Let us deep dive some Portland!

I've started watching the DVDVR 80s Portland set. Portland is really the one remaining US territory that I've seen very little 80s footage of, so I've been looking forward to going through all of this for a while like a proper hardcore geek, as the DVDVR 80s territory set truly is one life's great gifts (or used to be anyway). Like, I've seen 70s Portland and lots of Buddy Rose from the WWF and AWA. I've seen plenty of Piper and Martel and Hennig and even guys like Matt Borne and the Sheepherders. None of the actual wrestlers are blind spots, but I've hardly watched anything from what they did in Portland during the 80s. So I'm just running through all of it and supplementing it with anything else I can find online. If there's a Buddy Rose or Roddy Piper match that never made the DVDVR set then I'll check that as well. It's a Portland bonanza. 

Buddy Rose & Chris Colt v Matt Borne & Iceman King Parsons (Portland, 1/12/80)

Really nice 15-minute TV tag. I like how Portland will throw in some structural riffs here and there, and this time they basically worked the back half as an extended finishing run. It wasn't regular southern tag formula all the way through, though the first half very much was. Either way it worked, as it usually did when Rose was involved. I'd seen this before and even wrote about it here on this very blog, almost a full decade ago just to really ram home how long I've been at this nonsense. Chris Colt looks just as spectacularly scummy in 2022 as he did in 2012 as he would have in 1980. Real Errol Childress third cousin vibe. And the patchwork tights are still absolutely incredible. I'll mention that again if I write about this for a third time in 2032. 

Harley Race v Rick Martel (Portland, 1/12/80)

It's sort of hard for me to watch this and not compare Race to Rose. It's Portland, it's a heel ace against a young babyface challenger, I can't really help but draw those comparisons, even if it's probably unfair to do so. I guess my overall impression is that Race is no Rose, though this was still a fun Harley performance and not being as great as Buddy Rose shouldn't be seen as an insult. He gets a real nice whip on his armdrag bumps that I maybe forgot he had in his locker, probably because it's been a minute since I've watched any Race this close to his physical prime. His corner bump was also sensational, just super quick and he made it look like something he had no control over. That's not an easy bump to make look not cooperative so fair play to the fella. Martel was chucking him about with scoop slams and I liked Harley's "oh you bastard that hurt" expressions. His offence looked sharp as well, including an absolute corker of a high knee that Martel took right in the forehead. I liked how the booking of the first fall finish made Harley look proper world champion strong. He'd been on the back foot for most of the fall, but that run of offence at the end was enough to pull him through. He's the champion of the world - reeling off a string of bombs SHOULD swing the tide. What they also did in the first fall was tease the importance of the sleeper. Martel went for it once and Race was frantic getting to the ropes, so they played it up in the second and third falls and whenever Martel hooked it the place went ballistic. In the end you bought that maybe Martel would've walked away with the gold if that time limit had been 30 seconds further down the line. 

Tenryu was Just a River Kid, Pickin' up Stones like David Did

Genichiro Tenryu & The Great Kabuki v Bob Orton & Jeff Jarrett (SWS, 10/18/90) - SKIPPABLE

This was fairly by-the-numbers, maybe not too surprising as the winning team would advance to the final of a one-night tag tournament, but if nothing else all four potential match ups here are ones that I don't think I've seen before (unless Jarrett had a quick exchange with Tenryu or Kabuki in the 1994 Royal Rumble). Jarrett throws some nice punches, Orton gets some HEAT by acting like a shithead, Tenryu leathers them both with chops and Kabuki throws several uppercuts. Jarrett's hair was also magnificent in 1990.

Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara & Koki Kitahara v King Haku, Kim Duk & Rio, Lord of the Jungle (WAR, 2/25/94) - FUN

That might not the *most* WAR of WAR trios you've ever seen, but Haku, Kim Duk and the future Renegade still make for a very WAR trio. This got some time and with a structural tweak here and there I probably would've liked it a bunch. They did this weird thing where the heels isolate Kitahara and open up a cut above the eye, which felt like it was going to lead to an extended beatdown. The crowd seemed primed for it too. Kitahara is a great mauler but he's also a super fun punching bag that you can't help but root for even though he spends the majority of the time being a surly wee bastard and bullying people. But then he just kind of tags out and the match resets for a while and then later on they pick up the heat segment again, only by that point it's lost a bit of punch. It was strange. The Hara/Haku exchanges were maybe the best part, especially the first one right at the outset. Two beefy gentlemen with rock solid heads fighting over the last power drill of the black Friday sale. Haku always laid his thrust kicks in a little deeper when he was working WAR or SWS and he hit everyone straight under the chin at least once. Yer Lord of the Jungle is not the best but Tenryu throws a table at him so that's always fun. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Art Buyer, Eight Twelve 'Rari Driver, Rey Spent Six Just to Make the Roof Harry Potter

Rey Mysterio, Edge & John Cena v Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle (Smackdown!, 8/8/02)

Very fun TV 6-man. Rey is basically timeless, but he's naturally slowed down a little as he nears 50 fucking years of age and I guess I forgot how quick and truly graceful he worked twenty years ago. There was one spinning hurricanrana from Benoit's shoulders here that was done at triple warp speed and then he hit a springboard armdrag on Eddie that'll never look as good against anyone other than Eddie Guerrero. A match made in heaven, those two. Cena was a bit clunky in this, which probably isn't a huge shock, but he was a strong enough face in peril and took one HUGE spinebuster from Angle. 2002 was the year Angle started to really flirt with the sweet nectar of EXCESS in his matches, and I know that's a YMMV thing but there were times where I couldn't be arsed with it and times where I thought he was more or less the perfect meathead bastard. This was more of the latter and he was especially good at setting himself up for the finish here, hitting the Angle Slam on Cena and shit-talking him only to get pasted with a 619, then stumbling dazed into a West Coast Pop. The Rey/Angle match-up is largely a can't-fail prospect and I remember that Summerslam match being awesome. I'd say I'll watch it later but I think we both know I'm very likely full of shit. 

Rey Project

Revisiting 90s Joshi #37

Kumiko Maekawa v Momoe Nakanishi (AJW, 3/1/98)

I don't have much of a handle on these two. Maekawa would show up on some of the earliest comp tapes I bought and thump the daylights out of people, but other than this very match I have no recollection of any of them now. I know I liked this one when I last watched it though (well over a decade now). She was also in one of the best joshi tags of the 90s, where she teamed with Hotta against Kandori and Mizuki Endo and obviously thumped the daylights out of her opponents. As far as undersized unpleasant crowbars go she's pretty unimpeachable. Nakanishi I've seen less of, but she's really here to take a walloping, courageously stay in the fight and maybe make a fist of causing an upset. For an 18-year-old with less than two years experience she did it about as well as you could expect. She was also fully willing to get kicked in the face and chin, to an almost silly degree. Maekawa landed half a dozen shots that were very putrid; a roundhouse to the throat, at least three thrust kicks straight under the chin, one where she dropped down out of a full nelson and caught Nakanishi in the face, and the axe kick at the end looked like a sledgehammer knocking a fence post into the dirt. This was straight on top of the head and Nakanishi's vertebrae never would've been the same after it. I know there are other Maekawa/Nakanishi matches. I think one of them goes an hour and I will not be bothering with that, but it's a match up I would revisit if they have another one along the same lines as this. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #36

Itsuki Yamazaki v Plum Mariko (JWP, 5/25/90)

So Itsuki Yamazaki is the real deal? Because she's starting to feel like the real deal. It's a shame she retired in 1991 (and seemingly stayed retired barring a handful of appearances ~20 years later) because she probably would've been a blast during the interpromotional boom period. Then again there's all that 80s stuff with the Jumping Bomb Angels just sitting there on the internet somewhere so maybe I should shut my mouth and watch that. This was a really fun Yamazaki performance. She wasn't even substantially more experienced than Plum, but she worked this as more experienced vet against a young underdog and I loved some of the neat little touches she added throughout. Plum blindsides her with a dropkick and German suplex at the bell so Yamazaki slows her down with the sleeper, but you can tell her neck is dinged up from the German and she isn't quite right. Plum fights back with a few different strategies, once by using her own sleeper holds, at another point snapping into kneebars, always staying on top of Yamazaki and never giving her the chance to build up much momentum. Yamazaki really puts over whichever strategy Plum is using at the time, the way she'll frantically scramble to the ropes to break the sleeper, sell the effects of the kneebars after she hits a shinbreaker, just generally getting surly and mean when Plum keeps coming back. After the Yumi Ikeshita well has run dry I might deep dive all of the Itsuki Yamazaki. Whenever the hell that'll be. 

Day 3 of Yumi Ikeshita!

