ohtani's jacket

This was a decent capper to the JBL vs Eddie feud, though it would’ve been far more memorable if Eddie had won the belt back. The action was good, and Eddie’s selling was phenomenal throughout, but the storytelling didn’t always make sense. I couldn’t buy into the idea that JBL was afraid of this type of match, or that cage matches were Eddie’s playground. Given the size advantage, JBL should have been far and away the aggressor. I’m fact, it would have played out better if JBL was stooping to barbaric means to retain his title. The other problem I had with the match was the frog splash from the top of the cage. I can’t remember if Eddie had done it before (probably), but as incredible as it was, it basically cost him the title and it was forgotten about once the bout was over. Waste of a highlight reel move right there. Then there was the finish with Kurt Angle getting involved, which was the WWE reverting back to their usual meh booking. It was odd that no one bled considering how blade happy the workers have been in 2004. I kind of wish this has been a SummerSlam bout instead of a TV match. I would have preferred Eddie to carry the belt through to SummerSlam and drop the title there, but that ain’t how the cookie crumbled. Eddie vs Angle isn’t my favorite match up in the world but it makes sense that Angle is still pissed about losing the belt.

Danielson might be worthy to wash Fujiwara’s feet, but that’s about it.

It feels like they’ve been dragging Chris Benoit vs Triple H out for too long, which is a laughable statement given how long they flogged the Shawn Michaels vs Triple H match up, but I think the angle with Eugene is proof that this rivalry is running out of steam. The Eugene stuff is in poor taste if you ask me. The match isn’t bad. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from Triple H vs Chris Benoit. I have an extremely high tolerance level for Triple H matches, so ymmv, I don’t mind his ponderous technical stuff, and generally find that JR can talk me through those portions of the match. Benoit is Benoit. The problem is that the match up isn’t fresh anymore. Its better than the alternative, I suppose, which was another Kane match, but the Eugene crap at the end takes forever and spoils the bout completely. If there’s a positive it’s that it kept the belt off Triple H, but these guys got shown up big time by the IC bout.

This has a semi-decent video package showcasing a semi-decent reason for Edge and Orton to be feuding and includes at least one good line where Edge tells Orton: ” I may not be a legend, but I dare you to spit in my face .“ What’s cool about this bout is that they take a totally old school approach to it. It’s much longer than you’d expect a IC title defense to be on a 2004 WWE pay-per-view, but they’ve done such a good job of rehabbing the IC belt through Orton that it’s awesome to see the belt holding the same status it did in its glory days. If the idea of a long Orton vs Edge match sounds boring to you, I beg to differ. IIRC, they had some convoluted matches in the late 00s that were excessive, but this is a straight wrestling match for the most part. I probably like the spear vs RKO dynamic more than people who’ve seen it play out a thousand times, but I dug the way the turn buckle being exposed played into the finish. I also love the way Orton make the simple holds he applies seem like vicious submission moves . Lawler was a bit wild during the bout and could have reeled himself in a bit, but this was an excellent bout. Even the hokey acting at the end had a certain charm. If the year has ended in July, I’d have a hard time keeping Orton out of my top 10

Randy Orton has been receiving a heck of a push in 2004 and it’s about to get even bigger. I guess they truly believed he’d be the next breakout star. To his credit, he’s improved a lot during this IC run and is starting to produce some excellent matches. This is a fantastic title defense in front of Jericho’s hometown crowd. They actually had me believing that Jericho would win the title. Never would have thought I’d be digging a Randy a Orton vs Chris Jericho match n my old age, but this hit my WWE sweet spot.

This was more along the lines of a traditional rudo turn than the previous week’s match. The action took a backseat to the constant “will he or won’t he?” teases, and the rudo side took the piss throughout. Finally, the turn happened. It wasn’t a vicious turn, but it did enough to get Perro hear with the crowd. I still think the timing of the turn was far too soon after Perro’s arrival in CMLL, but it’s the summer and I guess they have the Anniversary Show in mind. Plus, there have been a few shows where they turned down the lights and blackened out the crowd, so perhaps they were desperate to drum up some business ahead of the all-important summer stretch. That said, what’s done is done. Santo is about to return, and Perro vs Casas will continue to ratchet up through the summer, so let’s see how it plays out.

