Revisiting 00s US Indies #27

Bryan Danielson v Homicide (ROH Reborn: Stage Two, 4/24/04)

I thought this was really good, but probably didn't need to be close to half an hour. Homicide turned heel the night before by flinging a fireball in Joe's face during their title match. It led to a big post-match brawl with the locker room clearing out and the ring being torn up and one of the funniest Gabe calls ever as he tries to sell the madness, shouting "OH MAN HOMICIDE'S COMING UP TO THIS AREA! I'M GETTING OUTTA HERE AAAAAAHHHHH!" Like he's being hunted down by a ravenous monster in a 70s horror. Still, Homicide is now on the wrong side of honour and he is a dangerous and unpredictable man. This is probably my favourite stretch of his career and he comes out pissed before the match even starts. The crowd start a HOMO-cide chant as that was a source of much amusement in 2004 so Homicide picks up the ring bell and fuckin throws it in the crowd! He was awesome in this and not just because of the fan interactions, though they was obviously great (tells another fan he punched their mother, spits on someone, throws chairs and flips the ringside table). The matwork early on is all solid stuff and they mostly nail the subtleties so it doesn't just look like time-killing. The STRUGGLE and all that. You expect that from Danielson anyway, but it's been a minute since I've watched Homicide work a slow-burner like this so I was digging it. Homicide works the neck for a brief spell, then on the floor he punches the guardrail and his selling is top drawer the rest of the way. Obviously Danielson goes after the hand and any match where someone's hand is worked over is immediately 12 stars and I don't make the rules on that, I'm afraid. He bends the fingers, stomps on them, incorporates finger-bending into already nasty holds like a seated abdominal stretch and an Indian deathlock. I also liked how they never completely dropped the neck stuff after Danielson took over. Homicide sensibly went back to it towards the end, and there was a nasty STF spot made doubly awesome when Homicide couldn't apply it properly because he couldn't lock his fingers. CONTINUITY! Danielson's neck also prevents him from bridging more than a few seconds on Cattle Mutilation, which I thought was super cool. Homicide mule kicking him in the balls to set up the finish was a nice bit of character-development as well. I can't wait to check those Rottweilers-Joe/Lethal tags again and this was a nice start to Homicide's run of terror.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #26

Bryan Danielson v Alex Shelley (ROH Arena Warfare, 3/11/06)

Okay so I guess I lied when I said I wasn't for watching this. '06 is maybe my least favourite year of Danielson's ROH run (or the part of that run I cared enough to follow. I stopped paying attention to ROH in 2008). Everything was just so LONG. I get that it was Gabe who booked his title run like that, but regardless of who was deciding he needed to go a full bastard hour with Colt Cabana I was burned out on him that year and haven't had much interest in revisiting it. I remembered this being another lengthy affair. I've been enjoying Shelley more than I expected though, and my friend told me it was thirty three minutes rather than a hundred and three. It was in fact just a shade over half an hour and honestly I didn't think it needed to even be that long. HOWEVER, they're in the old ECW arena here - a first for ROH - and Danielson explicitly says before the match that he's going to show these fucks a proper technical exhibition. He'll show them how a REAL wrestler does it, so a match like this in that context makes some sense. Prolly. The pre-match stuff was tremendous and Danielson was a hoot messing with the old ECW faithful. "That little girl can NOT fuck me UP!" He then threatens to punch the little girl in the face and backhand her mother, then a few minutes later nearly hops the rail and the little girl just looks at him in disgust. Some portly guy in the crowd says something or other and both Danielson and Shelley have a go at him. My favourite part of the match was the early matwork, which lasted about ten minutes or so. They interspersed that with Shelley throwing a rager on the mic about not telling the burger-flipper how to do HIS job so why is that guy telling Alex Shelley how to wrestle? I guess it's heel v heel as neither guy attempts to endear himself to the fans, and in fact both actively show contempt for them at several points. Shelley might be a mat wiz but he's not out-wizarding Danielson on the mat in the year 2006 and Danielson clearly finds great amusement in that. Shelley tries to work the leg and it lasts about a minute before Danielson puts him in his place again, then I guess just to show him how it's supposed to be done he starts picking apart Shelley's leg. Goes for the surfboard stretch, does the ooohhhh part as the crowd anticipate the payoff, then flips them the double bird and says "fuck you people" before just stomping Shelley's knees into the mat. Shelley eventually takes over and works the neck and shoulder for the Border City Stretch, and I guess this is ultimately used to set up Sliced Bread #2. Because he tries it at a few different points and can't hit it, but it's always looming in the background after Shelley's run through all of his other stuff. Danielson hucking both Shelley and Nana into the front row right by the little girl, her mother and the same portly guy from earlier ruled, as did his crazy somersault dive. That dive is one of the best ever because of how reckless and ungraceful it always looks. Finish is excellent with Danielson yet again having Sliced Bread #2 scouted and reversing it into a cradle (the exact same cradle Shelley scored a huge nearfall off of earlier, which is another awesome touch, particularly as Danielson's whole M.O. on the night was apparently to show up Shelley at every turn). So yeah, this was probably better than I expected. I don't feel like I wasted half an hour watching it and that...possibly counts for something? 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #25

Necro Butcher v Monsta Mack (GHW, 10/20/06)

Another one for the 2006 Necro Butcher hit list. What a year that maniac had. This was probably only about the seventh or eighth best match he had that year but it ruled in all of the ways you'd expect a Necro Butcher/Monsta Mack match to rule. Right away they crack each other in the jaw and from there it escalates to them recklessly brawling in the crowd. I love this venue they're in. It looks like the inside of a barn that a goth's turned into a nightclub. If you told me this happened in the Glasgow Cathouse I'd have believed you. Necro and Mack fight up the bleachers and I've mentioned AMBIANCE in almost every one of these Necro write-ups so far, but it's a pertinent point to make and the lone cameraman trying to follow this madness really does capture the chaos superbly. He has to sit his camera down on the apron for a second to hop the rail, all we can hear in the background is shouting and the crash of stuff being battered off other stuff, then when the camera pans around again Mack has just full force launched a chair at Necro's elbow from fifteen feet. Necro takes an insane running powerslam on the floor and Mack takes an even more insane suplex off one of the benches. Mack throws open chairs at Necro like he's trying to pin him to the wall, paying absolutely no heed to those chairs ricocheting dangerously close to the woman sitting in the stands right next to Necro. Necro's bar fight bit is the kind of thing I like fine in moderation, and I haven't seen him do it in ages so this one totally worked for me. The finish itself might've fallen a wee bit flat, but every punch they threw before it scrambled YOUR brains just watching. Mack headbutting Necro as hard as possible in the cheek was also vile so maybe I'll change my mind about that finish. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #24

The Briscoe Brothers v CM Punk & Colt Cabana (ROH Reborn: Stage Two, 4/24/04)

Shtick! This was like 20 minutes long and for about 15 of those minutes it felt more like something you'd see at the Tulsa Convention Centre. The atmosphere helped a ton. They're in Chicago and naturally the Saints are never going to be booed, not when they're going for the tag titles against another heel team, so they go full on babyface and play allllll the way to the crowd. I'm not sure if they mic'd the ring up differently or it's just because there's no commentary, but you can hear pretty much everything the wrestlers are saying in there, how they interact with the referee, the shit-talking between both teams, etc. It was really cool and added a nice wee layer to things. I've never really cared one way or the other about Colt Cabana, but all of his sorta-comedy was great during the babyface shine and Punk even got in on the act as well. They call the Briscoes chicken-fuckers and of course the crowd start up several "you fuck chickens" chants throughout the match. Cabana asks Jay for a battle of the running shoulder tackles, but as Jay hits the ropes Cabana casually trips him and Jay is left checking his teeth. The Saints do an awesome sequence where Punk gives Jay an atomic drop, with Jay's foot landing directly in Mark's balls, then they tie both Briscoes up so Jay is essentially putting Mark in an Indian deathlock while Punk and Cabana have each of them in a camel clutch. It was a great opening stretch. When the Briscoes take over on Punk we get even more shit-talking, and the Briscoes are great shit-talkers. Mark spits on Cabana to draw him in the ring and I love how we can clearly hear the referee trying to reason with the wrestlers, telling Mark he understands that it's illegal for Cabana to be in there but he has five seconds to get back out. The last stretch is more along the lines of your big time finishing run with everyone in there at the same time, big nearfalls and double-teams and the like, but I thought the escalation was fine and it didn't just feel like them flipping a switch and dropping the more "traditional" aspects to get there. Really fun match. I'm almost tempted to watch the Joe/Punk matches again.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #23

Austin Aries v Samoa Joe (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 3, 2/26/05)

I liked this way more than their Final Battle match and thought it was pretty tremendous. It plays off the title change in obvious ways, but not to the point where it feels like they're forcing any learned psychology or whatever, and for a change I thought Gabe was good at getting the story across without being in-your-face smarky about it (also he doesn't shout DANGEROUSSSS at the top of his squeaky lungs once so that was welcome). Didn't hurt that Joe and Aries were both great on the night. Joe won't be surprised by Aries' explosiveness again and it'll be hard for Aries to reel off a combo like the one that won him the belt. Maybe the stars aligned that night and it's hard to imagine they'll do so again. Aries takes lots of powders early when he can't make anything stick. Everything he tries gets shut down and Joe is almost toying with him, dismissive and confident that Aries can't hurt him. Loved the bit where Aries tried to drag Joe to the floor by his leg, so Joe flipped it by walking back with Aries still clutching that leg. When Joe turns it on and finally goes out after Aries he wipes him with a tope, then Olé kicks him so hard he knocks a bunch of the front row on their butts. Aries bleeds and Joe puts an awesome mauling on him, working the cut and generally dominating him. Great bit where he has the STF but rather than hooking in the crossface he just digs his fingers into Aries' forehead and tries to peel off his scalp. Aries' bursts of offence come sporadically but they keep getting shut down. He sort of flirts with going after the leg, that doesn't work for him either and any combos are interrupted, including the crucifix bomb/head kick/brainbuster/450 that he won the belt with. He hits the first three individually at different points, but it's never enough to keep Joe down (the head kick looked spectacular, though). Then he misses the 450 and Joe throws those brutal grounded knees to the head. Cool finish as well, which shows how resourceful Aries is, even if he maybe had no clue that he was actually turning the choke into a pin and it was just a desperation attempt at escaping. Either way he looked tough as nails for hanging, smart enough to (maybe) think on his feet, and Joe looked like a wrecking ball who almost certainly would've won had he just shifted his bodyweight a little. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #22

