8/31/78 AJPW, 2/3 Falls ALLL Heavyweight Title: Mil Mascaras vs. El Halcon 15:18
ML: This was a solid technical match that turned into a good grudge match. It wasn't nearly as spectacular as I was hoping, with no real flying from either, but it showed Mascaras could have a good match in a different style. Halcon was a good brawler, and Mascaras met him there rather than answering with his aerial attack. The first fall was almost all technical wrestling until the very end, culminating with Halcon winning with a belly to belly suplex. Halcon started punching early in the second, and it got heated quickly, as Mascaras fired up to answer him back. This was good stuff, but unfortunately it was a very short fall with Mascaras hitting his flying cross attack twice then getting the submission with a camel clutch. Halcon tried to unmask Mascaras in the third fall, setting up there mask match rematch that most likely would also have been a good match if it wasn't inexplicably the shortest mask match I've ever seen. Mascaras again gave what he was taking, trying to unlace Halcon's mask. Halcon shoved Joe Higuchi down and ripped Mascaras' mask, leading to the DQ. This definitely made me want to see their next match. I just wish that match was given a proper treatment, rather than hurthing this match to set up a match that wasn't even 5 minutes long. ***

9/12/80 AJPW, NWA World Heavyweight Title: Harley Race vs. Mil Mascaras 14:45
ML: This was such a high action contest. It way ahead of it's time, and could easily have taken place 15 or 20 years later. There was more action in the worst minute than we saw in the entire soporific 11/24/83 Flair undeservedly gets the gold without any flare. This was unfortunately the only time Mascaras challenged for this title in AJPW. This wasn't the typical Mascaras match, and was a lot better for it, as Race promoted action and violence, bringing out a much more active, aggressive, and intense Mascaras. Mascaras is obviously the better technician, but Race did a nice job of breaking up Mascaras' technical wrestling quickly with moments of action, keeping this from ever getting bogged down. This was really a huge improvement over typical Mascaras technical wrestling, even though he largely did the same sort of things, the presentation was a lot more dynamic. Race was able to create chaos, even using a table and chair (if not like ECW), and this out of the ring brawling was to his advantage, at least when Mascaras wasn't able to leap onto him. It felt like they were doing what was available rather than going through the requisite forms. They did a little of everything, and even though Mascaras was more exciting, Race was the one who was responsible for keeping this moving. They teased Mascaras' plancha and tope then he hit both later, but this felt like a fight, and they brawled in and out of the ring looking to put a hurting on one another, with Race eventually bleeding. Race took some big bumps including Mascaras stopping his diving headbutt by slamming him off the top, but then Race avoided his diving body attack. The only downside is it has the expected cheesy double count out finish. ****

1/24/26 UFC Interim UFC Lightweight Title Decision: Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett 5R
ML: This will be one of the most entertaining fights of the year because it's Gaethje. You are always going to get consistent in your face, all out action from him. Unless the opponent GSP's him, the rare occassion his fight is merely good is a disappointment. This was nonetheless one of the lower level men's UFC title fights we've seen this century outside of the slobs division in terms of the actual skill level, but luckily it doesn't have to be the highest skill to be the highest entertainment. Justin wasn't his old self. I'm not sure what the combination of old, injured, and rusty was, but he willed and gutted his way toward bullying a guy that would have had no business being in the ring with the Gaethje of even a couple years ago. Gaethje was lacking his usual versatility and fluidity, just trying to force right hand bombs, and unable to pounce on the openings like he used to the several times he hurt Pimblett. Paddy The Bad Fighter took over for Michael Bisping as the great UK hope, and after being gifted one of the most outlandish bad decisions ever over Jared Gordon, MMA Decisions users having Gordon winning R1 90.7%, R2 59.1%, R3 85.9%, went on to beat 3 washed veterans in Tony Ferguson, King Green, and Michael Chandler to "earn" the title shot. With Gaethje being 37 now, and having 30 plus fights on his resume, mostly wars, this was an attempt to push Paddy beyond the level of UFC creations such as Sage Northcutt and Paige Van Zandt into somehow being an actual champion, and we know from Bisping vs. Luke Rockhold that if your opponent underestimates you enough, anything can happen. Gaethje has been dying to win the title though, and although this wasn't the undisputed title he wanted, it's what he once had before losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2020, it basically guarantees another unification match since he's not in the weight class with Jon Jones. After this, I don't have confidence he'll beat the Ilia Topuria we are used to if the fight does happen, but with Topuria taking time off for personal reasons, we might not see that Topuria. Anyway, Paddy is kind of OSP where he's good for a prospect, but he's one of those perpetual "prospects". He's long and he's fine if he can hold his ground or get on top, but at 31 years old, 27 fights in, he's just got way too many deficiencies. Primarily, Paddy showed little in the way of footwork or intelligent movement. Gaethje said that champions push their opponent backwards, and that's what he did for most of these five rounds. He basically just told Paddy to stop him from doing the one thing that he was doing, and Paddy made almost no adjustments, so he kept getting backed into the cage and bullied. Paddy was fine if and when he held his ground, but he wasn't doing anything to facilitate that, so basically he was relying on Gaethje to take breaks because he's old. Paddy didn't have enough power to make Gaethje think twice about his strategy of backing Paddy into the cage, and Paddy just gave ground way to easily. Once or twice in the first round, Paddy actually made an attempt to circle away or get his back off the cage, but he just showed no positional urgency even though there were positions where he was clearly winning (at distance where he could kick or in the center) and a position where he should have the advantage (on top but he didn't try anything to get it there). Paddy didn't have the power to win exchanges with Gaethje, some of his best strikes were slow flicky no hip action kicks when he actually had range. I assumed Gaethje wasn't kicking much because he expected Pimblett to actually try to take him down, but it may also have been due to injury. Either way, Paddy needed to pick up on these kind of things and actually bring his hands up to defend his head, rather than thinking he's the world's slowest Roy Jones Jr. or that Gaethje was going to use middle kicks or something. I don't know what Paddy was thinking, but Gaethje was basically just punching, and the majority of his power was coming from the right hand to the head, yet Paddy wasn't doing much in the way of blocking or avoiding the head hunting with his hands mid torso. I'm glad Gaethje was able to dictate all fight, but I wish I could say it's because he was in great form rather than against an opponent who simply allowed him to do what he wanted. Gaethje was super pronounced in ducking his head to the left, so Paddy was trying to time it, but didn't have much success. Pimblett did some good work with the uppercut, but Gaethje was able to fight his old school Gaethje brawling style because he didn't respect Pimblett's ability to hurt him or drop into a takedown. Pimblett could hit Gaethje when he actually moved enough to create space, but his default was always to stop and give Gaethje an easy opportunity to continue pressing forward, rather than to land and move, land and move. Paddy was accurate with his low kicks, but again, he just didn't create enough space to land consistently. Especially early on, Gaethje was doing big damage with his right hand. It seemed like he injured the right hand or thumb and a leg or knee during the fight, so there was a stretch in the middle where he seemed to be trying not to throw the right hand, and in general his movement was awkward after a while. Gaethje could tie Paddy up against the cage or drag him down with a front face lock when he wanted to slow the pace down and chip away with short punches. For the most part though, Gaethje was fearless and determined, this opponent and whatever injuries weren't going to stop him from walking him down and throwing bombs. Gaethje got an uppercut knockdown in the first round during a flurry of punches the cage. Gaethje had a knock down in the second, kneeing Paddy as he was standing back up in the front facelock. Gaethje thumbed Pimblett in the eye with a left jab then dropped him with a right hook with 45 seconds left in round two. This wasn't a knuckle in the eye, but it's hard for the ref to call this illegal in real time since the thumb is going into the eye at the same time the punch is landing. Gaethje had some big shots just before the bell, but he needed to get started serious ground and pound sooner. This could have been a point deduction, but since it wasn't ruled a foul, I scored this 10-8 Gaethje. The 3rd round was the only round that Paddy won. He was actually holding the center, and Gaethje wasn't looking healthy. Justin kind of took the round, or at least big portions off, as he wasn't moving much or throwing the right hand. Paddy low blowing on a flying knee didn't help Gaethje, but the round was already lost by that point. I thought Paddy was on the way out in rounds 1, 2, & 4, but he hung in there and recovered, mostly because Gaethje seemed to always be trying to force the bomb until he had him hurt and then being a bit too confident Paddy wouldn't hold up to average ground punches. Round 5 was the next closest. Paddy finally tried a takedown, but like the rest of his good effort here, it was too little too late. Gaethje won a unanimous decision 49-46, 49-46, 48-47. Very good match.

2/4/82 AJPW, IWA World Heavyweight Title: Mil Mascaras vs. Genichiro Tenryu 11:52
ML: This was a huge improvement over their 9/7/81 match, decreasing the percentage of matwork and doing a much lengthier and more exciting and evolved finishing sequence. They did Mascaras match again, technical Lucha mat wrestling leading into high flying. That had pluses and minuses of course, but Mascaras had a lot more going on than Tenryu at this point, and was certainly still ahead of the curve offensively in 1982. Tenryu had returned from his American excursion at the end of May 1981, and was starting to get pushed, but was still the underdog trying to play even. This isn't the stiff, aggressive, sadistic bully Tenryu we know, but rather a solid, competent wrestler who can do a little of everything, but doesn't necessarily distinguish himself in any area. The technical wrestling here was serious, with some resistance, and enough position changes to hold interest. There's no real payoff to the escapes though, no explosive gymnastics or exciting reversals, so it's pretty mid, especially since they never had any kind of reset where they slipped in 30 seconds of rope running once or twice to break things up. Once things picked up, it was a futuristic heavyweight match with Tenryu doing a tope, while Mascaras did a plancha. Tenryu wasn't initially pinned by the diving body attack, but they rolled back and forth until he was, which I thought was actually worse, as it was sloppy plus too much time had now passed to get the pin. Overall, it was about 8 decent minutes followed by 4 minutes that were exciting for the era. ***

4/17/92 CMLL: Mascarita Sagrada & Misteriocito & Octagoncito vs. Espectrito & Pierrothito & Piratita Morgan
ML: This was the last CMLL match of most of these guys before AAA started. They were finally treating Sagrada, who was getting better now that he'd been wrestling about 2 1/2 years, like a star in this match and going out of their way to make him look good, rather than him just seeming like another guy. They gave him plenty of opportunities to counter into arm drags in the first fall, and generally show off even when he wasn't doing his most spectacular stuff. The first fall was good fast action, but that was by far the best part of the match. The 2nd fall that the rudos won had too much stomping. Unfortunately, Octagoncito didn't get much shine because it went to Sagrada. The rudos continued to dominate early in this third fall, so there was quite a drought here with only brief highlights. Akira Hokuto, billed as Aquira, didn't do much in her match that preceded this, but Sagrada did her tope con giro. The tecnicos had their moments in the third fall, mostly towards the end. All in all, this was more enjoyable than the previous few minis matches I watched from leading up to this, but it was perhaps more a match that should have been good because the highs were a lot higher than one that actually got there. **3/4

11/7/25 IWA Perfect Year Finale Match: Rita Stone vs. Jessica Troy 13:20
ML: Stone is a wrestler I've gotten into while trying to find more good Troy & Charli Evans matches. She's a fast and energetic burst oriented high flyer who can strike and grapple. She's in her 5th year now, and seems to have gotten much better in the past year or so. She's impressive offensively, but she kind of does what she does and needs someone to base for her, so her random match is enjoyable enough for what it is but not necessarily recommendable yet. She's a good opponent for someone who can construct a match though, and she's capable of going outside her box if they can take her there. This is serious joshi workrate style wrestling where they keep at it. This started out as sort of a Lucha Libre oriented match with a lot of headscissor variations. That helps Stone to an extent, but at the same time, her stuff would look more dynamic if Troy were locking her up then Stibe was making the explosive comeback. The first half was a little disappointing for their capabilities. This was well executed, and they really upped the speed, intensity and impact in the second half. The match gained a lot of momentum as it progressed and both worked at a more impressive pace. Troy kicked out of the rolling Stone (swinging neckbreaker from a reverse DDT position), but Stone went right into the crippler crossface for the win. ***

