October 2002

This was built around the beefs between Wagner and Rayo and Black Tiger and Black Warrior. The rest of the cast didn't really do anything. There was almost no interaction between Wagner and Atlantis except for one tiny exchange. Wagner vs. Rayo is a different match-up to Atlantis/Wagner and requires Wagner to be more theatrical. I suppose that is Wagner in his element. He seemed to enjoy the spectacle here and produced a lot of great pleasing stuff. It was fun watching Rayo cut Wagner down to size. It's too bad the others couldn't find better ways to get involved in the match, but we did get some signature stuff from the tecnicos.

While popular sites state that Suzuki returned to wrestling in 2003, one might argue that he actually did so in 2002, or at least was gearing up to it anyway. This is a shoot-style tag match that one could definitely debate being legit or not, for me I'd say this is definitely worked all things considered given there's a couple of spots thrown in and everyone here was noticeably holding back a fair bit when it came to the grappling. It's noticeably also not on any major MMA sites (which says nothing given even clear works get on some fighters legit records, but still). This was a grappling-only match, so no strikes or the sort permitted. Anyway, the match. Quite co…

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ron "The Truth" Killings vs Low-Ki - NWA-TNA 10/02/02 The Truth is pissed off that everyone is talking about the X-Division and they are the best wrestlers. Well he is the World Heavyweight Champion, goddamnit! Another great TNA match from 2002! I know that the storylines were probably insufferable that 75% of each show was garbage, but they do seem to consistently put on one great match a show. I loved seeing Ki in this setting against a more conventional heavyweight wrestler and being able to work underneath and really sell. I thought he was great in the shine with his chops and kicks. The transition to heat was great with Killings sen…

The year 2002 is the only year since 1997 that I did not watch any wrestling at all during a calendar year. I was still smarting from the WCW buyout and the pathetic Invasion. Even bringing back the NWO did not get me to give a fuck about wrestling. I have gone back and watched a handful of matches from 2002, but I thought I look at the 8 or 10 best. This period of time will be crucial for how I rank Benoit, Mysterio and Guerrero for GWE. Chris Benoit vs Rey Mysterio - Smackdown! 10/3/02 This was a tremendous TV bout! It is amazing that this is pretty much their signature singles match. For all the time spent in WCW and WWE, they very rarely crossed paths in a single…

Say what you will about Edge, but he followed up on that Eddie No DQ match with this lengthy bout against Angle. That's no mean feat. Edge vs. Angle seems like a wrestling nightmare, but I'm generally pro-Angle, and I can imagine this match up being far worse in say 2006 or 7. Edge is banged up from the No DQ match and still hurting. He tries slowing down the match and working over Angle's arm. Angle is portrayed as the uber-dominant, superior wrestler, so it's an interesting dynamic. You know it's not going to last and that Angle will start popping off suplexes, but considering the length of the match it's a solid start. They work their way through some nice midrange stu…

This was short but violent. Don't ever screw Satanico out of some trios titles or you'll be stretchered out of the arena. One thing I don't love about Satanico is his penchant for low blow finishes. Must Satanico matches always involve his nuts?

This is worked at the old IWA Arena which was most likely some old barn somewhere in Indiana and there's around 45 people in the crowd and it's pretty awesome. This is Ian totally out of the hardcore environment we are used to seeing him as the match develops mostly on the mat and it features some pretty awesome work from both sides with some cool submission attempts and some pretty awesome selling to get these submissions ever. There's some pretty gruesome headbutt battle where you can clearly hear the thud of their heads colliding. The finishing stretch is awesome with Ian countering a pin with a gator roll and an anaconda choke and Tarek just knees him on the head from…

I assume the main event is like the quintessential Capture match. Lots of wild swinging punches and kicks that connect with full force. Kawauchi, who I saw in his debut match at a 1998 KAGEKI show against Masakazu Fukuda would go on to work Osaka Pro as Hideyoshi and is now grizzled veteran GENKAI in Kyushi Pro, so he has quite the history of japanese indy wrestling. Kawauchi is good as the energetic youngster here with explosive takedowns and pummeling violently on the ground. Ichimiya who is some comedy character in DDT looks credible here as a heavyweight shooter. His super violent, quick assault on Kawauchi in the 2nd fall using the guardrail may have been the highlig…