Bryan Danielson v Necro Butcher (PWG Giant-Sized Annual #4, 7/29/07)

This was great fuckin craic. Danielson/Necro feels like a match-up that should've happened a few dozen times, but I get why it didn't and BECAUSE it didn't it manages to have that Indie Dream Match feel to it. And there's nobody better at working Indie Dream Match than the Necro Butcher. The early grappling was great, just super gritty with Danielson trying to stretch Necro out and Necro fighting like a mad man to avoid it. We all know what Necro is by now and mat wizard isn't it, but he absolutely does add an awesome sense of struggle to holds, sort of like an Ian Rotten with his meth head Battlarts. There's an authenticity - maybe even a by god LEGITIMACY - that lots of guys held up as good mat wrestlers never capture. Danielson offers up a knucklelock so Necro punches him in the stomach and throws headbutts, because of course he does. He throws two clonkers, then Danielson reels back to avoid the third and rolls Necro onto the mat, at which point he starts grinding his knuckles into the newly-opened cut on Necro's forehead. The brawling on the floor ruled. Necro recklessly throws chairs at Danielson and appears to cut him open above the eye, then whips a plastic bag out his pocket and tries to suffocate him! When Danielson starts throwing chairs in return Necro leaves himself wide open like a true maniac and gets smashed in the face with at least three lobbed chairs. Loved the bit where Danielson tried to go for Cattle Mutilation and Necro smashed him in the face with the back of his head, then tried to gouge his eye out while Danielson was trying to hook those arms. Necro's hobo Holyfield punch flurry, Danielson's crucifix elbows, everything in the last couple minutes was hit with a thud. Just an awesome ten minutes.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #21

Samoa Joe v Necro Butcher (IWA-MS, 6/11/05)

An absolute slaughterhouse of a thing. Pretty much every time I watch this I'm mesmerised by the insanity of it all. Joe is this unrelenting force who's run through everyone on the indies for a couple years now. Necro is a hideous mutant Resident Evil boss who cannot be killed. Joe tries to kill him anyhow and it makes for the greatest filthy seedy brawl in history. The AMBIANCE is incredible as this crowd of black tar dealers are just astonished by the brutality on display. They're nuclear hot for all of it, from the opening strike exchange to every instance of Necro almost having his head and face caved in. Necro splitting his own head open trying to headbutt Joe was wild and then Joe powerslamming him on his FACE is still about the most insane spot ever. Or at least it would've been had he not hit the exploder later. It's still the one and only time I've seen anyone take an exploder suplex on their forehead and the fact he did it on concrete off the bastard apron is kind of unfathomable. I know some people hate the commentary. Obviously it's insidey and silly, but I've always liked it for the fact all three of them are clearly having the best time watching it. "He done kicked him in the fuckin head!" Joe covered in Necro's blood as he knees and kicks him into oblivion is the damndest finish of them all. Maybe the best ten-minute match ever. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #20

Carnage Crew & Justin Credible v Rudy Boy Gonzalez, Hotstuff Hernandez, Fast Eddie & Don Juan (Weapons Match) (ROH Death Before Dishonor, 7/19/03) 

Man what in the fuck is this feud?! How has nobody talked about these guys doing this much all-time ridiculous level shit to each other? I thought the Round Robin Challenge II match was a little better overall, a bit tighter and they sold the magnitude of all the crazy bumps better, but fuck all that because this was balls out lunacy. If you're going to do a wild hardcore plunderfest then this is pretty much the gold standard. Fuck yer Steen and Generico v Briscoe Brothers, not a one of them have anything on Fast Eddie. The first few minutes were mostly standard fare, but like their last match even the garden variety stuff looked like it was hit with as much force behind it as humanly possible. DeVito smashes a cane over Fast Eddie's back and Gabe drops what is probably his best and yet most Gabe line ever: "It's a good thing he didn't see THAT one comin'! Cos he is legally blind." The blindness is reinforced as Eddie and Hernandez try to do a stereo missile dropkick (while Juan has Masada sandwiched between two chairs), but Eddie jumps late and connects with little. Credible and Rudy Boy head into to the crowd for a little wander...and then every person involved decides they're going to do at least one outrageous thing that they can show their grandchildren in thirty years like this is the time I almost died in front of 600 people in New Jersey. Masada hits a spider German off the top to Fast Eddie through a propped up chair and I'm not joking, this is the single most ridiculous bump I've ever seen in my life. I was legitimately in shock and burst out laughing like some sort of maniac. I had to record it on my phone and send it to five different people and how he never crippled himself I'll never know. DeVito gets suplexed kidneys-first onto a ladder that's propped up between the top and middle turnbuckles, Loc fucking OBLITERATES Don Juan with a chairshot to the back of the head, Hernandez hits a HUGE running powerbomb to Masada by launching him into a sea of standing chairs, there's a double neckbreaker from the ring apron through two chairs on the floor, Fast Eddie the poor bastard gets chucked as a body projectile from inside the ring to out and thuds nastily on the wooden floor, someone gets spike piledriven off the apron through a table, Hernandez dies off a tope suicida, just a laundry list of stupidity. This was life-affirming. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #19

Low-Ki v Necro Butcher (Knockout or Tapout Match) (IWA-MS, 12/16/06)

Fuck me. This doesn't have the AMBIANCE of Joe/Necro or the dream match buzz that the first Ki/Necro had, but I might've liked it better than both. The first Ki/Necro was Ki committing a mauling for about 75-80% of it. Necro of course will die for our pleasure and take a hellish beating like no one in history so that dynamic worked. This time, in kayfabe terms, they're a little more familiar, and they work like that. They still murder each other to a stupid degree, but it's worked way more even and I liked how they structured it a bit more than the first match. I thought it was pretty much amazing, basically. It might actually be closer to 60/40 in favour of Necro and I genuinely don't remember seeing Ki ever take this much of a hammering. Necro throws some of the meanest chops ever while Ki is flat up against a wall, so he can't even rock back to absorb the blow a little. At one point Necro picked him up, walked over to a stack of scattered chairs and gave Ki a backbreaker across a couple of them, clearly not trying to land the move in a particular way (the safest way, for example) and just dropping him all shoulder blade and ribcage across the chair backs. He was stomping Ki in the head and face and his bare knuckle hillbilly boxing never looked wilder, the bit where he punched Ki in the cheek from a tree of woe position being especially awesome. Obviously Ki gave as good as he got and then some. There are 206 bones in the human body and Ki must've kicked or stomped every single one of Necro's - roundhouses, short punts, Kawada kicks, koppu kicks, the entire repertoire and Necro took them to the femur, the ribs, the jaw, the ear, the toes, the shin, the spine, the skull. This was also a match where Ki hit a top rope double stomp to Necro's back while he was bent over the back of a chair. In pretty much any other match that would've been the nastiest thing to happen. It was horrific and Necro sold it like he had internal bleeding and for second there I believed it. It was probably only the second nastiest thing to happen in this as Ki full force knife edge chopping Necro in the willy had me hooting in shock. How Necro never puked up his gummy bears I'll never know. Honestly, I didn't love the finish as it felt like a bit of an anticlimax, BUT the name of the game (or part of it) is tapout so I guess it's my own fault for discounting that it could've happened in the first place. Necro's resume in 2006 is ridiculous and this is another corker you can add to the list. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #18

Jimmy Jacobs v BJ Whitmer (Falls Count Anywhere) (ROH Fifth Year Festival: Finale, 3/4/07)

Still probably my favourite singles match either guy has ever had. Where their big cage match blowoff lost me was when they started having folk bring weapons and stuff to the ring and it became more about the big spots and kickouts of those big spots than the pure, unfiltered HATE and DISGUST and MALICE and whatnot. This was just a brawl around the building and the one weapon they used was the railroad spike, which was always an amazing part of the feud anyway. Jacobs was so good around this period, really an incredible brawler and character worker. I don't remember where I read it now but someone made the comparison between him and Eddie Gilbert and it's pretty much dead on. Much smaller guy, amazing brawler with an equally amazing wrestling imagination. He got thrown down every fucking stair in the building here, chucked across a bar knocking drinks everywhere with his head, yeeted into a stack of heavy non-folding chairs, thrown into half a dozen walls and at one point Whitmer tried to throw him off the balcony. For a second I thought he'd actually let him do it as well. Little things like Jacobs clawing Whitmer in the eyes to escape stood out and on offence he was a maniac, hitting a lunatic plancha off the balcony being the highlight. Once they get to the ring it doesn't take long before Jacobs stabs Whitmer with the spike, and say what you want about BJ Whitmer but that guy will go HARD with the plasma. He bladed every time Jacobs spiked him and the blood was visibly spraying out of his forehead at one point. Jacobs wiping the blood over himself and lying underneath Whitmer as the latter crawled around dripping blood was unbelievable. They didn't spend a ton of time on the ramp - they didn't spend a ton of time doing anything, which is partly responsible for me liking it so much - but everything there looked good and that finish was as brutal as you could want. I've called this the 00s version of Duggan/Sawyer for years now. I guess you can't really compare something with a reverse rana fighting spirit bit to Duggan/Sawyer and it probably had a little too much actual wrestling for the comparison to stick, but it's still the high point of straight up no-nonsense ROH brawling from a period where brawling was what the promotion did better than anything.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #17

Carnage Crew v Hotstuff Hernandez, Fast Eddie & Don Juan (No DQ) (ROH Retribution: Round Robin Challenge II, 4/26/03)

Man what? This has to be one of the most under the radar great matches in ROH history. What an awesome, wild little riot between six guys I've paid no attention to at any point in my life as a wrestling fan. I didn't even know Fast Eddie was ACTUALLY blind (legally, I mean) and all those CM Punk jokes were rooted in TRUTH. These guys killed each other for ten minutes with some of the craziest shit imaginable. Every chair shot looked like it would leave polka dots on a brain MRI and Hernandez literally cracked one of those chairs up the middle off DeVito's head. Masada taking a hurricanrana off the middle turnbuckle to the floor through two chairs was peak Mick Foley ridiculousness. Loc gets cut open hardway on the back of his head, Fast Eddie hits a gusher, DeVito bleeds and we get Puerto Rico close-ups on all of them. Hernandez hit two insane powerbombs in this, the second one chucking Fast Eddie like a javelin from the ring to the floor to wipe out all three Carnage Crew members. Then he goes for a tope and DeVito throws a chair at him, which practically causes Hernandez to spike himself head first on the floor like that Undertaker bit at Wrestlemania 25. A three-person spike piledriver made for a suitably crazy finish as well. There's another match in this feud a few months later and there's no way I can't watch that. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #16