Yumi Ikeshita, Tenjin Masami & Hiroko Komine v Jackie Sato, Tomi Aoyama & Lucy Kayama (AJW, 8/79) 

This was amazing as well and might actually be my favourite thing so far. If nothing else it might be the most complete match, at least in that from start to finish it actually WAS a match and nobody had to get carted out halfway through and Yumi Ikeshita never caused a near riot in the middle (not that that's a bad thing, of course). I feel sort of ridiculous looking a gift horse in the mouth like this, but there are times during these matches where you maybe almost kind of perhaps wish the babyfaces wouldn't be so utterly destroyed for extended periods. A little babyface shine here and there might be cool. That said, it's hard to complain too loudly when the heels causing the destruction are doing it with such aplomb. For most of the first fall this was a total, wonderful mauling. There's a stretch where the heels actively work over Lucy Kayama's FACE and it was fucking amazing. Tenjin may not have been going by Devil yet but the devil was certainly in her already. She has these big eye rakes that are almost claw-like and Kayama would sell them like she'd been attacked by a mongoose. Ikeshita would slam her face-first into the mat and drag her face along the canvas by the hair. Komine was raking her eyes and nose across the top rope. The three of them were kneeing and headbutting her in the chops and it was gloriously vicious. All three babyfaces took a turn getting smashed to bits in that first fall and all three stints ruled, but Kayama's was something else altogether. Whenever the babyfaces built up some momentum the heels would also try immediately to squash it, often as nastily as possible. Ikeshita wraps something around her fist at one point and regains control for her team by punching the babyfaces in the throat. Later on her and Masami tie this thing around Aoyama's neck, grab an end each and start pulling like they're trying to rip her fucking head off! Also how did joshi crowd brawling become so crummy? Because if more of the wrestlers were aping these lot it wouldn't have. Masami repeatedly slams Aoyama's head into the announce desk and the commentator gets caught in the crossfire after a flying microphone smacks him in the mouth, Ikeshita indiscriminately throws Jackie Sato into groups of spectators and Komine is using that chair to hit someone whether a pensioner is sitting on it or not. I should mention how awesome the offence looks here as well. Ikeshita has a phenomenal fallaway slam and a phenomenal bulldog. Masami is just steamrolling people with Vader-ish body blocks. Sato does these proto-slingblade things that look like they'd give you whiplash. The babyfaces all do this cool headbutt to the sternum after whipping their opponent off the ropes. Tomi Aoyama has a 9/10 on the Koko Ware Dropkick Scale and will hit four in rapid succession and also has a fucking 11/10 on the giant swing scale. Seriously, this is the quickest giant swing you've ever seen and then she'll pass them over to Jackie Sato who'll do the quickest airplane spin you've ever seen and what the fuck is this match doing in 1979??? Even the less crisp or impactful stuff works just because it's done with such snap, like Kayama's short-arm elbows. And while those runs of babyface control are few and far between, they absolutely make the most of them and it feels like they've scaled a mountain just by stringing five moves together. That's sure what it felt like at the end, and Aoyama hitting the coolest splash ever made for an awesome finish. They pulled it out the bag with grit and skill. Man this was great stuff. 

Another day of Yumi Ikeshita!

Yumi Ikeshita & Mami Kumano v Tomi Aoyama & Lucy Kayama (AJW, 7/31/79)

So I guess the Black Pair - Ikeshita and Kumano - are one of the greatest teams ever that nobody talks about as being a great team? At the very least they're one of the most savage. This was awesome (other than the ref' being on the take) and it was an amazing Black Pair performance. It's bonkers that this was happening in 1979 as the pace and general STUFF that they're doing is way different than basically everywhere else in the world. The first fall starts out mostly even, pretty back and forth, similar to lots of 80s New Japan tags with nobody really sustaining an advantage but everything being quick and hectic. They capture the sense of struggle, which is maybe the most important thing in a match like that or else it's four wrestlers just doing some shit with no drama. Then Kumano jabs Kayama in the neck with a wrench and both her and Ikeshita zero in on Kayama's bandaged up leg. And from there it's pretty much madness. The Black Pair are relentless going after this thing and Kayama sells it all amazingly. She's frantic in trying to make it to her corner yet Ikeshita and Kumano constantly double up on her, and every time Aoyama comes in the ref' forces her back out, which gives the Black Pair even more rope to work with. There was one incredible spot where they unwrap some of the tape around Kayama's knee, wrap that around her throat, and because it's still partially attached to the knee it ends up being some makeshift torture device that chokes Kayama the more she extends her own leg. Kumano holds the leg up and Ikeshita does a middle rope headbutt to the knee, Ikeshita just boots Kayama right in the kneecap whenever she tries to stand up, Aoyama is going ballistic the whole time. The hot tag was pure desperation. It wasn't like a US hot tag where she created an opening, milked crawling to her corner and reached out just as one of the heels made a tag at the same time. This was Kayama repeatedly trying to jump or wriggle away from them and finally one lunge allowed her to slip Kumano's grasp. Kayama tags herself back in before long and I think Aoyama actually tries to stop her from throwing herself to the wolves again, which fucking ruled. And you see why she would try that because of course Kayama gets obliterated in short order. You'd think she was legitimately dead as people cart her away in between falls. The second fall is more Black Pair mauling and Aoyama being as scrappy as possible trying to come back. Ikeshita has incredible headbutts and I'm sort of in awe at how she carries herself, but Kumano is no slouch in bastardry, let me tell you. The part where they were taking turns murdering her with punches was straight out of the very best Memphis punch sequences and how the hell has this stuff gone under the radar for so long?! Aoyama's comeback rules as she does a fucking 1979 leaping top rope springboard that takes out both Ikeshita and Kumano, then tries to dive to the floor and Kumano fucking whomps her in the head with a chair! Twice! These AJW refs would earn the ire of every current NBA superstar because they let motherfucking eeeeverything go and after having a chair smashed off her skull (twice) this one is all but academic. These Black Pair matches are wild as fuck and I feel no less certain that I need to see every second of Yumi Ikeshita ever committed to tape.

We are watching some Yumi Ikeshita!

I've been watching some 80s joshi over the last week. I don't really know where to start with a lot of it and I'm not going to attempt a full chronological deep dive because that would take me fourteen years, but I did at least jump to the beginning of the decade. That seems like a sensible way to go about things, surely? Either way I'm glad I did, because it allowed me to discover Yumi Ikeshita. I had never heard of Yumi Ikeshita before. Even for someone not particularly well versed in the joshi puroresu I feel like I have a decent grasp of who's highly regarded. I don't remember ever reading anything about this woman and yet after a couple matches my feeling was "get me all of the Yumi Ikeshita, I guess." One of the most badass wrestlers ever, who despite being skinny as a rake projects a near-unmatched aura of calculating killer. One of the only wrestlers who'll twist you into a pretzel, headbutt you in face and stab you with a fork all in the one match and be amazing at each of those things. I'm sketchy on joshi's early forced retirement rules, but unlike a number of her contemporaries she never had a second run later, which means she was active for all of about six years and only thirty or so matches of hers are even in circulation. A crying shame then. However, we will take all that we have and thank the old gods and the new for such treasures, scarce as they may be. Yumi Ikeshita - we hardly knew ye. 

Yumi Ikeshita v Lucy Kayama (AJW, 2/21/80) 

So yeah, get me all of the Yumi Ikeshita. I thought this was tremendous. It was almost a cross between your classic 70s NWA title formula (wrestled by bantamweights) and a lucha title match, if one of the participants was some sort of warp speed Abdullah the Butcher-Javier Llanes mishmash. The first half was outstanding with some first class grappling. I think one of the things I value most in wrestling at this point is the sense of struggle and this always felt like a struggle. Each reversal, every hold, they were crisp but always maintained the feeling of being fought over. Some of it also looked cool as fuck and at the end of the day that's always a bonus. Ikeshita's rolling key lock for example was maybe the slickest I've ever seen without it looking like the opponent is having to actively do any of the rolling. When it wasn't beautiful it was brutal and that worked just as well, like Ikeshita wrapping her hands around Kayama's throat and basically dragging her around the ring. At some point Ikeshita pulls a fork and gets to stabbing Kayama in the head, which was a little jarring (and perhaps unfortunate because it means no more matwork) but I'll be fucked if it didn't work for me at the same time. The vampire in me wanted buckets of blood but I suppose we make do. It builds to a couple big revenge spots as Kayama finally steals the fork and goes wild, then Ikeshita grabs a chair and bonks both Kayama and the referee, who thankfully decides not to throw out the match for whatever reason. We get two big dives and that thing about piledrivers not meaning anything in joshi is maybe a 90s thing because wouldn't you believe it, this actually ends on a piledriver! This ruled and Ikeshita is definitely on the watch as much of her as you can list. 

