November 2004

This didn't look like much on paper, and didn't seem like much in the beginning, but they worked hard to turn it into a match worth watching in the tercera only to piss it all away with an awful DQ finish. The kind of finish that makes you wonder why you bothered to watch the match in the first place. From three stars to DUD in the span of a few seconds.

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You gotta love the insane ideas Vince McMahon comes up with. Having shoot submission wrestling matches on a 2004 Smackdown is brilliant. Angle is obviously a more skilled wrestler and it showed, but the drama and the question are based on the double wristlock Puder pulled. I heard Angle say in an inteview submissions were legal but that there was only supposed to be a one count for pins, and Puder did pin himself on the submission. Angle losing it after getting hooked and getting in Puder's face was neat, you could feel the roid rage talking out of him.

This was a fun match. Granted, I haven't watched CMLL in a while, but it was fun to see the wresters work their shtick. There weren't a lot of awesome exchanges outside of the tremendous potential of the Shocker vs Perro match up, but I enjoyed watching Park and Garza try to one up each other. Dos Jr was weak -- like Blue Demon or Lizmark Jr weak -- makes you wonder why they bother doing the Jr gimmick at times, but it was still a fun bout and mercifully wasn't clipped.

This rules. I love Aries' work over the knee here. He's focused, greatly vicious & creative with it. Punk's selling is on point with it being a big part of his (also awesome) comebacks. Great stuff. The early section of the match with Punk kicking Aries' ass all over the place was a lot of fun as well. There's some unfortunate technical issues with the lights going out in the middle of the match, but I thought it took nothing away from the thing. It's a great match. ****

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This was a match from Guadalajara, so it had a bit of a houseshow vibe to it. Santo and Ultimo didn't go anywhere near as hard as they could have and Bucanero did comedy, but they succeeded in getting Mistico's offense over. He produced most of the highlights and hit his spots cleanly. The fans were wowed if nothing else.

Given the participants, and the chemistry that these two teams had - witness both the cage matches between them - this is a massive disappointment, and a complete mess. And a lot of it is down to the structure of the match inhibiting the wrestlers from being able to produce anything watchable. First of all, it's a gimmick better suited to one on one matches, second, while it's No DQ by definition as being a last man standing match, the wrestlers adhere to making tags after the first couple of mins where everyone is in the ring at the same time brawling. Then you have the rules whereby someone needs to be pinned before the 10 count is administered so you get - as can…

This was the main event for TNA's first 3 hour Sunday PPV, so of course it has Jarrett in it, and while it made sense to have Hardy in terms of his profile, this was during his initial post WWE run where he was pretty dreadful in the ring, probably not helped of course by what he might be doing outside of it. Hardy as a singles guy can be really hit and miss, but when he came back to WWE in 2006 through to the end of the Punk run I thought he was really good. Again, back in TNA you get the infamous Sting match where he's in no position to perform, but overall there was a lot of good stuff, particularly his matches with Austin Aries. Anyway, that's a lot of digressing - bo…

This is for the X Division Title, and came at the time when AJ would routinely bounce between being a contender for the X Title and then the World Title. This is from TNA's first 3 hour PPV, with the hook being that AJ is the X Division ace that Petey would have to overcome if he wanted to cement his own credibility as champion. Because of this there's a real buzz at the the beginning of the match from the crowd and the opening exchanges are really good with lots of intensity, and I liked, whether through reality or design that Petey looked to be having to work extra hard to keep up with AJ, who just felt like he was just getting started. I think this is the story they we…

Raven vs Abyss vs Monty Brown (Monster's Ball) Monty cut all those cool promos that made him look like a star. He had the cool finisher but wasn't much of a worker apart from this. Not Goldy-like. Abyss had the Foley fetish. Raven was insane and fat. And was a babyface, or a heel. Not sure. Not terrible, they kept it fast and non-offensive. Until came the finish, with Abyss finally getting a "Foley !" chant when he got the tacks on the mat. I think that gave him a hard-on. So we get Raven powerbombing Abyss on the tacks, making it a first obvious fail. Tacks 1 - Abyss 0. Then soon enough, a "holy shit" chant emerge followed by a "This is awesome !" chants when R…

This was around the time when Olimpico won the University de 1000% Guapo vs. Los Guerreros cibernetico match and was promoted to the role of third member in the GdI trio. I believe Wagner was still a rudo here. The match was largely built around the Guerreros beating on Wagner until he made a triumphant comeback and squared off with Ultimo one-on-one. You can do worse than Ultimo Guerrero vs. Dr. Wagner. Shocker took a backseat but had some decent moments. If you ever want to see what Olimpico looks like, this is the match. His mask was ripped in such a way that it was impossible for him to hide his identity. Dos Jr continued to suck, but they were committed to breaking h…

This was a jam-packed match while it lasted. It was rudos contra rudos which is always fun. It's comforting to know that Universo 2000 still hates Perro Sr after all this time. Perro Jr & Universo have a big scrap on the outside to begin with until the attention shifts towards Satanico vs. Perro Jr. This was a rare match up and was awesome. It kind of made me wish Perro was feuding with Satanico instead of Universo, but that wasn't the case. Satanico and Dantes threatened La Comandante on the outside, which fired up creaky old Pierroth and set in motion the main event for Sin Piedad.

