January 2001

Quick backstage interview from the Haas brothers, Charlie saying how he and his brother have captured every title imaginable in amateur wrestling and today, on the Power Hour, they will capture the Southern tag team titles. The Dupps grab a word with Corey prior to the bout and Jack doesn’t take too kindly to his belief that they’ll have their hands full and wonders whether they’ll have to kill someone before he finally starts giving them some credit. They’ve been here for four months now and annihilated everyone that’s been put in the ring with them. He doesn’t care what kind of amateurs the Haas’ were as today they’re going to find out who the toughest team in pr…

A Georgia Street fight for the NWA World tag team titles. Riddle is the spit of ‘Bulldozer’ era Brian Lee, while this is the same Sean Royal of New Breed fame, looking completely unrecognisable I may add. Fuck, Royal is goose stepping up and down the apron! After a bit of stalling and Michaels informing these “Georgia crackers” to shut the hell up and quit psyching that drunk up, this one finally gets going. Michaels with a leap frog, but Riddle catches him mid-are and powerslams him to the mat. He’s had enough already and tags in his partner. Young wants Royal, who the commentators describe as a man with a chip on his shoulder, and the two start trading blows holdi…

Jim Cornette describes Shelton Benjamin as a “prodigy” with how quickly he is picking the wrestling business up. He nails Damien with a superkick as the ‘Stretching Crew’ then plant him to the mat with a big old double slam. Brock slams the DoS next to one another and Shelton with a double powerdrive elbow. Side headlock, he doesn’t see the blind tag though and Payne catches him with the ‘Payne Killer’. Spinebuster by Damien. Payne spits at Brock to draw him into the ring then sticks a foot down Shelton’s throat behind the ref’s back. Shelton ducks under the clothesline and comes back with a double crossbody which takes both ‘Disciples’ down. He’s trapped in the wr…

Conway has a few pre-match words for “Mr Bad Ultimate Fighting Champion”, Ron Waterman, who he’ll be facing at Christmas Chaos. He reminds him that “he’s the Iron Man, while he’s the Water Boy” saying that when you get in the ring with him it equals a trip to the hospital. Conway takes advantage of Orton’s inexperience; slapping him on the back of the head, cheapshotting him etc. A decent collar and elbow tie up, Orton powering Conway back into the corner. The ‘Iron Man’ reverses positions and slap Randy across the face. The only thing that does though is fire Orton up who’s not going to take any more of this. Inverted atomic drop and Conway is on his knees pleading…

Paul Lewis (who appears to be a local manager) says that Sean Regan was due to defend the Hardcore title tonight, but unfortunately he has a family emergency in Oklahoma City so he’s not here. He goes onto explain how he was the one who taught Regan about the hardcore lifestyle, how he’s gone through tables, how he’s bled and how is himself a former TCW Hardcore champion. After claiming to be the most hardcore person to ever step foot in this building, the Necro Butcher’s music kicks in. Necro’s carrying a ‘Stop’ sign and staple gun, whilst all of Lewis’ earlier bravado has now gone, wanting no part of ‘the Butcher’. He gets down on his knees, almost pleading for merc…

Scoot tries to shoot Essa off to break the side headlock but he’s got that cinched in tight. Back suplex attempt instead and Rios flips over landing on his feet. Some sort of modified Thesz press (which is exactly how Kevin Kelly described it). Scoot sidesteps a flying Essa who ends up going ass over tit into the turnbuckles. A lovely dropkick by Andrews. Essa reverses the whip to the corner but Scoot vaults over the top rope and onto the apron. He turns to the crowd, pointing at his head thinking he’s outsmarted his opponent when Essa dropkicks him in the back and he goes flying into the ringside barricade. Awesome running flip dive over the ring post to the floo…

We're at Madison Square Garden for this one. The sound is a bit muffled on this one, so it's a bit hard to hear the pops, but Rock and Austin are definitely still super over. It sounds like Rock is the one getting the bigger chant, though. This is a bit of a tough watch, as the camera keeps shifting up and away from the ring. Rock and Trips start and have their usual good sequence. Undertaker comes in and, uh, stuff happens. I sort of give up on following this too closely, as it goes from a decent shot for a minute to a blank screen the next. However, it's clear that the energy and heat are really good. Pretty long sequence of finishers and broken pins, so that the cr…

Talk about it here.

