February 2001

Has Cash forgotten his gear? He blind sides Wolf as he makes his entrance, coming from the side of the arena, one of the House of Hardcore regulars doing her best to warn Wolf where he is. There is some good stuff in the opening brawl as Cash throws him around the building, although it becomes one of those “ECW walks” back to ringside. Wolf reverses the whip into the ring post and even though Cash goes into it at some speed, there is something comical about the way he does so. A rake of the eyes and he’s back in control, laying in some hard knife edge chops. He runs the grotty ring steps into Wolf and then starts picking his shots, jabbing away like a pro boxer. Blo…

I love the way on the words “I need a hero” on his entrance Hero looks directly into the hard cam. Fuck, he starts cutting a promo on Kickboxer when a fan yells “shut up you cocksucker” and Hero jumps out the ring and squares up to the fella begging him to touch him. Kickboxer with the first submission attempt, a Fujiwara armbar that Hero rolls through on and out to the floor. He want a test of strength on his return but gets annoyed by the fans heckling and makes out as if he’s going to leave. A different fan gives him the finger so he’s in this ones face, even spitting at him which is totally out of order Back at the test of strength he’s getting the better of thin…

A great opening as they light each other up with chops and forearm each other across the face. Very un-Memphis like. Dragon gets caught with a big boot and takes to the outside, Abs right out after him. It’s mentioned that Abs knows what it’s like to be wrestling in front of 20,000 people on Raw and the quickest way to make it back there is by being the top dog in MCW. Dragon escapes the Absolute and hits a neckbreaker. More bomb throwing. Spinning backfist, right out of the Aja Kong playbook. Abs gets tossed to the floor, accidentally wiping out Jason Sensation who wasn’t paying attention. They brawl at ringside until Dragon gets mullered with a clothesline. He’…

Spanky thinks that it’s time they finally settle things with Lance Cade after he turned his back on the Kliq a couple of weeks ago. Cade sprints from the dressing room to answer the challenge, Spanky quickly overwhelmed when he walks into an almighty boot. They’re cutting a fast pace here. Nice vertical suplex for a two. Spanky ducks under a second big boot and spears Cade’s left knee, taking him down. Dragon screw. Jason Sensation passes his man a chair, the ref just watching as Spanky then hits him in the knee with it. How on earth is that not a disqualification? Oh, apparently since Al K. Holic started the hardcore division the refs have been getting more and m…

NWA Wildside Jr. Heavyweight title match, Coleman the current champion after defeating Lazz for the gold. Springboard leg lariat by Ice. He heads upstairs but it is too early in the match and Dazz hip tosses him from the top. J.C. misses a high crossbody. Coleman goes up for a moonsault, Dazz gets underneath him and has him in the Electric Chair, pancaking him to the mat. Some contrived looking spot that results in Dazz doing a backflip off the middle. Steven Prazak says “hello” to all the fans watching in Las Vegas, Wildside now being televised on one of the channels in the city. Caprice with a slingshot senton. He hits the Thermal Shock and J.C. just about gets …

Bad Attitude are out to the Midnight Express’ music, I can’t remember if that is a new addition or whether they were using it last year too. Rick Michaels promises that tonight they’re walking out of here with the NWA World tag team titles before going on to face Total Destruction in a cage match at Hardcore Hell. I hope we’ve got that match. This is York & Matthews’ debut at the NCW arena, so worth noting again that this is for the NWA World, not NWA Wildside tag team titles. Nigh on the first thing we get is a criss cross spot, Michaels blowing himself up as he continues to run the ropes long after Matthews has stopped. Dan ‘the Dragon’ Wilson is comparing Bad …

Rob Conway hands his shades to referee Robert Brisco, a sign that he’s taking this match seriously by not wrestling in them. Cornette gives us an update on what happened last week; Synn has been fined $1,000 for burning the OVW Security Guard and fortunately Brock Lesnar’s ankle isn’t broken. The two battle over the top wristlock and when Damaja sees Conway overbalancing takes him down with a drop toe hold. Reverse crossbody by Damaja for a two. A ropey looking spinning headscissors. Conway tries a reverse crossbody of his own but Damaja ducks out the way and rolls him up for a near fall. They battle it out over the backslide and, with Brisco out of view, Conway mule…

The Disciples of Synn make their way out for an interview, that fan in the front row there again gifting Synn some flowers, which she destroys on the ring ropes. Payne tells Brock Lesnar that he’s lucky that they didn’t break his ankle last week, this week in St. Therese’s though they’re going to finish the job. He warns Shelton Benjamin that his time is coming when the MSC join Cornette at the broadcast booth. Brock says how he kind of likes the pain he’s in, and every time he walks on his ankle it reminds him of what they did to him and how he’s going to kick their asses at St. Therese’s. Shelton adds that taking out Brock was only half the battle, so if they (the D…