From main eventing British Uprising II the previous year, 2004 was not a good year for James Tighe. Well in kayfabe terms. In ring, he was one of the company’s strongest performers. In a storyline sense, his failure to capture the British Heavyweight Title led to him losing a lot of matches, often in upsets to guys lower on the card than him. I don’t think a losing streak gimmick has ever really worked in wrestling, but it was with the goal in mind of building his frustration at losses to a heel turn. Given how impressive he was in 2003 and in the title match with Doug Williams I feel the FWA should’ve kept pushing him as face challenger at the title level, but with his l…

The build up for this goes right back to the first FWA show of the year in March. New Frontiers saw the initial Shane/Steve Corino confrontation with the latter trying to hijack the show. As part of the angle, Doug annoyed Shane – newly revealed as the FWA’s Managing Director - by granting Corino an FWA Title match. In the subsequent match, Shane interferes to hit Corino with a chair followed by looking like he was going to go after Doug. For the rest of the year Shane was presented as the No. 1 heel in the company feuding with a series of different faces, while Williams was the fighting champion taking on all challengers. It was the obvious big match to return to an…

This is for the FWA All England Title and a match well built up over the summer of 2004 as an offshoot from the Alex Shane/Xavier feud. That also culminated in a Last Man Standing Match. A large part of the issue for how this match was received at the time was trying to live up to that previous bout. At the finish of that match, Vansen had cost Xavier by interfering on behalf of Shane who in storyline was acting as his mentor. The pairing of these two as opponents was wrestling 101, taking Vansen – the cocky good looking heel from London and matching him with Xavier – the stocky, Hawaiian shirt wearing Brummie who had become something of a people’s champion. The …

This is for the FWA Tag Team Titles. For the year prior you’d be hard pressed to find a more over act in the company than Simmons, the loveable butler to the Duke of Danger. His reactions from the crowd had got to the point it had turned the whole Hampton Court act face, when traditional wrestling booking would’ve probably seen it building to a Ted DiBiase/Virgil master vs servant style match. The peak of ‘Simmonsmania’ was undoubtedly at Vendetta in July when Hampton Court won the tag titles from The Family in a double swerve that was executed perfectly. Unfortunately, as is often the way when it comes to underdog babyfaces, the chase and their big win is often the high …

This is the only match on the card without a real amount of build-up or back story to it, although the storyline for Mark Belton is that he had never been given the opportunity to wrestle a big name import or US wrestler on an FWA show and felt disrespected. D’Lo had been a somewhat semi-regular for the company including challenging Doug Williams for the FWA Title at Crunch in April. Belton meanwhile, after some sporadic appearances was now being pushed as part of a heel unit with James Tighe and going into 2005 would be a much more featured performer. Reflecting the company’s goal to get behind Belton, this match looks like it was designed to get Belton over by giv…

And so we’ve reached British Uprising III, which if you’re into your BritWres history you may know as the biggest show the company would ever put on… but whose legacy would be part of the decline that would ultimately end up seeing the FWA go out of business in 2007. In terms of ambition and scope, Uprising III was the first (and only) time the FWA put on an arena show, running the Skydome in Coventry. This is an ice hockey arena with a capacity of around 3,500. I know in the current climate of All In, ROH getting 6,000+ for Supercard of Honor, ICW running the Hydro, and Progress running Wembley that this might not seem a big deal, but in 2004, it would’ve been a mon…

This is a scenario that I think shows how compelling storytelling can fall flat when a match fails to come together in the ring. Going in, this match had a number of interweaving and engaging storylines that deserved a chaotic and action packed payoff. In the end it falls massively flat. While other matches from British Uprising III perhaps deserve a critical reappraisal, this one still very much fails to hit the mark all these years later. The build up mainly centres on the disintegration of The Family; the religious cult heel group that had been the main antagonists in the FWA in 2003; and the baby face turn of Paul Travell. The increased levels of punishment Trave…

Tenryu makes his entrance first. Then out comes Shibata to a pretty weird sounding Deep Purple ripoff theme - Tenryu is wasting no time, as while Shibata is still walking down the ramp, he starts walking towards him, which leads to Shibata running towards him too & they collide for the first time in this match. Tenryu throws Shibata to the crowd. AWESOME. Shibata makes his way back to the ring & starts kicking the crap out of Tenryu. He gets a nice little control segment doing exactly that, and after that it's very 50/50 with the two just destroying each other. There's also a legitimate holy shit spot in there. A goddamn great sprint. ****1/4

IWGP Champion Kensuke Sasaki vs Minoru Suzuki - NJPW Osaka Dome 11/13/04 New Japan was still drawing 28000 people to the Osaka Dome this late in the Inokiist Era. Pretty stacked card as this does not even close the show. There's Tenryu/Shibata on the undercard along with invaders (Kawada/Naoya Ogawa) vs Tenzan/Tanahashi (sounds tasty) and weirdo main event of Fujita/Kashin vs Nakamura/Nakanishi. The main event did not sound appetizing on paper and Jetlag's review made it seem even less so (except Inoki comes in and punches Nakamura apparently) so I will skip. On paper this is kind of a dream match for me. I am way higher on Sasaki than most people and I do like…

This match is famous because of the clip where Inoki gets in the ring and punches Nakamura. There was nothing exciting about the match itself; I mean this would've been fine as a midcard tag, but as a Dome main event...? There are some solid exchanges and a brutal soccer kick finish but that's it pretty much. Kashin adds nothing (shocker!) and the potential fun matchups don't deliver their potential. Nakamura was pretty mediocre here so I guess he deserved to get punched. He was working like a US indy guy in the opening portions and that's a real disgrace. He also put up very little fight against Fujita during the finish. There is a little bit of Fujita and Nakanishi crow…

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