September 2002

I'm not sure why Mil was on this card. I've always liked his style of wrestling and would love to see more of his early stuff. This was polished lucha. It was Apolo Dantes' birthday and for some reason he painted his age on his forehead. The rudos treated Mil with the upmost respect and tried to make him look good. We got some Atlantis vs. Black Tiger and Atlantis vs. Wagner, which was the drawing card for me. It's a shame that the latter two never had an apuesta. There's every chance that it could have been as legendary as Atlantis vs. Villano. Good match.

Finally, a showcase match for Satanico in 2002, and a very good one! For some reason, the Infernales have been a bit of an afterthought since the cage match. They had a program with the Villanos that was cut to shreds on TV, but now Satanico is back in the limelight. This trios is the catalyst for a singles feud between Satanico and Damian 666. Maybe not the feud I would have booked, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter. Satanico brought his working boots to the bout, and La Familia Tijuana have proven to be a polished act in CMLL, so you better believe the work was tight. I bit so hard on the false finish at the end. They got me good with that one. I'm not going to…

It's the birth of indy dream match wrestling baby. Joe has come back from japan and has yoinked all kinds of cool things from the legends while Danielson is starting to come into his own. The opening hold for hold trading isn't anything brilliant but still feels inventive by 2019 US indy wrestling standards. There is guard work and they work for cross armbreakers but also snug cravates. When Danielson tries to get cute and throw shots Joe would make him pay dearly with a few crossfaces of his own. This was generally pretty hard hitting and they do a good job building to the big spots. This was slightly before they were really starting to put it all together, Joe wasn't qu…

Really fun indy tag. I liked the opening exchanges, lucharesu armdrags and nice fireman carry takeovers, and Quance & Frantz sticking to working a basic hammerlock control segment while the crowd amused themselves heckling Disco Machine was a nice change of pace. They also hit some great flip dives. Super Dragon was obviously the best guy in the match as he was crushing dudes anytime he stepped in the ring. B-Boy was fine hitting random big moves and he had one pretty great dropkick and submission nearfall. They go pretty overboard for the finishing run and I thought Frantzs comeback looked too easy but there were also plenty of crushing big moves such as a pretty gre…

Boy, I am glad Amano was given something to do in 2002 JWP, because her working these small show matches is way better to me than GAEA. Here she does a bonafide job working as veteran against pre-curls Kaori Yoneyama. Pretty interesting as it is a good Amano match without flash submissions. They work the mat to begin, and Yoneyama would only be able to hang by using biting etc. to set up her holds. Yoneyama is a perfectly good spunky young wrestler here, with the big dropkicks and the occasional cool lucha move. Amano added some nice veteran touches: blocking Yoneyamas strikes, acting savvy to Yoneyamas flying offense, using an opening to lock in a shoulder separating sub…

This was a „bigger“ match than Amano/Yoneyama, meaning that it had more nearfalls and bigger moves, but it wasn't as smart. Also, Haruyama looked nowhere close to as good as Yoneyama did at this stage. Bolshoi largely just went to her spots. Spots where good, but the stuff around was largely just happening and didn't draw me in. The one cool moment of the match was Haruyama countering a Fujiwara armbar into a rolling cradle. I am a sucker for Bolshois submissions so the finishing run was somewhat worthwhile... still, a Bolshoi singles match could be so much more.

Really really stiff match. This was a small show, but they were certainly loosening eachothers teeth here with brutal knees and elbows. Ran Yu-Yu was hitting some especially stiff enzuigiris, that is normally not a move that will be done in a stiff manner, but she was punting Genki like a football with them. Outside of the stiffness this match didn't do a ton for me as it had poor structure. Also, like their 2000 match, they both went back to offense whenever they pleased. Ran Yu-Yu is a classy wrestler with a cool moveset, aside from the gross elbows and knees I really liked her leg trips. Genki, I dunno. Her power offense doesn't even look that impressive. I'd say this …

Round Girl is doing a gimmick where she uses her crotch, cleavage and butt the same way Danshoku Dino uses his junk, inbetween posing raunchily. There you go, I just made this match must watch for all you internet wrestling perverts out there. Aside from all the raunchiness this was actually a decent Monterrey/lucharesu style encounter. I have no idea what Sarubobo Mask is supposed to be (google tells me a sarubobo is some kind of monkey baby puppet... no idea why all the high pitched yelling then and where all the other mannerisms of the wrestler are supposed to come from) but I liked the rope hanging headscissor etc. aswell as Round Girls modified indian deathlock.

This is a really good match. A near miracle when I think about it as I don't recall babyface Kane ever working so well against a much smaller opponent. There's enough interference to get heel heat on Jericho without it bringing down the match and Jericho targetting Kane's leg is logical and sold well throughout. I really liked the reversal of the lionsault into the chokeslam attempt. It was so well done I thought it was an improvisation from a botch the first time, but looking again I'm sure it's a planned (kayfabe) mistake that Kane capitalises on. ***3/4