February 2002

Talk about it here.

For a while, this is everything the Tenryu vs Mutoh match the year before wasn't : actual hatred and intensity, leg work that looked crisp (thank you Kawada for making it seem so) and actually meant something and better selling down the stretch. Kawada is just as terrific as always here, although the regular no-selling comebacks back and forth I know annoyed the old AJ fans back then. Mutoh is also much crisper than during the Tenryu match and demonstrates a lot more heelish attitude too, as he should because he's still the fucking outsider with a title that should not belong to him, which Kawada reminds him in spades by kicking him in the face. The leg work with kneecaps…

This was an excellent match. Honestly, it's night and day between this and their return match, I guess that boils down to the circumstances. Toyota was going over here so she was happy to let Ito shine whereas in the return match was dropping the title on her way out. The return match is odd because they usually have excellent matches together. One thing I've noticed about Ito recently is that although she put on weight over the years, she wasn't very tall and not really that big in the traditional sense. She just wrestled big. I swear her footstomp is one of the most brutally effective moves in the history of professional wrestling. It doesn't matter how many times I see…

This was over 40 minutes long. Is that too long? Probably. But it was scrappy and hard fought, and that's all I can ask for from a Japanese match in '02. There were some breathtaking exchanges worked at lightning pace, and some new counters and sequences added to the mix. Momoe added a few new offensive tricks, but more importantly she stood up for herself against Maekawa's bully-boy tactics. She copped one in the mouth and bled hard way, which you've got to salute. The finishing stretch was as close to flawless as you're gonna see from these two, and as usual, Momoe's grit and determination shone through. Definitely in the upper tier of matches so far, if you don't mind …

Mochizuki contra Mochizuki! Winner is the sole proprietor of the Mochizuki name. Rob Van Dam-level selling from Masaaki Mochizuki in this one with tons of sloppy interferences from M2K, and by the end they were just doing thoughtlessly performing moves on each other. For someone who just got kicked out of his own group, Masaaki wrestles this with almost no hate or urgency, and it's kind of disappointing.