May 2000

An apuestas match in Coliseo. Brazo De Oro is getting a little pounch like his brother Porky. He is bleeding literally 30 seconds into this one. Quick first fall with Valentin winning off a missile dropkick. Valentin is really proud of himself. Second fall starts with Valentin rushing in but Oro moving and he flies through some quick offense to win in about 30 seconds on a rana. A really fun short caida as you can see the frustration with Valentin thinking he had him and now things are all tied up. Third fall has a good bit of desperation with Brazo pulling it out with a pendulum swing submission. This Coliseo apuestas matches are interesting in that they are entertaining…

Just a shitload of fun. This was the first match in 2000 where I really got the vibes of Togo being one of the best wrestlers in the world. He was flying all over the place here but also executing some great offense and selling when need be. Demekin works now as Hub in really low level indies but he looked fine here. Delphin and Buffalo really in some ways continued to be the classic heel and face pairings for the promotion. 8 minutes of all out action that never let up. I dig Osaka Pro a good bit. ***1/4

A pretty fun Hogan brawl with a biggie. Hogan’s new attitude is working for me as the Terry Bollea moniker as it does feel genuine. Hogan beats up Awesome and does some high impact offense for him including a back suplex onto the floor. Awesome uses a chair on Hogan on the outside. Hogan does a mini Hulk up and pounds away on Awesome. Hogan gets the big boot in when Kidman runs into the ring with a chair. He hits Kidman with it and continues to stalk after Awesome. Kidman recovers and hits Hogan with the chair diving from the top rope to the outside. Hogan clearly blades right for us and has color. Awesome gets the pinfall now. Bullshit or not, Hogan is getting a lot of f…

Really weird seeing WWF in this setting with no commentary as I guess this was pulled from the satellite feed. Nice opportunity for York and Matthews. They run through their signature offense and are pleading with the crowd to show some support even though the crowd isn’t really getting into them being an unknown commodity. The Dupps take over on Matthews and do a decent job on top with violence and cut off spots. Hot tag is made to York who hits some superkicks and back body drops. A good looking tornado ddt has to be broken up. Matthews gets shoved to the outside and the Dupps hit a double Alabama slam to pick up the win. For a go out there and impress us match, this wa…

The match barely gets going before Saturn comes down to ringside. This allows Benoit to hit a fisherman suplex to pin Tazz in around 90 seconds. Yeah, Tazz is getting downplayed pretty good as his main issue is clearly the Hardcore title stuff now. Hardcore Holly suplexes Benoit. ¼*

We have reinstated referee Earl Hebner out for this one. Him and X-Pac have a back and forth before Jericho even comes out. Fun match with Jericho continue to being one of the bigger stars in the company. Tori tries to get involved but gets dropkicked by Jericho. Hebner takes no shit from X-Pac and DQ hims when he gets physical. Road Dogg comes out and gets shoved down as well. Fun stuff. **1/4

E&C start the five second pose thing here. Rikishi comes out with Big Show dressed as Rikishi. Match is nothing as Show and Rikishi completely dominate until Edge comes in with the ring bell drawing the DQ. Riksihi and Showkishi attempt to do the bonsai drop in stereo but E&C are able to escape. Road Dogg and XPac attack E&C and throw them back in the ring. This allows a double stinkface to happen. Weird that Road Dogg and X-Pac are the faces here but the angle with Big Show continues to be funny. ¾*

We get an interview with Rock celebrating at becoming the champ. The McMahon/Helmsley regime comes out and Vince announces that Shane is getting the shot at the title tonight. He even tongue in cheek talks about Shane being champ in what I believe is a shot to Arquette being WCW champ. HHH is a little dismayed at this decision and the match will be an escape cage match. The match starts and out comes Patterson and Briscoe in their referee shirts. Some funny moments on commentary with King talking about JR not being able to have a son and JR saying “we don’t want to talk about sons do we King.” HHH on the outside has a stick that he prods Rock with. Shane starts firing up …

New Blood comes all out. I had forgotten that Ernest Miller was a member. After some promos between Bischoff and Flair we get a big battle royal. I will say this basic set up got over the old vs new faction mentality better than anything else we have seen so far. A few minutes in, the ring fills up with the leftovers so the whole roster is out there now. Dammit WCW, quit getting in your own way as this just muddles up the focus and you legit have 30 people in the ring at one time and most are just standing there. Tank comes out and they try to present it as this big deal. Flair is in street clothes beating up Shane Douglas with a pipe outside. The battle royal booking its…