Yumi Ikeshita & Mami Kumano v Tomi Aoyama & Lucy Kayama (AJW, 3/80) 

What the fuck was this?! I don't even know where to start but it was certainly something. Ikeshita is fucking amazing, just a skinny yet outrageously menacing presence, all violence all the time, never to be trifled with. I've literally never seen a Yumi Ikeshita performance that wasn't awesome (in all of the half dozen that I've seen). Her and Kumano are clearly the heels and I guess Aoyama and Kayama are the plucky babyfaces. They were quick in a way that you'd call SUDDEN. Just full steam ahead and borderline rabid, but rabid in the endearing sort of way because everyone in attendance is screaming their head off for them. Of course they HAD to be a little rabid or Yumi Ikeshita would merely headbutt them into oblivion. This is 2/3 falls and the first fall was really fun and super hectic. I love how Kumano and Ikeshita don't even wait half a second before coming to the other's aid. There was one bit where Kayama landed on her feet off an attempted Ikeshita flapjack and before she could throw a punch Kumano was in booting her in the stomach. Aoyama and Kayama hit a couple nice double teams and then go fuck it, drag Kumano to the floor and try to strangle her with a microphone chord. That leads to them picking up the fall with a killer assisted splash that for a second there looked like it could've ended catastrophically for one or maybe all of those involved. The final two falls were madness of the highest order and Ikeshita was like a pig in mud. They run an injury angle where Aoyama appears to tear her ACL while trying to apply a Boston Crab, then Kayama comes in and shields her from being stomped senseless. So Ikeshita and Kumano stomp BOTH of them senseless! People are going ballistic and trainees in tracksuits try to intervene and Yumi Ikeshita is just fucking whomping every single one of them. Some athletic trainer starts pulling on Aoyama's leg like a cartoon character trying to open a door and I question his credentials because that is the last thing you want to do with a ruptured ACL and Ikeshita grabs him by the hair and fucking launches him out the ring! And you're thinking "okay this is clearly going to a stoppage," but they actually clear the ring again and Ikeshita and Kumano level the falls. And then they start the third fall despite Aoyama being unable to move, many tracksuited trainees are manhandled by the skinniest woman in the building, someone in a suit and earpiece gets awkwardly thrown through the ropes (by guess who), the woman on commentary is in tears, every child in the building is shrieking herself hoarse, then Aoyama finally manages to roll out the ring but Ikeshita has the brass to pin Kayama for the win after she ends up getting battered instead. Yumi Ikeshita is the by god truth and this was an incredible spectacle.

Revisiting 90s Joshi #35

Shinobu Kandori, Yuki Ito & Mami Kitamura v Harley Saito, Miss A & Miki Handa (JWP, 1/7/90)

I really like the feel of these pre-split JWP matches. The structure and pacing is almost like WAR on fast forward, which I'll usually be more into than what they were doing in AJW around this time (AJW on fast forward, I guess). Kandori v Kansai (Miss A) is the main pairing here and it ruled pretty much straight away. They want to get at each other early and have to be separated, then when they do get in together Kansai obliterates Kandori with kicks. Kandori then catches her with a nasty Fujiwara armbar and the way she just stomps her senseless afterwards was an amazing receipt. When it spills to the floor later Kandori launches Kansai into the guardrail with such force that a section of it goes flying and about flattens one of the tracksuited trainees. All of the partner saves are extremely WAR as well, as Kansai would lariat Kandori in the back of the head as the latter tried to apply a submission or kick her in the skull to break up a pin attempt. There was a really cool moment where Kandori dragged Handa over to the corner and tagged in Ito, but then as Ito climbed the turnbuckles Kansai and Saito came running over for the assist and Kansai hucked Ito halfway across the ring. Harley Saito is a treasure as always, even if she was quieter than you'd like. Still rolled out a few of those wheel kicks and about kicked Ito in two at one point. I'd actually never seen Kitamura or Ito before but they equipped themselves well enough. They were clearly below Saito and especially Kansai in the hierarchy so they got whomped more than once, and they took their licks well. Unfortunately the finish looked botched with the ref' counting a premature three, which is a shame because it was set up for a nice finishing run. There are a couple Kandori/Kansai matches from late '89 out there now and they probably weren't terrible. 

Santo v Casas (part 2)

El Hijo del Santo, Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr. v Negro Casas, El Dandy & Hector Garza (CMLL, 11/22/96)

This was even better than I remembered. It's the match where Santo turns rudo in Arena Mexico, and if you're looking for a reason why Santo would go over to the dark side, you can assume it's because he's finally had enough of Negro Casas' shit after all these years. He can't take it in his stride anymore. And to make matters worse, Casas is one of the GOOD guys now? After everything he's done, not just to Santo but to every other tecnico in the company at one point or another? If that's how THIS world works then El Hijo del Santo will carve a new one, and Negro Casas will have no place in it. The original line-up had Felino as part of the rudo unit, but it's Santo who appears after the match has started. He initially comes out wearing a cape with the hood up, then he jumps in the ring, rips it off and goes total badgershit on Casas. At that point people realise what's happening and there's almost a sense of shock, mostly from the crowd but also from Dandy and Hector Garza. This is the son of El Santo? Siding with a pair of bastards like Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr? It's damn near incomprehensible. There's even a shot of someone in the crowd having to be escorted by police back to his seat! Santo was unbelievable here and not just in how he would go after Casas. He was a madman and obviously that part was amazing, but there were some awesome little intricacies in his performance as well. His singular focus was mauling Negro Casas. He didn't even acknowledge Dandy or Garza, who both tried to talk some sense into him at various points. Bestia and Scorpio were attacking anything that moved, but Santo only had claws for Casas. In fact he barely even acknowledged his own partners, who tried a couple times to integrate him into some crowd taunting. Bestia and Scorpio would double team Dandy, Santo wasn't interested. They'd double team Garza, Santo wasn't interested. But when they double team Casas? Call it a triple team because Santo was all in on that. He didn't change his whole approach to wrestling just because he was flying with a different murder of crows. He was still El Hijo del Santo, it's just that his hatred of Casas had pushed him past the brink, and past the brink waited Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr. Dandy and Garza kind of standing around doing nothing at points while the rudos brutalise Casas might look silly in isolation, but when you look at the bigger picture it's like...why would either of them feel compelled to come to his aid, especially against Santo? Dandy and Casas have had beef for years and were even at each other's throat a few months earlier. That built to the third fall when Dandy finally made his choice. Fly with the crows you get shot with the crows, and if these were the crows Santo wanted to fly with then so be it. The first Santo/Dandy exchange was amazing and then of course Santo makes his own choice and everyone's fair game after that. If the enemy of your enemy is your friend then what does that make the friend of your enemy? Casas stumbling around losing blood and trying to fight back was incredible. He leaves for treatment after the first fall and when he comes roaring back looking for vengeance people are going mental. That his adrenaline only gets him as far as another whipping leaves plenty on the table for the rematch, though if that wasn't enough then the rudos holding him up to the camera like a trophy kill probably sealed it. 

Santo v Casas (part 1)

El Hijo del Santo v Negro Casas (CMLL, 9/29/95)

I assume there was some lead-in to this. Probably a trios where things got tetchy - as things between Santo and Casas tended to get - and here we are at the mano a mano. I should probably seek it out because I guess the more context the better - and most importantly the more Santo v Casas the better - but either way this stood on its own as being awesome. It had some of the best matwork I've seen from them, all of it applied and fought over with a real grittiness. They'd try and kick their way out of holds, then Casas would just drop on top of Santo and throw forearms, almost from inside the clinch, while Santo would grab his hair and throw forearms of his own. This might've had the tightest Santo headscissors I've ever seen. He clamped that thing around Casas' head and whipped him to the mat repeatedly, then Casas got more and more irritated and eventually tried to heel kick him in the eye. It eventually breaks down like you expect and Santo rams Casas head-first into the post, Casas gets bloodied and tries to rip Santo's mask off, the ref' takes an elbow to the jaw and long before the match gets thrown out you know they're settling nothing this night. I guess it had been so long since I watched Santo in a hate feud that I half forgot how great he was in them, but this was a swift reminder. 

El Hijo del Santo, Atlantis & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. v Negro Casas, El Canek & Apolo Dantes (CMLL, 7/12/96)

You could say this was a Santo v Casas show. And by "you could say," what I'm definitively saying is that this was a Santo v Casas show. It's so much of a Santo v Casas show that everything not involving them really pales in comparison. They're at each other's throat from the very beginning as Santo hits a running knee lift while Casas is stepping through the ropes, then drops him with a straight right to the face. And we're off to the races from there, brothers. The first 8-10 minutes are all Santo and Casas. Everyone else stands around watching, unsure if they should get involved while deep down knowing they probably shouldn't. At one point Apolo Dantes looks at Casas like "are you taking that?" and then a minute later there's another shot of him standing there like "well I guess he wasn't taking that." I think there was a 20-second period where both of them were on their respective apron before Casas comes in and sprints over to get at Santo again. It just escalates from there, spills to the floor, referees get involved, some suits plead with Casas to let it be over, fans in a frenzy. This was legit some of the best pull-apart brawling ever, where they'd be separated for a brief moment before one of them would break free and attack the other, every instance of it a little more wild than the last. There's about a dozen cops on the scene and Casas runs through rows of spectators while pensioners and children scatter. Santo will headbutt Casas until he's sprawled over someone's lap, then he'll get up and charge again and this time Santo is left lying underneath a row of fixed seats. The cops and referees nearly manage to usher Casas through the curtain, but he gets loose and sprints down the ramp and they're at it again. It was madness, like a genuine street brawl where the police are called and friends and family members are in tears on the side of the road. The problem is that nothing else is hitting those heights. When they're finally cleared from ringside the other four guys settle into an actual match, but it's hard not to actively want the camera to cut backstage for some more carnage with even other wrestlers trying to put out the fire. When the backstage cuts stop you hope the fight spills back out to ringside again, but it never happens. The remainder of the match sets up a 2 v 2 tag the following week, and it's fine and everything, it's just that nothing was going to match Santo/Casas unless it was more Santo/Casas. Still, this was some phenomenal Santo/Casas and it's worth watching for that alone. 

