In Your House: Revenge of the ‘Taker Review

WWF Tag Team Championship Match:
Owen Hart and the British Bulldog(c) vs. The Legion of Doom

I really didn’t like the match at all. LOD just didn’t look very good. They were well liked by the crowd, Owen and Bulldog were playing good heels, but they just didn’t do anything interesting. When Animal is locking in headlocks in the opening minutes you know there is something wrong with the face team. The pacing was constantly slow because of that. LOD won at first but the match was restarted because they apparently pinned the wrong guy. I’m not sure if that’s actually true though but regardless the match was restarted and then Bret Hart ran in to help his family retain the titles. Just a bad match.
* 


Intercontinental Championship Match:
Rocky Maivia(c) vs. Savio Vega w/The Nation of Domination

Horrible. I made it through this match without falling asleep but once it ended I had to take a nap for about a half hour. Savio worked a control segment on the Rock that at one point consisted of him doing some type of claw hold on the Rock’s shoulder. A flat comeback from the Rock followed. And it all concluded in a countout win for the Rock. I’m honestly surprised Vince stuck with the Rock for so long, he had been on the roster for I think 6 months or so at this time and he was still horrible.
½* 


Jesse James vs. Rockabilly w/The Honky Tonk Man

Why? Both guys were playing equally obnoxious characters and they had a very uninteresting match. It wasn’t that bad of a match but I was just annoyed every time Jesse James did his gimmicky stuff. What I find to be the most shocking is that there are 5 matches on this card and this match was somehow one of those 5 matches.
¾*


WWF Championship Match:
The Undertaker(c) vs. Mankind w/Paul Bearer

What a war. The chemistry between these two is just perfect. Undertaker comes out firing and it looks like this time he’s really going to kill Foley. You get some brutal bumps from Foley early on and it gets so brutal that you wonder how he’s going to get in any offense as he was just getting killed by Undertaker who wasn’t showing the slightest bit of mercy. Bearer gets involved and gives Foley his opening and he then starts his highly disturbing control segment. It starts out pretty basic but it just escalates the longer it goes on. Foley shows a total disregard for himself, the rules, and even the title. He has the Undertaker beaten at one point and he attacks a ref as he enters the ring. Normally this would be something that would piss me off but not in this case because Foley spent the entire match showing us that he was just a lunatic. Undertaker eventually makes his comeback and it’s just more insane punishment that Foley takes. Undertaker ends up with the win but there was this amazing nearfall in the match where Undertaker hits Foley with the ring stairs in the head, Foley goes head first into a table, Undertaker then gets him in the ring, and he chokeslams him. Foley kicks out. How the fuck did he kick out? Undertaker quickly ends it with the Tombstone but that kickout just shows how crazy Foley is. You just can’t go wrong with these two.
****½ 


Bret “The Hitman” Hart vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin

A step below their previous matches but expecting them to have a third masterpiece doesn’t seem fair. That being said this was still really good. Austin had been jumped before the match and a lot of time was spent talking about how his knee was injured. Bret spent a lot of time working on it and the selling from Austin was really good, good enough that if he sold like it for the Wrestlemania match I would have given that match a full 5 star rating. I also liked that we saw the next level of Bret Hart. At Survivor Series he got more and more aggressive. At Wrestlemania he started aggressive and ended heelish at the end. Here he was in full heel mode and was doing things like using a chair to attack Austin’s knee. You got the impression that hurting Austin was more important than winning, which makes sense because Bret had already beat Austin twice at this point. Austin still using heel tactics in the match was a nice touch and fit with the feud and his character. He’s not playing a “good” guy but you still want him to win. The ending was kind of weak because you really wanted to see Austin get the win against Hart and after 2 classics that he lost it seemed like this would have been the place to do it. Instead we get another DQ ending on this show. Weak ending to a great match.
***¾ 


Well the double main event was amazing. The undercard belongs in a deep pit in wrestling hell. One thing that really bothered me about this show was that there were 5 matches on the PPV and 3 of them ended in countout or DQ. The WWF wasn’t doing very well at this point yet they go and book that kind of shit on a PPV?

Rev Pro: Live in New York Review

Karl Fredricks and Clark Connors vs. CCK (Chris Brooks and Jonathan Gresham) 

Karl and Clark are “Young Lions” from the LA dujo so they’re unknown and sporting the plain black tights. And they wrestled like they were Young Lions as well. They were hungry and gave an amazing effort. I really enjoyed everything about this. CCK defied the modern trend in wrestling and worked a smart match. Connors was the smaller man and his leg gets taken out half way through. CCK isolates him as much as they can and work the leg. They cut the ring in half, break up tags, they work like a real team. 

Fredrick was the big man and powerhouse of the team, which made him a good hot tag when it gets made. He did a good job showing that the could throw both members of CCK around without dominating them. He looked like he had a lot of raw talent and could become something soon. He was a great Young Lion. The Young Lions get closer to winning then you would ever expect from them. Connors shows heart and Fredricks raw potential. CCK were an efficient machine. 

