The Fantastics in 1988 (part 1)

I want to watch everything we have from the Fantastics in 1988. Some of it I've seen at one point or another in the last 20 years, some of it never. I like southern style tag team wrestling. This feels like a worthy undertaking. 

The Fantastics v Jack Victory & John Tatum (WCCW, 1/4/88)

There have been very few wrestlers in the history of this great sport to do the whiny pouty faces like John Tatum. He has the most punchable, ridiculous face imaginable, an obnoxious weasel with zero redeeming qualities, practically weeping at the crowd's ridicule, someone with enough self-awareness to know that the face he possesses is a gift and not a burden and uses it to make a building full of drunk rednecks want to throw things at him. It's quite frankly amazing dedication to his craft. Jack Victory had also gotten really good around this time, albeit for different reasons. I love how early on he just picked up Fulton with ease and press slammed him, which forced the Fantastics to lean on their skill and PROFICIENCY to create advantages. And really Tommy Rogers hitting three perfect dropkicks in a row is about as perfect a show of skill and proficiency as it gets. Tatum is an incredible stooge in the opening stretch and takes the Buddy Rose bump out to the floor, screwing his face up afterwards like a sniveling child. The heels do the blind arm wringer spot to Rogers twice, Tatum passing Tommy's arm to Victory while the referee is containing Fulton, then on the third attempt it backfires and Rogers feeds Tatum's arm to an unsuspecting Victory. Tatum is mystified and inconsolable all at once. When they do eventually take over they manage it by throwing Fulton into the barricade and Fulton ends up bleeding pretty heavily during the heat. For as pathetic as Tatum may look when being humiliated, he's someone who will flip a switch and stomp your guts like he's trying to burst a balloon. Some of the stuff he and Victory were doing during distraction spots was properly vicious and I wasn't really expecting that from a regular TV match. They even dragged Fulton over to one of the cameras and held his bloody face up to it, a warning perhaps to other good looking fellers around those parts. I was ready for Tommy Rogers to come in swinging after the hot tag, but before it ever arrived they took it in another direction and went to the finish, Tatum smashing Fulton in the face with a microphone to break up a small package and Victory capitalising. It leaves plenty on the table for a return match, one where you hope the Fantastics can get some revenge. 

The Fantastics & Solomon Grundy v Jack Victory, John Tatum & The Real Thing (WCCW, 2/12/88)

There was a lot going on here. Grundy is billed from Pig Knuckles, Kentucky and I have no idea if that's actually a place or not. It sounds like it might be. I'll be honest, I don't know much about Kentucky outside of the show Justified. The Real Thing is Rip Morgan and billed from New Zealand, which is actually true. Before the bell he does the Haka and the commentator calls it a Norwegian war dance. Ordinarily a match involving Tommy Rogers where Tommy Rogers is the least featured wrestler in the thing will be disappointing, but our boy Jack Victory just about made up for it with an awesome performance. He threw some tremendous punches here, flattened the significantly portlier Solomon Grundy with a killer clothesline, then took a wild bump to the floor off a dropkick. John Tatum has one absolutely incredible weepy facial expression close-up and then so does Bobby Fulton and for a babyface you realise Fulton doesn't really have the most endearing face. His leaping headscissors takedown out the corner was very cool, though. Grundy plays big boy face in peril and it was fine stuff, then later gets chucked over the top rope and splats like a fucking maniac on the concrete. Real Thing is supposed to be some sort of crazy person or whatever and to be fair he was a pretty fun menace running up and down the apron, putting boots to the babyfaces, hitting double teams when the ref' was distracted, all with a sort of manic Ultimate Warrior energy. Really fun TV 6-man tag. Everyone was motivated, it had some heat going in and they built on that as it went. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #60

Akira Hokuto & Chigusa Nagayo v KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto (GAEA, 2/16/97)

Maybe my favourite dynamic of 90s GAEA is the rookies against the veterans. I guess it comes with the makeup of the roster, one that was relatively thin to begin with, where they clearly made a point of spotlighting their young stars in the hopes of moulding them into something special. It feels like on every show there's at least one match where you have some scrawny teenager getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of them by one of the biggest stars in joshi history. It's the ultimate trial by fire and there's no greater fire for Maiko Matsumoto - who I have never heard of in my life and couldn't tell you if I'd seen her wrestle a match - than Chiggy and Hokuto. All Maiko can really do is an atomic drop, and I guess now and then a janky legdrop. That doesn't stop her from running at the legends before the bell's even rung, probably knowing she's about to get demolished but ready to go out on her shield all the same. It takes about 10 seconds for her to get shut down and the first stretch of the match is basically her getting tormented while KAORU can only look on. Chigusa was GLEEFULLY beating on this poor schmuck, holding Maiko's hand out juuuust enough that KAORU would try and tag her only for the hand to be snatched back at the last second. Hokuto was the Dangerous Queen and everything that entailed, unfortunately for Maiko Matsumoto. Chigusa had her in a seated full nelson while slapping her repeatedly on the back and shoulder - the latter heavily taped - then Hokuto came in and they put her in a double cross armbreaker, which was frankly unnecessary. Hokuto never forgave Matsumoto for that early attack and even started biting her on the shoulder at one point. Eventually Hokuto gets fed up playing with her food and just chucks Maiko into her own corner so she can tag out. From there it looks like Maiko will only be of use as a distraction or getting in the way long enough for KAORU to do something, maybe holding someone in place so her partner can hit a springboard. But then Maiko strings off half a dozen atomic drops on Hokuto and for a second we believe in miracles. Hokuto shows us all why she's one of the best ever by selling these atomic drops like they're taking an actual toll, hobbling a little more after each, perhaps showing a little desperation for good measure. Of course she killed the kid dead in the end and there was never really any doubt about it, but still, Maiko will learn from it. She will learn and it is not the last I will see of her (she retired two years later. It's likely this is actually the last I will see of her). 

Mantopoulos! Roger Delaporte! The 1960s French Catch!

Roger Delaporte v Vasilios Mantopoulos (French Catch, 3/23/68)

It's been a while since I've visited my favourite pro wrestling Vasilios. Delaporte I haven't actually seen before, but enough people have told me to watch him that this pairing excited me. There was a fairly significant size difference in favour of Delaporte, who sort of worked as a bully at points but also a bit of a craven shithead, which is really one of the best combinations you can get. Delaporte reminded me of Dick Murdoch here, the way he moved, his body shape, his trunks, his hair, his sneaky athleticism despite not looking like much of an athlete. The biggest similarity was how he would crack Mantopoulos in the jaw. Mantopoulos is a wizard and would draw Delaporte in with TRICKERY, but Delaporte is far from a simple weasel and has ample skill of his own. Then when the skill didn't work he'd get to the cheating, sometimes by grabbing Mantopoulos by the throat and choking him. At times he'd just thump a downed Mantopoulos in the spine with brutal kicks, like something out of a WAR undercard. There was some amusing stuff with the referee here, who was dressed like he'd just come from officiating the Snooker World Championships. There was a great moment where Delaporte backed the ref' into the corner with his derrière, then kept him there long enough for Mantopoulos to charge in with a dropkick. Delaporte moved at the last second and the ref' got toasted, which resulted in Mantopoulos getting himself a warning. Delaporte then pointed to his head because he's that much smarter than everyone else. By the end the ref' had wound up both men and Mantopoulos gave the fella a diving headbutt to the gut three times in a row, none of them accidental. I will endeavour to watch more Delaporte. I will endeavour to watch ALL of the Mantopoulos. 

Darby v MJF - Title vs Hair

Darby Allin v MJF (Darby's World Title v MJF's Hair) (AEW Double or Nothing, 5/24/26)

The Darby world title reign has been just about my favourite thing in wrestling in forever. I didn't get to see the PPV live, but I bought the replay when I got home on Sunday night and watched the whole show unspoiled over the next day. I hadn't bought a wrestling PPV in about 15 years! And I pretty much enjoyed the whole show, even if I never paid a ton of attention to some of the matches. It was primarily a purchase driven by this match though, and the winner being up in the air made the live experience (well, blind experience) a really fun one. I haven't seen all of the matches these two have had together but I've at least seen ONE, and that was the Full Gear 2021 match that I wound up liking way more than I'd have expected if you'd told me beforehand how it was going to go. MJF has never seen Darby as anything more than a stunt show idiot and certainly not a professional wrestler on the level of MJF himself. In 2021 their feud was built around Friedman talking shit about Darby's deceased uncle and then the match started with a headlock because MJF said Darby couldn't do one or something. I don't know, look it up. MJF won that match when he hit Darby with a punch while wearing that big stupid ring he has and then pinned him with a side headlock takeover. Darby won the belt from MJF last month with the same headlock takeover pin (after giving him a low blow). If you'd asked me how I figured this match would start I wouldn't have needed to go very far down the list before I said "maybe a side headlock takeover?" There were a number of callbacks in this, even obvious to someone like me who is not exactly steeped in the LORE of AEW. The Savage/Steamboat roll-up sequence is a tired trope at this point but I wasn't shocked they went to it and it isn't the first time they've done it either. What they played off most, though, was the last month of Darby's career, his title reign, and I can at least say I've watched that. I thought in general it came off really well. This was Darby living fast and dying hard, going out the only way he knows how. He said as much in the lead up to this - he doesn't care about legacy, he cares about living in the moment and taking on anyone who challenges him for the belt. He's done that and then some, defending the title seven times prior to this, sometimes twice in a week. He could only hold out for so long before exhaustion or wear and tear caught up to him. Against Guevara he passed out while applying the Scorpion Deathlock, the first sign that he maybe can't keep burning this particular candle at both ends. It happened again here and it might've ultimately cost him. He couldn't come back from the abuse he normally puts himself through while dishing it out to whoever is across from him. The Coffin Drop off the scaffold was effectively his last gambit, but he cracked his head on the table or the stage and when you add blood-loss to his existing physical state you kind of knew where it was going. As it wound down I found myself feeling deflated, not in the match itself but rather in the knowledge that the run was coming to an end. I thought the payoff was great, the finish devastating as both the proverbial nail in the coffin as well as the physical, precisely BECAUSE it left me deflated. I wanted my boy to win, to continue the reign, continue taking on all comers. None of that happened and I was gutted. And that's kind of the whole point, isn't it? Even to a jaded old prick like me, that's kind of the point. 

