January 2004

This didn't quite click in the beginning. Parka looked slightly labored in his exchanges with Ultimo & Rey. I'm starting to wonder if it was a cardio thing. I'm not quite sure if he was up to working at the pace that the Arena Mexico exchanges demanded. Things picked up when Parka singlehandedly beat both of them in the segunda, and the tercera was an exciting fall that saw Rey Bucanero injured when his leg was caught between the chairs at ringside and Shocker working a heated mano a mano fight with Ultimo. Shocker and Park didn't have the same chemistry as some of the GdI's other opponents, but it was a decent spectacle nonetheless.

Triple H defends the World Heavyweight Title This was incredibly mediocre. It's hard to put a finger on why it was so bad. It was a WWE formula match with a horrific amount of blood (even more than Sasaki vs. Nagata, if I'm not mistaken), and had a storyline that was "seven years in the making." Yet it fell flat. Perhaps the audience was sick of seeing his match up. They'd already seen Shawn's return at SummerSlam '02, his title victory at Elimination Chamber, and the Three Stages of Hell. There's only so much Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H you can take. And it doesn't end here either. The finish was such a bullshit copout, and Michaels getting the "moral victory" of wa…

This was worked at a slower pace than Homicide vs Styles, and the commentators kept harping on about how Homicide had a different attitude this evening and they weren't sure what had come over him, which I guess was meant to be some sort of storyline where he was tired of losing and wanted to establish himself as a top contender for the world title. There was a fair bit of stalling and fluffing about, but it didn't bother me all that much. After hearing other workers diss Punk's ability as a wrestler during his ROH days, I can't unsee a lot of his weaknesses, but then Homicide's not exactly perfect either. Decent bout, but not the kind of thing you watch if you're searchi…

Chris Hero and Homicide go 40 minutes in a seedy german nightclub. This was actually quite good when they stuck to matwork and basic stuff. They understood how to make their holds meaningful, and Homicide punishing Hero with stomps, kneedrops, headbutts etc. was pretty damn good. However, some of the reversal sequences they tried came across as sloppy and Hero may have oversold as he was acting dead for much of the 2nd and 3rd fall which reflected poorly on Homicide.