September 2002

Meat and potatoes Coliseo match. Porky, Atlantis and Rayo wrestle Wagner and Los Hermanos Dinamita at the Anniversary show, so there was a bit of mask ripping/pulling between Rayo and Wagner. I liked the match-up between Atlantis and Black Tiger in the tercera, and there was some fun stuff between Porky and Takemura as well. This was the type of match you take the kids to so they can see the luchadores live in person.

This was disappointing compared to the excitement of previous weeks. I was wrong about Vampiro coming to the ring to Shocker's theme as Shocker was still using Eminem here. Why did they bring Lizmark Jr to the fight? That was the first mistake. Ultimo & Rey looked cool as fuck on their way to the ring, but this wasn't a top drawer performance from them, and Shocker and Vampiro didn't have as much chemistry as they did in the mano a mano the week before. Panther was absolutely useless here even as a clog. I can't figure out if Vampiro's reckless offense is dangerous for his opponent or kind of cool because it's off-kilter. This feud should really be Shocker & Magic…

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2002 JWP was weird. Super low budget production with 1 camera and no lighting, but they are wrestling in this giant ring. This is kind of a dream match for me, and it was a lot of fun. They stuck to their bread and butter, which means flash submissions and counters. I would've liked this to be a little more competitive with actual mat exchanges, but it's a near miracle we even got a no bullshit singles match between the two on tape. Bolshoi was pretty dominant here, I guess because after floating around Michinoku Pro undercards Yagi didn't have much standing left, counter most of Yagis offensive attempts. I've seen Yagi push Yoshida to the limit and she still looked reall…

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2002.09.09 - Mad Dog McCrea vs. Lobo - NRBW, Taipei, 40,000 Raining Thumbtack Deathmatch - YouTube This is a No Ropes Barbed Wire Taipei 40,000 Raining Thumbtacks Deathmatch (don't worry, I also don't know what that means fully). It's also a fairly infamous match in the history of Australian wrestling. At the time, the promotion (Professional Championship Wrestling) was more family-friendly oriented and still is to this day, but this deathmatch ended up with the company losing their home venue and causing a media storm that greatly affected their fan attendance for future events. As a deathmatch though, it's pretty fun. They deliver on plenty of gnarly bumps a…

This was a bit of an odd match. First of all, Tarzan Boy came to the ring with four ring girls and played up his sex appeal more than he has since joining GdI. He even wore his old ring attire wi ,tor h '69' plastered on the back of his trunks. Casas came to the ring by himself like a quiet, confident, focused veteran. The problem was that it was an una caida match, so it didn't have the same ebb and flow as a regular apuesta match. It almost felt like Casas and Tarzan Boy's take on a Best of the Super Juniors tournament match than a blood feud. They switched back and forward on offense, but there was no real drama and the finish was incredibly weak. Given how good Casas …

This was really good. I could see an argument for it being too short, but even at this length it seemed that Vampiro was fairly gassed. The key to me was you're running your Anniversary Show in the same building you use every week so how do you make the bout different from your weekly main events? I thought they did a really good job of making this feel like a spectacle. Ultimo & Rey deserve a ton of credit for making the CMLL tag belts seem like major titles. That's hard to do in a regular wrestling promotion let alone a lucha promotion. And then they laid out the match in a way that was different from the run-of-the-mill weekly main event. The primera caida seemed l…

What do you get when you pair up two super technically talented wrestlers stuck with a unique stipulation on a random house show? Really great work, that's what. Basically the match functions on the simple rule that the match ends on a 2-count rather than the typical 3 required. This brings in itself elevated sense of tension from the usual holds and submissions because any of them, realistically, could get a quick pinfall: that aforementioned tension is cheap and easy here given this simple stip makes the match super unpredictable: something these two can very easily work with as a base. Bolshoi walks into this with some sensationally awesome Rey-style innovative roll-up…

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These handicap matches are some of the most polished lucha of 2002, and arguably the best use of the majority of the workers in this match. Emilio has this plastic tooth that he likes to incorporate into his matches. Here, he gets hit hard by Niebla and the tooth shoots out of his mouth. Bestia catches it like a wicket keeper in cricket, and the rudos can barely conceal their laughter as Emilio puts his tooth back in. The rest of the match is a mixture of Niebla salsa spots and Porky squashing people. Great fun.

