May 2002

Talk about it here.

The more I watch NOAH Misawa, the more I'm fascinated and it reminds me how great this man was both as a worker and actually as a booker too. Here he is, leading his new company toward new coasts in dream matches that could never happen because of Baba isolationist mentality, and most of all preparing the field for his men to get over on the big stage. So he gets Chono, who is still in heel mode here (as opposed to the following year when he will already have turned into more of a legend figure) and also much more active than in the Kobashi match in 2003. Yet, we're leading toward that match already, as Misawa, who barely loses anyway, won't be able to take Chono down and…

Talk about it here.

Rutten has been quite the consistent worker in NJPW. His strikes are so crazy that you buy him just caving in Nakanishis face any second. Rutten has such an aura that anytime Nakanishi can get a move in on him is impressive. There are a few spots that they pull off much better than you'd think, and Rutten gets thrown around. Nakanishis selling in the last couple seconds was shockingly good, not something I thought he had in him. Also loved him trying to power out of the flying armbar a split second after getting caught.

This is one of those feel good matches you can just back and enjoy every second of it. Basically Hashimoto & Ogawa waltz in and just destroy everything in their path. STOs, nasty kicks and chops and various cool combination moves abound. Norton & Tenzan don‘t stand much of a chance but they try. You get a great little Norton performance as he sells all the nasty chops and kicks he takes to his shoulder in a big way. There is an art to selling in such a way that everyone can emphatize with you even when you‘re a giant muscled up dude like Norton and he had it down. Tenzan also doesn‘t suck!

This was a good match. The finish was screwy, but it was a running theme throughout the match so it wasn't a surprise. The bulk of the work was strong. I was especially pleased with how involved Fuerza was, and the fact that he didn't look washed. You don't really get those amazing Fuerza moments at this stage of his career, though there were some fun stooging moments with Lizmark Jr. Shocker has dyed his hair the same pinkish color as Mascara Magica and his workrate has improved tremendously. This was a good outing from Shocker. He's struggled to be The Man in CMLL, but you can tell that it's there brimming under the surface. He just needs to bring it out on a regular ba…

JAPW Low Ki is definitely my favorite Low Ki. This was a pretty basic match but it will wash some of the taste out of your mouth from those TNA spotfests. I'm not familiar with Tony Kozina, but he was game and appeared to have a variety of skills. I wasn't expecting him to take so much of the match, and for Low Ki to be working from underneath, but it was enjoyable all the same.

BattlARTS vs. ZERO1 feud continues. And this was a real good match! I mean, that shouldn't come as a surprise, but I was expecting something fishy to happen here. But nope, they get to do their thing for 15+ minutes. Plenty of hate, stiff shots and neat moments, of course. There was lots of back and forth, altough nothing egregious. I guess this was the Z1 guys giving a shot at working a BattlARTS style rhythm. No shootstyle matwork besides a few counters, but lots of nice snug work. Tanaka was pretty efficient working with the BattlARTS dudes and Ohtani kept the crowd into it with his charisma.

Forget your initial feelings when you see this match up and believe me when I say: this was some wonderous pro wrestling. Lots of bullshit, but it was great bullshit. The Ogawa/Predator sections are really efficient in a "irresistable force vs. Immovable object“ way. Tom Howard looked great working his voodoo combat MMA stuff as he and Hashimotogo full Memphis meets Volk Han exhibition style. Some ref bullshit and a Gerard Gordeau run in do happen but that doesn't matter. You will be glad you watched this. Or maybe not.

Sakata had the vibe of someone who was just getting the hang of how to pro wrestle here, but after a somewhat tentative opening this turned into a shockingly good match. Takaiwa has been efficient against shooters and this was no exception. Sakata had it all over Takaiwa here, basically making him his punching bag, working submission counters and throwing him around with massive suplexes. Takaiwas only chance was to crowbar Sakata into oblivion. Muscling Sakata into the Death Valley Bomb may have been Takaiwas finest moment ever here. We get lots of brutal lariats (obviously), but Takaiwa really earns his salt eating one nasty kick from Sakata after another, getting doubl…

More meth lab BattlARTS. This starts out with some somewhat conventional, good lock ups and grappling, altough quickly devolves into a gritty seedy fight. Watching these two fight over pin attempts and submissions is way more interesting than skinny juniors running through choreographed reversals. Hero looked good working over Ian with stiff strikes and Ian once again just pasted him with european uppercuts and crossfaces. There was some nasty as hell legwork with Hero wrapping tape around his leg to protect himself. The vocal selling was pretty outstanding too. Great post match with Ian having his knee popped back in place. The IWA MS crowd proves they are true connoisse…

This was such a cool looking match on paper, and the ring entrances had me kind of pumped, but what a dogshit match. It's basically a DQ and a reset followed by another DQ. Definitely a candidate for Worst Match of the Year. Interpromotional matches blew in the 00s.

I kept debating with myself whether I should watch this. I was hoping it would be two fat boys slapping the shit out of each other, but I knew there was a high chance it would be a whole bunch of nothing. Well, I'll be damned if it wasn't a seriously good match. The Osaka crowd was molten, and instead of being all slap happy, they went out there and had a wrestling match. Normally, Kojima's theatrics would turn me off, but the crowd was so hyped and Kojima was so into it, that I couldn't help but dig it. Two guys trying their damndest to win in front of a hot crowd. Can't ask for much more than that. A pleasant surprise.

