December 2000

Matt is flying solo, Michael Cole informing us that Lita isn’t here because of that ‘Crippler crossface’ she fell victim to on Monday night. He slides into the ring and Benoit tries to drop an elbow on him but Matt smartly rolls out the way. ‘The Crippler’ takes to the outside after being on the receiving end of a clothesline however gets nailed with a big dive from the top turnbuckle to the floor. The Intercontinental title is on the line, Lt. Commissioner Debra having banned ‘the Radicalz’ from ringside and giving Matt a fairer chance of snaffling some gold. He lights Benoit up with some knife edge chops but when he grabs him for the ‘Twist of Fate’ the champion lif…

Kurt Angle is showing Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley video of the Dudley Boyz powerbombing his brother Eric through a table, saying how he only came here to celebrate Christmas and didn’t deserve that. Steph says that she knows how it feels to have members of her family insulted and that’s why she’s acquiesced to his request and made this a World title match, Kurt wanting to embarrass him in what will be his one and only shot at the belt. Angle cuts the usual promo while he’s making his entrance, telling Bubba that he broke his number one rule when he put his hands on a member of his family and if he thinks he’s kidding “just try me”. Bubba clubs him when he climbs up …

Pretty weak gimmick but the girls did their best with it. It wasn't the hardest of hardcore matches but they did do a lot of cool spots with the chairs and Sakai took one neat tumble off the ladder. Suzuki was a beast with her STOs and suplexes and battered Sakai until she couldn't take anymore. Great selling from Sakai at the end. She really was a gusty wrestler. This ended up being better than I expected because of Suzuki's throws. A nice surprise since i had zero expectations.

This was a fast paced joshi match. One thing that stands out about these JD' matches is the slick spots these girls do. It almost feels like watching a CMLL Minis match integrated into a joshi bout. Yabushita was a maniac here taking one psycho bump after another, eating a dangerous spill down a flight of a stairs and a huge german suplex on the floor aswell as getting dumped on her head multiple times including with a Dragon Suplex off the top rope. I thought the match wasn't quite great, as I thought the rhythm was off, there were some slight upfucks and some of the selling and transitions where... you know what they were. Still, I liked how Bloody was able to reverse Y…

The Snott Brothers look like a couple of business men, wrestling in trousers, short sleeve buttoned down shirts, ties and glasses, they’re also giving away a substantial size disadvantage to their opponents. Just as I’m writing that Boom Boom is pretty bad, he hits a nice spinning sideslam. The Snotts have overweight “family” members in their corner, so maybe it’s more like a Dudley brother gimmick that they’re doing? One of the Snotts counters a powerbomb into a facebuster as the crowd start chanting “Snott, Snott, Snott”. I’m pretty convinced that’s the only reason they are using that name. This is pretty bad actually. Looks like the heels manager was also early on…

Despite the people making plenty of noise to God’s gift of professional wrestling and the first King of the Indies, Christopher Daniels lets them know that they still suck! Daniels offers a hand to ‘the Funboy’ which is accepted. Grappling heavy as both are looking for an early advantage. Nice headscissors takedown by Morgan which Daniels kips up out of. We have a tease of each man’s finisher, Morgan snapmaring his way out of the ‘Roll the Dice’. Daniels steps out to have a words with some fans who’re on his case, although that doesn’t sit too well with Morgan telling him over the house mic that he should be taking this seriously and that when he gets back in the rin…

Morgan has got the nickname ‘Funboy’ which could have a multitude of connotations. The two are fairly evenly matched as neither gets the upper hand in the chain wrestling department. Capri is the first to open up firing off punches and moving away from pure wrestling. Morgan tries that Jacques Rougeau reverse roll off a backdrop but doesn’t make the best effort of it. High backdrop followed by a dropkick sends Capri to the outside. Tope suicida. Saito suplex for a two. Capri ducks under the clothesline, snatches the arm and hits a great looking exploder. Running splash in the corner and after Morgan collapses to the mat, he baseball slide dropkicks him in the groi…

