August 2001

This has some decent action, but it's screwy as fuck. This time the catch is that it's Tarzan Boy at ringside wearing Mascara Magica's mask. The best thing about this is that rudo fan with the mustache and the black leather glove gets involved in the argument at the end.

These two definitely have their detractors but this for me personally was a great showing. This was the kind of match that you would inevitably expect from both men as they mostly go into Koji's bombs and strikes vs Nishimura's old school limb work, namely to the legs where he can snipe Koji off his feet and wear the man down due to having one leg taped up at this point and time. Koji's selling is also pretty good; he's always been pretty solid at emoting pain and frustration, and he does so a ton here to really showcase Nishimura's control segments well while never going massively into the usual screaming and shouting shit that he can just default to doing in any hold. A…

No ring, just ten mattresses placed on the concrete in front of stage where some band are preparing for a later gig. Disappointingly the Wolf isn’t someone dressed as a Wolf, in fact he looks nothing like one at all, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a Lucha mask. Wolf throws some karate kicks that are not very good. There’s a young kid on a bike who looks completely befuddled by what’s going on as they fight their way through some of the stalls. Pogo removes his boots to waffle the Wolf with before handing them off to a fan, choosing to wrestle the remainder of this barefoot. The camera work isn’t great here. Pogo starts running, presumably chasing after Wolf, bypassing…

Nakanishi matches are at their peak when there's no filler for him to stink up and he's just allowed to go full-ham with beefy stuff until the end. Nakanishi at once shows his strength by lifting up Yasuda and carrying him to the corner, but Yasuda snaps on a dirty front-face Guillotine in the ropes. Yasuda keeps control with knees in side clinch and another attempt at the Guillotine. He thinks he's hot shit until his opponent wrecks him with a one-inch spear before going for bad full mount slaps. We get a good bit where Yasuda out of desperation tries for a dirty closed fist, but that only sets Nakanishi off with a bunch of crazy big slaps and a huge arching German Suple…

Hey, I'm all about technique vs. power match-ups and this one worked really well, despite Tenzan's limitations. Osamu is snug as always, really working the hell out of Tenzan's arm and Tenzan really selling the submissions as dangerous. Tenzan is Tenzan but he works well as the counterweight to Nishimura's approach. The armwork goes away but the back half of the match is a lot of fun. Nishimura smartly blocks the crab hold attempt and I loved his collapse after the big face slap. Always a top notch seller. The two count off the German suplex hold was great, and I thought the finishing stretch was good. After Tenzan hurts his knee on the calf branding and misses the moonsa…

I was fairly hyped for this given Yasuda and Nagata historically have pretty good chemistry and will have a great trio of matches in the next year or so. This kinda sparked that pairing given this is their first major showing against the other, and it starts great with Nagata rushing in for a surprise rolling kick and German suplex combo in the first 10 seconds! The crowd pick up for a full-mount beatdown and a cross armbreaker; Yasuda just about escapes to the ropes. This shakes Yasuda up enough that when he manages to get in his clinch in the turnbuckle he really lets rip with some good-looking knees, as well as just choking Nagata out with his boot. Crowd reacts s…

A fired up Sendai crowd behind a fired up Liger = FUN! I loved the early la magistral cradle by Liger, forcing Kojima to bail out of the ring. Kojima plays a fun enough spoiler to Liger's babyface comebacks. They work through some holds on the mat before Kojima hits a Koji Cutter to the floor and a Liger Bomb of his own. Liger comes back with a big powerbomb and a moonsault but he can't finish off Kojima, whcih leads to Kojima hitting a top rope Koji Cutter and a cool cradle Michinoku Driver. The nearfall off of Liger's brainbuster was awesome and in the end, Kojima's the one who can't finish off Liger and he runs into a big shotei for the upset loss.

This starts off with some sweet Blue Panther vs. Villano IV exchanges. Panther has pretty much reconfirmed in his past two matches that he's the best worker in Mexico at this time. They follow that up with Negro vs. Fuerza, which is a match up with a lot of history. And then there's the more spot heavily Black Tiger vs. Black Warrior stuff, which a nice counter balance. The first fall is an excellent caida. Then they cut to the end of the second fall and try some sort of angle where Black Tiger turns rudo? I'm not sure where they're going with this. He drops Black Warrior on his head with his finishing move, and Casas and Villano think he's crazy. Then he cuts an awesome …

Was interested in seeing this given Muto isn't much of a Inoki-Ism guy (so much so that he'd be gone a few months later) and Yasuda at this point was all about them Inoki-Ism traits given his MMA gimmick. They tease a upset by having Muto wreck his opponent early with dropkicks and even a flash moonsault attempt, but Yasuda rolls out to escape the pin. We get some vintage Yasuda stalling as he stands around for a bit. The middle bit is a weird mish-mash of Muto-style filler grappling while also having Yasuda pull out his usual shtick, so you get the two going for pseudo-shoot style work but then it doesn't go anywhere beyond said Muto filler grappling. After a few minutes…

Neither guy is prime but it's still Han vs. Fujiwara so no complaints here. This is a little exhibition with them scrambling around the mat, looking to grab something substantial. Han goes for the armbar, the triangle, then drags Fujiwara to the middle o the ring looking for his signature standing single leg. He turns the attempt into his double heel hook but Fujiwara's able to snag an ankle hold, forcing Han to escape. They fight over leglocks and boy, Fujiwara's having a grand time and so is Han. Then we get a classic Fujiwara handshake fakeout into the single leg takedown attempt by Han stops him with a hammerlock. Fujiwara survives a sleeper and manages the Fujiwara a…