Casas and Perro Jr aren’t getting along. Despite the ongoing angle, this was one of the better trios matches in recent times. The dynamics between the workers were strong, and the work was tight. The falling out between partners didn’t over shadow the contributions of the other workers, and they continued to build Garza’s heat by having hum square off with Shocker throughout. These drawn out heel/face turns in lucha rarely deliver good matches. They’re usually a waste a bout. This is one of the better examples I’ve seen, even if the actual turn is a far cry from the best turn in lucha history.

This is a solid match for the most part. It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of Jun Akiyama, and I’d honestly rather watch Kobashi defend the title against lowered ranked opponents, but I acknowledge the fact that Kobashi needed to have a rival that was on his level, and that Akiyama was the clear and obvious choice. For most folks, there is such a huge match up that the bout will deliver pretty much everything they want out if a NOAH main event, and I will say, that even though I have been slow to come around to NOAH, and still struggle to get up for NOAH marches for the most part, they at least made an effort in the early years to fly the banner for Japanese pro-wrestling with Budokan shoes and this Dome show.

This was a decent match but needed a stronger finishing stretch. I have a hard time getting into Chavo as a singles worker. He’s a total pro, and completely proficient, I just don’t see anything special in him. Definitely a guy I like better in tag matches. Rey is good in this, but you can definitely see how some people find his WWE work rote or formulaic. Having said that, you need to work to the house style in the WWE otherwise you’ll be out on the street. I feel like I’ve seen more exciting Rey matches than this, though. The finish, in particular, was pretty flat. Not sure the commentators or anyone in the crowd saw that coming, which suggests to me that it was the wrong beat to end on. This show seems polarizing. I’m not sure why it generated such strong reactions. It’s fairly middle of the road, if you ask me. I like the bull rope match more than some folks do, others like this match more than me, but I don’t see anything to get your panties in a twist over.

I’m sure the fans were just dying to see another Shawn Michaels vs Triple H March in 2004. This is billed as the match that will end their rivalry once and for all. JR and the King completely oversell how dangerous the match is. JR goes on a five minute monologue about how satanic the cafe is. There’s a lot of exclaiming about careers being ended and Hell in the Cell participants never being the same afterwards. I kind of hate that Triple H has adopted Hell in the Cell as his own personal gimmick match. If HITC was associated with anyone at this point it ought to be Mick Foley or the Undertaker. Anyway, instead of taking bumps off t(e top of the cage, they break the record for the longest Hell in a Cell match, clocking in at a whopping 47 minutes. If that sounds like literally hell in a cell, it’s not that bad. Triple H spends a lot of time working over Michaels’ surgically repaired back. Shawn introduces a ladder to the match just like he introduced the ladder match to the WWE according to Ross Somewhere Bret is mumbling something about lumberjacks and coal miners. Both men bleed like stuck pigs I’m keeping with 2004 trends There are countless my gods and for the love of such and suchs. Again, it’s not bad. I find it ridiculous that Michaels’ super kick is treated like such a death blow. it’s such a shitty looking move and the tune up is ridiculous looking..The match ends up delivering, it’s just a question of do you actually want to see it

I haven’t really liked the Samoa Joe title defenses I’ve watched, and I don’t think much of Punk as a worker, so I wasn’t terribly excited to watch this again. The match is an unquestionable success — these were the last two guys you’d expect to pull off a one hour draw — but I can’t, in good conscience, rate it above matchups I enjoy more from 2004 like Eddie vs. JBL or Kobashi vs. Takayama. There were a couple of big turnoffs for me. One of them was how telegraphed they commentary was. Nulty was annoying enough aping the Dean Gordon Solie and constantly disagreeing with the regular ROH commentator, but the pair of them went of their way to continually spell out that this was going long. I’m presuming they dubbed the commentary in afterwards and had already seen the match, but in any case it was amateurish. The other thing I disliked was this idea that Punk was more of a wrestler, and was employing this amazing psychology by forcing Joe to wrestle for longer than was typical for a Samoa Joe title defense. First of all, CM Punk couldn’t wrestle his way out of a paper bag. Secondly, it’s boring, standard wrestling 101. To their credit, they kept it interesting throughout even if they did take regular breathers. I just wasn’t feeling it as a classic match.