12/6/25 SLAM! Women's Title: Rita Stone vs. Jessica Troy 8:22
ML: This was shorter than their 11/7/25 match, but they really went all out from start to finish, and it was really good while it lasted. Stone showed her good gymnastics and body control. Troy executes better, but Stone is the better athlete of the two, and is good enough to keep up with Troy. When this was fast, it was really fast. This started as a sprint, and the quicker portions were what Stone was trying to dominate. Once Troy was able to "slow things down", she began to disseminate Stone's left arm. They crammed all they could into the time they had, but the finish, while impressive, was very rushed. Stone missed a lionsault and Troy went into her wakigatame. Stone countered into the rolling Stone then won with her 450 splash. ***1/4

NJPW 2/6/76 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Different Style Fight: Antonio Inoki vs. Willem Ruska 20:35
DC: To truly understand the uniqueness of this match, there are a few things you should know. Antonio Inoki, who was trained by Rikidozan (the ‘father of puroresu’), was the founder of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and he is one of the most iconic and legendary names in Japanese pro wrestling history. Now, as a wrestler, when it came to regular pro wrestling matches, he really wasn’t too exceptional. However, what you really need to know about Inoki is that in 1976, he fought people from other combat sports and thus basically fought in several proto-MMA fights. There was no such thing as what we know as modern MMA prior to 1993 when Pancrase and UFC were formed (with guys like Masakatsu Funaki, Minoru Suzuki and Ken Shamrock being top pioneers of modern MMA, who had all been heavily involved in Japanese shoot-style wrestling, and early Pancrase was definitely at least partially worked fighting and not full-on shoot fighting). There was no blueprint or example for such MMA organizations prior to 1985 when Satoru Sayama created the fighting system Shooto. And there really was no such thing as what we call shoot-style pro wrestling prior to U.W.F. being formed in 1984 with guys like Satoru Sayama (who would found the Shooto MMA league in 1989, which was the first-ever MMA league), Akira Maeda (who would found RINGS in 1991), Yoshiaki Fujiwara (who would found PWFG in 1991) and Nobuhiko Takada (who would found UWF-I in 1991) as the main shoot-style wrestling pioneers. With the exception of Shooto and UFC (which were full-on shoot fighting leagues), basically all of the aforementioned leagues were more or less blurring the lines between works and shoots at some point. The first man to really experiment with the blurring of fiction and reality on a big stage seemingly was Inoki, though. Inoki wanted to prove that he, the top star of what he felt was the #1 pro wrestling league in Japan (NJPW), was a serious fighter who could beat fighters from other disciplines, which would then give further credibility to pro wrestling. This was a unique concept, and the very first ‘different style fight’ (which is basically a proto-MMA fight) fought by Inoki was this bout with Willem Ruska, a famous judoka from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You see, RINGS wasn’t the first to bring in foreign fighters from countries where pro wrestling wasn’t really a thing and let them do pro wrestling with a shoot fighting mentality (as RINGS brought in sambo fighters and kickboxers from Russia and The Netherlands), as it was Inoki who brought in Dutch judoka Willem Ruska to face him in a ‘different style fight.’ Ruska is considered an all-time great judoka, and in 1972 became the only judoka to win two gold medals at the same Olympics. Furthermore, Ruska was the second non-Japanese judoka (after Anton Geesink, also a Dutchman) to be considered a great judoka (as all great judoka prior to Geesink and Ruska were all Japanese). So, Ruska was definitely a big deal in combat sports, and for Inoki to face him in this ‘different style fight’ was truly something worth anticipating. In fact, this show, headlined by Inoki versus Ruska, was the first time NJPW ran a show at the famous Tokyo Nippon Budokan. With all the historical facts out of the way, let’s focus on the actual match. Inoki, who wanted to prove he was indeed the real world martial arts champ in this wrestler vs. judoka bout, fought cautiously yet confidently at the same time. Ruska showed absolutely no fear and seemed very sure of his ability to show he was the superior fighter. Contrary to what some people believe, judo is not purely a defensive sport, as it is indeed a proactive combat sport. That’s why Ruska was very capable of giving Inoki a run for his money here pretty much for the duration of the entire fight. Now, for those of you who might think this doesn’t look as advanced as what RINGS would do in the 1990s, remember this is from 1976. Also, this was a lot like RINGS, as you had a Dutch fighter who had never had a pro wrestling match in his life prior to this, not fully understanding pro wrestling yet understanding what to do in this match. The main difference is that Ruska was way more of a high-profile name than any of the RINGS gaijin ever were. Inoki deserves credit for allowing Ruska to approach this in his natural way from a judoka perspective while always looking to be ready to go for the ‘kill.’ Inoki was obviously the one ‘leading’ the match, but in a very loose way, as he allowed this to look and feel natural and organic. The spot where Inoki gives Ruska to go for the jujigatame was really well done. Sure, this may not have been an actual shoot, but there was definitely a blurring of the lines between work and shoot here, as Ruska wasn’t familiar with traditional pro wrestling and probably approached this like a fight that was supposed to look real yet also entertain the crowd and make Inoki look good. In other words, in some ways, they were trying to undo years of overly theatrical and showy interpretations of pro wrestling and were going back straight to the roots of pro wrestling; it’s supposed to be a fight. And to those who say this doesn’t resemble a good pro wrestling match, let me remind you that what they were trying to do here wasn’t to have a traditional pro wrestling match that followed whatever patterns pro wrestling had been following by that point in the ‘70s (especially considering Ruska would have no idea what that would even look like), they were literally trying to have a ‘different style fight’ and that’s exactly what they accomplished. Did it look awkward at times? Sure. Was it unique and different? Hell yeah! Just keep in mind once again that there was no MMA at the time, so there was no set technique or set approach to a truly unique match like this. The final minutes definitely looked more like a work than the earlier portions of the match, though, which could be explained as Ruska letting Inoki do his thing for the planned final minutes that featured more regular pro wrestling stuff. Excellent match. **** 

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 2/10/76 Solihull, England, Commonwealth Heavyweight Title: Count Bartelli vs. Pete Roberts
DC: Joined in progress in round three. Interestingly enough, Count Bartelli used to be a masked wrestler but had lost his mask to Kendo Nagasaki (Peter Thornley) in 1966 in a mask match (which supposedly also ended Bartelli’s 20-year undefeated streak). Based on this match, Pete Roberts was a lot more of a lively wrestler in 1976 than he would be in the 1980s. He was definitely the more dynamic of the two wrestlers. Count Bartelli was quite an interesting and solid no-nonsense type of wrestler, though. Bartelli was quite good in his role as the champion who wasn’t easily phased. Roberts showed the will to win and kept trying. In the end, Bartelli retained the silver belt. Good match. ***¼ 

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 2/25/76 Sheffield, England: John Naylor vs. Bill Ross
DC: I was familiar with English wrestler John Naylor from his matches with Steve Grey in 1975. Here, in this match from 1976, Naylor once again showed that he was quite a good grappler. I wasn’t familiar with Scottish wrestler Bill Ross, but he appeared to be quite a solid grappler. This was definitely the typical old school WOS grappling bout in which both competitors were simply trying to outwrestle each other and challenge each other and themselves to have a competitive grappling bout. Ross showed determination and gave a pretty good performance. However, it was Naylor who was the far more impressive of the two, as Naylor moved smoother and was quicker at attacking and countering. While what they did was nothing that was beyond what others were doing at the time, it certainly was quite a good match. What was disappointing was that after Ross scored the equalizing fall, the match kinda ended abruptly when he took a crotch-first bump on the ropes. Very good match. ***½  

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 3/23/76 Nottingham, England: Vic Faulkner vs. Phil Pearson
DC: This was part of a series of matches between two teams. Vic Faulkner was a good worker. His much heavier opponent was Phil Pearson, who was quite a dull and basic worker. Faulkner made the match interesting and worth watching. Faulkner ended up fooling his slow opponent quite a few times. This would have been better than merely pretty good if Pearson would have been more capable. Good match. *** 

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 4/21/76 Woking, England: Mike Marino vs. Lee Bronson
DC: Mike Marino was an English wrestler of Italian heritage and had been wrestling since 1951. He was far more experienced than his opponent, Lee Bronson, who was relatively new. This was a very well-worked wrestling match, as they really put over the struggle. Bronson was really trying to do his best here, and at some point even earned a handshake from Marino, who was impressed with the determination of his younger opponent. This was a very straightforward old school bout, but the quality of the wrestling was very good due to both combatants displaying a good amount of intensity and desire. It was Bronson’s will to impress and passion to succeed that made the veteran Marino realize that he had to be on top of his game in this match. Marino showed his experience and toughness, but Bronson kept pushing and kept moving forward, which made this bout be filled with non-stop high-quality grappling action. As the match progressed, Marino stepped up his game and tried to trick Bronson into making mistakes. In spite of the valiant effort by Bronson, it was Marino’s experience that got him the win. This bout featured tremendous technical wrestling and tremendous storytelling. Great match. ****½

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 1/13/76 Leicester, England: Kendo Nagasaki vs. Roy St. Clair
DC: Kendo Nagasaki was one of the most famous wrestling TV characters in World of Sport history. Just to be clear, this was the character portrayed by English wrestler Peter Thornley. American and Japanese wrestling fans, however, will possibly associate the name Kendo Nagasaki with Kazuo Sakurada’s version of the gimmick. Roy St. Clair was the older brother of Tony St. Clair. The wrestling in this heavyweight bout wasn’t as advanced as what generally was shown in bouts from the lighter weight divisions. That’s why it’s only a mild recommendation. Still, it was good enough to be enjoyable and interesting to watch. Nagasaki was arguably the top heel appearing on WOS at the time. His gimmick was that of a mysterious Eastern warrior. As an interesting contrast, he had an outrageously flamboyant openly gay manager known as ‘Gorgeous’ George Gillette, who added to the heel heat. By the way, Thornley was bisexual, but he wouldn’t reveal that until 2018 due to societal pressures of the time. In this match, the action was steady and interesting enough for the most part. They both played their roles well. Roy St. Clair was good at being the eager babyface when he was on offense. St. Clair didn’t let any of the heelishness of the opposition throw him off and continued to wrestle a fair wrestling contest. Nagasaki was good at the heel psychology aspects of making this match work while balancing character work with wrestling quite well. Nagasaki won this match via KO. Good match. ***   

Joint Promotions WOS Wrestling TV 2/4/76 Southend, England, Middleweight Title: Mark Rocco vs. Kung Fu
DC: Kung Fu (Ed Hamill) was a Northern Irish wrestler who was masked at the time. Mark Rocco was 24 years old, and had over 5 years of pro wrestling experience by the time of this match. Rocco had been appearing on World of Sport Wrestling since 1970. Mark Rocco was like a machine, as he just kept going and going. Kung Fu would occasionally fight back, which would result in Rocco bumping and selling like crazy to make the crowd go wild for Kung Fu. Rocco would let Kung Fu do just enough to please the crowd, but he was in control enough to make the match good. Kung Fu was perhaps hindered by the gimmick, as it felt like he wasn’t wrestling very freely. Still, this was quite an action-packed match by 1976 standards. Near the end of the match, Rocco even executed a tope suicida. Kung Fu got his nose bloodied. Of course, six years later, Rocco would end up battling a far more famous masked wrestler. Good match. ***¼ 

10/23/91 CMLL: Cynthia Moreno & Esther Moreno vs. Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada
ML: This was kind of an odd hybrid between Lucha Libre and puroresu, as Kyoko did a little Lucha, while Yamada did just about zero. These women were familiar with each other from AJW though, so there was enough talent, plus a bit of chemistry, to mostly get over the stylistic differences. Either way, these women are mostly about delivering high workrate action, and they definitely succeeded at that. 1991 was the best year of Esther, and she brought a lot of energy and athleticism to the match. Both the Moreno's were predictably a bit sloppy, but particularly Esther showed some impressive flying for the era. Both Kyoko and Yamada could run around with them, but Kyoko worked with them a lot more, whereas Yamada did her kicks and suplexes kind of in a vacuum then whipped them into the ropes and fed for them. Yamada easily showed the crispest offense, so she was an asset even if it was sort of towards a different match. The finish saw the Morenos fake simultaneous types then Cynthia did a plancha and held the opposition so Esther could do a quebrada. Back in the ring, the Moreno's hit simultaneous missile kicks for the win. This sort of match wouldn't really stand out on an AJW card, but in Mexico the women rarely got on TV, and when they did, you usually wished they didn't. ***

