December 2002

This was a Fatal Fourway that set up Eddie vs. Benoit & Angle vs. Big Show at the December PPV. It's notable for a lengthy standoff between Kurt Angle and Edge, who had been attacked by Albert prior to the bout. It was equal parts exciting and excessive. Edge probably escaped the Ankle Lock too many times, but it was engrossing another star making turn for Edge. I doubt Edge is too many people's example of a perfect pro-wrestler, but he worked his butt off in this match. I am kind of sick of all of these guys matching up and even I was hooked.

WTF is going on with CMLL singles matches? This is a single fall mano a mano bout. Now granted, they pack a lot of action into their single fall, and mano a mano bouts are only supposed to whet the appetite for an apuesta bout, but c'mon, is this really the way you want to use Santo while you've got him? I can't help but think there were negotiations for a mask vs. mask match but it fell through somehow. Otherwise, I can't understand why this was on TV.

Y'know, if someone had told me that Rey Bucanero vs Vampiro would be one of the hottest feuds of 2002, I would have told them to get their head checked. But CMLL has been weird like that. The singles matches keep disappointing, but the Japanese guys weren't as bad as I thought they'd be and now this Bucanero vs. Vampiro beef is hot. Perhaps I'm just mellowing in my old age. This match planted the seed for Ultimo vs. Shocker, which is almost an afterthought at this point, but a possible WOTYC vs WOTYC match. Watch this space.

GHC Champion Mitsuharu Misawa vs Yoshinari Ogawa - NOAH 12/7/02 My first Misawa match in years! My first Rat Boy match in years! This Misawa’s lone defense before losing the title to Kobashi at 3/1/03. An unheralded Misawa title defense means one of two things: it sucks or people are sleeping on Rat Boy. The truth is in between it is very good and enjoyable but I hesitate to call it great. I thought the first 15 minutes were spectacular. The opening was wrestled like two tag partners fighting for a singles title which was great tit for tat with Misawa teasing the elbow and them trading slams. Ogawa controls the opening porting with side headlocks and figure-4 he…

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Abdullah The Butcher in ROH in 2002 is a SIGHT to say the least, and a few minutes in, he has already busted Loc open badly by the forehead, and that FORK is being put to good use, obviously. This is such an entertaining, messy, ugly and bloody brawl, and I loved every second of it. You could call it an extended squash even, because 95% or more of it is just Abby & Homicide going to town on the Carnage Crew, and goddamn it was entertaining! Homicide was great with his violence-filled performance, and ABBY being ABBY in a setting like this was just wild. ***1/2

The first third is them just going hold-for-hold in charming fashion, wrestling over the control. After a while of that, Collyer sees that Dragon clutches his knee after a bad landing on a suplex, and then it's a full-on attack on that knee. Collyer's work over it is fantastic; he really comes off as a calm, cool, collected, laser focused ice-cold killer -- an ICEMAN if you will. Dragon sells the knee & being in trouble pretty damn fantastically, and him fighting out of Collyer's firm control created for some great moments. I'd say one of my favorite things about this whole thing was the contrast in the two characters that were American Dragon & Chad Collyer -- th…

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Well, I assume the main event is what everyone in attendance bought their tickets for. Exactly what Capture promises, 4 guys just beating eachother silly in savage ways. The Mineno/Johta sections were really fun with both guys throwing fast hands and kicks, all ultra stiff of course. Then you had the heavyweights – both Kitahara and Kurashima looked like they were twice the size of either Johta or Mineno – bullying the little guys around. Kurashima is a MUGA boy and he mostly sticks to matwork here, altough he does punish opponents with some brutal throws and inventive submissions. At one point he did a Backlund lift from an armbar into almost a One Winged Angel. Kitahara…

AJ Styles vs Amazing Red - NWA-TNA 12/11/02 I have been praising AJ vs Low Ki ad naseum, but it is actually AJ vs Red that have had the best two matches in TNA in 2002 that I have seen so far. This featured great early 2000s work with awesome face/heel dynamics. Amazing Red was taken out last week by Styles and starts this match red hot wailing on AJ who tries shoving him off, but Red will not be deterred. Great Red shine with Red Star Press and 619. When he tries follow up on the outside AJ catches him and hits a powerbomb on his knee. The rest of the match is AJ working an awesome cocky bully heat segment while Red sells well and times his hope spots really effectiv…

