June 2001

A brawling trios between these teams? Count me in. I had forgotten that El Signo was a replacement for Wagner in the Panther & Warrior trio. Watching Signo have this late run is a blast. The focal point, however, is Panther's chemistry with the Villanos. I would have loved to have seen a Panther vs. Villano III match from around this time. Part of the fun of being a lucha fan is discovering matches where your favorites wrestled each other, but even more fun are the daydreams.

A lovely delayed suplex by Candido. Inoue reverses the whip to the corner and hiptosses Candido as he comes out. He goes for a leapfrog but is caught and powerbombed to the mat. Candido looks for another powerbomb, however Inoue counters the attempt with a huracanrana. A dropkick sends Candido to the outside where he’s nailed by an Inoue tope. Back in the ring Inoue with a cool looking backdrop suplex. He goes upstairs but gets his legs swiped out from under him. Candido lands the suicideplex and then hits a diving headbutt for a nearfall. Respectful applause from the crowd for Inoue kicking out of that. He’s back looking for the powerbomb, Inoue at first dead we…

About 5 of 10 minutes aired. Acute Sae was a talented girl who could grapple and retired a year later. There wasn't much grappling here as the match was basically pro style and a showcase for both girls offense. Both have really good offense, Sae hit some judo throws, flying armbars and worked over Ran with nasty double stomps. Ran was her usual self hitting extraordinarily stiff kicks and elbows. Fun little clip.

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izCpikAYbo8&feature=youtu.be

Super fun 7 minute undercard match full of slick mat scrambles and stiff blows. Super Rider sucks when he's doing pro style, but he looks really good doing straight shootstyle exchanges. His submissions are a bit different to what the BattlARTS crew usually does and it makes for a fun contrast. All of his submission counters were great. Ono was of course fantastic demolishing him with slick strikes. He also did some crazy sharp, brief work on the leg. It makes me sad though that a wrestler as good as Ono was jobbing like this to a no name outsider in 2001.

Will use the final from the 2001 KOTDM to encapsulate the tournament as a whole. So far in 2000-2001, IWA has felt really regionalized. Sweet Science 2000 is an event that looks neat in retrospect because it started something but in actuality, it was in a parking lot with wacky seeding and almost all local talent. This event feels different and really encompasses the strengths/weaknesses of IWA MS at the time. = This is IWA MS biggest and most rowdy crowd. Sure it isn't thousands but the arena they were inside of at Charlestown, Indiana had character on these shows and it is a testament that the crowd is still rabid and hot at the end of this match chanting IWA af…

Held outdoors and judging by the background this looks to be the same venue as that crazy Zandig & Gage vs Matsunaga & Kasai Big Japan tag from August last year. Zandig starts with some bad looking armdrags which seemed to surprise Dahmer who says “What the hell was that?” I didn’t expect this to be a wrestling orientated match but it is at the moment. Dahmer backdrops Zandig over the top to the outside, although he soon joins him, pulled to the floor. They go on a lengthy walk and this looks preposterous, there’s no fight from Dahmer, he’s just walking next to Zandig. Agh, they’re back at the CZW truck, Dahmer reversing the whip and sending Zandig flying int…

Okay, so I think Satanico has officially renamed Rencor Latino as Averno in one of those cheesy vignettes, while Ultimo Guerrero has recruited Mascara Magica to sub for the injured Tarzan Boy. The additions of Averno and Magica seem to light a fire under this feud. The action is more intense than in recent weeks, and we finally get back to something resembling the feud at its best.

IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuyuki Fujita vs Yuji Nagata - NJPW 6/6/01 I love asshole shooters in pro wrestling. On paper, Fujita should be my favorite wrestler ever. Loved him in the Tanahashi match, but I have really never found a really great Fujita match. Again this disappointed. It just did not have that energy you get usually when a shooter is in the ring. It just felt like a very decent MMA match. I liked Nagata getting the early back drop driver and Fujita hitting an uppercut to the abdomen so he could take a breather, but then it was back to the clinch again and again. Lots of blocked shots. Lots of choke, cross armbreaker attempts. I liked Nagata countering …

This match was a lot of fun, primarily because of Fuchi. This thing starts off with Fuchi hitting a backdrop and Samurai flying around before it settles into some classic Fuchi matwork. Loved him scooting across the mat with Samurai stuck in the headscissors and of course, the wishbone leg split. Samurai rubbing forearms while he's got Fuchi in the clutch is a old-school heel shenanigans, which I enjoy, but then Fuchi shuts him down after like seven backdrops.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This was pretty fun but nothing blow away. The exchanges between Kakihara and Nagata were the obvious highlights. They work over Makabe for awhile, who throws his weight around just find against the shooters. When Kakihara tries for the shotei, Nagata counters with the Exploder. There are stereo submissions by both sides, and a bunch of suplexes toward the end, with Makabe hitting rolling Germans for a pretty great nearfall. After a double muscle buster, Nagai finishes off Makabe with the sprinboard knee.