This show really needed a shot in the arm and these grumpy bastards delivered. A brutal but calculating match where Fuchi was shown to look really strong. He does little things throughout this match that just make you delight in the misery he is inflicting on Liger. Stretching his leg out into a full split position and standing on Liger in the corner and posing were both the high water marks. This show cements APW status currently. There are certain wrestlers that I enjoy but the whole show is a nostalgia or variety show vibe. Almost everything up to that point doesn’t land, but this is two veterans but also wrapped around a great story and the finish of Liger catching hi…

I found this to be pretty disappointing. Otsuka has been in some good stuff this year but he was someone that really popped off the screen in the late 90’s and 2000 and that hasn’t happened so far. Still, him vs. Kakihara carried this for me. Yone is still one of the worst shoot guys that are involved and Nagai didn’t seem too interested overall. For the lucha tag previously, I felt like we got the touring style match but the highlights of that style. This felt more like dumbing down aspects of shoot style for the big audience. **3/4

I dug this for the first few minutes but it got stretched out too long and Barton is limited as hell as a worker. Williams looked fine and not too far off from 2000 where he was still a good worker that needed to be in their with a great one to provide entertainment. Barton isn’t that person. It also felt kind of sad that this came off the heels of the Hansen retirement and kind of was presented as a passing of the torch to the new top gain in the promotion. William’s best days are far behind him but he looks like still the best of the class overall. **3/4

This was the exhibition match that I expected the CMLL Japan Panther/Santo match to be. It was basically Panther and Santo doing their trios match exchanges in a Dome Show setting while Mil ran through his signature spots to the older fans' delight. The Panther/Santo stuff didn't translate that well to the setting, and really the best things about the bout were Mil's "Sky High" entrance and his impromptu celebration with The Destroyer at the end.

A good match but with this being the semi main and how well executed Liger vs Fuchi did in the other singles NJPW vs APW match, you would hope for more. This should have sent alarm bells off for Kea and his capabilities at being a top start going forward. Muto starts with some ground work and then when things go outside, Muto becomes more heelish kicking at Wada and using a ladder. Back inside, the legs are the focal point. Kea sells it well enough there just isn’t anything that Kea does that feels spectacular. He is very bland overall. Muto ends up winning with the figure four and NJPW goes 2-0 and practically buries AJPW at their own dome show. ***1/4 (6.4)

I’ve not seen much FMW, so when I hear ‘Wild Thing’ I automatically think of Rick Vaughn been called upon to bowl ‘heaters’ for the Cleveland Indians. Onita, band aids on his face, looks cool as fuck in his leather jacket, cigarette hanging from his mouth and swamped by photographers as he makes his way towards the ring. Funk grabs the microphone from Onita yelling “I’m home. All Japan is my home, I started here and I want to die here. All Japan and Shohei Baba is number one”. Abby and Kimala don’t even make it to the ring, Funk and Onita going out to meet them on the floor. ‘The Funker’ is bleeding before their opponents music has stopped as Abby uses what looks li…

Talk about it here.

Sekimoto’s most high profile match to date with Teioh pulling double duty. I liked the way that this match started out hot and then settled down with Abdullah and Kamikaze settling the match down with the arm work against Seikmoto. I also enjoyed that once Teioh got the tag he got overzealous on the outside and elbowed the post. Overall, a very solid match that had a lot of doubt of who was going to win but resulted in a feel good moment of the upstart Sekimoto getting a title. ***1/4 (6.5)

A really good death match. The match revolves around three huge spots and all three are built up to well and deliver in their brutality when carried out. Shadow WX continues to be a guy that will sneakily show up and have really good matches within a year. I don’t think he is as revered as people like Necro but so far he is better than almost any other death match wrestlers in 2001 we have seen. Yamakawa keeps losing his pants and that provides a few comedic moments that didn’t detract from the match. Overall, this is a loaded day in Japan and this would have been a great capper to the early show before going to the AJPW dome. ***3/4 (7.4)

