January 2001

Probably not the best setting for this type of match, but I really loved it and in particular thought Tanaka put a stamp as a contender as WOTY. He has a lot of brutal exchanges especially against Makabe just kicking the shit out of him. Him and Kanemoto work great as a prick pair. Makabe for his part did good in not looking overmatched and offering up some moments of hope for the underdog. He even gets in a some flash pins and submission attempts on Tanaka as IWGP Junior champ. In the end, he succumbs to the onslaught of damage and Kanemoto/Tanaka end up winning. I am not sure how much of them as a team we get in 2001, but I want to consume all of it. **** (7.8)

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

On the very first episode of Smackdown in 2001, Chris Jericho says that he will win the Intercontinental title and will do so in front of all these ‘Jerichoholics’. He goes on to say how that if it wasn’t for Lt. Commissioner Debra he wouldn’t be here tonight, and if it wasn’t for ‘old lady’ Benoit forgetting to take her birth control pills Chris Benoit wouldn’t be here either! That brings out the ‘Rabid Wolverine’ who thinks that Y2J should take his own advice and “shut the hell up”. Benoit ducks a clothesline and dumps the challenger on the back of his head. After whipping Jericho chest first into the turnbuckles he looks for the crossface, however they’re too close…

Rock does a promo with Kevin Kelly. This was a good Rock promo with some insults but focused on winning a wrestling match and gaining the championship. Rock hypes up the Rumble. Angle has a promo before his match saying he wasn’t trying to interfere on Monday he was just scouting potential opponents. Angle then insults San Antonio saying they remember the alamo but forgot literacy and mastering a toothbrush. Angle tells Rock to Just Bring It. Rock charges down and the fight is on. Fun match and Rock is on a roll to start the year. Big bombs are thrown and Rock even takes an Olympic Slam on the floor on a piece of broken announce table which I didn’t expect…

Regal shows up in the arena and gets attacked backstage by Stone Cold. Austin slams him onto the hood and then reverses throughout the garage area. He then hits the case and Regal goes flying into trash and debris backstage. Not content, Austin continues to beat up Regal and slams a metal pipe against Regal. Regal ends up as a bloody mess. Back from break, we see an ambulance pull up and they stretcher Regal out. Debra catches up with Austin and tells him that he has to calm down. She says he could lose his job and probably go to jail. Another limo pulls up and here is Austin trying to get in but the door is locked. Steph emerges from the other d…

Talk about it here.

You know the drill with these matches. 15 minutes of pure chaos and then the aftermath of Onita getting in his leather jacket and riling up the crowd. Maybe time has made the heart grow fonder of this stuff but I enjoyed this one more than most of the 2000 iterations. I think Onita brought a viciousness that we haven’t seen with nasty piledrivers on the tables and using the piece of the table to just demolish his opponents. Nakamaki does a disgusting blade job and the aftermath is interesting as Tarzan Goto makes an appearance and goes after Onita. I had a lot of fun with this one. ***1/2 (7.1)

Pinoy Boy is T.J. Perkins, not sure about Gallinero as several people have been under the mask, although it looks like he was the inspiration behind the Hallowicked character in Chikara. The opening exchanges are between Pinoy and Reyes but that has a sense as if it’s not really going anywhere. They tag out and things pick up as Gallinero drives B-Boy face first to the mat from the full nelson. He’s a bit too pleased with himself after that, climbing the turnbuckles to celebrate instead of following up on the attack. Boot to the gut by B followed by a DDT and Pinoy gets a two count after a slingshot Arabian moonsault. He blocks the piledriver and counters with a back…

In what is announced as Super Dragon’s return to Revolution Pro, he and Rising Son have an embrace before the actions kicks off. Cool low spinning leg sweep to take Dragon off his feet, but he counters the ‘Magistral cradle’ with a roll up. Torture rack, however Son counters that one with a crucifix as both have now tried to catch the other off guard with early pin attempts. Son flips over on the belly to belly, dropkick to the back of Dragon who collapses over the middle rope, and a ‘619’ long before it was ever called that. Dragon back drops Son over the top rope but he lands on the apron. He catches a punch then springboards back inside, taking Dragon down with a …