I also want to give them credit for working a match like this on Wrestlemania weekend. It’s a marathon weekend that I’ve experienced as a fine many times. It’s always a blast but the crowds can be quiet sometimes. It’s not anyone’s fault it’s just that fans have to pace themselves. If I’ve got tickets to three shows I can’t go insane all day. So a lot of the times you get matches that are just spot after spot to get a reaction. These guys took their time, worked a good match, and got the reactions that they wanted. Really good match.

***½ 

Carlos Romo vs. A-Kid vs. Flamita vs. Kid Lykos 

Every Wrestlemania weekend has a lot of independent wrestling shows. And every independent wrestling show over the weekend has a match like this. You book some high fliers in a multiman match. It was on par with the other matches. They do some cool spots, some other cards had better spots and some didn’t. I did like that Romo and A-Kid were a tag team and there was that dynamic in play. The commentators were talking about how someone was trying to split the team and take one guy away so you had a tag team with some tension. The ending will keep that story going. Good for them for putting a match together that advanced a storyline and still got to have some fresh faces doing cool flips.

*¾ 

Michael Oku vs. Brian Cage

I loved the idea of the match but not the execution. In a cruel twist of fate, based on everything I usually complain, I’m going to have to type this and say that Cage sold too much. Oku is small and the commentators said that he was skipping the “Contender” division and going straight to the main roster. The whole idea is that he’s overmatched and he’s expected to be squashed. And Oku does a great job taking offense from Cage. He ragdolls all over the place and looks like someone that’s in a lot of trouble in the ring. 

The problem is his offense. It doesn’t look strong at all and one kick will have Cage crumbling and falling down. And some of the moves look like Cage is just doing that to himself. There was a Canadian Destroyer from Oku to Cage and it just looks like Cage doing an impressive flip. I like the story with the guy who’s supposed to be squashed giving the monster a run for his money. I loved the offense from Cage and I loved how Oku sold it. But they really missed on the parts of the match where Oku was getting in offense. Which is a shame because this could have really worked out well. 

**

Will Ospreay and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and Minoru Suzuki 

I liked it but I didn’t love it. It was too one sided in favor of Suzuki-gun for my liking. Granted, they are amazing when they control a match. Ospreay is bleeding from his nose in the first couple of minutes and whenever they have the chance they claw at, pull on, or hit him there. In fact, the offense from Suzuki-gun ruled, whenever there was a body part they could grab and twist they did. 

Ospreay and Tanahashi were OK. Ospreay sold some beat downs well and his offense was desperate, which I liked. But what I didn’t like was challenging Suzuki to go blow for blow with him multiple times. Look, do that once, look tough/crazy, but why do it again? After getting almost knocked out the first time he shouldn’t be trying to do that. Tanahashi is a good hot tag when he gets one but I felt like he wasn’t in there too much. And Suzuki gun kept maintaining control of the match. Honestly, this match was worked closer to what I was thinking the match with Young Lions was going to be. Good but not great. 

***¼ 

Rocky Romero vs. Ryusuke Taguchi

I’ve got a real bias against Taguchi. I can’t stand his gimmick. So the best way to sum it up is that he has a super ass. So there’s lots of ass based offense. He hits people with it, he jumps into them with it… you get the idea. The best way to sum the the gimmick up is that at one point Romero did some Kawada kicks, Taguchi doesn’t sell them, and follows up with his own version of them where he rapidly hits Romero’s head into his ass. I LOVE comedy wrestling. So this isn’t me shitting on the idea of doing funny things in the match. Taguchi isn’t funny with his offense though, the spots with his ass are serious moments worked into the match.

OK so now that I got that out of the way it’s a perfectable passabe New Japan Junior style match. If you can get past all ass based offense it’s fine. They build up the intensity and keep a nice pass. They’re both veterans and have been working in New Japan for a long time so they know how to do this. I imagine this is quite a but higher if you're a Taguchi fan.

**

David Starr vs. Tomohiro Ishii 

I feel like Starr kind of looked like an idiot. The match starts and it looks like Starr has an advantage if he stays locked up with Ishii. Well he hits Ishii with strikes a few times and they’re no sold. OK, you’ve got the dynamic about what will and won’t work against Ishii. They proceed to have a good match. Nice pacing, Ishii is a tank, Starr shows some fire, and it works. And then the finish is Starr headbutts Ishii, it has no effect, Starr stuns himself, and takes a few moves before he gets pinned. I liked the match but man did Starr seem like an idiot for doing that. 

***

Aussie Open vs. Roppongi 3K

You’ve got two very different types of matches here. The first half is Aussie Open working well as a team and trying to contain the explosive Shoh and Yoh. I liked it. Davis was a good big man who was exciting to watch but was still trying to bottle up his opponents from doing anything too flashy. 

The second half is where they stop making tags and you’ve got the bigger spots. It was fine. The crowd was dead so that made it come across as a little flat. I also don’t feel like they really kicked it into the next level on this one. I don’t think this belonged as the main event. Not to knock any of the guys but these four were not the ones that people came to see, I noticed empty chairs during this that were not empty earlier in the show. It’s a good match with a flat crowd. 

