October 2004

Mistico was given a huge rub here by tagging with three bona fide legends, and Averno also got to play where the big boys play. Unfortunately, Televisa edited this match to be mostly about Santo and Mistico. To be fair, Mistico hit the spots he needed to hit (aside from slightly misjudging his final dive), but it would've benefited everyone if they'd shown the match in full. The best exchange in the entire bout was between Casas and Bucanero, and that would have wound up on the editing room floor if it hadn't been in the tercera. Monkey business from Televisa.

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What the fuck has happened to Smackdown? I mean, seriously, who is booking this shit? Angle is booked to wrestle Big Show at No Mercy, so he uses a tranquillizer dart to knock Big Show out and shave his head. This is interpreted as "raping Big Show's dignity," which is an awful line. They work a crappy bout that has a restart, a throwback to the tranquillizer angle, and no redeeming factors whatsoever. There's no doubt in my mind that Eddie vs. Big Show would have been a better match, but he was stuck working against Luther Reigns. It's kind of sad watching Smackdown slide this far.

http://youtu.be/c46JC32BUrY I'm probably the last person qualified to talk about lucha as I've seen less lucha than probably any of the super serious wresting fans on this board, but this seems like the kind of thing worthy of discussion as a slight oddity due to location at the very, very least. I'm stunned by how few Youtube views this has because I found it on a whim running a search for, to me, two of the biggest names ever in lucha just curious to actually see a singles match between the two. This was a match that was part of a university exhibit in England on Mexican wrestling. This seems to be an old event listing of it that is still available: https://www.…

Another match that was either too short or butchered in the edit. It's amazing how CMLL can swing from the hottest promotion in the world to the complete shits at a moment's notice. There was some great tecnico offense in this, but it didn't happen in rhythm because of the shitty editing. Mistico continued to look good, and I enjoyed the throw downs between Casas and Ultimo and Shocker and Ultimo, but this shit should be a walk in the park for CMLL yet they're fumbling it. Makes you wonder who's running the show.

Pretty transparently designed to get the younger guys over but also show that the duo have some growing up to do yet. Muto hadn't shown up in NJPW since 2002 so the crowd were very hot for him from the get-go, even for his fairly by the numbers starting sequences. Tana and him have good chemistry as they exchange some freestyle wrestling, with Muto in particular shining with some great transitions alongside subtle mind games via quick slaps to confuse Tana and get the first takedown, or hair pulling to loosen leverage in a side headlock. Nothing massively heelish, just little things to make this a bit more interesting. The first half is mainly polite grappling before Nish…

The promo video for the match is great-they show Kensuke playing with his sons, and him and Hokuto talk about his role in the family, Fujita as a pro wrestler/MMA fighter, being a monster champion, the risks of facing him and so on. The match lasts for only two and a half minutes, as Fujita pins himself in a sleeper to lose the belt. They exchanged some nice shots while the match lasted but the angle itself is so much more fascinating. Kensuke is pissed, not happy he won that way whatsoever, as Fujita seemingly threw the match. That is more of a result of all the backsta politicking that was taking place at the time than a result of some geniously planned angle, but it do…

Holy shit what a match. Everything from beginning to end was absolutely fantastic. Starts with a lock up & as they do that Kobashi pushes KENTA to the ropes. He goes for a clean break, but KENTA is having none of it; he just shamelessly starts kicking the shit out of Kobashi. That leads to Kobashi getting a bit pissed & they start trading strikes - KENTA wins the exchange due to his quickness. He is now being a total dick just kicking his mentor's ear & face. Now Kobashi is truly PISSED. He starts mauling the shit out of young KENTA with those GOAT chops of his - KENTA tries to come back with those quick, stiff kicks of his, but Kobashi shuts him down quickly …

God bless, Yuki Ishikawa. Slightly out of shape, wearing ridiculous looking MMA trunks, and still one of the better workers plying his trade. Ito was an exciting prospect but this didn't reach any great heights. It was a fun Ishikawa performance but didn't do a lot for his opponent, who was coming off that great Tamura fight.