Samoa Joe v Low-Ki v Dan Maff v BJ Whitmer (ROH Second Anniversary Show, 2/14/04)

This was way the fuck better than I was expecting it to be. I figured I'd watch it anyway for the potential Joe/Ki stuff, and the Joe/Ki stuff ruled, but so did everything else and to a fairly surprising degree. You can tell Joe and Ki are the money match-up and everyone is super hot for it. They smartly limit their interactions for what I guess would've been an actual title match down the line, but I'm assuming Ki pissed somebody off too many times and it never happened. The Maff and Whitmer involvement was the most surprising part of this. They're both Prophecy members but don't actually like each other, yet they need to try and coexist for the sake of the Prophecy. Also because they'll probably be murdered by one of the other two if they don't. They don't REALLY work as a unit for a lot of this and it means BJ especially gets stomped out. Joe and Ki obliterate him for a spell and Ki just lights him up with chops. When Maff tries to step to Joe he gets hit really hard in the neck. It was good stuff. Then they do a short bit on the floor with everyone getting chucked into the barricade and at some point Joe cuts his hand open. Don't know what did it but the gash was NASTY and there's a close-up shot of blood just streaming from a wound. I'm not sure if they decided to audible the whole thing then or at least some of it was planned beforehand, but from there they go into an extended segment of Joe in peril and that ruled as well. Maff is especially great here as he starts biting the hand and Pirata Morgan style spitting the blood in the air. He and Whitmer stomp the hand, whip it into the mat, just a bunch of fun work to capitalise on something that couldn't have been part of the plan (the ref' trying to seal it up with duct tape suggests even he was thinking on the fly). Finishing stretch was red hot. Ki does a springboard onto the middle rope and as he lands Joe fucking nukes his face off with a slap to tag himself back in. The Ki/Joe showdown was honestly incredible. It wasn't the longest but sweet baby Jesus did they hammer each other. Ki initially breaks up an STF by full force booting Joe in the face, and they basically do a two-minute Ikeda/Ishikawa showdown. I guess I could've done without them having a sort of fighting spirit dick-swinging contest in the middle of it, but I can forgive them considering the rest of the exchange was so good. Finish was great too. In Ki's last ROH appearance he knocked out Maff (whether legitimately or in kayfabe terms I'm not sure, but it's Low-Ki so it could've been either or both), so when it looks like Joe and Ki are going to have their final showdown to settle the match, Maff comes barrelling into view and spears Ki to the floor. Joe then quickly turns to Whitmer and of course Whitmer has no chance, going down in short order to the choke. This might be one of the best US 4-way matches I've seen.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #15

Low-Ki v Paul London v AJ Styles (ROH One Year Anniversary Show, 2/8/03)

You know, for a wild spotfest triple threat, this was probably one of the best of its ilk that I've seen. It was like the best possible version of a Beyond Wrestling match where they just went out and did as much awesome looking shit as they could. You're not listening to 2 Chainz for deep story raps and you're not watching this for the psychology or narrative structure or whatever. My low bar hopes for threeway matches are basically that there isn't a ton of one wrestler needing to lie around selling something for an inordinate amount of time while the other two pair off, and that when they inevitably try some elaborate shit it doesn't take half an hour to set up and leave me tuning out. I thought they mostly nailed that balance between selling and getting shit in here, and while some of the stuff was elaborate, it wasn't ridiculous and that elaborate stuff wound up being cool as fuck anyway, so I'll accept the tradeoff. There was even a bit of role-establishment as well, with Ki and Styles being the indie superstars and the guys folk had pinned their hopes on for solidifying ROH's seat at the big boy table, while London has never had any of that hype and thus essentially becomes an underdog babyface. Ki and Styles were never dismissive of him as such, but there were a couple points where they doubled up on him just to get him out the road so the all-star match-up could take place. Some of the stuff they all did was nuts and things I've never seen before or since, which is quite incredible considering this happened in 2003 and the level of INNOVATION~ wrestling his strived for since then. Also helped that everything looked like it hurt like a bastard. London hit one missile dropkick to the back of Styles that I thought gave him whiplash. I rewound it and slowed it down and the back of his head about touched his shoulder blade. Even struggles over a top rope move were good because Styles would just whack London in the kidneys with nasty forearms, Ki would do what he always does and hit everyone really hard, they never messed about up there for ages, etc. The final bit with all three of them on the top rope was about the least contrived version of that particular threeway trope I could ask for and the finish itself was great. Shockingly enjoyable match. I know why they didn't but they should've stuck the belt on London that night because the crowd were SO ready for it. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #14

CM Punk v Doug Williams (ROH Second Anniversary Show, 2/14/04)

Really fun little match. This was a tournament semi-final (to crown the first Pure Wrestling Champion) and felt like it, but in the best way possible. They never tried to do a ton, kept things fairly simple as it was both guys' second match of the night, and crafted a fine wee narrative in a cool and interesting way. I'm not a HUGE CM Punk guy but he was a hoot in this. He's coming off a big angle at the start of the year where the Saints give Christopher Daniels a Pepsi Plunge through a table, putting Daniels on the shelf for a while and pretty much establishing Punk as the top heel in the company. So he acts like a shithead, stalls for time when Williams' trippy WoS stuff is too much to handle, gets into a shouting match with fans, generally dials the heelishness up past a mild 6 or 7. Williams has a sort of goofy Bob Backlund vibe, almost naïve in how he approaches things, as if he assumes that this being Ring of HONOUR means Punk won't stoop to dishonourable methods. Clearly he was a fool but his Euro-style matwork was pretty fun and Punk got to practically stooge around for it, then he'd try some of that Euro matwork of his own and he'd get taken to school. It was the richest poor man's Buddy Rose v Johnny Eagles you could want in 2004 ROH. The leg work in the back half was really good and I loved Punk doing the facewash bit in the corner, but doing it to the knee while Williams was tied up in a tree of woe. I don't think I've ever seen that before and it allowed Punk to shit-talk people in the crowd while he was at it. Finish was cool as well, with Williams hitting the Chaos Theory but the leg giving out on the bridge and it essentially forcing his own shoulders to the mat. Super enjoyable ten minutes. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #13

Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer & Adam Pearce v Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon (ROH The 100th Show, 4/22/06)

I always thought that ROH and CZW, in their own ways, were sort of the spiritual successors to ECW. Some of those reasons are admittedly pretty stupid, like the E-C-Dub/C-Z-Dub chants. Others make a little more sense (or at least they do to me and to be honest it's really only myself I'm here to amuse anyway), like how both ran out of Philly and CZW even briefly referred to the ECW Arena as the CZW Arena. ROH took up that ECW position as the #3 promotion in America for a while there, and at one point were probably closer to supplanting TNA as the #2 than ECW ever were to supplanting WCW or the WWF. There are a number of scumbag parallels between Heyman and Zandig. Both promotions had their very different but very niche fanbases, even if ROH's philosophy was based on Good Wrestling and CZW was always more of a deathmatch fed than a garbage fed (I don't use garbage fed derogatorily). Either way it was pretty fitting that both combined to produce the best ECW style brawl of the lot. 

You could make a decent case for this being the career match of every single person involved. I'm not saying I'd personally make that case, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who did. It's carnage from beginning to end and everything that was good about the ROH/CZW feud. Joe was incredible here and felt like the biggest badass in the world. The stuff with Necro was unreal. They pair off in the ring and Necro sets up two chairs like he's going to put Joe through them. Joe gets up and elbows him a bunch in the face (stiffly) and the crowd start a "Joe's gonna kill you" chant, then Joe spins the chairs around so they're back to back and there's an audible "oh Christ he's ACTUALLY gonna kill him here" reaction because fuck man, you know Necro would let him. Then he suplexes him on the backs of the chairs, people losing their mind, Joe surveying the carnage of his own making, a god in his own domain. Hero, who was also awesome, had scurried away at some point, and there's an amazing shot of him in the crowd amongst the ROH fans with this "oh my days I can't believe he fucking did that" look of horror. Fittingly enough the Hero/Joe exchanges were great. Hero was a complete douchebag and his obnoxiousness ruled so people were just DYING for Joe to mangle him, which he did more than once. I've never cared about Adam Pearce but he either bladed the side of his head like a maniac or got split open hardway and bloody and battered Adam Pearce stumbling around wellying people with chairs is the very best Adam Pearce. The fist fight with him and Necro was perfect, a couple vagrants fighting to the death over a tin of beans. Whitmer is another guy I can't be bothered with and yet he made magic here. He took two of the most insane bumps I've ever seen, first having his head double stomped while it was placed through the back of a standing chair, then taking a Psycho Driver off the apron through a table. Other than committing those two acts of murder Super Dragon was actually a bit inconspicuous in this, though you can absolutely imagine him going full Tracy Smothers in the crowd and goading someone into a fist fight by calling their girlfriend a manky bitch. 