***

Good but flat is probably how I would describe most of this card. It’s unfortunately a trend that I’ve really started to notice with Wrestlemania weekend shows. If you’re not a premier show the fans hold back their energy.

wXw: Ambition VII Review

From what I know about the company this is their “shoot style” tournament that they have. Every match is submissions or knockout only (and by knockout I mean you fail to answer a quick 10 count that the referee gives you). And it’s not just the rules that are different, it’s a completely different style of working a match. They can’t throw punches, they don’t do Irish Whips, they keep it in the ring, and they don’t go off the top rope. Certainly not for everyone but I’ve seen some matches like this before and they can be a nice change of pace.


First Round:
Sasa Keel vs. David Starr

I liked it well enough. Keel was bigger, not a lot bigger but bigger, and it showed. He would go for suplexes and throws while Starr constantly went after a leg. I liked how Starr acted the entire time because he would stay low on purpose and tried to avoid going toe to toe with Keel. There are few bad spots because Keel got poked in the eye by mistake and his boot got untied. Both resulted in awkward stoppages that Starr tried his best to play off. Not a bad shoot style match as both guys came in with a strategy that I was able to tell and they stuck with it.
** 


First Round:
Timothy Thatcher vs. Big Daddy Walter 

Another simple but effective story. Walter was bigger and he had every intention of using that to his advantage. Thatcher had to overcome that and respond to all of the clubbing blows and throws. He appeared to be more skilled on the mat but there were some times where Walter just used his size to get an advantage. The ending was cool because it looked like Thatcher was in a lot of trouble but he was able to pull off a quick submission. Nothing too amazing but a decent match.
**½ 


First Round:
Axel Dieter Jr. vs. Mike Bailey 

A lot more striking in this match and it was nice to see them take a different approach. Some really stiff kicks and strikes along with some cool mat wrestling makes for an enjoyable 5 minutes. I think this match probably came closer to feeling like a real fight than the 2 previous matches as well. I got the impression that both guys wanted to end things right away and were going for moves that had a real chance of winning.
**¾ 


First Round:
Bobby Gunns w/Some German Guy vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

Favorite match of the night so far. Sabre looked fantastic in it. He had a killer instinct that the other guys sort of seemed to be lacking. He hit a really stuff kick early on and saw how well it worked and that became the basis of his offense. After one flurry of kicks I felt bad for Gunns. Gunns had a manger that would talk a little bit and would put his hands on the ropes all the time. It wasn’t 80s heel manager level stuff but it was the only type of rule breaking that was seen in the entire first round. At one point Sabre yelled at him and then later on, when Sabre seemed to be on the brink of winning, he kicked the guy when he put his hands between the ropes. When he did this he turned his back to Gunns who immediately took advantage and proceeded to choke out Sabre. I was annoyed at the ending because I wanted Sabre to win, but it was the good kind of annoyed. It was the “I want to see this asshole get killed next round” kind of annoyance. Sabre was great and the match was fun.
*** 


Semi-Finals: 
Sasa Keel vs. Timothy Thatcher 

Cool match. Thatcher is really good at playing an underdog in these types of matches because he always looks like he is really getting his ass kicked. Everything he does is smart and he makes himself look really tough for staying in the match after taking all of the offense he does. In this one he just gets overpowered and wasn’t able to take the onslaught from Keel. At times it looked like he was going to find the right opening but he never did. Good match.
***


Semi-Finals: 
Axel Dieter Jr. vs. Bobby Gunns w/That German Guy

I don’t know who the manager with Gunns is but he is a fucking pro. Dude is still selling his arm after Sabre kicked him in the first round. Anyway this was short but sweet. Dieter slaps the shit out of Gunns, which was fun to see. In fact the whole time it seemed like Dieter had it in the bag but then Gunns sort of comes out of nowhere with a brutal looking hammerlock and gets the submission. Good stuff.
**¾ 


Rico Bushido vs. Dominic Brackner

Holly shit was this awesome. I want to say that in 10 minutes there are about 30 seconds that could be taken out and I might be convinced this was just a real fight. And if someone told me this was real I wouldn’t be completely shocked. I was fooled on numerous false finishes and just enjoyed every second of this. The match was cool to watch but it’s just amazing how real they tried to make this feel. This was just fucking awesome. It blows everything else away.
**** 

Finals: 
Sasa Keel vs. Bobby Gunns w/That German Guy

We very quickly figure out that Gunns is in a lot of trouble. He is just completely overpowered. It shows and he takes a bunch of suplexes early on. He gets in some offense and gives a nice effort but he is fairly easily dispatched when Keel just keeps giving him suplexes without letting go. The ref stops the match after 5 suplexes with no end in sight. Kind of a weak way to end the card. I mean I was happy to see the guy with the cheap win early on get his ass kicked but I was hoping for a little more out of the finals.
**¼ 


I liked this show a lot. It only lasted an hour and twenty minutes so it wasn’t a time crunch at all. Nothing went over 11 minutes and the style was a nice change of pace. And that non-tournament match is just amazing.

WWE Insurrexion 2003 Review

Another show that I’ve never seen before, and another show there might be a good reason for not seeing.

