February 2003

WWE Tag Team Champions Los Guerreros vs Team Angle - Smackdown 2/6/03 Benjamin & Haas are a bit bland. I love a good amateur/shooter gimmick, but I feel like it has to be couple with being a cocky prick or being a white meat babyface. These two seemed better suited for the latter, but they were not positioned that way nor were either exuding that. They just sort of are there. I love Eddie. It has been a long time since I watched some Eddie. I have to say this is more like Eddie in cruise control than Eddie rock n rolling, but it was still nice to watch him again. He is such a pleasure to watch. I thought Chavo was laying his shit in and looked good. Early on Guerr…

WWE World Champion Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit - Smackdown 2/6/03 Kurt Kobashi powerbombs Chris Misawa into the turnbuckles only for Chris Misawa to duck under and hit a German where Kurt Kobashi lands on his belly. I am so glad "This is awesome" has NOT been innovated yet. Even with this bit of campy excess, I still thought this was a really good match. There is an authenticity that Benoit brings to the ring that is sorely lacking in today's WWE. The way he wrestles in the beginning, he is just out to overwhelm you. He is the Russians at Stalingrad, no steps back, only moving forward. It is just a barrage of strikes, holds and suplexes. It never looks choreographed. H…

Man, this was a great mano a mano. You look at the match length and you figure it will be a disappointment, but the thing they did here that really set them apart from their contemporaries was to work incredibly stiff with each other. Both guys dished out some great looking shots, and their intensity never let up. Shocker was 1000% dialed in. Ultimo brought just enough matwork to make me happy by tying Shocker in knots, and they worked a dramatic tercera that wouldn't have looked out of place in a higher stakes bout. Really cool finish, apeshit crowd, and some killer promos afterward. As a piece of business, this had it all. There's no doubt that these two guys are the be…

We are in the Walthamstow Assembly Halls in London, and this is a quarter final match in the XPW European Title Tournament. For more info on that tournament should you have a particular need to fall asleep, I’ve written about it in the link above. Juvi would be a semi-regular for the FWA in the first part of 2003, and is representing XPW in the tournament. For someone that at this time was bouncing around a load of different companies, he looks really smooth and polished, and it’s good to see Jonny raise his game to keep up with someone with the talent and experience that Juvi has. The opening exchanges are really fun with a nice hybrid of Lucha, traditional British …

This match is just exceptionally good when it comes to 3-way spotfests. It starts with a big pace right from the get go, and it never lets up; the action stays incredibly exciting & compelling from bell to bell. They are so innovative & creative with the 3-person spots they do, and all the bigger spots in this match hit me as a viewer beautifully. And of course with this involving Low Ki & AJ Styles (London brings it as well though!), there's plenty of awesomely mean & intense striking involved as well. As of this viewing, I would honestly put this above the legendary Daniels/Danielson/Ki 3-way dance from The Era of Honor Begins. It's that good. ****1/4

Their first ever ROH 1-on-1 meeting from the month prior was already bordering on it, but this one I thought was totally great. It's just filled with fantastic wrestling, coming with great feeling of caution, urgency, one-upmanship & pride. In the early going, they just go at it, locking each other in submissions any chance they got, while also busting out those vicious strikes to one another for good measure. It's great stuff, and once we move on to Joe's control seg, it's also great stuff; he just completely brutalizes Danielson & it's awesome. Danielson has to fight from underneath from that point on, and as I'm sure most of us know, he is excellent at that rol…

This starts right after London beat Styles & Ki in that excellent 3-way dance, giving it a nice dynamic of exhausted-underdog London going against the asshole champ. London is still fiery with all of his work over Xavier, but he sells the exhaustion of that triple threat very well throughout, and his overall selling was pretty great as usual. Xavier is a good foil against that with his heel tactics, and those vicious moments such as him busting London open, dumping him through a table, that nasty German Suplex to stop his momentum, etc. There's some really great nearfalls in the match too; it really felt like it was destined to be London's moment with those and how th…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This wasn't quite as red hot as their mano a mano the week before, but I thought the body of the match was excellent and pretty much the epitome of what a modern title match could be. It was shorter than old-school title matches. You didn't get a long primera caida with back and forth matwork, but the work was sharp, focused, and employed good psychology. These two were natural rivals and had great chemistry. Their era of CMLL didn't last that long, but it felt like the future at the time. I was in two minds about the finish here. Shocker saved face by getting the phantom 1-2-3, and Ultimo stayed strong by going over clean, but I don't think anyone was satisfied by the ou…

These two never disappoint. Easily one of my favorite match-ups of the early 2000s. This was their version of a touring match. I could easily imagine them having the exact same match in Zero-1. The commentators kept riffing on it being teacher vs. student, the work being shoot style, and other annoying shit, but if you can block out the college radio crap , the end result is Homicide and Low Ki hitting each other as hard as they can. Otherwise known as the good stuff.

The debut show (2/15/2003) had a decent undercard with Ito/Ueyama being the one standout match to deliver some high end shootstyle action. Ueyama feels very Tamura inspired with his almost dance like knee grinding and position switching on the ground. The match obviously had lots of good matwork with the opening exchange being perhaps the dopest on the show, and then Ito, after almost getting submitted, starts doing his dismissive mugging and "I will bite you" grin. Lots of feisty palm strikes.

