February 2002

This was a nice match. Not as stellar as it looked on paper, but one of the better matches from the new season. The focus here was on the beef between Wagner, Panther, and their trios partner, Black Warrior. The trio were still champions at this point, but Black Warrior had turned tecnico. Wagner and Panther bring the trios belts to the ring to remind Black Warrior where he came from. It ends with a beatdown, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, it's not a very inspired one. The match picks up when Felino and Casas lift the tempo, but I was disappointed that they didn't play off their recent heat with Black Tiger. Casas and Tiger square off in the third fall, but it comes a…

When you think about it, it's kind of crazy that Gran Markus Jr headlined a CMLL PPV in 2002. But he did, and it's pretty harmless. Perhaps I have a soft spot for it because Pierroth is involved. Gran Markus got another beatdown here, and shockingly, he bled.

This was much better than the previous week's shenanigans. I swear to God, Shocker thinks he's The Rock. At least that's who I think he's modeling his tecnico act after. If you'd heading to a fight, you'd do worse than to bring Atlantis and Satanico with you. The old heads were excellent in this. I loved how Los Guerreros del Infierno made it clear that they still hate Satanico. Too often that type of thing is ignored in trios matches. Satanico was brilliant in the second fall. It was the best he'd looked in a long time. In fact, discounting the cage match, it was the best he'd looked on TV since 2000. The second fall was magic. It was one of those falls that just sing. T…

We are in the Broxbourne Civic Hall, which was the company’s main base for most of it’s run. It was a building that had a cool set up for wrestling with tiered seating on one side and a stage which the FWA also set up with seating that then gave off an appearance of being a bigger venue than the 450 or so capacity it had. It’s a venue that traditionally always had a hot crowd. Going into this match, Doug was in his first reign as FWA Champion and was already starting to be presented as the ace of the company. Timewise, it is just a week before the big Revival show which I’ve written about here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/39613-doug-williams-vs-eddie-…

This is part of the ‘Old School’ vs ‘New School’ angle which dominated most of 2002 in the FWA. These guys would be feuding on and off throughout the year, trading the FWA British Heavyweight Title and that would culminate in Jody beating Flash for the title at British Uprising in October. The two have really good chemistry, with Flash acting as an excellent base for a lot of Fleisch’s highflying and springboards, and Jody making Barker’s offence look really impactful through his crazy bumping. This is about 10 mins long and is all action, but without it feeling overly spotty. Through his size Flash dominates a lot of the match, but the fans are kept invested through…

Tomohiro Ishii comes out in full on Dick Togo worship gear. Amazing. This was a shockingly great indy tag with all 4 guys smacking eachother hard while working complex spots and cutoffs. We get lots of fun heel tactics from Rudo Hidaka and Ishii which was interesting to see these two go back and forth between throwing hard shots and working Stunning Steve Austin/Fuerza Guerrera heel spots. Hidaka likes slapping his thigh but he really does paste guys with his kicks. This was one of the greater Tiger Mask IV performances I've seen too as he looked like a graceful technico while also spin kicking dudes really really hard. Him almost crushing Hidakas ribs with a massive knee…

A bunch of ninjas and sleazy masked dudes fly around in Korakuen Hall! By no means is this a great match, but it is a great bizarre indy spectacle. They bring out a bunch of ladders for this so you know what that means. Match includes: lots of preposterous Sasuke highspots (including the apron tope) and ladder-related awrygoings! Chabinger abusing everyone with his weird wooden mini table! Great Sasuke disappearing and reappearing, changing between his Great Sasuke/Sasuke the Great personae! Takeshi Ono in a mask hitting dudes with high kicks! Orihara looking good! NANIWA doesn't know how to do the Naniwa Elbow anymore! Great Sasuke hitting some REALLY stiff kicks! Sanhsh…

This was a decent match albeit, shorter than I would have liked. The rudos punked Black Warrior at the beginning, which naturally Black Tiger relished. I don't think there was anyone better at beating up tecnicos at this point in time. Atlantis appeared to injure himself in the early going, which led to some awkward exchanges, but it must have been a stinger as he came firing back in the second caida. He had some fantastic exchanges in this match. I'll never tire of watching him going at it with Blue Panther, and he had some awesome sequences with Wagner and Tiger as well. This is what makes Atlantis so good, but it's also the reason why he's so underrated. Most folks are…

This was surprisingly clean -- no run-ins, no low blows, and no bullshit with the ref. Well, there was a foul, but it wasn't a match killer. The work was good, but it was mano a mano, so they were holding back a bit. The troubling thing was the lack of crowd heat. If it wasn't for the cheering sections, the crowd would have been dead. Dare I say it was too clean? This was one of Shocker's first singles matches as a tecnico, and he didn't really put his stamp on the match. Certainly not as much as he would have done as a rudo. Quite a stepdown from the previous week's trios match where it felt like Shocker had arrived. CMLL ran this match three weeks in a row instead of bu…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3vGhJD-GXs For a bit of backstory, the Revival show in 2002 is a pretty big moment in British wrestling, as it was the start, along with British Uprising later in the year, of the initial revival (sorry about the pun) of a scene that was basically dead for the 1990s and that started an initial upswing for the industry in the UK that lasted until about 2005/06, when it slipped back into the doldrums for a few years until the renaissance that we've had over the last few years. The King of England Tournament was a one off show designed to showcase what British wrestling could achieve and came at a time when because of the hotness of t…