Mineno vs. Johta (or Jyota?) was a boxing gloves match because every japanese sleaze indy company has an annoying guy on the booking team who constantly goes „But where is the booooooxing match?“. They actually do some grappling with double leg takedowns, armbars and suplexes but it was of course limited. However these two guys absolutely slaughtered eachother in the standup with awesome fast punches and spin kicks. No pussy shit here for sure. Plus you get the fun aspect of guys awkwardly falling into the guardrails when getting kicked. This is rounds so they work some actually cool „safed by the bell“ moments. I am stoked to check out these boys in a match with regular …

Minami/Iwashita was a nifty undercard shootstyle bout. Won't make you forget U-Style but probably a Top 10 japanese match if it happened tod- ah I'll shut up. Really dug the tenacity and struggle over everything while keeping a steady pace. Highlights include Minami locking Iwashitas arm behind his back and surviving a nasty guillotine while his face turned blue. They have the MMA gloves but aside from a few body punches and low kicks they stick to grappling. Neat finish with several cool armlock variations before one forces the tap. 

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

I love that Kurashima pops up once in a blue moon on tape and has a nifty undercard bout. This was from a MUGA branded card but worked UWFi style. Nakano still looks good – his holds look extra hurty in that Greg Valentine hard-to-break way, and he will still put the hurt on anyone with his kicks, hands and skull. The turning point of the match came when Nakano dropped Kurashima with a snap brainbuster that left Kurashima groggy with nothing left but a few desperation takedowns which earned him nothing but a couple brutal KO's. Ending really felt like it could have been the conclusion to a classic rather than a forgotten undercard bout, if Kurashima was more over with the…

Iizuka returns to wrestling. And he gets to fight Nishimura in a long technical battle! Is this the longest singles match Iizuka has ever been in? Does anyone even remember any significantly long Iizuka singles matches?? As far as lesser known 2002 Nishimura singles matches go, I'd say this was better than Nishimura/Shiga. Iizuka was much less luggage than Shiga, instead he was actively trying to crack the stoic grappler, while Nishimura seemed to have an answer to everything. Iizuka finally found what he was looking for when he got Nish in one of his sambo leg locks. An awesome battle of leg entanglements ensued that left both guys struggling to get up. Couple brilliant …

This has nothing on the first two TLC matches, but it holds up on it's own merits. None of the teams are as established as Edge & Christian or The Hardy Boyz, so they make us care with some gnarly table spots and having Kane gradually beat the odds of being a lone wolf after his tag partner was taken out pre-match. Jeff gets to launch himself of a ladder, Spike gets thrown like he's weightless violently out of the ring, what more do you want? I'm just going to ignore the Katie Vick stuff that started directly after this match wrapping up. ★★★¾

One of the joys of lucha libre is random undercard trios matches. This wasn't the best example of this most pure of lucha libre artforms, but they did show it in full, which is rarity. I'm not sure where they dug Ringo Mendoza up from, but you've got to marvel at how clean looking his dropkick and plancha were. There were plenty of talented guys in this, but for the most part it was solid action without anyone standing out.

Not as epic as their match 2 weeks later but still tightly worked, smart professional wrestling. It was a pretty different match from their later match which shows these guys aren't one trick ponies. Once again the match had lots of cool matwork. Quance dominated more here and looked good doing that but obviously it wasn't as exciting as Super Dragon crushing a dude. The match was a 20 minute ironman and they do a nice job going 20 minutes without a fall. In total it feels like a setup for the postmatch angle altough not in a bad way.

Quick match worked in the tecnico's style. I often wonder how they decide which way they're going to work these matches. Actually, I was surprised that the Talibanes could still work this style of match. Felino seemed to injure Emilio on a diving headscissors spot off the apron, and it looked for all money like Emilio gave him a receipt later on, but that may have been me getting excited about their mini match up. Bestia was awesome as usual. Such a hugely underrated talent. Casas had a buzz cut, which is something you don't see often. Surprisingly good match.

