April 2001

Talk about it here.

Short and sweet hate-fueled action backed by a hot Budokan crowd. Ogawa wants Misawa but Rikio says "you gotta get through me" so Ogawa takes in Murakami, who goes nutzo on Rikio with punches. When Misawa gets the tag, he starts popping Murakami with elbows and the fans are losing it. Ogawa comes in but Misawa tags out, building the anticipation for their first exchange, and boy does Rikio piss off Ogawa. Ogawa straight up punches him in the face a bunch, hits a judo throw and when he gets into the front mount, Misawa comes in and elbows him off. The Misawa/Ogawa interactions were a bit of a letdown but in an awesome moment, Ogawa has Misawa in a front mount, tap-tapping …

Nothing I love more then a inter promotional Japanese brawl. Team NOAH is undermanned and are awesome fighting from below. Serious Inoue is great, he is such a shlub, and I love it when he steps it up and goes to war. The Yasuda experiment was a pretty huge turn of the century failure, but this was his crowning achievement, he is a great bully smacking around Inoue with sumo thrusts and chucking him to the ground. In one of the cooler moments Yasuda has Inoue mounted and Honda runs in and chucks him with his awesome german suplex. Finish was totally boss, Hashimoto is a serial killer in this, he comes in a demolishes Inoue with these brutal looking over hand chops, they h…

Shibata's been wrestling for less than 2 years at this point and Minoru is a day away from defending the jr. title against Murahama. Decent match with a fun little finishing stretch. Shibata shows off what submission holds he knows early on before Minoru snaps him over with a suplex and starts working the arm. He lays into him with stiff kicks and Shibata shows off that classic tenacity, asking for more. Shibata's still rough around the edges but toward the end, he gets a nice transition from the kneebar into the STF. The finish was cool asMinoru re-applies the kneebar after a swanky takedown and keeps pulling Shibata away from the ropes until he taps out.

The match has been set up by Commissioner Regal, his idea of punishment for the four due to all the ongoing issues he’s been having with them. Just as things are about to get underway they’re interrupted by the Commissioner along with Kurt Angle. He has a couple of announcements. First of all he tells Chris Jericho that he will be facing him in a ‘Duchess of Queensbury Rules’ match at Backlash, the rules of which he will explain at a later date, while Chris Benoit will meet Kurt Angle in a 30 minute Ultimate Submission match, where the man who gets the most submissions in thirty minutes win. The two teams pair off, ‘the Crippler’ and Bubba taking it to the floor while…

A rare singles match for Grandmaster Sexay who has been teaming with Steve Blackman recently, doing an “odd couple” tag team. The Grandmaster starts dancing and Eddy immediately takes advantage. Eddy kicks out of the cover after a DDT and then rolls to the outside. Baseball slide dropkick. Bloody hell, GMS with a bulldog onto the steel rampway. The European champion ducks out the way of the flying crossbody but is soon once again on the defensive as he takes his customary bump into the top turnbuckle. Enzuigiri. Eddy kicks the Grandmaster off as he goes for a spinning toe hold, sending him crashing into the ring post. Belly to back. He takes way too long climbing…

Kane and the Undertaker are walking backstage looking for the Commissioner’s Office, Taker telling Kane to hang tight as they’re going to get themselves some payback. They reach his office and Regal wonders how he can help them? Taker swipes the tea and crumpets off his desk before grabbing him around the throat. He says that just got set up and somebody owes them an explanation. He wants Steve Austin & Triple H and once they’ve gone through them they’re going after Edge, Christian and Rhyno. Regal let’s him know that he’s not inclined to grant their request as he doesn’t have to do anything they say. Kane sets a few things in his office on fire and that was…

A very smartly dressed Commissioner is opening proceedings on tonight’s Smackdown. He says “hello” to all his good friends in Nashville, although judging by their response he doesn’t have many. First piece of business he has involved the Brothers of Destruction and he calls them out to the ring to join him. When they do the Commissioner wonders what on earth they were playing at Monday night on Raw? Attacking ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and Triple H as they were celebrating their victory! He let’s them know that that will not be tolerated, that you should not interfere in other people’s matches and suggest they stay away from Austin and HHH. Regal thinks that Kane loo…

This only ran for about 13 minutes on TV but what a glorious 13 minutes. I mean look at these match-ups -- Fuerza Guerrera vs. Villano IV, Atlantis vs. Blue Panther and Villano III vs. El Signo. I'd be excited for a trios match with any of those match-ups let alone all three in the same bout. I have a hunch, an inkling, and a vague recollection that this leads to a Villano/Signo program, which is very good news for me but a step down from the main event picture that Villano has been involved in since unmasking. Not to worry, CMLL need something to reboot with after the huge payoffs on the March PPV and Villano vs. SIgno is right up my alley.

