May 2003

This match was designed to put over the Japanese wrestlers and give them some momentum heading into the hair match. As a result, it's mostly Satanico and Casas selling for the Japanese guys, which is a shame really because that's a killer Mexican lineup. The tecnicos get in a few licks, but they're mostly on the backfoot. Satanico and Casas are excellent working from that position, but I'm still waiting for Casas to explode into life in 2003. The Japanese guys haven't been super compelling so far, but like it or not, this is the CMLL feud with the most momentum right now.

This was an odd matchup. Its main purpose was to remind us that Tarzan Boy vs Vampiro was still a thing, but it was wrapped up in a strange package with an older-than-dirt Mil and a hobbled Pierroth. Atlantis worked hard as usual but nothing about this clicked.

Murakami is the stuff of nightmares in this match, yikes. He gets bloodied early into the match and boy does he bleed. He rises up like some ghoul and then willingly gets rocked with punches by Enson before putting on the armbar and refusing to let go. Enson continues punching and stepping on Murakami's face, ragdolling the ref aside to continue the beating until the ref calls it. Cue the DMX. Not so much a match but viscerally wild.

By this point, Chono is Mr. Puroresu and he's a legend. And he's also washed up. Like, really washed up. So, what does Kenta Kobashi do to make this match at the Tokyo Dome as compelling as it can be without compromising himself (that is, without making himself look like a completely washed up guy can actually take him down) ? First : work the first part of the match like Dory Funk Jr. would. Stretch job reversals, work a solid headlock spot that is part of your repertoire anyway; stuff that Chono can do and can eat up some minutes building the tension while doing not so much in term of spots and physicality (which Chono can't do). Second : find a cool transition …

Shinya Hashimoto vs Kintaro Kanemura - WEW 5/5/03 Exploding Barbed Wire This is a Kodo Fuyuki memorial match. I read that after the fact. They are having an emotional moment for their friend and co-worker so I don’t want to critique it too much even though I’d say this match leaves a lot to be desired. Kanemura comes out in Fuyuki’s robe. Hashimoto is given Fuyuki’s ashes by his wife and he dives into exploding barbed wire. Hands it to Kanemura and he does the same. This made a lot more sense after I read what’s what. Hashimoto beats the shit out of Kanemura who puts up little to no fight perhaps that’s a tribute to Fuyuki I haven’t seen his matches in a long time. H…

I love and hate this match. Love because it's amazing, but hate because it was one of the first prime NOAH 6-mans I saw, and it doomed me to be disappointed by no other NOAH 6-man being nearly as good. The match is awesome from the ring intros with Tak and Kobashi lording their belts over each other, and then they give the fans what they want by starting out the match and doing a great lock-up sequence. From there we got some fun and creative double team submissions that both sides use to troll each other. Things soon move into a heat section on KENTA, and this would usually be where things start to drag with these NOAH tags, but instead the match just keeps getting bette…

This was an interesting way to continue the build-up to the hair match -- by having a Japon vs. Mexico cibernetico. The match is a bit choppy. I'm not sure if that's because of cuts or the video quality. I also had some trouble identifying the Toryumon guys since it's been an age since I watched them. The match was a decent distraction that never really settled into a groove. Shocker caused a bunch of trouble. Casas and Masada wound up being disqualified for reasons I couldn't quite ascertain. Wagner played hero for the night, and it was clear that he could turn face anytime the promotion felt like it. He's a showboater, but there's no denying his charisma and its gravita…

Guerrero is Amazing Red, in the persona that he was using in MLW. This is taking place in a nightclub in Orlando, but its a fun looking venue for wrestling with the balconies at the side. Very much appreciated the match not starting with the standard early 2000s crusierweight standoff, with Hidaka looking really smooth. Guerrero does a good job at keeping Hidaka off balance with his evasive spots, but as soon as Hidaka catches him and wheelbarrows him into the barricades, he's in charge. With his ability to kick as well as fly, Guerrero (Red) at this point was a really fun combination of Tajiri and Super Crazy. The match loses its way a bit when Hidaka tries to work …

A few years prior to this match, Hamada and Nakanishi had been rising stars in their promotions and the future of Joshi Puroresu. I'm not sure whether we should be glad we got this dream match or bummed that it took place in a dying promotion. I'm not clear on the backstory here, other than both AJW and ARSION were struggling and began co-promoting in late 2002. This was the 35th Anniversary Show for AJW, but the crowd was so poor that they kept the lights off. The match was pretty good. There was moments of sloppiness and unfamiliarity, but it had a decent amount of energy to it. It was weak in terms of transitions and selling, but Ayako, in particular, kept driving the …

I'm not sure we needed to see this match up again, but both guys put in a decent shift. It was worked in a super simple style, but they ripped each other's masked open and made a go of it. I can't really complain too much about a throwaway Arena Coliseo match between heavyweights. There were certainly worse affronts in CMLL. There was a time when I probably would have expected more from Mr. Niebla, but it is what it is with Niebla.