This match was built around Rey Bucanero trying to pick a fight with Vampiro. It was extremely well done and a tremendous showcase for Bucanero's talents as a worker. We all know he's a good worker, but he's often in the shadow of Ultimo Guerrero, the alpha. Here it was Bucanero's chance to shine and he took the bull by the horns and made Vampiro look like a bigger badass than he has during his entire CMLL return. Ultimo & Black Tiger did their part with some cool looking spots, but this was all about Vampiro & Bucanero and an excellent piece of business. GdI have become compulsory viewing in 2002, and this match is a perfect example of why.

One thing I find underwhelming about 2002 CMLL is that the single matches don't deliver like they ought to. I'm slowly starting to accept that CMLL is sliding closer toward having basic TV matches than the blowoff matches of ole. That said, this a well-worked bout. Damian jumped Satanico by running through the crowd and they basically pounded on each other for a solid five minutes. Satanico was fired up and the crowd fed off that energy. I didn't have huge expectations for this, so I was glad to see them work such a tight match. Satanico laid down the challenge for a hair match, and as we've seen with 2002 CMLL, the build up to these types of matches has been strong but t…

I’m going to be repeating myself here with the matches from Uprising I, but this is another match with a very early 2000s feel to it. This was one of the big selling points for the show and the main event of the first half. Doug was the UK’s premier technical guy at that point, in terms of someone that was blending the WOS style with a more modern/Japanese orientated move set and Jerry Lynn was really hot at this stage, given he was getting a lot of rave reviews for his work in TNA in the early days of the X Division plus he still had the ECW cache. The result is the fans chanting for Lynn before he’s even come out. The beginning of the match is worked like your class…

In other posts on the site I’ve reviewed the main (and best) matches from the show, but just to touch briefly on some of the ones I haven’t mentioned, before we get to the main event… Zebra Kid vs Hade Vansen – this is for the All England Title. Zebra Kid is one of Paige’s older brothers while Vansen is known for being a guy that got a one week push to be an Undertaker Wrestlemania opponent before being mysteriously released the week after. This match is pretty nuts with no transitions to speak of, but all the moves they pull off, they throw themselves into 100% and the recklessness and chaotic nature of it actually makes for a pretty fun match. I’ve always enjoyed th…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuV-lietd6k I’ll go into other matches in individual threads but first, a bit of the backstory on the event, where this match is the opener. I wrote about the importance of Revival in a reawakening of the UK wrestling scene at the beginning of the 2000s here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/39613-doug-williams-vs-eddie-guerrero-fwa-revival-king-of-england-tournament-02092002/ British Uprising was the next important step. Revival had been relatively successful in terms of drawing around 2,000 fans and having the look and feel of a relatively big show, but hadn’t attracted the type of ratings for Bravo, the satellite chan…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t260w0Z-qBY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgy1hrQ1NDs You feel like if Twitter and gifs had been around in 2002 that this would be the sort of match that would engage some of the debate that came following Ricochet/Ospreay, although, it’s a match where for all the faults people might have with lack of selling and transitions, it's a match where both are always trying to win with less instances of posing and stand offs. Coming into this match, AJ was just starting to build his reputation having been the breakout name alongside Low Ki (who would come appear for the FWA the next year) of early TNA and also ROH. Jonny meanwhile, a…

Bob Sapp vs Manabu Nakanishi -NJPW Tokyo Dome 10/14/02 Bob Sapp has the look! I remember really wanting him to wrestle stateside but this match really exposes his limitations. He moves really stiff and does not seem to have the best instincts. I have seen maybe 5 Nakanishi matches, I think all I remember is he is the guy who does a torture rack. LO & Behold we get dueling Torture Racks. Sapp is a big boy to get up there. I think they chose Nakanishi because of his size to have a battle of the bulls. Opening bombs, Sapp a powerbomb, Nakanishi a slam. Then usual shoulder tackles to establish Sapp as a beast. Dueling Torture Racks I’m a mark for the Rack. Bizarre e…