June 2003

Man, Mysterio's son was 6 years old here. That'll make you feel old. Mysterio was a great television match worker. One of the best ever. But this was an extremely generic television match. In fact, the only reason it's remotely memorable is that Mysterio pulls off the victory and beats Matt Hardy for the Cruiserweight championship despite a dodgy groin and some outside interference from some shmucks. Matt Hardy was a boring worker who tried hard to be a clever and cerebral worker. He had no business being a cruiserweight and was taking up someone else's spot in the division. That said, you've got wrestle whomever they put you up against. It can't be Rey vs. Eddie every we…

Boy did it take some digging to find this match. So many mislabeled matches. One of their matches was uploaded three times with three different dates. Anyway, it turns out that people had their 5/30 and 6/6 matches confused. I can see why people would get confused since their matches are so generic. It's not that they aren't trying hard. It's similar to the Smackdown workers, who are trying hard to have good matches each week and good pay-per-view matches, but also deliver a generic product. A lot of the match is action for action's sake. I would rather see an electric exchange between Halloween and Averno, or Satanico and Damian, than crisp action. The Famila are handica…

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IWGP Champion Yoshihiro Takayama vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan - NJPW 6/10/03 Takayama’s first defense as IWGP Champion after defeating Nagata in the Dome. It is still unclear what constitutes an IWGP defense versus a NWF title defense. Tenzan came up short last year against Yasuda and doesn’t look like he got a shot against Nagata. Tenzan is incredibly over throughout the match so while I’m not a huge Tenzan fan based on crowd response he has earned this spot. My standard line he is the best possible goon or bruiser. He is like the best possible version of a Nasty Boy. I do appreciate that you always know what you’re going to get with Tenzan. With the right opponent, yo…

A ton of fun. This was during the time where Tenryu was just running through all of the AJPW rookies and beating the crap out of them generally. Kono is different, however: he's a pretty big dude so Tenryu immediately has issues as he can't just bully Kono with ease with his usual strikes and whatnot, being forced to eat multiple chops and getting out-wrestled. Of course Tenryu still lands some gross stiff stuff, but he's noticeably rattled and immediately goes to his signature stuff to try to establish some order. Even a really early second rope back elbow doesn't seal the deal, which gets a slight grin from the guy afterwards. Kono responds with a big dropkick and a boo…

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Just to make matters more confusing, Nicho decides to show up for this show. Halloween, during his Road Dogg style introduction of La Familia de Tijuana, introduces Nicho as Psicosis. I have no idea how far off script any of this is, but there's no denying that the Familia are much better with Nicho involved. This was easily the best of the matches so far simply because LFdT worked as more of a unit, and the Infernales were able to stage an inspired comeback. Halloween and Damian are very good as the pieces surrounding Nicho, and Halloween does an excellent job as the emotional leader of the Familia, but the trio works much better with Nicho as the No.1 guy. Whatever heat…

NWF Heavyweight Champion Yoshihiro Takayama vs Shinsuke Nakamura - NJPW 6/13/03 Budokan Six Months before Nakamura and Takayama squared off in the Dome to unify the IWGP & NWF Championships they met in the Budokan for the NWF title only. This is a bit weird as the previous month Takayama won the IWGP Championship from Nagata at the Dome but this didn’t unify the titles. He would defend the titles separately. I watched this about ten hours ago but the match is pretty basic so I’m not too worried. The match follows a different layout than previous Nakamura matches. In other Nakamura matches he is the young gun counter wrestler that use flash submissions t…

This is a real lovely piece of business. It's a heated fight with the main focus of it obviously being the continuation of the feud between CM Punk & Raven, and it makes some awesome action, to say the least. It feels heated right from the get go & never lets up -- everything especially after Punk & Raven introduce the chairs into the match is some truly quality stuff. Cabana & Whitmer also more than play their roles well in this thing, making every interaction in the match at least good, and for most of the time VERY good. ***1/2

The internet is not concerned with preserving the build to this match. I thought this was a lot of fun. Both guys are limited and take an age to run between the ropes, but the match had the right sort of feel to it. It was shorter than you'd like, and in other parts of Mexico Pierroth would have definitely bled, but it had an element of sleaze to it. There was something grimy about the match that harkened back to the days of filthy mats and smoke filled arenas. Much better than some of the other Los Boricuas hair matches.

So, Nicho no-shows this show and the commissioner decides to strip La Familia of the trio titles and hand them to the Infernales. The Infernales don't want to be awarded the trio titles that way and they're officially held up. The giant bear in the tecnicos' section isn't sure what to make of it all. Halloween and Damian call out Violencia. He comes to ringside but bails on the Familia. Then El Terrible takes his place. I'm sure it all makes sense in Spanish, or maybe not. The end result is a decent piece of business with Averno and Mephisto finally looking useful as Satanico's partners. Halloween and Damian continued to work for CMLL after this, so it wasn't exactly a ki…

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This is interesting in that it’s an intersecting of two of the characters in the FWA that were getting most over. On the one hand you have Paul ‘not yet a pirate’ Burchill, who was getting the Goldberg push. Because of the general lack of really big guys on the FWA roster, Burchill was able to get over as a big powerhouse, given he could also do amazing high flying moves like moonsaults and standing shooting star presses. Think the things that Keith Lee and Jeff Cobb are now doing. He was basically ploughing through undercard guys, often in handicap matches and also getting over through his manager Dean Ayass and the disclaimer they would read before matches. Simmonz …