I really don’t like how close to the action the camera is, we’re more on top of the wrestlers here than in that LIWF match from earlier in the month. The Camera work quickly became real distracting for me, especially when they would be running the ropes and I’d start feeling nauseous as it’s trying to keep up with them. Most of the match highlights are courtesy of Rising Son with a running flip dive over the top rope to the floor, a handspring elbow, a slingshot senton/standing moonsault combo and a 619; B’s standout stuff being a slingshot sit-out powerbomb and an inverted suplex where he spikes Son on his head. B-Boy targeted the knee, which Son sold briefly on his c…

The finals of the Anniversary Show Tag Team tournament. Beau James has been taken to the hospital after being bloodied up by the Batten Twins earlier in the night so Harrison is going solo, still wanting to take on the eight time SSW tag champions. As we’re about to start James returns, head all bandaged. Folk are trying to talk him out of wrestling but tonight is a celebration, so he’s going nowhere and climbs up onto the apron. Harrison with a hiptoss and a couple of dropkicks, not only taking his nickname from the Rock & Roll Express but also his move set. No idea if he claims to be some relation but ‘Ruthless’ Roger Anderson does bear a resemblance to Ole and…

Yang has no luck whatsoever against Big Ron, even coming off on the short ends after a flying shoulder tackle as the size difference is just too great. The Dragons change tact, trying to outsmart their opponents, faring little better. Swinging neckbreaker/basement dropkick combination on Heavy D. Big Ron goes tumbling out over the top rope as Yang ducks out the way of his charge, but Kaz then walks into a Heavy D superkick. Pescado by Yang as the action spills to the floor, although that turns out to be a bad idea on the Dragons’ part with Yang getting whipped into the guard rail and Kaz being the recipient of a chair shot. A nice spinning side slam by Big Ron. Doub…

The final match in the XPW 2001 King of the Death match tournament. With barbed wire on two sides of the ring and no ropes on the other, both tease taking a spill to the outside before a Supreme hip toss sends Grimes out and into a bed of light tubes. Running lariat to the floor by Supreme. Grimes blocks the attempted suplex and counters with a suplex of his own, dumping Supreme on the bed of, now, broken light tubes instead. He picks up one of those tubes and grinds it into Supreme’s forehead, re-opening some of those cuts he’d sustained earlier in the night. Supreme no sells a frying pan shot to the head and repeatedly clobbers Grimes with an array of weapons he ge…

No audio for Kanemura’s entrance so I’m singing ‘Come Out and Play’ to myself as he does his dance, the sound kicking in about the 1:20 mark. Shinniwa, from behind, reminds me very much of the Great Kabuki. Like all the IWA Japan that I’ve watched so far, this is just extended highlights. Shinniwa catches Kanemura with a sweet powerslam and a running shoulder charge sends him to the outside. Kanemura fights back and piles a bunch of chairs up but ends up being bodyslammed onto them. He does reverse a whip on the floor, Shinniwa taking out several rows of seats. We lose them in the crowd, although the crowd gasp, so something happened. Kanemura puts a table over his…

Decent trios match that is mostly built around Villano IV vs Silver King, which is the best match-up we could have gotten out of the bout. It's not a transcendently great match-up. It won't have you dreaming of those lost Villano/Silver King classics or anything like that. But it's a perfectly solid throughline. The rest of the match is scrappy and the finish is terrible but it's Monterrey. I liked the tempo. It was brisk despite the monkey business.

Hey, Toryumon! It's been a while. Fuji was going by the name "Big Fuji" now and running folks over with bicycles. Not motorcycles, actual bicycles. This was a fun match against the plucky Saito. It was a competitive squash but Saito made the most of his minutes. Great to see Fuji knocking about now that the likes of Dick Togo aren't making tape.

Tazz is substituting for ‘the King’ on commentary duties for this match. These two are fighting for the right of the Kat to get naked; if Lawler wins that’s exactly what she does, if Richards wins then she has to join the Right to Censor. Ivory and the Kat are in the respective corners. Richards takes three trips to the outside in the opening few minutes, even removing his shirt after the second to show he’s serious. Tazz clearly thinks that as he’s standing in for Lawler he must pattern himself after him, wishing Ivory would take her shirt off also. ‘The King’ follows Richards to the floor where Ivory is in his face, running her mouth and pointing her finger at him.…

Talk about it here.