The main event was obviously the best match and had everything a Tamura match entails. The good thing about U-Style is that they didn't do straight up UWF or RINGS worship but instead it was this exciting new take on shootstyle with faster pace, shorter matches and submissions being more important. Great mix of slick, athletic matwork with intelligent pacing and strong standup sections. Tamura comes across as a very dangerous force but he mostly works even with fellow RINGS leftover Sakata. Sakata is someone who seems to rough his opponent up a little more than average, it didn't come across strongly here but he had his moments. Really liked how tough the body shots here …

The U-Style debut show as a whole was solid, but it didn't have a whole lot of standout moments. But the finish here was certainly one of them. It seems like Kimura is the better grappler here, as Hara has to fight a lot harder to get holds locked in, and it doesn't seem like they're locked in very well. But then Hara darts behind Kimura and kills him with one of the most brutal looking Germans that you'll ever see! Hara locks in a sleeper and bam! Kimura has to submit.

This falls in the "If it's a Tenryu match, it's a match worth watching" basket. Miyamoto was the first post-split graduate of the All Japan dojo. Jesus, what a time to make your debut. I feel sorry for the kid. Still, he attacks Tenryu with plenty of guts and fire, and gets his nose busted open for his pains. Miyamoto hangs in there for longer than expected, and shows his fighting spirit and all of that important stuff, but Tenryu is cold blooded. He shows the kid no mercy. What a bastard.

Talk about it here.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles - NWA-TNA 2/19/03 I have never seen a Jarrett vs AJ match and I thought I should at least watch one. Jarrett is NWA babyface with basically zero friends. We are unsure if AJ Styles is SEX 4 Life, but at the end of the match we find out he only believe in monogamous relationships when he takes out Sonny Siaki (remember him?!?). AJ is playing a cocky jock who think he is the GOAT already and he would eventually make his case. :) I do like some overbooking but prefer it to be backloaded. This was filled with the usual Jarrett/TNA/Russo BS. Larry Legend is AJ's mentor and he keeps tripping Jarrett up and even …

Hey look, Atlantis and Wagner have reignited their beef just so they can remind us how cool it would be if they had a mask match. Unfortunately, the match is a bit of a scrappy affair. There are some good moments between Tiger and Warrior, and some decent moments between Atlantis and Wagner, but it's a bit of a mess otherwise and ends with a low blow. Granted, it's quite creative by low blow standards, but it's still a shitty low blow. I was kind of hoping that this would have more pop to it.

This was business as usual with no signs of any Vampiro & Shocker dissension yet. In fact, it seemed like they were testing the waters for a Tarzan Boy/Vampiro feud. Vampiro had defeated Tarzan Boy for the NWA World Light Heavyweight title on a Coliseo show, and Vampiro came to the ring flaunting the belt. This match served as a return bout for that result plus Tarzan Boy's interference in the Shocker/Ultimo bout the week before, and it basically saw Vampiro toss Tarzan Boy around like an absolute rag doll. The Infernales held Vampiro down in a Jesus Christ pose while Tarzan Boy got his licks in, which you know Vampiro sold for all he was worth. The ref DQ'ed the rudo…

I posted this because I just finished watching this as part of a project I'm doing. I wanted to see what people's take on this was, as I feel it could be somewhat divisive. It is all sorts of smoke and mirrors work by Muta - mist, chairs, blood, finisher spam - but it does make the little that Hashimoto brings in terms of offense really fun. So yeah, what do people think about this match?

I wasn't feeling this. It would have been pretty average for a Smackdown main event let alone a PPV match. It was a pure sprint with no heat section. Benoit was the best guy in the match, which comes as no surprise. The Brock vs. Angle exchanges weren't very inspiring. For some reason, Meltzer gave this four stars, but I don't see how.

Chris Jericho vs Jeff Hardy - No Way Out 2003 What is the point of this match? From a storyline perspective, commentary informs us that Shawn Michaels has taken Jeff Hardy under his wing. We know that Jericho idolized Michaels growing up and Jericho wants to prove he is better than his hero and that is crux of their match going into WrestleMania XIX. I don't love the Shawn/Jeff pairing because I feel like Jeff is a free spirit and having a mentor is strange. But both are sort edgy rebels without a cause so it is not the worst pairing. Michaels is not here probably because this is taking place in Montreal. Jericho goes over here which makes total sense, but the way the…

AJ Styles vs Sandman - NWA-TNA 2/26/03 Shoutout to @Microstatistics for nominating this as a part of Greatest Match Ever! I wouldnt go that far but this is definitely worth a watch. I am one of the biggest AJ fanboys you will ever meet. I think a lot of people would assume if it is good well AJ must have carried it, but you'd be wrong. I don't know how to explain it. Sandman for all intents and purposes should be the worst wrestler ever. He is slovenly, out of shape, does not seem like gives a shit, but he is capable of being really fucking good. Yes he has more clunkers than great matches, but after watching a boat load of ECW he became one of my favorites. Hi…

Another uninspiring match between these teams. I guess I kind of take it for granted that luchadores can fall out of bed and have an awesome lead in match. Superb lead in matches clearly require a greater level of effort and intensity than was shown here. You can't accuse the workers of not trying. To a certain extent, it wasn't their fault. The match was too short and felt rushed. The comebacks and turning points carried little weight. Universo was an awkward fit and didn't jell with Niebla. Worst of all, Atlantis and Wagner looked like cartoon characters shaking their fists at each other. There was no real hatred, and no reason for the wrestlers to be incensed. It's har…

This was more of an angle than a match. Tarzan Boy jumped Shocker as Shocker was entering the ring, and when Vampiro arrived to pull Tarzan Boy off Shocker, Shocker shoved Vampiro out of the way and began attacking Tarzan Boy with punches. He tore Tarzan Boy's tights off to reveal a knee brace and began stomping away at the knee. The refs DQ'ed Shocker for using excessive violence, and Shocker and Vampiro got into a heated confrontation. There was a lot of pushing, and shoving and swiping at each other. Tarzan Boy had to be carried away on a stretcher. I'm not sure if the knee problem was real or not, but in any event, this was how they wrote him out of the Vampiro feud. …