For more detail on what the King of England Tournament was see the link below to a write up of one of the semi finals between Doug Williams and Eddie Guerrero: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/39613-doug-williams-vs-eddie-guerrero-fwa-revival-king-of-england-tournament-02092002/ This is the final of the tournament. Doug had defeated Eddie Guerrero in the semi-final, while Jody had to get through Drew McDonald, which played into the overarching New School vs Old School storyline that was going on in the FWA at the time. In that match, Fleisch takes a beating from McDonald before winning so he's coming in selling his arm. At this point, and for almost al…

This is a surprisingly praised match, and maybe it should've been at the time, but it doesn't hold up in 2023. Punk and Hero are talented performers, but they're not quite experienced enough at this stage in their careers to handle a short film-length hardcore match with the required finesse, and it predictably crumbles under the weight of its own ambition despite their best physical efforts. **1/4

This is ten minutes of Takayama playing with his food before violently snuffing them out, and today's meal is the spirited, headbutting maestro Makoto Hashi. ***

This was another strong entry in the Wagner vs. Warrior feud. It was more of a brawling trios than the week before with the rudos taking a hands on approach in an effort to avenge their loss. Wagner looked more more assertive than in recent weeks and showed the star quality you'd expect from him. As much as I love watching Black Tiger beat up tecnicos, I thought Fuerza made an excellent addition to the team. He knows this type of wrestling inside out and works extremely well with Panther as the foil to the main storyline. The jury is still out on Black Warrior, however. Antifaz and Niebla kicked ass during the tecnico comeback and looked positively badass. Warrior, on the…

This was a title match for Shocker's World Light Heavyweight Championship, but it was far from classic. In fact, it was pretty bad. The match was an excuse to have Tarzan Boy attack his second, Mascara Magica. Tarzan Boy had been talking shit about Mascara Magica for a while and making it clear that he didn't think Magica belonged in Los Guerreros del Infierno. The finish was the worst I've seen in a title match, but it's not as though it spoiled anything. The entire match was sloppy and derivative. I questioned why this match wasn't headlining the March pay-per-view, but I'm struggling to see how they could have delivered anything better on pay-per-view. I guess I was ho…

As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't the Inokism/MMA influence stuff that was killing NJPW at the time, it was the fact that the regular wrestling was largely dull and moronic. The sprint opening and subsequent matwork of this was fine, but they soon went to their bread and butter: brainlessly hitting lariats and throwing out bombs. No transitions in sight, just take a move, then hit one of your own, repeat until finish. This really needed MMA gloves or a Murakami run in.

God, sometimes I forget how good Nagata was before he became a gimmick wrestler. I’m sure making goofy faces, turning his eyes white and finding a couple of spots to recycle in every match made his life a lot easier, but I definitely don’t consider it as creatively interesting as his early 2000s work. This match isn’t without flaws-at one point you see Nagata do a wacky Release German Suplex before going for a lame leg hook pin, and on the “is this something Inoki would do” scale this gets a stern no. He’d either hit a perfect bridge on that damn Suplex or work the (not huge but still ostensibly present) size difference into the match and opting for a Cradle pin or a Take…

Great Mariko Yoshida performance wasted on the slug that is Lioness Asuka. Honestly, at this point Asuka is sub-Takada level when it comes to dull japanese main eventers for me. Even her kicks blew in this. Yoshida was doing her submission master with dangerous punches thing on point and did a great job zoning in on Asukas leg. Of course, none of that submission master stuff was over with the crowd as the company had been pushing Yoshida into irrelevance for 2 years and Asuka was as unaffected as can be by all the leg work, punches and submissions and instead opted to shoe her table spots bullshit into the match. It's only fitting that the match basically turned into cont…

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Man it's crazy people used to take matches like this for granted. Everyone knows their role and gets to look good, and the match tells a fine STORY~! Where you genuinely can't predict the exact payoff. Honda and Hashi try to crack eachothers skull before slapping eachother silly! Hashi is really GETTING IT and elicits great crowd responds! Taue boots people in the face when they least want to have it! Saito... hits hard! Shiga does all these nifty submissions, which are still over at this point! Inoue isn't useless! Now this isn't GREAT stuff, but there still enough nifty details to keep this entertaining, such as Honda teasing the Dead End or Hashi struggling to get in p…

One for the "Eddie was only great in 1997 and 2004-2005" crowd. Eddie looks like the best in the world here carrying a somewhat unrefined but motivated guy to a great match. The opening matwork feels like the best possible rendition of lucha matwork with them constructing these elaborate sequences out of basic holds, but everything looks snug and hard fought. After some vintage Eddie character work involving a handshake, things transition to an American style heat sequence with Eddie being awesome on offense. Dude has such varied offense that he runs through so smoothly. The announcers point out how he transitions from attacking Nova's shoulders, to his back, and finally …

Great little match that takes place in a tiny little hall in front what looks like 40 people, filmed with one cam. You know a match is gonna be good when it starts it with them ramming their heads into eachother. Amano had some nice explosive moves early on including a great deadlift back suplex before they slowed the match down with grinding matwork. I thought the JWP ace Hyuga being able to control in parts before Amano slowly got the better of her using her grappling skill was really well done, as Amano has these crazy twisting flash submissions making the moments where she catches Hyuga extra off-guard. Also, Hyuga came into the match with a bandaged knee that was an …

This ends too abruptly for it to be considered anything more than a teaser of what these two are capable of, but it's fun watching them seamlessly transition from one style to another without so much as a hiccup. **3/4

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