Some Tournament ARSION

Ayako Hamada v Mary Apache (ARSION, 8/31/98)

This was pretty neat. I thought Apache was a lot of fun with her quick armdrags and swanky matwork, including a really tight armbar-anaconda vice hybrid thing. Hamada is 17 here and that's sort of bonkers. How many matches could she have had by this point, considering she only made her debut a couple weeks prior? Three? Two? She was rough around the edges because of course she would be, but I liked how her scrappiness made up for it. There's an exuberance that's quite infectious and overall this worked as a pairing. 

 

Mikiko Futagami v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 8/31/98)

Really good stuff. Tamada zeroes in on Futagami's leg early and pretty much stays focused on it all the way through. Ten years ago I'd have wanted Futagami to sell it BIGGER, but at this point I'm fine with how she drew attention to it. It was more understated yet she'd hobble and show signs of discomfort. She also tried to palm thrust Tamada's front teeth through her brain and that was more important than anything else. Tamada has a bandaged up shoulder and by the end Futagami is trying to pull it apart, and as always with ARSION they're awesome at milking those escapes and rope breaks for all they're worth. 

 

Michiko Ohmukai v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 8/31/98)

Not a patch on the April match, but still decent. Ohmukai's strikes - particularly her kicks - are a bit of an enigma as some will look atrocious and others will look fucking devastating and she had a few of both in this match. Which is usually the case, as I'm sure I've written several times over the years. In fairness to Fukawa she turned one of the former into an amazing spot by grabbing it out the air and locking in a sick kneebar, and then at the end we got an example of the latter when Ohmukai about took Fukawa's head off. I like how ARSION sell the gravity of these tournaments as the wrestlers will come in with something bandaged up from a previous round and inevitably those injuries will come into play. Ohmukai's shoulder is taped and if you want to convince me she worked the early parts with as much urgency as she did because she wanted to keep Fukawa from targeting that shoulder...well I'd probably listen. When Fukawa does get a chance to go after it I was absolutely buying Ohmukai tapping out. ARSION do near-submissions better than basically any non-shoot style promotion ever, FWIW. There were also parts of this where they stopped what they were doing and slapped each other really hard across the face. That even made a couple of the no-selling bits palatable. If you're going to no-sell something at least make it look like BELLIGERENCE has made you impervious to pain for a wee second there. 

Mariko Yoshida v Reggie Bennett (ARSION, 8/31/98)

This is a great match up and of course this was badass. I like just about all of the wrestlers on the ARSION roster from this period for one reason or another, so this shouldn't be read as a knock on them, but Yoshida is different gravy and looks flat out amazing nearly every time she shows up. The early matwork here was fantastic and nobody else really does it quite at that level. The struggle, the way it looks uncooperative but slick, it's really great. She was crawling all over Reggie trying to work around the size disadvantage, trying to hook a limb in a way that wouldn't allow Reggie to literally just fall on top of her and smother her. Reggie is a blast and more than holds her own on the mat. Where did she actually go after ARSION? She'd have been a great Serena Deeb opponent in the year 2022. Yoshida was for giving nothing easy and Reggie had to fight for every throw just as much as Yoshida had to fight for every armbar or ankle lock. Yoshida cracking the code with the slickest armbar you've seen is a pretty awesome finish as well. It wasn't like she focused on a specific limb through the match, she was just grabbing whatever was there, used one hold then would transition to another when it presented itself, just constantly recalibrating as necessary. One of the best to ever do it. 

It's Back to the Basics, Piper Hopped Back in the Matrix. Gave the Maybach Back, Now it's off to the Races

Roddy Piper & Hulk Hogan v Paul Orndorff & Harley Race (WWF, 11/24/86) - EPIC

How about that for the most electric team you've ever seen in your fuckin life? This was perfect wrestling to me, just a molten hot ten minutes with a babyface team that the crowd will lose its absolute mind for. Right out the gate Piper and Hogan clean house, then they accidentally back into each other, tear off their shirts and draw their fists. They may be teammates on the night but they're not friends and neither has any love nor trust for the other. Then Orndorff and Race get back in and Hogan picks up Piper so Roddy can double pump kick the pair of them back out the ring. The babyface shine was basically some extended arm work on Race, and it was fine if basic stuff, but the real magic here was the tags. As in, the act of tagging your partner in the ring. Every tag elicited an insane crowd response and it was the way they milked those tags that did it. Can they coexist after their history together? Before every tag they look at each other for a couple seconds, I guess taking the measure of one another. By the fourth or fifth it's almost a high five, forceful enough to snap a mere mortal's wrist, the pair of them working as a genuine unit, realising that you don't always need to be best buddies with your teammates. If Jordan can deck Steve Kerr and still win a title together, who says Hogan and Piper can't set aside their past for one night? Piper is an awesome face in peril on sheer charisma alone, but I really love how desperate he always feels in trying to escape trouble. Race was clearly having fun rolling out some big offence and Piper was on his last punch drunk legs. Hogan coming in roaring to save him from a corner mugging at one point was amazing and just primed everyone to explode for that hot tag, which they obviously did. Piper scoring the win even though he wasn't the legal man is definitely one of those things that would've gotten under Hogan's skin, then he gives Hogan the 'up yours' and leaves him alone against the heels after the match, which was incredible. Coexisting in a wrestling match against a common enemy is one thing, but to hell with doing it after the cheque's already been cashed. An insanely fun match. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Danielson & Hangman Go Broadway!

Adam Page v Bryan Danielson (AEW Dynamite, 12/15/21)

Look, I won't beat the dead horse about how I don't love hour-long matches, or the other dead horse about how I don't love Danielson working long in general, so instead I'll just say that I thought this was great. Actually I'll at least draw attention to both dead horses for a second because I was thinking about wrestlers I'd be most content to watch work an hour-long match at this point, and I actually reckon Danielson has more broadways that I'd want to re-watch (like, three or something) than anyone else, so that's an interesting - and perhaps somewhat ironic? - turn of events that you can tell the family about. Knowing beforehand that a match is going an hour will usually put it at a disadvantage with me because I'm already kind of dreading it, even if I like the wrestlers who are actually in it. I've personally never worked an hour-long match before (or indeed any match), but I imagine it would be hard to do one without merely killing time to some degree. And time-killing can be fine and all that but it's not always the most engaging. Maybe the biggest compliment I can pay this is that I really don't remember any periods of it where I thought they were just killing time, or at least periods where if they WERE killing time it actually felt like it. Nearly everything they did had some sort of payoff, or at the very least felt to me - a singular, gentle viewer with his own take on the story they were telling - like it advanced the story they were telling. It was a story with different chapters and they moved from one to the next in interesting ways, added layers so it wasn't just a case of "this part of the match is finished, now it's time for the next one," worked things in a way that wouldn't have had me expecting it to go to a draw in real time, just really good stuff. Danielson was outstanding and it might be one of his finest performances. He worked this like a guy who believes he's the best in the world and I loved all the jumping jacks and general horse shit. He milked the knife-edge chop like his name was Fit Finlay or Eddie Guerrero and when Page finally lands that first one it feels like a shotgun blast. Danielson as mean shooter bastard is my favourite Danielson and this was the Danielson we got for large stretches. He went after the leg for a minute or two, then shifted to the midsection, then finally to the arm in the back half, but none of those shifts felt haphazard or like he was just doing shit. Loved the bit where he had Page in an ankle lock and booted him full force in the ribs. They sort of tease working towards the finish about half an hour in, then they do the reset with Page taking the shoulder bump on the apron and getting some JUICE~. The midpoint with them checking on Page could've gotten long in the tooth but I thought Danielson was amazing at getting legit fuckin heat by acting like a prick. Back half was excellent. Danielson selling the leg, doing one-legged bastard jumping jacks, all of it. Page having to go into deep waters and not knowing if he can survive, especially against a guy who's done it a hunner thousand times, just real good wrestling storytelling shit man. Brilliant match.

Darby v Page

Darby Allin v Ethan Page (Coffin Match) (AEW Dynamite, 7/14/21) 

This was tremendous and one of my favourite things I've watched from 2021. As far as plunderfests go it was about as good as it gets without going stupidly overboard, and I say that having watched a decent bunch of AEW plunderfests over the last couple weeks and finding at least something to enjoy about all of them (except the Adam Cole one). I don't know if I've ever actually seen Ethan Page before. He was a pretty fun meathead in this, had some neat strength spots where he got to chuck Darby around, and I liked him doing goofy shit like serenading a bolt hook before trying to wring Darby's neck with it. Still, this was Darby's match and that boy is outrageous. He took several ludicrous bumps, two of which being fully batshit and at least a 9.5/10 on the Darby Bump Scale. He also jumped off a balcony and when Page caught him I half expected him to chuck Darby down the nearby staircase. Which is really a theme with Darby. There are often moments in his matches where he'll be in a situation in which something bonkers could happen, and with most wrestlers you wouldn't even really consider it being a thing, but with him you stop and go "wait...he wouldn't, would he?" And there are times where the crazy thing that pops into your head doesn't happen and you breathe a sigh of relief, but then there are others where it does happen and there are only like four people in wrestling who would actually do it. Basically it means every Darby match has a real sense of danger and unpredictability. This had two of those moments that hit me, the first being the catch off the balcony dive, which did not result in near death but probably would have if this were Puerto Rico. The second was the avalanche bomb on the steps, which they actually went through with and how Allin is still walking at all right now is a miracle. Darby is just as reckless with his own body when making his comeback, hitting the amazing tope where he hurls himself into Page like someone shot him out a catapult. The revenge spot with the bolt hook was amazing as well, literally fish hooking Page's cheek with this big giant bastard bit of metal. The Sting/Scorpio involvement worked great, I thought. Sting is old but has the presence and is just BIGGER (or at least taller) than most of the roster, so he looks imposing marching to the ring to even the odds after Scorpio pops out the coffin. Him and Sky had some compelling crowd brawling, then Darby and Page did the same, and modern crowd brawling isn't always something I enjoy so it's cool that four of them managed to grab me with it. Darby getting launched around the place probably helped. Him and Jimmy Jacobs would've made some magic in 2007 ROH throwing each other down staircases and stabbing each other with railroad spikes. Loved the finish with Darby hitting the skateboard double stomp, and then the COFFIN Coffin Drop was insanity. I audibly said "fuck off" when he climbed the turnbuckles and figured he surely wouldn't and then he did. Darby might be the best undersized babyface working opposite a bigger heel in wrestling right now.