The ring announcer is adamant in his belief that “there is no doubt you’ll see them (Modest and Morgan) in WCW and the WWF soon” when doing his introductions. Well he was right, although I reckon he was hoping for better than what they actually got. A slap to the back of the head after some chain wrestling riles Morgan and he starts firing off some forearms. Modest rolls to the outside but Morgan follows him out and rams his head into the guard rail. Back inside Modest catches him on the tip up and crotches Morgan on the top rope. It looks like Modest hurt his leg on the leap frog. I thought he was doing the spot where the wrestler fakes an injury to lure his oppone…

The more famous King of Indies was in 2001, that was the event that Rob Feinstein saw which led to the creation of Ring of Honor, however there was one which took place twelve months prior. There is a basketball game going on in the arena behind the ring, which I hope stops, because that could be real distracting. ‘The Natural One’ Michael Modest throws his drink at Thompson, jumping him before the bell. After Thompson blocks having his head rammed into the turnbuckles, he returns the favour, using the top, middle and bottom buckles. Modest takes solace on the arena floor, wanting a time out, but considering he was pretty vocal to the referee earlier I doubt he’ll be …

Scoot has got some large chested woman in his corner alongside a stereotypical generic Indy manager whose name I don’t catch. Ditto Massaro, although not the largest chested woman! Big Vincenzo shows some agility with the leap frog. He rushes at Scoot who ducks out the way and he goes careering over the top rope to the outside. Slow motion flip dive to the floor. It’s missed by the camera, but I think big tits slaps Massaro, he takes off after her but gets cut off by Andrews. Back inside Scoot targets Vinny’s leg, even distracting the ref at one point so that his manager can wrap it around the ringpost behind his back. Massaro’s manager is doing nothing to stop this,…

Chalk up another person using ‘Last Resort’ as their entrance in Mike Shane. We’re in ‘the Stretcher’s’ home town of St. Petersburg tonight so maybe he will work as the face. Horowitz isn’t impressed by Shane’s size, saying how he’s taken down the Undertaker, taken down Earthquake and has been in with bigger and better than him. A semi-final match up in the IPW TV title tournament, the winner moving onto the finals. ‘The Stretcher’ points at Shane’s valet and wants to know “who invited trash to his match?” That leads to the cameraman zooming in on the valet’s cleavage! I was convinced that Shane was the heel (he’s also got Sir Ronald J. Niemi IV in his corner who cu…

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Derrick King is holding his own in the initial exchanges until Saturn picks him up off his feet and drives him backwards into the turnbuckles, where he then repeatedly shoulder barges him in the mid-section. Release Northern Lights suplex with Saturn hammerlocking DK’s own arm behind him so that he lands on it. Standing armbar submission that he gives up on, preferring to punish King some more. Belly to back suplex with Saturn again hammerlocking the arm. Judo throw into an armbar, and just like last time Saturn gives up on the submission. He misses the moonsault and DK starts to fire back. Flying headscissors followed by a flying clothesline, however he telegraphs …

About what you'd expect from a three minute exhibition match between those two, some nice grappling, a little awkward at times due to Renzo not being familiar with working but nothing significant overall. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the shenanigans surrounding the match. It was interesting to hear Renzo's post-match interview and how he saw the whole thing as well.

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Fun match, hard to rate it due how clipped the only footage of it I could find is. You could make a case for post-modernism in japanese pro wrestling being present as early as those 70s All Japan tags but here it goes even further as it's even more clear this is nothing more than a freak show for laughs while PRIDe is the real deal. Sakuraba uses a few of his trademark spots like the mongolian punches in the full mount and spinning someone when he gets in their guard, but the way he milked the double wristlock escape and his punches remind you what a lost talent he was. Top rope wristlock as a finish was cool and I appreciated them building up to it instead of just alteri…

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I'm sure I dug this more than most people will. I thought this was a masterful performance from Hashimoto. Him chopping the bigger Goodridge down with leg kicks, his selling of Goodridge's somewhat held back punches, his selling/facial expressions during Goodridge's rolling kneebar and him finally getting frustrated with Goodridge's clean breaks and blasting him with a headbutt and then landing the grounded headbutts, etc. was pretty awesome. I thought Goodridge did pretty good for having such limited experience in pro-wrestling. Him getting the full mount was pretty neat and got a pretty neat pop from the crowd.