If first impressions are anything to go by, Oba doesn’t have a chance here. Lots of scrambling. Otsuka with an Anaconda roll into a crossface variation however they’re practically in the ropes and it’s an easy break for Oba. Oba grabs a go behind and gets the takedown. He’s trying for the armbar but Otsuka is doing an easy job of blocking it. There’s more scrambling and this time Oba looks for an ankle lock, although Otsuka still doesn’t appear to be in much trouble. He pulls him to the centre of the ring where they both battle over submissions. Knee bar by Otsuka. An Oba armbar forces Otsuka to go to the ropes for the first time. Powerbomb, out of nowhere, into…

The match is joined in progress, Malenko in control. Side headlock takedown and he transitions from one submission attempt to another on the arms, Yone eventually having to go the ropes for the reset. A stiff clothesline, but that hurt Yone too due to Malenko’s earlier arm work. After a legdrop, Yone starts cranking away on Malenko’s neck. These pro wrestling spots like legdrops are the one thing I’m not really digging in my BattlARTS viewing. Malenko escapes the sleeper, reversing into a cross face chicken wing. He grounds Yone and has him all tied up with a great combination oma plata/crossface. That looks nasty the way he’s wrenching back. Power guillotine, how…

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Another Hijo del Lizmark singles match? I really want to know who was booking Arena Coliseo at this time. Lucha singles matches are rarer than hen's teeth and Lizmark gets booked in two of them in the same year? Fortunately, Shocker was entertaining in this. I was starting to get into a groove of appreciating this as a Shocker singles match and not worrying so much about Lizmark being his opponent. And there were these women in the front row who were really into it. The portion where Shocker was in control was actually really good, then BAM! The screwiness set in. I am really sick of screwy finishes in 2001 CMLL.

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Mitsuharu Misawa, Naomichi Marufuji, Takuma Sano & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Akitoshi Saito, Jun Akiyama, Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (08.15) What the hell is this ? Some outdoor show in the Michinoku region during the summer, Akiyama's bastard faction against NOAH's trve soldiers. And it's the greatest match no one ever talked about. They even do some comedic bits during beatdowns, with poor Kanemaru being the recipient of a double dose of revengefull acrimony from Misawa's men. This goes long so everyone gets to shine, although both Shiga and Sano wait until the last act to do so. Stand outs are Ogawa, who's just so perfect in everything he does, Akiyama wh…

This wasn't the best match in their series, but it was a decent tournament bout. The beginning and end were good, but the middle was largely forgettable. An exciting finishing stretch ensured the match finished on the right note.

This was the yusho for the Japan Grand Prix '01. Both women had already wrestled once that evening, so they worked a sprint for the yusho. Some people would argue that a sprint is the best type of match for them because it trims the fat (and they don't have to watch them for as long), but I'll take their longer matches, warts and all. It made sense to work a sprint here after exerting so much energy earlier in the evening, but it was over in a flash and didn't settle into the sort of groove I'm used to. It was cool that they put Momoe over, but her match with Ito seemed more epic. She earned herself a title shot, and I loved the look on Ito's face when she shook Momoe's h…

This was a lively performance from Shimoda. Possibly the best thing she's done all year. Even in a short sprint, they still found time to go on a tour of Korakuen, but minor annoyances aside, this set up the yusho bout nicely.

This didn't set the world on fire, but I was happy to see Los Guerreros de Infierno working with someone else for a change. And of course, it gives Casas something to do. There were enough flashes of goodness to suggest they could have a great match if they pulled it all together.

This was one of the more interesting matches I've seen in a while. This match was different from the Sakai/Yabushita match they had in March of 2001 as this was a grudge match. Yabushita comes in wearing street clothes and this is a fight from the get-go. However, due to their unique styles, this ends up being far weirder than your typical joshi brawl. The pace is very good as they avoid overly long wandering brawling and instead go back to the wrestling while keeping the story in tact. Also, even though Yabushita's heel faction was at ringside, there were no intereferences, which was a nice change of pace from what I'm used to in joshi. It was really neat to watch Ya…

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A strange turn of events has made me want to watch Jeff Hardy and here we are. One could question the decision to start a ladder match out with chain wrestling but they presented it as a face vs. face match and it worked for the crowd. This was always going to have big bumps and the ladder spots. I liked how they sold inbetween them but I didn't like the obvious set-ups some of them had. There were two or three spots that were just incredible-completely unique and organic use of the ladder like I'd never seen, like RVD was trying to pick up the ladder that was outside the ring and Jeff jumped from somewhere and the momentum carried over and the ladder hit RVD in the face,…

So this match hasn't been talked about on here. I absolutely love the brutality and chaos of this match. Angle becomes an absolute "man possessed" by his need and desire to not only beat Steve Austin to a pulp but also to take his title. Austin plays an awesome heel here, both using underhanded tactics as well as finally taking advantage when Angle starts to fall apart for a bit. It becomes such an insane bloodbath that no one knew when it would stop. However it finally did stop in an ode to King of the Ring 97's Michaels/Austin match as Austin takes out referee after referee leading to EVIL REF Nick Patrick coming out and DQ'ing Austin. He may have kept the title, …

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