1/4/91 EMLL: Espectrito Jr. & MS-1-2 & Piratita Morgan vs. Aguilita Solitaria & Mascarita Sagrada & Pequeno Cobarde
ML: This was a shorter match since the rudos took it in straight falls, so they were on the move a lot more. Sagrada's offense was a lot more spectacular than the others. Sagrada was one of the first wrestlers who was really featuring boomerang moves, and he had an entire arsenal of them. Espectrito already had great chemistry with Sagrada, and worked more elaborate sequences basing for him. The others were all fine, but whereas Sagrada vs. Espectrito felt ahead of its time, it felt more like standard '80s Lucha Libre when the others were in. In the end, this was worth watching and better than the couple other ones I saw from later in the year, but because it was short and didn't even have great climaxes since the faces got no love, I'm not sure it quite makes it to the level of good. **3/4

10/23/92 AAA: Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito & Angelito Azteca vs. Espectrito & Jerrito Estrada & Picudito
ML: This wasn't so much a Sagrada vs. Espectrito match as a really good match where everyone made strong contributions. Picudito was the worst by far, but you could probably make an argument that any of the other five were the best. Even moreso than most Lucha, this was good when they were running around, but dull when they were standing around.The first fall was kind of the standard Lucha Libre fall where it started out as nothing special, but had an exciting ending. Some of the rudo brawling was quite limp, but the tecnicos bursts were impressive. Octagoncito was very good here, pushing the pace and executing with precision. He had more snap to his stuff than the others, and generally appeared to be the best worker of the bunch today. Azteca vs. Estrada was a good pairing that really got things going at the start of the second fall. This fall was notable, much faster paced action that was really good stuff from start to finish with everyone chipping in. The rudos won the second fall, and their dominance continued into the third fall, which brought things back down more to the level of the beginning of the first fall. It picked up again once the tecnicos regained control, and was back to the level of the 2nd fall for the duration. Again there was an excellent burst at the end with dives by Azteca and Octagoncito before Sagrada pinned Espectrito with a boomerang huracarrana. ***1/4

4/1/16 WWE NXT Women's Title: Bayley vs. Asuka 15:23.
ML: I didn't have high hopes for this after how average Bayley's supposedly excellent 4/7/24 match against IYO SKY was, but I suppose it was no less uninspiring than the rest of SKY's WWE work, and the Marigold match against Mayu Iwatani showed we're long past the decade where the quality of your match against spazzing IYO is even any kind of a relevant benchmark. Asuka did a nice job of altering her style to what Bayley can do better, focusing more on pace and athleticism and less on stiffness and believability early on. Bayley worked hard and gave an energetic and earnest performance. She's a good athlete who wasn't a natural wrestler or mover at this point. You could almost hear the gears grinding to get herself to perform what she was thinking about at times, but she hit the moves. Bayley was a good babyface, and her spirit carried her a long way against a far more lethal opponent. There was a spot where she propelled Asuka to the floor escaping the ankle lock and then came up limping, but followed with a tijeras through the middle rope. As the match progressed, Bayley shifted more towards doing Asuka's style in the 2nd half, and ultimately wound up doing more leg work than Asuka. The speed and intensity started good and increased over time. Asuka was pumped up here, and doing a quick hitting striking attack. This match looked like they were actually trying to do something with the striking, which was refreshing after the endless flatfooted drunken toughman forms of Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura. Asuka couldn't win with the arm bar, but transitioned to the Asuka lock, and held it long enough that Bayley eventually passed out. Bayley wound up working Asuka's match more in the 2nd half, and that cost her, as she couldn't beat her in striking or submissions. This definitely leaned more towards action than cohesive storytelling, but not getting bogged down by the silly tropes helped at least even things out. ***

8/20/16 WWE NXT Tag Team Title: Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa 19:10
ML: Typical solid, well worked traditional FTR 80s style tag. This was a real team vs. two guys who had been teaming on and off the past year, but didn't have their #DIY team name yet. FTR certainly laid out the match, but Gargano & Ciampa played their roles well and got the crowd behind them. This was never amazing, but always interesting enough. The well defined roles and typical Southern tag hijinks worked to an extent, but at the same time, kept it from being all that surprising. Dash pretended to be a clutz, falling over the top into the ring to distract the ref from Ciampa making the hot tag, then they hit the Demolition decapitation on Ciampa. The crowd was really into Gargano's hot tag. This was when they got the near falls going, and the match improved dramatically. Gargano was going alone, but Ciampa tagged right back in almost as soon as Dawson caught him with a DDT. Gargano & Ciampa hit the running superkick and knee combination to Dash and the ref counted 3, but then realized the foot was on the ropes and overturned it. Dash took Gargano's knee out with a clip after he knocked Dawson off the apron. Dawson then locked up the knee and Dash finished it off with a diving footstomp so Dawson could finish him with the reverse figure 4. This was about the right length, but it started too slow, and ended too suddenly. The final few minutes were excellent, but it felt like they could have done more at this higher level. I don't mind that they basically killed the knee out of nowhere, more matches should use real world logic, but they could have done a quicker opening if they weren't going to use any real limb work. ***

2/15/20 PWA PWWA Title Steel Cage: Jessica Troy vs. Steph De Lander 20:24
ML: I've never been much of a fan of cage matches outside of the AJW lineage, but Troy is one of the best at doing gimmick matches that still feel like actual wrestling matches. The match was a very professionally worked, and never felt like the usual chaos or carnage. This wasn't just a bunch of head ramming and overdramatic climbing, it's a match they could have done without the cage that was actually better because they figured out how to use the landscape to make things they would have done anyway that much more dangerous without negating that by wasting a quarter of the match setting them up. This was a fast-paced, high action match that kept pleasantly surprising me. They tried everything they could think of, utilizing the structure and the chairs that were brought in well, but it didn't feel like they were just doing a bunch of things because that's what a cage match is supposed to be. They stayed on one another, and it actually didn't feel too contrived despite all the moving pieces. It held my interest from start to finish. Troy was definitely the major performer here who was making the match, but De Lander is a sturdy power wrestler who was a good base and did a good job of hoisting Troy around. Troy focused on the arm to an extent throughout, but it wasn't one of those linear, can't do anything else kind of forced and contrived strategies. When the arm was there, she capitalized, but she didn't go through hoops to make sure she hit the arm rather than the leg. De Lander did go through chairs so to speak, including kicked through the chair seat and knocking it into Troy's face. Troy used a wakigatame with De Lander's stomach down on the seat, arm through the chair back. Troy used two tijeras into the cage then went for another, but De Lander countered into a tilt-a-whirl and "lawn darted" her into the cage instead. De Lander set up another tilt-a-whirl, but Troy countered with a DDT. De Lander powerbombed Troy into the cage. De Lander set up an avalanche crucifix roll, but Troy countered with a Frankensteiner. Troy slammed the arm into the chair and tried to escape, but De Lander powerbombed her onto chairs. There was a brutal spot where Troy stomped the chair with De Lander's arm in it. Troy even did a wakigatame through the top of the cage as both were struggling to get over the top. She knocked De Lander off and could have climbed out, but decides to jump back in with a body attack off the cage instead. Troy countered a powerbomb by rolling De Lander into a wakigatame then added the other arm for the Venus de milo, then added both legs into the clasp so there was no escape, and De Lander finally had to surrender. ****

8/28/92 AAA: Huichol, Psicosis & Tercera Dimension vs. Rey Misterio & Rey Misterio Jr. & Kendo Star
ML: This was mainly notable for the early action between Psicosis & Rey Jr, but they at least kept things moving no matter who was involved, even if there was too much aimless brawling. Rey's offense was already miles better than everyone else's. He had a hard time balancing on super loose ropes, but managed a super quebrada. Psicosis was willing to take chances, but wasn't as spectacular as he'd soon become. He did Savage's patented double ax handle and took a big bump into the post after missing a turnbuckle charge. Tercera Dimension was Mando Guerrero, the 2nd best of the brothers behind Eddie. His brother Hector never lived down the infamy of the Thanksgiving night Vince put him in a turkey suit, hatched him out of an egg, and had him break dance as The Gobbledy Gooker. Whatever this Mando gimmick was supposed to be, he looked like he just left a Pulp Fiction casting call for the role of The Gimp. He showed no real skill here, using a noose at one point. Rey Sr. was more energetic than I remember, and managed to keep up. He may not have done much spectacular, a dropkick and a plancha, but I enjoyed him here a lot more than usual. Kendo Star looks like Kendo & Octagon, but is the guy also known as Salsero. He could move, but did no wrestling moves of note. The finish saw Rey Sr. tried a headscissors out of the corner, but Huichol headbutted him in the midsection, which they pretended was a low blow, so that was enough to score the pin. ***

12/16/15 WWE: Asuka vs. Emma 14:49
ML: Asuka had only been in WWE for 2 months, so she hadn't had all the stiffness and aggression "trained" out of her yet. This was her first match that went longer than 10 minutes. She worked hard, and still felt enough like the great wrestler we'd been seeing in Japan. Emma wasn't doing anything too fancy either, which was good against Asuka. Crucially, she had enough impact to be believable hanging in with Asuka. This is a good pairing given what WWE had to offer. There was a surprising amount of intensity, energy, and urgency for a WWE match, and that made you take the submissions and near falls seriously. The distractions from Inelegant Ash just worked against what they were trying to do the rest of the time though. Asuka won with a spinning high kick. There was never any doubt that Asuka would win, and this was hardly a classic, but it was a credible, well executed match that served its purpose of getting Asuka over more. ***

WWF 6/3/89 Boston, MA: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart 18:53 (20:00 claimed)
DC: These two would in total wrestle each other nearly 60 times. This match from the Boston Garden was the 20th match in the feud, which had started pretty much as soon Perfect was done feuding with Bret’s brother, Owen Hart (The Blue Blazer) in April of that year. It was really cool to see these two get this amount of time. This showed that, even though Bret’s singles push wouldn’t fully start until 1991, the WWF had already been playing with the idea of letting Bret have more singles matches ever since mid ‘88 and now again in mid ‘89. Perfect and Owen was an intriguing pairing that ultimately didn’t result in many memorable situations due to WWF not having much faith in Owen. However, they clearly seemed to see potential in Bret as a singles guy, as they let him go nearly twenty minutes with a guy that was still undefeated at that point, a guy they had been billing as the ‘Perfect’ wrestler. Perfect had been in the WWF for nearly a year at that point. He had been having a couple of pretty good matches here and there, but this seemed to be an opportunity to be involved in a WWF match that was more than just pretty good. Bret had been in the WWF for nearly five years at that point, but for the most part he'd been teamed up with Jim ‘the Anvil’ Neidhart as one of the most recognizable WWF tag teams of the ‘80s, the Hart Foundation. We were fortunate this bout was recorded for a TV special, because during ‘89, this feud was mainly just for house shows. The main thing that was immediately noticeable was how much chemistry these two workers had, and how much smoother their execution was than most WWF wrestlers at the time. The main downside of this match was that the middle part was considerably slower than the start of the match. There was enough substance to avoid creating the feeling the layout was disjointed, but it was clear that they would get better at filling in the middle part of the match later on in their feud. The finish was even more disappointing, as it was one of those time limit draws that just kinda abruptly ended without too much build towards it. That being said, considering this was 1989 WWF, it’s hard to imagine many wrestlers on the roster at the time could have done a better job of working a relatively serious match of this length on the middle of the card. We even got some interesting post-match action, as Bret asked for five more minutes, but Perfect ended up attacking Bret from behind until Bret got his revenge by beating Perfect up to the delight of the crowd. Both of these second-generation wrestlers had tremendous respect for one another, and it resulted in what was possibly Perfect’s best WWF match up until that point (unless his matches vs. Bret from earlier that year were even better). We would have to wait until 1991 to see their far more famous and far better match against each other. Good match. ***   

