August 2003

I think this was Perro Jr's debut at Arena Mexico as Perro Snr was on hand to give him some rub. What a breath of fresh air Perro Jr was. Fun match that showed how great Damian and Halloween were as "glue men." Halloween, in particular, is really great at this stage of his career. Super Crazy has been a bust in CMLL, but Niebla was more inspired than usual, and an inspired Niebla adds more to a trios match than just about any other tecnico outside of Santo, Casas or Atlantis. I'm looking forward to more Perro Jr.

This was pretty weak, as you can imagine. They would have been better of doing a straight trios match. There was a lot of meandering about with no one really knowing how to work a cage match. It was obvious that it would come down to El Terrible vs Bestia since the pair of them had the longest hair. Bestia couldn't really work a dramatic final stanza despite his years of experience. CMLL are trying really hard to get El Terrible over. It's not working with me.

This was probably the best trios match of the year so far. It was by no means a classic lucha libre trios match, but it had some snappy workrate, and how often do you get to see Bobby Quance work with Virus? If Ricky Marvin hadn't been so subdued, this might have been off the chain.

Phil Schneider mentioned the other day that he prefers Homicide to work bloody brawls, and can take or leave workrate Homicide. I haven't watched nearly as much Homicide as Phil or others, but personally, I was introduced to Homicide through his JAPW matches against Low Ki, and I kinda prefer East Coast representing, indy invader, Homicide to brawling Homicide. Ian Rotten refers to Homicide's work as "strong style," which may grate on people's nerves, but let's accept it for what it is -- hard hitting, stiff wrestling. Chris Hero is a cool dude, and a fine professional wrestler, but it felt like he was trying to wear too many hats at the same time by incorporating so many…

This is a banner match for the FWA, bringing with it lots of history between the two. This includes them first clashing in the UK all the way back in 1999 for the ill-fated UWA promotion (might have to go back and revisit that one day...), onto Daniels winning the FWA Title by pinning Doug and taking it ‘hostage’ to America for 6 months, to finally Doug winning the title back in Ring of Honor at Night of Champions (a hell of a match). A few months before this Daniels had pinned Jody Fleisch to win the FWA vs. ROH series thus justifying this shot at the title. The first thing to say about this match is that the two have fantastic chemistry. Daniels stalls to begin, k…

The Northern Exposure Tour was the second of two tours that the FWA would run in 2003, in an attempt to branch out of its southern base. The second tour was much more scaled down however, with just three nights instead of seven (mainly due to the local promoters that had ‘partnered’ with the FWA to put each event first time around all losing money). This first night of the tour is from the Morecambe Dome, which would become the company’s regular Northern venue going forward after this, and this is a 'first time in the FWA' clash. It is face vs face, so the early going is full of quick reversals and parity sequences. Right from the start this shows that Fleisch is the…

Alex Shane and friends vs. The Family in 2003 was essentially the FWA version of Dreamer vs Raven, with various different combinations of hardcore matches involving lots of different characters. Shane and Knight – not regular partners and teaming for the first time – had won the tag titles on the first night of the tour, with Stevie being a local replacement as both Nikita and Ulf Herman (Shane’s regular partners) were unavailable. As had happened on the first tour, the title change was in part to draw interest in new markets but also breathe some life into the longer running feud I’ve mentioned. It’s never officially announced, but as with most of the matches in th…

This is an FWA dream match, given it’s got the ‘three musketeers’ of the early 2000s BritWres scene, and arguably the most prominent import that the company would use (at least up to this point). Doug and Jody are the two top faces in the company, while Storm is the hot heel, and Daniels had held the FWA British Title earlier in the year. Then there’s the interconnecting storylines; Daniels had won the title in a three way with Doug and Jody, Doug had then beat Daniels for the belt, Jonny and Jody are of course long term allies turned rivals with Jonny turning on Jody earlier in the year and then Daniels had recently won the final match in the FWA vs ROH series at the Fro…

Night 2 of the tour is from Bolton. Coming in, Tighe is the one with the momentum in 2003 having just pinned Jody Fleisch on the last big FWA show (Hotwired) and would go on to main event the biggest show of the year (British Uprising 2). Xavier by contrast has been up and down. I like that this match doesn’t start with the usual indie reversals and standoffs (a standard trope of many an FWA match at this time) and there’s some nice matwork at the beginning to enjoy. They each try some ‘mind games’ at the beginning to try and get the advantage, with Xavier winning the battle of wits to get a couple of close near falls. Tighe is the better, more in form wrestler of t…