This is the second qualifier for a No. 1 contenders match, with the winner to meet James Tighe at a future show to determine who would get an FWA title shot. Both guys are coming in with momentum from Frontiers of Honor; Xavier from beating Mikey Whipwreck and Flash from holding Low Ki to a time limit draw, which would’ve earned serious credibility points. In terms of FWA hierarchy, Flash is much higher though as a two time British Champion and in this match it shows. It’s largely one sided, with Barker dominating, and you never feel like Jack has a chance. In the opening moments they exchange kicks, and while Xavier is someone that can absorb a lot of punishment he d…

This is the first of two qualifying matches for a No. 1 contenders match, with the winner of this match meeting the winner of Flash Barker vs Jack Xavier on a future show to determine who would get an FWA title shot at Doug Williams. Jody is of course, the biggest star in the company at this point, while Tighe had been putting on a series of excellent performances and is coming off a big win against Paul London at Frontiers of Honor. There is a contrast in that coming into this show, Jody’s burgeoning feud with his former best friend Jonny Storm has been costing him his focus and costing him matches. These two mesh together really well and this is an excellent match. …

Ah, the XPW European Title, where do we start with this one… As part of their growth and the desire to pull more international eyeballs onto the promotion, the FWA was continuing to look at where it could partner up with companies overseas. The partnership with ROH that had led to the joint Frontiers of Honor show the previous month was a logical and obvious move, the decision to work with XPW, perhaps less so. I won’t go into too much detail on XPW, other than to say they were a Pound Land ECW, owned by a Porn producer, with all the violence, but none of the nuance. I’m not sure exactly how the relationship between the two companies was first established, but from th…

We are back at the Broxbourne Civic Hall for Vendetta, and there’s a really hot crowd for this show. This is a fairly basic opener, but the work between two wrestlers, both still young and relatively inexperienced (Ghosh was just 18) is solid throughout. For the past several months Nikita (the future Katie Lea Burchill) had been part of The Family vs Alex Shane/Ulf Herman feud over the tag titles, while Ghosh had largely been on a losing streak. There’s not too much meat to the match to get into, most of the attention is on the post match, but what we do get is decent enough, with Nikita showing a lot of polish in her arm drags, headscissors and take downs, while Ghos…

This is the latest chapter in what was arguably the most violent feud the UK scene had seen at this point. Following on from them defeating Shane and Herman (affectionately known as the Showswearers) for the tag titles, different combinations of The Family (there were five in-ring members at this stage) had been trying to fight off the challenge of the former champs in matches around the country where the violence would continue to escalate. These matches place on the card was very much to cater to the audience brought up on ECW and Attitude era brawling. The month before at Frontiers of Honor these teams had been part of a No DQ 6 Person Tag Match that I didn’t like …

Zebra Kid, fresh off unsuccessfully challenging Samoa Joe for the ROH Title the month before, is also sadly coming in here sans his somewhat legendary mullet, which he must’ve disappointingly chopped off in the time between that match and here. Mark ‘Five Star’ Belton was a newcomer to the FWA having appeared on the British Breakout Tour the company had been on earlier in the year. As Greg Lambert notes in his Holy Grail book, Belton was interestingly one of only a few ‘outsiders’ who came into the promotion at this stage, with the FWA very much sticking largely to a tight, home grown roster. Considering the huge numbers of high quality UK talent today, there really wasn’…

NWA World Tag Team Champions Triple X (Christopher Daniels & Elix Skipper) vs America's Most Wanted - NWA-TNA 6/25/03 Steel Cage I really should take the time to watch their entire series because these four have great chemistry with each other. Their 2004 Six Sides of Steel is more famous but this is still a banger and in a light year for United States Match of the Year Contenders this is a definite contender, violent with big ass highspots. Triple X are the tag team champions but only thanks to Low-Ki and the other members of SEX. Tenay/West do a great job explaining the steel cage is to prevent outside interference. Russo is trying to keep all the SEX to …

This is a FIGHT WITHOUR HONOR, and Homicide & Trent take that stipulation to the heart by going pretty bonkers in the thing. Lots of brutal punishment thrown towards one another throughout, with the most memorable spot being that Ace Crusher from 'cide to the floor through the table. Gawd damn. If you're a big fan of matches like this, I could see it being rated even higher & loved even more than I did, and I already really liked it. ***1/2

This Liger vs NOAH stuff never ceased to be awesome. This is all about planting the seeds of the upcoming Jr. tag title match, as Liger is now teaming with the awesome Osaka Pro ass-kicker Takehiro Murahama. Marvin is an unmasked luchador was kinda was the talk of the day back then, while Suzuki is still a rookie, mostly, but shows very good potential. But really, as KENTA and Murahama trade great kicks, the crux of the match is Liger & Marufuji not respecting each other. And damn, this is awesome. Maru blocking Liger's shotei and holding his hand while badmouthing him, Liger deviating Maru's superkick and slapping him in the mouth. Meanwhile, Murahama and KENTA are k…