WWF 10/2/89 Wheeling, WV: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart 17:20
DC: This match made it to WWF Prime Time Wrestling. Mr. Perfect had ‘The Genius’ Lanny Poffo in his corner. Mr. Perfect now also had a theme song. During the early portion of the match, Perfect did an excellent job being the cocky heel and putting Bret Hart over as the sympathetic babyface hero who was outsmarting him. For a 1989 WWF match, this was about as pure of a wrestling contest as you can get. Timing and execution were superb. There was a lot more action and much less time wasting than in their 6/3/89 match. Perfect started being in control more after Bret took one of those sternum-first bumps into the corner that he’s always so proud of doing so well. Perfect gave a strong performance, one of his best WWF performances, but Bret was probably the man of the match, as he seemed more into making this a dynamic match. While Perfect was somewhat limited by having to act like a WWF heel, for WWF standards, he was a heel who mainly focused on wrestling. In many ways, it seems like with each match they wrestled each other, they were coming closer to reaching that level of greatness they were able to achieve together in their famous SummerSlam ‘91 match. This match ended when the sneaky Perfect used the tights to score a pinfall win over the Hitman. Very good match. ***¾  

WWF SummerSlam 8/26/91 New York City Madison Square Garden, WWF Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart 18:04
DC: One of the most exceptional things about Bret Hart is that he’s one of the very few of the ‘80s tag team workers that ended up having a better run as a singles wrestler than as a tag team wrestler. Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart, the Hart Foundation, was a really good tag team, but mainly for Bret, and it was ultimately his singles run starting this year that truly made him a household name, while Neidhart dropped down the card and never captured another major title after they dropped the WWF Tag Titles to the Nasty Boys on 3/24/91. Right from the start in this match, Bret Hart showed that he was very eager to win his first singles title in the WWF. Winning really feels like the most important thing in the world for Bret, and that’s what makes his matches very easy to get into as a fan. His fighting spirit and determination are key factors in the success of this match. ‘Mr. Perfect’ Curt Hennig was hurt going into this match, and he was wrestling with a back injury here, but he was determined to have this final match before taking a break, and was clearly determined to give as strong a performance as possible because of his respect for Bret. The respect was mutual, as Bret has mentioned on more than one occasion that Hennig was his favorite opponent to wrestle. Having Bret as a championship-level singles wrestler was certainly a very good move by the WWF, as it meant the potential for more interesting matches than the average WWF matches. The near falls in this match were dramatic and helped build this match to an exciting finish. This was an exceptional match, and it was arguably the best match in WWF history up until that point in time. In this match, Bret certainly proved that his push as a singles superstar in the WWF was warranted. This was the best match between these two that’s available on video, but according to Bret himself, they had an even better match in Alaska at some point in 1989, but that match was unfortunately not filmed by anyone. Great match. ****½  

WWF 6/13/93 Dayton, OH, King of the Ring Semifinal: Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect 18:56
DC: After dropping the Intercontinental Title to Bret Hart at SummerSlam ‘91, Mr. Perfect didn’t wrestle until his return at WWF Survivor Series ‘92. What made this match quite different from their SummerSlam ‘91 match was the much slower, more methodical pace they wrestled this at. Of course, Mr. Perfect hadn’t been the same ever since suffering the nearly career-ending back injury in June ‘91. Both men had wrestled a match on this show, as Mr. Perfect had made it to the semifinals by defeating Mr. Hughes earlier that night, while Bret Hart had defeated Razor Ramon. During the second half of the match, the pace picked up and this helped increase the drama of the match. All in all, this never came close to reaching the levels of the ‘91 match. When I watched this ‘93 match decades ago, I thought it was a great match, but that’s when I was still only watching WWF and I was more into the storytelling and character aspects of wrestling. The storytelling was definitely really good, but the in-ring work was disappointing due to Perfect not being able to wrestle like he used to. That being said, it really feels like Perfect tried but simply didn’t have the energy to give a stronger performance. 1993 was certainly an exceptionally weak year for WWF. Bret was probably the only one who was consistently reliable in trying to uplift the in-ring product and save it from complete mediocrity. Good match. ***

3/12/21 PWA No DQ PWWA Title: Jessica Troy vs. Charli Evans 20:35
ML: Evans specializes in this style of violence, but her former best friend Troy is the champion. They delivered an impressive hardcore grudge match that wasn't a waste of their talent, but the first half where they wrestled was a lot better than the second half where they managed the plunder. They were able to mix technical and garbage wrestling without one distracting from the other. Early on they would work a body part in order to set up beating the opponent with a weapon once they were slowed down. Since this was culminating with a submission, I would rather have seen more of that. As the match progressed, they figured ways to work a chair or kendo stick into their regular offense, including Evans doing a swinging neckbreaker onto a chair. This was a really good match until Evans spent about 3 minutes pulling out every chair from underneath the ring, then in building what the announcers called a "Tower of Terror", which Troy eventually superplexed her onto. From here, they just spent too much time collecting the gimmicks and setting up the gimmick spots. Troy set up a pile of thumbtacks, but it backfired on her with Evans backdropping her into it. Troy vertical suplexed Evans into the thumbtacks though, and stuck so many little spikes into her head it looked like a headdress. Troy then won with the wakigatame, which Evans seemed to survive by making the ropes, but there were no rope escapes, so she eventually tapped. ***

AWA 12/27/87 Las Vegas, NV, AWA World Heavyweight Title: Curt Hennig vs. Wahoo McDaniel
DC: ‘Cool’ Curt Hennig sold tremendously for Wahoo McDaniel, which made McDaniel look even more of a tough brawler than he already was. The match was worked at a deliberate pace, making it feel like a grudge match. McDaniel juiced, which helped emphasize this was indeed a heated feud. Solid performance by McDaniel. Strong performance by Hennig. The match ended in a double count-out. Good match. ***¼ 

WWF 12/3/88 Boston, MA: Curt Hennig vs. Tim Horner 9:44
DC: This was the first time these two ever wrestled each other. Curt Hennig was acting more and more like his nickname ‘Mr. Perfect.’ He showed more confidence and cockiness. He started carrying a towel to the ring, and was now wearing colorful trunks. Apart from the character work having become better, also the execution of his wrestling was now once again reminiscent of his peak AWA era of late ‘86 through early ‘88. He showed more intensity than in his prior WWF matches. Tim Horner was a perfect opponent for Mr. Perfect because Horner can be quite the spectacular and fast worker who understands his role of making the heel opponent look stronger. And Horner knows how to make the match better while not necessarily making himself look like the man of the match. Horner was such an underrated worker. Even Hennig’s finisher seems to have been upgraded, since he finally won with a move that wasn’t just a lariat or powerslam. Hennig won this match via a fisherman’s buster, the move that would end up being known as the Perfect Plex. Good match. ***

WWF WrestleMania V 4/2/89 Atlantic City, NJ: Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer 5:38
DC: Curt Hennig was known simply as Mr. Perfect. I guess he had proven himself to be Perfect enough. This was also around the time he had started wearing colorful singlets instead of just trunks. Owen Hart had been brought into the WWF at the request of brother Bret ‘The Hitman.’ WWF figured that because Owen was a high flyer, they should give him the superhero gimmick of The Blue Blazer (especially since they weren’t interested in booking him simply as Bret’s brother (yet)). Speaking of Bret, soon after WrestleMania V was over, Perfect would start feuding with Owen’s brother, Bret. Perfect’s short feud with the Blazer started just after the Royal Rumble and consisted basically of just a few house show matches. Especially with this match lasting only five minutes, it seemed to show that WWF felt Perfect was too much of a superstar to be having a longer feud with the masked Owen. The work in this WM V match was quite smooth, especially for 1989 WWF standards. Owen’s offense looked good, and Perfect sold well for him. This match featured stuff that was unlike what you’d normally see in WWF at the time, and it was arguably the best match of WM V. That being said, it wasn’t more than three stars because the entire match was basically just billed around Owen’s offense sequences, alternated by Perfect stopping Blazer for a bit until scoring the inevitable win via the Perfect Plex. This definitely could have been better if it would have been, like, two or three times longer. Good match. ***

5/11/97 WWF No Holds Barred: Ken Shamrock vs. Vader 13:21
ML: PWFG vs. UWF-I in WWF of all places. This was essentially Shamrock's WWF debut (he had a brief exhibition with his Lion's Den student Vernon "Tiger" White on 4/7/97) after 4 years away from pro wrestling fighting in UFC and Pancrase. Vader was one of the only reasonable opponents for him given his extensive experience in Japanese shoot wrestling, but there he was rightfully the man, and everyone was going out of their way to put him over. He had been greatly tarnished in WWF, and once the vastly overrated diva Shawn Michaels went out if his way to turn Vince against him, Vader went from perpetual world champion to never holding any WWF title, and Sucko Sid got two Heavyweight Title runs before Vader wisely moved on to NOAH. WWF invested big money in Shamrock, and they had to start him off strongly for sure, but they needed a couple other shooters to run over in this style to build up to this as a match WWF fans would understand and appreciate. The live audience got into it, and Jim Ross tried to give it the real sport play by play, but obnoxious "haha" Burger King Lawler just kept screaming his silly juvenile nonsense the whole time, making it impossible to take seriously. I liked this style more than how the match itself was laid out and executed. I was impressed by how selfless Vader was here. Normally he's the giving bully, but the task at hand was putting over Shamrock, and his performance was mostly geared towards that. He's really the reason this worked. The match itself had the typical WWF problem where they refuse to truly commit to doing something different, and quickly just revert to generic brawling. This started off well, but for the most part the early stages were the highlight. Shamrock was pumped up, taking it to Vader with his strikes, particularly middle kicks, and Vader was trying to legitimately calm him down a bit, and in story grab and throw him. Shamrock was working more to get Vader off his feet for the submission than he is for the knockout. Vader was already among the loosest of the shoot stylists, and they quickly managed to put a bit of rope running and stalling on the outside back in to the mix. Vader set up a vertical suplex, but dropped Shamrock to the floor. This was nasty, but brawling on the floor and using the steps isn't what this type of match is supposed to contain. Back in the ring, Vader unnecessarily whipped Shamrock into the corner. I'm sure you're starting to see the problems here. As with the 4/1/01 Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit, veering from the more technical and legitimate start into a match that was largely just good old fashioned brawling turned something "unique" into more of the same. They briefly went back to the actual "shoot" match they were supposed to be having, only to have Vader then miss a moonsault of all things. This was just all over the place. It had impressive moments of violence, but it was only to be taken seriously in comparison to the rest of what we get from WWF. The intense finish saw Shamrock bring a big series of brutal elbows in the corner only to have Vader level him with a right haymaker. Vader then cockily ambled over, seemingly to set up some mount punches, but took a slow clumsy bump into the ankle lock. Vader tapped, which was obviously the UFC standard, but new to WWF. This was a lot stiffer than most WWF of any era, though the 9/20/97 Vader vs. Owen Hart was performed so much better that Vader seemed way more devastating and lethal. Vader's performance didn't have as much energy or oomph as in the past. It The match wasn't worked in any sort of dramatic fashion to really tell the story or elevate anything beyond what it was in the moment. They didn't really get Vader's offense over. Shamrock took shots, but this was more about Shamrock being unstoppable. Shamrock needed to bump but not sell. Get knocked down more, but continue to defend himself at all times like a real fight. Shamrock especially didn't really seem sure how they should be working this, and they basically just traded blows with smaller Shamrock having volume and larger Vader having weight of shot. This had elements of being a good shoot style match and elements of being a good brawl, but was structured so haphazardly it was neither. They just did stuff, and eventually Vader submitted to Shamrock's finisher. Even though Shamrock would win a real shoot due to his training and Vader wasn't put over as the monster, his offense still looked more visually damaging than Shamrock's. **3/4