Hector Garza returns to CMLL with little to no fanfare. It’s interesting seeing his rudo moustache and awkward brawling style, and he still risks breaking his neck with some of the shit he tries, but overall he’s just another plug-in for the never ending parade of half assed trios matches. The only real positive to this bout is that Perro and Casas aren’t getting along, and Casas making sad faces is by far the best acting he’s done in forever. Now if only it would ignite into something that’s legitimately good.

Typical Lucha cage match. There’s a certain novelty in seeing these guys inside a cage, but as with most American adopted ideas, they don’t fully commit to it. The only time I can remember seeing a proper cage match in lucha was the classic Infernales Infierno en el Ring match, which is the closest Mexico has come to producing its own equivalent of a Hell in the Cell match. I’m not sure why luchadores struggle with the gimmick so much given the country’s storied tradition of bloody brawls, but they do. Of course, it doesn’t help when the booker gets cute with the eliminations. I won’t spoil the result, but the match basically replaces violence with cheap heat. This is the match where they start turning Perro rudo. If you ask me, they did it too soon. They could have gotten far more mileage out of his tecno run than they did. I can’t be bothered looking up whether business was down at this point. Perro may not have been moving the needle as a baby face, or perhaps they felt like they needed a stronger draw on the rudo side. I still think they could have gotten some big singles matches out of him as a tecnico.

This could have been better. You had two really good workers squaring off against each other with one of them having the potential to be a generational maineventer, and instead of having a short, intense bout, we get a bunch of bullshit with run-ins and continuing storylines. CMLL has flirted with American style booking throughout the early 00s, but they can never seem to commit to it, and as a result, their attempts at booking their TV like this week’s RAW come across as half-arsed and ham fisted. Frustrating.

Some of these shoot style guys have enough matches to rank them, IMO. Granted, I don't need a huge sample size to decide whether I think someone is a great worker or not, but I would be dumbstruck if people thought we didn't have enough footage to rank a guy like Carl Greco, for example.

This was mostly an angle to draw more heat for Vampiro. I kind of dig that he's turned rudo. The opening fall is quite good but goes long, so you know there's something fishy going on. Casas warms his way into the match, but man, if you didn't know who Casas was you would not think he was some kind of legendary worker watching this match. Shocker was decent, but it hasn't been a great 2004. Not sure if that's because of the booking or because he's starting to stagnate. The match gets thrown out when Vampiro catches Casas doing his Perro Aguayo spot off the apron and drives his crotch into the ring post. He then takes his frustrations out on KeMonito, kicking him in the face and giving him a tombstone piledriver. KeMonito is stretchered away by two officials, which had to be least taxing stretcher job in CMLL history. If the piledriver doesn't get Vampiro heat, I don't know what will.

This was a decent match for these guys' skill level. I like the fact that the Intercontinental Championship is being taken seriously. This was the first time for me to see Orton take on someone who wasn't a seasoned vet, and he did a fairly good job during his control segments. Benjamin was clearly a hard working dude but his movements were still telegraphed. It must be hard transitioning from tag wrestling to singles matches, so I'll cut him some slack. The finish was convoluted, but I guess they wanted both guys to keep their heat. Not a bad match.

Eddie Guerrero defends the WWE Heavyweight Title I'm surprised that this doesn't have a thread yet. Great match, and a great feud. Easily the best feud of the year to date. It's mindboggling that this feud didn't crack the top 10 for the Observer Awards. I guess the Observer voters had a hard time accepting JBL in his new role despite the fact that he's amazing at it. Perhaps there was some resentment toward Eddie dropping the belt to Bradshaw. Whatever the case, this has stood the test of time as one of the great feuds in WWE history. The bullrope match isn't exponentially better than the Judgement Day bout. They work better as a one two punch than viewing one as better than the other. Judgement Day is more of a straight brawl whereas the bullrope match is built around the gimmick. The highlights are JBL's bladejob and Eddie's table bumps. Eddie continues to prove that he's arrived in the WWE after those difficult early years, and manages to sell a pretty convoluted finish like he blew it. I'd hate the finish under most circumstances, but Eddie's acting was top notch. Should have been feud of the year.

Today sucks already.