Team Taco in All Japan! Kurisu v Monkey Magic! Captain Redneck v Muta!

Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono v Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa (All Japan, 6/29/97)

Here we have a window into a world in which Kikuchi jumped ship to Battlarts. I guess it's also a window into Team Taco jumping ship to All Japan on a permanent basis but that's a far less fun prospect for me personally. This was a mean nasty fight and you could tell it might go that way from the intros, just how Ikeda was pacing back and forth in front of the home team. Kikuchi offers up a handshake at the bell, and it's accepted by Ikeda but in a way that tells you there won't be much in the way of pleasantries. The first exchange of strikes led to Kikuchi absolutely drilling Ono with some of the nastiest forearms you've ever seen him eat and forget about the All Japan bar, these were set against the Battlarts bar. Team Taco were sort of treated like invading scum here and the home side never seemed particularly interested in selling a ton, but it gave the match a real gritty feel and Ikeda and Ono were more than happy to take their licks. Ogawa was in full heel mode despite being the home favourite, working the headlock on Ono, grabbing the hair when Ono tried to shake him, spitting on Ikeda when he drew attention to it. They brawl to the floor where Ogawa tries to set about Ono with a chair, the ref' takes it from him, and as they make their way back in the ring you can see Ikeda and Kikuchi in the background fully punching each other in the face and staring dead-eyed in response. There's a camera shot of Kobashi, Akiyama and Fuchi standing by the curtain watching the match and as it pans back to the ring Ikeda volleys Kikuchi as hard as humanly possible in the spine. Ikeda throws several strikes and Kikuchi somehow stays upright, so Ono spin kicks him in the back of the head and Ikeda fucking MURDERS him with one of the sickest lariats ever thrown in an All Japan OR Battlarts ring. No wonder Kikuchi was reduced to a snarling little demon bastard within a few years. After the Team Taco Doomsday Device (!!) I thought Ono was actually going to tap Kikuchi with the octopus stretch, but Ogawa breaks it up and Kikuchi folds Ono like a deck chair with a disgusting triple German. For a guy who's one of the greatest punching bags in wrestling history, Kikuchi has one hell of a mean streak in him and it turns out he had it before Liger rocked into town in '02. A rematch of this on Team Taco turf would've ruled immensely, I'm sure. 

Masa Kurisu v Monkey Magic Wakita (FMW, 12/1/89)

The stage is set. The combatants are primed, ready. They shake hands, respect mutual. The bell rings. Before its din wavers, Kurisu has punched Monkey Magic Wakita in the face. If you've seen one Kurisu match you have a pretty good idea how this is going to go coming into it, and it more or less did go that way, but young Monkey Magic held his own more than I would've expected, mostly through his dogged determination to submit Kurisu with a kneebar. He went to that kneebar several times throughout the match and we can only tip our cap to the lad. Kurisu was still Kurisu, though. He would not be bodyslammed and in turn would bodyslam Wakita as hard as he possibly could. Wakita might've had an arm injury coming in because Kurisu goes after it with brutal stomps and Wakita sells it all really well, very vocal and always trying to shield it when making any comebacks. Kurisu breaks out of those kneebar attempts by axe kicking the arm and as Wakita lies curled up on the mat grasping his arm Kurisu stands up and stomps on the elbow like he's trying to kill the world's sturdiest cockroach. The match spills to the floor and Kurisu just annihilates the kid with a chair shot to the head, then as Wakita is down Kurisu repeatedly smashes him with the chair, the handheld camera position missing the visual of each shot but catching perfectly Wakita's anguished squeals. As soon as Kurisu put him in the kimura you knew it was all over but the shouting. 

Dick Murdoch v The Great Muta (NWA Worldwide, 6/17/89)

I love the Muta face paint from this period, set against the lighting of these late 80s/early 90s NWA/WCW arenas. It always reminds me of seeing him on old WCW tapes as a kid. We didn't have WCW on tv anywhere I can remember so I would rent PPVs from Global Video - or Cassie's Videos, which was the independent video store around the corner from my house. They had a fruit machine that I wasn't supposed to play until I turned 18 but of course Cassie's Videos was long shut down by the time that day arrived - and Muta always mesmerised me. The way he looked, the way he moved, the way he was presented, there was nothing like Muta in the WWF, other than maybe the time Kabuki showed up and hit Undertaker with a bucket and everyone put him in a casket. I loved JR's comment about Murdoch having worked more tours of the orient than anyone else in the NWA so this might be a tricky matchup for Muta, who's basically been a MENACE in the company since arriving. Murdoch works as lovable old redneck, or as lovable as your tolerance can stretch given rumours of his salty proclivities around minorities, spry even as he ages, hitting an impressive dropkick and kipping up sharply out of a top wristlock. Both crash into each other off the ropes with a thud, and as Muta hits the deck I love how Murdoch takes a beat to hunch over selling the impact before hitting the opposite ropes. Muta nails him a nice jumping spin kick and Murdoch takes a big spill out to the floor, perhaps a sign that Murdoch has never encountered a man such as Muta on those orient excursions. Muta working the armpit nerve hold is better than the trapezius hold because he can twist and groove the shoulder at various angles while Murdoch looks to the crowd for confirmation that yes we do indeed want you to punch him in the face. In a fair and just world Murdoch would've took this one home in the end, but Gary Hart distracts the referee long enough for Muta to mist him and steal one. Good guys always finish last, I guess. 

A couple more from '87 Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Nobuhiko Takada v Riki Choshu & Kuniaki Kobayashi (New Japan, 7/12/87)

There are few things better than Fujiwara taking it upon himself to make Choshu's life a misery. Every time they're in a ring together you know there will be a point - or perhaps several points - where Fujiwara will grab Choshu by the throat and drag him to the canvas. I don't know how many times he did it here but it was a lot more than once, and that bled into his interactions with Kobayashi as well, as he'd get whipped off the ropes and on the way back he'd wrap his hands around Kobayashi's throat and tackle him. The mere sight of Choshu drove him to madness and if you were on Choshu's side you were getting it too. Takada was all energy, all kicks. The first time he came in Fujiwara refused to leave and just kept choking and stomping on Choshu while Takada knew better than to intervene. Takada tries to put the Fujiwara armbar on Choshu but of course Choshu fights it, so Fujiwara storms in and does it himself. The ref' throws his hands up like "fuck sake mate again with this??" Kobayashi learns the hard way not to ram Fujiwara's head into a turnbuckle, trying it three times only to get clonked with a headbutt in return. Then Fujiwara headbutts Choshu who was minding his own business on the apron. In the end Choshu put Takada down with the lariat and I'm not sure Fujiwara was upset that his team lost or that he could no longer assault Choshu within the legal confines of a wrestling match. There are times I wonder if he isn't the best to ever do it. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Antonio Inoki (New Japan, 5/20/87)

Inoki brings out an entirely different side of Fujiwara. With Choshu he becomes a possessed maniac. His only concern is raw violence. He wants to hurt Choshu, maybe even humiliate him. I'm not sure he actually cares about winning a wrestling match. I think there's a part of him that wants Choshu to give it back. I think he likes the idea of dragging Choshu into a fight he doesn't want, just to see how he responds. Or maybe he just hates his guts. It's very different with Inoki. When he sees Choshu he immediately sees red, whereas with Inoki it never feels like there's any personal animosity. I don't know if he's ever tried to crush Inoki's windpipe with his bare hands. I'll admit there's a good chance he has at one point or another. It's not EVERY time, though. I think he likes fucking with Inoki and I think it's because he knows all of Inoki's insecurities. WE know all of Inoki's insecurities. Inoki may act above it all, play it off as Choshu or Maeda or whoever having the issue with HIM and it being a one-way street, his retaliation forced but without malice, a king defending his crown only when pushed. But that's horse shit. We know enough of Inoki the man to know there's a thin line between that and the character, and we know that if you come at Inoki, the man or the character, he'll put you down. He relished that show of strength, when he could lash out against a challenger and put them in their place. He wanted everyone to know what he was capable of. He just wanted you to think it was THEIR idea. Fujiwara was never interested in the crown. A man like that could never have it anyway and I think he knew it. Rather than dethrone Inoki, Fujiwara wanted to get a rise out of him. He wanted to beat him too, of course he did, but beating Inoki and dethroning him are two very different obstacles and achieving the former wouldn't necessarily lead to the latter. Secure in that knowledge, Fujiwara would seek satisfaction elsewhere. I don't think he was particularly bothered about hiding the fact, but you could tell he took great pleasure in making Inoki retaliate, pushing him to the point of outburst, shining a light on Inoki's arrogance, his capriciousness. Inoki would usually stop himself short of emptying the clip, usually because Fujiwara would stop himself short of doing enough to warrant it. But now and then he'd push the right button and Inoki would react exactly how Fujiwara wanted, and Fujiwara would smirk and Inoki would know the facade had slipped, if only for a second. Even in a match like this, one on an untaped house show where truthfully not a lot happened, the dynamic played out the same. It never felt like they were just killing time or sitting in holds - there was a fight to escape everything and they worked for every inch, obvious even in the handheld footage. The pacing was pretty stop-start but they'd intersperse the grappling with some stand-up, some tit for tat with strikes, and basically every time it was Fujiwara who started it, first with a few slaps, then with the headbutts. Eventually it got far enough under Inoki's skin that he unloaded with stomps to the head like he was Sayama and this was 1984. If Fujiwara took any satisfaction in that you couldn't tell. My favourite parts of this were when one of them would try something, have it thwarted, then need to change strategy for the next attempt. When Inoki tried to take Fujiwara over with a snapmare, Fujiwara repeatedly jammed it by putting his foot down so Inoki leapt into a headscissors, but even the takeover wasn't graceful because Fujiwara had no interest in giving it easily. As far as Fujiwara v Inoki goes this was pretty low key and in that sense you maybe wish it was televised, if for no reason other than having some close-up shots of the struggles and grimaces and expressions of both. Still it's these two and we take what we can get. 