WWF 11/17/82 Hamburg, PA, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Curt Hennig 8:49
DC: Even though Portland, Oregon’s Pacific Northwest Wrestling was the main league Curt Hennig appeared in during 1982 and 1983, Curt Hennig made many appearances in the WWF during the years 1981-1983 as well. While on commentary, Vince McMahon called Tiger Mask “most unusual.” And he was right, because The First Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) was light years ahead of most wrestlers in the world, especially the ones WWF fans were exposed to. Sayama did a great job in keeping the pace high, and Hennig seemed to enjoy the challenge, as Hennig showed more speed and tenacity than before. This is probably the earliest Hennig match in which he showed that he could potentially turn into a memorable wrestler. What impressed me the most was that Hennig was able to keep up with some of the fast-paced sequences Sayama was known for. Sayama would end up having dozens of matches that were better than this one, but for Hennig, this was quite an impressive showing and one of the more interesting Hennig matches out there, especially considering this was still early in Hennig’s career. Good match. ***¼ 

PNW 3/26/83 Portland, OR: Curt Hennig vs. Buddy Rose
DC: Sandy Barr, father of Jesse and Art Barr, was the referee. This was a lot more of a fast-paced match than their rather slow 6/26/82 match. Curt Hennig showed a lot of explosiveness here. Buddy Rose, who had been wrestling for about ten years at that point, did a very good job of being there to help guide Hennig through this match. Hennig needed far less guidance than in their ‘82 match, though. Rose’s mannerisms and selling of Hennig’s offense, combined with Hennig’s tenacity, really helped make Hennig look like a strong babyface the crowd could easily get behind. Towards the end of the match, Rose took a spectacular bump in the corner that saw him flip upside down and have his legs tangled up. This wasn’t a must-see match, but it was a fun match that certainly worked. It’s definitely one of the more memorable American wrestling matches from 1983. It appears 1983 was quite a strong year for PNW. Hennig won this match via pinfall after a spectacular flying dropkick off the top rope. Rose did a stretcher job after the first fall, which meant he wasn’t going to be able to continue, and Hennig thus won the only fall and the match. Good match. ***

AWA 11/15/86 Las Vegas, NV, AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig 60:00
DC: These two wrestled each other many times, but this is probably their most famous meeting. For a 52-year old man, Nick Bockwinkel was definitely in tremendous shape, and it was impressive that he was able to work a 60-minute match this well and effectively. One could say that this was the big breakthrough match of Curt Hennig, who was 28 years old at the time, as Hennig showed that he had indeed become a memorable wrestler. Bockwinkel has to be one of the smartest wrestlers ever, as he always seemed to know how to make the most out of any situation. His ability to dictate the pace of this match in such a way that they’re not running out of energy yet also not lose the crowd’s interest was quite remarkable. It was indeed the wily veteran Bockwinkel who carried the match, but Hennig clearly knew what he was doing and was playing his part in a strong and respectful manner. Especially considering this was a 60-minute match, they did quite a tremendous job of trying to constantly do something useful within the context of them having a long World Title bout. It never felt like they were just killing time, and it felt like they were always very focused and determined. Perhaps most importantly, they really cared about what they were doing and were clearly wanting this to be a very memorable match. I like that around the 35-minute mark, they were teasing that this match could potentially be over soon, since they temporarily showed a bit more acceleration and some near falls. As the match continued, they managed to maintain that level of intrigue that had been presented throughout the entire bout. The selling and execution was generally really good. What was really helpful for the overall quality of the match was that during the last twelve minutes or so, they were able to increase the speed and urgency. And to make the final eight minutes more dramatic, Hennig juiced, and his face was a crimson mask. During the final minutes, Hennig’s second-wind energy really helped make those final minutes more intense and exciting. This was such a well-laid out match that was very effective. Excellent match. **** 

AWA 12/25/86 St. Paul, MN, AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig 26:02
DC: The guest referee for this match was Billy Robinson. The main difference between this match and their famous 11/15/86 one-hour draw was that this 12/25/86 match lasted about half the time in length. The key was to see if they were going to take advantage of that. Unfortunately, they roughly went at the same pace here. However, the selling and execution of the moves was so good that it really didn’t matter too much how fast they were going. The rowdy Minnesotan crowd seemed really into the action. The main issue with this match was that after their excellent 11/15/86 match, it was hard not to expect more from this match. That being said, this was definitely a solid match well worth watching. And this match confirmed that these two were two of the best American wrestlers of 1986. Hennig put over the DQ finish really well, as he showed his frustration and called it “bullsh*t.” All in all, this was quite a good bout. The AWA certainly presented a main event scene of better quality than WWF and JCP did at the time. Good match. ***¼ 

AWA 5/2/87 Daly City, CA, AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig 23:44
DC: Years before Psicosis did it in the mid 90s, Curt Hennig took a big shoulder-first bump into the turnbuckle that saw him fly through the ropes to the floor into the guardrail. That was one of the highlights of this match. The match came to an end when Hennig scored the pinfall over Nick Bockwinkel. The post-match storyline was that Larry Zbyszko, who was at ringside, may have given Hennig an object to hit the champion with. Either way, Bockwinkel’s final title reign had come to an end. This was the beginning of Hennig’s first and only true World Title reign (which would last over a year). It felt like a passing of the torch, but instead, Bockwinkel’s 4th and final AWA World Heavyweight Title reign ending turned out to be a prelude to the end of the AWA. This was one of Bockwinkel’s final ten matches in AWA (as he would pretty much retire later that year after one more final tour of AJPW). Hennig would go to WWF 15 months after this match, and AWA would fold during the early ‘90s after the financial struggles of the company proved to be too much to overcome. Good match. ***

1/12/20 WWE: Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin 22:22
ML: This was a very indyrific 50/50 workrate match where they did everything they could think of. They had all the time they needed (and maybe more), but unlike the really overrated 8/31/19 Bate vs. Walter match, they were able to keep the pace throughout and didn't pad the match to twice as long as it needed to be. This was definitely a great effort, and Bate got to show all his stuff since he wasn't just getting mauled by a giant. It was mostly flashy stuff with some impressive flying from Bate and some big bumps from Devlin. They did other things here and there, including a boxing sequence that might have worked if it were placed a lot earlier, and in the end it was pretty stiff and high impact. They worked well with one another, and had a lot of counters and reversals. I liked what they were doing in theory, but some of it was contrived and overdone. In general, the sum of the parts was a lot better than the whole because they did a lot of cool stuff, but that in and of itself was the match. ***

12/27/25 AEW: Darby Allin vs. Gabe Kidd 12:51
ML: There was no particular reason for this to be on the card, even by the low standards of Tony Khan's random simulator booking. The only time they ever faced each other was in the 10 man main event of Forbidden Door on 8/27/25. Even though there was no lead in, and they were just tossed in the middle of the show without being given a lot of time, there was still enough talent to make this the one actual useful match on the show. While ultimately not the match it could have been, it wound up being a lot better than it needed to be due to the high effort. The main problem was they had no real finish here. It feels like they got as much as they could in and then ran out of time, rather than starting with the finish and figuring out how to get there. This was a new match against a quality opponent somewhat in the vein of what Darby has proven time and time again he does well. He takes sonme crazy bumps and does risky flying. They were able to incorporate hardcore style well for once though, and upped the danger for the PPV, making it more of a Sabu style brawl than the junior match Darby is more likley to have on TV. Darby took dangerous bumps over the top rope onto the apron and over the guardrail onto the timekeepers table. Kidd put Allin inside the ring steps and slingshotted him into the top. Darby bled from this, and it wasn't long before Kidd was bleeding as well. Darby did a missile kick to the floor with Kidd sitting on a chair and the coffin drop to the floor. Kidd brought his usual stiffness, using any part of his body he could as a weapon regardless of whether it also damaged him, but obviously a headbutt really going to impress when the opponent is Darby, who is the most sacrificial mainstream wrestler since Cactus Jack. This was nonetheless well on its way to being a very good match, but it just ended completely out of nowhere 5 minutes early on a cheesy flash pin. Sure, they had done a couple finishers before this, but the end was so random you were wondering if they went home early because someone was injured or something. I generally think there should be more flash pins, but this really took the wind out of my opinion of the entire contest. ***

4/2/93 WAR: Riki Choshu & Shinya Hashimoto vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa 14:22
ML: This was quite a good, physical interpromotional match given what these guys were capable of in 1993, with three of them over 40, and one still approaching his peak. They kept it to simple roughhousing while dressing it up as much as they could. It's got heat and intensity, and feels like an important grudge match. The opening and the second half were the stronger portions, but it never dragged. There were no real bursts and hardly any sequences, certainly nothing elegant, but it's a strong and effective well done rivalry match. Choshu vs. Tenryu was a classic mid 80s AJPW feud. The sides were balanced in those days, but the odds were always against Tenryu in these WAR vs. NJPW matches because he had no support at the level of the top dozen NJPW guys. He just had to up his level and fight like 1.5 wrestlers to make up for Ishikawa being outclassed. Tenryu vs. Choshu wasn't the focus here, but these guys are legends that people were always happy to see sqauaring off with one another. Hashimoto had only faced Tenryu in a NJPW six-man tag a month earlier. This was the matchup everyone wanted to see, and thus there were some out of character fan reactions when it got interfered with. They were very well matched badasses who instantly had strong chemistry. The main thrust was setting up their singles program, with this pairing going on to be one of the better rivalries each man had in the 1990s. Ishikawa was a 40-year-old who followed Tenryu from All Japan to SWS to WAR. He was a competent worker who knew his role and wouldn't be detrimental in this kind of hard hitting match. He showed some decent offense and was up for the task, giving a lot better performance than you'd expect. He just wasn't who the people wanted to see, and that was often quite obvious. The early portion with Tenryu was intense interpromotional rivalry stuff, but it quickly calmed down with Ishikawa, who largely just took a beating. Ishikawa picked it up with a dropkick and a missed pescado, then Tenryu swooped in and injured Choshu on the post, which they worked over until Choshu finally got some blood flowing. Tenryu was the key to the match because he would set the tone with the dickishness and ferocity, but the others had trouble maintaining that, and there just wasn't the kind of interest in seeing Ishikawa vs. either opponent. Choshu was in trouble, and the referee eventually tried to stop Tenryu from kicking him when he was down, but Tenryu just shoved the ref out of the way. This was the kind of great simple stuff Tenryu brought to the match, nothing fancy, but the ill-intent carried the day. Choshu inexplicably didn't try to tag when he came back with his backdrop, but Hashimoto ran interference for him, kicking Ishikawa after he ducked the Riki lariat, which allowed Choshu to hit the lariat on the way back and make the tag. Hashimoto got his traditional bloody nose as well. All of this was solid stuff, but the match didn't really have another gear. It escalated at points through the violence, but there wasn't a lot of offense or a dramatic series of near falls. Choshu broke up the pin after Tenryu's powerbomb, then stopped Ishikawa's powerbomb with his Riki lariat, but that was kind of it for the crescendo. The finish was a bit contrived. Tenryu whipped Ishikawa into the corner, then went right after Choshu, beating him when he was down in the opposite corner with punches, the sort of sadistic aggression we love from him. The problem was that Tenryu conveniently just counted on Ishikawa being able to finish Hashimoto from there, which was a big reach given Hashimoto wasn't in particular trouble beyond that one Tenryu powerbomb. Tenryu never bothered to glance over and notice that Hashimoto countered the charge and hit an enzuigiri and DDT for the win. The result was basically what you expected, especially since Choshu had lost to this team in the main event of the 3/3/93 WAR show teaming with the much lower ranked Osamu Kido. ***1/4

8/31/19 WWE: Cesaro vs. Ilja Dragunov 12:26
ML: This was Dragunov's first WWE PLE after 6 years in wXw. He was the underdog against the established veteran Cesaro, and of course wasn't afraid to take it to him in his stiff and energetic fashion. Cesaro had the size and the weight of shot, but Dragunov used his speed and quickness to try to change things up. Cesaro was often in control, but he made Dragunov look good getting a move or two in before he got cut off. This wasn't executed perfectly, but there was a good dynamic between Dragunov's enthusiastic sprinting and Cesaro's control, and this escalated well. Cesaro hit 40 reps on his giant swing. Dragunov Death Valley bombed Cesaro into the turnbuckle. Cesaro had his moment, but Cesaro came back countering the charge with a press European uppercut then won with the neutralizer. It never quite got to the point where you believed the hungry up and comer Dragunov would win, but he showed enough heart and resilience that your opinion of him still increased. ***

