March 2000

More Bischoff and Russo talk from the announcers! To this point, Vince Russo had never, ever been a television character, at least not using his real name. The average fan DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS AND DOES NOT CARE. What is wrong with this company? Using his name to hype WCW as changing for the better means nothing, and using heel Eric Bischoff's name definitely doesn't. He was around for the rise, but he was also very much around for the fall. Tenay brings up the illustrious and nameless and faceless and elusive and mysterious and convenient and non-existent EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE that sometimes morphed into a CHAMPIONSHIP COMMITTEE. One of my favorite asinine WCW things. Th…

There is inexplicable clown mayhem before the match proper because why not. Blink and you'll miss the first two falls, but the third fall is pretty awesome, filled with blood and great nearfalls. I suspect they were trying to copy the feel of Atlantis-Villano III, and I'm left wondering how long we're going to see that in all lucha libre promotions. It's not a bad match to copy, even if obviously it's not something that just anyone can do. Anyway, back to this match. The slight dose of heel ref stuff was pointless and annoyed me, especially since the technico was going over anyway, but it was only a couple of spots, so it wasn't completely awful. Easily the best AAA match…

Talk about it here.

This was far better than I expected - not because the talent involved isn't awesome, but just because this wasn't given much time. But they certainly overdelivered with the 10-ish minutes they had. Emilio, Panther, and Wagner owned this, I thought. I am literally dozing off as I'm writing this, so I'm about to go to bed, but it's worth your time. ***1/2

Anytime you get an opportunity to see Solar you take it. Even if it's a match where there's nothing at stake. Most workers would be forgiven for mailing it during bouts like these but Solar was such a consummate professional that he gave a quality performance even when CMLL asked him to go out there and shepherd guys. You wish they'd given him a bigger role at times but crumbs like this will do. I enjoyed Halcon Negro's work in the late 90s but he had a repackaged look here that seemed destined for the scrapheap. And the less said about Lagarde's peroxide look the better. Starman was an Ultraman knockoff and to say he was rough around the edges would be putting it politel…

One of the biggest accomplishments of WWE current day is not falling into What Now? territory following WrestleMania. They have presented the Raw after Mania in such a way that some people look forward to it more than the big show. CMLL was following the tremendous 3/17 PPV and kind of has to find its bearing again. This match sort of bears it out. It starts and people are brawling and it is fine but doesn't have the same zip as the stuff we have seen in the first three months of the promotion. Then Villano and Shocker start arguing and the focus takes more shape. This match overall is less about the action and more about that storyline as the match as a whole gets waved …

I really liked this too. Good batch of ECW matches. Kash looks awesome and Corino is in many ways the perfect opponent for him, not just as a great heel who is good at riling up the crowd, but even as a base who can eat his moves really well. I liked Corino's stalling at the beginning too just because it's not often you see that in an ECW match, and kudos to Jack Victory for Big Sal-ing himself and taking so many bumps for Kash at ringside without even really seeking anything in return. Very fun TV wrestling. ***1/4

I continue to be impressed with how well Crazy is presenting himself in ECW this year. Taijiri gets a good amount of wrestler of the year worldwide buzz for 2000 and he has been fantastic but I would only place Super Crazy a half step behind. This match is good evidence why. He is presented as the flag bearer for ECW holding the tv title and goes up against the Network wonderfully. He gets bumped around and uses tables before finding a flash power move to win. ECW was outright burying stuff like RollerJam and the like on air by this point which seems incredibly dumb to me. ***1/4

No new ground being broke here but them going out and doing their fun tv match for six minutes. Tables and mist were involved and Guido's base of wrestling surrounding the aura of Taijiri is appealing. **3/4

Low Ki is doing a completely different gimmick in his intro. Not sure what that's about. This has some good athletic spots and even some clever comedy, but it falls prey to all the same things to which three-ways typically succumb as far as having an odd man out. Good juniors action, but nothing you haven't seen before.