August 2001

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Blazin’ Benny Chong is better known as B-Boy and he seems to go under both names here in UPW. This looks to be from TV as opposed to a commercial tape as it’s introduced by Doc Marlee and the Big Schwag. First up we get highlights of how Chong won the UPW Lightweight title, defeating both Prodigy and Devon Willis in a three way bout where he pinned Prodigy following a Death Valley Driver. Next we hear from Spanky who introduces himself in a backstage interview. He actually does a pretty good Shawn Michaels impersonation, showing that Jason Sensation was actually even less of a requirement for the Kliq 2000 in Memphis. The interview is just a run down of his career; t…

Return match that gets screwy when Tarzan Boy does a run in. Again, promises a lot but doesn't quite click. They really need to let these teams wrestle and forget about the cute finishes.

This was the yusho for the Young Generation Battle Tournament 2001. As you can probably tell, a lot of these tournaments take place in August in Japan. It was good to see Ishikawa have a proper BattlARTS match. I'm not a big fan of Usuda (I feel like I say that every time I write about his matches), but he's a guy who'll give you a proper BattlARTS match. This wasn't great, but it was good, and I thought Usuda was a step above throughout the match and deserved his win. Ishikawa didn't quite salvage Japanese men's pro-wrestling with this performance, but that's a big ask for a tiny indy show, so I'll try not to hold it against him.

Shinya Hashimoto & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Mark Kerr & The Predator - Zero-One 8/30/01 Turns out I’ve only ever seen Mark Coleman but have known of Mark Kerr’s existence forever but just never seen him. It seems like Kerr did a lot less pro wrestling than Coleman. The Predator is best known stateside as Sylvester Terkay who I thought had a way longer run in WWE. He really stuck with me as a teenager. I loved his look and gimmick. He was undefeated in WWE in his short tenure. Why was he let go? The Predator makes a big deal that he is indeed The Predator at first I thought this was weird but it is because I guess he was going a Big Van Vader UFO gimmick comp…

Casas and Santo get a shot at the Infernales' titles. The most notable thing about this bout for me was how good Casas was. When I think of Casas, I tend to think of the facial expressions and the crowd manipulation, and those moments of genius that only Casas can produce. But he was also a good worker on a technical level. He may not have been the best wrestler in Mexico per se, but he knew how to work, and he was excellent at adapting to changing trends. I don't really think of Ultimo Guerrero and Rey Bucanero as classic luchadores. They strike me as among the first wave of modern luchadores. They certainly used a lot more moves than their predecessors did. Other worker…