They paid homage to ECW with the finish as well. It was overbooked to hell and back and you know what? It was fucking perfect. Earlier in the show Claudio became the first person ever in ROH to receive a handshake from Christopher Daniels, almost in a passing of the torch moment. He then came out at the start of this and stole Zandig's barbed wire bat, as Zandig had obviously tried to stick his nose in because he's Zandig. Zandig comes back out again at the end and when Claudio appears you're thinking he's here to even the odds. And of course he turns on ROH, saddles up with his old buddy Hero and CZW use their numbers to score the win in ROH's house. Joe staring a hole through them as they celebrate with their section of CZW fans would shrivel your testes and I love how the show went off the air with BJ being carted out on a stretcher while the CZW music blares over the speakers. This is one of the absolute peaks of ROH and maybe a top 5 match in its history. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #12

The Briscoes v Samoa Joe & Bryan Danielson (ROH The Battle Lines Are Drawn, 1/10/04)

I wasn't sure I'd like this much as the last Briscoes match I watched from around this period was, how you might say, dogshit. But this was really good, right there in the sweet spot between your traditional southern tag and peak ROH workrate, but never being ridiculous even at around 25 minutes (which it didn't really need to be but we can deal). It had a fairly simple story told well - the Briscoes are the tag champs and a natural unit while Joe and Danielson are the dream team, albeit a dream team of two very different individuals. The latter pretty much dominated the first half entirely, but they did it in very individual ways. I don't think there was a single acknowledgment from either that they had a tag team partner they could work with, other than one moment where Danielson held Mark Briscoe in place so Joe could come in and take over. It worked for them and they looked a league above the Briscoes. Danielson was so good in this, grabbing Mark's arm and just ragdolling him about, telling Mark to hit him before taking his head off with an uppercut. The closest the Briscoes came to sustaining offence in the first half was briefly isolating Joe, but then Jay threw a chop and shouted like he enjoyed how INTENSE that chop was and Joe fucking slapped his teeth out for being dumb. The Briscoes were clearly working in tandem though, even if it was something as simple as a blind tag from one of them to get the other out of trouble. Eventually it paid off in the best way possible, with the ULTIMATE double-team transition, when Jay hoisted Danielson up from the blindside and Mark hit a Doomsday Device. Danielson sold the hell out of it as well, and considering he'd been in full control up to that point he really needed to so it might look like he was in actual danger. He crawled to the edge of the ring and went limp over the bottom rope, which let Jay and Mark take turns standing on his neck while the other goaded Joe into the ring. From there the Briscoes worked like a team and did all the things good teams do - quick tags, keeping Danielson isolated in their corner of the ring, running distractions where necessary, hitting actual double-teams, all the things Joe and Danielson didn't do. It played into the finish as well. Danielson makes the hot tag and Joe comes in swinging, but he lets himself become preoccupied with humiliating Mark on the floor. He's tossing Mark around and hitting ole kicks, asking the crowd if they want another one, soaking up the moment, while back in the ring Jay hits a Jay Driller on a still-woozy Danielson. If Joe had been paying a little more attention he might've been able to break up the pin, maybe stop the move from happening altogether, but as it is Mark is able to hold him back long enough for Jay to get the 3. I don't see myself watching a ton of Briscoes matches again but this was good stuff. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #11

Necro Butcher v Super Dragon (PWG BOLA 2006 - Night 2, 9/2/06)

Another example of a mid-2000s indie dream match knocking it out the park. This had a sort of old school territories feel to it with Necro bringing his madness from the Great Lakes out to Cali, like an Abby or Sheik rolling into Memphis and wreaking havoc. Necro's wearing cowboy boots with thumbtacks stuck to the sole. Dragon's mask is all-time great and he has that aura of a psychopath with the thick gut and bush league bodysuit; the sort of thing a serial killer flung together in his basement. It felt like a true spectacle before they even locked up. Then it felt like an even truer spectacle as soon as they did. This wasn't as viscerally insane as Necro/Joe but in some ways it might've been even more brutal. Necro/Joe was like the scene in True Detective where McConaughey tries to drag a meth head biker through a gangland warzone. That was complete chaos with the underlying sense that anyone could get caught in the crossfire. This was a different sort of chaos, a bit more channeled, a bit more primal, but even without the blood it might've had even more moments where you can't believe they've actually done this to themselves. Some of it was grotesque - the backdrop Dragon takes on the stage where he could've shattered his coccyx, the curb stomp on the chair, Dragon double stomping Necro's FACE (disgusting), basically every strike they threw. On Necro's end the striking made up an awesome part of the story. Reckless punches to the temple are a staple of every Necro murderfest, so Dragon takes the initiative early and smashes his hand to bits with a chair. Necro sells what may have been a very legitimate broken hand the rest of the way, going to these borderline-untrained punches almost as a last resort, throwing absolute hand grenades that might hurt himself but will hurt Dragon a whole lot more. Dragon responds with hellish elbows and punts and straight up chops Necro in the face. Every chair shot was outrageous and Dragon chucking one full force at the back of Necro's head is the greatest prison riot move in history. In matches like this it can sometimes be hard not to finish things on an anticlimax, just because they've put each other through such ridiculousness beforehand that you can't quite buy someone staying down for whatever happens at the end. That was absolutely not the case here as Dragon's Psycho Driver on the chair was a fucking absurdity. Honestly, I didn't think it needed to be 27 minutes long as it did lead to a bit of laying around. On the flipside, I'd glad they took that time in between all the hellish shit to sell a little extra, when the alternative would usually be cramming in even more hellish shit and it all being a bit too much. So you accept the tradeoff and walk away happy, if maybe a little dirty for enjoying two lunatics doing this to each other. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #10

Samoa Joe v Chris Hero (IWA-MS, 5/29/04)

These indie dream matches from the early-to-mid-2000s are a whole lot more palatable than the indie dream matches that were happening when I stopped actually following any indies. Same goes for most of the dream matches in WWE/NXT today. Things like this feel a little more special to me as well, I guess partly because we're now so far removed from 2004 that there's a sort of personal nostalgic longing for this period in time. I don't really give a shit about most of the indie stars of today, but these were some of the first guys I saw when I started watching the indies to begin with, so even if neither would be particularly high on a favourites list they *were* a bit of a gateway to a new world of wrestling (I miss The Wrestling Channel, FWIW). This was also like 18 minutes long and it never felt like they were actively reaching for epic (or maybe that never started happening anyway until Joe/Punk II was given the vaunted 5 biscuits by big Davey Meltz). It felt organic. The crowd was tremendous, almost like a low-key Joe/Kobashi crowd where you knew these people were beyond hyped to be seeing these two wrestle. Nothing felt forced, none of the chanting was ZANY and the lengthy Let's Go Joe/Let's Go Hero bit came off like it was born out of genuine excitement. The matwork section to start was good stuff, but the crowd were bubbling and ready for some bombs and all credit to Joe and Hero for recognising it, moving away from the matwork and smashing each other very often and very hard in the teeth instead. The heat was consistent and people were getting exactly what they wanted and you could tell the wrestlers read it. Nothing about this was worked in a vacuum, all of it was tailored to this specific crowd, and in the eternal words of Tracy Smothers THAT is called working, motherfucker. Some of the strike exchanges were outstanding and Hero threw some of the best forearms and elbows of his life. Joe wasn't quite the legendary figure he'd become just yet, but Hero going blow for blow with him was significant. Then they play nicely off Hero being on a bit of a losing streak, where he hits the Hero's Welcome but rather than pinning Joe he drags him up to attempt another. He should've held firm on his initial play though, because it only allowed Joe to reverse it and eventually come back with the choke. He had Joe where he needed him and he flew too close to the sun. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #9

Bryan Danielson v AJ Styles (ROH Main Event Spectacles, 11/1/03)

Is this their best match? A lot of these indie legend match-ups have happened so often and in so many places over the years that it's hard to keep track. Hell, these two had a match this year that according to legend was pretty great. I can't keep up with all that shit but I certainly don't *remember* having seen this before...and I feel like I'd remember it because it was indeed really good. Dragon was in a surly mood on the night and it seemed to rub off on AJ, if not immediately then certainly as time wore on. The early matwork looked nice and tight and Danielson zeroed in on one AJ fan who'd been giving him shit, so every nasty stretch or yank of a limb was directed at him. "Get in here and see who can't wrestle." At times it felt like he might've been trying a wee bit TOO hard to heel it up, but I don't mind that and wrestlers being super vocal is rarely something I'll complain about. The stars aligning and Gabe deciding to watch the match from the crowd meant there was no Gabe commentary and so I'll take a match-worth of Danielson shit-talking all day and every day as an alternative. His work on AJ's arm was great, just rough and mean and it all looked legitimately painful. There was one part where he snapped AJ's wrist around to an audible crack, then stomped the elbow as Styles rolled around in agony. AJ going after Danielson's leg as a response was good stuff as well, especially when he started matching surliness. Danielson getting chucked recklessly knee-first into the guardrail and then shouting "stay back, dickhead!" when AJ followed up was awesome, in an almost indie dream match comedy spot sort of way. Danielson calls AJ a pussy and asks if that's all he's got so AJ goes buck wild and tries to stomp his head into the mat. The stretch run was really good as well, transitioned into with Bryan hitting an incredible leaping European uppercut out the corner, and they captured that real sense of struggle right to the end. Danielson fighting off the Styles Clash with all his might only for AJ to hit a one-armed version was totally badass. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #8

Homicide v Steve Corino (ROH Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies, 8/16/04)

I wanted to love this, and I didn't, but I thought it was very good and at times pretty great. I don't remember shit about 2003 ROH, honestly. A bit more context probably would've helped then, but I don't really have much of a personal connection to either guy so it is what it is. I think I got the gist of their feud up to this point from doing a bit of reading anyway. I wasn't too hot on the opening. Gabe and whoever else was on commentary didn't help with their shrieking about how VISCERAL the hatred is. I mean I guess that single-leg takedown was TRUCULENT and that tie-up was FEROCIOUS and all? I don't know, man. I come from a broken home so don't shout at me all the time. It did pick up when Homicide about slapped the jaw off Corino but then Gabe shit his knickers on commentary. "That's the kind of slap that could disable Corino forever! Oh my god these two hate each other, you can feel it, I'm in shock at how much they hate each other." Bruuuuuh. Just ease up with it a little. Let it come naturally, you know? Homicide going fuck it and tearing up Corino's arm with barbed wire ruled, to be fair. Corino looked almost appalled and I loved that he seemed to decide it was time to fight fire with fire or Homicide would just keep stabbing him in the arm and face with a fork. Homicide's gusher was wild and all those close-up camera shots were straight out of Puerto Rico, so fair fucks to yer cameraperson. Corino was really fun heeling it up, spitting on Julius Smokes, snot rocketing the crowd, hitting an amazing piledriver through a table, really getting everyone behind the Homicide comeback. Homicide making that comeback and about killing himself with the missed dive was sheer fucking lunacy. This is straight out the top drawer of your greatest missed dives in history as he goes full pelt into the guardrail with a tope con hilo and I'm sort of stunned he never crippled himself. You almost forgive Sapolsky's TOPE CON HILO DANGEROUUUUUSSSSSSS nerd boner on commentary but then not really and I muted it from there. Corino going for the cobra sleeper and Homicide surviving it is a nice callback to their first match that I'd have missed had I not done my by god research beforehand. I could go either way on the finish, but I settled on it being a good one as Homicide looked like he was trying to yank Corino's eye out in the STF, so if I was Corino's second I might've thrown the towel in as well. Yeah, this was pretty, pretty alright. I may watch the barbed wire match. I may, however, not. Such is life. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #7

AJ Styles v Jimmy Rave (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 2, 2/25/05)