Nice lightweight match between Spanky and my boy, Bobby Quance. I appreciate the grapple-first approach of indy wrestling even among the lightweights. This was tight, and built from the ground up, instead of being a dizzying string of highspots. Strong outing for both guys.

This match was an excuse for Pierroth to stir a bunch of shit. That's okay because I'm a Pierroth fan and I enjoy watching him stir shit. First he took out Veneno accidentally, then he had a confrontation with the mysterious man in black who advises Los Capos, before finally dodging a hair vs. hair challenge from Gran Markus Jr. Like I said, I don't mind Pierroth segments in my 2000s CMLL.

Wagner, Casas & Shocker is a hell of a trio. They could have easily overpowered the 'Japon' trio here, but credit where credit's due, I was actually impressed with how well the Japon team did. My first thought was that Tarzan Boy wasn't good enough to hold up his end of the stick like Black Tiger had been doing, but he was good here. Not only that, but the Japanese lions were perfectly good foils. They kept up with everything the superstar luchadores were trying to do and their timing was on point. This turned into a pretty exciting match with the Mexico trio trying to outdo each other with every exchange. If Shocker keeps up this form, he'll take out the 2002 Lucha W…

Decent mat based match. It was very much North American style mat wrestling. I didn't see a lot of Japanese or European influences in the work. Danielson's work at this point was more along the lines of something you'd see from Ricky Steamboat, Owen Hart, or maybe even Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero. Collyer was working heel here and made a decent fist of it.

This played out exactly as you'd imagine. Amano took the fight to Aja. Aja gave her more than she probably should have. Amano rocked Aja but came up desperately short. It's the same formula that Aja works with every girl works with every girl that's below her in the pecking order. But even though you know what's going to happen, it's still super enjoyable. Amano is a great match up for Aja because she works like a shooter, not a highflyer, which makes this closer to ARISON than typical Joshi. Recommended.

It's not every day you see Dr Wagner wrestle Nishimura in Arena Coliseo. They wrestle for a bit, like you'd hope, but it's not very polished. Eventually, Nishimura is forced to start acting like a rudo, and the match turns into a brawl between Shocker & Magica vs. Masada & Takemura, but I guess there is some novelty in seeing Wagner vs. Nishimura in a CMLL ring. I just wished their exchanges had been slicker.

This was a very good trios match. I liked the way it opened with two solid falls of action instead of having the rudos go through the motions. There were no weak links here and the pairings were extremely good. At one point, Tarzan Boy appeared to botch a spot. If it was botched, then his recovery was one of the best I've seen in a while as he turned it into a brilliant comedy spot. My favorite sequence in the match was when Casas and Ultimo forgot where they were and started potatoing each other as though it were CMLL Japan. This was well on the way to being one of the better matches of the year when they opted for a crappy finish. Ultimo Guerrero and crappy finishes are…

This began with a contract signing for a hair vs. hair match and turned into an excellent match. Easily one of the best lead-in matches to an apuestas match that CMLL has ran since probably the big cage match at the end of 2001. Blue Panther was on hand to expertly guide the Japanese guys through the match, but I'm gonna eat my words here -- I talked shit about the Japanese guys touring Mexico, which was something I didn't wanna see at all, but these guys have taken to lucha like Fuchi and Onita took to Memphis. I am super excited for the hair match, which I hope doesn't lead to huge disappointment. Shocker is starting to stake his claim for 2000 Lucha WOTY. He's really b…

I like both these workers, but a 40 minute Street Fight is far too long, especially when they're using the same boring style that LCO had already ran into the ground. I'm not wholly convinced by Hyuga as a brawler. Ran was better, and someone who's worth following throughout 2002, but I was getting restless after 10 minutes of this.

Lesnar continues to wreck shop as the crowd throws some Goldberg chants at him. Jeff's hot tag lacked in fire and the crowd doesn't seem too invested in this as they know who's winning this. Heyman excels at being the greasy chickenshit manager. After the Hardyz work together to get Lesnar out of the ring, they turn their attention to Heyman. Heyman runs away until the Hardyz are able to catch him and give him a beating. Lesnar recovers just as Jeff is about to go for the Swanton Bomb on Heyman. The stare-down between Jeff and Brock made for a cool visual. Lesnar hits the F5, but Heyman insists that he gets tagged in and gets the deciding pinfall. Fun stuff. ★★★

I should know better than this, but I've been kind of high on Chris Jericho's 2002 work and I don't hate Triple H... but, yeah, what was the point in them having a Hell in a Cell match? Vince was feuding with Hunter at the time, and HIAC I guess was supposed to punish Hunter and stack the odds against him, but it also stacks the odds against Jericho. They tried to make out that Jericho was this ruthless, cutthroat heel and that he was in his element, but who's buying that? I have a hard time buying Jericho as the heel and Triple H the face let alone believing that Jericho can dominate a cage match against Hunter. The work is middling. It's not bad, but neither guy is prep…

This was nowhere near as good as their TV matches. It didn't help that they were working in front of a crowd that only popped for finishers, but you can only blame the crowd so much. The work wasn't very compelling, the character work was nonexistent, and it was a boring call from JR & Lawler. It was almost like they were striving for a main event level match without the guidance of an agent. The ending was lame with Angle refusing to have his head shaven and a backstage brawl that led to Angle passing out in the barber's chair. I'm pretty sure they dug Brutus' Barber Shop chair out of storage. but nothing about this segment compared to that Shawn Michaels heel turn. …