Some Full Gear 2021

This was one of only two PPVs I checked out in any capacity last year. My interest in American wrestling was as low as it had ever been, between starting a new job and doing a PhD I barely had time to watch stuff I did have interest in, and for the first time since maybe the year 2000 I didn't even bother watching Wrestlemania within a couple days of it happening. I didn't watch everything on this show, or if I did then I didn't pay attention to everything. I think I had the Adam Cole thing on as background noise while I dicked about with Excel formulas. I knew nothing about the context of any match and I'm pretty sure I hadn't even realised Rusev and Miro were one and the same until I saw this. I was mostly interested in four matches -- Darby/MJF because I liked Darby, Danielson/Miro because I liked Danielson, Punk/Kingston because surely that had to be good, and Page/Omega because Page has great entrance music and he was cutting about on a horse for a minute there. I liked all four to varying degrees, or at least liked that Page won the belt in the main event, and I'll watch three of the four matches again. I'd be shocked if they all don't land a little better this time as well.

Darby Allin v MJF

I thought this was great the first time and even better on a re-watch. There were a couple things I could've maybe done without and I guess they could've shaved off a few minutes, but as a whole they knocked this bastard out the park. My gripes with it aren't even major ones, really. More than anything else they took me out of it a bit when they went back to the roll-ups and trading inside cradles during the finishing run. It felt like Flair doing a headlock takeover as a setup to the bridge-into-backslide bit that he'd usually do late in matches, I guess because it was a thing he liked to do so why not. It's jarring and always feels out of place. On the other hand they at least had an excuse to go to the headlock in the first place, as half the story coming in was that MJF was adamant he could beat Darby outright with a headlock takeover. Still, it didn't last very long and they reeled me back in pretty quickly. It was more Savage v Steamboat than Flair v Terry Taylor. Prolly. The second thing isn't even much of a gripe to be honest, and I could probably convince myself that I actively liked it. If one half of the story was built around MJF wanting to beat Darby with a headlock, the other half was built around him throwing shit at Darby's dead uncle. They leaned more into the former than the latter, so they started with an extended chain wrestling sequence and not Darby trying to stab Friedman in the face with a chisel, which would've been my personal preference. Either way it started with an MFJ headlock takeover, so you have your narrative consistency and all that, but what really grabbed me was the thing that'll usually have the opposite effect. The headlock led into an extended parity exchange, and by extended I mean probably the longest one that I've seen. I don't even like Dean Malenko/Eddie Guerrero exchanges when fucking Eddie Guerrero is doing them so most other people have no shot, but I'll be damned if this wasn't the apex of Malenko/Guerrero indie parity stalemates. They hit everything clean as a whistle and the degree of difficulty on some stuff was fairly high, and hey, if you're Darby and some schmuck is saying he could beat you with a headlock then why not go and prove him wrong straight out the gate? Darby Allin can WRESTLE. Storytelling! Everything else was tremendous. Straight after the opening exchange MJF cracks Darby with a sucker punch, then takes it to the floor and we get one of the top drawer Darby Allin topes. Darby's tope is great for a few reasons and one of them is how it requires less setup than most. He just hits it quicker, so the recipient has to spend less time standing there waiting for it. This one had the recipient adding his own spin, as MJF started jawing with a fat boy in the crowd and never even saw it coming. Of course Darby crushed him dead with it too. Darby was out of his mind and the missed Coffin Drop on the apron pretty much writes its own story after that, but MJF's work on the back was inspired. Some of those backbreakers were perfect and the powerbomb on the knee was an absurdity of a thing. That's a spot that doesn't look good all that often, but Darby is a maniac and this looked like something that would paralyze you. As soon as it happens MJF sells his own knee, and it makes sense because obviously a move like that is a double-edged sword. I thought everything around that knee from there on out ruled. He sold it great in that each time he used it as part of an offensive move or Darby chop blocked it, the longer it took for him to recover. He wasn't hobbling around on one leg right away, it was still functional to begin with but by the end he was having to drag himself back to one foot with the ring ropes. All the huge bumps towards the end looked great - the tombstone on the apron (where MJF sold the knee again), the Coffin Drop on the floor, the crazy Hijo del Santo powerbomb thing, everything getting major reactions. I thought the finish with the skateboard had just the right amount of theatre without being stupid and in the end MJF did what he said he'd do; he just needed some Memphis courage to get him over the line. Really an awesome match, and up there as one of the best PPV openers you'll get. 

Bryan Danielson v Miro 

I liked this way more second time around. Watching it in November I was actually a wee bit disappointed, as it was the first time I'd checked out Danielson in AEW and I no idea what Miro was supposed to be. Context helps, shockingly enough. This is the first time in his AEW run that Danielson has been shut down with such relative ease. Miro would absorb shots and literally chuck him across the ring and Danielson's persistence didn't seem to matter. Miro had the engine so you couldn't even see Danielson adopting the Morishima strategy. It was a really fun Miro performance and I guess this is about the highest I've ever been on him. Presumably he was legit injured here (has he made an appearance since?) because Danielson never went after the bandaged up leg, though he did try and chip away at the other leg even if it never got much traction. By the end it felt like Danielson was just trying to survive in the hopes that his ridiculous skill could carve out an advantage, and I obviously loved Miro doing an Ultimate Warrior and asking his gods for guidance when Danielson escaped the Game Over. I even enjoyed Miro raising his arms like a big old grizzly bear and telling Danielson to kick him. That stuff is usually bull pucky but this reminded me of one of your big Dutch judokas coming into RINGS and telling Maeda to stop hitting like a child. Miro's history of neck problems is documented enough that eating an ugly DDT from the top rope was a plausible death shot, and after that it's hard to shake a guy who has you locked in a guillotine when you've lost feeling in your arms and legs. 

CM Punk v Eddie Kingston 

Phenomenal on first watch, more phenomenal on second watch. It's another one that lands even better after seeing the build up (which was short, but that in-ring segment was incredible and they really didn't need a whole lot more after that). This was basically a street fight from the jump, but not a pro wrestling street fight with your kendo sticks and ladders; a street fight between two guys who want to punch a hole in the other's face, which is really the best kind of street fight, the kind that spills from a bar or a supermarket or boxing gym into the middle of the road. Eddie walloping Punk with the back fist as Remsburg tries to separate them was an amazing way to start it, and Punk's lights on but nobody's home selling was spectacular. When he flips Eddie the bird before even standing back up you have a pretty good idea of what this is going to be like. I thought both guys were tremendous, for similar reasons in the broad strokes sense - selling, timing, all of that - but also for how they took pretty different character paths as the match went along. This might've been the first time Punk got audibly booed since coming into AEW, and I guess it's a look at how things might go whenever the Page feud really picks up. Both of them were babyfaces and Kingston has about as much of a die hard following as Punk at this point, but even if Punk expected the crowd to be split going in he obviously rolled with some of the punches here. It was noticeable in his other matches as well, where he was clearly going with the flow and tapping into what the crowd were after. In the Sydal match it was playing up the body slam, and there was no way he could've expected that crowd to be rabid enough for a fucking body slam that he planned it beforehand. It was improv and it was brilliant. When he jumped on a near-lifeless Kingston and started clubbing him about the head I don't think he expected the crowd to side so completely with Eddie, especially considering they never showed much displeasure earlier when Kingston was trying to rip Punk's ear off or bite a chunk out his head. That moment in particular didn't seem to precipitate a change in Punk weather vane, because there were points earlier where he leaned into the idea that he wasn't the hero in this tale, but if nothing else it was a culmination of things. Those things being the tease of the five-knuckle shuffle, the pause and grin as he acknowledged the boos while blood streamed down his face, and my favourite bit, the three amigos while the crowd chanted Eddie. The latter might've been something they did plan, as the PPV fell on the anniversary of Eddie Guerrero's death, but he knew those Eddie chants were for Kingston and he decided to do the Guerrero spot THEN and I don't think anybody needs to worry about him getting heat whenever they properly turn him heel. Kingston was phenomenal again. There's a realness about Eddie that almost no other wrestler can capture. He's raw in a way that not even Punk is, and after the Players' Tribune article he's relatable in a way that almost nobody is. Not necessarily in the sense that most of us can relate to wrestling on indie shows for fifteen bucks a night, more that we can relate to the broader struggle and sentiment that he conveyed so perfectly in that article. It's difficult not to want that man to succeed, and Punk WAS kind of a dickhead to him on Dynamite. Eddie captured every bit of that rawness in his performance and the crowd were going to live and die with him. Plus he tapped into that lunatic vein of his and tried to send Punk to the hospital, which at the end of the day is what we came for. Wiping Punk's blood over his own face like war paint, the mocking GTS call followed by the "what a jack off" gesture (legitimately one of the greatest moments in the history of our sport, btw), his unbelievable selling, just everything he did from the second he walked onto the ramp. This also might've had the best Frye/Takayama spot since the actual Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama were whomping each other in the face and I pray to the old gods and the new that we get this match up again in 2022. An incredible bitta wrestling. 