This was unspectacular. Casas was quiet. I saw this as an opportunity for him to do something brilliant but he didn't have it. The only interesting thing this threw at us was Rayo vs. Ultimo and it was mostly stooging.

Oh god, Rob Feinstein is actually on commentary. Ick. He's a running stream of terrible jokes. The announcers completely ignore the match to talk shoot interviews while Low Ki clubs the shit out of Elax. Elax works the leg and Low Ki does a nice job selling it (it prevents him from doing Tidal Crush), but Ki is too strong and this is close to a squash for him. The match works as a nice sample of Ki's stiffness. Ki wins with a knockout forearm strike, which was a nicely surprising finish.

Leatherface demonstrates his prowess at handling a chainsaw which, despite the sound obviously being piped in over the PA, doesn’t appear to be gimmicked as it makes a cut into a piece of wood. Beautiful is sensibly keeping his distance on the arena floor, but is already getting “faggot” chants, while another loud voice tells him to “get in the ring you queer”. When he does get in, Leatherface drops him with a chop to the chest and stiffs him with palm strikes to the side of the head. Snap mare followed by a series of hard kicks to the back. That gets the approval of someone in the crowd who yells “kick the faggot’s ass!” He throws Peter B. to the outside where he bu…

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znbz6HUNbss

Their previous matches were quick tournament finals, with Ayako as a huge underdog. Now, Ayako is the champion and they have their sights set on „epic“. Largely this match was pretty great, but there are some flaws. Yoshida dominating Ayako with submissions and punch combos still works perfectly, and these two still mesh really well. I thought Ayako's selling was great, and the spot that set up her dominance was both brutal and really smart. All of Ayako's stuff was extremely sharp and well timed. However, I expected a little smarter work from Yoshida in the last third of the match. Her selling was pretty spotty and she could've picked her offense a little better as the m…

J-Train being the future Julius Smokes. Stiff running forearm smash in the corner by Homicide, Train’s selling of that being something else. He reverses the whip to the opposite corner and lands a monkey flip followed by a pair of dropkicks as Cide rolls to the floor to grab a word with his manager, Johnny D. Train follows him out, Cide launching a chair full force at his face. Back in the ring, a running shoulder tackle and Train starts convulsing like he’s having some sort of seizure. He no sells a Cide chop and then lays in some stingers of his own. Homicide takes another trip to the outside, J-Train on his tail again, although it’s Train who ends up being whippe…

I’m getting a very Power House Pro Wrestling meets the Long Island Wrestling Federation vibe about PCW. A huge ovation for Kalifornia, the clear fan favourite here. Vick steps out the way of the charge and gives Maxx a helping hand to the outside. He follows him out, collecting a Stop sign which he uses as a weapon. Back inside Vick makes a cover, Maxx pressing him off with authority as Vick lands on the referee. There’s a complete miscommunication at one point as they appear to be on different pages. Vick with a DDT following a fair bit of uninspired offense on his part. Maxx connects on a spinning heel kick and I’m wondering if everyone here is his legit friend b…

There’s some distortion on the sound so there is no chance of being able to identify the individual wrestlers in each team. This is a PCW tag team title match though, Los Guapos the current champions. It looks like one of the Guapos feigns a lost contact lens at one point, getting the ref to help him look for it while his partner gets some cheap shots in behind his back. That was original at least. Despite the Guapos being the champions they’re working together with Real Hott against the Wild Ones. The rules to this match have not been explained. If it’s first pin and the titles can change hands that way, not a bad game plan for Real Hott, targeting one specific per…

There has been an ongoing ‘Best of Three’ series between these two, this ‘I Quit’ the final match in the trilogy. I was hoping Terrance might have been a long lost cousin of Timmy & Tommy from the WWF’s infamous Toxic Turtles gimmick, he is not, and in fact looks like a child, wrestling in shirt, tie and slacks. The Turtle is accompanied by his valet/girlfriend and is clearly punching above his weight. Wallace catches me off guard with a cool looking submission that the Turtle reverses into a single leg crab. It looks like he tries for a cross armbar but the unfortunate position of the camera means that they’re practically obscured by the ring post. Full Boston c…