I finished Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise (and amazingly managed to do spoiler free.) Despite the fact that I hated a lot of the prose text and song lyrics, completely skipped the Molly and Poo stuff, disliked many of the plot turns, and even some of the characters, and wasn't 100% satisfied with the final issue, it was still a hell of a journey with two incredible central characters. There was one issue during the final stretch that was so amazingly well told that it had me in tears. Moore poured 14 years of his life into SIP, which is impressive given how so many creator owned series wind up abandoned and left to collect dust. Thanks for the ride, Terry!

So, we've seen Eddie vs JBL, and Benoit vs Kane, and now we get KENTA vs Takayama. Unlike American wrestling, the Japanese are under no illusion that the smaller guy is going to beat the bigger guy. What matters here is how much KENTA can withstand and how much heart and fighting spirit he shows. That means more to the crowd than the result. The fact that we get to see some awesome strikes along the way is gravy. Those knee lifts at the end were brutal. It wasn't as great as the JBL vs Eddie theatrics, but they were going for something a little more standard and as a random match-up it was more than solid.

Chris Benoit defends the WWE World Heavyweight Title So after a couple of months of Benoit vs. Evolution, and Benoit vs. Michaels, we get Kane as the number one contender. Still, if Eddie can turn his matchup with JBL into one of the feuds of the year then surely Benoit can do something with Kane. There's a surprisingly strong wrestling focus to this match. Instead of brawling like Eddie and JBL did, the match is built around the fact that Kane had powered out of the Crippler Crossface on RAW and that he was too strong for Benoit to submit. Benoit channeled his performance against Sid in WCW, and classic Bret Hart performances against big men. He tried to take Kane's legs from under him to set up the Sharpshooter, and so on and so forth. Kane used his strength to focus on Benoit's surgically repaired neck. It was decent stuff, but they couldn't quite put it over like Eddie and JBL, who managed to produce magic. The commentary was decent, and I enjoyed a few of the digs Lawler took at JR,. Lawler was trying to sell some kind of promo Kane had cut about wanting to step out of the shadows and have his moment in the sun. I don't know who booked the finish, but it was straight out of Bret Hart's playbook. Kane had a weird reaction where he cried. The match was devoid of dramatic nearfalls, and needed extra intensity and better selling from both men, but it was better than a Benoit vs. Kane match sounds in theory. It just wasn't great.

This was an exciting shot of adrenaline. It was careening to a DQ finish where Tarzan Boy injured Perro Jr, but there was a lot to enjoy in the time they were given. Shocker reignited his rivalries with both Tarzan Boy and Vampiro and finally looked like his old self, and the Casas vs Pierroth strike exchanges ruled and made me wish those two had some kind of minimalistic house show match somewhere where they just continuously slapped each other. It was over too quickly, but fun while it lasted.

Because you wanted to see it again, it's Canek vs Wagner. It's actually kind of cool. I know Canek doesn't have a great reputation, but I dug his rough and tumble style here, and it was freaky seeing how much bigger he was than all of these middleweights. Satanico vs. the Infernales has revived my interest in Satanico, and who better to bring to this sort of fight than a fired up Atlantis? I was settling in for a fun one when it ended. Okay. Thanks.

It's so weird to me that Dr. Wagner and Canek are having a match against each other in CMLL in 2004. I can't be bothered looking up the ins and outs of it, so I'll just say it's weird and leave it at that. I can't imagine that there's anyone, anywhere on the internet, who's interested in watching Wagner wrestle Canek in 2004, but I'll give you a short write up. It's a typically short, mano-a-mano match from this era that would have been better in the 80s but is truncated in the 00s. Wagner has the potential to be one of the best wrestlers in the world in the early 00s, but rarely delivers. I really dug the second fall, especially the way Canek put Wagner away, and I was into the tercera as well until they ran a WWE finish where Dr. Wagner Sr hobbled to the ring with a cane and distracted Canek so that Wagner could shatter a glass plaque over Canek's head. Sports entertainment lucha isn't really my bag, and to make matters worse, Canek had no idea how to time the spot. Can't say I blame him really since it was never really a thing in his day. Canek was stretchered off, which I guess is the lucha solution for everything. My main takeaway from this was how good Canek's deadlift spots looked.