Women’s Championship Match:

Jazz(c) w/Teddy Long vs. Trish Stratus

Trish was still really good her but Jazz had none of the aggression that I really liked from singles match at Backlash. Jazz’s control segment was just flat as she didn’t really do anything that made her look like the badass bitch she was supposed to be playing. Trish’s comeback was at least really good as her performance seemed to be just as good as their Backlash match. The crowd was behind as she did a good job of getting sympathy and support. I’m not going to act like I really remember a lot of Jazz matches but I’m not sure which Jazz we normally see, I just know she was very unimpressive here.

*½

Intercontinental Championship Match:

Christian(c) vs. Booker T

Not a very impressive match. The match is all Booker T for a really long time to start things off. It wasn’t too interesting but it made sense considering Christian had recently won the title in a battle royal that he had already been eliminated from. So he was purposely made to look totally outmatched the entire time. He got some offense in through cheating and luck but there was never really a time when Booker didn’t look like he was significantly better. Booker’s comeback wasn’t anything special either. I won’t say it was terrible but there really isn’t a lot of praise I can give this. For the amount of time it had I was hoping for a lot more.

**

World Tag Team Championship Match:

Rob Van Dam and Kane(c) vs. La Resistance

This is a house show match. RVD and Kane kick some ass to start things off, we see a weak and short control segment on RVD, a hot tag, and they take it home a minute later. The match was sloppy, La Resistance had terrible looking offense, and at no point did they ever look like they had a chance in this match.I bet had you been to a house show they had on this tour of England you would have seen the same exact match. La Resistance wasn’t good and Kane and RVD phoned it in.

*

Rico vs. Goldust

Another house show match. It was OK. Rico mostly did some weak looking kicks early on. The match did make me laugh when Rico hit the softest backhand slap to Goldust ever, it was done intentionally I’m sure and it was just hilarious. They pick things up a little at the end and we got a minute or two of what I would call good but for the most part this was something you would see on a house show or Heat. I literally watched this 5 minutes ago and I remember almost nothing.

*¼

Rodney Mack, Christopher Nowinski, and Teddy Long vs. Bubba-Ray, D-Von, and Spike Dudley

This was pretty bad, the heels just weren’t good in the ring at all and there is only so much you can expect the Dudleys to get out of bad opponents. They go back and forth for while in some forgettable exchanges before the heels work the isolation segment on Spike before a not so hot tag is made to Bubba. There’s nothing good about that other than the fact that it was kept short. Another house show match, and a bad one at that. Teddy Long wasn’t even entertaining as the manager that was stuck in the match.

½*

Scott Steiner vs. Test w/Stacy Keibler

Special Referee: Val Venis

Yes this was really the semi-main event. It was terrible and I don’t think it’s really worth explaining why. The match was best summed up when Stacy threw a towel at Test’s face and he sold it like he was punched in the face and this allowed Steiner to start his comeback.

¼*

Street Fight for the World Heavyweight Championship:

Triple H(c) w/Ric Flair vs. Kevin Nash w/Shawn Michaels

Well this was comfortably the best match of the night. Not that it was great but it was honestly the only match that I got any enjoyment out of. Flair was just the man here. Hebner tells everyone that he will eject Michaels or Flair if they get involved. So naturally Flair jumps Nash in the opening minutes, which brings Michaels into the match as well. With 3 minutes Flair is bleeding buckets and is soon forced out of the ring by officials. It was pretty hilarious. Triple H and Nash were OK on their own as they just fought everywhere and Triple H did the always smart strategy of going after Nash’s legs for a little bit. They weren’t alone for all that long before more fuckery ensued. Flair makes his triumphant return, followed by Michaels, there were some ref bumps, every took a finsiher, I don’t know all sorts of crazy shit was going on. It was a total clusterfuck but I enjoyed it because stuff was actually happening in a match. They had a solid 15 minute match that was at least exciting and entertaining. Maybe I’m rating it higher because everything else was so bad but I thought as a stand alone match it was pretty good.

**¾

Well that sucked. Just unpleasant to sit through. Jericho and Austin even had a bad highlight reel together. It was about 10% as funny as the classic interview that they did after Raw from around the same time period. This PPV is a good example of why you shouldn’t book a PPV and have 3 of the best workers on the roster (Jericho, Michaels, Flair) not be booked in matches.

WWE Backlash 2003 Review

WWE Tag Team Championship Match

Team Angle(c) vs. Los Guerreros

Good opener to say the least and a compelling tag match. Eddie and Chavo start out getting the best of Haas and Benjamin on the mat and they do their hilarious cheating as faces schtick that is always fun to watch. From there I thought they took a really interesting approach to the match because it ended up being Team Angle trying to out cheat Eddie and Chavo. The Guerreros were the first to break rules in the match and they ended up losing from cheating in the end. On one hand I liked seeing how Haas and Benjamin would do the sequence of cheap tricks that Eddie and Chavo just did but on the other hand the match makes you feel a little weird. Watching a new team out Guerrero the Guerreros was just strange to see. Either way the match was smartly worked and it’s always good to see and Eddie match for the first time. The match also have me an appreciation for how unique their gimmick was and how much they would put a team over when they beat them. If the faces cheat as much as the heels any type of win from the heels can be looked at as a clean win. Haas and Benjamin looked like the better team here. They kept things fairly toned down and more basic than some of the great matches but this is still really enjoyable.