Kingston and Dragon Bring the Heat

Bryan Danielson v Eddie Kingston (AEW Rampage, 10/29/21)

Mother a god what a wrestling match. Kingston might be - if you'll excuse the hilarious punnery for one second - the king of working 90s All Japan in American wrestling, really because he doesn't do all of the excessive shit that most of the wrestlers who grew up watching 90s All Japan tapes decided to incorporate into their matches years later. But fuck a commentary on 90s All Japan because this was way less like that and way more like WAR on crank. And if you're going to crib from 90s Japanese wrestling promotions and work some approximation of them in modern AEW then there are none I would want to see more than the Wrestle and Romance. They only did two promos in the lead up to this, one of them on youtube that I'd never have known about had I not stumbled upon it by accident. In those segments Danielson was almost condescending towards Kingston, complimenting him on being tough as nails and a brilliant wrestler, but doing it with the back of his hand by saying that Eddie could be so much more if he'd ever actually work for anything. Kingston was not about to listen to that shit and brought up how he's beaten addiction, fought depression and worked for everything he's ever had in life. We know it to be true as well, and between that and Eddie's general ability to garner sympathy and support just for being who he is, it felt like this crowd maybe wanted him to put Danielson in his place a little. 

Danielson was great in this and it was a performance that might not have been as special 15 years ago. He could've worked it more or less the same, but in 2007 he was the king of ROH, whereas in 2021 he's a legitimate pro wrestling superstar. He's been everywhere by now and it felt like he almost let Kingston take the reins. He was a man who had nothing else he needed to prove and really the perfect foil. But Kingston was transcendent. He marched out to the ring focused and not once did he take his eyes off the prize. Every single thing he did felt like it had a purpose, whether it was going after Danielson's neck or blitzing him with strikes, he was relentless. He went to the backdrop suplex more than once and every time it felt like a game-changer, especially the one on the floor, though my favourite was the 1-2 where he suplexed him into the turnbuckle first, kept hold of him and followed up with a regular version. Some of the strikes were ungodly. He caught Danielson leaping off the apron by cracking him with a punch and it looked extra spectacular because there aren't very many prominent punchers in  AEW. The chops left Danielson's chest looking like a chewed up hamburger, just a purple mess of exploded blood vessels, then there was the backfist that Danielson sold like it caved his entire face in. All of Danielson's strikes kept pace -- the forearms, the elbows, his own chops and of course the kicks to every part of Kingston's person, from kneecap to shoulder blade to cranium. There was one amazing bit where Danielson was lying crumpled in the corner and he flipped Eddie the bird, but Eddie's only acknowledgement of it was to slap the hand away and melt him with another chop. A man who's so often driven by emotion was all business, and if Danielson had gotten under his skin during the interviews he wasn't getting under his skin in the ring. 

There were tonnes of brilliant little moments from them both and Kingston had some incredible bits of selling, like where he'd go dead-eyed after a head kick, sell a leg kick that might've grazed him yet was no less awkward (like an early kick that clipped his knee, which will hurt like a bastard in any situation), or how he'd bite his own fingers to distract from Danielson trying to rip his arm out. Then there's the amazing finish. Danielson trying to hook the taped up arm in the Fujiwara armbar had Kingston as flustered as he'd been all match, then the fade to black middle finger as the triangle dims his lights was perfection. Indignant to the end. Never ever question Eddie Kingston's heart. 

Seventeen stars. 

Some Dynamite and Rampage (4/27 & 4/29)

Serena Deeb v Hikaru Shida (Philly Street Fight) (AEW Dynamite, 4/27/22)

Hot damn give me all the Serena Deeb. This wasn't quite as good as the match from last October, but it had many of the same qualities, including the primary quality of Serena Deeb being fucking awesome. She spent most of this working the leg again and Shida didn't really give a shit about selling it after a while, but Deeb was not for letting this thing go and Shida was either tapping or leaving in an ambulance. At one point she used the apron cover to wrap the leg and keep Shida pinned in the place, then she wellied her with a chair across the kneecap. They leaned into the street fight stip just enough that it never teetered into propfest territory, and all of the stuff they did do looked like it had bad intentions behind it. The kendo stick shots were filthy, none of them clean, most of them landing at awkward angles where you know they're waking up tomorrow pulling bamboo splinters from various parts of their body. Deeb has that nasty streak in her where she'll find - or make - a way to claw herself back into a fight, and this time she threw half a kilo of powder in Shida's eyes when it seemed like the latter was ready to go on a run. Shida blindly swinging the kendo stick was amusing and again Deeb took a wild shot right in the kidneys. I loved Shida bumbling and stumbling out the ring and grabbing a water bottle from a fan to clear the powder out her eyes. It was sort of goofy, sure, but you knew that with clarity came payback, and if nothing else I was interested in seeing how Deeb would shut her down again. Blocking the rolling knee with the chair was an amazing last-ditch cut-off, then she went bonkers by repeatedly smashing it down onto the same chair and that was even more amazing. I was truly hyped when she won as well and would not have expected to be this invested in a Serena Deeb match only a few days ago. I don't even know who the women's champion in AEW is but I'm hopeful and excited about seeing how Deeb will try to main them whenever the time comes. 

Darby Allin v Swerve Strickland (AEW Rampage, 4/29/22)

Nice, fun wee 10 minutes. I love Darby and knew that well enough already, but I've dug Strickland quite a bit from the few times I've watched him in AEW as well, so I was looking forward to this. Darby is certifiable and nobody in their right mind is taking bumps like this in the opening match of a B show. The suplex off the apron was right out the Shawn Michaels at Summerslam '95 playbook and he leaned into Strickland's big strikes like a maniac, the pump kick to the side of the head and the bonkers tope into the knee. Swerve is clearly an incredible athlete and moves like a cat, flipping Eddy Gordo style into a headscissors, doing a clean headspring off the fucking ring apron after clearing the top rope, really impressive stuff. I really liked the early chain wrestling as well. It was slick more than it was gritty, but something like the headlock reversal to the armdrag could come off as overly cooperative if done with less speed than it was here. I'm okay with the finish in theory even if doing it after the wild suplex was strange timing. I guess the Ricky Starks distraction gave Allin some time to recover, though. I'm not sure what Darby does next and having him be involved in a Team Taz thing is probably too much of a re-tread, but I can get behind a potential Starks/Swerve match that I assume they're working towards. 

The Serena Deeb Show

Serena Deeb v Hikaru Shida (AEW Dynamite, 10/27/21)

Well this was an awesome surprise. I haven't seen Serena Deeb in over ten years, probably since the Straight Edge Society days. I didn't even know she was in AEW - or wrestling at all - until someone suggested I watch some Serena Deeb matches. She's only 35 yet works like a 15 year veteran and I guess that's because she is. I don't remember if she was any good in WWE or not, but let me tell you she looked badass as a motherfucker here and this is easily the best AEW women's match I've watched so far. The bulk of it was built around Deeb going after Shida's leg, and while Shida never sold it like she's Macho Man Randy Savage or whatever she was at least passable. Deeb was like a Rottweiler. She was taking this poor girl's leg home with her no matter what and I loved how she had a hundred nasty ways of inflicting damage. The ring post figure-four was of course the highlight, as a ring post figure-four will tend to be, but this had extra bonus points for how Deeb used the steps to rest on while she applied it. And then there was the EXTRA extra bonus point from wearing pink and black ring attire, which Tony suggests might be a deliberate nod to the Hitman. Her roll-through half crab was super slick and worked as a legit nearfall, she hit one dragon screw thing that was more of a pull than a screw and looked like it could've detached Shida's kneecap, another dragon screw variation that I would describe as a swinging neckbreaker to the leg, a mean toehold where she tried to rotate Shida's foot a whole 180 degrees like she was opening a big jar of pickles, it was all great stuff. She was also smart about getting into position for Shida's more elaborate signature moves. I'd never seen a Shida match before and she's probably decent enough, but she seemed to be trying a few things that required a very specific setup, and Deeb set herself up for and/or reversed those things in interesting ways. I bit on about six different potential finishes down the stretch and I loved Deeb going to the eye poke and inside cradle, which I thought for certain was ending it. Judging by how many moves the commentators were name-dropping during the post-match beatdown I guess they both left a bunch of stuff on the table for future encounters (including the nasty submission that Deeb used to empty the referee's locker room), so that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll just watch ALL of the Serena Deeb? 

