El-P

Intermezzo Chapparita ASARI vs Hiromi Yagi They were having a feud around the horn, in MPro, ARSION and maybe other indies, so they knew how to work together by that point. ASARI still had those spots where the opponent had to kinda wait for it, but she was way better than a few years earlier. Yagi. Oh man Yagi. I almost had forgotten. This really is the first "joshi puroresu" match I've been watching in almost 13 years. Hey, I remember why I used to love it. This is very good, usually super smooth and Yagi fucking up the arm of ASARI and trapping her in submissions seven ways to Sunday was fun. Semi Finals Naoki Sano vs CIMA Interesting pairing. So Sano is too strong, too big and too good on the mat for CIMA, who may be a punk, but he's MPro's audience's punk. So he sells like a babyface and takes some brutal offense like a king. Strong performance by Sano here, who's always been kind of a dick anyway, stoic as he was. Headdropping again. He was made for NOAH. Leads to stumbling selling by CIMA, who's finally showing why he was choosen to advance. His offense may not always look the most devastating, but he sure sells well. Counters to CIMA's finisher. Then advanced finish. Excellent match devoid of CRAZY*MAX bullshit, as CIMA had the Gedo role here. Jushin Liger vs Gran Hamada Anoher interesting pairing actually. Hamada tries to get Liger's left arm. Ace selling. Then slaps on the floor again. Ok, so that's a thing he does. Still cool as hell. Some bomb throwing too. The old guy surely brings it, despite a weak lariat at one point. Ayako cheering for her daddy at ringside and reacting only makes everything much more fun. Hamada works harder there, he knows he's got Liger. Kick out at one to show up the black angry God, ok, I've seen that already but it does work too with Ayako cheering on. Very good match, mostly super crisp and well paced. Veteran work. Well, the semi finals delivered for sure. No great match, although Sano vs CIMA came close, but simply really good stuff all around with good booking too.

2 PPVs a month ? And this is one ? *jaw drops* And yeah, that whole Orton taking straight elbows deal is beyond ridiculous. Use a fucking blade already. But I guess cutting yourself slightly with a clean blade is dangerous but getting a concussion from legit elbows in a fake match is a-okay. WELLNESS.

Round 2, on another night, in a rather empty looking Kokugikan. 2000... CIMA vs Onryo Typical japanese indy junior match for the times. Better than the previous match because CIMA is a good punk heel and not a goofball gimmick, but it's still basically spot-spot-spot. Onryo was goofy himself (the sleeper which makes him fall straight down was funny though), but they kept it short and moving, with fine execution. Fine short spotfest. Ricky Fuji vs Gran Hamada Awww, I forgot about Ricky singing his own godawful Shawn Michael ripoff theme himself, pretty awfully too. Never got how this chubby looking bastard with late 80's pants got a cool hearthrob gimmick. He's got a good looking young woman with him. Oh yeah, that was Sena Wakana, who was an AV actress (that was Fuyuki's FMW touch). Gran has Ayako, who's so young ! Well, it's quite decent, Fuji didn't look bad at all and Gran, well, did his usual stuff. And a top rope swinging DDT to boot. Kinda funny that Fuji had a much better match with old-ass Grand Hamada than he did with Negro Casas. Quite the watchable effort. Great Sasuke vs Naoki Sano This really is kind of a dream match on paper. In actuality, not so much. Nice matwork although Sasuke really sold the legwork by doing a spinning kick. Sano was a bit off catching Sasuke's flying, but he was game to drop Sasuke with brutal suplexes. Actually ended on a headropping galore which led to a KO, which was a nice and surprising finish. Good match, but some execution issues and shaky transitions (that suplex on teh apron was awesome ut Sasuke came back imediately countering Sano's next move) makes it a slight disapointment of sorts. Jushin Liger vs MEN'S Teioh They work it toward an upset, as Teioh really is like a junior Gannosuke, with super crisp pinning combinations and some wicked elbow shots. Liger his from the darkside, so he's super agressive and does a little bit of no-selling too. I dig the slap barrage on the ground though, Liger's badass doing it. They really make the audience buy one of Teioh's pin attempt as a false finish. Simple, greaty executed and intense. Short, but very good. Ok, this is clearly not the quarter finals of either two previous J Cups. Gedo vs Delphin from 94 was worse than anything here probably, but Liger vs Teioh, as good as it is, just isn't enough to compete. The undercard had a very good/excellent 10 men tag with a bunch of losers from the first round plus Tanaka, Porky, KaShin, Motegi under a hood (what would a J Cup card be without Motegi ?), well, it was all lucharesu and shooty and fun.