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOIc8qn1r0Y&feature=youtu.be

This was an okay match, but nothing you wouldn't see on a regular CMLL show. Black Warrior was a sub for Casas, which was a shame as I wanted to see more Casas vs. Juventud. Juvie didn't have much chemistry with his teammates, and the Japanese workers looked a bit lost compared to previous appearances. I don't know if that's because Juvie wasn't guiding them through the match the way Black Tiger did, or if they were simply a half step off, but trios matches fall apart pretty quickly when the timing is off. Super Crazy made his debut, but didn't leave much of an impression.

This was confusing as hell, but basically Silva turned on Porky, which led to some great "No, Andre! We're friends!" moments. Dantes appeared to turn face, Black Tiger double-crossed Silva, and everyone beat up Pierroth at the end. A hot mess, BUT, we did get to see Satanico vs. Apolo Dantes, which was awesome. Satanico bows out for 2002, and what a great note to end the year on. He may not have been involved in anything as high profile as last year's cage match, but he was excellent in just about every appearance. Even in a minor role like this. I don't know if he's a top 10 talent in CMLL anymore, but I might sneak him in there.

Ah, 2002, when Shocker was a great worker. I really liked the brief opening matwork, with Shocker flipping around and Guerrero catching him in a great flash Fujiwara Armbar. 2nd fall was short but had UG working Shockers arm over with hurty wristlocks and takedowns. Then Shocker made this great comeback and trying to boot his head off. Shocker looked damn good here, even throwing a great punch combo. The 3rd fall was your typical UG end run where they exchange big dramatic kickouts. Not my favourite thing but it was awesome to watch these two crush eachother with huge chunky guy highspots.

Psycho bomb throwing war which has to go down as the carryjob of the year. Vampiro was basically a stiff trying to be a video game wrestler here. However, his recklessness may have added to the match as he seemed to be self destructive hitting moves (e.g. knocking himself loopy with his own suplex, injuring his leg hitting a spin kick etc). It really adds to the suspense when you think this washed up drug fiend is going to blow his knees out any moment. Whenever Vampiro was in danger of getting lost, Bucanero engaged in some vicious brawling. I especially loved the segment on the ramp that started with Bucanero just clocking Vampiro in the back of the neck. He also had so…

It's crazy to think these two had pretty much perfected the US Indy style so early in the game. This was like a distillate of their 2002 work, and while it wasn't as smartly worked as their epic match in November, it has all the cool matwork, stiffness and crazy bombdropping you can ask for. Super Dragon came across as this menacing asskicker during the opening exchanges, punishing Quance with double stomps when he attempted basic moves and kicking him hard while applying leglocks. He also hit this awesome past the turnbuckle dive. Quance is able to hold his own, countering the usual armbars and hitting a stiff dropkick. After Dragon rams into the turnbuckle (taking his s…

This is AJ’s second FWA appearance after he got over hugely in his defeat to Jonny Storm at British Uprising. At this stage none of the UK guys were heels in the company, meaning AJ takes on that role in the tournament, showcasing the cocky persona he had in TNA at this point. It also works well in this match as AJ is able to use his striking and the wide variety of signature moves he has that all look really vicious. Jody’s flexibility means he is the ideal guy to take the punishment that AJ is doling out and elicit a lot of sympathy. This is the best match of the tournament with some amazing exchanges between the two. Everything AJ does is with great intensity, and …

Bit of an explanation needed before this one then! This is set to be Doug vs AJ, before the final match of the tournament will be AJ vs Jonny Storm. Going in, Doug has 20 points, AJ has 20 points and Jonny has 20 points. After his three matches, Jody Fleisch has 15 points and has therefore already been eliminated. But before the match starts it’s announced that due to the DDT he received on the outside in his count out loss to Flesich, Storm is unable to continue so his match against AJ won’t be able to go ahead. This makes Doug vs AJ as the default final to win the tournament… …however we then get Jerry Lynn as a surprise, which was a pretty ballsy (stupid?) thing fo…