And here we go, the match everybody's been waiting for. I liked the entrances for this. It was nothing like a traditional apuestas match. In fact, it was pretty much worked like a regular tag match. Still, there was a lot to like. The crowd was super into it because it was Mexico vs Japon. The fans in the tecnico section kept holding up their babies for everyone to see. I dunno if exposing your infant to that sort of noise is the wisest choice, but God bless 'em. It wasn't a vintage performance from either Satanico or Casas, and not something you'd use as evidence that Satanico was still a smart worker in '03 or that Casas was on fire for this little mini feud. But, if yo…

This is a rematch from British Uprising I eight months previously. They were due to clash as part of the round robin tournament at Seasons Beatings at the end of 2002, but Storm being pulled mid way through the tournament with an injury means this is the first time they have clashed since then. Storm won the first match - although that was after a ref bump when it looked like AJ had a visual pin - so Styles is coming in determined to even the score on a personal level, while ROH are also now 2-0 down in the inter-promotional matches. I said before the opener of the show that ROH were not being treated as the heels despite them being the ‘away team’, which goes even fu…

Going into the main event, things are tied between the FWA and ROH at 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw each. Daniels makes it known beforehand that he is not representing ROH, but the Prophecy. In fact, he’d actually been FWA British Heavyweight Champion just two months before this, having defeated Fleisch in October 2002. He lost the belt to Doug Williams at ROH’s Night of Champions in a match that I’d heartily recommend. Williams is actually an interesting absence from the card tonight, given his prominence in both companies, but I'm pretty sure that was because of commitments in Japan where he was part of NOAH. Fleisch was also someone appearing somewhat regularly for R…

Mikey Whipwreck has always been a real favourite of mine, although I wouldn’t say a guilty pleasure as that doesn’t give him enough credit. His tag team with Tajiri is a legitimately brilliant team. However, it’s somewhat odd to see him here representing ROH, given from what I recall he wasn’t particularly prominent for that company at all, only I think wrestling in a couple of multi man scramble matches with Special K. Feel free to let me know if I’m wrong though! I think him being featured here was also because of the allure that UK companies had at the time for booking former ECW guys. While Whipwreck may not be the most obvious choice to represent ROH, it’s really…

The growing momentum of the FWA in the latter half of 2002 came at the same time as the emergence of ROH as a company generating a significant buzz. With the featuring of Jerry Lynn and AJ Styles in prominent positions in the FWA, Christopher Daniels winning the British Heavyweight Title and in return Doug Williams being featured heavily in the States, a relationship between the two promotions was established. A joint card between the two was the logical progression. This brings us to Frontiers of Honor; a one night tournament between the two companies, featuring six inter-promotional matches. The concept was enough for another very strong attendance and the companies’ se…

Going back in time, having Low Ki on the card was one of the strong selling points. In 2002 he’d been ‘the guy’ in ROH, being the first champion and having a great series of matches against all comers. He was also a guy with a real badass aura to him, which to a large extent, he still has when he appears on a show today. Interestingly though, this was at a time when his standing with ROH really had been slipping, and after this he only appeared for them very sporadically for the rest of the year. At this stage though, he arguably gets the biggest reaction of the night. He’s up against Flash Barker here, who the previous year had been the British Heavyweight Champion a…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT9d1IYyKJ4 As always before a Zebra Kid match, I’m obliged to tell you that he is one of Paige’s older brothers. This is supposed to be a non-title match, but Joe decides before the match that he “lives with honour”, so he’s putting the title on the line. This gets a big pop from the crowd, although as ever when a title gets put on the line, makes the result way more obvious than it already was. Interestingly enough, I believe this is the match where the ROH Title became a world title in ROH canon. This is a fun 10 minute sprint, although one largely dominated by Joe (as you would guess) after the Zebra Kid gets the initial advanta…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opEPCaZpEBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E_hyCS13F0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75X68JBv1KA This is not part of the FWA vs. ROH tournament, rather the next chapter in what would be a personal and bloody feud that would go on all year. The Family were a stable modelled on a religious cult. Started by a wrestler named Brandon Thomas – so called the Messiah due to his Jesus like resemblance (as ever these seem to be the high concept ways these things start in wrestling) – he had started to band together a group of babyfaces that had all been on losing streaks, preying on people looking to revive their careers. As outlined i…

