November 2004

This was a great looking match on paper, and may have lived up to that potential anywhere other than Mexico City, but in the sub-15 minute match era, at least they made an effort to make the tercera caida the best fall of the match. It wasn't a revelation, but it at least left you with a better taste in your mouth than the opening caidas. The finish was clean as well, which meant no kick in the balls for the aficionados. There are probably better examples of workers working within the CMLL restrictions, but these guys cleared the bar nonetheless.

This was an entertaining bout. There's a case to be made that if CMLL are going to run short, truncated bouts then the best way to fill the time is to cram them with as much action as possible. That's certainly been the case whenever Zumbido has been put in apuesta bouts. The haircuts were more entertaining than the bout itself, but all told this was a fun undercard bout.

This was another excellent match between these two, however it was clear that they were running the match up one more time before transitioning towards something else, so it didn't have the epic one-on-one feel of their previous match ups. Both guys were so good at taking each other apart. There wasn't a sequence that went by where they weren't thinking about how to inflict the most pain possible. Forget about indy respect, these guys were out to hurt one another.

This is just that heated puroresu you don't see very often anymore. This felt like Tenryu had been carrying the WAR vs NJ feud in his lumpy Grinch heart all of this time. He & Chono made their time count while allowing the (somewhat) younger members to take the brunt of the beatings. Smart veterans! Speaking of beatings, Sasaki and Nakanishi's chop & lariat battle was badass. Nakanishi doesn't get the respect that he deserves. He is a helluva clean-up hitter in these type of bouts. Also, Suzuki was his charismatically crazy self. So, you know you gotta see this for that psycho bastard in his prime. This was a great match for sure. I know I'm leaving stuff out but,…

This is a match that should’ve had a long build to it, and a program that you think the company would’ve looked to be a major part of their storylines in 2005, but was rushed to here because of Burchill’s departure for WWE. This was to be his last match for the FWA. In hindsight, and it’s always easy to be wise after the event, the company should really have utilised Burchill more effectively in 2004 and pushed him up the card sooner, but as is so often the case in wrestling, these things get held off until it’s too late. With Burchill’s departure imminent, you can see why they wanted to do this match when they had the chance. The hastily booked storyline going in, w…

This match stems from events in the build up to Uprising III, and then events from that show itself. At BU3, Ulf Herman had made his big return to the FWA after being out for a year following being turned on by Alex Shane. His return came during the Williams/Shane FWA title bout, but rather than get his revenge on Shane, his interference backfired and he inadvertently cost Williams the title. That’s your intrigue for this match – can they get along against Shane’s henchman? Williams also wants revenge on Legend (Just Joe of WWF fame) for bloodying him on the FWA title at Shane’s behest two months before this. Indeed, before the match Legend tries to foster dissent b…

This was the FWA’s attempt to put together a Royal Rumble, with the prize on offer a shot at the FWA British Heavyweight Title. Rather than 30 men, this is a 15 man rumble, as I’m not sure the FWA’s small roster could’ve coped with making it any bigger. This was also at a time when the depth of the talent pool in the UK was far shallower than it is now. It also means that pretty much everyone in the match is pulling double duty from wrestling earlier on the show. As with most rumble type matches, they are different to judging regular bouts, and while I wouldn’t say this is particularly remarkable in terms of its sequences or the action, it works very well in terms of…

This is a match that got a very bad rep at the time, and in many ways it’s easy to see why – it’s way too long, and as was the case when some FWA wrestlers went up against imports at the time, the crowd didn’t buy them going toe to toe. But while I don’t think it’s very good, it’s not the abomination that it was painted as back in the day. This is for the All England Title – the FWA’s IC level belt – and Vansen has been champion for over a year. He’s just finished his feud with Jack Xavier at British Uprising III. Before the match he complains about being forced to defend against Ki claiming that it’s a vendetta on the part of FWA Commissioner Flash Barker as reveng…

This is the last FWA show of 2004, and just two weeks after British Uprising III, the apex of the company’s run. I’ve highlighted in the reviews of the matches from that show here on the board, that despite months of good build up, BU3 just didn’t live up to the hype. While I think if watched today it’s a better show than the reputation it got at the time, the fact remains the show made a significant loss, and for a company with little in the way of financial assets, that was a huge blow. The FWA would never reach the heights it would hit in 2004 again – it’s weekly TV show would also soon go off the air due to a lack of funds – but a decline in the quality of shows…

This is Storm’s first match back since being reinstated via a petition after losing a loser leaves town match earlier in the year. He references that before the match, and the role his long term rival/friend Jody Fleisch played in him being brought back, although he teases he wants him in the ring again. For those keeping track, Storm is still declaring himself to be the XPW European champion even though he doesn’t have a belt and that company had gone out of business. Collyer at this stage was a regular with ROH, very much in the vein of the technical wrestler mould of a Matt Stryker or John Walters. And in this match he gets to exhibit a lot of those technical ski…

This was a fairly standard WWE triple threat match, but it made for entertaining TV. It had all the tropes you'd expect from a WWE match, right down to a ref bump, a run-in by Evolution, and Randy Orton serving as the acting General Manager. JR was in vintage form, trying to convince us that this was the biggest match in the history of RAW and that we'd never forget November 29th, 2004. The match ended with mass confusion over whether Benoit had been pinned or Edge had submitted while Triple H let out a dramatic howl.