January 2002

Angle is on fire with these television matches. He works the traditional WWF big man/small man structure here well, bumps his ass off, and looks convincing on offense against someone nearly twice his size. I love the nuances in his performances where it's clear he's still working through his inexperience as a pro-wrestler, but being an Olympic-caliber wrestler is such a profoundly strong base to start off on that he's able to overcome those mistakes often with his athleticism and coordination. (And we'll soon see another, even better, iteration of this with Brock Lesnar). ***

I really enjoyed the matches these two had in 2001. I wasn't expecting this to be as good, especially when Wagner came to the ring with a sledgehammer and some lackey named Black Metal. The match was all right for what it was (wrestling wise), but there was a heavy WWF influence, and they got a bit cute with the mask removals. Not worth watching unless you particularly like Atlantis and Wagner.

Triple H's in-ring return after tearing his quad, and he's visibly rusty and slower. His hot tag flops, and it's almost comical how quickly he manages to deflate a crowd that was cheering him. The match is otherwise unremarkable. **1/2

This was a fun revancha. There was a ton of niggle in each exchange. Week to week lucha TV is some of my favorite stuff to watch, even if it doesn't pump out four star matches. Shocker looked pretty slick throughout, and the Tarzan Boy exchanges continue to look promising. The match ended with a run in from Rey Bucanero and a rudo beatdown on Shocker. Looks like we've got our first feud for 2002. Count me in.

Are you kidding me? Zumbido? Virus? Ricky Marvin? An inspired La Fiera? This was great. CMLL always feels so exciting at the beginning of a new season. These guys were rocking the Coliseo. Perfect midcard wrestling with a Zumbido vs. La Fiera throughline that kicked ass.

This was a Bob Barnett handheld. Rey Mysterio looks like such a knob in this match. Can you imagine what his career would have been like if he'd never gone to the WWE? Jeez, talk about a different narrative. My boy, Vampiro, tries working some holds with Charlie Manson. I fucking love everything Vampiro does. Rey and Santo get their shit in, and this is very much house show lucha. Still, it's not every day you get to see Santo work from ringside. His signature stuff looks pretty, and we get a really cool view of his corner tope. The rudos make their comeback and the match descends into a brawl (with Barnett doing his best to capture everything that's happening at ringside…

This match was like a joshi version of Atlantis/Blue Panther. Just what the hell was going on with these two girls? I'll just assume that this is how Jaguar Yokota taught them wrestling is supposed to be like. Just a straight up grappling match with a ton of legit ability in both workers and a strange lucha influence to keep it sweet and graceful. I swear to good some of the sequences here wouldn't look out of place in a 1991 CMLL title match. At one point, Sakai floated into a flying headscissor, which turned into a standing choke, that Yabushita then countered into an ankle pick. Really unlike anything I've seen in a wrestling match before. Same for Sakai's strange hura…

Misawa single-handedly crushes all of Sterness with elbows and flowsions and whatever. Akiyama gets a veneer of "protection" as he comes into this with an injured arm. I actually enjoyed watching him slaughter an entire faction, but the macro implications of Misawa's booking are starting to become more apparent, and it's no wonder this promotion struggled so badly to create stars. ***

This was a good trios match. The highlights were the opening Genki/Saito matwork, Shisa's highspots and all things Kenichiro Arai who is such a cool character. The Toryumon crew couldn't touch the 90s M-Pro guys and you could tell that they were more interested in putting together finishing stretches than the body of the mat (the rudo work in this match was pretty average), but this was in the 90s M-Pro style and a very fun, fresh take at it.

