August 2004

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Orton winning a battle royal to become the number one contender is a little weak, but he looked killer in this match, especially when he was working with Jericho. This was another awesome Evolution match with Flair continuing to do a fantastic job of trading shots with the babyfaces and Batista continuing to grow in his role as a beast. The finish was extremely well done and a great way to set up Orton's title shot. He looked like a top 10 guy in the world at this point.

Raven vs Sabu (TNA 04/08/04) An ECW dream match that never happened before. And it's a chance it happens in 2004 in TNA, as Raven is a much better in-ring worker at this point, plus the setting doesn't encourage the ridiculous excess of the original house of hardcore. Although I admit I would have marked the fuck out if it happened back then. Anyway, this is a very good brawl with all kind of gimmick spots that they deliver well, with nice counters and some bloodletting, Sabu paying tribute to his late uncle (the whole feud was about a so-called promise both Sabu & Raven made to the Sheik of never fighting each other, which was neat, you can see again that Raven w…

This was Angle's first match in a Smackdown ring since he lost the title to Eddie at WrestleMania, and it's a decent workout. The objective is to send a message to Eddie, who he's about to face in 10 days time at SummerSlam. Hass' trajectory is moving in the complete opposite direction of Shelton Benjamin. He's so generic that they have to team him with a female valet. He's still a decent wrestler, but he's got a one way ticket to Nowheresville with this gimmick. Angle does Angle things, and we're set for the Eddie rematch.

Now this is what I call a trios match. The workers had one goal in mind here and that was to set up Santo vs. Perro Jr, and they brought their A-games to produce the type of heated trios you only see during the build to a big match. Perro finally embraced his rudo role and was the nastiest he's been thus far. Everyone else chipped in with intense brawling and finally CMLL feels like it has some sort of direction.

This is one of those matches that looks awesome on paper but is a whole bunch of nothing. That's mostly because Minoru Suzuki wasn't all that yet (if he ever was?) The striking segments are fun, but the matwork is disappointing. My image of NJPW Suzuki is completely different from this. I always thought of him as a master technician that could torture guys if he wanted to, but he comes across as a fraud in '04.

This is neat little Nishimura formula match with Tanahashi holding his own against the veteran early on.The narrative here is the legwork, which is smartly introduced when Tanahashi gets tangled in the ropes and Osamu shoves the ref out of the way so he can attack the vulnerable leg. Tanahashi's selling is pretty great, especially when he's trying to charge Nishimura in the corner, which allows Nishimura to take him out at the knee with a dropkick. When Nishimura has him back in the figure-four, the desperate Tanahashi is grabbing onto the ref as Nishimura arches back to exert more pressure. The finish is...well, typical of Nishimura matches, seemingly coming out of thi…

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This was really good. In many ways, it was better than Tamura vs Ito. I would say it definitely had better matwork whereas Tamura vs Ito had the better striking. I guess it helped that it was the main event of this Osaka show whereas Tamura pulled double duty on the next show. Mishima could be a goofy bugger at times, but in a lovable sort of way. Tamura isn't exactly saving our souls with U-Style, but it at least adds some variety to the dull Japanese scene.

Yep, that’s the PJ Black you know today from Lucha Underground and the artist formerly known as Justin Gabriel. When he was young and just starting out in the business he came over to the UK from South Africa and trained in the FWA Academy. He would compete on FWA Academy shows through most of 2004, but this is pretty much his only ‘main show’ appearance. I say main show, but this is about as close to a ‘house show’ as one existed for a company that was an indie wrestling promotion. 2004 was the biggest year in the FWA’s history and with its TV deal meant most shows had a higher profile (on a relative scale of course) running buildings that looked decent enough on screen.…

BLUE WOLF. I find mongolian pro wrestlers to be sorely unheralded on the internet. This was a really good match built around power vs. skill. Most wrestlers when matched up with a guy like Suzuki pretend to be helpless on the mat and go for the ropes, but Blue Wolf wasn't one of those guys. He brought the fight right to Suzuki and wouldn't let Suzuki get away with his usual bullshit. Man, Wolf was a fucking great babyface, and thus Suzuki's uncooperativeness actually added to the match. It lead to some damn good exchanges on the mat and a few really interesting bits as Suzuki was forced to try different approachs than his usual spiel. It leads to a unique and brilliant fi…

I don't even like Nagata and this has some real Dream Match energy (I assume this is something the youths say). If nothing else Nagata has charisma and a big personality so worst case scenario he'll be an interesting foil, and other than one useless fighting spirit bit I thought he was really enjoyable. He was as cool as you like and wasn't down for playing Tenryu's game, not at this point, not smack in the middle of his prime, not against the old man who seems to thrive on rolling into town just to stir shit up. It wasn't for Tenryu's lack of trying either. He brushed his shoulder off early and tried to goad Nagata into a Tenryu fight, but all it got him was a swift kick…