Tick tock, tick tock, The Rock vs. Kurt Angle doesn't suck. This was streets better than Triple H vs. Angle. There was a pointless piece of interference from The Big Show and an unnecessary ref change, but apart from that, it was pure chemistry between the workers. Rock being a super over babyface clearly helped the dynamic here, but Angle did so many cool things here and was able to showcase his ability to a far greater extent than he could in the Hunter match. He looked like a much better worker than at the Rumble and I don't think it was because he had an extra month under his belt. Much like the Benoit matches, the Rock meshed surprisingly well with his opponent…

First match in the Cruiserweight tag team title tournament. Tony Schiavone notes that Swinger has wrestled previously in WCW back in 1999, however he didn’t want to conform and was a renegade. That sounds like some sort of inside remark about him going to ECW. Jason Lee is the same Jason Lee from the Suicide Blondes in OVW. The first time that the two have ever teamed up together but this was an opportunity to big to turn down! Rey is wearing some weird half mask. Sit-out uranage by Lee on Kidman. He telegraphs the backdrop and a combination double chicken wing/springboard dropkick from the Animals pancakes him to the mat. Lee gets his knees up on the Lionsault as …

Schiavone talks about Palumbo’s win over Lex Luger on Thunder as one of the biggest wins of his career and one that will surely give them the momentum going into Greed. O’Haire calls out “the Canadians” over what they did to Kronik earlier, wanting to make the ring into a murder scene with the two of them. He only had a couple of lines there but it wasn’t pretty. We return from a commercial with the match already in progress. Schiavone emphasises that this is non-title, most likely emphasising the result too. Storm is in to break up a pin attempt and as Palumbo turns to say something to him, gets flattened by an Awesome lariat. Double clothesline by the Canadians. …

Ric Flair is the special guest referee. Do I just switch this off now? Apparently he’s claimed that he’s calling this right down the middle although I won’t be holding my breath. Jarrett does an amusing Dusty impression before telling Dustin that he’s soon going to be out of here. Flair’s objectivity looks as though it hasn’t even lasted a minute, but as Jarrett goes to slug Dustin who‘s trapped in the corner, ‘the Boss’ hooks his arm to prevent him from doing so. Considering moments earlier he had done the same to Dustin when ‘Double J’ was boxed in, maybe, just maybe...nah. Dustin throws Jarrett to the floor, mounting him on the ramp and unleashing a barrage of pu…

The Cat stepped down as Commissioner earlier in the show, wanting to concentrate his efforts on Chris Kanyon who took out Ms. Jones. That Kanyon’s getting everywhere at the moment! Non-title match, Steiner not here as the U.S. champion, here as a hired Hitman for Ric Flair who wants to eliminate anyone who could potentially stand in his way before the new ownership. Belly to belly, Steinerline, threatening of the referee, same old same old from ‘the DFG’. Cat’s arm drops twice but not the third time on the reverse chinlock, his comeback cut off with a knee to the mid-section. Some nice knees from the North South position in a rare bit of Steiner praise from me. Low …

After Booker had evened things up at the end of the previous match, the World champion, who is still in the aisle, mocks him, saying how DDP said he was going to bring “somebody” when all Booker T is is a “nobody”. Seeing that Steiner has got some buddies with him, Booker responds that he’s got some buddies of his own and why don’t they do this right now? When Booker mentions Midajah that sets Steiner off who tells Ric Flair to make the match. ‘The Boss’ does and the six-man is on. Flair sticks around, joining the commentary team and promising that Booker will be a dead man by the time this is over. After the initial brawl things settle down. Bagwell starts danc…

Evan Karagias is seconding Shannon as they recap his turn on Jamie Noble and the reuniting of two-thirds of 3 Count. Shane has got some new music, although it’s not yet ‘Vertebreaker’. While his victory at Superbrawl is being recapped, Shannon gets the jump on him. He climbs the turnbuckles to rain down some punches but Shannon picks him up and comes running out with a Liger bomb. Scott Hudson, who is fast turning into WCW’s version of Joey Styles with all these names he makes up for moves, calls that the Sugar bomb. Helms slugs Shannon to the floor, however as he chases him around ringside and back into the ring, when he tries to slide in himself Karagias grabs him …

The new World champion, The Rock, is out, the man who’s now scheduled to go to Wrestlemania on April 1st where he will defend that title against ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. Rock says the way that Kurt Angle brought it to him last night, the way he kicked out of the People’s elbow, the way he almost snapped his ankle, he can respect that. After he beat him though he saw the other side of his personality, the person who cries, complains and moans. He beat him for the World title and he’s the person going on to Wrestlemania but if Kurt Angle wants to bitch and moan why doesn’t he come out and bitch to The Rock? It’s not Kurt Angle coming out, it’s ‘Stone Cold’ himself. A…