So there was another J-Cup in 2000. MPro putting it together. It was not muhc talked about. Dark days for puro ahead, it was already crumbling down. Back then, you had to buy tapes. It was slow and expensive. So, that's why star ratings mattered. So you knew what tape you'd buy. My regular tape dealer didn't rate this show very high I seem to remember. I had to make a choice, so I never watched that MPro Super J Cup. Time to see what I missed. CIMA vs Ricky Marvin Oh oh, Marvin's outfit screams that we have finally passed the 2000 line. CRAZY*MAX. Hey, I remember being a part of a board that was named like that ! This is pretty much spotty but quite good for what it is. Marvin and CIMA get all lucharesu, with no matwork and all flying around. I remember CIMA as the rising star from Toryumon who was working regularly in MPro at that time. Well, this is fine, although we get to see some "modified" spots (CIMA's useless ass bump on his finisher), which I don't like. Ricky Fuji vs Sasuke the Great Ah, the era of the Nise characters. Sasuke is Masao Orihara, who was good as a punk WAR junior in interpromotionnal matches, but quite the terrible nutshots steampunk brawler once he got into the sleaziest of japanese indies. He's got a hot masked valet, so we get upskirts shots. This is Japan. Awful match with nutshots. Bad work from the valet. They just don't know how to do this shit over there yet. SUWA vs Naoki Sano How wasn't Sano involved in the first two ? Oh yeah, shootstyle. THat whole CRAZY*MAX stuff with a manager interfering maybe was new and hot in Japan, but it doesn't seem quite right with the Super J Cup theme. Times change. Still, it's pretty good, with Sano fighting against the odds to punk out young punk SUWA. SUWA's work is nothing special at all, while Sano looks really, really good still. MEN'S Teioh vs Katsumi Usuda Men's Teioh was working in Big Japan at the time, doing a Terry Funk tribute act agin Abby. Kind of a waste considering how fucking good he looks here. Katsumi was the name of a famous french pornstar, so that's who I think about first. Usuda is a BatBat guy. This is really good shit, if you don't mind the lack of limb selling. Matwork, smooth counters, stiff kicks and shit, and Teioh going Misawa on Usuda's ass with terrific looking rolling elbows. Best match of the first round thus far. Both looked really good. Curry Man vs Onryo Onryo was a spot worker disguised as a ghost. So there was dust flying from him each time he would get hit. Neat. Curry Man was Christopher Daniels being goofy. Spot spot spot. Nicely done though, but Onryo will only get you that far. It certainly was better than Delphin's first two matches from Super J Cup 1. Gran Hamada vs Shinya Makabe Makabe ? A junior ? He looks awfully tall, even next to Granpa Hamada. New Japan = good basics and matwork, which is a nice change of pace. But after a while, it kinda goes nowhere especially since Hamada just let Makabe work on him, the goes into the spots part of the match. Whic is solid, but I do think Hamada gets a pass because he's cool and Ayako's father. He kinda did exactly teh same stuff all the time. Well, at his age, it's still impressive, but it won't give you a very compelling match. Decent. The Great Sasuke vs Kaz Hayashi Kaz is representing WCW. Cool. He's also in total Benoit mode. Which wasn't the worst idea, although he's kinda doing it too much. Still looks realy strong against a Sasuke who was excellent during the spot exchange, not so much selling submissions. He did it kinda like Mutoh on a bad day would, by laying around. But the sutble heeling of Hayashi, disrespecting his elder and showing too much arrogance which will cost him the match at the end, coupled with really smooth work, made the match really good. Those ex-Kaientai guy surely delivered. Jushin Liger vs Tiger Mask Black Liger ! Now this is it. Shit's on. Not much flying, also Tiger tries a bit. A whole lot of kicking around and shoteiing the fuck out of your opponent. Liger is all evil and grumpy and the moment he slaps Tiger who's on the floor with brutal shoteis is pretty great. MPro crowd clearly favors their own Tiger. Liger doesn't sell those shootsyle submissions like Sasuke, meaning by that, he makes everything looks dangerous (see him flap like a fish when he's in that sleeper). Tiger kicking out at one from the finishers worked because of his selling, he was clearly trying to show up Liger despite being KOed on his feet. That will cost him too, finish was terrific. Excellent match that showed how good Liger was still by that point and working a full fledge heel style (even more than the usual "interpromotional asshole" than he used to do). No wonder Liger signed Tiger to New Japan later. Well, apart from a little bit of US-like bullshit in a few matches and the slight "indy" style creeping up, I thought this was a bit better than the original J Cup first round. Ricky Fuji had a terrible match but it was against a terrible worker and not Negro Casas. The Teioh & Hayashi matches were very good and Liger delivered the super main event which was better than the Hayabusa match I'd say. Not as consistent as the 95 version, but it was still quite the good show (the card was split up in two this time around).

