWF TV matches in the time period, so I don't hold that against it too much. ***1/4

Setup for this match is interesting, as they do the planned main event of Wrestlemania two weeks ahead of time on the Chicago Raw. I think trying that now would be a dead giveaway an angle was coming to change the main event, but I suppose these were slightly simpler times. Match isn't anything special (although as a sports entertainment spectacle it's *****) but it is well laid out to give Chi-Town fans heart attacks, but WOW is it super heated. The key here is the post-match angle, where Linda McMahon adds Mick Foley to the main event. It didn't bug me so much that he came out of retirement at the time, but it did bug me that it was for such a lame match. A McMahon in e…

DX debuts the Run-DMC feud, which was far superior to the original. This is a qualifying match to set up Wrestlemania, and they don't even team Gunn with Road Dogg (not sure if he was injured or what), which is interesting. Really awkward sequence with Road Dogg and Jeff Hardy, although it ended up looking good at the end. There is a lot of sloppiness here that we haven't seen from the Hardys thus far this year with other teams, which makes me wonder if these teams had problems working together. Kane comes out (the music starts, the lights go out, and flames come from the ringposts, yet the ref is solidly distracted) and paves the way for the Hardys to take the win. Not a…

I'm guessing this is clipped down considerably, but I'm always horrible at noticing such things. I want to comment on how well these guys have learned to do such short matches, but that may not be what this actually is. I am a big fan of Mr. Mexico, with all his personality and in-ring precision. He reminds me a tough guy next door who keeps himself in shape that no one would dare mess with, even if that's not exactly his gimmick. Strong charisma too. Tony Rivera is sort of a Tarzan Boy that people like, probably because he's not as insistent on broadcasting his own sex appeal. There have been better wager matches this year for sure, but this was a fun ride while it laste…

One of the bright spots of 2000 WCW has finally arrived. The triple somersault plancha was awesome just as a visual. If this was the WWF, that would have been in highlight packages for the rest of the year. WCW will never so much as acknowledge it after five seconds. I loved all 3:30 of the match, but WCW being hellbent on not giving their good workers ring time is starting to get old.

Candido is in WCW, which is a good place for him in theory, to the extent it can be a good place for anyone at this point. He mentions winning a handicap match against Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch in his pre-match interview with Gene Okerlund, which amused me. The match is going well until The Artist shows up and messes up his run-in. Not sure the purpose of jobbing Candido here, nor am I sure the purpose of putting him in the cruiserweight division when they really needed younger heavyweights who could work and talk.

Pretty sure this is the only time this match has ever happened. Good match, way better than anything Dustin did with Terry Funk and suggests that if these two crossed paths at the right times when both of them were on their game, Dustin could have been one of Hogan's best opponents. Dustin cutting off Hogan's comeback was genuinely awesome with the lariat and cowbell, and I liked the restart also. Great pop for the finish. I think Nick Patrick deciding not to DQ Dustin and restart the match proves the Hogan-Patrick conspiracy theorists correct. Sid chokeslams Jimmy Hart through a table to close things out, and it's like Hogan learned nothing from what made people sick of …

Another match we'll see repeatedly over the next few years. Jericho does commentary here and is a bit distracting from the match, which isn't much. I think he was trying to channel The Rock here in rattling through his catchphrases and insulting Michael Cole. The segment I think is designed for him to get some of his heat back from Monday, as he lays both guys out with belt shots, then does a Walls of Jericho to both guys. This is a good hype segment for their WM match.

Shiga had a good showing here. Between this and the Akiyama match, he's having a nice, semi-quiet 2000 so far. Kobashi cedes most of the match to him, which probably sacrifices some quality, but also is an admirable choice for helping Shiga get some ring time and attempt to get over. I love the slowness of Takayama's German suplex at the finish. Solid match. ***