I was expecting a solid match between these two marred by a barrage of bullshit, and that's pretty much what I got. On a scale of one to ten, the bullshit wasn't as bad as in other matches, but I don't see how this style of main event wrestling was sustainable. When the bullshit and everything else involved with the style begins obligatory, it's time to take things in a different direction. The one thing I like about these Rock vs. Jericho matches is that it pays off Jericho's WWF debut where he interrupted the Rock's mic segment. The rest of the trappings I could do without. There were some neat counters by both men, and I guess the table spot was inventive, but the run-…

The Dudleyz isolate Spike and target his injured neck, but this match only gets five minutes so they rush from spot-to-spot for the most part. Taz gets the big hot tag and tosses out his usual array of suplexes. This is mid. **1/2

How is there no thread for this match? This is one of the rawest spectacle matches the WWF ever did. Vince tortures Flair in front of his kids, just beats him bloody and takes a goddamn selfie with a bloodied Flair using Flair's daughter's camera. This is just Vince beating the breaks off Flair, disrespecting him in front of his kids and finally getting his comeuppance at the end but you can tell the damage is done and Flair's kids don't respect him anymore after what they just watched Vince do to their dad. Amazing match. ****3/4

Decent match, but Edge simply isn't interesting. He does get suplexed on his head and stretched painfully in the Regal Stretch, though. That was definitely interesting. **3/4

The rudos came to the ring as Los Talibanes but still used Backstreet Boys. Typical CMLL. This was slow going. Fiera couldn't get anything cooking with the rudos, which was disappointing. Safari and Antifaz did Safari and Antifaz things, but the highlight of the match was a Three Stooges spot that saw Emilio interact playfully with the rudo fan who's at every show.

I will never not find T2P nifty. Sure, these matches are a littly exhibition-y, and you can't help but think that they could use some of the spots they throw out in the opening here for greater effect later, but they were experimenting after all. Surprised no US Indy has ripped off T2P yet, to be honest. I'll take this stuff over the movezzz matches that PWG et al are doing these days. And there is even a little story here, as you have a power vs. technique matchup and Ogawauchi attacks Kondo's legs to make up for Kondo's short distance lariat and slam attacks. Especially liked how Jun bumped huge for a Kondo german suplex to put over his strength. Ogawauchi lands some wo…

I wanna say this is their first singles match together, but don't hold me to it. Their chemistry is apparent, but Tanahashi is just a very unconvincing offensive wrestler here. **1/2

Yoshida was still a top 20 wrestler in the world at this point, and this was a match where we really got to see that. It was a much better all-round match than the Tamada fight, and not necessarily because Omukai was a better opponent. She was pretty much a taller version of Mima Shimoda, though to her credit she knew how to work Yoshida's style. Yoshida pulled out all the stops here and produced a fine performance. I mentioned in the Tamada fight that I wish she had gone freelance at this time, but hopefully there are a few more ARSION matches like this where Yoshida is allowed to do her thing. She looked far from done, and I'd hate to think that her prime was wasted, or…

This was a letdown given how hot the previous weeks had been. The scene shifted from Arena Coliseo to Arena Mexico, and suddenly there was a focus on shenanigans. That type of shit was inescapable, I suppose, given the landscape of wrestling at the time, but it ruined this chapter of the feud. There were some cool spots in the segunda caida before the bullshit took over. I really hope the booking doesn't make a farce out of this feud.

This was a good match that could have been a lot better. First of all, Kuragaki rules on offense. Her flippy shit looks really graceful, and she was just launching Hyuga around with her power moves and lariats. Those back suplexes were all kind of crazy. Hyuga did a really good job working as the ace and preventing Kuragaki from attacking her bandaged leg, including just stomping on her face when she went for a kneebar. I also dig the out of nowhere knee attacks. On the other hand there were some awkward/blown spots and I disliked Hyuga's lazy no selling transitions during the finishing stretch. Kuragaki hit a brutal shoot headbutt, and Hyuga would act unphased and just c…

Just a short match, but we get to see Bolshoi work some holds which is always welcome.

This was a mix of comedy and serious wrestling, but it went too long. Ran Yu Yu should have put Miyazaki away earlier. I get what they were trying to do in terms of making it semi-competitive, but it didn't really jell.

More T2P goodness. A lot of this seems centered around the ongoing feud between Milano and Saito, where the former clearly has the latter's number. Tons of fast sequences, flashy submissions, and colorful personalities as is this promotion's wont. ***

The ending is classic WWF booking of heels like they're mentally deficient, but this is otherwise another strong outing from Angle and Austin. We all know how beat up Austin is at this point, and the fact he's still producing these types of quality matches is impressive.