December 2001

This was the yusho for the Tag League The Best '01. Definitely not the best final in the tournament's history. It was mostly a set up for the Hotta vs. Ito cage match (a match I have zero interest in watching.) There was this long stretch where Hotta dragged Ito around Korakuen while Toyota stood on the apron. WTF? I hate the Korakuen balcony spot. Has any Joshi pro-wrestler ever been thrown off the balcony at Korakuen Hall? No? Then stop teasing it. They actually dropped a pair of scissors into the crowd from the balcony, which was as stupid as the brawling. Back in the ring, Toyota and Momoe traded some decent near falls, but Toyota and Hotta ended up winning the tourna…

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This was better than I expected. It wasn't a deeply layered, psychological masterpiece like some Real World Tag League matches you may be familiar with. Instead, it was four dudes trying to have a decent match. I tend to like the Mutoh vs. Kawada match up, so I focused on that instead of lamenting what All Japan had become. There were a shit ton of photographers at ringside, which seemed to pen in the wrestlers a bit. I was surprised by how often all four guys were in the ring instead of guys fighting on the outside, but the match was thoroughly decent especially compared to the shit show in the AJW final.

Yoshida stretches out a young girl on debut. Well, they said it was her debut but perhaps they meant her television debut as she'd been wrestling on the house shows for about a year. Yoshida used an assortment of cool submissions and all I could think about was how poor we were for not having constant Yoshida singles matches throughout 2000 and 2001. Apparently, Yamagata went on to have a lengthy career. I have no idea who she is.

This is one of my favourite joshi matches. I can't really do it justice. Joshi fanatics will tell you GAMI isn't that good, but I love her. Tall, awkard girl with a big belly and completely sullen and melancholic face that is like carved from a rock who can go like a motherfucker is an awesome wrestling character. Lifelong undercarder pushing beyond his limitations vs. established star is one of my favourite match types and GAMI does some really brilliant wrestling here. Gami uses her lucha technique and just totally outclasses Hyuga. Really, there wasn't a single move in this bout GAMI did that didn't rock. Includes the most memorable use of a face rake ever. It's a Hyug…

GHC Heavyweight Champion Jun Akiyama vs Vader - NOAH 12/9/01 Not at the Budokan but a pretty big event at 12000 with a GHC Tag Title match on the undercard pitting No Fear against Misawa & Y. Ogawa. I believe this must be Vader’s last major title shot, he looked shaky to start but once he gained momentum he looked great. This is Akiyama’s second title defense and he would be looking at main eventing the New Japan Tokyo Dome show on January 4th against Yuji Nagata. Beginning saw Vader just stand & bang. Akiyama held his own but any time he tries to pick up the Mastodon he paid for it. He tried to go up top to utilize gravity to his advantage but ended up…

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This match was a joke. This is your big historical unification match? There's more run-ins than there are exciting moments. What the hell were they thinking with this shit show?

What is with Jericho dying part of his hair red? I haven't paid attention to The Rock since he had that feud with Benoit that I liked. Jericho is a heel now? What was the point of all that effort getting him over as a babyface? I don't understand 2001 WWF at all. I haven't checked out the series between these two but this seemed better than the Austin/Angle match. Ross and Lawler took great delight in talking about Whipper Billy Watson, Gene Kiniski and Paul Boesch. This really is a strange pay-per-view. Overbooked finish that works up until the low blow and disappointing finish. If I were a fan at the time, I would have been expecting Austin vs. The Rock.

This unification business led to some strange commentary where Ross mentioned Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt, the King's 1988 AWA title victory and Lou Thesz in the same breath. Later on, he mentioned that Austin worked in WCW from '91-94. I thought wrestling wasn't supposed to exist outside of the WWF? This was face Austin vs. heel Angle, not that you can tell from the match. This would have made for a perfectly good television match, but it was well short of PPV standards.

The Undertaker vs Rob Van Dam (WWF Vengeance 2001) So yeah, this was FUCKING LEGIT FUN AS FUCK. It's a hardcore match for the hard-ore championship. The build up video is great too showing Taker beating up J.R and cementing his heel turn. HOLY FUCK~~~~~!!!!!! I know this match was rather great and a hidden gem but lordy did I enjoy revisiting this one. Taker has just transformed into 'Big Evil' and this was his first PPV match in thst incarnation. They fight all around the arena, using all sorts of weapons and RVD hits several big spots including diving off of the balcony and generally flying all over the shop. Fun as fuc…

Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs Mark Kerr & Tom Howard - Zero-One 12/9/01 Skipping Zero-One’s fifth I didn’t recognize the foreigners and it looks like it was a commercial flop (2000 in Budokan OUCH!). Watching the pre-match hype this is the first time Hashimoto & Ogawa team after their long, torturous rivalry. I am surprised they didn’t cash in on one more Hashimoto vs Ogawa match before going down the dream team route. They are continuing the UPW feud with Mark Kerr somehow continuing to be roped into this. Tom Howard is pretty good, very athletic, he was the big bumper and mover of the four. With the right gimmick, he could have been a solid mechanic…

AJPW Triple Crown Champion Keiji Muto vs Tatsumi Fujinami - NJPW 12/11/01 This is the type of match that is so underrated. It is that mid-tempo rocker that you can just vibe and cruise too. It is never gonna be a banger or a 5-star classic, but it so damn satisfying and you can just cruise with the match. It is a lost art to have a match this simple but so appetizing. Terrific mirror match between these two. If Hashimoto is the heir to Choshu, I always felt there was a connection between Fujinami and Muto. Both a little undersized and aerial. Fujinami obviously a much better technical wrestler and Muto had more theatrics. I really love their 1991 match where Mu…