This was a 16-man Leyenda de Azul cibernetico that set up the Tarzan Boy vs Shocker hair match. It was clipped to shit, and the version I saw was an official CMLL release which meant they cut out all the parts with Wagner and Vampiro, but like most ciberneticos, there were several points of interest. Panther was in great shape. He looked slimmer than recent years. It made me wish CMLL was doing something with him, but that shit will drive you crazy when you watch lucha. Shocker worked tecnico, which didn't make much sense, but he had a throwback exchange with Niebla and wrestled all three of the GdI. Shocker vs. Ultimo drew a pop, as it should. Takemura was a livewire. P…

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This starts off with some great, great pro style matwork and leads to a stalemate where Akiyama offers a great fake handshake to "congratulate" Osamu for hanging with him thus far. That is just one spot obviously but I don't see the general Akiyama is bland arguments at all. He is a super magnetic performer to me. I guess charisma is relative. My biggest problem with him is that he seems to have fewer singles matches around this level than some of the other elite and that's why I am hesitant to place him in the absolute top tier of greats. Anyways I digress, the match develops into dueling neck work on Nishmura and leg work on Akiyama (which he sells brilliantly). Nis…

NWA World Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles vs Low-Ki - NWA-TNA 8/13/03 if there is one wrestler from the first generation of indy boom I want to watch more of it is Low-Ki. Dude always impresses in the limited sampling I have seen. This was a fucking awesome sprint just balls to wall action with plenty of struggle and really organic set up for a lot of cool, innovative spots. Don West having a conniption fit over the fact there was chain wrestling at the beginning was hilarious. AJ Styles goes to throw Ki out of the ring and leads in with his head and Ki swings around nails with 619. Awesome, awesome! Not contrived at all. It is 2:30 am I am wicked tired so I am not…

Given the short turnaround time on this Tarzan Boy/Shocker feud, and the confusion over whether Shocker is a tecnico, rudo, a rudo that gets cheered, or just guapo, I thought this was a good match. This wasn't a lot of focus on Tarzan Boy and Shocker until the end where they brawled a couple of times. Instead, the focus was on the other guys, which was actually kind of fun. Especially, Ultimo vs. Magica. I'm a big fan of Magica as a Guapo, but he didn't get many chances to shine after they began pairing Shocker with Vampiro. Here, he held his own against Ultimo, and it was cool to watch. Terrible looked better than he has in any of his previous Guapos matches. I'm not sur…

Young Shibata gives Takayama a lot of trouble here & it's awesome. He gets to do a lot of work over Takayama, just beating the crap out of him w/ his strikes & trying to put him away with his submissions. Takayama sells it greatly & gives such a selfless performance overall - I am sure he could've just beat the crap out of Shibata w/ Shibata getting a few hope spots in, but no, Shibata actually spends most of the match on the offense. And once it's time for Takayama to take it home, he does it in fashion that tells you he really got shit kicked out of him by this youngster. Superb stuff in just under 7 minutes. Great match. ****

This planted the seeds for their famous trilogy of matches by showing that Punk could be competitive with Joe. I don't have a lot of time for Punk's straight edge gimmick, and I see him as a loose and scrappy worker, but he has good ring sense. He's a much better matchup with Joe than you'd expect. That's largely because of how inventive he is. I haven't really enjoyed Joe steamrolling over folks even if they try to make the matches seem competitive, and I'm looking forward to seeing someone step up as the Sting to his Vader. I'm not sure what state Joe was in physically, but I kind of feel like an epic world title fight is something from ROH at this point in time. I have…

Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies - August 16, 2003

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This is part 727 in the never-ending Alex Shane (plus friends) vs. The Family feud that takes up much of 2003 in the FWA. I’m not going to lie I feel like I see versions of this match in my sleep these days. The thing that I do enjoy though, is that a bit like Dreamer vs. Raven in ECW it involve lots of different players circling in and out. In this match the Family are represented by stalwart Paul Travell and then Ian DaSciple, who wasn’t very good at all, and would be pretty much gone from the company a year later. This is very much a small show, at a small venue, in front of a small crowd – set up ‘theatre style’ with the ring on the stage and then the fans all o…

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