Darby v Rush - another match made in heaven

Darby Allin v Rush (No Count Outs) (AEW Dynamite, 3/25/26)

Here's a phrase I use a lot when I watch Darby against someone I've never seen him matched up against before: "of course this could ONLY be awesome." I say that so often because I want to watch Darby against pretty much anybody anyway, but Rush? Man c'mon. How could this be anything other than awesome? There was a point in time, about 12-13 years ago now, where Rush was my favourite wrestler in the world. I was following CMLL weekly and he and Casas were trying to kill each other nearly every show. Then I stopped following CMLL weekly. I haven't really followed any wrestling weekly since then, I guess until the last few weeks with AEW, and in the last 10 years I've probably only seen half a dozen Rush matches. I can tell you this, though - he is still now what he was then. Hardly anybody works with the sort of unhinged intensity as Rush. They call him El Toro Blanco and he works exactly like it. As Schiavone says, you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Darby never even needed to mess with the bull here, Rush just charged him at the start and chucked Darby off the turnbuckles to the floor. The match hadn't even started but the horns were out. There were points where Rush was a walking, raving, roid-raged madman, pacing around ready to fight with anything in front of him. The yoots might call it AURA or some such, but Rush had an air of menace about him that was best avoided. He almost reminded me of late 90s Scott Steiner where he'd just do whatever he wanted during matches, sometimes fully and blatantly booting someone in the balls in front of the referee, and nobody had it in them to do anything about it. What are you gonna do, tell him not to do that? And then what? This was that and when Rush grabbed Taz's water bottle and poured the whole thing over himself I loved how Taz was like yeah sure go for it. Nobody wanted the horns and they were happy to let Darby have them. And obviously Darby was an amazing foil for all of it. He got whipped into the steps outside the ring and his flip bump that about smashed his calves off the barricade was nuts. His first tope attempt hit nothing but the base of the announce table and it landed him with a cut forehead, which Rush sunk his teeth into both literally and figuratively. When he tried to go blow for blow with Rush he got wrecked, one slap to the face sounding like a fucking gunshot. The comeback would need to be fast and sudden and as usual he'd need to take a risk. His first opening came when Rush started lounging in the middle of the ring, Darby sprinting out the corner to jump on him and rain punches. The second tope landed and it was Rush who got clattered into the table this time, then Darby followed up with a missile dropkick while Rush sat dazed in a chair. They had to be clever with the finish because Darby had spent about 85% of the match getting assaulted, and even at the best of times it's hard to have someone like Rush lose convincingly and make it plausible. I thought the way they did it was great, with Rush charging across the ring with the corner dropkick, Darby avoiding it and using his smarts to roll him up. Every Darby match is like watching him solve a puzzle in real time. Usually the puzzle is figuring out how to use his own body as a weapon without breaking that weapon in the process. His opponent is a door and Darby's the battering ram. This time he picked the lock instead, and the look Rush gave him afterwards makes me hope they get to do this again at some point soon. 

Kaientai DX against the M-Pro boys! A lucharesu~ classic!

Dick Togo, Taka Michinoku, MEN's Teioh, Sho Funaki & Shiryu v Great Sasuke, Super Delfin, Gran Hamada, Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji (Michinoku Pro, 12/16/96)

This might just be the pinnacle of the style. It's been about 10 years since I last watched most of these guys; longer than that since watching them together in a match like this. The first comp tape of Japanese wrestling I ever bought was Jeff Lynch's best of M-Pro set, which was like 12 discs and cost about 40 quid and took as many days to get delivered. It was well worth it. That then turned me onto things like Toryumon and eventually Dragon Gate, which I started following in real time and buying Dragon Gate shows every month. Before too long I stopped doing that because it turns out Dragon Gate just wasn't really that enjoyable. Stylistically it might've been the spiritual successor to M-Pro, but I didn't find the wrestlers as good, it didn't have the CHARM of peak M-Pro, and my tastes had changed enough that my money was better spent elsewhere. Somewhere along the line the M-Pro evolutions lost me with how much STUFF they did. The M-Pro guys did plenty of stuff as well, but I cared more about those wrestlers than any of the ones that followed and so at the end of the day, I could still have fun watching M-Pro in a way I couldn't with the promotions that spun off from it. This was 100 miles an hour and never really slowed down for a second, but there was never a point where it felt like an exhibition to me, never just an extended run of cool moves and sequences and nearfalls. Maybe someone who doesn't have the sort of attachment to this particular time period of this particular promotion that I do would feel differently. Maybe to that person, Masato Yoshino, CIMA and BxB Hulk are the pinnacle and these guys are dated. To that I say you are entitled to your opinion and you're also wrong but fair enough. This had a proper sense of animosity from the start, more so than any other great M-Pro matches I can think of, and this is a promotion where GETTIN' CHIPPY was the norm. When one exchange was won and the next opponent came in, it didn't feel like it's because it was their turn to do so because that's how they'd laid it out. It was frantic and someone else would be in there immediately and it felt like that's because their teammate just got dropped. They were the next man up and there was no point pissing about. There was struggle and the first attempt at something might get cut off, but that didn't mean the guy trying it would just forget and move on. Naniwa did his little crab walk along the middle rope early on, the thing he would do to set up an elbow drop, and KDX weren't in the mood for it so they shut him down. He eventually fought back and went for it again, and as he did so Sasuke came in to hold Taka in place, the latter trying to wriggle free only to eat the elbow anyway. The early build was great and they used it to tease a bunch of dives. Basically every person in the match has a signature dive so the PA guy in the building was yelling over the mic for people to scatter every other minute. None of the dives were hit though - every time someone ran the ropes to set one up the potential recipient got out of dodge so the guy in the ring had to stop himself short. The crowd were ready for all of them but the wrestlers weren't ready to give them one yet. Masato Yakushiji was dressed like a Christmas elf in his green pyjamas and got thrown around the ring early, so I loved him being the first one to actually score on his dive, his cool basement slide headscissors that sent Togo skidding about 10 feet across the floor. Of course the place went nuts for it and they stayed nuts the rest of the way. Yakushiji was actually brilliant the entire time here, whether it was working from below taking a stomping or hitting spectacular armdrags and ranas, his dance partner Dick Togo the perfect base for all of it. The overall tetchiness really ramped up the crowd heat, so every piece of interference or double- or triple-teaming by the heels was booed while every time the babyfaces gave it back they were met with cheers. This was not a crowd there just to see Good Pro Wrestling, they wanted to see their boys lay a beating on the punks. Taka was a heat-seeking little rat bastard so Sasuke launched him over about six rows of chairs, then Taka threw one of those chairs in a rage and everyone booed him all the louder. There wasn't really a prolonged heat segment in the middle which might've propelled this into upper tier MOTDC territory, but the mini stretch on Sasuke was tremendous and capped with Teioh and Taka crushing his skull with a double dropkick. Sasuke at least got his revenge later when Togo went up top and Sasuke flung a chair at him from the floor. The last few minutes are as hectic as the very best M-Pro, with guys flying into big bombs and exchanges and the heat continually building, never reaching a point of diminishing returns with the nearfalls. There were even some ludicrous All Japan style head drops if that's your thing - Yakushiji landing all the way up on his neck off a Dick Togo German suplex, Shiryu and Naniwa both getting backdropped fully on top of their heads. Just an outstanding bit of wrestling. 

Another stop on the Darby Allin 2026 Roadshow

Darby Allin v Sammy Guevara (No Count Out) (AEW Collision, 5/16/26)

I didn't think this was a tremendous match, but I did think it was another tremendous Darby performance in what's turning out to be one of my favourite title runs ever. He sold the toll of everything here, the toll of his reign, like it might be his last defence, all those previous defences - seven in three weeks - catching up to him. The commentators played it up enough as well that I'm wondering if they flip the belt back to MJF at the PPV. I don't think I've bought a PPV since 2011! There were points of this where it looked like Darby was hanging on by a thread. Guevara jumped him at the start with a curb stomp on the title belt, then went right for broke with a swanton off the ladder through a table. I've seen enough ladder and table spots by now that they aren't likely to stand out all that much in isolation, but that thing is kind of Sammy's deal (as much as Sammy has a deal at this point) and what else are you going to do to keep Darby down? I thought initially that Darby came back from it a little too easily, though I did like that he went for the Scorpion Deathlock almost as containment as much as anything else. I also love that he pretty much just passed out shortly afterwards. Like Guevara's swanton through the table, in isolation that spot could feel a little tired, maybe a little hokey or hard to really get behind if you think about it long enough. You could probably argue he wound up on the offensive too soon after it for the moment to properly resonate, and I wouldn't argue too strongly the other way, but I don't think he strung together more than three moves at any one time throughout the course of the match and he clearly never fully recovered. There were times where he'd stand up and legit just fall down again lifeless, drained, physically at the end of his rope. The first time he went for the Coffin Drop was a mistake, because Sammy wasn't worn down enough and Darby got superkicked in the leg for his troubles, which obviously he took a nasty spill off of and hit his face on the apron on the way down. Sammy could catch him off guard whenever he went to the air as well, like the double stomp dropkick thing on the apron. Usually that's Darby's card to play and even that didn't work here. When he went for the tope his leg clipped the rope slightly, and I don't think it was intentional but it did add a little extra to Sammy countering it with a cutter. It was more of Darby's exhaustion coming back to bite him, maybe. With each match he seems to have less in the tank and with every risk comes an even greater chance of him losing everything. The finish itself was more survival than anything, the way he moved out the way to avoid one of Guevara's own gambits, only then being able to follow up with the Coffin Drop. 