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Jeff seems to be pretty good at creating momentum and space for his stuff which is one of the most important things for a WWE babyface. The Whisper In The Wind is a pretty logical counter to have with common irish whips are in WWE. It's like Choshu's Backdrop counter to the Headlock-I can see why some would dislike it but guys are going to go for it in every match so might as well have a ready counter for it. I do need to think of a way to explain how Triple H's Back Body Drop counter is different. Test is a guy whom you see discussion about in terms of missed opportunities, being screwed over by the Triple H-Stephanie real life relationship etc. but I don't remember actu…

This is the only match I can find from the PPV and it's the one I least wanted to see. I guess I'm the only person on the internet who's interested in Tarzan Boy vs. Porky and Shocker vs. Emilio (not to mention Atlantis vs. Wagner in a trios.) Juventud comes to the ring with his face painted like Damian 666, which makes sense. Then Rey enters with his face painted black.... okay... not one of Rey's more memorable nights. I guess he was trying to look like Hombre Sin Nombre, whose mask was completely black, but I can't imagine he looks back on the decision too fondly. Luckily, these guys saved their best match for the PPV. It had kind of a unique structure in that the tecn…

Triple H, eat ya heart out! Shocker entered this match dressed as an Egyptian Pharaoh while Emilio came to the ring dressed like Caesar. After a fairly lackluster build up, this was about as good a match as you could have hoped for. It was smartly laid out with three solid falls. After weeks of running away from Shocker, Emilio went on the offensive and was the aggressor early on, which I liked. They dealt with the Babe Richard problem in the most WWF way possible w/ Shocker taking him out with one of his signature moves. Usually, I'd bitch about that sort of thing, but they made it work. Richard was replaced with a tecnico ref, which Emilio immediately latched onto durin…

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I can't find the hair matches anywhere, but we do get this fun return match. It's the holidays season, so the match is interspersed with clips from the year's best vignettes. It's been a fun year. We get Stone Cold Porky and Stone Cold Emilio Charles, Jr. in this bout. Emilio tries to wrestle with a beanie on, which is cute. Black Tiger remembers he has issues with Black Warrior, which pleases me. It's the holidays and the regular crowd don't seem to be there, so this is a bit of fun before everyone goes back home to their families. And that's how the year wraps up for CMLL, arguably the best company in the world in 2001.

I didn't expect them to have this match so soon after the PPV. The first fall was a super serious title match fall. During the second fall, the rudos began doing nasty things to the tecnicos and the tecnicos finally unleashed the can of whoop ass they'd been saving. The third fall was a bit of a mess. They teased a lowblow finish, which would have sucked, before the tecnicos got their win back from the PPV. This wasn't the match I was hoping it would be. It felt rushed and came too soon after the PPV. It would have made more sense to run it in the New Year, I would have thought.

Nearly impossible to go wrong with a bloody lucha brawl. Many of them are formulaic, but it's a winning formula. This one is particularly famous because of the amount of blood and it's true, Santo's head leaves puddles of blood all around the place. Screwy finish but it's a really interesting twist. ****

Taken from Impacto Total television and the action already underway. Dutch Mantel is managing Singh and he’s doing a full on Arab gimmick complete with traditional clothing and turban. It’s so strange to see and a 180 from the Western ‘Dirty’ Dutch we’re used to. Banderas blocks a powerbomb on the wooden floor and then picks up a chair Singh had originally used against him, bringing it down across his back. The crowd were hot for that. Back in the ring Singh is on his knees pleading for mercy. Banderas misses a high frog splash off the top. Dutch passes his man a second chair but before he gets a chance to use it Banderas dropkicks it into his face and small packa…

This was uploaded to YouTube, I’m assuming by an official Wildside account, although it has no date bar a Friday night show in 2001. Wrestlingdata only has a handful of results for Sapp in Wildside, the majority of which are in January, so the best bet is that this is from the same month. It will certainly be from the first few months of the year anyway, when Wildside was used as a developmental territory for WCW, where the Power Plant trainees and guys like 3 Count, Jindrak, O’Haire etc. would work house shows to get more experience. Onyx isn’t the tallest as it is but he looks like a midget next to Sapp. He tries to charge him but gets levelled by a bad looking clot…

The action is joined in progress, although it looks to be from a different source than the majority of WWC that we have. Abby is laid on the floor as we join, bleeding like a stuffed pig with Nene beating and choking him. There are puddles of his blood on the floor and it’s pretty disgusting. Two minutes in he finally gets up to his feet. They brawl their way around ringside and as Abby starts to swing a baseball bat, someone, who I can only presume is Nene’s second, powders him. That stops the Butcher, although only briefly, and it’s not too long before he’s back on top, whipping Nene with a chain. Abby pulls out a fork, jabbing it into Nene’s forehead busting him …

Joined in progress and with Konnan in charge. Not for long though as Sierra low blows him. He locks on a crossface, although compare this to how Chris Benoit applies the same hold. ‘The Crippler’s’ looks like it hurts a ton with the way he wrenches you back and the torque he applies, this one, with how they’re both practically lay flat out on the mat, doesn’t one bit. Anyway, Konnan reaches the ropes for the break. Sierra’s knife edge chops fire K-Dawg up and he switches positions with him to unload with some of his own. He ducks to the outside to grab a flag to use but is met out there by his opponent. Back inside, Sierra is too slow climbing the turnbuckles and g…