This ended up being ranked as a good match by me, but just barely and through the work of Teioh. Winger was just a warm body. Again the restraint was nice as we have a few boards of barbed wire but they are maximized and not used gratuitously. The best spot involving that for me was the finish with the bow and arrow utilizing the barbed wire board. The down points of this match involve a long crowd brawl and Winger on offense was really boring. Interested to see how it plays into the tag match Teioh is in. *** (5.8)

A really fun slice of pro wrestling between two all time great wrestlers. This was 1 fall and in front of a silent japanese crowd, and the transitions weren't exactly hard fought, so the match felt a little like an exhibition. Still, there was plenty of excellent hold for hold work and some vicious brawling with Santito hitting especially stiff kicks. He even elbowed Panther in the face when he tried to block the Camel Clutch. That and him trying to prevent the Sharpshooter may have been my favourite moments of the match. Santito really had his working boots on and hit every spectacular dive he knows. I also liked how hard his flying headbutts connected.

We're in Philly here. Angle is being managed by Trish Stratus, which I do not remember at all. Camera work here is better than the MSG handheld from the prior evening, although that's a pretty low bar. Some mat work at the start, which feels perfunctory but is executed pretty well. Just as the match is picking up, we have people in front of the camera man getting up. I think Jericho kisses Trish against her will, which is not a great look in hindsight. This slows down quite a bit in the middle. Pretty good response for Jericho's comeback. Ref bump, of course, although oddly it's Angle that gets a visual pin (although I guess it protects the Angle Slam, which is a nice tho…

The pop here for the Rock is pretty insane, bigger than the one Austin gets. Triple H and the Rock start, and of course they have a nice sequence because they've done this literally hundreds of times by this point. Austin and Benoit go pretty hard, busting out a superplex five minutes into a house show match, in case you're wondering why these guys had neck problems. Trips is avoiding and antagonizing Austin here, which is fun. Nice pop when Austin finally gets some shots in. They take things out to the crowd for some brawling, although it's not a very long stretch. Otherwise, this is a relatively tame No DQ match. Longish heat segment on Austin. Hot tag to the Rock, and …

Holy shit was this awesome. 13 minutes of pure action with everyone flying around and only SAITO looking like hes not up to speed. Tiger Mask and Tokyo continue to outperform their reputation and both were super strong here. Tokyo had no moments of clumsiness and Tiger Mask continues to be swift with the strikes. Crazy Max works so well as a team and compliments each other. The best aspects of Toryumon are personified in this match. Great action and characters. **** (8.2)

A decent match between two that are never my favorite. This was the final of the Welterweight Title tournament and Arai had already beating Saito and Susumu Mochizuki prior to this match. Arai has the hard head gimmick and Kanda keeps injuring himself trying to attack it with clotheslines and punches. The finish plays into this as Arai hits a top rope jaw breaker that Kanda sells as death. My favorite moment was the aftermath with the faction warfare with M2k, Arai’s crew and Crazy Max joining the fray. **3/4

Chavo’s partner for this match, The Wall, was taken out backstage by Hugh Morrus, so he makes his way to the ring not knowing who his replacement, chosen by Ric Flair, will be. With The Wall and Hugh Morrus being referred to by those names it looks like the M.I.A. is finally dead. There’s some trepidation going on with Chavo until he hears his partner’s music and realises it’s Road Warrior Animal, at which point he starts jumping up and down like he’s won the lottery. ‘The Animals’ control most of the early goings, but when Chavo crawls over to his partner after being felled by a Rey spinning heel kick, things change dramatically. Rey charges at Animal but bounces off…

The best Nitro match is lord knows how long. Lance honestly looks like one of the best US wrestlers here. He hits a great dropkick, is stiff and is in position for everything. The counter of the rana into the Maple Leaf was also a great finish. Daffney continues to be atrocious screaming on the outside. Crowbar looked good and cleaner than he does at other points when given non hardcore showcases. A very enjoyable match that came after a great Rhodes Family vs Flair/Animal segment. ***1/4 (6.4)