Darby v (skinny) Swerve

Darby Allin v Swerve Strickland (AEW Dynamite, 4/12/23)

Swerve's protein intake must've been significantly lower at this point than it is today. Apparently these two have had seven previous singles matches before this one as well, which is a valuable piece of insight from the commentators because it gave some of the counters and reversals a bit of context. I thought this was really good and probably one of my favourite Strickland matches. He stood firm on that early tope and took it full in the chest, then he took over with a nice leg sweep on the apron that Darby of course landed hard on. I'm not a Swerve guy and his offence can be pretty contrived, but the setups never felt super obvious here and most of what he hit looked brutal. The double stomp while Darby hung off the apron was wild and I liked that he played up his own ankle being hurt from it. You have to take some risks to put a maniac like Darby down and you don't always come out the other side in one piece. There was a pretty good example of that later when Swerve had Darby on his shoulder up on the apron, where I thought he was going to hit an electric chair or something to the floor, only for Darby to reverse it into a fucking poisonrana. I thought Swerve sold the ankle well the whole way too. It stopped him from being able to capitalise on big moves immediately and lent plausibility to Darby kicking out, while also giving Darby something to latch onto when he needed it. At one point I thought Darby was going to hang Swerve in a tree of woe in the corner but instead he took his boot off and just started biting the foot. Yeah, I liked this a lot. 

Lawler & Bigelow v Idol & Rich...in Texas Death!

Jerry Lawler & Bam Bam Bigelow v Austin Idol & Tommy Rich (Texas Death Match) (Memphis, 3/22/87)

This is the third tag between these teams in as many weeks. So for all intents and purposes it's been three weeks of everyone trying to volley each other in the nuts. Bigelow was on an absolute madness from the last match, ready to kill someone straight out the gate, walking around with the steps overhead trying to throw them at Idol and Rich. It's sort of terrifying and borderline unsettling at points, just raving lunatic behaviour. The match starts officially like the no DQ match a couple weeks prior, with Bigelow and Rich pairing off in the ring while Idol and Lawler brawl up towards the dressing room. Idol gets throw into the wall, then he finds a piece of broken wood - probably from the steps Bigelow was throwing around - and uses it as a weapon. Basically every bit of offence on Bigelow was a ball shot; every cut off a knee or a punt to the balls, the only way to slow him down and quell his RAGE. Anything Idol and Rich do to get an advantage, Bigelow will take it and use it and return it tenfold. Maybe the most obvious example is when Rich wellies him with that gigantic Mid-South Coliseum ring bell and when Bigelow grabs it off him you're legitimately worried about what might happen to Tommy. For a Texas Death Match they didn't mess around with a bunch of falls. A year earlier Lawler and Mantell apparently went close to 100 falls with Dundee and Landel, but this time they cleaned house in relatively short order. One fall was all it took and it came about when Lawler and Bigelow yanked Rich's balls into the post. Clearly they deemed this insufficient revenge, because for the next several minutes Lawler and Bigelow try and stomp Rich's ball into oblivious while Idol tries to intervene without actually trying to intervene. And it's hard to blame him because you would not want to get in Bam Bam Bigelow's way. He was an absolute terror post-match and it's about as effective as I've ever seen someone in portraying an out of control menace. He loses his mind and tries to run referee Jerry Calhoun's balls into the post, pretty much just for being in the vicinity, and Lawler has to frantically try and talk him off that ledge, pointing again at Idol like that is where his ire ought to be focused. We all know someone who's liable to fly off the handle - a friend, a coworker, a family member, maybe even the person staring back at us in the mirror. Sometimes all you can do is distract them, maybe usher that fury down a different alley, assuage it until it dissipates. It turned out to be Bigelow's swan song in Memphis, but for such a short run he made a hell of an impression. Surely Lawler and the other two could let bygones be bygones now...

Piper's Been Around Since Anyone's Guess, if He Drops Your Mic Will He Pass Your Test?

Roddy Piper v Buzz Sawyer (Dog Collar Match) (GCW, 8/14/83) - EPIC

This was a legitimate holy grail dream match for me. When the WWE Vault started putting out old Omni shows on their youtube channel and it looked like we'd be getting more, there was a discussion on the twitter about what we'd like to see. You know that the people losing their mind for unreleased Georgia Championship Wrestling footage had already scoured cagematch for Omni cards anyway, so we all had a pretty good idea of what our ideal release would be. Terry Funk v Dusty Rhodes in a Texas death match, the Freebirds v Ole and Hansen in a cage, Race v Andre for the World Title. All great choices, all reasons to REJOICE. I'm one of those exact freaks who'd combed through the archives so there was plenty to put on a wishlist. But Piper v Sawyer in a dog collar was top of the pile with a bullet. Part of that was word of mouth, from how apparently the match was a bloody massacre that capped off an insane feud between two maniacs. Part of it was the interviews that had aired on TV, with Piper cutting a demented promo in a river somewhere with a chain around his neck talking about how he goes hunting mad dogs. And then really the biggest part is that it's Roddy Piper and Buzz Sawyer in a dog collar match. Why would that be anything other than a holy grail to me? Then they put out a tweet about this specific Omni show going live on the channel one Wednesday night, and for the first time in many moons I made a point of being home to watch it as it was airing. And look, it maybe wasn't the greatest match of all time that I hoped it would be, maybe not even the best Roddy Piper dog collar match of 1983, but that hasn't stopped me from watching it three times since then. The start is pretty similar to Piper/Valentine from Starrcade. Neither wants to budge and maybe there's some hesitancy there, or they just wanted to dare the other into making the first move. They trade some nasty pot shot blows, Sawyer with a punch, Piper whipping him in the knuckles with a length of chain. When Piper gets the early advantage he wraps the chain around Sawyer's face and grinds it across his teeth, which was pretty diabolical but also awesome for the sadists among us. Piper was out of this world incredible here. Very few wrestlers in history are as present and immersive as Hot Rod, always on, always reacting, never letting his opponent forget they're supposed to be in a fight. With all of that it's impossible to take your eyes off him. Sawyer threw a punch at one point and Piper blocked it in a way that suggested Buzz did not know that it was going to be blocked, then Roddy clonked him a chain wrapped around his fist. When Sawyer takes over he opens Piper up, then as they're brawling their way around ringside Piper stumbles past a chair and tries to throw it at Sawyer. He never even looked at Sawyer when he did it, never knew where Sawyer really was - it was pure instinct, a reaction to his environment, happenstance that there was a potential weapon on hand, and of course he tried to seize the moment. Sawyer rams Piper's head into the post and Piper fires back with a chop, one that looked purely muscle memory yet something the crowd could latch onto, never letting them go cold, always giving them hope that the comeback might be on no matter how bleak it looks otherwise. True to his name Sawyer was an animal, whipping Piper in the neck with the chain, punching the cut forehead with a chained fist, trying to hang him over the ropes with a metal noose. When it came time for Piper to draw some blood of his own Sawyer took a pair of screwball headers into the post, the second fully unprotected as Piper yanked the chain and even Ellering at ringside looked affronted. I love that they chose not to take it home after Piper's first comeback, Piper seeing red and blitzing Sawyer in a madness, slamming a pulled length of chain across his face only to get cut off with a low blow. It meant we got another few minutes and a second hole for Piper to climb out of. That second comeback was for the ages. He yanks Sawyer over the barricade and unloads with about a dozen chained punches, then pulls Sawyer into what was basically a home run hit with the chain, right across the face. This is a match made in heaven and they gave us a glorious 11 minutes of violence. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Darby v Takeshita, the 2026 version!

Darby Allin v Konosuke Takeshita (AEW Dynamite, 5/13/26)

I watched this live last night. Normally I don't get to watch Dynamite live because it starts too early on the west coast and when I go back home for the off-season it starts too late and also I'm not really arsed about watching Dynamite live anyway. But last night I could and so I had it on while I was doing other stuff and then I decided - declared, even - that I was watching the main event live. My point is, I don't really MAKE a point of watching wrestling live, but I like Darby and the last Darby/Takeshita match ruled so I was ALL IN on this, as us AEW diehards would say. And really, this was fantastic for most of the reasons their first match was tremendous, and none of those reasons were particularly complex. It doesn't need to be hard. He's not someone I check out often so I don't know if Takeshita has purposely started working bigger over the last couple years, but he worked BIG here and it was perfect. In their 2024 match he reminded me a little of a slender, slightly less destructive Takayama. Darby getting heaved around the place helped, but it's the first time I ever thought that about Takeshita. Here he was even better, an even bigger wrecking ball, and Darby leaned even further into his lunatic side. Takeshita knew exactly how Darby wanted to start this, so he caught him and chucked him. Later, Darby jumped off the top rope with either a cross body or a shoulder block, and Takeshita stood firm enough that Darby just bounced off him. Darby uses his body as a projectile better than anybody, but Takeshita has the size AND the skill to weather the storm or channel it. That culminated with the blue thunder bomb off the apron, with Darby trying a Coffin Drop, Takeshita catching it and planting him. It was a completely insane bump, made even better because it played all the way into the story. The German suplex off the top rope wasn't quite as brutal, but in some ways it was even more impressive because I genuinely don't think I've seen someone hit that and actually hold onto the waistlock/bridge. Takeshita's strikes were all lethal as well and those forearms must've knocked Darby's teeth out. There were times where Darby was flailing around bloody-mouthed and wide-eyed, grasping at anything to pull himself upright. His openings would be few and far between so he had to make them count, and fair play to Takeshita for taking a page out of Darby's playbook with the Scorpion Deathdrop on the steps. I figured we were going to get some MJF involvement rather than have Takeshita lose clean, so the fact they only did the brief "will he/won't he?" inner conflict bit and actually did pull the trigger on Darby was a nice surprise. Darby throwing himself into Takeshita repeatedly like a demented freak was of course tremendous and Takeshita really does take the Coffin Drop like a trooper. A really great match; one that I liked even more than their 2024 outing. This Darby title run has been phenomenal. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #59