There's Only One Natural

Bryan Danielson v Dustin Rhodes (AEW Dynamite, 10/23/21)

I think I preferred Dustin/Punk by a little, but holy shit was this excellent. The Punk match is an interesting comparison, and I suppose an obvious one if you're a Dustin Rhodes fan. They're both kind of Dustin Rhodes dream matches, against guys who even a year ago you figured he'd probably missed the chance to stretch out with. Danielson is barely three years younger than Punk, but what made Punk/Dustin so cool is that Punk looked and worked like a man in his forties (meant in the best way possible). Danielson does not wrestle like a man in his forties. Danielson isn't trying to work his way back to his best before challenging for a title, or trying to gradually wrestle loose any ring rust. Danielson moves like he's always moved, like he's at the peak of his powers the same way he was in 2004 or 2013 or whenever else you want to argue he was at the peak of his powers. Even if Dustin is evergreen he's nowhere near his physical peak, and he wears his years and previous retirements less well than Danielson wears that distant memory of a sabbatical. What it meant was that this almost felt like a case of Dustin's ring awareness and positioning against Danielson's relentlessness. It was cool to see how Danielson would combat that size difference as well. At points he'd chop - sometimes literally - Dustin down to size, throwing kicks to the knee to set up kicks to the midsection to set up kicks to the head. In contrast, lots of Dustin's offence came through smart counters where he visibly drew Danielson in. The sidestepped tope, the powerslam where he let Danielson hit the ropes so he picked up his own momentum, the clothesline after dropping Danielson across the top rope, the lariat to counter the running knee. I'm not sure he ever put together much of an offensive run, but he picked his spots and they were all big ones. Danielson was a swarm, though. He would only be slowed, never stopped. I thought Dustin's selling in a broad sense was sensational, not so much in terms of limb selling or selling of a specific move or whatever, but of the accumulation of everything, the fight he was in and the weight of it on him -- the fuckin MAGNITUDE of it all if we can be melodramatic for a second. From the very beginning he was taking his time, not rushing into anything. Even after catching Danielson with an armdrag he was slow getting to his feet, while Danielson was already up and set and probably could've shot in to push the tempo if he really wanted to. When Danielson was peppering Dustin with shots early on it felt like a mismatch, where you figured Dustin would need to do something soon or he'd be overrun, then Danielson lowered his head a split second too early and Dustin almost savoured the moment before dropping down and hitting the big uppercut. It's just that the longer it went the greater the toll on him. After the superplex it looked like he tried to float over into a cover Barry Windham style but couldn't quite manage it, and Danielson was up first again, groggy as he was. Dustin unzipping the vest after he'd had enough of being kicked up and down the place was the perfect Lawler dropping the strap moment, though maybe you wondered if that was about all he had left. That ring positioning comes into play when Danielson has him in an armbar and Dustin can use those long legs to force the rope break, but then Danielson seizes the moment by throwing himself at Dustin and clinging to him like a limpet with the guillotine. I now wait patiently for Dustin v Eddie Kingston. 

The American Dragon is Still Very Decent

Bryan Danielson v Minoru Suzuki (AEW Rampage - The Buy In, 10/15/21)

This was pretty good in about the stupidest way possible. Suzuki's whole bit was long in the tooth for me a while back and every time I've watched him over the last few years the less I really care about it, but he's settled into a touring formula that really works for him (and the vast majority of his audiences). If nothing else I like wrestlers making stupid faces, so there's that too. You can tell this is the type of match Danielson left WWE to have and I'm not sure he threw more than five strikes there that landed harder than the lightest one here. Look, I'm over the modern strike exchange. "You hit me while I stand here and then I'll hit you while you stand there, and we'll both do it as hard as possible" is not in the least bit compelling to me at this point. Yes, I am a miserable grouch. But I guess Danielson's history of having his brains scrambled gave this an edge that most modern strike exchanges don't really have, and from a character standpoint I buy him engaging in this sort of sadism just to prove a point. From a character standpoint you obviously buy Suzuki engaging in it. "It's their character!" is an argument you can use to explain away all sorts of dumb shit in wrestling, but this is literally Minoru Suzuki now. He's a crackpot and for better or worse it's what he does. They certainly took the jaw off each other and Danielson's sell of that first big forearm was phenomenal, so I suppose rote 2020s strike exchanges is something else I can add to the list of things Bryan Danielson will make tolerable in the year 2022. When they got to the grappling I loved it. Clearly Danielson's stylistic preference is to work some approximation of modern New Japan, but this was a reminder of how amazing he'd be at working UWF or Battlarts or even 2010s IWRG matches (Battlarts might be too high on the scrambled brains scale). All of the struggles over holds, the joint manipulation, the way they milked escapes, these were two guys who knew they could stretch out without needing to hold the other's hand. I'll also say that this never felt like it went 20 minutes, which is impressive because I've seen similar matches go 12 and could swear they went 30. 

Bryan Danielson v Bobby Fish (AEW Dynamite, 10/16/21)

A very different affair. It was really good and for the most part I thought Danielson was great in it. Fish was a mean wee bastard and went after the leg in pretty nasty ways, as seems to be his wont in AEW. Danielson didn't sell it HUGE and a few years ago I'd have wanted him to really draw attention to it, if for no reason other than him being really good at that sort of thing. But that part wasn't what impressed me anyway; it was that this match took place not but 24 hours after Danielson and Suzuki obliterated each other and Danielson wasn't about to let you forget that he was banged up. He started much slower than he had in every other match before this, could never quite get anything going, then in an awesome bit on the floor he tried to hoist Fish onto his shoulders to roll him back in the ring and was visibly struggling to even manage it. This was a guy who'd played 120 minutes against a team of bastards the night before, who'd been kicked up and down the pitch, who was now being thrown into a high-intensity training session the next day even though the sport scientist pleaded with the head coach to rest him and the head coach wouldn't listen so the sport scientist was the one copping all the shit as usual and you could tell Danielson was struggling. When he manages to get a foothold he does it by going after Fish's leg and we get some nice revenge spots of him wrapping it around the post. Finish is tremendous. They're both fighting over the kneebar close to the ropes, both down-kicking each other in the face, then Danielson reels off about five and Fish has to cover up before he loses all his teeth through his wee gumshield. Danielson gets up, drags him away from the ropes, and sinks into a truly vile heel hook that about dislocates Fish's patella on the way down. Just an amazing "enough of this shit" moment from a guy who plainly had had enough. 

Kingston v Garcia

Eddie Kingston v Daniel Garcia (AEW Rampage, 22/4/22)

This was the business. Kingston might be one of my three favourite guys in the company and Garcia might be one of my five favourite, despite me having seen all of about three matches with him in it. Eddie was a surly menace and I thought Garcia going after his stomach was an awesome bit of work. The transition spot on the ring steps was great and I like how Eddie took it right in the hip bone, then Garcia was dropping knees to the gut and ribcage, throwing strikes to the midsection to cut Kingston off, just going after him like he was trying to make deep inhalation an arduous process. There was one part where Eddie got to the ropes off a submission and Garcia milked the full five count before releasing, but Kingston kept selling the hold the whole time, shouting "get him off me!" through gritted teeth. Usually when someone gets to the ropes they'll just sort of stop selling the pain from the hold they're in, like the ropes themselves provide a mythical healing quality that leaves one impervious to pain, even if the applicant of the hold hasn't actually released it straight away. Kingston felt every second of this though, and his attention to vulnerability endears him even further to us all. He was also the most scrappy imaginable, how he'd throw strikes from his knees or back, sometimes just chopping Garcia in the thigh because it was there to be chopped and he couldn't reach his chest. A bit of it rubbed off on Garcia, who at one point fought fire with fire and started biting Kingston in the forehead (to which Kingston responded by trying to bite his ear off). They worked some hierarchy into the strike exchanges and I dug how Kingston sold one chop like it about caved his chest in, before inevitably caving in Garcia's because that young laddie is not about to be out-chopping Eddie Kingston at this juncture in their lives. 