This is a rematch from the final of the King of England tournament from Revival at the beginning of the year, in which Jody emerged the winner. This time coming in, it’s Doug who is under pressure following his opening defeat. This is not as good as the Revival match, which has a bigger, more high profile feel to it, but it was fun to see Doug wrestling a more high paced style reflecting his need for the points. There are some nice call backs to the Revival match, which the not always stellar FWA commentary team actually pick up on for once, in particular where Doug goes to powerbomb Jody off the apron, although this time it’s not successful. These two match up really…

Seasons Beatings was the last FWA show of 2002 and came at a time when the company was really starting to gain momentum. At the previous show Christopher Daniels had just won the British Heavyweight Title so this was about finding a No. 1 contender to go to America to get the belt back. To determine who would get the title shot, a round robin tournament between Doug Williams, Jonny Storm, Jody Fleisch and AJ Styles was devised with 20 points for a pinfall/submission win, 15 points for a count out/DQ win, 10 points for a draw and no points for a loss. The wrestler at the end of the night with the most points would be No. 1 contender. Given that matches involving Doug, Jonn…

This is your classic match up, that to this day these guys are still having against one another. At this stage they are largely respectful friends with a competitive rivalry, which would change in 2003. With this being the second match of the tournament, Jody is in a must not lose position. If Jonny wins and moves onto 40 points then there’s no way he can catch him and he’ll be eliminated. With that in mind, as you would expect he wrestles at a frantic pace, although, it’s hard to say that’s solely because of the tournament storyline – that’s the way these two always wrestle! For those who hate spot-spot-spot matches, then I can see why when these two clash – especial…

Nathan Jones vs The Predator (Sylvester Terkay) - Zero-One 12/15/02 Cage Match Surprisingly Half-Way Decent King Kong vs Godzilla match! The Japanese crowd was laughing but I think it was at the American ref shouting two. This is the second time I have seen Japanese crowds find this practice funny. Pretty standard Clash of Titans big shoulder tackles, no bumps and Iron Claws galore. Jones takes the first bump of memory serves me correctly. Jones has great whippy chops with his crazy swimmer arms. He takes some great bumps into the cage. When The Predator chain gets involved shit gets real. They two hit each other pretty fucking hard with that chain. There …

Welcome to Shinya Hashimoto's ZERO1, where 2 olympic medalists, a japanese megastar and a US nobody with a supersoldier gimmick get together to work Memphis meets Shootstyle with a sports entertainment twist. Ghaffari was pretty grotesque but was a really good monster/immovable object here, no lying. The fact his nasty gut squish attack lead to a credible nearfall aswell as him acting invincible like an olympic level greco roman wrestler should added a ton to the match. Hashimoto struggling to do anything and Ogawa finally taking him off his feet all felt like like big moments. Howard looked really good too at this point as he hit all his stuff perfectly, including braini…

Brutally stiff fight that blows away pretty much all current (2019) pro wrestling. The opening segment alone where they unload in the corner was just disgusting. The submissions here won't make you forget U-Style, but they did everything with a certain intensity, and you'll be too busy wincing at these two lunatics trying to hit eachother as hard as humanly possible to notice. They did a good job telling the story of the match, which was that Hoshikawa was slowly falling apart as he kept getting destroyed by his super vicious, more precise opponent. I liked how both guys used limb selling to put over the punishment, it makes sense that wyou would pick up injuries after ge…

Triple X vs Amazing Red/SAT - NWA TNA 12/18/02 GO RED GO! - Don West, loses his mind in the middle of this match as he gets on the announce table trying to cheerlead for Amazing Red. Tenay & West bitching and moaning about Triple X being aligned with Russo is fucking annoying. Another great X Division match, I really want to see a Low Ki vs Amazing Red singles match after this. I thought this had a good layout. Loved the babyface shine at the beginning, lots of dives and the faces going over. Red's Trouble in Paradise is so much better than Kofi's. As Red is running the ropes he runs into a forearm from Skipper on the apron and Daniels follows up with a cl…