Chigusa Nagayo & Dynamite Kansai v Mayumi Ozaki & Devil Masami (GAEA, 4/15/95)

This was the main event of the GAEA debut show and a big-name match up for the occasion. 90s and early-00s GAEA has sort of become one of my favourite promotions to watch over the last few years, and that along with ARSION are my two favourite joshi promotions ever. There's a real charm to the first few years of GAEA with all of the rookies and stylistically it didn't lean on excess quite the way AJW would. This wasn't really that GAEA as half of the match is two JPW mainstays, but it was scorching hot and gave the crowd a bit of everything. I've watched a handful of Mayumi Ozaki matches the last few days and at this point there may not be a wrestler I've ever done a bigger 180 on than her. 10 years ago you wouldn't have been able to pay me to watch five Ozaki matches in three days. But over the last few years I've come around on her big time (she's thrilled, I'm sure) and yeah, maybe she was awesome this whole time and it was just me. She was really great here, scrappy and TENACIOUS and now and then she'd just wrap a chain around her hand and punch someone in the face. She was also wearing street clothes so you knew she had it in mind to fly off the handle at some point. There may never have been anyone more willing to take an absurd beating off a specific opponent than Ozaki from Dynamite Kansai. Every time they match up throughout their careers there'll be at least a couple times an outing where Kansai unleashes some horrific kicks and Ozaki eats all of them like a total nutcase. Devil was in her Super Heel bag here, which I wasn't aware of coming in and I wish I was because then I'd have tempered expectations. She's fine enough working that sort of thing and I guess I appreciate great wrestlers experimenting, but regular Devil Masami is too good for me not to be disappointed when she decides to play a shambling zombie. There were a couple moments where her selling was amazing, though. She'd try to brick wall her way through some stuff because she's impervious to pain or whatever, but she'd stumble or show a subtle sign of the damn breaking and the audience would pick up on it. I guess if I'm going to sit and watch someone do an Undertaker ripoff it might as well be Devil. About midway through they took it to the floor and got to the crowd brawling, but this was some decent joshi crowd brawling and it looked like Devil was trying to murder Chigusa with those chair shots. There were also moments throughout where those two would stare at each other or hesitate a little just to remind you that there's some steep history there. Not my favourite GAEA, but an easy watch and the crowd being rabid the whole time didn't hurt. 

Crunch Time in the First Quarter From the Worst Slaughter, Tenryu's Poisoning the Birth Water

Genichiro Tenryu v Masa Chono (Chain Match) (New Japan, 9/16/04) - EPIC

Look, full disclosure - I voted Tenryu #2 in the GWE poll but I can't help but wonder if that wasn't three spots too low. Honestly, as a match this might just be on the border of EPIC territory, maybe even truly belonging a rung below that. But make no mistake, this is an absolutely epic Tenryu performance. I've seen hundreds of Tenryu matches at this point and written about most of them here. None were quite the same sort of overbooked ridiculousness of this. It might be the purest form of sympathetic old man babyface Tenryu we ever got. They start out working a regular chain match, both of them attached by the wrist, Tenryu throwing chain-wrapped fists, all is right with the world. Then Chono takes a page out of the Verne Gagne playbook and goes off the advertised script last minute, having his cronies remove his wrist collar and attach it to the ring frame. It's no longer a chain match as opposed to a match where one wrestler is chained and the other is free to roam around with impunity. Tenryu wrestles most of the match chained to the ring and Chono does not. Chono instead goes hunting for a glass bottle, clonks Tenryu on the head with it, smashes it over the ring post and drives the broken end into Tenryu's forehead. Tenryu's not really someone I think of as a crazy bleeder, but this might be his Tenryu Scale match and his selling as his forehead is being carved up ran as close to the line of manic as I've ever seen from him. His general selling of the uphill battle he has the rest of the way is impeccable, dealing with blood-loss, the obvious restrictions imposed on him by the chain, fighting off his primary opponent who will rampantly cheat, and his opponent's backup who will interfere liberally. He uses the chain to keep himself standing, barely horizontal at points. He uses it to drag himself back to his feet. It's both his lifeline and his limitation. He kicks out of pin attempt and shakes his finger like he's possessed by the spirit of Ricky Morton, looking to the crowd for the energy he needs. Eventually Kensuke Sasaki comes out and smacks Chono with a stick to offset all the heel bullshit, and as Tenryu makes his comeback he pumps his fists and we all nod in agreement that professional wrestling is the best of all the professions. Gedo interferes with a top rope splash and Tenryu treats it exactly how it should be treated, by immediately popping up and killing him dead with a lariat. When Tenryu is finally released from the chain he rolls the shoulders like shit is really about to pop off now, then Chono tries to run only to be THWARTED by Sasaski and Nagata throwing him back in the ring. He's made his bed, now it's time to lie in it. I loved Chono going to the chain-wrapped shoulder tackles, escalating those by hitting one off the top rope. He won the '92 G1 with a regular shoulder tackle off the top, hitting one in chainmail should finally rid him of Tenryu. Every time Tenryu kicks out you WILL him to make that big comeback, and it never comes and at a certain point that feels inevitable, but it didn't stop us from clinging to hope. A one of one professional wrestler. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Into the Modern CMLL: Mistico! Hechicero! Soberano Jr! A 2025 BARN Burner!

Hechicero, Soberano Jr. & Barbaro Cavernario v Mistico, Atlantis Jr. & Titan (CMLL, 2/7/25)

This is the closest thing I've seen so far to the classic sort of lucha trios I love. It didn't have anything in the way of matwork and to be honest I'm not expecting to find anything that really does, but shit man, not every amazing trios match of the 90s had opening fall matwork either. A trios match doesn't NEED that to be amazing and certainly not in a match where the rudos aren't interested in some sporting nonsense anyway. The rudo unit were something special here - a demon wizard who'll tie you up like a shoelace, a caveman lunatic and narcissist who thrives on others' disdain. It's the lucha libre and there really is nothing like it. The primera was a full rudo blitz with about a dozen brilliant double- and triple-teams, the mugging itself starting with a Cavernario tope through Mistico's guts. This was a fucking javelin of a thing and one of the best I've ever seen him hit. Soberano telling people not to get their knickers in a twist as he tries to unmask a beloved tecnico is always great, ACCENTUATED by his impossible smugness and attitude. I always use Liger as the prime example of someone in a mask using body language to convey emotion in place of being able to see facial expressions, and maybe I'm going overboard as a prisoner of the moment but Soberano is right up there. He has Titan dead to rights early, pulls him up on a pin attempt and I don't even like Titan but I wanted to see him come back and take the jaw off Soberano. A bit later Hechicero has Titan in the reverse crab with his arms pinned back and Cavernario wheelbarrows Soberano into a legdrop across the back of Titan's head. Cavernario was a rompin' stompin' nutjob who was fly kicking people in the face, threading some comedy through proceedings by eating a big boot in the corner and selling it by doing the worm. I've watched a handful of Mistico matches from this current run and his presence is sort of palpable, almost Santo-ish and that's beyond the aesthetic similarities. The way he stamped his feet up the ramp before running towards the ring was a goosebumps moment and then Atlantis Jr. catapults him onto Cavernario for a picture perfect headscissors takeover. He hung back a little in the tercera to let his partners shine, but the springboard rana to Cavernario - who was on top of Atlantis' back during a preposterous triple submission - was unbelievable. Also, shine his partners did! Both of them looked terrific. Atlantis Jr. was hitting quebradoras at warp speed and looked every bit the young phenom his dad did 40 years earlier. The last time I saw Titan he was being hand-led through a title match by Virus. That was 12 years ago and if he didn't have much about him then, he at least learned how to hit a springboard double stomp like he grew up watching Low Ki. The Atlantis/Titan stereo topes were gorgeous and then Mistico brought it home like we knew he would, Arena Mexico firmly in the palm of his hand. Everyone was on song here and even if I'll probably never not pine for the early 90s, this is the kind of thing I could watch every week and think it eight bucks well spent.

Into the Modern CMLL: Barbaro Cavernario!

Mascara Dorada v Barbaro Cavernario (CMLL, 1/19/24)

This started with about two minutes of grappling, so more than nearly anything else I've seen from a modern CMLL title match. Actually grappling might be generous, it was mostly on the feet, but it was good and there's an art to that standing hold-trading as well. This was a really fun Barbaro Cavernario performance. It's been ages since I've even watched him and he couldn't decide if he wanted to behave himself or turn into a mask-ripping wildman, so in the end we got a bit of both. His energy was through the roof and he was throwing some major bombs, real caveman shit including the most caveman move of all according to the textbooks, that being a bullet tope through the corner buckles in the primera. He had everything in hand in that first fall, then he crashed and missed and Dorada took the fall with his SSP, a lesson hard learned for our man Barbaro: these young guys can flip a script in no time. Dorada is a mere sprout at this stage and maybe needed to be led through parts of this, his hesitancy obvious now and then, but Cavernario was pretty well up to it. Again though, when Dorada has the chance to do some spectacular shit he'll deliver and some of this felt like an insanely athletic young guy just coming out and riffing during the dunk contest. The Mac McClung of CMLL, some would say. He could string together some highlight reel offence to swing the tide, and he even played into Cavernario's hands at one point by uncorking an overhand chop that would've made Hashimoto wince. They had a ton of ideas in the tercera and things maybe got a touch bloated, but I also never found myself actively hoping that the next nearfall would be the last so maybe that's something? They fought on the top turnbuckles and slapped each other so hard Dorada's torn mask nearly flew off, then Cavernario eats BUCKETS of shit on an apron brainbuster that I thought was reserved only for the seventh match from the top on an AEW PPV. Eventually Cavernario says fuck it and rips Dorada's mask off and I wouldn't be 100% truthful if I said I didn't feel a wee bit robbed after however long this lasted. Either the caveman slays his prey or the acrobat ties the caveman in knots. Even if I liked the premise of it fine, a non-finish is sort of a letdown at the end of it all. Then again, maybe I'd have done the same in Cavernario's fur-lined shoes. 