CM Grapplin' Punk

CM Punk v Daniel Garcia (AEW Rampage, 10/8/21)

What a great wee bout. If you'd told me six months ago that CM Punk would end up being my favourite wrestler in the world in the year 2022 I would have respectfully told you that you were on a nonsense. But it's almost absurd how giddy I, a grown man, get for CM Punk right now. He is ridiculously fun and I thought he was sensational in this. Just a total chef's kiss of a performance, one that was loaded with little moments that resonate completely with a dipshit who geeks out for the sort of stuff I geek out for. If Punk had just been home sitting on his arse for the last seven years this would've had a cool young shooter stepping to the veteran dynamic, but since he went and messed around in an octagon for a minute there it had an even cooler young shooter stepping to the veteran shooter dynamic (even if his MMA record would suggest Punk was never much of a shooter). There were lots of neat moments that highlighted the experience gap, and I thought Tazz and Jericho were both great on commentary at pointing them out. Things like Garcia taking a few seconds to bask in gaining an advantage rather than actually following up on it, which allowed Punk to sidestep a corner dropkick, or when Garcia threw on the Sharpshooter but didn't drag Punk away from the ropes before it, which we see the reverse of later when Punk makes sure to pull Garcia into a favourable position before applying the Anaconda Vice. Garcia worked like a dude with a chip on his shoulder and Punk doing "these kids today don't know anything about respect" is a hoot, particularly when you think about CM Punk at Daniel Garcia's age. There was a great bit where Garcia was trying to grab something on the mat, maybe a kneebar or an armbar, each time Punk would try to sit up and Garcia would dismissively facepalm him back to the mat, and by the third time he did it you could see that Punk was going to box his ears in. That he wound up doing it with Mongolian chops was as random as it was awesome. Everything with the leg ruled and I thought Punk's selling was brilliant in an understated sort of way. He wasn't big and dramatic with it but you never forgot it was bothering him, and more than a couple times he had to switch up his attack to account for it. I watched this last night and I wish I could remember a few more specifics, but there were a couple moments that I know I thought were awesome. Also Garcia busted out the ring post figure-four and that right away is cause for celebration. Loved the Pepsi Twist, loved the big dive in how ungraceful it looked ("I need to hit three people here so why do a fancy flip when I can just throw myself on top of them as awkwardly as possible?") and loved the finish. Subbing out the GTS for the piledriver so it meant he wouldn't need to hit anyone in the skull with a bad knee was a great touch, and I like that the Vice is treated as a match-winner that doesn't need any build. 

Is 2020s CM Punk PEAK CM Punk?

CM Punk v Dustin Rhodes (AEW Dynamite, 4/20/22)

It's kind of nuts how this never happened until now. They were together in WWE for a decent while, yet I don't think they ever actually matched up. Still I'm not sure it would've been as good before, which is maybe a little crazy in and of itself considering Punk has only wrestled about 15 matches in eight years. It started fairly respectful, a pair of grizzled vets squaring off for the first time, two guys who clearly like the idea of wrestling each other. I mean you know Punk would've been giddy as fuck for something like Dustin v Bunkhouse Buck when he was 16. They even did maybe the slowest parity stand-off in AEW history, and any time a parity stand-off spot doesn't feel dumb you know you're in for something special. They introduce the first part of the duelling limb work early when Dustin goes after Punk's arm, then Dustin spills to the floor with a matured blend of his missed crossbody bump. Dustin's leg selling is awesome from then on out, just the right balance of expressive yet restrained, where you know it's a real problem but he isn't oscillating from crushed to bits in a bear trap to fuck it I can do this rope running exchange I'll be fine. The match also gets a bit more tetchy as it goes, and we get the first glimpse of it with Dustin kicking at Punk's arm to create some distance and Punk looking at the camera like "he should not have done that." Punk gets frustrated when he can't put Dustin away and ups the surliness with the stomp and headbutt to the verrrrry low abdomen, then he even does a mocking little Goldust pose. Dustin would try and make inroads by going for Punk's arm again and some of the body part selling was outstanding. I loved not just how those injured body parts would prevent them from hitting certain moves, but how targeting the knee or arm would always provide advantages for whoever chose to take them at the time. There was a great sequence in particular where Dustin is on the apron and Punk kicks the leg away (and Dustin takes a nasty back bump on the hardest part of the ring), then Dustin comes back with a drop-down arm-wringer and Punk goes shoulder-first into the apron. Dustin does the 10 count punches in the corner and flips Punk the double bird, I'm guessing because he saw that little Goldust bit earlier (would assume Punk is now blocked on all social media platforms), but then when he jumps down he jars the knee again and Punk immediately capitalises. By the time they're slapping each other across the face while locked in the figure-four you know you're no longer watching a mere gentleman's contest. And it's rare that you get a satisfying payoff to a match built around limb work so obviously I thought the finish was great. This is an interesting comparison to the early Punk matches, at least in terms of his demeanour and mood. In the Darby match he looked ecstatic to be back, even if he had some ring rust. Now he's got some of the old attitude back and I guess has his eyes on the cowboy fella. This also might be the most CM Punk working as Bret Hart match yet, judging by that twitter video of Bret v Goldust, and CM Punk working as Bret Hart is just about the coolest thing going right now. And that's really not something I thought I would be saying in the year 2022. 

Some Stuff from AEW All Out '21

Miro v Eddie Kingston 

This was badass as fuck. By god what an Eddie Kingston performance. Excalibur basically says it outright on commentary anyway, but this was clearly Kingston doing 90s All Japan, just not in the corny way with him hitting yer big Orange Crush Bombs and Burning Hammers. He wears his influences on his sleeve right next to his heart and this was him doing Kawada if Kawada one day decided he wanted to EMOTE like Kobashi. The strikes, the selling, the comebacks - those that failed and those that were successful - were all magic, had perfect timing and he had pretty much everyone on strings the whole match. Lots of amazing little moments from him as well, like when Miro booted him in the face and Kingston started blinking away tears like his nose was broken. The little delayed staggers after getting rocked, the struggle over moves, just great. I'm honestly neither here nor there on Miro and I don't recall ever having much of a stance on him one way or the other, but this was as surly as I've ever seen him and he was basically the perfect foil for a man who would die on his sword. Thought the finish with the exposed turnbuckle stuff and desperation low blow came off great. Kingston honest to god might be better now than he was 15 years ago.

Young Bucks v Lucha Brothers (Cage Match)

Well this was certainly something. Look, you know it'll never totally be my jam, but for some reason I want to persevere with the stuff I generally don't like because I'm actually really enjoying everything else. And this was what it was. I am not the audience they're trying to appeal to and it feels like the audience they ARE trying to appeal to went home thrilled, so fair fucks to them for collaring that corner of the market. The second half I mostly quite liked, in fact. I mean it was a tag team cage match from 2021 and not 1981 so I was probably never going to LOVE it, but I already knew that so at least I wasn't likely to be disappointed. First half was more or less a series of one team doing a bunch of cool things followed by the other team doing the same, and there were no real transitions and it was sort of obvious that they were bouncing momentum back and forth because that's how they'd rehearsed the exchanges, but the stuff they were actually doing was mostly impressive. Like, I was a gymnast in my prime and fancied myself as quite a good one but I'll be fucked if I could pull off most of this shit so they have my deepest respect that I'm sure all four of them covet. But, you know, just like...do a proper transition maybe once or something. In the second half they dropped the pace and I thought it was way better for it, but then of course I would think that because I'm old and set in my ways. I'll level with you, I kind of loved the stupid thumbtack shoe. Then Penta got his Arena Mexico on and bled like fuck and Fenix had his mask all torn up and obviously that will resonate with a thing such as I. Revenge shots came off well and I dug Matt gettin' some colour to even things up. Fenix with the dive off the cage was loony toon but then the twenty superkick bit was maybe the worst thing I've ever seen and I once saw a man get kicked in the head by a horse but then the finish felt like a fucking gigantic moment and so we take the good with the dooky, as my grandmother would say. I enjoyed some of this, even if I wouldn't say I enjoyed it in totality.

CM Punk v Darby Allin

This is the sort of thing that probably isn't a five star match in the traditional sense, but for what I figure they were going for and the circumstances under which they wrestled it, I thought it was pretty much perfect. And even in the traditional sense of "is this a great wrestling match?" I honestly thought it was superb. Like, one of the three or four best matches I've watched so far. Both guys ruled. What I like most about what I've seen in this Punk run so far is that, even though he's one of the guys most responsible for the predominant wrestling style in America right now, he wrestles very differently from just about everyone else in the company. Most of the AEW roster wrestle some stylistic approximation - or evolution? - of what 2005 CM Punk was doing, but 2021/22 CM Punk had been retired for seven years and had a whole bunch of miles on the clock even before then, and he wrestled this match like a 40-something-year-old from 1995, forget 2005. He slowed down the pace because how the hell was he supposed to know if he had the engine to go long on a PPV yet, especially against a maniac like Allin? A fuckin abdominal stretch?! In 2021 AEW? Awesome. Then there were the little things that he's always been good at, like when he threw Darby into the corner so hard that he landed face down on the mat himself (and Darby's ring post bump is GOAT tier). The grin when he realised Darby's spine might be mangled, then immediately going for the bow and arrow. There were points as well where Darby would string together some offence and Punk would sort of huddle in the corner like "boy they were not hitting this hard in 2014 WWE, not even Ryback who didn't know how not to." I don't know if it was intentional or not but even the way he took that flip Stunner from Darby made him look like a guy who wasn't used to eating flip Stunners from tiny wildmen, how he landed almost flat on his stomach rather than how everyone else I've seen take it would. That's a 2021 move and Punk's still going off 2014 fumes. I guess that's pretty META~, but what is AEW if not meta and I really wouldn't be surprised if he did it on purpose. Know yer audience and all that. The GTS has also never looked better and the first one was all Darby leaning face-first into and falling dead weight through the ropes, but I loved Punk reacting like he really would've preferred for the wee fella to have landed in the ring so he could've put a cap on this thing. I'm hyped to watch Danielson stretch out and be the American Dragon again, but I think I'm more excited about watching Punk work as the one-time indie revolutionary who's been dropped into a future he's almost out of place in despite helping create it to begin with.