For a post-Anniversary Show hangover card, I thought this was pretty good. I'm not sure that this feud has any legs, but basically the Guerreras dictated terms before allowing Virus to get a few flash moves in. You can see why when Virus brought Hombre Sin Nombre to a fight, but it was pretty much rudo dominated throughout. Then, in a moment of vintage inspired madness, Fuerza went to the top rope and did the Karate Kid Crane Kick pose before missing Virus badly off the top rope splash. That gave Virus an opening and he pinched back a win after his mano a mano lose to Fuerza. I don't know if this goes anywhere, but you can tell a whole lot worse than watching Virus underc…

Good hidden gem that I found while I was doing Yasuda's Deep Dive. This was a fairly hot Korakuen huge brawl that had the Makai Club use their antics to stay on top of the big babyface troop: as you might imagine this was messy, but you can't really help that when there's so many lads in the ring. Yoshie was surprisingly on point here as he has good, super scrappy stuff with Yasuda and the gang, throwing some hard forearm shots and having a really stiff brawl with Yanagisawa despite everything else going on, honestly was probably the best I've ever seen him in terms of outright performance and looking like a world-ender in his own right. Makai Club afterwards isolate out …

Low Ki defends the ROH Title Man, Low Ki was just killing everyone in 2002. He was just blasting Xavier left and right here. Xavier is someone who is pretty much forgotten. I am not sure if it's unfair or not, as he looked like a good solid pro wrestler, with a tendency to do cool moves and not much of a clue on match structure. Structurally this wasn't great and they started running out of interesting ideas about 15 minutes into it, but Ki walloping Xavier over and over kept this entertaining. Should add Kis subtle leg selling was quiet great. Run in was pretty bad and took way too long.

Incredibly wild & pretty innovative for 2002 standards, and it still is really effin' wild in 2020. Michael Shane & Paul London sure weren't afraid to go nuts with them added weapons. The birth of the "PLEASE DON'T DIE" chants too - it's always fascinating to hear Gabe's & the other commentators confusion upon hearing those, and the finish that followed w/ London delivering that Shooting Star Press off the ladder rules. An important match in the ROH lore, and it still stands the test of time. ***3/4

The catalyst for this match was ridiculous. Chris Benoit laughed at Angle while he was getting a stinkface, so Angle held Benoit down and forced him to get a stinkface of his own. And then he laughed at him. WTF is this playground shit? I like this match up, but this was all work, no story, though do be fair I don't know how much mileage you can get over being angry at a guy for laughing at you. We've seen X-Division matches that were all-workrate, so I'm happy to give this a pass, but it was kind of weird that they booked it in the first place. I was impressed by how hot the Staples Center was for the submission reversals. Who would have thought a WWF crowd would pop so …

Huh! Really fun trios match. Maybe I should stop dreading joshi tags. The main reason for this being fun is that they mix the usual joshi workrate stuff up with lots of amusing shtick and the combo of tagging Kyoko with two low ranked workers. Kaori Yoneyama plays Mini Kyoko and makes a really fun goofy underdog face, while Kyoko herself works as a Brazo de Plata/One Man Gang type immovable object, which works a lot better than Kyoko working long winded epics. All the Yoneyama tries Kyoko Inoue tribute spots and gets smacked upside the head was fun, all the Kyoko Inoue as immovable object/laying out everyone on the opposite team stuff was fun, and the workrate sections we…

WELL!! These are two of my favourite female workers, and really two of the more unique wrestlers in wrestling history, despite the fact you have to kind of scour the earth to find their good matches. Due to the special makeup of japanese womens wrestling these two are rarely in a matchup that allows them to shine. And for some reason, their matches over the years have never been quite white they should be. The 1998 encounter went far too long, the 2000 ones ranged between solid and fun exhibtions... fortunately, they finally delivered what the matchup promises on this one. This is a submission match and really worked like Negro Navarro vs. Solar in Coliseo Coacalco. It ev…

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AJ Styles vs Low-Ki - NWA-TNA 9/25/02 2 Out Of 3 Falls Nashville crowd loves Low Ki and hey we even get an AJ Sucks chant. I could watch these two wrestle forever. Always great chaining at the beginning even if it always ends with that cool kick by Ki. Low Ki is a great offensive wrestler has that perfect babyface shine offense, it pops up, but keeps stuff in the back pocket for later. I liked AJ mocking Low-Ki's kicks to the chest only to eat a kick to the head. Great way to work in some character work. AJ hotshots Low-Ki's crotch into the top rope. Strong, short heat segment with great fists and chops from AJ. Double clothesline is the reset. Ki get the tap out from…

Eddie Guerrero vs Edge - Smackdown! 9/24/02 No DQ I have watched this match twice previously and neither time to leave much of an impression. Now I am going to record my apathy so I don't have to go back and watch it again. This is one of the most blatant carry jobs I have ever seen. I am usually the worst at noticing that or think people are exaggerating, but Eddie literally set up Edge for every single one of his big spots from the monkey flip to the powerslam to the Electric Chair to final Edgecution off the ladder this was the Eddie show through and through. I loved the amount of effort Eddie gave. I love his energy. It is totally infectious. I don't know how som…

I'm not sure if we're supposed to use the taping date or the air date for these Smackdown matches, but there's already a thread for the Eddie vs. Edge match and I don't want to confuse people about the dates. For the record, this was taped on 9/24. Cole will not stop going on about how Benoit vs. Angle from Unforgiven was one of the greatest matches he's ever seen. C'mon, Michael Cole. This was too short to be anything of note, but you get some more Angle vs. Benoit, and Rey does some breathtaking spots. They also have the good sense to put him over in his hometown..