***

Sean O’Haire w/Roddy Piper vs. Rikishi

This about as good as you would expect, which isn’t very good. The match lasted for maybe 5 minutes and a good chunk of it was spent on an uninspiring control segment. He did have a couple of cool looking moves but didn’t show much personality. Piper was too over the top as a manager as well. He basically got O’Haire control of the match and then won the match later for him by being a huge distraction.

½*

World Tag Team Championship Match:

The Dudley Boys vs. Rob Van Dam and Kane(c)

Special Referee: Chief Morley

Pretty good match. Kane and RVD were faces were the Dudleys were in tweener mode as they had not decided if they were going to be on the same side as Eric Bischoff. Anyway for most of the match they kept the pace up with neither team establishing control. It was a lot more entertaining than I was expecting and I think that had to do with pacing. RVD didn’t bother me in a tag team setting, Kane was fun in short bursts, and the Dudleys did well with the faster pace. So much fuckery at the end. Morley and the Dudleys had a falling out and Lance Storm ran in for no apparent reason. Solid enough match for me.

**¾

Women’s Championship Match:

Jazz w/Teddy Long vs. Trish Stratus(c)

I really liked this. It was a super fun short match as Trish and Jazz just meshed really well. Jazz was the bad ass bitch and her aggressiveness came across perfectly while Trish played the gritty, injured babyface. Trish went in with injured ribs and Jazz attacked the injury. Teddy Long made a fun heel manager as well. They looked like wrestlers in their and thinking that I used to shit over solid matches like this makes me feel stupid.

**¼

Big Show vs Rey Mysterio

Really fun cat and mouse game. With such an absurd size difference they worked the match perfectly. Big took some offense from Rey but it wasn’t anything that looked dumb and the offense as a whole looked believable. Naturally, everything Big Show did looked fantastic on Rey. The match was sub 5 minutes but it makes my list of awesome short matches.

***

WWE Championship Match:

Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena

The start of the match reminded me a lot of their Extreme Rules match as Brock just killed Lesnar and it looked like he might not get any offense in at all. The ass kicking was just great. Cena was able to take advantage of a cut on Lesnar’s head and opened him up as soon as he got on offense. The blood really worked well for this match as Lesnar looked like the unstoppable monster at first but once he started bleeding the whole dynamic changed and he looked to be in a lot of trouble. When Brock would get some offense in you had the feeling that Cena was just hanging onto control and that he was going to have a problem if he let up even a little. It was fun seeing Cena use some heel tactics to try to stay in the match. Overall I liked the match but Cena wasn’t quite treated like a real main event guy as he was a massive underdog while playing the heel at the same time. Still, this worked pretty well and it was better than I was expecting because I didn’t have much faith that Cena would be having too many good matches this early in his career. But I think that might be a bad assumption because I’ve seen a few quality matches before his first title run now.

***½

Triple H, Ric Flair, and Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, and Booker T

I feel like I saw someone give this a really bad review not too long ago. I won’t say that this was bad at all, my biggest problem with the match is that it was a PPV main event instead of a Raw main event.You saw some nice exchanges involving everyone to start things off before Shawn was able to hit Sweet Chin Music on Flair and Triple H responded with a Pedigree. Flair was able to make the tag and we got a solid isolation segment on Michaels. A lot of the match was focused on Nash getting his hands on Triple H and they teased that encounter really well and they had them meet at the right time. Nash doesn’t exactly make for a hot tag but at least things totally broke down once he made it into the ring. There was a lot of stuff going on, a ref bump, a sledgehammer, and then the heels stole the win. The match didn’t drag Shawn makes a good face in peril, Flair is just the man, and everyone else was perfectly fine in this match. No it isn’t great but there wasn’t anything bad about it either. Nobody would complain at all if this was a Raw main event or something.

**¾

The Rock vs. Goldberg

This reminded me a lot of Cena/Rock II except this lasted 10 minutes instead of 30. Goldberg kicked some ass to start things off, missed a spear, hit the corner, and then they did finishers and signature moves for the rest of the match. It really wasn’t very good at all. The Rock’s heel character was a lot of fun at least and made this entertaining at times. I loved his reaction of shock and happiness when Goldberg missed the spear. Other than the Rock’s antics and Goldberg’s spears looking pretty cool there isn’t anything else positive to say. The crowd wasn’t happy seeing Goldberg go over the Rock and Goldberg’s big debut ended with a “Goldberg sucks!” chant as he set up the Rock for the Jack Hammer.

*

Not a very good show. There are plenty of decent matches but without a really great match this just isn’t worth the time. Maybe watch Cena/Brock because of who they are and the match was good but I hadn’t seen this show and I really wasn’t missing much.

PWG: Is Your Body Ready? Review

The Unbreakable Fucking Machines vs. The RockNESS Monsters

A lot better than I was expecting. Cage and Elgin seemed to have finally grasped the fact that they are much bigger and stronger than most people they wrestle and they start wrestling like it. You had them showing off how strong they are and most of the offense from Goodtime and Yuma came from double team moves. They size dynamic was perfect and the match had some cool moves. There were some flaws (like when Yuma was able to shove Cage away from his corner and into a different when the size difference between the 2 is huge) but for the most part I had no complaints. If Cage and Elgin wrestle like this more often I can see myself enjoying them a lot. Probably the best Elgin match I’ve seen in a very long time.