Early 2005 ROH is bringing the goods and this was another badass match. I don't really know much of the context or story behind the Styles/Rave feud, but Styles had been gone from ROH since March 2004 and Rave, who Styles had previously taken under his wing, has since joined the Embassy. Rave has been shit-talking AJ and accusing him of stealing the Styles Clash, and now AJ is back for one night before TNA locks him up again, defending the HONOUR of the Styles Clash against the wanton DUPLICITY of the Rave Clash. Maybe that's...all the context you need? I honestly don't think I've watched any ROH-era Styles in about ten years, possibly even as far back as 2006 when I was following show to show and he was still there. Man was he good in this. He was surly as a bastard, maybe the surliest I've ever seen him. Rave was happy to hang back a bit at the start but AJ was having none of it, and when Rave charged at him for the first time AJ just picked him up and about dumped him on his head. The early matwork was rough and there was an amazing bit where AJ had Rave in an arm wringer, started using Rave's own fist to punch him in the face and then fucking heaved him out the ring by the arm (Rave's bump through the ropes was great too). Rave throws him into the barricade, AJ jumps it and lands safely in the crowd, then when Rave tries to follow it up with a dive off the guardrail AJ catches him in midair and hits a NASTY suplex on a bunch of chairs. The chairs were standing upright as well so Rave landed with his neck across the back of one and it looked crazy reckless. All of AJ's offence was hit perfectly. Every dropkick, every slam, every modified version of whatever move he was doing, it was 10/10 for execution but most importantly it looked like he was actually trying to hurt Rave with it. When Rave was in control there was always the sense that AJ could string together a bit of offence and be right back to level footing again, so the presence of Nana on the floor made for a potential get-out if necessary. Outside the finish he never actually interfered all that much, he was mostly an annoyance that AJ let himself be goaded by once or twice, which I suppose was important in establishing Rave as being at least close to AJ's level. As I watch more of this feud I guess that gap closes a bit and Rave can handle things on his own a bit more effectively. The finish here was great though and Rave doesn't give one shit about your Code of Honour, so if he has to go full Rick Martel and shoot Febreze in your eyes he'll do it. They now have me hyped about how AJ will exact his revenge and really, that's just good pro-wrestling (I'm also interested in seeing how they bring him back again to do it, as this was sold as a one off appearance). 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #6

Low-Ki v Necro Butcher (IWA-MS, 4/1/06)

You know what you're getting with this. If you like these guys then it's pretty much everything you want - an indie dream match that delivers all ends up. It didn't blow me away quite the same as it did when I first watched it, but there are a few moments that still have me shaking my head in disbelief these many years later. Ki was as violent as he's ever been and threw some of the most hellish strikes of his life - the backfist on the floor, the koppu kick, the running dropkick while Necro was slouched in a chair, the short Kawada kicks, one of the nastiest Wanderlei punts ever. Necro spent most of the match absorbing this punishment and trying to collect his teeth, but every now and then he'd fire back from nowhere with something ridiculous. The best example was when Ki came off the ropes with a springboard and Necro gave him this ugly upward-angle lariat right across the face. Ki's double stomps were monstrous, the first landing across the back as Necro was half hanging out the ring. The one at the finish, though...jeez Louise. Necro tries to hit what I'd guess was a butterfly suplex off the top through a table, but Ki fights back and Necro ends up with his legs caught in the ropes, his body across the table, and that table splintering into a thousand pieces as Ki stomps Necro's head and shoulders through it is an outrageous visual. There's another Necro/Ki match from 2006 that I know I haven't seen before so perhaps it's something I'd be interested in?

Revisiting 00s US Indies #5

CM Punk v Alex Shelley (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 2, 2/25/05)

Man, this was good stuff. I wasn't really intending on going through a bunch of Alex Shelley for this but I kind of want to now. He's actually a bit of a blind spot for me, or at least that '04/-'05 run is and this was way more enjoyable than his later decade Motor City Machine Guns stuff. Really dug the early matwork and I thought Shelley's selling of the arm was great, not just during the section where Punk was working it over but basically all the way to the end. Loved him taking the elbow pad off his good arm and putting it on the bad one for some extra support. Lots of moments as well where he'd hit an offensive move and then shake out the arm, slap some feeling into his hand, wouldn't be able to do something properly because of it. At one point he even buckled over in pain after performing a double stomp like the reverberation of it jarred that arm again. This was part of his redemption arc in ROH as well, where he was coming off the sorta-babyface turn after Gen Next gave him the boot and he was trying to prove that he wasn't a prick anymore. There were a few cool moments built around that, my favourite being where he had Punk on the floor and went to throw him into the barricade, then changed his mind and rolled him back in with a "goddammit" instead. It wasn't hammy either, didn't feel contrived and he never bothered trying to be melodramatic about it, which all in all went a long way to making me believe he was not in fact a prick (Gabe's spiel about the Code of Honor was hilarious he is terrible my god). All of Punk's offence looked solid and he had a few really cool moments himself, like rolling through with Shelley as the latter tried to escape an arm-wringer. When Shelley takes over he mostly works the midsection of Punk, and Punk sells it fine in the moment but not quite as well over the long term as Shelley does with the arm. Eventually it becomes a story of who can damage those specific body parts enough to get the win, which then narrows down to Shelley trying for the Border City Stretch and Punk trying for the Anaconda Vice. I had pretty much no expectations for this and it totally delivered. I think this was also the first time Punk had switched from the baggy shorts to wearing trunks. He had the black wrist tape rather than his usual white and he just looked way cooler than he ever had before. On the other hand it led to Gabe on commentary talking about dieting and how Punk's never eaten a carb in his life or something and I muted it for a minute there. I will talk often about the commentary as I dive deeper into this, it seems. I may keep note of the worst lines. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #4

Samoa Joe & Bryan Danielson v Austin Aries & Jack Evans (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 2, 2/25/05)

Well this was a hoot. A lot of the more workrate-heavy ROH tags don't do a ton for me, but things like this can be real fun. They lean a bit further into the SHTICK~ and structurally it's pretty much traditional southern tag formula. It's also an upper-midcard lead-in tag to the next night's Aries/Joe rematch, so they don't shoot for seven star epic. The first half had a bit of comedy, a bit of crowd-engagement, a bit of setup for tomorrow's main event and a whole lot of Jack Evans getting murdered. He asks for a dance off with Danielson to begin with, does his break dance bit, so Joe and Danielson do a tandem Mexican wave to a monster pop. Evans obviously is irate. He then asks Joe for a karate contest and Joe smacks his face off. Aries comes in for one brief exchange with Joe, gets decked, tags back out and sticks to the apron. Danielson and Joe beating on Evans was great. Just a complete ass-stomping where Danielson stretches him silly and Joe literally kicks him out his shoes (and later slaps him about the face with those same shoes). Danielson bends him at a truly disgusting angle with a surfboard stretch, then Joe comes in and hits a running dropkick while he's suspended in midair. Eventually Gen Next take over on Danielson and you might be shocked to hear that it was a really good heat segment. What was so cool about the transition is that, to that point, it was literally Aries' only involvement outside of that bit with Joe. He came in and blindsided Danielson with a suplex off the top, dragging Evans back to his own corner, ready to tag in on his own terms. AMAZING bit where Evans has a pin on Danielson and Joe breaks it up by launching Evans' shoe at him from the apron. I love pretty much any spot where someone will throw something from the apron so I popped like an idiot. He did it again later with the other shoe, this time to break up an Aries pin, but he also blamed someone in the crowd for it to get out of jail with the ref' (and the person in the crowd willingly took all the heat for it). I also loved that Evans wrestled the majority of the match in his socks, although it did lead to a scary moment where he tried to backflip off Danielson's back and nearly piledrove himself on the landing. Lots of cool stuff in the finishing run, like Aries clipping Joe's knee from behind to maybe set up something for their singles match. And that stretch muffler at the end is the nastiest version you'll ever see in your life. I thought this ruled. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #3

Samoa Joe v Austin Aries (Final Battle 2004, 12/26/04)

I think this is the first time I've seen this. Aries was a favourite of mine back in the day so I figured I must've watched it at some point, but nothing was coming back to me during it. Either way it was pretty good. It probably would've come off better had I watched it in proper context, but I don't really have the time or inclination to go through that entire Joe title run again and I think I got most of what they were shooting for anyway. Aries comes out quick and tries to catch Joe early, which makes some sense because we've already seen Punk and Danielson go long with him only for that strategy to fail. Joe was having none of it though and you kind of wonder if Aries has even the slimmest of chances. He briefly goes to the headlock, but again that was a Punk strategy Joe overcame and it doesn't last long. He goes to the legs and Gabe suggests it might be smart as we haven't seen anybody try that with Joe before. Punk immediately rattles off two examples to the contrary and Gabe concedes that maybe it is actually a strategy we've seen after all. But ultimately it matters little as Joe is unfazed and keeps moving forward. The middle of the match was fine as Joe is usually compelling enough in control, plus he looks like he's having fun beating on Aries and it makes those odds of a title change feel even longer. Finishing run was really compact and actually pretty great. They tease the brainbuster well throughout and it's what Aries tries to go back to at several points - his one potential ace in the hole. By minute sixteen you obviously don't think Joe's punched himself out, but things are getting frantic and you can tell it won't be long before someone goes down. Aries is slippery, he's fought his way back into it after looking utterly dominated, Joe is struggling to string together his big bombs while Aires keeps finding gaps to put together bigger combinations. It's not really that I bought Aries implementing a specific strategy and it bearing fruit at the end. It was more about his explosiveness and ability to reel off those combinations at the right time. He also knew when something was going to shit and was pragmatic enough to move off it - like the headlock or the leg work - so there's something to be said for that as well. The one thing he did stick by was the brainbuster, and he was right to because it was key in that final combo to seal the deal. Joe overextends just a little, Aries capitalises with a few killer strikes, finally hits the brainbuster and 450 1-2 punch...it was a pretty awesome finish. They have a rematch in early '05 so I'll definitely watch that soon as well. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #2

Necro Butcher v Toby Klein (IWA-MS, 6/25/04)

A good friend of mine once described this match as two drunk, shirtless hillbilly jackoffs hitting each other in the face to see who's the last guy standing. He hated it. The way I, in all my wisdom, see this, it's a match between two drunk, shirtless hillbilly jackoffs hitting each other in the face to see who's the last guy standing. I most certainly did not hate it. Some of the crazy shit they did is truly bonkers. I'm not even talking about the stuff with the homemade weapons the fans brought, though some of that was wild too, like the thumbtack-encrusted rolling pin and the Wiffle bat with forks through it. The powerbomb off the bleachers never had any of those daft frills, but it looked insane and fittingly only a handful of people are insane enough to actually take it. Necro's somersault senton might've been the greatest in history as he just lobbed himself to the floor like a big wad of tobacco spit and recklessly bounced off Klein. Punches were thrown with stupid abandon, shots landing to the eardrum, the ribs, the jaw, the clavicle, all thrown like you'd expect from two lunatics fighting over a dead squirrel. Necro gets ripped to shreds with a barbed wire bat and Klein pours literal salt in his wounds and eyes. Right at the beginning Necro just bumrushes Klein and throws him out the ring and Klein smashes his teeth off the apron on the way down, then Necro picks up a PC monitor from 1995 and hucks it clean at his head. This is absolutely not for everyone and it might be the only American deathmatch I watch for this, but it's Necro in his element and if you're a fan of that then you're probably going to want to watch this thing. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #1

So I went back and watched a bunch of 90s joshi not that long ago and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed all of it. A couple nights ago I got the urge to watch some Necro Butcher ridiculousness and then I watched some Low-Ki and now I guess I'm going down this rabbit hole. I won't have watched some of this stuff in about fifteen years, while some I'll be taking a run at for the first time. I'm not sure what the ratio will be on your indie classics to scuzzy warehouse snuff films where someone gets hit in the head with a Betamax player. I'm less likely to revisit your Danielson/Nigel series than Necro Butcher v Toby Klein. Don't have much interest in watching a Joe/Punk broadway, any of those lengthy Bryan Danielson title defences against an Alex Shelley or Delirious, that Punk/Hero match that went two hours, pretty much anything involving Tyler Black or Davey Richards or Kevin Steen. We'll see how it goes. 

