September 2004

Screw your Ultimo Guerrero vs Park Anniversary Show matches, I'll take Park vs. Dandy any day of the week. Throw in my boy Mano Negra and it's a done deal. Park's shtick works so much better in the indies than it does in Arena Mexico. Dandy vs. Park was awesome. I could definitely do with more El Dandy in my life. I don't know whether he bust his ass because he knew it would be filmed or if there are other great vet performances out there.

I've been debating about which of these guys is better at this stage of their careers and now we get this great match between them in front of 20-odd people. AJ played second fiddle to Danielson's heel act here, but it was still an excellent contest. I'm prepared to call it even on the basis of this match, but like I said, they were pushing the newly heel Danielson fairly hard.

Big occasion, and another cracking installment of the best feud in wrestling. Perro alternated between brawling with Santo and Casas and both match ups ruled, but it was Casas vs Perro that caught my attention. This may be the best feud that Casas has been a part of in the 2000s, and definitely the best opposition he's had outside of GdI. Los Perros del Mal are a fun trio and business in CMLL has definitely picked up. Shocker was the odd man out, which is strange since he's been The Man for most of the 00s, but at least he had some history with El Terrible to play off.

This was such a disappointment compared to the build up, the match they had in Guadalajara, and everything they were capable of as workers. It was matches like this that soured me on this era of CMLL for a long time. In defense of the workers, I feel as though they were being rushed along, and the jump cuts made that even more pronounced. However, when your entire match is built around moves from the top turnbuckle and a couple of kick outs, you've lost me. This wasn't a patch on Zumbido vs Averno despite the bigger stage. Unfortunately, from memory, this became a bit of a trend as I remember Ultimo vs. Mistico being largely the same. Ominous signs that my enjoyment of th…

Hair Vs. Hair Tag Team Match: Anthony W. Mori & Ryo Saito vs. Aagan Iisou (Shuji Kondo & Takuya Sugawara) Takuya Sugawara shone greatly in this match. He came across as a vile, prick of a man with his facial expressions, dismissive aura and his general look. What he lacked for stand out offence, he made up for in everything else. He and Mori had some really good exchanges with Sugawara bullying the skinny Italian (heh) and feeding for Mori’s hope spots. The spot where he brought in the scissors and stabbed Saito like he was Abdullah The Butcher was awesome as well. He and Saito had some solid double team work as did Mori and Saito who aren't even in the same uni…

Talk about it here.

AJ Styles vs Alex Shelley (TNA iMPACT! 09/17/04) iMPACT! really hasn't been a good or interesting show since its debut during the last months of the weekly PPV era. Lot of competitive squash which doens't work well when you have X-division guys or Jeff Jarrett. Not much in term of angle except regular "chaotic beatdown", which has been overused to death. The timer on the screen may have sounded like a neat and different idea, but it also expose of rush much of the matches are, including the competitive ones. Anyway. this was a good TV match, lets call it a good iMPACT! match which isn't as a good as a Nitro match because it more rushed. I always enjoyed Alex Shelley s…

A very good match up between 3 all-time greats. They all showed fatigue from wrestling their way to the tournament finals - I am not sure if it was planned or not, but I thought AJ's struggle to hit the Styles Clash on Joe in the closing stretch was really great. Great strikes, submissions, dives & overall just all 3 shine when it's their turn to get their shit in. ***1/2

JR kept mentioning that this was the season premiere of RAW, which doesn't really matter much when you don't have an off-season. Triple H has won the belt back in a match I haven't watched yet, so this is a revenge bout. There's a weird dynamic where they decide to write Orton out of most of the bout after Batista cops him with a lariat and have Benoit and Benjamin garner most of the heat. Benoit vs Flair is worth the price of admission, but they do a shitty job of telegraphing Randy's return and JR oversells the RKO like it's the Stone Cold Stunner. Babyface Randy is pretty weak at this point.

There was no way the Yoshida vs. Bolshoi matchup would live up to my expectations. I was a little underwhelmed by Yoshida here. She had some fun exchanges vs. tiny Bolshoi on the mat here and punched Yabushita in the face at one point, but that was about it. Also, here was an annoying clip in the middle of he match. The Yoshida team was carried by Akino, who looked pretty good. Yabushita is a judo girl with legit ability, so all her flying armbars and fighting on he ground looks really good, as she actually looks like she is constantly pulling her opponent into a submission to beat them, rather than doing a pretty spot. She looks more Brock Lesnar than Minoru Tanaka and i…

Really fun match between two undercarders. Ranmaru has really sharp looking kicks and really lays the stiff shots into Kuragaki, while Kuragaki does a mix of power spots and integrated flying moves. I knew Kuragaki was "agile for a thick power wrestler", but her athleticism absolutely blew me away here, approaching Super Astro-ish levels. She did all these slick cat landing on her feet spots and asai moonsaults that wrestlers half her size can't pull off as clean. Most wrestlers will occasionally wobble a little when doing that kind of stuff, but everything she did had a perfect 10 landing. I also really liked how she caught Ranmaru in a canadian backbreaker hold, then fo…

This is some kind of Florida indy with commentary from Nulty and the ROH dude. I guess it was related to Ring of Honor somehow. It was an excellent technical bout up until the finish. The promoters probably thought the finish was old-school wrestling, but it came across as 100% sports entertainment, which was the shit indy wrestling was supposed to be rallying against. It was a really good bout, though, up until the crappy finish.

This was a pretty crappy brawl that went all over the arena, outside the building, and into the men's urinal. I hate this type of wrestling. The in-ring action was just as weak. It's unclear how this promotion is trying to position itself in the market. I'd prefer something closer to old-school Florida wrestling than an ECW retread.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2004 | K-DOJO CLUB-K SUPER DOWNTOWN | STRONGEST-K & AJPW WORLD JR. CHAMPIONSHIP | KORAKUEN HALL Now that was some kind of a fun junior hebbykyu style match between Big Boss Taka's kid and an All Japan outsider. Two titles are on the line for this underrated K-DOJO main event. Lots of fast-paced action exchanges and several technical sequences. The crowd was also behind Hiroki's back, but he tried. This is the beginning of the short-lived era of "Kazu 2 Belts". (***3/4)"