April 2001

What a bizarre show, on the same card that featured Gillberg vs Bob Backlund we get Balls Mahoney vs The Sandman in a Stairway to Hell match. There’s something pretty sad about Balls doing his crowd participation stuff when there are more empty chairs than there are people in attendance. The Sandman’s entrance goes four and a half minutes and that doesn’t even include a very noticeable jump on the video. We then get another minute and a half of unclear mic work from him before he and Balls have a pre-match hug. Some barbed wire is hung from the ceiling, which they either have to retrieve to win or can retrieve to you use against their opponent. One Singapore cane sh…

All three make their entrance together which doesn’t sit right with me. Ah, while they knew they were coming to wrestle to CZW tonight, it’s played that they didn’t know they would be wrestling each other. That’s not that bad then. This is fast paced and I’m not even going to try to do a detailed review of all the action. We get a three way stand-off after each throws a dropkick at the same time. As well as the highly choreographed feel to this, think the opening to a Ric Blade match and then some, it’s fairly sloppy too. Satellite headscissors into a tornado DDT by Red. A Jose headscissors sends Red to the outside and he then wipes him out with a lovely Asai moons…

Despite all he’s achieved in ECW, according to John House Little Guido still has to prove himself in the Combat Zone. Guido claims CZW has been calling him for months begging for him to come down and wrestle for them. House and Gargiulo aren’t buying that, believing that they don’t need him. Guido hasn’t been impressed with what he’s seen; a bunch of no talented bitches in the dressing room and fans with half a brain between all of them. Haha, for all his pre-match words Guido is straight at it playing chicken shit, slapping Berk across the face and then running to the floor out of his way. They work the mat and Berk holds his own on that front, even looking for an a…

Due to something that happened earlier in the show, the H8 Club have just five minutes to defeat the CZW World tag team champions, Nick Gage & Nate Hatred, if they are unable to do so then Zandig & Jun Kasai get added to the match. Another CZW show and Hatred still getting a ton of shit from the fans. The work here is way faster than you would imagine, John House reminding everyone that they only have five minutes, well they don’t but I get what he’s saying, and both teams are looking to get this over with before the arrival of Zandig & Kasai. Gage chokeslams Pain across his own knee. Tilt-a-whirl face first slam by Hatred. Northern Lights suplex. A High…

Trent stalls and then plays to the fans, which was an attempt at getting the jump on Ruckus, but he was ready and expecting it. He gets dumped onto the apron and a dropkick to the legs take the legs out from under him as he falls to the floor. Space Flying Tiger Drop! Handspring round off on the concrete, that one having the incredibly lame name of Sweet. Z-Barr, who Gargiulo and House have taken to calling Britney, gets taken out when he tries to interfere. The Razzle Dazzle to Trent and a big splash for Barr. It feels like I’m watching a Gymnastics routine with all of these flips and tumbles. Tornado DDT gets a two count. Ruckus telegraphs the backdrop and Trent…

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The stuff between Jaguar and Briggs is much better than the Naphtali and Akki exchanges that preceded it. Briggs grabs Jet in a seated abdominal stretch, opening him up for a Naphtali kick to the mid-section. Naphtali runs up the turnbuckles to see if it’s possibly to leap from the top and grab the belt that is being hung from the ceiling. It isn’t. And when he drops down to the mat is met by a Jaguar clothesline. Briggs enters to help his partner out, at which point I notice there isn’t a referee as no-one is trying to get him back out to the apron. As the two double team Jet, Akki watches on. Oh dear, it looks like they forgot to explain the rules to everyone as …

Title vs Title match, Scoot the Light Heavyweight champion facing off against Sullivan, the IPW World champion. Just as I was in the process of writing some very nice chain wrestling, they end things with a stand-off. Jeez, does everything have to end that was in the early 2000s? Sullivan gets a cheap shot in on the break but is dropkicked as he jumps to the top turnbuckle. Modified Assault Driver by Scoot. After being pancaked to the mat and taking his second two count of the match, Sullivan rolls to the outside to gather his thoughts. Scoot leans over to grab him but Sullivan snaps his neck across the top rope. Some nice heeling from him, putting his knee ac…

As in WWF Spanish announcer Hugo Savinovich! Hugo, who is wearing a WWF Attitude T-shirt, introduces Kane to a huge ovation. Video quality is fine for the close up camera work, but is pretty rough when we switch to the hard cam at the back of the building as the wrestlers blur into the fans. Kane stalks Chicky and Victor around ringside and into the ring where Hugo is able to get in a few shots before they take over. The heels get the heat on him with Kane making occasional forays into the ring to stop the attack and help his partner out. Hugo pulling out a surfboard after one such occasion is one of the more surreal things of the year. He can never maintain the adv…