Low-Ki v American Dragon (ROH Round Robin Challenge, 3/30/02)

These two are probably the closest we've ever had to a US Ishikawa v Ikeda. It's really a match-up made in heaven and if I watched every Danielson/Low-Ki match from the early 00s and compared them with every Danielson/Nigel McGuinness match from the mid 00s, I'd be shocked if I didn't come away thinking the former held up way better (outside of that 6th Anniversary match anyway). This one isn't quite as all-time level spectacular as the JAPW match from June, but it had a bunch of the same qualities. The matwork is as strong as any matwork in US history. It's tight, gritty, all of it applied violently and you buy them trying to rend limbs. In between Low-Ki would throw vicious strikes - the short punts to the eye, one upkick that was insane - while Danielson would stretch him like this was some Stu Hart torture session. Danielson's ground and pound also ruled and the part where he was raining down crossfaces was fucking unbelievable. It's striker v grappler in a lot of ways, but like the very best Ishikawa/Ikeda that doesn't mean Ki is useless on the mat or Danielson can't throw strikes. The main difference between this and the JAPW match is that the last fifteen minutes are more along the lines of your indie/juniors dream match. That's not really my jam but this was done about as well as I could want. The selling remained strong, the pacing was good, everything they hit looked as snug and and painful as you'd want, I never felt like anything was overkill, the finish itself was great...even at about 32 minutes it was pretty much the perfect modern day epic and one that holds up nearly twenty years later. I haven't said that about a lot of matches from 2002 trying to shoot for the same thing, especially not ones that run half an hour. 

I Never Stay in One Place Long, I'm just a Natural Born Rambler. My Mama was a Mid-South Dance Hall Girl and My Daddy was a Riverboat Gambler

The Fantastics v Bill Dundee & Dutch Mantell (10/4/85)

A very different encounter from the arena match, but a very fun one all the same. This was basically a bullwhip on a pole match and if nothing else it makes you appreciate how good Bill Dundee is in matches where the wrestlers are required to climb up and/or on top of shit. In fact everyone really milked the hell out of climbing that pole and securing the weapon they could freely use, but Dundee was the most creative about it and brought the most urgency. The match was only about seven minutes and that was probably the perfect length for it. They never beat about the bush in going for the prize - there was no slow build to it like there might be in a ladder match, no added psychology where you had someone working a leg to prevent the climb, the pole was the central focus and every few seconds you had someone trying to shimmy up it as quick as possible. They'd reach a point of diminishing returns before very long that way so a full blown sprint was the right choice. Not sure why Eddie Gilbert got involved at the end, but Dundee takes an amazing bump out the ring and over the barricade before Mantell puts a whippin' on someone. This is a crazy good match-up, shockingly enough. 

Ted DiBiase v Bob Sweetan (Taped Fist Match) (10/11/85)

Badass little brawl. It's about ten minutes and a really awesome DiBiase performance. All of his punches looked great and he hit four or five fist drops that were A+++. His bumping ruled as well, hurling himself out the ring and nearly wiping a cameraman, an awesome sort of half-flip bump after getting caught with a punch coming off the top, then bleeding an absolute gusher off a bump into the turnbuckle bolt. Sweetan is as gruff as anybody you'll ever see, but he was sympathetic in a tubby kid getting beat on by the football players way. Or tubby homeless man who sleeps in a bin getting beat on by the football players way. He took an unprotected chairshot to the head and got cut open but he never gave up the fight. In the end he might've come out on top had he a loaded glove of his own. 

Mid-South Project

Daylight Dawned and Found Me in Mid-South, in a Rundown Motel Room as Dark as Hell

Dick Murdoch v Butch Reed (9/22/85)

By Christ what a match. This is a glimpse into an alternate world where Trump was the president of the NWA and not of an actual country and he decided to roll the dice on those rumours of Murdoch being a closet Klan member by giving him the big belt for six years. In a perfect world those rumours would've been nonsense and the ACTUAL NWA president gave him the big belt for six years anyway. He was tremendous in this. Don't get me wrong, Reed was amazing as well, but Murdoch was on another level and it might be the ultimate Captain Redneck experience. Following that altercation on TV a couple days before, things are tetchy almost straight away. They play that up for the first twenty minutes, constantly escalating with tensions rising and threatening to boil over, always threading its way through everything they do. It was so, so good. On a basic level it's pretty much Reed working a headlock and Murdoch working the arm, but everything they do with those holds is excellent and the little subtleties they add really set it all apart. Reed has a great headlock, really squeezes and grinds it in, leans way back like he's trying to pull Murdoch's head off, then when Murdoch tries to roll him into a pinning position Reed just shifts his weight so he's lying completely on Murdoch's head instead. Murdoch tries to trip the leg from a standing position, so Reed spreads his base and forces Murdoch to the mat. When Murdoch finally escapes into a hammerlock he sells the aftereffects of the headlock like his ears have been ground into stubs. All of his work on the arm was incredible. He was always going to be the one who wound up leaning towards that heel end of the spectrum, so he played that up by being a nasty bastard while working entirely within the rules. Loved all the joint-manipulation, where he'd have Reed's shoulder, elbow and wrist all twisted in different yet equally painful ways, often at the same time. He'd bar the arm and stomp Reed right under the armpit, drop knees across the bicep, stomp the lat, maybe even take a few liberties and add the fingers to that joint-manipulation (Reed: "He's got my fingers!"). As time goes on the work in between holds gets meaner and meaner. The armdrags at the start make way for forearm shivers and elbows, but I love how much they play up not throwing blatant fists, despite them REALLY wanting to on more than one occasion. Even Tommy Gilbert being sort of overbearing as the ref' was cool in that sense, where he'd get right in the middle and try to keep a lid on things. Of course everybody knew it was a matter of time before it went out the window. Murdoch came up bloody-mouthed way at the start after a dropkick so those little rabbit punches to the ribs were clearly payback, and I loved him being sly with it by shifting Reed out of Gilbert's line of sight each time he did it (while still working the hammerlock). Murdoch demonstrating his open-handed strike on Gilbert and Gilbert selling it like he got winded was awesome as well. That moment where Reed says fuck it and lands one on Murdoch's jaw was pretty much the perfect way to cap off that stretch of the match. From there it just continues to escalate and builds to Murdoch slamming Reed on the concrete, then the Reed comeback leads to the big exhausted finishing run. I guess it's not as exciting as your big Flair finishing runs, at least in that there aren't as many nearfalls, but I'll take Murdoch's punch-drunk selling over the backslide and slam off the top any day. And hey, if you're REALLY missing Flair then Murdoch even puts his spin on blond champion being put in the figure-four! That made for a killer finale with Reed going after the leg and Murdoch trying to boot him in the face from his back. The legwork also directly sets up the finish and the post-match pull-apart was about four minutes of these two punching each other in the face, with the REAL payoff of someone finally decking Tommy Gilbert for sticking his nose in. Honestly, I was a wee bit worried this wouldn't hold up like I wanted it to. I can happily say it's yet another example of me being a fool because it was everything I remembered it being and more. 

Mid-South Project

BRUCE Reed??

Masked Superstar v Bruce Reed (GCW, 8/22/81)

I'm pretty well convinced that Georgia had some of the best studio wrestling in America in the early 80s. There, I've said it and I'll say it again and I don't care who hears me! Bruce Reed is a young BUTCH Reed and this is one of the earliest examples of him being awesome that I've seen, maybe the earliest. Superstar gave him a ton which didn't hurt. Reed had an answer to everything Superstar did so Superstar would need to take powders to compose himself. When he tried to get surly with the clubbering - and Eadie has great clubbering - Reed would punch him in the mouth and keep pressing. It's an easy enough story to tell, but champion underestimating his young opponent is always a good one and you know Solie is great at communicating it on his end. Reed's arm work was really good - nice tight hammerlock, throwing headbutts to the shoulder while he has it barred, yanking Superstar back to the mat when he tries to escape, etc. Loved the bit where Superstar tried to snapmare his way out of that hammerlock, but Reed held on, forced him onto all fours (or threes, as it were) and followed up with a big butt smash across the hammerlocked arm. Reed is also a guy who can do cruiserweight shit and make it look as impactful as it does graceful. Big guys doing high flying is commonplace today and you won't see him getting as creative as a Dominik Dijakovic or whatever, but his flying crossbody is always killer and his leaping shoulder tackle looked tremendous here. In the end Superstar used that athleticism against him, sidestepping another crossbody attempt as Reed hotshotted himself across the rope to set up the cobra clutch. 