Real good opening exchanges to the match between Morton and Punk, until a shoulder charge sees both men go down and they tag out to Hero and Cabana. The fast pace continues with Hero twice powering out of a spinning toe hold. Another shoulder charge and again both go down, although this time the tag is made to Wolf and Smooth. They immediately run into one another, clashing heads and the other four participants are in to check on their respective partners. Order is restored after a brief free for all and Morton with a hard knife edge chop to Smooth. Press slam where he very nearly spikes him head first to the mat. Wolf works a simple distraction spot, diverting the …

One of those “only in IWA” three way dances. Smothers is classic in his entrance flicking off everyone and riling up the crowd to the extreme while dancing a bit. Ian has the weight that Mean Mitch Page gains in the next year. Smothers jumps him when he enters the ring and before Sabu can come out. This is really clever as it gets the crowd to chant for Sabu. They tumble to the outside and here is Sabu beating on both men and throwing chairs at Smother’s head. Smothers dancing to the crowd chants never gets old. Smothers and Ian are again on the outside and Smothers gets irish whipped into the chairs. Ian follows him allowing Sabu to hit a triple jump dive onto both of th…

A JCW tag title match being contested under Texas tornado rules and with Commissioner C.J. Johnson appointing two referees to officiate the match due to how out of control the previous encounter between these teams was. This version of the Moondogs consists of Mollson and Wenzel, with neither baring any resemblance to the original Moondogs or even the slew of Moondogs that showed up in the USWA in the early to mid-90s. As the Dogs make their entrance the commentator says “(they’re as) maniacal as they appear, this is not a work!” Oh, FFS! Although this starts with all four men in the ring swinging at one another, it quickly becomes two going at it inside while the oth…

Montoya takes the mic before the match gets started, but the audio is bad so it’s another one of those times when we can’t make out what is being said. A fatal three way for Reckless’ JCW Heavyweight title that he recently won from Ki. Don charges at Ki and Reckless is quite happy to let him do all the dirty work while he plays cheerleader. Whip to the corner is reversed, handspring kick to the head by Ki and Montoya rolls out of there under the bottom rope. Satellite headscissors by Youth, but after Ki counters the powerbomb with a huracanrana, he too takes refuge on the outside. Ki’s readying himself for a dive to the floor, however as he hits the ropes Montoya pul…

I'm on a quest to watch every Yabushita match I can find. This was a very good skill vs. power match. Fang Suzuki is certainly a lot better than you expect a random Dump Matsumoto-midcard heel from a forgotten indy fed to be. Instead of brawling they mostly stuck to a clean, simple wrestling match. It was really cool to see what Yabushita could do to a bigger opponent and Fang was a ton of fun. Fang able to get in a few submissions of her own was a nice touch, and her simplistic back elbows, clubbing lariats and STOs looked great, her selling was neat aswell. Yabushita basically stuck her game plan to two moves, armbars and shotais, and they made good use of them. Her sli…

The Kliq 2000 are out and Corey Maclin finds it funny that Spanky no longer has the Light Heavyweight title around his waist. Spanky tells him that it’s no laughing matter and he feels naked without that belt. He plugs a house show in Bogota tonight, confident that “the belt is coming home with Daddy”, before introducing the newest member of the Kliq, Jason Sensation. Sensation comes over as pretty goofy and doesn’t say much of note but does give us his Shawn Michaels impersonation. The Kliq will be taking on the debuting Haas brothers shortly and a once again masked Dragon informs them that first impressions count, and the first impression everyone will get of them i…

They consider Lance an underdog coming in. We learn that Cade is teaming with Joey Abs tonight in Bogota. Seven accompanies Vick and trips Cade up to start the heat sequence. After a minute or so, Slash runs out with a chair and tries to hand it to Vick but Seven yanks it and that allows Cade to hit a dropkick. Roll up and Cade gets the win as there is problems with Slash/Seven/Vick. Lance gives a promo afterwards and he is very generic but does show some potential. The Dupps beat up Cade with a chair to end the segment. ½*