Boston to Toronto, a couple 80s WWF CLASSICS (maybe)

Hulk Hogan v Randy Savage (WWF, 5/24/86)

Without being the old man yelling at clouds, I don't know if there's anything in 2026 pro wrestling that could replicate this. A pair of characters - larger than life, as large as they come - like these two, an environment in a place in time like the Boston Garden in the middle of 1986. It's almost impossible to me that there could be something with this much raw energy, charisma, personality. They make physical contact maybe three times in the first few minutes; it's all stalling and heat-building and the place is absolutely off its chops. Hogan annihilates Savage with a shoulder tackle and mimics Savage's pose where he draws a circle in the air, and of course Savage is apoplectic. Hogan wants a piece of him and Savage keeps ducking out the ring, jawing with fans, trying to compose himself despite being a man who has never looked composed for one single second, not tonight, maybe not ever. Savage will literally throw himself over the top rope to get away, spit on Hogan, slink out the ring as the place is bursting at the seams for Hogan to ragdoll him. Just sublime WORKING~, the sort of thing your Meltzers of the world would scoff at because no actual moves were performed, missing the whole point as usual. Hogan spitting on Savage is worth a hunner space flying tiger drops. Savage's frustration tactics finally turn the tide when he uses Elizabeth as a shield, Hogan picking her up - with the tenderness of a man but half his size - and placing her out of dodge, chasing Savage around ringside before getting caught with an elbow sliding back in. Savage is a maniac hitting double axe handles from everywhere, inside the ring, outside the ring, inside the ring TO outside the ring; is it any wonder his knees exploded? The real wonder is how it took over a decade of him doing this for it to happen. Savage never did learn not to use the flying elbow as it only wakens Hogan from his slumber, but I guess they wanted to save going right into the big boot/legdrop finish for the grandaddy of them all and the match keeps going after the Hulk Up. Hogan clobbers the ref' with a clothesline and Savage nails him with the title belt, yet again jumping off the turnbuckle to the floor outside. Hogan's choice of white ring attire pays dividends as his trunks are covered in blood pretty quickly for an amazing visual. You can also buy that Savage thought a count out would win him the belt. There's no way a man so ADHD-riddled would be paying attention to the pre-match instructions. The post-match is amazing too, with Hogan carrying Savage back to the ring over his shoulder, the crowd ready for him to take his pound of flesh, Savage managing to escape, Hogan posing anyway, the crowd leaving satisfied. This might be their best match.

The Islanders & Bobby Heenan v British Bulldogs & Koko B. Ware (WWF, 4/24/88)

There was no way this wouldn't be a hoot. Unless of course you ran it in Trump Plaza in front of a buncha CORPORATES, I guess. But this is the Maple Leaf Gardens and no such corporates were present. I assume. It started with the tease of Koko v Heenan which is a dream match if ever one existed, but of course it's merely a ruse as Heenan does not want any part of the bird man. So instead we get Koko v Tama which is right up there as the DREAMIEST of Whiskey & Wrestling dream matches. Tama is a shit-talking menace in this, telling a fan "shut your fuckin' mouth, sucker!" then suggesting that Koko's hard head is nothing compared to the strength of a Samoan cranium. They trade a couple headbutts, a contest that crowns no victor, so Koko pops him with some Koko Ware punches and we all surmise that the Mega Powers really should've exploded in the midcard and Tama v Koko B. Ware should've headlined Wrestlemania 5. Tama is a great apron-worker, so expressive and always engaged, jumping around in celebration when his team have the advantage, frantic and agitated when the shoe is on the other foot. I liked Dynamite hitting a falling headbutt on Haku then selling his own head realising a mistake was made. Dynamite had obviously wrestled enough Samoans to know that headbutting one is foolish. There was no need for him to do it other than the fact he's the Dynamite Kid and it's what he does. You can lead a horse to water but as Hemingway would always say, some horses prefer piss. Dynamite really is the progenitor of the Wall Osrepay line. Koko in peril rocks and Heenan goes to choke him with the rope hidden in his singlet, goads Dynamite into the ring because if anybody can be goaded into rash decisions it's the Dynamite Kid, then Heenan and the Islanders put the boots to Koko behind the ref's back. Gorilla was incensed, naturally. Eventually Koko comes back and chases Heenan out of town, which turns the match into a regular 2v2 for a while. I loved Haku's triple backbreaker on Dynamite, and even if he's dumb as rocks Dynamite is a pretty great face in peril. Heenan coming back out to once again be a thorn in Koko's side was inevitable, for he is the Brain and of course he's going to leave his mark. Surely they ran that as a singles match on the house show circuit somewhere. Surely they ran Koko v Tama one night when the Bulldogs showed up unfit for purpose. This was a blast. 

Lawler & Bam Bam v Rich & Idol!

Jerry Lawler & Bam Bam Bigelow v Austin Idol & Tommy Rich (No DQ) (Memphis, 3/9/87) 

This was a newly unearthed piece of insanity that appeared a couple years ago and gave us another installment of one of the best US feuds of the 80s. It comes off the back of Rich and Idol yanking Lawler into the ring post by the legs, putting Lawler on the shelf for a bit with a ruptured testicle. I guess Lawler then recruited the biggest lunatic he could find in pursuit of revenge, and for the next few weeks the feud is built around both teams trying to volley each other's balls through their ribcage. They waste no time getting to the craziness early on, Rich pulling a Toby Klein or perhaps simply a Tommy Rich and bleeding everywhere after maybe 90 seconds? He was an amazing bump machine for Bigelow, who for his part looked phenomenal tearing up furniture, throwing punches and people alike all over the place, a real force of nature. He hardly went on to have a nothing career, but he's also someone who might never have looked as good as they did in their rookie year. It might've been an ARTISTIC choice on his part, maybe a product of Memphis using him differently than other places, but he definitely never came across as this much of a beast anywhere else. While this is going on Lawler and Idol pair off and fight their way up the aisle, slamming each other into the back wall. It was chaos from the jump and nobody does chaos like Memphis. We get a nice lucha-ish rudo comeback with Rich hitting a flying clothesline on Lawler while Idol catches Bam Bam low, the sort of thing that was sudden yet emphatic enough to tell you the tide had swung. Idol goes back to the well that brought them here by trying to yank Lawler's privates into the post again and I love the fight Lawler puts up to avoid it, really milking the struggle before finally kicking Idol back and into the barricade. Obviously Lawler's punches don't need to be mentioned but it's still worth talking about his running punch as Tommy Rich lay halfway out the ring. Lawler even bit him which is something you didn't tend to see very often, not least because you get the sense Rich was a little too old for him. The finish is amazing and the only time I remember seeing Lawler hit a top rope fist drop TO THE WILLY, then the madness continues after the bell as Bigelow goes flying through one of those big thick blue Mid-South Coliseum ringside tables trying to splash Rich. Idol repeatedly stabs Lawler in the head with a spike and these were maybe the nastiest spike shots this side of Jimmy Jacobs. 

Jerry Lawler & Bam Bam Bigelow v Austin Idol & Tommy Rich (Double Jeopardy Match) (Memphis, 3/16/87)

These four could've wrestled 50 times and it wouldn't have been enough. This has two separate rings, basically a 1v1 match going on in each, but it still held to some of the norms of a traditional tag match, albeit with relaxed rules. Rather than your regular tags in and out you get switches of partners between rings, though both teammates are only allowed to be in the ring at the same time for 60 seconds. Rich waits marginally longer than the last match before tasting the blade and his first bit of offence is kneeing Bigelow in the balls out of a collar and elbow. Bigelow really sells the hell out of every ball shot in this feud, his true kryptonite as he can mostly brick wall everything else the heels throw at him and look like a monster doing it. Those two at least made half an attempt at a wrestling hold to start whereas Lawler and Idol just went right to punching each other in the face. It was of course very glorious, as Lawler and Idol punching each other in the face tended to be. The camera spent most of its time on Bigelow though, and for good reason. He was a fucking maniac again, picking Rich up overhead and dropping him across the announce desk, Rich's tailbone meeting nothing but the unforgiving wood. Everyone gets creative with the double teams and Bigelow hitting a falling headbutt to Idol's balls as Lawler holds him spread-eagle was amazing. Idol selling it was pretty much a thing of beauty, then Bigelow kicks him out the ring like a trash bag and does the same falling headbutt to Rich. The heels eventually take over when Idol cracks Lawler in the head with the microphone, then he breaks off a table leg to use as a weapon. He sticks the jagged end in Lawler's head and throws it to Rich who I guess stabs Bigelow in the willy. There were probably half a dozen low blow variations in this and they were all incredible. The best of all might've been after Idol and Rich tried to post Lawler again, only for Lawler to reverse it, tie Idol in the ropes, lift his legs and punt him low. The match gets thrown out when Idol and Rich handcuff Bigelow to the ropes and try to kill Lawler with a noose, several babyfaces coming to their aid only to get punched in the neck or hit in the head with a bin lid by feral Tommy Rich. Bigelow is IRATE in the post-match and it's a pretty spectacular scene, fans scattering in terror as he flings barricades and chairs everywhere, Lawler scrambling and failing to restrain him before Jerry Jarrett has a gargantuan lawsuit on his hands. 

GWE 2026: The Whiskey & Wrestling Top 100

Here we go again. The nerds love their wee lists. 

I imagine if you've somehow stumbled onto this blog of stupidity then you're familiar with the PWO Greatest Wrestler Ever project. It started as the SmarksChoice Greatest Wrestler Ever project way back in 2006, then in 2016 it was adopted by PWO and that's where its home has been ever since. 

Basically a bunch of wrestling hardcores got together and decided to rank all of the wrestlers of forever and now every 10 years a bunch of people vote for their top 100. Folk on twitter and the likes sent in lists as well and Dave Meltzer and some other old pricks got mad about stuff online. 