Word. (but then again, all Punk wanted was to be a pro-wrestling star. He did it. Then all he wanted was to fight in UFC. He did it. Plus he probably fucked all the super attractive girls he came across. And he gave Vince & HHH the finger. Yeah. Haters be haters. I say more power to him.)

Yeah. I kinda gave up on the whole thing because knowing it's Omega going to the finals… He's a better comedy worker than a legit one. Mucho potential, but settle the fuck down.

Punk told HHH and Vince to shove it and got a nice sum of money to realize another of his dream. More power to him. What did people expect ? He's 37, was never a great athlete, has never fought before. Of course he got slaughtered. He's Takada in Pride. The only question is, did he draw ? The rest, like I said, more power to him.

He pimped dwarfs ?

Did Liger just had two MOTYC in the same week ? I can see how someone would think Kanemoto took too much at the beginning, but really, Kanemoto beating the shit out of Liger made sense and built to the counter of all counters. Really, that missed/not missed moonsault welcomed by the mother of all shoteis is one of the best sequence I've ever seen for a comeback. And it turned into a bombfest like no other. Kanemoto was much higher on the totem pole than Ohtani and it showed, and at the end (and what ending !!) it's really that one match that made Liger finally look like the junior God that he was before. Awesome work by Liger and Kanemoto was quite the dick here too, with terrific timing and execution as always. Greaaaaaat.

Odd how nobody mentions Ohtani blowing off Liger's legwork during the first part, Sasuke would have got hell for this. Apart from that, this was fantastic. Liger clearly had toned down the flying by that point and is still great. He's all about the shotei. Ohtani had matured somewhat, he wasn't your crazy young lion he used to be and was still one of the best wrestler in the world. Fantastic match that built and built until Liger gets a bit too arrogant, lets Ohtani sleep in a comeback before the final shotei barrage and the final pin which looked terrific. MOTYC and certainly one of the best junior match of the decade.

Golden Liger is the best. The creepy mask during the intro was pretty great too. But Ultimo coming out with 8 models, each carrying a different belt was just, well, the ultimate entrance. Really good match which suffered from a lack of heat. Liger was still coming back from a brain surgery, so cut him some slack as far as maybe not being as crisp as he could have. Not as good as the JCup match in 95 but some nice call backs to the J*Crown quick match with Liger himself trying La Majistral to win at one point. Junior match at the Dome show never translate the best anyway, this is underrated (well, maybe not in the Observer, not sure I'd have gone ****).

Well, seems like it's already beginning. There's nothing more than a director name and people are already hating on it, ah ah. Well, I for one am quite curious about it.

Hollywood is gonna make a movie about Chris Benoit ? Holy shit, and people "in da business" didn't like The Wrestler... This is gonna be fascinating on so many levels.

Like it's been said : the WW3 match without the matwork to ground Mysterio building to the spots. But hey, what they do is so good that it's still a very good match. One big difference, Ultimo does the Majistral pin attempt early on as it's really over in Japan. Yep, Rey was kinda formulaic against the same opponents while touring, as showed by his matches with Dragon or Psychosis. But hey, so was Ric Flair, and Rey was so much in advance in term of prime flying offense that he didn't need more while working in front of new audiences.

Good matwork to open the proceedings. Hell, they do refer to Sasuke cracking his skulls (which kinda shows in his work too) with a brutal brainbuster, followed by a not less brutal DDT. So, psychology, people ! Sasuke doing the insane kick from the top rope to the outside in his condition was all kind of Sasukesque. not going into the epic it could have been without the injury, but all things considered, this was really really good. That finish too. Gotta love when something looks like the finish, should be the finish, and ends up being the finish.

Not exhibitionist in the least. Fuck, this can seem that way because two generations of shitty indy workers tried to replicate what these two were doing, without the great execution and agressiveness. But these two were having the ultimate lucharesu bomb throwing match, with Asai moonsault payback spot from the student to the mentor. And of course, Sasuke KILLS HIMSELF FOR OUR PLEASURE !!!! Well, that was the felling of some back then. And of course, they have to go home, and it's a classic-that-would very good match in the end. The J*Crown was such a great concept. That it made its way into WCW was even better.