***¼

Davey Richards vs. Kyle O’Reilly

Another match that I ended up enjoying a lot more than I was expecting. I’m sure this type of match would get old after a while but when you haven’t seen guys work with a more shoot style approach it really is refreshing. They had the whole student vs. teacher thing going here and you could see how they were constantly one step ahead of each other. Some of the stuff they did was just really impressive. The stiff strikes were fun but it was these amazing sequences of moves that they were able to bust out that made me want to pay attention. I would have liked to have seen either guy have more of a defined strategy in the match but other than that I don’t have many complaints.

***½

Dojo Bros vs. Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano

Another very fun match but not one I would call spectacular by any means. There was a pretty long feeling out process here as neither team was able to really control the match for very long.They did get a lengthy control segment in on Gargano which was good. Their stuff looked good and when they kicked things into high gear it was pretty awesome. I want to say that it was your “standard” PWG match but that doesn’t really give the match any justice because it was pretty great to watch.

***½

Kevin Steen vs. Drake Younger

I’m struggling to come up with the right combination of words to describe how good this really was. The dynamic was just perfect as Steen heeled it up as soon as the match started and he kept it up for most of the match. There aren’t many things better than Steen talking shit to fans while he’s in control of the match. Steen dominated the match, talked shit, cheated, and nearly killed Drake a few times. Drake didn’t get much offense in but that fit so perfectly with the match as he was playing the underdog all the way. While his offense was limited it was effective as whenever he had the chance it seemed he was either trying to kill Steen or himself or both with the moves he was doing. He really had the “kill or be killed” mentality going and it worked. These guys were just thrown together in a match because they’re both good and they killed it. In another universe I can only imagine how good a blood feud between Younger and Steen would be. Still, we got one match between them and it kicked a ton of ass. The interference and unclean ending didn’t bother me too much and enough happened between the finish and Cole’s involvement that I wasn’t too annoyed with it. Great match that we probably won’t ever see again.

***¾

The Young Bucks vs. AR Fox and Samuray Del Sol

Del Sol was on his A game and the Bucks are the best tag team that I’ve seen in a very long time. Fox is also much more tolerable in tag matches where he can disguise him coming in and doing a bunch of crazy moves as being the guy that comes in on the hot tag. You get a really good chunk of time where the Bucks are in total control of the match and they really do have some amazing control segments as they mix old school heel tactics with high flying moves perfectly. Del Sol and Fox were at different times the face in peril and I thought both were pretty good at that role against the Bucks. Once the hot tag was made things went crazy and you could see the momentum slowly slipping away from the Bucks. The Bucks just have this ability to make me feel like they have no chance at winning a match when the other team is on the offensive. My biggest complaint is that the match peaked and they kept going a lot longer. They tried to reach the same peak again and while they came close they didn’t. Also there was a terrible elbow exchange between Fox and one of the Bucks that just looked terrible. Other than that this was a blast to watch and furthers my belief that the Bucks are the best and makes me sad that Del Sol is already off the indy scene.

****¼

Iron Man Match for the PWG World Championship

Adam Cole(c) vs. Sami Callihan

It was really cool to see this because I’ve seen these two go from having opening matches on Evolve cards, to main eventing CZW, and now they were on the biggest indy stage main eventing. They have amazing chemistry and they always have good matches and they delivered once again, and hopefully for the last time on the indies but not for the last time ever. The beginning stretch was fun as they traded moves and control for brief periods of time. I was actually surprised that Cole didn’t just end up having the shit kicked out of him for about 10 minutes to start. Cole naturally cheats to take the lead and from that point I thought this was worked brilliantly.

Look, 60 minutes is a really long time to have a match and it’s not easy to keep people interested for the whole time. They were able to keep it interesting here though because they played around with the score. The match dynamic would totally change based on who was winning or if there was a draw. By constantly changing it the match was always fresh. Cole in winning the match and heeling it up and wasting time was awesome as was a desperate Callihan. When things were tied it was also great to see as both guys had the sense of urgency. And it was nice to see Cole play the aggressor. All of the different match dynamics worked really well. Throw in some good moves and a pace that is just insanely impressive to keep for 60 minutes and the match is pretty amazing. The 60 minutes, particularly the first 30, just blew by.

There were some problems that I had with this though. Cole did a lot of goofy stuff to get heat and make things entertaining. I was fine with that because he always did it when he was winning. Callihan however was doing goofy stuff when he was behind. I would be a little annoyed when he was down a fall with 20 minutes left and he teased a People’s Elbow after Cole had just done one. Yeah it’s kind of amusing to see but he shouldn’t be doing it when there should be a real sense of urgency for him to get a win. There were a few instances of that really got under my skin but the fact that this was 60 minutes it seems more forgivable that there were only a few instances that I thought were poorly worked.

