November 2002

Nothing better than a lucha match that starts with about 17 minutes of straight matwork that the crowd eats up. This is one of the earlier Navarro/Solar matchups and what they did here was pretty different from what they would do later, altough it was all great. This is also one of the better Skayde showings I've seen as him rolling with Shu is much more interesting than him rolling with one of his skinny trainees. Shu is just so physical, he does this thing where he goes on all fours or tailor seat and dares the other guy to move him. So Skayde puts a nasty toehold on him before going for a rolling stretch. Really really neat stuff that feels competitive. The later porti…

This was clipped but it had plenty of guys you want to see on TV like Felino and Zumbido. Casas came across as a huge badass in this. There was a callback to his history with Fuerza. Fuerza didn't have much left at this point, but it was cool to see them square off. Casas vs. Juventud was excellent

X Division Champion AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn - NWA-TNA 11/6/02 AJ is 100% in this heel and establishes he is a very cocky little shit. This allows Jerry Lynn to take advantage when he is showboating. They also establish that they are very familiar with each other with all the reversals and misses, but it is Lynn that seems to be the one left standing. The first time it looks to shifts to AJ is when he hurdled the railing and he superkicked Lynn as he tried to give pursuit. AJ then tries a springboard guardrail move, but takes a kick to midsection. His cockiness gets the best of him again. AJ was ha been selling and bumping so much better than Lynn in this match. AJ bas…

WWE Tag Tag Champions Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit vs Rey Mysterio & Edge - Smackdown 11/7/02 2 out of 3 Falls I have always thought the Smackdown Six era was a little overrated, but the first fall of this match held up great. First Fall: Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle have amazing chemistry. The use of the 619 to evade Angle and send him out the ring to embarrass him was the spot of the match. Benoit had a great reaction to this. The Edge parts were alright. Good transition to the heat segment with Angle pulling the hair from the apron and Benoit blindsiding him. It is the first fall so we dont get a full blown heat segment on Edge. I thought Edge actually h…

This was the semi-final of a #1 Contenders tournament for the CMLL Trios titles. The super beef between Vampiro & Bucanero continues. One fall. Nothing major happens.

There already is a thread for the Danielson vs. London part of this, but I thought the entire thing deserves some talking. Merge this w/ that Bryan vs. London thread if it needs to be done. This is a GAUNTLET match. The first match of it is Michael Shane vs. the debuting CM Punk. It's good stuff! It actually surprisingly ends up being the longest match of the Gauntlet, but I ain't complaining about that, since it was indeed rock solid. Punk got to look very good in there, and Shane was his usual charming self. Really liked how Punk noticed Shane clutching the arm, which caused him to go work over it. PSYCHOLOGY~! and all that. Shane getting the win by grabbing Punk's…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This is an absolute belter of a 6-man tag with everybody getting their shit in without going overboard with it. It gets hotter & hotter as it goes on; EVERYBODY gets plenty of time to shine & look great, but you can see that Joe is designed to be THE star of the thing, and he certainly comes off as exactly that with his killer work throughout. ***1/2

Borderline great match well worth powering through the absolutely awful commentary. They worked a slightly more intricate version of their usual match here, adding some especially cool counters and cut offs to the mix. The main reason the work between these two guys ages well is that instead of building to thigh slapping flying knee strikes or Go 2 Sleep variations they add stiff kicks to the chest and nasty turnbuckle bumps to the mix. Note how violent something like Kis hair pulling toss felt not to mention the headbutts. Could've gone longer but I guess that's a good thing.

Good match that was marred somewhat by interference from Edge and Chavo. Fortunately, the booking mandate at the time was to have that type of shit happen during the middle of a match so they gave us a proper finish. Eddie vs. Rey is an all-time great match up. In my opinion, they match up as well as anyone in the history of professional wrestling. They don't dig too deep into their bag of tricks here, but it's an entertaining bout, and I thought the work was better than the Benoit/Mysterio match. Eddie is starting to look more like Eddie.

There was one really great FUTEN-esque exchange between Ikeda and KENTA in this. I can see KENTA having a pretty great career in BattlARTS/FUTEN or WAR just acting like a kickboxer. Unfortunately, Sugiura & KENTA immediately cooled that excitement down by working a rather lame control segment. Taue does almost nothing in this, but the 2 times or so he is in he really kicks people in the face or ragdolls KENTA around, so it's fair to say that he rules. It picks up again for the finish and Ikeda even gets to pick up the win with the Kinniku Buster in a nice moment.

I find that early NOAH ages extremely well. For some reason, even undercarders understood how to mix up match formulas to keep things interesting. Why even a guy like Donovan Morgan can have interesting matches here but nowhere else I don't know, maybe there was some Pat Patterson genius laying out these matches for NOAH. This was a fun junior opener, with Morgan & Modest immediately isolating young Kotaro and working cutoffs to get the crowd amped for Kanemaru, which lead to Kanemarus sections actually being fun. Kotaro is still a rookie, but he gets to look good thanks to the stooging of the gaijins. The finish was memorable to with Modest hitting his finisher on Ka…

This match was lovely to see as the crowd is CRAZY CRAZY HOT for Shiga & Rikio and they beat the snot out of each other. We also get Kawabata trying to stand up to Kobashi. I imagine if 90s crowbar Kawabata had shown up this match would've been really great, unfortunately Kawabata was merely solid here. Kobashi when not working a 30 minute long epic is really fun though and we get some quality exchanges between him and Rikio. Not mindblowing greatness here by any stretch of imagination, but you'll feel good having watched this.