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Yeah-you can definitely see the prototypes of some of today's New Jalan tropes here, particularly the long forearm exchanges, double lariats and the bounce off the ropes-eat a move transition. This was a fun hoss battle-I noticed I enjoy the New Japan finishing steetch countering logic a lot more when it's applied to shoulder block. Maybe I'd grow tired of that too but it's peculiarity made it worth pointing out. This was a fun hoss battle-Nakanishi would spice the strike exchanges with big chops and a huge bitchslap and I loved how Makabe used the first one to goad Nakanishi into attacking him and managed to create a huge opportunity for himself. Nakanishi selling dizzin…

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This was a solid match heading into the Triple Threat match at SummerSlam. It was babyface vs babyface, but fairly heated as there had been an altercation between Edge and Jericho on some kind of Piper's Pit segment that Jericho was doing at the time. Jericho had become an excellent WWE worker by this point, but he shows far more personality as a heel than a face. There was a chance that he might turn during this feud but it was mostly a tease at this stage. The match itself was a step down from the Edge vs Orton bouts, but it served its purpose to have the two faces beat the crap out of each other prior to the Triple Threat match and there was a twist at the end where Je…

This seemed like it would be a great little shoot style bout, but it ended up being a whole bunch of nothing . I can't take Shibata seriously with that goofy stance of his and his stupid facial expressions, and I am done with Minoru Suzuki. Hard pass.

This was such a beautiful match. It wasn't just the CMLL match of the year, but one of the best matches from anywhere in the world in 2004. The reason for this wasn't because it was a classic Santo performance (although it was), but because it was easily the best Perro Jr performance to date and the first time he's truly looked like his father. The non-finish may bother some, but you have to remember that this was just a mano a mano bout. There's no reason on earth why it should have been these good other than they wanted to honor their fathers by having a match worthy of the famous bout their padres had. The other defining aspect of this bout is that's proof that an old-…

Mascara Sagrada? Jesus, they're bringing everybody back. Sagrada looks... fat. CMLL was preempted for a few weeks in August because of the Olympics. Unlike last time when we missed out on a Dr. Wagner vs. Casas program, I don't think we missed out on anything earthshattering. Luckily, there's plenty of footage available from this 8/13 show. This was the show that was originally thought to have been unaired, but which Phil Schneider found being bootlegged outside Arena Mexico. I don't know if the rest of the show is new footage or not, but it's kind of rare to get so much footage from a single CMLL show, so perhaps it aired in some fashion over the Olympics break. This was…

Sensational five minutes of pandemonium. Shibata is basically the prototype for your chest-puffed, dick-swinging tough guy and Tenryu is an old man who doesn't have time for his shit. Tenryu has no interest in bragging about how hard he can hit someone, his interest lies in the hitting itself. The opening exchange was truly wonderful and ended with maybe the best double punch spot I've ever seen, followed by Shibata grabbing a guillotine and refusing to let go. It pretty soon spills to the floor and Shibata is such a smug prick beating on this pensioner, kicking him up and down the place, throwing him into ring posts, even threatening him with a bottle until the ref' talk…

Just to set the scene by giving a bit of background to this match. Koji Kanemoto, most famous for his feud with Jushin 'Thunder' Liger, popular Junior Heavyweight in the 90's and 00's and was the third Tiger Mask, is taking part in the G1 Climax 2004 looking to prove himself amongst the Heavyweights of the company after accomplishing everything as a Junior. Even coming second place in that years Best Of The Super Juniors Tournament just falling short to Tiger Mask IV. So far he has earned four points beating the likes of Yoshihiro Takayama (Forfeit) and a young Togi Makabe. Hiroshi Tanahashi whilst not at his once in a century status just yet, seems to be on the cusp of g…

Kensuke Sasaki vs Hiroshi Tanahashi - NJPW G-1 Climax 8/14/04 Kensuke is going through a mid-life crisis busting out top rope corkscrew sentons and rolling cradle (came out terrible), hell at least it is different. Tanahashi does plucky young upstart well stealing the Northern Lights Bomb after getting his ass kicked at the beginning. Tanahashi is very inspired Keiji Mutoh offensively to this day, (all that legwork) but you can really see it in this match. There are a lot of things Tanahashi does better than Mutoh such as selling and psychology, but in terms of offense this is a very 90s Keiji Mutoh match. This is a pretty straightforward asskicking match from Sasak…

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The world's strongest 54 year old man clashes with a "Muscle Volcano" in one of my favourite sprints. It's funny, I mainly remembered the match for them busting out a bunch of junior offence, and on a rewatch that ruled too, but I also noticed other things that made the match as badass as it is. Tenryu's facial expressions when Kensuke corners him and starts pounding on him are a thing of beauty and really remind you this man is old enough to be a grandparent, particularly how he'd act like he was out of breath after being Lariated on the neck. Kensuke winding up for a Lariat and then eating a punch just as he was about to execute it ruled and the counter flash finish was…