I never voted in 2006 because Scotland had only just got the internet and besides that my pro wrestling horizons had not quite broadened enough for me to think I could tackle it properly. I posted my 2016 list here and I was happy with it at the time, and to be honest I'm still fine with it a decade down the line. 2026 me has 10 years of footage-watching on 2016 me so obviously this one I'm happier with, but either way I sort of look at each list as decennial stops on my JOURNEY as a stupid pro wrestling fan. Representations of my tastes over the past 10 years. 

There were about 150 names I wanted to vote for and if I remade the list in a month some of the 50 that didn't make it today would probably make it then. Honestly, that 70-100 range is a crap shoot. Some people who made my list in 2016 never made it this time and a big part of why is really because I haven't watched them since the last vote. Mark Henry and Tajiri and Jose Lothario don't suck because I left them off the list this time around. I probably just haven't watched more than two matches of any of those guys since 2016. I've watched a whole bunch of Masa Kurisu and Magnum TA, though! 

10 years ago I said I wanted to do a blog entry for every wrestler I voted for, talk about why I did, write about a match of theirs, whatever. I did that for approximately zero of those wrestlers, but really, if you're remotely arsed about why I voted for any of the people I did then throw their name in the search bar and it'll pull at least a couple results. I've written SOMETHING about everyone on this list and for the majority of them I've written about many somethings. The world is your oyster. 

Here's to 2036.

1. Negro Casas

2. Genichiro Tenryu

3. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

4. Terry Funk

5. Kiyoshi Tamura

6. Shinya Hashimoto

7. El Hijo del Santo

8. Jerry Lawler

9. El Satanico

10. Mariko Yoshida

11. Stan Hansen

12. Shinobu Kandori

13. Yuki Ishikawa

14. El Dandy

15. Mitsuharu Misawa

16. Buddy Rose

17. Daisuke Ikeda

18. Nick Bockwinkel

19. Eddie Guerrero

20. Takeshi Ono

21. Tully Blanchard

22. Roddy Piper

23. Dick Murdoch

24. Volk Han

25. Tatsumi Fujinami

26. Blue Panther

27. Bryan Danielson

28. Virus

29. Sangre Chicana

30. Rey Mysterio

31. Ricky Morton

32. Pirata Morgan

33. Randy Savage

34. Riki Choshu

35. Aja Kong

36. Naoki Sano

37. Ricky Steamboat

38. Fuerza Guerrera

39. Arn Anderson

40. Ric Flair

41. Jushin Liger

42. Akira Hokuto

43. Barry Windham

44. Bill Dundee

45. Kenta Kobashi

46. Vader

47. Butch Reed

48. Akira Maeda

49. Meiko Satomura

50. Rick Martel

51. LA Park

52. Toshiaki Kawada

53. Bobby Eaton

54. Alexander Otsuka

55. Yoji Anjoh

56. Jumbo Tsuruta

57. Andre the Giant

58. Devil Masami

59. Shawn Michaels

60. Akira Taue

61. Jim Duggan

62. Sgt. Slaughter

63. Steve Austin

64. Black Terry

65. Greg Valentine

66. Kazunari Murakami

67. Bret Hart

68. Hechicero

69. Buzz Sawyer

70. Low Ki

71. Fit Finlay

72. MS-1

73. Emilio Charles Jr.

74. Dick Togo

75. Dustin Rhodes

76. Jerry Estrada

77. Rick Rude

78. Hector Guerrero

79. Invader I

80. Jerry Blackwell

81. Magnum TA

82. Tito Santana

83. Necro Butcher

84. Samoa Joe

85. Koko Ware

86. William Regal

87. Tonga Kid

88. Tarzan Goto

89. Masa Kurisu

90. Yoshihiro Takayama

91. Negro Navarro

92. Austin Aries

93. Atlantis

94. Michael Hayes

95. Mocho Cota

96. Shinjiro Ohtani

97. La Fiera

98. Le Petit Prince

99. Yoshihisa Yamamoto

100. Yumi Ikeshita

Darby v Ospreay!

Darby Allin v Will Ospreay (AEW Dynamite, 12/18/24)

I am not a Will Ospreay guy. I have no animosity towards him personally - I'm not online enough to know anything about him outside of wrestling, don't know if he's mates with any sex offenders, don't know if he's a danger to society, might be the soundest fella in a sea full of deviants. Never met him, never interacted with him, almost certainly never will. Bell to bell he's a maximalist and my stylistic preferences lean towards the other end of that particular spectrum, THUS, we at Whiskey & Wrestling Towers (I am the only one here) spend our time (the time is mine alone) watching other things. But look, now and then a bit of excess will do the trick. And honestly, I didn't find this anywhere near as big and BOMBASTIC and whatever as I half expected. I figured they'd start with a parity exchange, a trading of counters and reversals that all look extremely impressive and well coordinated, a stand-off where they lock eyes and the crowd can register that they're seeing something very special and cool. We sort of got that and I didn't think it was stupid or too corny, though I can't quite tell you why and that is not a truth I wish to confront this day. It settled pretty soon into a story of Darby going for broke, putting his body on the line like he always does, crashing and burning on the apron Coffin Drop with a ludicrous bump. I've watched a lot of Darby Allin recently so I've seen a lot of ludicrous Darby Allin bumps recently, and this one was up there. For the next while Ospreay worked him over, drove his knee into the spine while yanking hard on a chinlock, Darby fighting back where he could but never being able to capitalise fully. I don't love the extended reversal sequences that Ospreay is very fond of (and very good at?), but they absolutely got me with the one that had Darby hit the Code Red. They even broke it up with Ospreay hitting a killer Hidden Blade, then when Darby caught him I thought he might actually get the win. Ospreay kicked out right at the death too and it was pretty much a prefect nearfall. They went even bigger after that, but there was no point where I felt like it was too much for me. The selling stayed strong the whole way and even in the strike exchange it felt like there was enough trace of hierarchy there that it stayed rooted. Darby is broken but he's defiant. Ospreay is maybe the heir apparent and confident enough that he has no problem being hit if it means he has an excuse to hit back harder. He's stubborn that way, I guess. For every three Darby forearms Ospreay could respond with one chop. It was fine. Then Darby went to take another significant risk, Ospreay caught him, and decided to put it beyond doubt. The Styles Clash off the apron looked gnarly and I liked that they gave themselves an out by having Will sell the leg. It meant he couldn't keep pushing right away and then they milked the 10-count all the way to 9.5, Darby barely hanging on. They had one last counter sequence that bled into Darby hitting the Scorpion Deathdrop, then his persistence paid off as he finally got to hit two Coffin Drops, which was just enough to keep Ospreay down. It was a good wrestling match. I enjoyed it, as I'm sure many others did. I mostly liked Will Ospreay's performance in it and in the future I mayhap, if the universe allows it, watch more Will Ospreay matches, enjoy them, and write about them on this very nonsense of a blog. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #45

Necro Butcher & Toby Klein v The H8 Club (CZW, 6/11/05)

What a grimy unhinged madness of a thing. This took place about five hours after Necro v Joe on the IWA-MS card. THAT Necro v Joe. Basically Necro got the living shit beat out of him, went backstage, got taped up, maybe rolled the dice on being able to wake up from a CTR nap, put on some Air Maxes and a shirt and rolled back out for a tag match in the same building for a different company. Necro and Klein are a pair of homeless drifters, Gage and Pain are Semtex dealers living out of an abandoned church, there was only one way this was going to go. Klein is bleeding profusely after about 20 seconds, before Necro has even clothed himself and walked out from the locker room. I would not voluntarily be taking a chair shot from Nick Gage under any circumstances but Klein takes several here and they all look horrific. I've never seen anyone get thrown into a metal shutter the way Gage gets thrown into one here. Justice Pain getting flung off a balcony and going feet-first through a table is one of the more ludicrous things I've seen in a long time and then Necro, for the second time in several hours, takes a putrid flat back bump off the apron to concrete from a double suplex. Necro and Gage doing the meth head strike exchange where they sit and trade punches is the dumbest thing but also entirely believable given what we know about them and every one of these punches were revolting. Necro instigates a hailstorm of folding chairs on top of Nick Gage and hits a somersault senton into the aftermath, Gage himself underneath it all. Yet in the end, Necro can only be beaten about the head so many times before even his imperviousness to brain damage wilts. What goes around comes around, the poets tell us. What was this match if not poetry? 

Into the Modern CMLL: Zandokan Jr! Difunto! More Soberano Jr!

Soberano Jr. & Zandokan Jr. v Mascara Dorada & Templario (CMLL, 2/14/25)

Every Soberano Jr. entrance is an experience and this time he came out in the SWANK red and pink attire with his arms and torso covered in lipstick kisses. I don't think Rick Rude even did that. Michaels for sure would've floated the idea past Vince but I guess it got left on the cutting room floor. During the early lock-up he fish hooks Templario by the mask and I can't say Templario has done anything for me as I go through this stuff, but it did make me want to see him punch Soberano in the face. The rudos lose the primera in about three minutes, tease throwing hands at each other on the floor, then hug it out to a chorus of boos. The first caida and a half was pretty much those two getting the full runaround. It was quality stuff because these are two rudos who will eat major shit on anything and everything. You know they'll seize their moment eventually though, and Soberano has a real knack for countering a springboard or a moonsault by kicking someone in the sternum while they're midair. Mascara Dorada isn't always the cleanest, which maybe isn't all that surprising for someone who attempts as much of the spectacular as he does. He was also a mere 23 years of age here and his spectacular looks SPECTACULAR so we can make do. The tenico comeback in the tercera was capped with a DOUBLE double tope and the camera angles on  both made them look phenomenal, especially Dorada's that nearly put Zandokan through the barrier. 