Rising Son blows the green mist leading Larry Rivera to make comparisons to Kendo Nagasaki, Great Kabuki and the Great Muta. Excalibur is out seconding Super Dragon. Rivera has to tell his co-commentator to shut up when he starts talking about Excalibur being a masked Kevin Kleinrock and that they should concentrate on the match. Good on you Larry! Wow, Rivera calls the Magistral cradle a Dandina, which I’ve not heard anyone call it in a long time. Nice surfboard dropped into a Dragon sleeper. Revolution Pro gets a mention. Son flips over on the belly to back and dropkicks Dragon in the back as he ends up draped over the middle rope. Excalibur knew the 619 was com…

This was quite the good trios match. In the first fall, everyone hits the mat and we get some nice lucha grappling. I especially enjoy Villano IV on the mat as he is such a beast. There were also some fun Pantera flying moves against both the Diluvios. The last two falls have some bad ol' brawling with Panther going after Villano III. It is that special kind of poetry you only get in lucha that years after being such a dick to VIII Panther would lose his mask to his brother. Panther rips III's forehead open with his bare fingers and then digs his fingers into his eyes, really grueling stuff. The third fall has awesome Villano punch combos and dives. Not a mindblowing clas…

Jim Ross reminds everyone that these two teams will face off in individual matches at Backlash, although he’s still none the wiser as to what this ‘Duchess of Queensbury Rules’ match between William Regal and Chris Jericho entails. Paul Heyman says it is the most dangerous match in the history of European wrestling, however when pressed further can’t offer anything more! Y2J hasn’t been informed of the rules yet either, but doubts there is no-one who knows more about duchesses and queens than William Regal! The opening moments see the spare man breaking up the opposition’s submission attempts. Regal with a nice roll out of the Jericho armbar as he looks to transition …

Just as I’m writing ‘so much for Raven getting a European title match after his pin over Eddy on last week’s Raw,’ JR says how he will be facing him at Backlash for the belt. That’s a pretty big deal for Raven, although something must happen in the intervening days as he ends up facing Rhyno for the Hardcore title instead. We get a recap from last night’s Heat where Eddy’s interference cost him the match against Saturn. It’s all the face trio until Eddy’s distraction of the referee allows Saturn to clothesline the Grandmaster across the top rope. Combination drop toe hold/baseball slide. Saturn with a gut wrench, putting GMS over his shoulder and running him into the…

Spike has D-Von and Bubba with him, the two taking a seat next to JR and Paul Heyman at the commentary desk. After Rhyno makes his entrance X-Factor, who the Dudleys are facing at Backlash, show up at the top of the entrance way. Spike dropkicks Rhyno through the ropes to the outside and then nails him with a plancha from the top turnbuckle. He collects some weapons from under the ring but as climbs back inside Rhyno kicks a trash can lid into his face. Rhyno goes for the gore however Spike grabs that lid and swings it into his head. X-Factor start to slowly walk down the rampway leading to the Dudleys leaving their position at the desk to cut them off. Spike hits t…

We get a recap of what happened on Smackdown before seeing a clip of Vince McMahon in the dressing room with Steve Austin and Triple H, which I’m guessing has to have aired on Heat. He informs them that as per the pre-match stipulations, with Kane & the Undertaker defeating Edge & Christian and becoming the new World tag team champions, it means they will now face the two of them (Austin & HHH) at Backlash. ‘Stone Cold’s’ not too bothered by that, saying how they want to be tag team champs anyway, however Mr McMahon says that he had to do some negotiations with Linda, not only will the World tag team titles be on the line, but now so will Triple H’s Intercon…

The Commissioner is in his wrestling gear as opposed to his suit. Tazz and Michael Cole are still clueless when it comes to these ‘Duchess of Queensbury rules’ that are in place for Backlash. We’re getting a rematch from Raw to open up Smackdown which is a bit strange considering how comfortable a victory that was for Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho on Monday. Regal says that this bout will be fought under the very prestigious ‘Duchess of Queensbury Tag Team rules’, Cole thinking that may finally give them an insight as to what they are. The match at first follows a similar vain to their Raw one with submissions being broken up, the Regal and Benoit stuff leading up …