This is a fun, and it never lulls or over stays it's welcome, but I wouldn't call it anything more than a good match. Dutch Mantel on commentary sets this up as a match that strongly favors Ricky Banderas, so we'll see how that figures in. Things start hot, with Gonzalez coming out firing. He hits a nice powerslam and heads out for to get the ladder. He goes to slide the folded ladder into the ring and eats the standard sliding kick into the ladder from Banderas. Ricky grabs the ladder and just chucks at Gonzalez's head. They brawl on the outside, Banderas takes an irish whip into a ladder, and takes a great bump that almost seems impossible on such a flimsy ladder o…

WWE Champion Brock Lesnar vs Big Show - Judgment Day 2003 Stretcher Match Holy shit! This came out of left field! Bill Watts would have had a raging boner for this. Two big muthafuckas just throwing each other around. Both dudes are just pouring sweat because they are just ramming into each other and going all out. This is by far my favorite type of match. Super heavyweights just muscling each other around. Brock Lesnar is the great defender of the land. He is defending the honor of Rey Mysterio who was brutally attacked by Big Show at Backlash. The iconic moment is when Big Show slammed Rey strapped to a stretcher into the post. Then Lesnar saved Benoit from a simila…

Team Angle (Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin) defend the WWE Tag Team Titles After loading their Wrestlemania card, the WWE went through a dry spell in April and May with not much worth watching. This ended up being the last combined B-show pay-per-view until Backlash 2007. Not surprisingly, the matches worth watching came from the Smackdown brand, which doesn't bode well for the rest of the year. Team Angle were supposed to face Los Guerreros in a rematch from the last PPV, but Chavo tore his biceps in a Velocity dark match against J.R. Ryder and was sidelined for six months. The smart money on Chavo's replacement was Chris Benoit, so it was a clever and refreshi…

This was a fun piece of business. It was actually a return match from the week before (a match we didn't get to see.) It wasn't clear at first why Vampiro had a bug up his ass about Ultimo, but a replay from the week cleared things up. Ultimo had pinned Vampiro with his feet on the ropes ala Ric Flair. Vampiro was pissed and slapped Ultimo about, ripping his mask open. Lizmark scrapped with Bucanero, and Atlantis put up his dukes against Tarzan Boy. It was pretty fun. I thought Vampiro was feuding with Tarzan Boy, but I guess he has a beef with all three Guerreros. Looks like we're getting a tag title match, and look who Vampiro's partner is... freakin' Lizmark! The Mega …

Now that Satanico's dealt with those mouthy Japanese, he has a bone to pick with La Familia de Tijuana. He's got a memory like an elephant that Satanico. This match was an elaborate set up for an Infernales vs. La Familia de Tijuana feud. I'm not sure why Casas and Porky were even involved, but we did get to see Casas vs. Nicho, and who doesn't want to see Casas vs. Psicosis? Nicho works a different style from prime Psicosis, but it's still pretty cool. The match is mostly a slow burn. There are a lot of false starts in terms of the action. Casas appears to fake a hamstring injury, which I guess was meant to write him out of the feud. LFdT do a bunch of DX schtick before …

This is from ARSION's penultimate show and has a 3 five minute rounds. It's also Fujii's pro wrestling debut. Lots of mat wrestling to start off, and Fujii is legit badass, might be the greatest badass in women's wrestling history, so she has no problem doing wrestling. Yoshida is the one doing the "pro wrestling" moves, she does a pedigree, stomps, Air Raid Crash attempts, while Fuji is doing sweeps, arm bars, triangle chokes, etc for most of the match until Fujii pulls out a huracanrana late in the second round. Yoshida gets a Spider Twist at the end of the round, but Fujii gets saved by the bell. Fujii gets this crazy submission hold attempt in the third round and…

So, apparently Nicho no-showed this match and decided to take a Tijuana booking instead. CMLL decided to replace Nicho with Violencia from Los Boricuas. As you can imagine, the match was pretty flat without Nicho. Satanico is one of my all-time favorite workers, but he's not carrying a feud at this point simply because he's Satanico. I mean, he still has an incessant hatred for Damian 666, but it's not the burning hatred that he felt for Tarzan Boy or GdI. Perhaps a bigger problem is that we haven't really seen any chemistry develop between the Infernales. You cannot compare this incarnation of the Infernales to Satanico's pairing with Rey and Ultimo. There's nothing real…