The Kliq are in the dressing room where Spanky says how they’ve had a lot of problems recently so he’s calling a meeting in the ring right now. David Jett introduces the remaining members of the Kliq, Jason Sensation nowhere to be seen having “gone missing”. I hope that is code for he’s been canned. Spanky reiterates that they’ve been having a lot of problems within the group, however when he talks about a bigger problem in their manager being gone, neither Shooter Schultz nor the American Dragon are too bothered by the fact. Shooter thinks that they’re better off without him while Dragon is more concerned about his upcoming match with William Regal. That irks Sc…

Golden jumps Onyx from behind as he’s greeting the fans on his entrance. Onyx is paying the price for getting on the wrong side of Jeff G. Bailey, someone who is already in a “salty” mood due to Al Getz being back on the scene. A dropkick sends Golden the floor where he looks to get some advice, and possibly a new game plan, from Jeff G. He drags Onyx out with him, however Onyx ducks his shots, slugs Bailey and then gives the pair a noggin knocker. As they return to the ring Onyx telegraphs a backdrop and Golden lands an elbow to the back of the neck. Did we ever find out if he was related to the Welch/Fuller/Golden family? The commentators are back at it with that …

Robbie Rage is the former one half of High Voltage, while Omen was under a WCW developmental contract, although never made television. Both are physical specimens. The match is for Rage’s Television title. It’s noted that Rage has just come back from a tour of New Japan where he teamed with Don Frye and to put over his “shoot” pedigree they talk of him making UFC champion Randy Couture tap out twice, even if it wasn’t in competition! Rage with a nice leg scissors takedown into a kneebar that forces Omen to go to the ropes early. Spinning leg trip by Omen. He then does that same leg scissors into a kneebar that Rage did on him. A great overhead belly to belly from t…

In case anyone hasn’t been paying attention, Shawn Hernandez is better known as Hotstuff Hernandez. He really didn’t get to display what he’s capable of here, one leap frog being it on the agility front, although he did go up for a couple of suplexes. Haku sold nothing for him, even on Hernandez’s comeback where he backed Haku into the corner and unloaded with chop after chop followed by forearm smash after forearm smash, it was more about showing how much Haku can take and that someone like Hernandez, as physically impressive as he may look, is no match for him. Finish comes via Tongan Death grip.

William Regal is on guest commentary with Tazz and Michael Cole. Not sure if he’s been at WWF New York with them throughout the show or whether he’s just shown up for his match. The Commissioner is very happy that Eddy Guerrero is the European champion, a man who brings pride and honour to the belt, unlike Test, who has a face he says he would never tire of hitting! Eddy escapes the military press but gets caught with a rapid tilt-a-whirl slam. He launches him skywards, the champion coming down chest first to the mat. Gut wrench powerbomb. Test is running through his impact moves early here. A drop toe hold seemingly stops his momentum. Cole wants to know if the C…

IWGP Champion Scott Norton vs Kazuyuki Fujita - NJPW Osaka Dome 4/9/01 On April 9, 2001, Inokiism went into full effect and didnt end until Inoki was ousted in 2006. Clearly Naoya Ogawa was the original Inokiist experiment, but I feel like it was only when Fujita won the title they went full bore. After going 6-1 at PRIDE with victories over Ken Shamrock and his only loss to Mark Coleman, Fujita was brought back to New Japan in grand fashion to win the IWGP Championship after never making it past the midcard in the late 90s. Interestingly, Fujita came out with a title belt I did not recognize. Norton defeated Kensuke Sasaki for the title and was clearly a transitiona…

I remember hearing about this match, I think I read an old article from SSS Stuart which depicted it as a disaster and shit on the booking and the Inokiism in it. Luckily I'm way too into absurdism to care about who wins in pro wrestling (especially in a fifteen year old match) and the way it was described really made me want to see it. Honestly this might be the best Hashimoto-Kensuke Sasaki match. I'm not sure how many matches they've had against each other but of the top off my head I can think of a Hash IWGP Title defence vs. Power Warrior, one in the Dome and a G1 match and I would have this one above all of them. It's billed as a "no rules deathmatch", that doesn't …