Naoya Ogawa vs Tadao Yasuda - Inoki BOM Ba Ye 12/31/00 What a stacked card that drew 40000+ to the Osaka Dome on New Years Eve. Inoki vs Renzo Gracie main events with Mutoh, Frye, Shamrock, Sakuraba, Hashimoto and Fujiwara on the undercard. I’m surprised how middle of the pack this is on the card. I know Yasuda got pushed hard in 2002 but was he really pushed yet? My Cagematch research made it seemed like he didn’t get the big push until next year. Would’ve been interesting to see Fujita in this slot. Unlike the UFO show in 2002 this is clearly a work. Although I’m 99% sure Yasuda had to stand there and take live rounds from Ogawa. He was not KO’d but he got cut up, …

The Head Hunters jump their opponents before the bell and plant them with nice stereo powerbombs to counter the rather foolish double backdrop attempt after Banderas and Christobol had reversed a pair of Irish whips. Banderas ducks a clothesline and brings one of the Hunters to their knees with a spinning wheel kick. Tag to Jesus who is quickly overwhelmed though and Banderas is forced to break up the cover following a double leg drop. A Christobol spinning wheel kick doesn’t have the same success as his partner’s and he ends up running into a lariat. Double hip toss, diving headbutt and again Banderas is in for the save. When ‘A’ misses a diving headbutt off the mid…

A fairy uninspiring tag match with lengthy chinlocks and nerve holds that hints at dissension in the Los Boricuas faction. In the early goings the Boricuas had been doing false tags, goading the other Hunter in to the ring and then switching places behind the referee’s back, and I liked how in their heat section the twins did similar. The official clearly better at recognizing which twin is which than me though, as he was questioning the brothers about whether there was indeed a tag. It’s not a lengthy heat section anyway and pretty much as soon as Jesus has made the hot tag he’s back in the ring helping out Savio against the Hunters. Jesus gets backdropped over the t…

A promo from ‘Mr Everything’ Ricky Santana’s stable (Rasta Man, Sean Hill and the Head Hunters) which is primarily in Spanish. The two US speakers do say a few lines but it’s nothing of importance or note. Banderas ducks under the clothesline, running flying bodypress, however the Head Hunter catches and slams him to the mat. He goes for the splash but Banderas moves out the way, avoiding it, and a spinning heel kick sends ‘A’ under the bottom rope and to the floor. Twisting plancha over the top rope to the outside. Banderas just about manages to roll the big man back inside and pounds away on him with a series of punches in the corner. ‘A’ gets a shot in of his own…

An unfortunately placed commercial for the upcoming ‘Rage in the Cage’ show gives away the result of this Texas All-Star Brass Knuckles title match before it has even got started. Canyon’s punches have little effect on Necro who fires back with some knife edge chops and a headbutt. He clotheslines the 400lb’er over the top rope to the outside, then flies at him with a somersault dive off the apron. After slamming him head first into the ring post, Necro comes off the apron again, this time with a Cactus Jack style elbow drop. A ‘Stop’ sign shot to the head splits Canyon open, but it’s like seeing his own blood has finally woke him up. Necro ends up getting busted ope…

They’re advertising a ‘Star Wars’ card for March 18, so if anyone wants to try and watch this undated stuff in order, this takes place before the Canyon match that we have. Richards is quite animated and has got a lot to say for himself. Necro is all over him mind, walloping him with the ‘Stop’ sign, suplexing him on the floor and bodyslamming him on the hard wooden steps. Bulldog onto a ring chair and I don’t know how much more of this Richards can take. Necro climbs up to the apron but plays to the crowd for too long and Richards cracks him in the ribs with that chair before slamming him to the concrete. He gives ‘the Butcher’ a taste of his own medicine with that …