CZW has never been on my radar screen as something worth checking out, but Jetlag picked this match for me as part of the Secret Santo project. From a presentation standpoint, pretty much everything about this screams "poor man's ECW." Even the play-by-play guy is a dollar store version of Joey Styles. I will say that the venue is appropriately seedy. There's a chain-link fence in the background that makes it seem like they're competing in the Andore cage fight level in Final Fight. The match itself can be broken up into three sections. The opening minutes consist of lucha-esque exchanges where the goal is flashy oneupmanship rather than seriously working for a pin or…

Another match that I will use to discuss the promotion/show in whole. This top to bottom was CZW's best show of 2001. It was tight at 1 hour 50 minutes, didn't have Ric Blade and had a good mixture of techincal wrestling (Fujita/Youth), highspots (SAT vs Divine/Storm/XL matches) and hardcore stuff (Pondo vs Mondo vs WIfebeater and this match). Beyond that, it featured some cool guys that show promise that you don't see on other indies like Ruckus. This match was a feel good moment as Zandig has been booked strong so seeing him tap here to Justice Pain felt rewarding. Backseat Boys being split up is in parallel with WWE starting to split Edge and Christian and both fee…

The match comes from IWA-PR’s TV which appears to have the name Impacto Total and I was lucky to be able to date through prwrestling.com on the Wayback machine. Pete Gas has moved on from Memphis to Puerto Rico, something I doubt he’s was overly joyed by. Madness’ second trips Gas from the outside and as he reaches through the ropes to grab him Madness nails him from behind. He throws him through the ropes to the floor where the second starts putting the boots in. That brings out Chaz Warrington and some other chap who run him off. Back in the ring Gas quickly starts firing back, lands a bodyslam and hits the Gas Mask for the win in approximately two and a half minut…

Steve Austin is on commentary and he's the best worker here. That's saying a lot when you've also got two of the greatest pure wrestlers throwing themselves off cages. Austin has settled into his heel character perfectly. He's picking arguments with his former friend Jim Ross, while Paul Heyman brown noses him. Benoit and Angle effortlessly blend their pure wrestling with steel cage brawling. They can suplex you, but they are also not afraid to launch you head first into the steel mesh. Angle famously misses a moonsault from the top of the cage, and it's still as insane of a bump as it was in 2001. Austin eventually gets involved and costs Benoit the match. This serv…

This is a revancha from the previous week. Mascara Magica comes to the ring wearing Road Warrior shoulder pads. Is he getting a bit cocky? The beating he takes would suggest so. Again, this felt like Averno and Magica added a new element to a bit of a tired feud. I was surprised when the bout came down to Satanico vs. Ultimo, mano a mano, and I popped for the finish. The feud hasn't made me excited in a while. The injection of two new players seems to have helped.

Could this have been any more boring if they'd tried? This was the Best of the Super Juniors yusho between the reigning IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion and the Juniors legend who had skipped the previous year's tournament and was undefeated in his return tournament. It should have been off the charts. Instead, it was a borefest. And I'm not just talking about the part they'd usually clip. The entire thing was boring. This has to go down as one of the biggest disappointments of 2001 thus far.

That is some gut on the chap refereeing this. It looks like there are stipulations in place as there are light tubes on the apron and a barbed wire covered table at ringside. They’re not hanging around or teasing much here, for after a few air shots with those light tubes, Wifebeater backdrops Zandig out onto the apron and breaks a light tube over him. Zandig responds with a shot of his own, he then suplexes Beater from inside the ring dropping him through the barbed wire covered table. Beater is already bleeding as Zandig digs some broken glass into his forehead. Back inside Beater catches Zandig with a powerslam followed by a punch to the nuts. Zandig avoids the m…

Shinya Hashimoto vs Tom Howard - Zero-One 6/14/03 After using Misawa on his first two big shows, Hashimoto taps Tom Howard for the main event of his third big show and they do 8000+ in Osaka. Tom Howard, Tom Howard, Tom Howard. Where have I heard that name before? Oh that’s the right he’s the UPW guy who trained John Cena among others. He was better than I expected. He kinda felt like a fake Kung Fu guy like Seagal or what have you but he was actually pretty good in the ring. Unfortunately his look is pretty normal and he doesn’t have much in the way of charisma. Of course Hashimoto has charisma out the yin Yang. Hashimoto went to So Cal to debut one of his Japanese …

A well done, aggressive sprint with the ferocious striking prowess of Murakami vs. the pro wrestling smarts and skill of Ohtani. Ohtani momentarily deviating from his pro-style game plan near the end cost him dearly as it opened the door for the KO. ***1/2

Fujiwara is a Gotch-trained judo black belt and a total badass, but he’s totally outmatched as a 52 year old trying to fight a 193cm/6’3 115kg judo world champion in his prime. He blindisghts Ogawa-but it doesn’t really work, even in his second step of trying to take Ogawa down he already meets a barrier he can’t destroy in Ogawa’s guard. Fujiwara’s only real chance of winning this is by a flash submission, as his catch training gives him an edge over Ogawa in that regard. Ogawa smartly uses the size advantage he has to control Fujiwara on the mat, while Fujiwara in turn desperately tries to counter Ogawa’s guards or grab a knee once Ogawa presses it against his face or g…

It didn't take Silver King long to be repackaged as Black Tiger. I thought he was going to be a Guapo when he made his debut. Now he's wearing lipstick and a mask and pretending to be a Japanese wrestler who can't speak Spanish well. Vampiro was wearing a corset. It was weird. The match was hot. It was no-nonsense, all-action stuff. No slow, meandering rudo falls. They went straight at it, and Black Tiger vs. Wagner emerged as something I definitely need to keep track of. Atlantis gets absolutely drilled by Wagner's Michinoku Driver and has been stretchered out.

This was a fun match. It would have been better in IWRG, but I liked the throwback ending with Villano throwing a row of chairs at Signo and the match being thrown out. That could have been the ending to any Arena Mexico mano a mano contest from 1980-89.