January 2003

Pretty much all of these Tenryu in AJPW matches are worth watching as he continues his WAR revival. Here, Araya and Arashi decide that Fuchi is the lesser of the two evils and give him a working over, but if they think years of comedy six-mans have dulled Fuchi's edge, he gives them a reminder or two of what a vicious bastard he can be. Tenryu takes a backseat to Fuchi, but he dishes out a beating every time Fuchi throws him one of the pups, and he kicks everyone's ass when he finally does tag. This could have done with a bit more violence, but it was still pretty good.

Solid TV match that continued Team Angle's push. Hot start with Benoit pulling out a tope, followed by a heat segment on Edge and the hot tag to Benoit. Screwy finish, but what else would you expect.

A thought just occurred to me: were Billy Kidman and Tarzan Boy separated at birth? This was no good. It didn't help that Cena, B2 and Rikishi made mid-match run-ins in classic Smackdown style, or that Cena stayed on commentary, spitting rhymes like J Roc from Trailer Park Boys, but at the end of the day Eddie hadn't really hit his groove yet in the WWE and Kidman was having the same kind of issues that other WCW guys had with the house style. There was nothing worth seeing in this.

This is for Kojima's MLW World Title that he had won towards the end of 2002, and is a cool title defence for Kojima back in his home promotion. Unfortunately this was clipped for MLW's Underground TV show, so its hard to get a complete sense of the match, but from what we do see, Kojima is really good on offence - explosive in his strikes and he has such great in ring charisma. Smith does show resilience to dig in after taking a lot of punishment in the sequences we see, and does get a couple of decent(ish) nearfalls of a lariat and a sit down powerbomb. While technically proficient, it does feel though that Smith doesn't have the weapons that Kojima does. In the c…

This was good and a fun contrast of shoot-style and pro-wrestling with Takayama using his brute force against Kohsaka's finesse on the mat. TK goes after the legs early on and works through some holds with Takayama. Good stuff from both guys here. TK applies an STF and transitions into a rear naked choke, and whenever Takayama tries to power out, TK will catch him with another hold. Takayama ragdolls him with a suplex throws but TK comes back with some big kicks, goes for an armbar and then traps him in a leglock when the lights go out momentarily. I was half-expecting to see Kane in the ring when they came back on but no. Takayama starts with the knee lifts, trying to av…

IWGP Champion Yuji Nagata vs Josh Barnett - NJPW Tokyo Dome 1/4/03 Barnett is definitely more of a natural than Bob Sapp. If he dedicated his time to pro wrestling I think he would’ve been great. He has the mechanics down pat, he just needed to get the soft skills down like interacting with the crowd and showing his emotions. Due to that and Nagata being a rather dry performer it makes for a good but not great match. A trope in puroresu is he who takes most of the lickin’ ends up in winning’. Barnett takes most of the early match with the usual MMA style work think double wristlocks, cross-arm breakers, chokes and leglocks. He busts out a cool body scissors take…

This is only a few minutes long, and you get the true classic later on in MUGA, but if there's a pro-wrestling heaven it looks something like this. Fujinami looks great here. Man, I'd love to have seen a long Fujinami vs. Ishikawa match. That would have been the match of a lifetime, for sure. Fujinami fires a bunch of shots at Nishimura, who gets the win in a match that has no business being on a dome show. But hey, there are worse novelties in wrestling than two grappling legends having a workout in a baseball stadium.

Wow, I loved this match. Anderson and London are an odd looking team on paper, but actually complement each other very well. London is FIP for a while and does a great job of it, and the Togo/Hidaka team is wise enough to know how to adapt the American tag formula to the Japanese audience. I loved CW's surprise spinebuster in the finishing stretch too. Ki-Styles was a great match that should have been better, while this was a match that overachieved.

Talk about it here.

Asked a friend for an old TNA rec so she gave me this, and it was exactly the kind of under-the-radar thing I wanted. Like damn did NWA TNA actually have tag matches that felt like NWA tag matches? Watching this in a vacuum I'd almost be fooled into thinking they were actually, quality-wise, a great competitor/alternative to WWE at the time. First few minutes are spent brawling out of the ring with low blows and wire chokes and concrete suplexes, with AMW ultimately losing the upperhand they had with a Michinoku Driver on the ramp by Slash. They work a pretty classic FIP following that and Slash & Lee (in a group called The Disciples of...whatever, I forget, look it u…

Tanaka still looks like FMW Tanaka here. Saito has blonde hair. So when they face off, it looks like Tanaka is workintg against an uncool looking erzatz of Mr. Gannosuke. Odd. Also odd to see Tanaka be a dick, as he always was a perenial babyface. He does it quite well though, as he should since the first half of the match is mostly him and Ohtani, who's used to being a dick and loves to slap people around, doing heelish stuff like they are the Fabulous Ones or something. They do get heat although the home team is also a bunch of dicks. Akiyama does no sell a ton at first, like "I'm not selling that second rate promotion weak shit", and he doesn't make a lot of effor…