The ending makes you want to rip out your hair but in a good way. Cole running away with 2 minutes left just makes you want to hate him and kill him. It’s the biggest piece of shit thing to do and it was just so aggravating. So now that you want to kill Cole for being a bitch he ends up locked in the Stretch Muffler with a minute left and he holds out to win. It’s just infuriating that he acts like the chicken shit heel and almost escapes from the match but when he’s forced to compete you have to admit that he’s really good as well. So yeah it was frustrating in the best possible way.
****¼

I loved the show. The 2 main events delivered and there was nothing that I disliked about the undercard at all. Lots of variety on a good card that’s top to bottom. I enjoyed even the guys that I normally don’t like.

CZW Tournament of Death XIII Review

Written in June of 2014

Fans Bring the Dildos - First Round

Jaki Numazawa vs. Lucky 13

They worked this pretty intelligently to start things off. Lucky was on the offensive early on as he was able to bloody up Numazawa pretty early on in the match. I certainly wasn’t expecting so much offense from Lucky early on but I guess it worked. Once Numazawa got some offense in and started controlling the match I felt things got better. Lucky took a few crazy bumps including the always scary German Suplex when your head is between 2 ladder rungs. Apparently it doesn’t actually kill the person taking the bump but it really looks like it does. Thankfully the dildo use was kept to a minimum and they had a serious match. The ending was surprising as I never thought Lucky had a chance at getting out of the first round. It’s not that this wasn’t good but I really don’t understand why Numazawa was brought in if he was just going to go out in the first round. Still Lucky making it to the second round does leave open some interesting possibilities. He seems to be on his game and if I feel like he could do something awesome with the right opponent in the second round. Here’s hoping he draws Masada in what would be an awesome pairing. Anyway, solid, if unspectacular match. But hey, it’s the first of 7 death matches so I can see why they wouldn’t go too crazy.

**¼ 

Barbed Wire Madness - First Round

Aero Boy vs. MASADA

Well this was pretty fantastic. They started out with some mat stuff and I got the impression that they probably could have had a decent match without the barbed wire and that stuff. They set the tone with the early stuff and I really appreciated it, even if the live crowd didn’t. Basically Masada is the fucking man and has fought and beat just about everyone. But Aero Boy was different and presented a whole new style. And he got the upper hand against Masada for a while as he tried to adjust to his different style of offense. Masada was getting in offense but it was always some type of lucha move that would break up his momentum. I also loved the Masada tore at the mask early on and him doing so would have a huge impact later on in the match.

Anyway Masada eventually is able to overcome the difference in style and starts kicking some ass. And honestly, it’s a little scary when he looks pissed off (which is  a huge compliment). Aero Boy missing on a dive and sending himself into a barbed wire board was a good spot but then his mask came off and his face was exposed (which is a pretty big deal for him I would imagine). So now he’s in a really bad spot and Masada responds by bending the board over and sandwiching him, climbing to the top rope and hitting a senton. It was brutal and just incredibly badass. Masada pretty much takes over from there but Aero Boy takes the beating like a champ and plays a really sympathetic underdog. He came in not over with the fans in the slightest and they ended up loving him by the end because he was that good. I couldn’t have hoped for a better match in the first round. I know some people don’t like this style of wrestling but I would say that this is a great example of how you can use weapons and blood to tell a kickass and compelling story in the ring. This was NOT just two guys hitting each other with stuff, it was an awesome match that also happens to be a death match.

****¼

Ultraviolent Pits - First Round

Masashi Takeda vs. Danny Havoc

This was nothing like the previous match but still pretty awesome. I spent the most of review talking about the compelling story that kept me highly entertained for the entire time. This was just 2 lunatics trying to kill each other. They meshed together perfectly because they really appeared to be playing the same character. It was a war and it was a blast to watch because the pacing was incredible. It wasn’t very long but it was a constant battle and they never really slowed down. Unless I start talking about the spots (and there were some good ones) or the blood (which there was a lot of) there really isn’t much left to cover.

***½

Light Tube Bundles - First Round

Matt Tremont vs. Jun Kasai

This was fun. You could tell Kasai must have been happy to be in the US as he basically played a traditional American heel here. It was actually really funny to watch and very entertaining. It didn’t even matter that the crowd loved him anyway. It’s great to see something like an eye poke in a deathmatch. He also did heelish things like as a fan for a shoe to use as a weapon, the fan gave him a shoe, he hit Tremont with it and then he threw the shoe as far as he could into the crowd. It actually was these cheap heel tactics that ended up winning the match for Kasai as it was a low blow that let Kasai set up for his finisher. While the match was fun it had it’s flaws and almost all can be blamed on Tremont. He peeked at Cage of Death again DJ Hyde and I don’t think anything that he does will ever be on the same level as that night. He just didn’t sell anything until the end. It was annoying to see him take a big bump off the top rope to the floor through light tubes and then see him up and screaming less than a minute later. While that wasn’t good to see overall this very solid and fun to watch. Glad Kasai advanced as well.

**¾

Alexander James vs. Joe Gacy

I can’t imagine anyone would really want to be in this position. The fans want blood and they’ve been getting blood and they’re going to get more blood. But these guys had to go out there and have a standard match. The crowd didn’t want to see this at all. They tried and it wasn’t a bad match or anything just unspectacular. They went through the motions got through the match and it was passable.