If You Tell Me that She's not Here, I'll Follow the Trail of Her Tears. That's how I got to Mid-South

Dick Murdoch v Dr. Death (9/20/85)

This was like the first half of an awesome arena match plugged into a TV setting, and where it would ordinarily be disappointing that the other half of that awesome arena match never materialised, you forgive it because it was presented within the package of an awesome Watts TV angle instead. It's for the North American title and before the bell Butch Reed gets in to say he's challenging the winner. "That's all I've got to say." Murdoch walks up to the mic: "Well if that's all you've got to say then walk on out and sit down." Babyface Murdoch rules because he retains more than a few traits of heel Murdoch, he just implements them a little more...loveably? The opening few minutes are based around both guys being tied together at the arm, taking each other over with armdrags, working the front chancery, both of them really grinding the forearm across the jaw, just all around surliness from two guys you expect that of. They go back and forth for a bit after that, then Tommy Gilbert takes a killer ref' bump and the shenanigans start. First Bob Sweetan interferes on Williams' behalf, so Reed jumps in from ringside to even the odds. During all of this Murdoch hasn't actually seen Reed OR Sweetan in there, as the latter blindsided him when Murdoch was going for the brainbuster. Eventually Reed gets caught and falls onto Murdoch, so when Murdoch comes to again he just assumes it was Reed who clocked him in the first place, not Sweetan. Murdoch throwing amazing punches on a redneck rampage is a truly beautiful sight and this was the sort of thing Watts excelled at throughout this period. Just super fun TV wrestling, and it adds some fire to the upcoming Reed/Murdoch match I thought was an absolute stone cold classic when I last watched it. 

The Fantastics v Bill Dundee & Dutch Mantel (9/22/85)

I basically remembered nothing about this. It's weird as well, because at least one new Fantastics v Dundee/Mantel match was unearthed during the great summer of NWA On Demand, yet my excitement for that wasn't through the roof. Clearly I was a fucking idiot and forgot what a good thing looks like because this ruled like a bastard and the fact there's another one out there is very awesome. It got lots of time, which meant we got LOTS of Dundee and Mantel Memphis horse-shittin' it up to a molten crowd. My favourite was the hide the foreign object shtick. Dundee hid it in his mouth, his trunks, his kneepad, a new place every time the ref' checked him. When they take over on Rogers - with a foreign object shot, of course - they largely beat the crap out of him while interspersing it with punches or karate thrusts or ACTUAL foreign object shots to the throat (Mantel's whip being the object of choice). It was an awesome heat segment and Rogers was at the peak of his powers selling it. There were a couple points where he was thiiiis close to tagging out, probably close enough where it would've been hard to suspend your disbelief if it was someone else milking it, but Rogers walks that line perfectly with his selling and you buy him as being totally out on his feet, just that half a second too slow to reach out before Dundee or Mantel can scramble to intercept. Tommy Gilbert takes another awesome ref' bump, pretty much having Fulton powerbombed straight into his face, then we get a great finish with Fulton turning a double team into his own advantage. The Mid-South set had some of the best US tags of the 80s and this felt like it could hang tough with the real high-enders. 

Mid-South Project

The Enforcer v The Ragin' Bull!

Arn Anderson v Manny Fernandez (World Championship Wrestling, 4/19/86)

This got plenty of time, and it was good because it's these two getting plenty of time, though I wonder if it wouldn't have been even better had they stuck to the usual 15-minute time limit for these TV title matches rather than expanding it to 20 (I'm not sure why they did that here). 15 is right in the sweet spot. You get the stooging, enough time for a compelling control segment, and then a few minutes to work towards a finish, assuming of course they're going to use the full 15 minutes. 10 condenses things a little too much when you've got world class stoogeer like Arn or Tully carrying the belt. With 20 you obviously get longer to build, but this dragged a wee bit in the middle and could've used a few minutes shaved off. BUT who really gives a shit as it was still Arn and Manny working a nice title match on television. Arn can't do a thing early on and has to roll outside several times after being popped by Manny's punches. Each powder lasts longer than the previous, maybe because he's increasingly inclined to milk the clock, maybe because each one of those punches is taking a little more out of him. Manny controls the body of the match by working the leg, and it's fine stuff and Arn sells it well. I especially liked Arn fighting back with a running knee to the gut and crumpling in a heap as it was done with the bad leg. Also liked him throwing on a bodyscissors and pointing to his imaginary watch. The bodyscissors was never going to outright win him the match at that point in it, but if he can keep Manny grounded then it means Manny can't hurt him, and it's Manny who needs to win - Arn just needs to survive. 

The Revolution is Genocide, Your Execution will be Televised, don't Cross Tenryu like Isaiah, that Shit be Ill-Advised

Genichiro Tenryu v Keiji Mutoh (All Japan, 6/8/01) - GREAT

This was kind of weird. I dug a lot of it and thought it often worked because of the pace...but on the other hand that same pace was a bit of a struggle. Or Mutoh working that pace in general is a struggle. You could've JIP'd the first seven or so minutes and not a ton would've been lost overall, though Mutoh hitting an early Shining Wizard and Tenryu's subsequent sell, where he never looked quite right again thereafter, was a pretty great moment. Not much of note happened in that opening stretch otherwise. Or not much grabbed me; maybe you'll find something more noteworthy. Actually we got a little teaser of Mutoh working the leg for his Shining Wizard strategy so if you like the idea of that then you're in luck. I didn't dislike Mutoh in this but I'm not sure how good he was. He's a strange worker. He moves like he's buffering, where he'll sit there dead-eyed for a while and then bang, he's in motion for a few seconds and it's really quick and it looks like your fibre broadband is doing more work than it should have to in order to catch up in real time. I also cannot be arsed one bit with watching him methodically work a leg so that didn't bode well either. But hey, things picked up nicely when Tenryu hit a brainbuster on the apron and from that point on I thought they built things really well. Tenryu's "get to fuck with that" response to Mutoh's low dropkicks by hitting a few of his own was awesome. It'll irk people that the duelling leg work never played a bigger role in the finish, but Mutoh's whole point of going to the leg is to set up the Shining Wizard anyway and that certainly did play a role in the finish. They could've sold it better, I guess? I don't know man, I'm sort of past caring about that stuff at this stage. There were a few really cool moments in that back half though, like Mutoh's knee to the head as a counter to the brainbuster, followed by Tenryu almost goading him into another Shining Wizard attempt that he was ready to block and capitalise on. In terms of scale you'd never hold the last five minutes of this up against the All Japan finishing runs of a few years earlier, but it never intended to replicate that and I appreciate how much drama they were able to build off a few key nearfalls.  

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

The King

Jerry Lawler v Rick Morton (Memphis, 1/26/80)

Morton is billed as being 193 pounds here and that feels about 60 too many. This was basically Lawler doing his Memphis version of heel ace v babyface challenger for ten minutes on TV. I'm a dweeb and spent a goodly amount of time a few years back comparing how Flair would work those matches in Atlanta to how Bockwinkel would work them in Minneapolis to how Rose would work them in Portland. I haven't really seen a ton of Lawler working that kind of match in Memphis, largely because he spent almost all of the 80s as a babyface and also because 90s Memphis/USWA is a blind spot. I guess ultimately the broad strokes of this were the same as they'd be for those other guys, but it's a match dynamic I'll always like and I thought this was fun as fuck. Morton won't put up with Lawler's nonsense and takes him over with the headlock, so obviously Lawler complains about his hair being pulled. Morton goes back to the headlock - cleanly - and as Hart runs distraction Lawler reverses it into a headlock of his own...by pulling the hair. Morton's bumping is already pretty great, and I know it's easy to say this now but you could tell that skinny young man was going to be awesome. The leg work in the middle ruled and I loved Lawler digging the knuckle into Morton's kneecap, loved Morton's burst of offence, loved him standing on one leg as he went back to the headlock, loved how that gave Lawler the opening to take over again. His knee-high tackles looked great as desperation spots and like any good version of a match like this he made the people believe he might actually have a chance. In the end his only satisfaction would come from kicking Jimmy Hart in the mouth, but he put up a hell of a fight and Lawler made him look like a threat. You can't ask for too much more. 

A Weekend of Guerrero

I never even realised it had just gone fifteen years since he passed away. It...does not feel like fifteen years. And so I watched some Eddie Guerrero, as I often tend to do. 

Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit v Bubba Ray & Spike Dudley (RAW, 7/1/02)

Well this was pretty dang nifty. Eddie and Benoit have that real snap to everything they do and Benoit's chops are treated as being real game-changers (and look and sound lethal). You look at those names and you think Spike Dudley getting his butt kicked for a few minutes might be fun and you would be correct. Eddie and Benoit both hit awesome back suplexes and I like how Eddie is the cheapshotting wee prick while Benoit is the straight ahead machine. This was during the Bubba Ray singles push that I don't remember lasting very long, but he doesn't look like much of a victor after the post-match beatdown. Spike's bump through the table on the floor is also fairly ludicrous. 

Eddie Guerrero v Booker T (RAW, 7/8/02)

This was like three minutes long, but about all you could really ask for out of a three minute match that's essentially setup material for a bigger main event later on. Eddie bumps nicely for all of Booker's strikes, then as Booker goes for the axe kick Eddie dropkicks him in the quad. It looked pretty great as Booker was in the air as Eddie connected with the dropkick, plus he did it super fast so it never looked telegraphed at all. Either way this is leading to:

Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Big Show, X-Pac & Kevin Nash v RVD, Booker T, Goldust, Bubba Ray & Spike Dudley (RAW, 7/8/02)

This was alright. Not close to the best ten-man tag on a Monday Night RAW involving Chris Benoit and X-Pac, but then not much of anything is close to that. Match felt like an RVD showcase as he got the most screen time and did all of his RVD things on offence, then played face in peril for a minute and fought back by doing his RVD things. He was fine. X-Pac was the most featured for his side and looked pretty good. I would've guessed he was gone by this point but evidently I'd have been a fool. Eddie never really got to do much so the best part of team nWo/Latino Wolverines (that is very bad I'm so sorry) was Michaels being a dipshit on the floor. I so badly wish we got more heel Michaels during his second run because he was very obnoxious here and I'll always love his hyperactive bumping as a heel. Nash comes in for his first appearance in three months - torn bicep - and as soon as he started moving I was like "how many times had he torn his quad by this point?" and then he went and tore his quad. I honest to god had no idea this was the match where he got injured again and I felt pretty bad for the guy considering he literally just came back from a previous muscle tear. Hebnar throws up the X, things break down, Michaels hits a blindside superkick and that's that. 

The Funker v The Dog!