Mascara Dorada, Neon & Star Jr. v Zandokan Jr., Barboza & Difunto (CMLL, 3/28/25)

Two pirates and an evil clown against three bonkers high flyers. It doesn't need to be all that complicated, brothers and sisters. To some extent this was like having ice cream for dinner then ice cream for dessert, then more ice cream right after you wake up in the middle of the night vomiting. It was a match of excess, but it was great ice cream and by the end they had me swept up like the rest and I didn't even care if my teeth fell out. Actually forget the end, they had me pretty well hooked from the start when the rudos jumped Star Jr. and El Sky Team hit tandem moonsaults off the balcony, followed by a running senton off the stage. Dorada is mesmerising when he gets airborne but our boy Neon is not to be undersold. He's another tecnico capable of some mind-boggling shit and he bounces off the ropes as gracefully as anyone, no hands on his springboard front flip, twisting into headscissor takeovers like no one else. The primera lasted no time at all but that and a chunk of the segunda was an absolute showcase for the flyers. Then the tecnicos get too cute - a plague, as we all know, upon many such youths capable of bouncing around the ring with effortless aplomb - going for stereo moonsaults, so the rudos capitalise as a well-oiled machine is wont to and simply chuck all three off the top turnbuckles. The whole rudo unit were tremendous thugs on the night but Difunto was a fucking hoot, bouncing off ropes and jumping feet-first into people in his ridiculous Slipknot mask and torn up cheap Halloween costume jumpsuit. Zandokan will chop the life out of you but he's not remotely shy about looking foolish, perhaps the heir apparent to Jerry Estrada before our very eyes. The finish to the segunda had him hit a dive from outside the ring to the middle of it where he almost slipped on the way in. The crowd gave him some grief for it so after he took the fall he got up on the turnbuckles to give some back and almost fell twice. I'm pretty sure the initial slip was an accident, but he absolutely played into the rest, again like a Fuerza or Jerry Estrada would. The tercera was long, possibly too long for some, loaded front to back with crazy shit and at a certain point I kind of knew it needed to be over soon, while at the same time I didn't really want it to be. There were several sequences with one or two moments I'd legitimately never seen before, including Neon hitting this ridiculous springboard into a crucifix bomb where he was facing the wrong way, followed by him getting caught by Zandokan with a front flip DDT nonsense of a thing. Your Canadian Destroyer derivatives are played out beyond belief these days, but if you're going to do it then I guess do it like Star Jr. and come flying into it at a hunner miles an hour springboarding off the top rope. Difunto again moves too beautifully for a hideous clown that's been run over with a lawnmower and maybe I should consider the Complete & Accurate Difunto. Literally every dive in the back third was incredible - every single one and there were about 30 - and Neon's double springboard where he starts on the ramp, bounces across two sets of ropes as Dorada perches perfectly on that corner's ring post, ending with them hitting moonsaults at the exact same time, was fucking nuts and one of the most impressive things I've seen in ages. Barboza then channels the true spirit of lucha libre by hitting a tope suicida and landing with both of his legs in the second row. There was an absurd amount of stuff going on here, definitely some requiring elaborate setups that you ordinarily can't really be arsed with, but on occasion it hits like it's supposed to and this hit like a truck. A hell of a trios bonanza. Bonanza, I say. 

Fujiwara. Murdoch. The Pro Wrestling.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Dick Murdoch (New Japan, 4/27/87)

This was a match between two old masters, who at this point in time weren't really that old. Murdoch was 40, Fujiwara 38. But they worked it as a pair of guys who'd been around the block and seen all the tricks. Which I guess they were, really. Fujiwara had been wrestling for 15 years, although we still only have about half of that on tape. By 1987 Murdoch was a 21-year pro. So they WERE old masters, just maybe not truly OLD. In fact you could make a real strong argument that both were at their absolute peaks. I've watched probably 90% of the Murdoch footage we have from 1985-1987 and he might be one of the top three wrestlers in the world over that stretch. I've watched even more Fujiwara from that period and 1986-1987 Fujiwara is DEFINITELY top three in the world and I can tell you he's not two or three. '87 Fujiwara is as good as any wrestler I've ever seen, one of the greatest to ever do it at his very best. So we have two old masters who know all the tricks, many of them they invented, at the peak of their powers. I mean, shit, obviously it fucking ruled. It wasn't what I'd call tetchy, if anything it was pretty sporting, mostly clean as a whistle, but there was a hesitancy here and it's probably because they each knew the other would take a mile if you gave them an inch. You think Murdoch wouldn't still rabbit punch you in the cheek even if he was playing nice? Would you be at all shocked if Fujiwara headbutted you in the face while shaking your hand? Fuck no you wouldn't. Murdoch lifted Fujiwara up out of a headlock and sat him on the top turnbuckles, then a minute later Fujiwara did the exact same. Murdoch was impressed enough to applaud it and even asked the crowd to show their own appreciation. Part of me wondered if it wasn't him being condescending or he was trying to lure Fujiwara into thinking this would be a gentleman's contest, but over the course of the match he proved that no, it wasn't bullshit and maybe he really did just respect our boy Fujiwara. The first 10 minutes were largely built around Fujiwara trying to apply the Fujiwara armbar and Murdoch finding ways to avoid it, each escape a touch more desperate than the last. Well really the match as a whole was built around that but the first 10 minutes had most of the grappling. I struggle to watch anything these days for half an hour but I could watch these two work in and out of holds for half an hour no problem at all. The first time Fujiwara went for the armbar Murdoch immediately dipped out the ring like he knew he needed no part of it. He knew what the armbar meant. Murdoch was 100% pro wrestling and sometimes against the UWF guys, or a few years later against the Russians, he'd still react to and sell some of the shoot holds like they were pro wrestling holds. Now and then he'd sell a cross armbreaker like it was a hammerlock, wriggling to the ropes for the break rather than scrambling like his arm was about to snap. When Fujiwara grabbed the armbar he was URGENT and the crowd picked up on it right away. He even wagged a finger at Fujiwara like no thank you my good man I will not be throwing beer cans at street signs with my OTHER arm tonight. Of course Murdoch's big weapon is the brainbuster and Fujiwara is pretty much built to counter that, which he almost does a couple times. Murdoch kipping up out of a wristlock is always great because you maybe sometimes forget how much of a proper athlete Captain Redneck is, then Fujiwara nearly rips him into another armbar you almost fall out the bed. As things did start to get a bit niggly I loved Murdoch blocking all of Fujiwara's headbutt attempts with his forearms. That he had Fujiwara scouted the way he did was another little sign of how much he respected him, and that the early applause really was genuine. When Fujiwara finally sneaks one through the guard Murdoch flops through the ropes and out to the floor like only he can. Overall this didn't feel like a match with the highest of stakes, but every single thing they did was earned through struggle and their considerable personalities shone through with every movement, clear as day even on handheld video footage nearly 40 years old. 

Darby Allin is crazy! And wrestles PAC! And Samoa Joe!

Darby Allin v PAC (AEW Dynamite, 1/14/26)

Another one for the Darby Allin is a Certifiable Maniac highlight reel. Everyone's seen the clip where he gets suplexed into the steps. It was all over the social medias and even a couple of my friends who don't follow wrestling but know I'm the sort of idiot who does sent me it, so I guess it was crazy enough that it permeated the meme zeitgeist populated by people in their mid-30s who work in construction sites and scroll through twitter during their lunch break. Probably. Anyhow the bump is sheer lunacy and really the only person who'd consider taking it is Darby, but everything in the match around it is really good too. Darby's tope at the start was amazing and nobody hits an out-of-nowhere tope like Darby. Every time I see PAC he's roided up even more than before. Sometimes it shocks me that he's able to fit so much muscle into such a tiny body and still manage to move the way he does. Darby was all over him early and when PAC decided to bring the steps into it, it felt like a move from a man who wanted to be entirely rid of Allin. PAC does also look like a very unpleasant little man so him trying to break someone in two with an overhead suplex on steel steps feels on brand. Darby's selling was pretty tremendous the rest of the way and there was yet more gnarly shit to be had, including PAC slingshotting Darby's face into the middle rope. I liked PAC tweaking his previously-injured ankle stepping down off the ropes, giving Darby a lifeline that he HUNGRILY accepted and then sandwiched said lifeline in a folding chair and jumped on it. 

Darby Allin v Samoa Joe (No Holds Barred) (AEW Dynamite, 2/1/23)

There can't be many match-ups in wrestling history as obviously perfect as this one. Darby will do insane shit and Joe will murder him; on the most basic of levels how could that not work a treat? It started as wildly as you'd expect a Samoa Joe/Darby Allin no holds barred match to start, with Allin flying into Joe while wearing a thumbtack-studded shirt before Joe plucked him out the air and squashed him. A lot of the match was built around Darby having to capitalise on glimmers of hope, usually by doing something that could land himself in hospital, while Joe could swing the tide with brute force and rage and surliness. Once again - Darby's tope might be the best in wrestling and this one looked tremendous, the way he zipped into that table and smashed the metal framing into Joe's face. It opened a mean cut above Joe's eye and the visual of that itself is badass enough, but it gave Joe's savagery an even sharper edge. There were several moments where he flew off the handle and literally chucked Darby away. First he did it on the stairwell where he dumped Allin headfirst on the steps, then later he launched him clean out the ring by the armpits. Darby is really an all-timer at finding creative openings and I loved him pulling powder from who knows where to avoid getting splattered with a powerbomb. He also, to the surprise of nobody, took some truly vile bumps. The suplex on the chair backs was clearly ludicrous but being smothered with the thumbtack shirt was sort of low key disgusting as well. But for all the crazy bumps it's Darby's selling of damage and how uphill his struggles are that sets him apart. He looked completely fucked at points (possibly/probably was?) and very few do it like he does. The thumbtack shirt Coffin Drop was an awesome desperation move and him digging his thumbs in Joe's eyes to break the choke was super nasty. He bet the farm on his final play, but Joe had the counter for it and if you don't wince at a Muscle Buster on an exposed wooden ring board then you've probably seen too much wrestling. You know this was great.