There is literally only a minute of this available online, recorded from the live Satellite feed. It’s the sort of thing you would hope would show up on the WWE Network at some point down the line in a Daniel Bryan career retrospective as, according to the HistoryofWWE, it’s only his second ever WWE match (the first being the tag team dark match from February 2000 which saw him, Spanky, Shooter Schultz and Lance Cade all get signed). Jerry Lynn at this point hasn’t made TV yet and has just been working house show and the Wrestlemania Fan Axxess event. Dragon floats over on the suplex and catches Lynn with that cool Northern Lights suplex where he hooks his opponent’s l…

Jonathan Coachman has been summoned to Commissioner Regal’s office. He tells him that he’s quite concerned about this new found mutual respect that Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho have for each other so thinks it’s about time that we see the next classic encounter in their rivalry and wants ‘the Coach’ to go and inform them that they will be facing each other later on this evening. Benoit and Jericho are in the ring when it’s noticed that there is no referee. Ah, here he comes, the Commissioner himself. Regal says that having made this match for his friends, the fans, he thinks he’s the only person who has the honour and dignity to officiate such an epic battle! T…

We get a recap of last week’s Raw, where Rhyno gored Crash and then Molly out of their boots. That has led to this handicap match which I can’t see ending any differently. Crash lasts a shade longer and does pick up a couple of near falls, off a huracanrana and a running crossbody, however the outcome is the same, going down to the gore after missing a clothesline. He worked the whole match for his team, Molly’s only involvement being slapping Rhyno from the apron. She jumps on his back post-match but he flips her over. As he sets himself for the gore, Hardcore Bob sprints out and gets between the two, flooring Rhyno who rolls to the floor. Hardcore isn’t the most e…

This was decided after Lita congratulating Linda on declaring her intentions of divorcing Mr McMahon - in a long tedious promo, I might add - and he was understandably mad at this so this was made as punishment. And since one isn’t a wrestler, it’s not much of a punishment. HHH and Austin are above the Hardys in levels but it’s still a great opportunity for them to beat the WWF and IC champs. What an odd punishment. Jeff Hardy thought so as well. The match itself was solid. The Hardys put up a great fight despite being out-matched. The Hardys and Lita pull off some big dives, something that HHH and Austin can’t really counter which gives them a small edge. Plus Stephanie …

This was light entertainment but I enjoyed it. It was a lot more clever and humourous than Monterrey dick jokes. The highlight was the chemistry between Shocker and Porky but we also got flashes of Shocker vs. Atlantis, and boy do I wish they'd pull the trigger on that. Atlantis is having a great year. In fact, I'd argue that he's having a better year than 2000. I didn't love the build to the Villano mask match, and after the match they gave a big push to Villano while Atlantis went back to doing nothing. I often wonder how our perception of lucha workers would be different if they worked singles matches on a regular basis. There's a number of match-ups I've love to see A…

This was a heck of a match. To have a match this good at Arena Coliseo was impressive, and a match with Tinieblas Jr to boot! This can only be described as "the Panther effect." In fact, it was so good that the folks who put together the TV show decided to run it wit hit and air it uninterrupted. It was basically a transplanted Arena Mexico match both in size and momentum swings. It felt bigger than a regular Coliseo match. Panther, Warrior and Violencia were slick. It doesn't matter who Panther fronts up with in 2001, when he's in a trios match he runs a tight ship. I'm not sure if TInieblas was meant to be in this match originally. It felt like there was a late scratch …

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I watched a lot of indies around this time and have no recollection of Powers and Giovanni. They introduce a manager who is... goddammit, Rob Feinstein's homophobic character. The ECW guys come out and there's a lot of bad "comedy" revolving around the sexual orientation of the heels. The heels get control on Whipwreck, and the heat segment is dull but competent. Hot tag and a ref bump leads to Mikey getting the Whippersnapper and then attacked by someone who looks Sgt Slaughter's much less talented child. The heels double team Corino while Feinstein is attacked by a large woman in face paint. Jack Victory and Lou E Dangerously come out and Jack turns on Corino. Cor…

Commissioner Regal is still trying to get some revenge on Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho and is really stacking the odds against them tonight in yet another handicap match. They open up strong, managing to clear the ring and isolate Edge. Belly to back suplex, Lionsault, diving headbutt, but Christian is in to break up the pin. Christian with what starts out as a reverse DDT only to drop ‘the Crippler’ across his own knee. The heels are utilising some quick tags so as not to let any of their team tire. Benoit counters a reverse DDT with a release Northern Lights suplex and hot tags Jericho, Y2J nailing everyone so he’s left all alone with Kurt Angle. Kurt ducks the …