Steiner calls out Hogan and here he comes. This probably should have been saved for a bigger spot. Action spills to the outside right away and Hugh Morrus beats up on Steiner on the outside. Steiner decides to take his loses and bail. They give Hogan a countout win and him hugging Hugh Morrus and putting him over is weird to see. Steiner backstage is irate that no one came to protect him. ½*

lair interrupts a segment with Russo and Liz and Liz low blows Flair. Flair goes nuts and puts the figure four onto Russo until Buff and Shane come in to attack Flair. Flair is still in street clothes btw. Kronik puts Douglas and Buff away and out comes Kidman for the match. Back from break and Flair is beating up Kidman. I like this match up for Kidman as he could have really been put over with a nice, long feud vs Flair and even use Torrie as evidence that now he gets the girls instead of the Nature Boy. I thought the chemistry was good here between these two until K-Dawg and Rey Mysterio Jr interfere to beat up Flair. Big Sexy runs in to a big pop as he tears through K…

First fall is all Infernales running through their complete triple team arsenal and putting the opposing team away in three minutes. We even get an enjoyable pose after the first fall. Second fall starts out the same until Bucanero misses a charge and then is trapped by the Villanos and Niebla. Great sequence between Ultimo and Niebla with Niebla monkey flipping onto his feet and them doing an armdrag using the ropes. NIebla looks great giving Bucannero a flip to the outside. Ultimo Guerrero offers what I’m sure is a very sincere handshake to one of the Villanos. Villanos are able to win this fall in four minutes. Even though this is rudo vs rudo we see who the biggest ru…

Can someone do me a solid and tell me who Sasuke the Great was? This has to be one of the most random six man lineups I have ever seen. The Sasuke's team up and do some interesting stuff but also seemed to mix up more comedy which odd. Apache and Mochi then square off and they just gel so well together that I am saddened we didn't get a long standing feud. Collyer and Hamada is the lesser of all the pairings but is so damn bizarre that it does have some intrigue just based on that. These guys didn't really set out to have a classic but more of a fun 14 minute high energy six man that also advances the feud between Sasuke the Great and Great Sasuke. ***1/4

Earl Hebner gets a hometown welcome as he is out to officiate this match. Knowing their time was of the essence, they really maximized things here and went all out from the onset. Big powerbomb from Jericho followed by consecutive German’s from Benoit. A stiff back heel kick pops Benoit right in the nose and he is bleeding profusely. Benoit is vicious in this match and really has an intensity to him that gets over as a no nonsense heel. He wipes out Hebner after a disagreement but this creates an opening for Jericho. I liked the establishment of Hebner helping Jericho in the HHH creating a red herring for the match here as Jericho hits the lionsault and Hebner counts reg…

A really weird Vince promo to start bringing up the Confederacy and Jefferson Davis. The end result is a handicapped match with Hebner and Rock vs Road Dogg/X-Pac/HHH. A fan has a sign showing their support for Hepner. The match itself is really fun with HHH in a sling and Earl being good in his role getting fired up with the referee and what not. The Rock was also a strong babyface at this point with great timing on his comebacks. Him cleaning house of the whole regime at the end got a huge pop. Ditto Jericho coming out and attacking HHH. They didn’t deemphasize Jericho at all after the world title tease. Hebner low blows X-Pac and Rock hits the Rock Bottom for the win a…

I wasn’t crazy about watching the build in real time but the five minute video package they do here really is well done and gets you hyped for the match. The entrances and presentation feel big time. Jinsei Shinzaki comes out to take a rindside seat. As for the match proper, this was a tremendous Hayabusa performance. Much like Sabu, he can be inconsistent but he was completely on point here with his execution and his more emotional tones. Sometimes Hayabusa’s selling is suspect but I thought he gave more openings here that Tanaka didn’t take advantage of for whatever reason. An example is him going forearm first into the table a few minutes after Tanaka hit him in the ar…

Man, I thought this was great and it totally took me by surprise. Maybe its just a reaction to how bad Sabu looked in the Devine match but I am really wanting to hear other opinions because the review I found on this show from Loerfice hated this match. The striking in the early going was spot on and I got a sense of escalation throughout the match where in the beginning it was just another match but by the end, it was personal between these two. Sabu uses the spike diligently playing up the Sheik gimmick and he hits all of his triple jump moves on the first try. In the most brutal spot of the match, Gannosake is able to hit his Fire Thunder Driver from the apron through …