El Dandy defends the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Title Park is in a cool red variant outfit. The first fall is technical wrestling where Dandy gets the win with a leg submission. It's not the type of stuff you want out of LA Park in 2004, but he is solid enough here. The second fall stats off super fast paced with some great armdrags by Park then a tope into an armdrag on the floor. Park gets a submission of his own for the very very short second fall. Lots of fun, but modern lucha short second fall syndrome here. The third fall is a lot of fun. Lots of dives and big moves, but sold well through out. The ending was interesting as Dandy and Park both …

This was the opener to the 50th ROH show, and worked the night before Punk vs. Joe II. It referenced a million ROH storylines to the point where I was raising an eyebrow as to whether this was sports entertainment. It doesn't seem like Punk vs. Homicide is a great matchup. It seems like they're both better off working top talent and don't really complement each other. That said, it was an opener on an angle driven show, and I don't think you can expect them to leave it all out there, especially with Punk doing double duty on this show and wrestling Joe the next night. Still, average is as average does.

This was another chapter in the rise of Mistico - a grimy apuestas match from Guadalajara. Anthrax and Ebola sound like charming fellows. They're a solid unit and serve as excellent foils for the tecnicos. This guys a decent amount of time and is full of exciting dives and tecnico heroics. All four men bleed buckets. Mistico is a blood stained mess in the tercera but still manages to wow the fans with his aerial skills. Nice to see an old-school bout like this with the tecnicos having to work hard for their victory.

Orton was screwed out of a world title shot at Taboo Tuesday, but his consolation prize was to main event the show. I guess that's better than being shunted down the card. This was never going to be a great match, but they tried their damnedest to make it a memorable one by gigging. In one of the bloodiest years in WWE history that I can remember, the pair of them cut deep and had fairly sick looking crimson masks. That was about the only thing that made the bout memorable except for the embrace at the end which I suppose signaled that Evolution was coming to an end. JR tried to shill Taboo Tuesday as one of the most memorable nights of his career. King had a better take…

Did the fans really vote for this matchup? I thought this feud ended with Hell in a Cell. Michaels hurt his knee during a match on RAW, so Triple H spent most of the bout beating him down while Shawn made Shawn faces. They teased a miraculous victory at the end only for Batsita and Edge to interfere and cost Shawn the title. Edge has apparently turned heel and was foaming at the mouth saying, "it should've been me!" Maybe it should have been. This would have been a decent RAW match, but it was underwhelming as a PPV bout. Mind you, this was a bit of a B show, so I guess that didn't really matter. JR's feigned indignation at Shawn losing was almost as bad as Shawn's a…

Thank god, Santo is back to give us a decent match. Watching this match against the up-and-coming Averno, it struck me that not only was Santo able to have compelling matches into 2004 because his signature spots were timeless, but also because was able to adlib in the ring so that even the most jaded television editor didn't want to make a cut. This wasn't the greatest title match by any stretch of the imagination, but you can't deny that it flows. CMLL must have been struggling at the time as the lights are off, but Santo continues to take his time. He doesn't rush for anyone yet the end result is a match with perfect rhythm for the television editors. Magic.

Pretty rare find as a lot of EMP matches are lost to the void of obscure DVD collections. This is during Kashin's very short reign with the Intercontinental Title (which he'd taken off Robbie Brookside in a sadly unaired match) and his only successful defence of it. This is also wrestled under European Rules, so rounds and breaks are used. The dynamic is obvious: Eckstein is the owner of the promotion and native hero, Kashin is the disrespectful troll who just wants to screw around with the golden boy. The national anthems of both men play before the bout, with Kashin not caring at all about the German one but trying to get the crowd hyped for his: it's old fashioned chea…

For the IWA World Title; crowd (ok one guy who is really loud) chants NEW CHAMP, which sounds a lot like NEW JACK, which was confounding at first. This contest is paced really well, escalating as it goes along with everything for the most part meaning something. Early headlock and arm work segues into Punk countering AJ trying to roll out of the armbar by rolling along with him in a neat spot. We get a "55 minutes remaining" to tease a draw, which elicits a semi-groan from the crowd. Both guys miss on their dives to the outside, splashing the plastic seats and spilling across the gym floor. The outside stuff works into the main story as AJ goes to suplex Punk onto another…

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Man, CM Punk is getting good. I know I bagged him a bit in the Homicide match, but aside from that, he has three strong performances for the month of October. He was too well-respected in the indie scene to be in contention for Most Improved in the WON awards, but I see his name there in the honorable mentions, so I'm not alone in my thinking. Would definitely make my ballot along with the likes of Randy Orton and Averno. Oddly, it was Joe who finished in the top 5 whereas I would definitely have Joe above Punk heading into the year. What I liked about this match is that it was mostly built around Low Ki's strong style thug gimmick yet was still a really good match.…