A very subdued NOAH main event, which makes this cool immediately in my book. I prefer these guys working smart exchanges over some head droppy macho ass bullshit. Ogawa as usual gets some unusual and cool exchanges out of Misawa. I also really like that Misawa was tagging with IZU~ here. He and Sano just potatoed each other a lot and it was really fun. Izu seemed to be riding high in the end, uncorking his awesome diving headbutt and fending off Sanos comeback attempts only to fall to a basic armbar.

This is second match on the card. Kikuchi is in his karate pants for teaming up with Aoyagi. Nobody would look at this match on paper and expect a great match, but what we get is really fun with each guy bringing their trademarks. The ending run is ridiculously fun as Aoyagi goes crazy spin kicking everyone and the crowd being really excited for him potentially winning this meaningless undercard match. Honda didn't do much except really squeezing people with headlocks, teasing the Dead End and having some cool selling after eating some nasty leg kicks from Aoyagi & Kikuchi. Sometimes, less is more.

Really well laid out sprint 6 man tag, with everyone bringing something neat to the table. We get Scorpio looking ultra sharp working basic opening exchanges with Hashi, Vader having a good day and really beating the shit out of Saito with a flurry of nasty strikes, Hashi being as effective as ever in his underdog role and Akiyama immediately going for the kill handing out exploders. It clocks in at just under 10 minutes where Vader chokeslams Akiyama through a table and then starts attacking people with a whip(?). Full NOAH point.

This was the final of the #1 Contenders tournament for the CMLL Trios title, so they got more time than in the other tournament matches. Very good match. Best Shocker performance in a while. He gave a complete three-fall performance with strong offense in the first fall, excellent selling in the second fall, and a fiery comeback in the third. We got to see the two heavy hitters, Wagner and Shocker, square off, but I also liked the way Apolo got in the mix. You can see what an excellent worker Apolo was through his interactions with Vampiro. Just a really good hand. There was some predictable interference from Rey Bucanero, but it was actually pretty cool. Ultimo & Rey…

Bit of a nothing match. I like watching Ultimo Dragon in Mexico, but he was a bit player here. Some cool teamwork by the rudos at the end of the second fall. Atlantis & Mascara had some decent exchanges, but I would have preferred more Panther vs. Atlantis instead.

A 30-Minute Iron Man match, and it's a really good, borderline great one. The first third or so is all about some good ol' scientific, technical wrestling w/ neither really establishing control over one another. It unsurprisingly of course rules since it's these two. Eventually Dragon starts getting a bit more mean w/ his work, and he starts sneakily doing some work over Williams' neck. It pays off big when he gets the first (& only) fall of the match to his name by delivering a couple of vicious Dragon Suplexes. That happened at around the 18-minute mark (shout-out to Gabe for informing us about that), and after that, the urgency keeps on rising & rising. William…

Great Muta vs Bob Sapp - Wrestle-1/AJPW 12/17/02 I finally found it! The Bob Sapp Madonna Holiday Entrance! Something that captured my imagination since the first time I saw it in college. I didnt know if this entrance was for an MMA bout, pro wrestling match or HUSTLE, but it something that has stuck with me for years. I find fantasy booking helps me fall asleep, my version of counting sheep. The Bob Sapp Madonna Holiday entrance is something I have re-envisioned multiple times over. To me it is one of those moments that truly captures the essence of pro wrestling and what makes pro wrestling the most unique form of entertainment in the world. Hands-down the greates…

Borderline great NOAH 6 man action. Really fun opening, BURNING try isolating Taue only to eat a bunch of boots to the face and Taue ends up teasing the apron chokeslam on Kobashi with Ikeda helping him. We get some brief exchanges where you can't tell what the layout is going to be and then Taue takes out Kobashi with the big chokeslam on the floor anyways. In 1995 this probably would barely phase Kobashi but in 2002 this takes him out for a long time and we get a long heat segment with KENTA taking a huge beating while Shiga desperately tries to save him. That they were able to get serious heat for something like a Sleeper Hold in Differ Ariake speaks volumes about they…

One year later, Sugiura looks much more rugged. Can he take down Honda now? He can't, but here's another really fun match. Plenty of grappling, and that is a good thing because Honda rules so much on the mat. His cradles, takeovers etc. are so much cooler than your average UWF matwork. His super tight headlocks etc. also help emphasize how much it must suck to wrestle this guy and they also have significance, he might just lock in a basic front headlock then yank the guy over and crank his neck. Sugiura brings a lot more to the table in this match. Not outstanding and he does look a little awkward at times but he is a fun dance partner for Honda. The finish was pretty fun…

A fittingly brutal introduction to the Elimination Chamber concept. Rob Van Dam is the star of the opening half. With a great babyface shine really taking it to Triple H and then bumping around like crazy with great spots like the Spiderman dive and the Five Star off the pod. Jericho plays a fun chickenshit and his alliance with Triple H is a nice dimension that adds a nice wrinkle to the match. It also pays off nicely. Kane was a fun monster but he looked dumb not going for a pin after Chokeslam City. Shawn commands the last half of the match as a great underdog babyface bumping around for Y2J and HHH. He actually pulls off one of his best and most tense comebacks here a…

This was entertaining while the three teams were involved, though it was a bit finisher happy. Unfortunately, the workers hitting multiple finishers on each other was the only time they got a reaction out of the shitty Madison Square Garden crowd. It didn't seem as though the crowd wanted Benoit and Angle to be eliminated, and the Garden was dead for the Guerreros' heat segment on Edge. Mysterio's high spots woke them up again, and the finishing stretch was decent, but it was definitely lacking something without Angle and Benoit. They would have been better off without the elimination stip, or putting a spin on the classic Survivor Series stip and having single eliminatio…