Ohtani, ladies and gentleman. What a worker he was back hen. The slighest of his body movement expressed something. And the execution. Well, it's not like Dragon was much behind, as he was also a great masked wrestler, in that he conveyed so much emotion and intent with the mask. Amazing pinning attempt early on. Which never looked like two guys doing some cool flippy stuff, but guys trying to fucking win a pro-wrestling match. And yeah, this is the kind of awesome match which should remind everyone that yes, execution does matter. Ohtani is just on another planet and Dragon has never looked much better than this. MOTYC. A classic junior match that holds up even better today after years of awful X-div shit and self-conscious epics.

How great a babyface Sasuke was is way overlooked at this point. He sells those Sammy submissions (when he's in) like crazy. Yes, he did blow off the legwork a bit too fast, but damn Sammy was brutal with him, including with some of the comeback spots. This is not merely good, this is excellent, with the idea that Sammy really is gonna upset Sasuke (who's the bigger star of course by now). The more I watch these junior matches today, the more I see the differences with all the indieriffic matches, as there was a clear sense of struggle back then, with intent on hurting and winning as opposed to do "cool shit". Sure, Sasuke was also about "cool shit, but he was way more than just this. Very good/excellent match.

Exactly. So does the intros. They can add to the enjoyement. But let's not be kidding, the match is the match. A great post-match avec a craooy match doesn't make the match better. It certainly can make a segment enjoyable, in which case the match itself simply doesn't matter much. And yes, finish matters. Like the very last scene/shot of a movie before the credits hit.

A Block B Block ****+ as they say Elgin vs. Naito Quite excellent SANADA vs. Tanahashi Nakajima vs. Shibata Okada vs. Marufuji SANADA vs. Okada Tenzan vs. Marufuji Damn fine Tenzan vs. Ishii Nagata vs. Naito Fale vs. Goto Shibata vs. Honma Ishii vs. Goto YOSHI-HASHI vs. Honma Fale vs. Marufuji Omega vs. Yano Goto vs. Okada YOSHI-HASHI vs. Nagata EVIL vs. Nakajima Good it is indeed Omega vs. YOSHI-HASHI Elgin vs. EVIL Honma vs. Omega Shibata vs. Elgin Unoffensive Makabe vs. Tanahashi Yano vs. Nakajima Ishii vs. Fale EVIL vs. Nagata SANADA vs. Makabe Naito vs. Yano Tonga vs. Tanahashi Not good Makabe vs. Tonga Tenzan vs Tonga

YOSHI-HASHI vs. Nagata Everything YOSHI-HASHI does seems so random to me. Nagata can still have a good match with anyone with enough ability, so there you go. EVIL vs. Nakajima Best EVIL match by far. Nakajima has a Naoki Sano quality to him, he looks stoic and polite, then at some point kicks you really hard and shows unexpected intensity. Maybe kicked out of too much stuff, but this was really good. Naito vs. Yano So, no one wants to explain me Yano ? *sigh* This was bullshit but too short to amount to anything. Funny enough though. Honma vs. Omega Omega is trying way too hard. This didn't click with me. Probably burned out a bit already. They overdid the epicness at the end. Too much no-selling of big stuff like double nelson suplex. Good match but… Omega is really odd. Just settle down A BIT. Shibata vs. Elgin Stiff as fuck, as we used to say. So, the whole "please, hit me hard" is a new trope that is fun for awhile but can get silly quickly. Lots of cool strenght and kicking stuff. Some really ridiculous selling too. Good. expected better. Yeeeeeah, I'm getting burned out and tired of some stuff that are cool when fresh but tiresome when not fresh anymore. A bunch of good matches but nothing going to the next level. maybe that was the issue for this show. The G1 Climax is officially WAY too long.

This was funny as shit, especially since he was delivering it in a totally straight way.

That's why the first months of the nWo angle was the apex of US pro-wrestling TV.

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 Raven puts a table in the ring, near the tacks. To whomever said this very first chant during this match was ironic, it's clearly not, the crowd was hot after the tacks bump. ANd did they get more, with Raven bumping AByss through a table at ringside, immediately followed by a pounce through a table, with, back to back, did look quite impressive, brutal and cool, despite the meh match until that point. So, theer we have the second "This is awesome !" chants on a TNA broadcast, the first appearing during an AJ Styles vs Alex Shelley match two months earlier. This one was much stronger though. Nice to spot Dixie in the crowd too, totally not believing what was happening in her ring. That was both neat, cute, and... kinda stupid when you think about it. But mostly neat. Monty Brown surely had the charisma to become a star. The in-ring skills, not so much, but he wasn't worse than… well, he wasn't worse than a lot of people pushed at the top at one point or another, and still pretty green.

The original Workrate Guilt. Well, they did get showed up by IWA Japan that night too, so, it's understandable.