These two had a great deathmatch in Feb and a disappointing one based on clips the week before in BJW. Now, they take their show on the road in front of an FMW crowd. I have this match as somewhere in the middle of the two. This had some big bumps and spots in the first half but had a lot of set up and walking around. Yamakawa just taking the light tube out straight from the light fixture was a unique visual to see. I think the action improved from a consistency standpoint once both reentered the ring. There were some spots that didn’t come off as planned liked the DDT on top of the tables. Top rope DDT gives Kanemura the distinctive advantage and then he puts Yamakawa aw…

They have a done good job on this show in making the hardcore matches feel just different enough. Yamakawa and Kanemura was around the big spots, Gannosuke and Sabu the mystique and this is more gore oriented. Fuyuki is really limited as a worker but the charisma is still there and he is a personal favorite for me so him bleeding buckets and clamoring to the crowd is enough for me to keep this entertaining. Kuroda is an interesting worker where he has been pushed well and doesn’t quite have “it” to really connect so far. This was no different as I thought he was easily the weakest person in this match. Fuyuki winning was a surprise for me. **3/4

The last time we will see Muta in Japan until late December. This really has an epic feel with the entrances and Hokuto escorting Sasaki. Muta is limping around on a crutch but that was all a ruse and he attacks Sasaki with the crutch before the bell. He then mists Hokuto. Muta is certainly limited and hurting here but the pageantry and mobility is just enough to make this entertaining. Sasaki did good on his power moves and displaying his Power Warrior persona throughout this match. The finish was neat as Muta has misted Sasaki once and goes for the evil red mist. Sasaki blocks that and then mists Muta. One lariat later and he retains. ***1/4

Just looking at the lineups had me salivating and this didn’t disappoint at all. Fuji and CIMA fit like a glove vs Kanemoto and Otani that it is a shame we didn’t get a long form series between them. Everyone had a chance to deliver here though. Taikawa and Fuji especially had a brutal exchange in the middle and prick Liger being the mentor to Crazy Max warmed my heart. I know he has been stuck in multi-mans but Kashin continues to be not atrocious at all and learning where to pick his spots to attack. Otani is getting a nice push and picks up the win here. Give this a couple of more minutes and a molten Korakuen crowd and you might could have had a MOTYC. Still a great m…

So here is the drill, put Ogawa in a NJPW ring around this time and I am all in. This had a great atmosphere like usual and the Egg team of Nagata and Nakanishi were strong as being the flag bearers for NJPW. Nagata blasts Murakami with a kick and wants a piece of Ogawa. After some jockeying, he succummbs to an STO with Ogawa giving a look of "is that the best you got." I have been a Nakanishi fan in 2000 but I thought he was the weak link here and was unable to match the hatred and intensity of the others. He showed more fire in the post match presser. We have a masked man who apparently was Inoki choke him out on the apron which gets big heat and a quick finish with Mu…

A good match but also one that probably didn't reach the heights and opportunities they would have hoped for from these two upstarts. They start out brawling on the ramp and then Kojima starts going after the leg of Yoshie. This is the critical point of the match and Kojima's work is fine if uninspiring. Yoshie comes back with some power moves and ends up winning pretty abruptly. Good but not the showcase that could have happened. ***

An APW match with good lighting, decent production values and a hard cam positioned at a nice angle; this bodes well! A slow opening as the two teams feel each other out. LeGrande cartwheels out of a stunner, and a thrust kick to the head of Massaro for two. Frantz blows a ‘tilt-a-whirl’ move, but at least has the common sense to try and turn it into something else, forcing Boyce to grab the ropes for the break. They go straight back to that spot they’d previously blown, ‘tilt-a-whirl’ backbreaker by LeGrande and Frantz replies with a flying headscissors. It’s not going well for Jardi as he then botches that convoluted wristlock takedown where he’s meant to bounce an…

Long Island Wrestling Federation. My God. The unfinished business graphic is as carny as you can get. John “the Sure Thing” Shane cuts a promo and it is indyrific but effective to a degree. This arena looks like a glorified garage. Despite his objections, Shane does get handcuffed to Sluggah. A half baked match with some good ideas but way way too long. Papa Don is a pretty fun character in short doses but he hasn’t figured out how to make a match compelling throughout besides setting up his next spot. Homicide is also someone that I adore but can be prone to meandering at times. As a result, this felt like any generic 2000’s ladder match you have seen that even ends in a…