Bradley is with Victoria and gives a quick promo. Who’s your Daddy is a pretty weak tag line for Bradley. The face crew comes out and King is looking slim in 2001. Shortish match that is mainly based on Abs being a FIP. Heel contingent isn’t too exciting with Slash being the best of the bunch in ring. Slash misses a somersault senton that Corey said looked like Northwest Airlines. Instead of hot tag, Abs hits a powerslam and the match breaks down. King and Sgt. Moore are having a hair vs hair match we learn. Victoria grabs Lawler with the clippers and King grabs that and threatens to cut her hair. Bradley holds him off at first but Lawler is persistent and the show …

Unexpectedly stiff, fun undercard action. Hashi and Izu try to crack eachothers skull in the opening and Hashi gets bloodied hardway. This leads to your signature Hashi underdog performance with Taue Baba chopping his cut. Inoue, as usual, was pretty much useless in helping Hashi here, so Hashi has to tough it in the finish against Izu who dishes out some big bombs. This kind of stuff is what made NOAH great.

Sterness explodes. Its bizarre to see Akiyama now be the complete ring general with the three young upstarts. Every exchange Akiyama is involved in here, he gets the better of his opponent. Shiga was a logical whipping post for the Kanemaru/Akiyama team to target and they do just that. Kanemaru strikes me as a good underneath partner for Jun showing flash and some aspects of cheating to mix in with the aggressiveness of Akiyama overall. I didn’t care for the finish here as it felt like Akiyama’s team really dominated and I thought the finish coming against Kanemaru with Shiga getting the arm submission came a bit too easy. I guess overall at NOAH at this moment in tim…

Probably my least favorite of the four matches I watched from this show as Kobashi definitely looks like he is hurting. It was fun seeing him and Kikuchi mix it up but otherwise, it is kind of sad and he is in need of a break for sure that was upcoming. KENTA is fiery and showing strides in his progression but not at the level of Rikio at this point. Rikio overall looks strong here and I continue to think he will be much better in retrospect right up until he takes the title from Kobashi in 2005. Solid match but pretty dry overall. **3/4

These NOAH matches are generally tough to rank. They are entertaining and have a lot of good on them but they are also long and NOAH mixed in one of the bigger guys with underneath guys so in this type of setting, you still feel like you are watching the entire show which can be a bit jarring. I think there is misnomer that Ikeda didn’t mix well with the NOAH guys but I’m prepared to debunk that as both him going toe to toe with Misawa here but going down to the forearm like everyone else and him overtaking Marufuji and him and Ogawa going on a long attack of him fit. Once Misawa gets the hot tag, Ikeda actually takes back on offense on him and gets some nearfalls. Ogawa…

Amaresu shootstyle! This was a really cool match. Apparently this was Sugiura's 3rd match ever so it's good that he gets to fight Honda, who is a master of a nifty short match like this. The early matwork here felt a bit like Negro Navarro doing an exhibition in Coliseo Coacalco, quick movements and then a break, but they get into some good extended mat sections later on. Really cool stuff that feels different from your typical UWF inspiried japanese shootstyle matwork. Honda looks like a troll but he can move really fast. Sugiura (in his amateur singlet) looks good throwing the much bigger Honda around. He survives some of Hondas unorthodox submissions and even hits a ma…

Weird match in a way. Omori and Vader start off and Vader has lost his athleticism a bit but he can still clobber with some of the best of them. From there, the match becomes a squash almost for the Scop/Vader team. They beat up Omori for 95% of the rest of the match and while what they do is fine, it was just so bizarre unless they were really pushing this new gaijin tag team. The finish complicates further as Omori gets one big lariat on Omori that is treated as a knockout blow and that is it. A really strange match where I sort of see what they were going for, but yeah still fucking odd. *** (5.8)

Jimmy Rave looks so young here, something that Dave Prazak mentions on commentary, joking that he looks about eleven years old! His ring gear is doing him no favours either, as he reminds me of one of those backyarders who would videotape themselves doing matches and then stick the results on YouTube. Rave reverses the hip toss, catches Coleman with an arm drag and then a dropkick as his opponent takes to the outside to compose himself, although none of this looked the smoothest. When he returns to the ring he levels Rave with a side kick but they’re too close to the ropes as Rave drapes a leg over them to halt the count at two. He counters the tilt-a-whirl with a hea…