6/15/97 WCW: Ultimo Dragon vs. Psychosis 14:20
ML: This didn't live up to the talent in the ring, in part because there wasn't much urgency. Dragon had some bursts and flurries, but Psychosis was with Sonny Onoo now, who had recently split with Dragon. This resulted in the 2 main problems, too much emphasis on Onoo, the disgraceful evil Japanese stereotype manager who also sucks as a performer, and not enough on Psychosis, who is great and underrated, as well as Psychosis not pushing the pace nearly as much. The methodical style was at odds with the reckless nature that made Psychosis great, and hurt the match considerably. There were some great spots, but it wasn't gaining momentum the way a match between these two should have. Dragon took a hard bumps missing a pescado. Psychosis used the guillotine leg drop onto the apron with Dragon laid across the middle rope. Psychosis used Dragon's own la magistral on him. Dragon blocked one of Onoo's flurry of kicks on the outside and tried to suplex him, but Psychosis slung himself to the floor to stop it with an axe handle. They got going after this, including Dragon hitting his quebrada. Psychosis did a big tope over the top rope. Psychosis tried a climb up moonsault attack, but Dragon dropkicked him out of mid-air. There were two more spots of Onoo interference, with Dragon waiting so long for Psychosis to missile kick him that Tony Schiavone tried to cover for them claiming Dragon was baiting Psychosis but still couldn't move out of the way. Onoo's kick backfired in a really poorly done spot where Dragon reverse the Irish Whip, but Onoo didn't get around to kicking Psychosis until after he ran into the ropes, so Psychosis was just standing there waiting, and it was super obvious Onoo wasn't in the middle of kicking Dragon only to have it turn out to be Psychosis. Dragon then finished with the Dragon sleeper. Overall, this was fun, and the crowd reacted well to it, but it's nowhere near the level of their better stuff from earlier in WCW, much less in Japan or Mexico. ***

10/2/58 JWA 2/3 Falls NWA International Heavyweight Title: Rikidozan vs. Don Leo Jonathan 21:54 of 61:00
ML: Relative to what pro wrestling is, I liked that this was a serious match that felt "believable" and "like a fight". I thought it was an interesting combination of amateur wrestling, judo, and karate, with some more realistic real sports habits than we see today. I normally don't like guys escaping to the floor (see Larry Zybyzko, or better yet don't), but it worked here because they were doing a good job of making it feel important that they didn't get trapped in the corner or on the mat so the opponent could put a flurry of strikes on them. Jonathan is a fairly realistic mover when he wants to be. Even though this match was an hour long, he kept his feet moving, giving the idea he was actually trying to defend himself from getting grabbed or struck, and gain the advantageous position or leverage when they locked up. The main issue was it was three times as long as it needed to be, and Rikidozan was the kind of lazy in the sense that he wasn't pouncing on advantage once he got it. The striking was fine, there was just too much of it because obviously they weren't doing a lot of moves in these days. It felt like they intended for this to be an intense match, but as time went on, they became less concerned with that. This was a lot more competitive than Jonathan's disappointing 2/26/55 match against Lou Thesz where Thesz just had his way with him, but suffered something of the same issue in that despite Jonathan being the bigger man and better mover at that moment in time, their star power exceeded him so greatly that they didn't go out of their way to make him seem fearsome. Rikidozan didn't dominate nearly as much as Thesz did, but both were presented as clearly superior, and that eliminated a lot of the danger and threat of Jonathan's physicality. Jonathan is fantastically agile for a 6 ft 6 in wrestler of this era, but as the heel he didn't get exciting bursts to capitalize, and mainly just showed an impressive dropkick. Jonathan did a good job of putting Rikidozan over, but was largely just a better foil plugged into Rikidozan's same shine heavy formula. Rikidozan pinned Jonathan at 39:00 after Jonathan's dropkick backfired and he took a flip bump after landing on the top rope, which was the only fall, so the champion retained and got a de facto victory without technically winning. The other highlight was Jonathan's initial blitz with the sneak attack dropkick and beat down from behind. I didn't get the sense that the match would make for a better viewing experience in it's complete form, though some of the choppy editing was frustrating. It was good for the time, but it's not something you need to see if you aren't interested in 50s wrestling.

10/27/85 CWA Catch Welt Cup 1985: Mile Zrno vs. Dave Morgan 6:43 shown
ML: An oddly edited handheld seemingly designed to highlight Morgan. Morgan was good, but he's not in the class with Zrno, so I assume this was a lot better in actuality, especially because the editing was annoyingly disjointed and really killed the rhythm and flow. This had a European flare, amd was all around solid. It seemed to be more of a fast-paced junior style match with a lot of rope running. In between that, there was some comedy, technical wrestling, and striking. They went to the time limit, but Zrno won quickly into overtime with a reverse diving sunset flip. What we got to see of it was enjoyable.

11/11/87 WWF: Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart 12:03
ML: This was one of the rare WWF story matches that had enough good action and convincing, well executed work to back it up. While definitely more Savage's match, Bret was the heel most adept at delivering a convincing leg attack to pull it off. This was a good concept, but they needed more time to fully flesh it out. Savage's acting was great, consistently putting over the ankle by refusing to put weight on it rest of the match. This could have had a better ending, and they could have capitalized on the ideas better, but the performers did about as much as they could have with the time they had. This had all the makings of a big PPV match except it was a TV match with the new #2 face vs. a tag wrestler with no singles push, so the booking in general was only going to allow this to go so far. Jimmy Hart's stable had already displayed ill will for Elizabeth on the previous SNME where Savage took on Honky Tonk Man. Jimmy & Jim Neidhart tried to box Elizabeth in before the match by each sneaking up on one side of her, which put Savage in wildman mode from the outset. Savage's energy and out of control nature served him well as both a heel and a face. There weren't many others who could still create chaos as a good guy. Bret was the technically proficient one, so both were kind of in opposition to the traditional the face and heel dynamic, and that made things more interesting. An angry Savage posted Bret and knocked him off the apron into the guardrail, an excellent bump, while at the same time gaining sympathy for protecting Elizabeth and facing 3 on 1 odds, although I liked that the other Harts only threatened. This had good impact by WWF standards and was a fairly athletic contest for the time, at least while Savage was healthy, with both showing their movement. Savage hurt his ankle taking a big bump on a really high back body drop to the floor, a match changing spot. He had Elizabeth remove his boot, and managed to continue on guts, only putting weight on the good leg, which Bret was immediately all over. Savage used rope escapes to break Bret's submissions, and the ropes to hold him up, but you can't put up much of a fight with one leg in the air and one hand holding the ropes. This would have been a great excuse to give Bret the major upset, and propel him forward in singles, but we were several years away from that unfortunately, so they concocted a flash pin finish that made some sense given the outcome they needed, but was nonetheless quite unbelievable, where Bret body slammed Savage back into the ring, but Savage held on and small packaged him for the win. ***

2/20/89 WCW NWA World Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat 23:18
ML: Steamboat was possessed with winning the title since returning to the NWA. Energetic and intense, he treated every exchange as an opportunity to secure his families future, or at least get one step closer. His drive was really what made this match. You believed he was giving everything he had to finally attain the elusive goal, which made the entire viewing experience so much more impressive and immersive, his passion overflowing into everything he did. Steamboat was very proactive knowing Flair can't be left to his vices, and really just forced Flair to work almost the whole time, so we didn't get much of his corny begging or ambling around the outside to pad the time. Flair isn't a serious person, but Steamboat made this a serious match and did the sport proud, getting Flair to both behave himself for the most part, and up his pace and technique in order to hang with Steamboat. You never knew when Flair would do something completely preposterous for no good reason, such as when he took a chop in the middle of the ring, stumbled, wobbled, and eventually fell through the ropes. His silent comedy pratfall perhaps provided a giggle for the kiddies, at the same time it should be eye roll material for anyone else. Flair's corny begging was less silly here, as since he's nowhere near the athlete Steamboat is, slowing it down in this manner allowed to catch Steamboat off guard. Flair was an effective foil who made the necessary movements to go along, and since Steamboat doesn't require the usual Flair time killing, Flair gave us a break from most of his nonsense. Steamboat and Jim Ross were great at making this feel like a major sporting contest, and Flair didn't remind you it was merely a performance too often. This was a great carry job by Steamboat. He was considerably more impressive than Flair in literally every aspect, but to Flair's credit he understood this wasn't a match he had to make, and relied less on his usual shtick rather than bogging it down with too much of his stuff to do. He was more focused on his timing and impact and less on chewing the scenery. Though these were two of the smaller heavyweights of this time, their chops were very high impact, providing a lot of the physicality. Since they are smaller, they can also move though, and while Flair doesn't really have any interesting moves, he was still quick and athletic enough to follow Steamboat through his counter sequences so they looked as impressive as they should. This was probably an average length Flair title match, but more of a test of his cardio because the pace was a lot higher, speed was actually a thing here, and there was much less down time, though of course they controlled with a headlock or figure 4. It's a much longer match than Steamboat was wrestling in WWF, yet he did far less of his control. He wasn't relying on his famous deep arm drag, so he wasn't then holding the armbar until the next action sequence. These guys were definitely giving all they had and trying for a Match of the Year. That being said, the more impressive faster pace sequences were early on, and while it maintained the high level, the match was more sustaining than building. After the quick early stages it became a battle of attrition with the heavy chops that you could believe were intended to injure. It never felt like they were just standing around waiting for the opponent to hit them, and they would break into something else before the strikes lost their luster. Flair wasn't doing anything amazing, but he did some generic suplexes, the backbreaker and atomic drop rather than devoting tons of time to working for the figure four or doing the stray helicopter strut. Steamboat hit the flying chop then his diving body attack took out both Flair and referee Tommy Young, so there was no one to count the pin. Steamboat went for it again, but missed, so Flair went for the figure four, but Steamboat small packaged him and Teddy Long showed up to count the pinfall. This chaotic finish wasn't really befitting the match, which already started better than it finished. Steamboat is the consummate classy professional who treats wrestling like a sport, something to be respected. That was apparent both in the ring, and in his post match locker room celebration, which was reminiscent of a team winning the NBA Championship, everyone with their champagne excited for Steamboat and not disrespecting the opposition they had to push themselves to overcome. ****

1/19/91 WWF: Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels vs. Kato & Tanaka 19:13
ML: I liked this match a lot when I was a kid. It was a special match for its time because they did things you don't normally see, and it went a lot longer than you would expect. It doesn't age well at all because there's not much substance, empty action with way too much inaction, and most random indy dudes now do more spectacular stuff for a crowd of 50. It had three or four spectacular spots that I'd rarely if ever seen, and were the kind of thing I wanted to be seeing. There's also a lot of the usual good Rockers teamwork here, but the Orient Express didn't get to contribute much of use beyond some typically impressive bumps by Tanaka, who was generally one of the better takers in the US at the time. The match was really just a showcase for Rockers that felt like an overextended enhancement match. This match was all stops and starts. There's some fun running action, then they go right into a rest hold without even any sort of interesting transition in or out of the stalling. The double teaming was much of the best action. The Rockers did two double dives, a double tope at the outset and near simultaneous planchas later on. There's not really a compelling match here though. There's no real build or story, and by the time the Orient Express get any sustained offense in, the match is presumably almost over and you've given up on their chances of winning. The match would have been a lot better if the Orient Express where at least the ones on offense when the match slowed down. There's really no reason for the Rockers to be slowing things down with chinlocks when their high speed, high paced teamwork oriented action was owning the opposition. The big peril for Michaels was whether he'd survive Tanaka's trapezius rest hold. Tanaka was a couple impressive moves away from being memorable, but he was quite a good worker. Tanaka always made the opponent look better, and could even make crashes that should be silly such as Michaels jumping on the karate belt to cause the Orient Express to bump into each other actually look devastating. Diamond still wasn't that good, and seemed the wrong kind of stiff amidst these other more fluid and flexible guys. Rockers went for the rocket launcher, but Tanaka kicked Jannetty, causing Michaels to take a wild bump off the top to the floor, which again wasn't the kind of thing you'd see in WWF, or most other places, at the time. Michaels was punching Tanaka in the corner but Kato tried to sneak up on him, so he caught him with a moonsault attack. The goofy finish saw Kato slingshot Jannetty at Tanaka, but Jannetty used the lift to sunset flip Tanaka for the flash pin. The match would have been better at 10 minutes with just the high spots, the other stuff added nothing and to match just wasn't constructed interestingly or coherently to make it in any way necessary. The action was ahead of its time, but the structuring was considerably behind the times. There's really no drama here, no near falls no sense that the Orient Express have any chance of winning. It's energetic when they're not stalling, but Rockers did a good job at pumping you up when they were ready to go, which helped make you forget about the unnecessary portions where they weren't doing anything. This is more or less still better than the other stuff WWF was doing in this era, but there's a lot of random WCW tags that are just a lot more solid and competitive, and it would be a joke to compare this to the best WCW stuff like Fantastics or Southern Boys vs. Midnight Express. **3/4

