July 2004

A yet another banger of a tag match featuring Generation Next. They did such a compelling job cutting the ring in half, so to say, here; really enjoyed their work over Stryker's leg - watching them execute their number on the bodypart with frequent tags & great teamwork was a joy. I thought that Jacobs' hot tag at first was a bit weak, but the Gen Next lads cut that shit off very quickly by utilizing their great teamwork to distract the ref & triple-team to gain the advantage back. Jimmy's FIP segment was really good with all three Gen Next members looking good dominating him - in particular Roddy looked really good in there almost ragdolling Jimmy around. Everyth…

2/3 Falls Match for the ROH World Tag Team Titles This completes the 2004 trilogy between these two teams. It's a very good match. It goes almost 40-minutes, and it doesn't really feel like it because of how well it naturally builds from fall-to-fall-to-fall. I loved how the first fall ended with The Briscoes brilliantly isolating Punk; Punk manages to get the hot tag to Cabana though & they run wild on The Briscoes for a bit, but THEN Punk makes the crucial mistake of tagging himself in, which ends up in him eating the Jay Driller moments later for the challengers to go 1-0. A pretty great way to get this match going, that whole fall was. 2nd fall wasn't as inte…

This is for Doug Williams' Pure Championship, under the Pure Division rules. Early on Aries outsmarts the champ & the ref by hitting Williams with closed fists behind the refs back, to which Williams answers back with some punches of his own under the refs eyes, which results in him losing one of his three rope breaks. I thought that was such an extremely fun, great new twist worked into the Pure rules. It brought some rarely-seen intensity in Doug's work later on too, as when he gained the control back after the little brawl on the outside, he was fully set on making Aries use all of his rope breaks by viciously stretching him in those submissions. That all lead…

Low Ki's first one-on-one match in ROH in almost a year. I thought this was a very good match. It did a great job further establishing Ki's new character in the company going forward; he dominated most of the match, just kicking Mark's ass all the way through with some dirty tactics & The Rottweilers shenanigans thrown in there. Mark got just enough offense of his own in too, so he didn't look like a scrub or anything close to that - this was just a match he was never going to win with Low Ki riding a wave of momentum with his stablemates. "Ain't no cops here tonight, kill him!" - Julius Smokes for president. ***1/2

We are back at the Broxbourne Civic Hall, the FWA’s main home, and this is AJ’s first time back with the company for over a year. The month before this James Tighe had put in a great effort against another high profile import in Low Ki, but continuing the losing streak he’d been on, he was unable to get the win. This is another big test for him to try and snap that streak decisively given the calibre of opposition. AJ is coming in with the TNA X Division Title, although this is a non-title match up. Unlike the contest with Low Ki, which had far more grappling and submissions, this is much more all out action with lots of high impact exchanges. It starts respectfully u…

Remember that time that Triple H and Benoit had a one hour Ironman match on RAW? Me neither. There’s a reason why this match is so forgettable and it’s name is Eugene. So after around 50-something minutes of semi-decent action and convoluted scoring, Benoit makes a gutsy comeback from 3-1 down and, unbelievably, forces Triple H to tap twice. Evolution make their way to ringside to do the obvious, and then Eugene emerges from the crowd and cleans house. That sets up the finish where Eugene gets his revenge on Triple H and RAW goes off the air with a stare-down between the two. On one hand, it pays off the Eugene storyline in a satisfying manner. On the other hand, it makes…

AJ Styles vs Michael Shane vs Kazarian (Ultimate X match - 07/28) The Ultimate X has been a winner gimmick thus far. This is probably the best one thus far to. Terrific match. Kazarian & Shane are a tag team of sorts, dressed with the same bright color that I'd call Constructicon Green. So early 90's, so good. So the dynamic is simple at first, one tries to keep AJ on the ground while the other goes for the belt. Then of course AJ has to fight both at the same time, until finally the bodies are split becuase of both selling and the fact that at one point, obvioulsy, the two heels fuck up and get at each other. Then selling and big spots prevails so it make sense n…

This was a fairly decent bout for what it was. It’s hard to get much drama out of a single fall lucha bout, but the work was good. It was clear from the moment that Casas stepped out as Felino’s second that he’d get involved in the finish somehow, however it didn’t spoil anything.

If you ever need proof that Santo is different, watch his return bouts to a promotion. He didn’t lift this match to any great heights, but his work within the bout was on a completely different level than any other CMLL worker. Everyone works harder when Santo is around and the energy is raised. Even the crowd responds. The only thing that can really handicap him is the booking and the shortened television format bouts.