*½

Panes of Glass - Second Round

MASADA vs. Lucky 13

I can’t say I was a huge fan of this. Lucky really didn’t play the underdog here as he was getting in a lot of offense. But his offense wasn’t great it never felt like he did anything that actually gave him a chance at winning the match. He did take some great bumps and I liked that he would throw all of these moves at Masada only for Masada to take control of the match with a big move. It was decent and the ending was bad. I don’t know if it was a botch but it looked like Lucky took a brutal bump into the glass and Masada took nothing. But Lucky was up first and went for a top rope move which Masada reversed for a roll up and the win. Considering how great of a match MASADA has previously this was a pretty big let down as this was a match that I was really looking forward to.

**½

Combatants Choice - Second Round

Jun Kasai vs. Danny Havoc

Kasai comes out with a cross that has razor boards all over it and Havoc has a board covered in gusset plates. I don’t believe that there’s one specific emotion that a wrestling match is supposed to make you feel as long as you are engaged in the match. I certainly was here and I was scared. Both guys were already bloody, there was dangerous stuff in the ring, and one of them was going to have to wrestle Masada. I thought they did a really good job building up the suspense while still giving the crowd what they wanted. There were even some really good near falls towards the end of the match that had me fooled. Havoc delivered his second good match of the day and it was similar in that I knew I was watching 2 lunatics go to war but I think I liked this more because it really made me nervous while watching it. Yeah they looked bloody and battered afterwards but nobody was seriously injured (which is really the art of the deathmatch I think) and it was great to watch.

***¾

CZW Tag Team Championship Match

The Juicy Product(c) vs. Drew Gulak & Sozio

I really don’t think there’s a worst position to be in than in front of the TOD crowd when you aren’t in a deathmatch. The crowd just did not want to see this despite the fact that they actually liked some of the guys in the match on other shows. Sozio and Gulak had to form an uneasy alliance to go against the champions and they did show throughout the match that they really didn’t like each other. As the match wore on they started working better as a team before Sozio walked out on Gulak. Juicy Product was solid here and they did mess with the crowd over the fact that they weren’t going to use weapons, or even do anything flashy at times. I enjoyed them doing this to the crowd even if the crowd really didn’t. Anyone there wasn’t anything great about this but I wouldn’t call it bad either. Gulak must be a lot more loyal to CZW than I thought if he was willing to go out there under these circumstances.

**

Fan Bring the Weapons - Non-Tournament

Ron Mathis vs. Devon Moore

I really hated this. Matches like this are why people shit all over CZW and deathmatch wrestling as a whole. Honestly the term “garbage wrestling” is what’s coming to mind after seeing this. There was no semblance of them really trying to do anything here other than hit each other with stuff and do cool moves. I’ll give Mathis credit for some of the bumps he was taking (which Moore took none of really) but that’s where my praise has to end. These guys fought each other inside Cage of Death so you would think that they would hate each other. I never felt that they did and I really didn’t feel any emotion other than being amused when Mathis would talk shit to the fans. It really was just 2 guys hitting other with weapons.

½*

No Rope Barbed Wire Scaffold - Finals

Jun Kasai vs. MASADA

I actually want to say that this was old school, obviously I don’t mean that in the spots they did but in how they acted. I was reminded of a different time period while watching this. Kasai was doing things like throwing bloody bbq skewers into the crowd (hell even a cheese grater I think) and when they would cut each other up they would do it right on the guardrail so everyone could see them. It was such a different mentality that they had had and it was really refreshing. I know if I was in the crowd and I saw them coming I would get out of the way.

Things started with Kasai using his 80s heel tactics to take control of the match when he hits Masada with a low blow. From there he controlled the match for a long period of time and really messed Masada up. From there they transitioned to brawling through the crowd and around ringside. Now I’m really not a huge of fan of this but I can’t fault them because they gave their crowd exactly what they wanted to see. I think just about everyone there got an up close experience from these two. You had fans holding chairs, coolers that fans brought being used as weapons, and just general chaos in the crowd. This is a match that would have to go on last because they just destroyed the ringside area. Things really picked up again inside the ring after the brawl. That’s really what I liked about the match as well, things escalated perfectly. They started high, came down for a while, started building again, and ended at the perfect time.

At some point Masada hurt his leg and while I hope it’s not serious it really added to the match. Masada is the man at CZW. He’s been in the ring with everyone and he’s beaten just about everyone. You usually don’t see him in a position where it looks like he’s totally beaten like you did in this match. Seeing him hobbling around and trying but failing to keep going was an unusual sight but a pretty great one. Even in defeat he still looked like a badass so that was also a plus.

Between the way they built up to a great climax, interacted with the crowd, and just had a war made me love this match. These guys have had great matches in the past and I would put this up there with some of their other stuff I’ve seen from them. I enjoyed this more on my first viewing than I did their match from Wrestlecon last year when I watched that back after being there live. I think it’s always important that a finals match deliver and this certainly delivered. I would go even higher if the match didn’t drag a bit in the middle. Still this was pretty great.

****

Overall, great show. I got my money’s worth for sure. Glad I ordered it as it’s a nice change of pace from what I’ve recently been watching and I really do like seeing the current indy product. Obviously all the fly-ins really helped and I hope we continue to see them in CZW because I don’t really know how well this tournament would have went down without them.