Terry Funk v Junkyard Dog (WWF, 8/18/85)

Pretty much a Terry Funk pandemonium special. I guess that sort of WWF midcard match won't have a massively high ceiling for some folk, but the floor on it will pretty much never be low because of his ability to make just about anything interesting. Mid-80s WWF Terry Funk is maybe the goofiest Terry Funk. There'll always be that hint of danger to everything he does no matter how comedic it might be, but he seemed to veer more towards the stooging there than he did in other places. In comparison, Puerto Rico Funk was the wildest because I guess he could get away with starting riots with impunity, so everything he did in Puerto Rico was just INHERENTLY dangerous. He never tried to suffocate anyone with a plastic bag in the WWF so I suppose he let loose a bit more working for Crockett. ECW Desperado Funk was probably the most sympathetic but there was nothing funny about a 50-year old man being wrapped in barbed wire. In that 80s WWF run he was more about the comedy, a man on a mission to be as ridiculous as possible. I cannot get enough of it and obviously this ruled. He starts the match by jabbing JYD in the guts with a branding iron, but pretty soon throws some headbutts and of course that's a no-no against the Dog. At one point he ends up on all fours facing the corner and I really wanted JYD to headbutt him in the arse and sure enough he headbutted him in the arse and Funk went face-first into the bottom turnbuckle. It wasn't just that he brought the comedy bumps - he brought the genuinely mental bumps as well. His first big one was a slam over the top rope and the camera angle made it look extra wild. Later he gets tossed over the top again, this time landing clean through a table by ringside. Not like your usual table bump where the table breaks in two; he landed flush in the middle of it and the thing remained standing around the outside, Funk just sitting in the middle like a vagrant, stuck inside a ring of debris. When he tries to slink away up the ramp at the end he falls backwards down the stairs, then throws abuse at the hecklers. A master of his craft. Seventeen stars. 

1982 Mid-South TV!

So it looks like pretty much every episode of Mid-South Wrestling from 1982 through to the end of 1985 is up on the Network now (minus the small handful of episodes that I think have always been missing even from the bootlegger lists). When the hell did that happen? I knew '85 had been there for a while, but I figured it was only a smattering of episodes from '82-'83. That early 80s Irish McNeil Boys Club period of Mid-South has some WILD nostalgia buzz for me. It's not "this takes me back to the days of my youth when Freddos were still 10p and I wasn't yet decrepit" nostalgia. I hadn't arrived on this earth early enough to watch Mid-South Wrestling on TV. That's the sort of nostalgia I get from something like 1994 WWF, where I'll listen to Todd Pettengill talk his nonsense about whatever and get all fuzzy about recording episodes of All-American Wrestling (hosted by Gorilla Monsoon and Johnny Polo) and The Simpsons on Sky 1. Truly nostalgia for the simpler times. 

With early 80s Mid-South it's a different sort of nostalgia. I never properly watched any Mid-South until the DVDVR 80s set came out, but it wound up becoming one of my all-time favourite promotions and was probably the most fun I've had with wrestling since the late 90s watching RAW every week. Those early Bob Roop and Mr. Olympia matches might as well have happened in a different world than the one later inhabited by the Rock 'n' Roll Express and the Fantastics. The crowds of the former were full of old women and middle-aged men in trucker hats stopping off on a 400 mile round trip, while those of the latter were packed to the brim with screaming kids and teenagers, an altogether different sort of assemblage. That '84-'86 period is maybe my favourite run of any promotion ever, but there's something almost comforting about the earlier stuff in that big hangar-looking studio, maybe because it was my gateway to what would eventually be the stuff I loved more than anything. So I dived back in and let myself be embraced by the warm bosom of Mid-South. 

Andre the Giant, Dusty Rhodes & The Junkyard Dog v Ernie Ladd & The Wild Samoans (Mid-South, 1/16/82)

This is one of those matches where "could be a main event anywhere in the WORLD!" might actually apply (or at least anywhere in the country). Obviously Andre is mostly responsible for that, but Dusty is hardly small time and I think folks still underrate how huge the JYD was in Mid-South. It got about six minutes and Andre was involved for most of it, which is probably what you want. He makes everyone look small, including Ladd who I think was legitimately about the same size. At one point one of the Samoans tries to choke Andre from the apron and Andre just piggybacks him into the ring like it's merely a hefty child he's carrying. I know Andre was still mobile at this point but seeing him hit a splash off the middle rope was pretty wild. JYD also conked Afa with a headbutt and came out no worse for wear, so if you were wondering who sat higher in the carny pro-wrestling pantheon of indestructible heads then it is NOT the Samoans. 

Bob Orton Jr. v Mr. Olympia (Mid-South, 1/23/82)

Here's a story about Bob Orton. About ten years ago my friend and I were getting tanked up one weekday afternoon, really living the early-20s dream. Someone had the idea of sticking on one of those Smackdown! games that the youths play. So we went and did a Royal Rumble, getting progressively more rubber with each participant. I don't remember who I went for this Royal Rumble but my friend was Randy Orton. In Royal Rumble mode, once your wrester gets eliminated you can choose to go the next entrant and play as them instead, that way you're not sitting there like a dickhead watching the AI wrestle each other, which is a good thing because those rumbles could take forever. Whoever I went originally got eliminated and I eventually wound up going, you guessed it, Bob Orton Jr. My friend and I decided to team up, but then I stabbed him - my own son - in the back and eliminate him. My friend, flabbergasted, then shouted "Bob Orton, ma da!" which for the non-Scottish people means "Bob Orton, my father!" In our exceedingly pished up state we both found this hilarious and the term Bob Orton ma da has been a staple ever since, often to express exasperation or shock. For example: "They're going into ANOTHER lockdown! Bob Orton ma da!" I've even used it as a username for several things over the years. So there you go, a true window into the cracked and degenerated mind of a genius. Anyhow, Olympia was a bit of a revelation from the early 80s footage on the DVDVR set, culminating with that awesome Chavo Guerrero match. This is one of his very first appearances in the Mid-South area and he was already a really fun babyface. He had some nice headscissor work and I liked how Orton would stooge around in between, including an airplane spin to free himself before falling flat on his arse, partly out of dizziness, partly because that headscissor had taken its toll. Orton would continually try to slink out the ring and Olympia would stay on him, and by the time he hooked in that sleeper hold you knew it was lights out for Orton. And to that, I say, Bob Orton ma da! 

Tenryu Sat Back, a Vet, and Watched Beginners Winnin' His Belts. Burned His Bridges, Came Back a Good Swimmer Like Phelps

Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami v Shiro Koshinaka & Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan, 4/10/99) - GOOD

This had some decent stuff, but was kind of low key overall and felt like they were actively shooting for fun midcard bout with big names rather than epic. It's a heavyweight scrap but not a heavy watch. Which I mean, that's fine. I don't need HEAVY in the All Japan sense every time and instead I can work with HEAVY in the sense you've got four beefy dudes clobbering each other. Tenryu and Sasaki brought the best clobbering and it made for an awesome precursor to their Dome match a year later, which coincidentally was also awesome. It had the same dynamic as that, with Tenryu trying to be Tenryu and Sasaki not letting him get away with it. Chops to the throat and punches to the cheekbone were paid in kind and the part where Sasaki just went bonkers on him ruled. As did Tenryu slumping in the corner afterwards like "what the fuck was that about?" Fujinami wasn't washed in '99 because he has that amazing Hashimoto match in his locker from a few months earlier, but he looked a step off here, a few things understandably being slower and less coordinated than they'd be if this was 1989 rather than 1999. Koshinaka v Tenryu is always a fun match-up. I'm not sure how they came to be on opposite sides here because I'm pretty sure they were regular partners around this time, but Koshinaka is old and ugly and tries to jab his hip bone into Tenryu's eye and Tenryu wallops him in the throat. 

Genichiro Tenryu v Kazushi Miyamoto (All Japan, 2/16/03) - GOOD

Tenryu v young lion is pretty much always going to be at least fun. It's hard to fuck something like that up when you're one of the very best ever at that sort of match, so if the young lion in question can bring some FIRE and maybe some mean mugging and is willing to get his throat kicked you'll be in for a fun 10 minutes. Miyamoto brought all of those things so this was a fun 10 minutes (for us, the gentle viewer; not him). He throws big overhands to the chest and Tenryu looks on unfazed. Tenryu even breaks clean and doesn't seem to be in a mood for assaulting someone. Of course you know that'll only last so long as Miyamoto is determined to prove a point. He throws a punch and Tenryu looks at him like "that's quite enough of that" and chops him in the throat. He absolutely clobbers the kid with two disgusting face punts and Miyamoto spends the rest of the match with a bloody nose, trying to come at the king with his adorable heavyweight swanton bombs and standing moonsaults. You know how it ends, but Tenryu sells like he might actually be in danger once or twice and gives the kid his moments to shine. You can't really go wrong with this.

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

IRS! Men on a Mission! Tatanka! It's 1994 WWF!

The Headshrinkers, Rick Martel, Jeff Jarrett & IRS v The Smoking Gunns, 123 Kid, Sparky Plugg & Tatanka (RAW, 4/4/94)

This was pretty cookie-cutter for something that had some decent potential on paper. IRS is the most over person in this whole match and is roundly booed whenever he's featured. It doesn't even feel like X-Pac heat either. On the one hand that means he ends up in there for a solid chunk of the ten minutes, while someone like Fatu gets zero, but I suppose he's earned it? The gimmick is obviously ridiculous so if you can turn a feud with Tatanka that's based on not paying gift tax on a Native American headdress into something people are actually invested in then as far as I'm concerned you've earned your TV time. 123 Kid only got about a minute to work but he looked great as he usually does in 1994, hitting spin kicks right under the jaw, bringing some much-needed energy to a team whose primary source of energy, perhaps somewhat ironically, was the dude called SPARKY PLUGG. Jarrett and Martel were pretty amusing and stooged obnoxiously, but they mostly paired up with Billy and Bart and the latter just isn't very good. Billy had a rough start by getting put on his neck off a hip toss in the first three seconds and ignoring it because it wasn't supposed to happen that way, then he redeemed himself with a fun exchange with Samu where he took a killer inside-out bump off a clothesline. Tatanka also participated. 

The Quebecers v Men on a Mission (RAW, 4/11/94)

Well this was pretty damn okay! The Quebecers are really fun and make this fairly heated by the end. Their offence rules, all the cool double-teams, distraction spots that would be even better if Hebnar wasn't terrible, just a fun unit that I never really appreciated much before (and it's truly wild that PCO is still going strong 26 years later). I liked them trying to go for Mabel's legs early on before getting bowled over and pivoting towards beating on Mo instead. I have no opinion of Mo whatsoever, really. He gets beaten up for a few minutes and takes an amusing bump to the floor where he headers it into the guardrail. Some pretty big heat for a couple nearfalls, a crowd that really wanted Men on a Mission to win...yeah, this was decent. 

1994 WWF Project