Robert S

Pretty funny screw-up here by the referee: AD goes for a dive and while he is running towards the ropes the referee crosses his path. Danielson has to break his run by basically doing a baseball slide towards the referees legs.

I don't know about opening a PPV, but Saturday Night or Thunder definitely. From the rookies I have seen so far (AD, Spanky, CM Punk and Cabana) Cabana has by far the best look, I don't know about now but the gear he has here looks very similar to what he used to following 10 years. And thinking about it Cabana and Punk also look more seasoned, as Migs mentioned because they took their time and restrained themselves better.

I agree, Dragon Kid looked the worst by far of the Toryumon guys. I thought Arai looked the best of the trio, he had his stick already down pretty good.

This match did not do much from me, though as Ohtani is the only guy in this match I really like that was not that surprising. - Tanaka is a guy who can do really complicated stuff and make it look easy, though in what I have seen from him he hardly ever managed to put it together into a great match. - Kashin I have seen too little of to have a strong opinion about. I think in stick-heavy matches with clear heel-face structure he can be a real asset (on the first NOAH dome show there was a junior tag, Sugiura & Kashin vs. Marufuji & KENTA, that was built that way and he looked really good). - Takaiwa has some good power offense but not much else.

From what I remember the idea here was to prepare Liger for a heavyweight run. Actually I thought he challenged Sasaki for the IWGP heavyweight title shortly after this but apparently it was a no title match. I looked a bit at Liger's booking in the couple of months after this (spoiler alert, I guess) and he worked mostly in the junior heavyweight division apart from a couple of single matches against heavyweight on bigger shows where he jobbed almost every time (for example he ended the G1 1-4 with a win over Goto). The biggest problem I have with that booking is that Liger carried the junior heavyweight title during this whole thing making the division look like a joke, but I suppose that is Choshu booking for you.

A couple of random thoughts: - Spanky here has a physique like 2004 Jack Evans - The ring here is huge for an indy promotion. Did HBK buy an old ring from the WWF? - Considering both guys are three months pro (and probably did not train much more than 3 or 4 months before that) they try a lot of things. Of course they don't hit everything but enough that it does not make them look bad or kill the match. - Danielson is throwing some pretty stiff stuff here for a rookie. I thought that he picked that up later on training in the FMW dojo and at MCW with Regal.

About that 5 match New Japan vs. All Japan series: apparently the plan was for the series to end 3-2 for All Japan but Nagai accidentally knocked out Iizuka (well, completely smashed his face would be the more correct term, Iizuka was out of wrestling for more than a year following this match; by the way the first two Iizuka matches I had ever seen were this match and Steiner Brothers vs. Fujinami & Iizuka, needless to say I assumed Iizuka was some kind of a whipping boy).

I would suppose cities like New Orleans and Orlando are just offering WWE more money than other cities are.

Basically the Rock'n'Roll Express were past their prime when the Hardys were wrestling on a trampoline in their backyard.

Listening to Parv's explanation why he uses Jerry von Kramer instead of something like his real name I am wondering if Herb Kunze has regrets about using his real name of RSPW.

And they hit some of the points that I would have assumed would be swept under a rug like the crucifixion angle. The only obvious stuff they left out that I could think of from the top of my head was the Mass Transit incident, the "December to Forget" (as Mick Foley called it in his first book), Vic Grimes' scaffold bump and the Tanaka vs. Awesome and Tajiri vs. Super Crazy vs. Little Guido rivalries.

That's correct, one half of the Motor City Machine Guns main evented the first ECW PPV. ;-)

I have watched the first half hour so far and so far it is almost sad. While Funk's is still a pretty good storyteller it is becoming obvious that is getting really old now. His memory is going and he is repeating himself all the time. I am not saying that he is becoming senile, but is talking like a 82 year old, but not a 72 year old.

Apparently Tim Wiese, who played six times for the German national football team (as goalkeeper), who started training at the performance center half a year ago, had his pro-debut yesterday in Munich teaming with Cesaro and Sheamus beating the Shining Stars and Bo Dallas. This is all over the sports news over here currently.

If that's the case (if I did not miss anything) you skipped the 12/23/00 Kobashi vs. Akiyama match which was actually the heavily hyped match, not the one from August.

Kobashi was out with a knee injury between 12/23/00 and this match. Well, injury sounds a bit like the wrong term, his knees were basically gone so he took off 14 months and went through multiple surgeries. In this match he went too far and had to take another five months off.

Repost from the Village Green Preservation Society: My rankings for Disc 1: Buddy Rose vs. Rick Martel (2/3 falls) (4/26/80) Buddy Rose vs. Rick Martel (2/3 falls) (5/10/80) Roddy Piper & Rick Martel vs. Luke Williams & Butch Miller (2/3 Falls) (5/31/80) Harley Race vs. Rick Martel (2/3 Falls) (1/12/80) Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs. Roddy Piper & Rick Martel (2/3 Falls) (8/2/80) Roddy Piper & Rick Martel vs. Luke Williams & Butch Miller (2/3 Falls) (5/3/80) Ed Wiskowski vs. Rick Martel (2/3 Falls) (7/12/80) Buddy Rose vs. Butch Miller (2/3 Falls) (6/7/80)

If that Diamond Global section does not make it to the "best of year 2" special I don't know what is.

The guy attacking Akiyama was Takeshi Rikio (who debuted one or two months before the All Japan - NOAH split), I think.

Regarding T.H.U.G. I just saw this: https://twitter.com/wwegraves/status/780168438123638784 Samoa Joe and Corey Graves rule

12.5 years too late