9/22/96 WWF World Heavyweight Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind 26:25
ML: Foley had been in WWF for 6 months, and this was basically WWF doing a tame version of his matches with Sabu. It was a good brawl where Mankind showed a lot of bumps that weren't yet common in the WWF, and Michaels got to show all his offense since Mankind was mostly just selling for him despite it being a long title match where things should have been done to get the heel over instead of just giving the face 80% shine. It was an actual wrestling match where they tried to tell stories, but didn't really stick with any of them. There was definitely a lot going on in this match, it kept moving and refused to get bogged down. This definitely didn't feel like the same match you saw in WWF all the time, it had a lot of different spots and surprises. They did a good job of mixing unusual outside the ring stuff into a match that's still felt like the wrestling was important.There was a funny spot where Mankind lifted the gym mat up to expose the concrete, but Michaels dropkicked him then did 3 footstomps with Mankind under the mat and a diving body attack off the middle rope as Mankind was getting the mat off him. Mankind tried to move the Spanish commentators table, but Michaels leaped over the table with a body attack. Most of these gimmick spots were surprisingly well set up. Michaels suplexed Mankind into the steps, and Ross immediately went crazy about it destroying Mankind's knee even though it was obvious he contacted the steps more towards his Achilles tendon. Michaels then took out the knee with a tackle and went to work on it, including what Ross described as a leg drag with a twist (Dragon screw). Mankind countered a Frankensteiner by dropping Michaels backward onto the top rope. It was patently obvious that Michaels took the bump with his arms over the top rope, but Ross went nuts about Michaels possibly having destroyed his larynx. Then Curt Hennig tried to claim it was an accident because Mankind's knee gave out even though Mankind obviously dropped backwards evenly. The announcing was growing more Orwellian by the minute. Ross proceeded to tell us that ever is a very long time. Mankind wasn't really using any moves when he actually was on offense, which didn't give Michaels much opportunity to bump. Michaels came back ducking the first charge so Mankind went into the steps, then countered the second charge with a drop toe hold into the steps. Michael's side stepped into the ring on yet another charge causing Mankind to crash the turnbuckle. Mankind got his neck trapped in the ropes, but when Michaels tried to capitalize, Mankind momentarily got the mandible claw on. Michaels blocked Mankind's punch with a chair Mankind didn't realize he had, and then did a really weak chair shot to the bad knee. Michaels follow-up was to the hand though trying to take away the mandible claw, with Mankind doing a good job of selling that he could no longer open his hand properly. Mankind finally had a run, but without the mandible claw, he didn't have anything that could close it out. Mankind fell into the top rope to unbalance michaels, and after an eternity where Michaels somehow couldn't stand back up, shockingly backdropped Michaels off the first rope through a table, but Michaels of course turned in the air so Mankind took all the impact. Mankind climbed to the top with a chair, but Michaels did a double jump side kick that Ross claimed was his sweet chin music, knocking the chair into Mankind's head. Vader came out at the two count to ruin the match causing an awful DQ. Michaels knocked him to the floor with a flying forearm, but Paul Bearer came up from behind and hit Michaels with the urn. This seemingly was going to give Vader his moment, but Sid saved before Vader could capitalize, making Vader look doubly bad. Mankind was suddenly able to use the mandible claw now that the match was over. He called for Paul Bearer to open the casket, but somehow Undertaker came out and did his Jason Voorhees walk after Mankind, which wasn't very intimidating given it took about 2 seconds for Mankind to already be 50 ft away from him. All this nonsense was so terrible forced. Since Mankind wasn't that high on the totem pole, if they wanted to strengthen the Michaels vs. Vader house show program by having Vader leave Michaels laying it might have been one thing, but Vader looked the worst out of everyone, and the other guys should have been unnecessary except maybe to scrape Michaels carcass off the ring or stop it just before that became a necessity. The match already felt like they did a lot of stuff and none of it really mattered even before the finished prove that. It was fun though, and a lot more outside the box than typical WWF of the era. ***

4/6/24 WWE Intercontinental Title: Gunther vs. Sami Zayn 15:29
ML: Zayn took the fight to Gunther, and he had more volume, but Gunther obviously has a lot more weight of shot. Gunther is basically good because he has next level impact on everything he does, and this comes across much stronger because he takes his matches seriously. He should seem less of a monster now that he's lost so much weight, but he's maintained his weight of shot, and moves better now. This was one of the fairly obviously laid out WWE underdog overcomes big matches, but they executed the story impressively. Zayn put a lot of punishment on Gunther with strikes, you kind of wondered why wasn't trying to use more speed and flashy offense rather than engaging in the one thing Gunther does better than anyone else in WWE. You definitely won't get any insight on that from the insufferable grifter Pat McAfee, who just screams endlessly in fire emojis, and is so grating that even a neverending loop of nails on a chalkboard would be an improvement. The match kind of lost its way when Gunther began taunting Zayn's wife between devastating powerbombs. He could have ended this, but he had to find a way to lose, so he kept giving Zayn tons of time, and the action started to crawl as he just screwed around and toyed with Sami. Sami eventually Hulked up by pounding on the canvas and spasming about. The bully was now somehow helpless to resist his comeuppance, unable to even throw another strike even. Sami did a brainbustaaahhhhh! and 2 helluva kicks and that was the end of longest Intercontinental Title reign ever. This had been a good serious match, but it turned cartoonish quickly, and I'm sure they thought that was amazing, but it actually made Sami overcoming less impressive than virtually any other manner he could have won in. ***

1/7/92 WCW World Television Title: Steve Austin  vs. Ricky Steamboat  9:43 (10:00 claimed)
ML: An excellent and logical little sprint, with a really well laid out early portion. This is a great one man show from Steamboat, really what you want within the limitations WCW imposed on their weekly TV format. Even though the Television Title was theoretically beneath Steamboat, Steamboat had great respect for all titles, and always made them seem precious. Steamboat just blitzed Austin with every flash pin attempt in his arsenal to start to match because he wanted the title so badly. When Austin was knocked to the floor from a superkick, Steamboat immediately followed with a pescado, not to show off, but to keep full pressure on. There's a really basic transition to Austin's offense, but it totally works, as Steamboat's eagerness in chasing Austin back into the ring allows Austin to hit Steamboat when Steamboat was prone because he was reentering. Steamboat's athleticism and drive kept him a step ahead of Austin, and the match was firing on all cylinders whenever he was on the ascendancy. Nick Patrick stopped Steamboat from chopping Austin in the corner after his allotted 5 seconds were up, but Steamboat made the mistake of pushing him, which allowed Madusa to attack while Patrick's back was turned. Steamboat caught her high kick, but Austin leveled him with a lariat while Steamboat was deciding whether or not to attack a woman. The match wasn't as notable from here, as Austin did what he needed to, but his offense really lacked the verve of Steamboat's. Austin was a good wrestler when he wanted to be, and his execution was always solid, but this should have been like one of those Kenta Kobashi matches where the legend busting his ass, if nothing else, at least shamed the opponent into upping their level to try to meet them. If Austin was moving faster this would be a recommendation, but he's just too laid back most of the time, punching with no particular urgency to maintain the advantage. Neither needed to work that hard here, it was a syndication taping that aired overnight in a lot of markets, but Steamboat did because he had the passion, desire, and dedication. In Austin's defense, in story the champion knew he didn't have to actually find a way to win the match in this brief time, he just had to avoid losing. As expected, this wasn't long enough for one of these guys to beat the other, but it was a fun little ride well lasted. The push to the non finish wasn't as good as I hoped, Steamboat matches focus more on hooking you immediately than building up to the best stuff, which is a tradeoff I'll take, especially over the NJPW epic format of waiting until the 30 minute call to show a pulse. ***1/4

4/18/04 WWE Intercontinental Title No Holds Barred Falls Count Anywhere: Randy Orton vs. Cactus Jack 23:05
ML: This was believable as a grudge match and had the sense of danger that's completely absent from the AEW plunder matches where they just gleefully jump on tacks and stand there begging to be bashed with weapons. There wasn't much actual wrestling, but they built up to the gimmick spots decently, and they felt somewhat important. Cactus being Cactus, he took too many unprotected head shots, both from a garbage can and hard bumps on the ramp. Orton doesn't have much experience with these kinds of matches, but he didn't seem out of place. Granted, Cactus was definitely taking the lion's share of the brutality, but Orton didn't shy away. One downside was they kind of just wandered around fetching or setting up the gimmick spots, but they weren't using tables or ladders, so once they had the weapons it wasn't also slow and complicated to set up the spot. Orton threw powder in Jack's eyes then body slammed him onto a barbed wire board. Orton tried his RKO onto a pile of tacks, but Jack pushed him off so Orton landed on them. Jack threw Orton off the stage and followed with the hip buster, which JR described as "human demolition derby". Cactus had the mandible Claw on twice in a row, countering a barbed wire bat shot and recovering from a low blow, but Orton turned the second one into his RKO. Orton then hit a second RKO on the barbed wire bat for the win. ***

5/6/79 IWE 2/3 Falls WWU World Junior Heavyweight Title: Mile Zrno vs. Ashura Hara 15:35
ML: This was a polished futuristic wrestler against an inexperienced worker who could do his things. Unfortunately, it was in the home country of the green guy, and they wanted him to win rather than to put on a match that would facilitate the action of the more impressive wrestler. Zrno was fascinating because he would mix aspects of shoot wrestling with aspects of junior style. He kept his hands up to defend himself and his entries were thoughtful. He actually showed a real single leg takedown, but he was also happy to run the ropes and do dropkicks and flying headscissors. It felt like if he was going to do something, he was going to do it right rather than in a half assed pro wrestling manner, and he just mixed good technique with flashy (for the time) athletics. I like Fighting Hara as a bruising heavyweight carrying the load for Genichiro Tenryu's team in the mid 80s, but while he's a certainly a better wrestler than Hiro Saito, he's roughly comparable to Saito as a junior heavyweight stylist, which is to say he's a guy who is young and under 250 pounds that they have to do something with. Hara was less than a year into his pro career here. In that respect, he was already quite good, but more in the sense that he could do some suplexes, slams and strikes. He's a strong guy and he had a little judo, but he was very much out of his depth in the technical wrestling, and didn't really have answers. He could roll with the moves for the most part, but his training didn't really prepare him for this opponent. Zrno definitely had to modify his game here because he wasn't getting a lot of help from Hara, especially in and out of the technical wrestling, so this was a lot less of a European style match than I was hoping for. There were impressive flashes, such as a Kimura takedown right into a headscissors, but these were things Zrno was largely doing on his own. In the end, it was mostly a one man show. There was a lot of action for the time period, and Zrno made the technical wrestling interesting even though it wasn't very interactive, as they didn't have much chemistry. Zrno won the first fall with a sunset flip counter to a back body drop. Zrno was trying to fire Hara up in the second fall, but Hara wasn't yet showing the aggressive personality I'm used to. Hara used a couple of rugby shouldertackles followed by a double armed suplex to take the second. Hara caught Zrno's reverse diving body attack and turned it into a Samoan drop to take the title. ***