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This is such a well paced & built spotfest. It gets hotter & hotter as it goes on, and ends just when it hits its peak. Everybody gets their big stuff in, and it rules -- everything looks impactful, vicious & crisp. Definitely a standout match of its genre. ***1/2

Talk about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_maEGA_8i2g

AJPW Triple Crown Champion Great Muta vs The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) - AJPW 01/13/03 Well this was the worst match I have watched since I returned to reviewing. A heatless mess. Early on there was the spot that Big Sexy and other tall wrestlers do where the stick the boot up and choke their opponent in the corner. Awesome just had his boot resting languidly on Muta’s chest as Muta did not move. It was absolutely pathetic. They put zero effort in. Hall at least made sure his shit look snug. Awesome besides his plancha and top rope splash did not try at all. Scratch everything I said about Muta wrestling two different matches depending on his gimmick. We wer…

Man, if you thought Japan was bad in 2002, then 2003 didn't get off to a promising start either. I watched this solely for the Hashimoto vs. Kojima interactions, which were good but not worth the price of admission. The rest of the match was the usual inter-promotional bullshit.

This was the go-home show before the Rumble. Pretty good match, but Angle and Benoit didn't interact a whole lot except for the finish where Benoit hooked Angle in the Crossface a couple of times and beat him a crutch. The kind of stuff that's tailor-made for the hype video at the PPV. Benoit and Hass had good chemistry again. Edge was weak as the face-in-peril.

This is part of Storm’s brief run with XPW, which came about due to a working agreement with the FWA and resulted in the creation of the XPW European Title (a ‘title’ which would last longer than XPW and be defended in the FWA…well, a briefcase claiming to have the title in would be…). This is No. 1 contenders match for the XPW TV Title and came about due to a double pin in a 4-way No. 1 contenders match at the previous show. We open with some standard mid 2000s indie standoff stuff, but its more measured than usual, and there’s some decent chain wrestling going on. Lynn is a good base for Storm in this match and allows him to get over with the crowd by basing for hi…

They've recently added a bunch of Velocity episodes to the network and there's plenty of hidden gems like this to be found if you are willing to dig around. Bryan might of been brought in to do the job for Noble, but they take the six minutes they're given and cram all the stuff you would expect to see in a competitive Danielson ROH technical epic. They start with some excellent mat work and Bryan shows he can more than hang with Noble. Bryan ends up taking a brutal backdrop driver, which wakes the crowd right up. Noble eventually gets the win by landing a corkscrew neckbreaker. I can't seem to remember him ever using that as a finisher. We would of lost some of the best …

Storm had beaten Jerry Lynn the previous night to get a shot at Kaos' XPW TV Title. He looks great early on, getting lots of shine and flustering Kaos. Given he had only had a couple of appearances in the company (and a only a few in the US) Storm is really over with the crowd. Kaos is athletic and can hit big spots, but feels like a rich man's backyarder whenever I've seen him - he doesn't really do transitions, and also doesn't act too well as a base here, meaning that some of the sequences come off looking a little rough. As was the way with Kaos matches at the time there is way too much outside interference (think the RVD/Bill Alfonso dynamic with the volume turned up…

Keiji Mutoh & Goldberg vs Kronik - AJPW/Wrestle-1 01/19/03 Tokyo Dome I dont know what was wrong with WCW 2000 but Kronik vs Goldberg drew 20,000, I guess Russo just needed to book Mutoh. Not only is this Kronik's last match together, this both Bryan Clark's and Brian Adams' last match individually. I would have imagined that Adams wrestled until he died I was surprised to find out he died four years after this, I thought it was around this time. If you asked me if Wrath was still wrestling, I would have guessed yes, shocked he retired so early. Maybe they thought they couldnt top the Tokyo Dome. Not sure if this counts as an All Japan event or a Wrestle-1 event.…

Bob Sapp vs Ernesto Hoost - AJPW-Wrestle-1 01/19/03 Tokyo Dome Well I think I just witnessed the two greatest entrances of all time. Hoost stole Bob Sapp’s Madonna Holiday entrance complete with dancing J-Pop girls. His dancing was gloriously terrible. All the girls fawn over him. I was like what can Sapp do possibly top this. He fucking floats in like an Angel over the Tokyo Dome dropping Magic Fairy Dust! All the girls Ditch Hoost and flock to Sapp! ALL THE FUCKING STARS FOR THIS! The peak of Bob Sapp’s shoot career was his two shoot victories over Hoost in K-1 in 2002. Hoost is a Dutch Kickboker with a 99-21 record so seems pretty damn good. Hoost’s take on p…

This was a decent match. It was slower than you'd expect and there weren't very many breakneck lucha exchanges. It's purpose was to set up a revenge match between Los Caifanes and the Orientales, and to that end you had one of the Caifanes bleeding and an Oriental's mask ripped wide open so you could see his entire face. Things picked up after the tecnico comeback, and the tercera caida had some nice exchanges. Not a Virus showcase, if that's what you're looking for, but he did have a nice exchange with Violencia at the end. Not the most thrilling of matches, but it did make me wanna see the revancha. So job done, I guess.