August 2004

Chris Benoit defends the World Heavyweight Title The WWE is generally very good at story stuff, but they tipped their hand a bit here by foreshadowing too strongly that Orton would win the championship. It wasn't so much the fact that they kept hyping that Orton would become the youngest WWE champion ever that did it, but how cleanly Orton worked the bout. It was obvious that Orton was going to win the belt and turn face. And since those were the seeds they were laying, they worked more of a traditional bout that didn't have a lot of the trappings you expect from a WWE main event. It wasn't a bad bout, but it didn't stir a ton of emotions. I'm sure there Benoit fans …

I think this is the match where Angle allegedly told Eddie to sell less because it was interfering with his spots. Not sure if it's true or not. I thought Angle's selling was fine for the most part and Eddie's great ankle selling covered up for any inconsistency. Angle's performance was good but a bit odd, one minute he would do awesome matwork and tenaciously work the leg and then the next minute he would use the Angle Slam as a transition move. Eddie was just outstanding in terms of offense, selling, character work: just someone at the height of his powers. Despite some weird moments and lackluster pacing at times, overall I thought this hit the great mark. Ex…

World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton vs Chris Benoit - RAW 8/16/04 This is a really simple layout, but executed to perfection. They both played their roles to a tee. Benoit came out hot right of the gate and delivers one of the all-time great shitkickings. If the Michaels match was an exhibition of how great Benoit is at selling, this match is an exhibition of his offensive prowess. To Randy's credit, he sells being overwhelmed perfectly. I love all his little attempts of creating space like an eyepoke or tights pull, but nothing is stopping the Rabid Wolverine, who is chopping the fuck out of him. Benoit hits an awesome superplex and cant get the pinfall. He just k…

Togo and Takemura jump-start the match by attacking our heroes at the bell. It leads to some brief but spirited brawling between Hayashi and Togo before the faces rally with a pair of suicide dives. Takemura, the competitor I’m least familiar with of the four, does enough endear himself to me here. His offense is nasty, as he grinds his boots into AmDrag’s face and claws at his eyes. CTU isolates Dragon, with Togo taking potshots behind the referee’s back. Hayashi’s look of disdain as he watches Togo and Takemura dismantle his partner is priceless. Togo hits a springboard senton and gets some incredible hangtime. It should come as no surprise Dragon’s an excellent fa…

This is the tournament final. A total dream match for me that delivers. This has been described as a Tamura squash which I strongly disagree with. The grappling exchanges rule and establish Otsuka as Tamura's equal on the mat (or least someone who can stay competitive and grab an advantage). Tamura also displays great urgency, almost desperation, throughout the bout: both guys are hurting from their earlier matches and Tamura knows he needs to finish this quickly or he will be in trouble. Of course Tamura was going to win the tournament but those two things put over Otsuka as a serious contender. Otsuka does get killed during the stand up portion though as Tamura just…

Talk about it here.

See this is why Yuki Ishikawa is special: he is not as athletic as the top tier U-Style guys, but he will add character and psychology to any match. So you have the resident whacky matwork artist Crafter M taking on wily veteran technician Ishikawa. In itself this is bound to be a good match, but because it's Ishikawa we also get a STORY~! and every exchange here ends up not just being technically excellent and beautiful to watch, but also meaning something. There are not a lot of vets who would be willing to show this much ass against anyone let alone a young nobody in a geeky mask, but Ishikawa is totally willing to let Crafter look great. So we get lots of really enter…

Smackdown seems so much weaker than RAW at this stage, which is something I never would have guessed heading into 2004, but I guess that's what happens when you remove half of the Smackdown Six from the roster. This didn't do a ton for me. Reigns can't deliver a decent looking beatdown, and there's a lot of retreading going on with Angle and Eddie and Angle and Rey. Eddie came to the ring in a lowrider and Angle ended up throwing white undercoat over it. It always amazes me how the WWE can fork out cash for a custom car like that and destroy it somehow. Seems like a waste considering people gave zero shits about it. Where we're at in 2004 -- Evolution are giving Orton a b…

There was a lot of confusion over the date here. The source of the match listed it as a 2005 bout, but after some sleuth work I've determined that it's from this combined NWA indy show. It matches up with everything that's said on commentary, but the mods can have the final say. Whatever the date is, this is an excellent 2/3 falls match. It's worked in front of a tiny crowd, but they ignore that fact and work a superbly crafted match. I sometimes wonder where wrestlers get the juice from to perform in front of 20 people as though it's 20,000, but somehow they do. This was an excellent example and was a brilliant match for fans of either man.

These guys match up well, but this was nothing you haven't seen before and in more exciting iterations. Cole had to hype it as some kind of amazing treat for the viewers, but unless they have short memories then this wasn't exactly a unicorn match-up. Angle has been slightly overbearing since returning the ring. He really needs to tone it down a bit and give his opponent more of the match.

I keep telling myself I should watch more Chris Hero, but I don't think this was the right place to start. The camerawork was poor and it didn't seem like Hero and Styles were giving it their all. Hero's so tall that he can have problems working small at times, and doesn't have great big man offense either. I could be wrong, but it looked like he was still finding himself at this point. Styles was okay, but not up to his usual standards.

Doug Williams defends the ROH Pure Championship. This is for the Pure Championship, so it's under the usually-always-fun Pure ruleset. And sure enough, it's tons of fun! Some nice technical wrestling to start it off as one would expect from this pairing. As the match progresses, it's clear that John Walter is a man on a mission; he's focused as hell, even more so than usually, and it's a joy to watch him execute a nice onslaught on Williams, and it's equally as nice to watch the champ's reactions & answer to that. Love the finishing stretch where Walters' knee-targeting + the Pure rules came into full play. Really good shit. ***1/2

IWA Japan has to be the best promotion no one ever talks about, the magnitude of the bizarness of the matches they would book cannot be put into words. Here they book Kensuke Sasaki against some weird cosplayer, maybe Leatherface was the Abyss of IWA Japan. Kensuke comes out wearing a shovel because, hey, it's IWA Japan! He then proceeds to hit his stuff and go over in three minutes. I like Kensuke's offence a lot and will gladly watch him beat up a backyarder with funding. Leatherface will tell his grandchildren about the time he hit a neckbreaker on Kensuke Sasaki. **3/4