June 2001

No sound on this match for me, which was uploaded to YouTube by Scoot Andrews himself. This looks to be raw footage as there is a clock counter running at the bottom of the screen. Not sure why these two are doing a “tryout match” considering how WWF has used both as enhancement talent in the past and are clearly very well aware of them. Things start out slow as they do some basic wrestling working around a wristlock and a side headlock. Scoot ducks out the way of the Lionsault, however Daniels is able to readjust in mid-air and land on his feet. He mockingly claps Scoot, offers him his hand, but as he is about to accept, slaps him around the face. After ‘the BNB’ t…

Hey, it's a small show NOAH tag that isn't a total disappointment. I was hesitant to check this out as the 6-mans I've seen from this period have tended to settle into rote work. I guess it's the 8-mans that they were trying to get over as the main build-up match format as everyone put in a lot of effort here. Just non-stop action with enough hierarchy play to stop it from feeling like a spotfest. Marufuji and Kanemaru are probably at their best here, just playing the roles of token spot monkeys delivering on well-executed and fast paced juniors exchanges, with no pretentions about being anything more than that. Both teams have fun during their control segments and the fi…

This picked up where they left off the week before. Wagner and Tiger have different partners but the action is the same. Sadly, I don't think leads anywhere except for a few weeks of hot trios matches, but at least it breathed some fresh air into the CMLL footage.

Not sure if I labeled this match correctly (or even if one needs permission to post a match), but I was really curious what other people thought of this one. Plenty to touch on, but as I just watched this again after a couple years, some thoughts sprung to mind - 1. Both guys are ostensibly heels (?) as Shane is the "evil WCW" owner and Angle is a cocky jerk, but Shane obviously has much of the crowd support in the match (and in the build). This doesn't really hurt the match for me as ANY McMahon bout is really just about watching an untrained rich guy get mercilessly destroyed by a member of the roster and, with Shane, few did it better. The bumps he takes, particularl…

Steve Austin defends the WWF World Heavyweight Title Triple threat matches aren't my thing, but I felt like I had to see this one through to the end. There was a weird angle heading into the match with Austin growing increasingly paranoid. Vince was starting to get creeped out and gave him an ultimatum that he had to retain the title at KOTR or their partnership was through. There was no real payoff to the angle since Vince never showed up at the pay-per-view. Instead, this was a messy transition from the Austin heel turn, and the Two Man Power Trip, into the Invasion storyline. The match didn't matter much and wasn't very interesting. After praising the WWF TV, and…

Both a title belt and a bunch of bananas are hung from the ceiling underneath a ladder, barbed wire board and panes of glass in each corner of the ring. They do a fair bit of wrestling at the beginning, which is rough, but different, Zandig even cart wheeling over a Kasai drop down. Fuck, it even ends in a stand-off! Enough of that malarkey as Kasai goes for a chair. He takes the first bump into the barbed wire board, backdropped into it, after charging at Zandig who had just put on the breaks when he was whipped towards it. Argh, this is clipped. Kasai gets bodyslammed onto the board, however Zandig takes an age climbing the turnbuckles and talking to the fans and …

Weak mano a mano bout with a schmoz finish. This was an excuse for Satanico to even up the playing field by having Mephisto attack at the end.

Damn copyright laws mean that we don’t get Lazz’s Britney Spear’s music as he makes his entrance, just some generic gubbins instead. This big fella is getting a bit too involved for securities liking and they are straight over to stop him from having his fun. The event looks like it is being held in a garage, this match the semi-finals of the SCW Internet tournament. Parker is not too keen on being touched by Lazz. I know that’s a common theme with gay/effeminate characters in wrestling, but I always find it laughable when the wrestler does this considering they spend their days rolling around on a mat in nothing more than a pair of trunks! He’s a fairly big guy is P…

Tiger cuts a promo where he looks like Super Tiger doing a UWF workout. Pretty cool. This is the end of the trilogy. Why they couldn't keep this feud going is beyond me. I guess these guys had too many commitments in Japan. This was another hot trios match. You know you're onto a winning formula when you can plug El Hijo del Rayo de Jalisco Jr AND Hijo del Lizmark into the match and it's still rockin'.

Talk about it here.

This was wild. The ladder spots hold up big time even in the current landscape and Xavier especially just takes a hellacious beating here. Low Ki draping him upside down from the ladder and laying into him with kicks was brutal. The suplex onto the ladder between the guardrail and apron looked like it killed Xavier's shoulder and back. These guys were incredibly crisp with everything too and, though it's filled with great spots, it has enough to keep it held together. Xavier really looks like a total pro and provides a good counter to Ki early on, using cheap shots and different tricks to keep turning the tide. Later, though, as it escalates, he proves he can tota…

Candido impressed enough on the previous tour to be invited back which is cool to see. A Casas dropkick sends Samurai to the outside, immediately following the dropkick with a pescado. Samurai manages to block being suplexed to the floor and instead suplexes Casas from the apron into the ring. Each makes a tag and Makabe and Candido slap the snot out of each other. Candido stops Makabe with an eye poke and then stuffs him with a pair of running clotheslines in the corner. As he goes for a third, Makabe runs out and levels him with one of his own. A boot to the gut stops him in his tracks though. The Candido delayed suplex. Now Casas and Makabe trade slaps and this…