2/24/91 WCW: Itsuki Yamazaki & Mami Kitamura vs. Miki Handa & Miss A 6:47
ML: This was an odd touring match for original JWP because while you had two of their biggest stars and best wrestlers in Yamazaki and A, Kitamura and Handa were young undercarders. They did an action-packed sprint, and were able to get over with less than no help because fans were expecting some boring Fabulous Moolah throw them by the hair nonsense rather than high level stiff athletic action. Ross misidentified Kitamura as "Mickey Handa", and Dusty Rhodes did his best to prove he was an even worse announcer than wrestler and booker, conceding beforehand on even trying to pronounce anything beyond A, and just making even lamer jokes than usual. This wasn't actually a JWP style match, it was more the AJW go style because they were still trying to pack everything into half the usual time. Yamazaki was the best wrestler who appeared on the show even if she didn't get much chance to show it. She worked at the fastest pace, and A stood out for her brutality. Kitamura surprisingly turned out to not be a bad choice because she was at least able to hit a few flying moves that seemed more impressive in this setting where they aren't competing with Liger & Universal Lucha. Yamazaki hit a missile kick to both opponents. I was shocked that Yamazaki pinned A rather than Handa. Obviously, they could have provided a better match at twice the length, but this was enough to get people interested without overstaying it's welcome considering even the idiot announcer could only identify one of the four wrestlers. ***

2/24/91 WCW War Games: Barry Windham & Ric Flair & Sid Vicious & Larry Zbyszko vs, Flyin' Brian & Sting & Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner 21:50
ML: This match had it's moments, but was very inconsistent, especially as it progressed and was increasingly a bunch of guys standing in front of each other throwing punches. The best portion was the opening with Pillman vs. Windham, which had the time and space for some actual wrestling. The more guys that entered, the more it became like a Battle Royal, with the added laziness of also being able to ram the opponent into the cage. The cage having a very low roof, hardly higher than Sid, was a novelty, so you guys would try to use it even if it didn't exactly hurt. For instance, Sting was military pressing Flair into it. Pillman was creative as usual, holding on to the top of the cage for a dropkick and flying headscissors. Pillman managed to do a diving lariat even though his head was touching the top of the cage. Windham sold almost the whole opening, and was bloodied by the cage. Of course, the heels won the coin toss, so it didn't take long for a Pillman to lose the advantage and have his pre-existing separated shoulder reinjured. Pillman was the lowest ranked of these guys even if he was healthy, so he didn't get to do that much going forward unfortunately, beyond being a sympathetic character. Sting went two on one until Pillman recovered. Sting wasn't selling anything, but his energy was welcome. He did a jumping lariat from one ring to the other. Each new babyface entering was akin to a hot tag, so the minute after Sting, Rick, then Scott entered were the best portions of the next several minutes. Sid actually wasn't bad here. He was always intimidating and did an impressive powerbomb, but in a match like this where he's not called on to do much else, he was more effective. He was chewing up time well by continually working Pillman's shoulder. The Steiners were the last two in for their team, and tried to work as a unit once Scott entered. Sid KO'd Pillman with 2 big powerbombs, so El Gigante came in and got Nick Patrick to stop it. This started very well, and there was enough going on as it progressed to hold your attention, even though there was no way to follow everything that was going on. There was a good level of brutality without feeling over the top or silly, and enough moves not to become tedious like a Battle Royal because they were basically just punching endlessly for 20 minutes or whatever. ***

WWE 2/27/14: Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn 23:00
ML: The high flyer Zayn was mostly grounded throughout the body of the match by the methodical strongman Cesaro. This is the sort of match that people overrate because it has focused knee work. Part of the problem is that Cesaro's knee work isn't actually that good, he just does stuff to that body part rather than spreading it around. Another issue is this knee work plays literally no role once the match actually takes off. In the end, it's just semi effectively chewing time in a match that could just have been 17 minutes. Cesaro wasn't really made to be in control for this long. The match would have been better if he was the base for Sami more before the knee work got going. Cesaro was solid, as always, but while I'm much more a fan of his in the grand scheme of things, this isn't one of his best performances by any means, and Zayn was largely responsible for entertainment during the 1st 3/4 of the match. Zayn plays the underdog well, and got just enough high-flying offense in to keep it interesting until they started exchanging big spots down the stretch. Cesaro countering Zayn's tope inside the ring post with his signature uppercut was impressive. Cesaro was entertaining down the stretch, but of course, this had little to nothing to do with the rest of the match. The story didn't make the match beyond adding some drama for Zayn showing his trademark resilience, but they started the finishing stretch very early, so there were considerably more near falls than expected. Cesaro finally hit massive uppercuts, one out of the air after pressing Sami and a charging 360, and the neutralizer for the win. ***

4/11/21 WWE: Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn 9:16
ML: Energetic sprint where they just went hard and fast, throwing everything they could think of at one another, and countering back and forth. They did all the stuff they liked from their puroresu DVD collection like Eddie Kingston, but they actually performed the moves well and didn't bring shame upon the stuff they were trying to imitate. It was hardly a deep match, more like a lengthy finishing sequence, but it had good intensity and was fun for what it was. Zayn did a deadly suplex where he dropped Owen's neck on the side of the apron. Owens did an avalanche fisherman buster. Owens won with a stunner. ***

4/30/00 WWF Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho 15:03
ML: There was enough talent in the ring to make it a recommendation, but this was a far cry from their 12/13/95 WAR match. Benoit gave his stiff and intense heavyweight performance, focusing on mauling Jericho, with most of the flash coming from Jericho. Jericho took his beating, and jumped around once in a while. He was fine, but it was Benoit that was holding the match together and making it feel like something beyond standard fair. The out of the ring portion was the most interesting. Benoit splatted to the floor missing a tope, the sort of crash landing normally reserved for Sabu. Jericho vaulted up the steps to avoid getting Irish whipped into them, turned around and tried to charge back at Benoit, but Benoit dropkicked the steps into Jericho. They had the wrong camera angle for the finish where Jericho got disqualified for stopping Benoit's diving headbutt with the title belt. I initially thought it was a delayed DQ for accidentally taking the ref out with a flying forearm. Either way, it was a really lame ending. ***

4/1/01 WWF: Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit 14:10
ML: Since I'm endlessly complaining that no one in pro wrestling bothering to use an actual amateur wrestling takedown, which is only the most basic staple of any competition it's legal in, I find myself having to give credit to 1996 freestyle Olympic gold medalist Angle for actually properly utilizing his background for once. The three way these guys had with Chris Jericho the previous WrestleMania was a watchable if not to be taken too seriously multi-man mess, and their 4/29/01 Ultimate Submission Match had way too many finishes and was 15 minutes too long. It lacked the explosion this match had, and everything came much too easily, especially the takedowns, which were slow and not resisted. This was something different though, what the submission match should have been if it wasn't also a dumb iron man match and was properly energetic. It had the intensity Benoit was famous for, combined with a shockingly believable style for any WWF match, much less a featured match on their biggest show of the year. Everything was built around Angle working hard to get and keep Benoit down, so this was shockingly very scrambly, with fast developed matwork. Benoit was obviously at a decided disadvantage in this style, but he was able to get off his back, sweeping into crippler crossface attempts, which rattled Angle. If they stuck with this instead of thinking Kurt taking a cheap shot was somehow amazing because rasslin' fans need to see guys mix it up, it probably would have been the shootiest match in promotion history, but unfortunately Angle bashed Benoit into the guardrail and announcers table instead. From here, it devolved from an excellent UWF-I match into a mostly typical WWF match with punches, chops, suplexes, and rope running. It's disappointing that it didn't allow itself to be the unique for WWF match it could have been, but Benoit was at least able to keep it intense and hard hitting. When I'd given up on the U-Style, Angle surprised me countering Benoit's German suplex attempt by rolling into a kneebar attempt, but he got greedy trying to switch into his ankle lock, and Benoit got the ropes. Angle tried to pull Benoit back to the center, but Benoit countered into Angle's own ankle lock. Even though this ultimately wasn't the match I would have preferred it to have been, the early portion allowed us to take these submissions much more seriously than we would have otherwise. Angle kicked his way out and tried to come back with a lariat, but Benoit turned it into the crippler crossface. Angle managing to get his own crippler crossface out of this is the sort of unbelievable too cute sequence that always annoyed me about him, along with his completely unsubtle bobblehead selling. There was a ref bump when Benoit kicked Angle off his leg, so there was no one to call the match when Angle then tapped to the crippler crossface. They went to the finishing sequence with Benoit kicking out of the Olympic slam and Angle kicking out of the diving headbutt before a cheesy flash pin where Angle had a handful of tights on the crucifix. This match would definitely be better without stuff that was just there because the fans expected it, but at least by being mostly serious, there was a lot more urgency to their submissions. ***1/4

4/2/22 WWE RAW Women's Title: Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair 19:08
ML: Lynch used her emotion to convey a tremendous urgency to win right from the outset. They kept a really high pace early, but Lynch would increasingly turn her back and play to the crowd as the match progressed. This nonsense made it more annoying that Belair was unable to turn the tide, though Lynch is a considerably better all around wrestler, with much better execution. Belair was mostly getting by on her athletic gifts. She does some neat moves, but even with Lynch leading her by the hand, some of the sequences were much more obviously choreographed than what we usually get these days, especially in the sense that you could easily see them feeding for each other in advance. Sometimes the lack of polish was a plus, but sometimes it was clunky because usually Belair was hesitant or undecided. The offense was definitely a lot more impressive than the choreography. Once they couldn't finish early, it was more a mid-pace match. They kept doing things, but weren't pouncing on opportunities or pushing the pace anymore. From a fireman's carry on the middle rope, Belair dropped Lynch onto the top rope then did her 450 splash for a near fall. Lynch answered with sort of a somersault missile kick where only her right foot got Belair under the eye. Lynch had a hissy fit when she couldn't finish after her manhandle slam on the steps. Lynch tried for another manhandle slam near the corner, but Belair backflipped off the middle rope to escape, ducked a lariat, and won with her K.O.D. Definitely not a perfect match, but there was a lot of action, and I enjoyed how much both wanted to win. ***

4/2/23 WWE RAW Women's Title: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka 15:58
ML: Belair was more confident here than at last year's WrestleMania, but you could still see uncertainty and hesitation sometimes as to what the next sequence would be. That being said, this maintained the speed of last year's WrestleMania match against Lynch, but with a lot more precision and crispness. It helps that obviously Asuka is the most talented worker in the promotion even if she's not really doing anything resembling what she used to do when she was arguably the best woman in the world. This was very quick hitting action. Belair isn't the sort of opponent Asuka has had her best matches against, she likes similar opponents rather than style clashes, but at least Bianca is a capable athlete who wants to do things. Asuka had a lot of nice counters into her submissions, and the sequences were fast and explosive. Asuka countering a superstar move with an ankle lock was clunky though. Asuka's triangle attempt off of Belair's Superstar moonsault was far more impressive. Belair did a thudding Ligerbomb on the outside. Belair avoided the first code breaker, so Asuka held her braid later on in order to help trap her in it. Asuka stopped Belair's Tiger suplex, so Bianca threw her forward instead into the top turnbuckle. The finish saw Asuka arm drag out of the K.O.D. and use a monkey flip into an arm bar for the near submission, but Belair got to her knees and Asuka didn't know whether to be offensive or defensive. The hesitation cost her, and Belair lifted her up for the winning K.O.D. ***

1/27/19 WWE SmackDown Women's Title: Asuka vs. Becky Lynch 17:10
ML: This is a good matchup for Asuka because Lynch is also aggressive and rough, has mat competency and a desire to utilize submissions. Lynch was willing to do a match that's more towards the way Kana used to wrestle, such as that exists in WWE, which is to say not really. Lynch was immediately urging Asuka to fight her though. They did more running than Kana would do in Japan and didn't beat each other up in the MMA oriented striking style she used to do, but at least they beat each other up, and everything looked solid and impactful. It has Lynch's physicality, but certainly less of Asuka's electric strikes than I hoped, with nothing more impressive replacing them of course. Lynch was generally the one in command, with Asuka making the comebacks. The action was well performed, and they played off what each other does well. Lynch used her Bexploder into the barricade. I'm not sure what the move Asuka did off the apron was supposed to be. She hooked the leg like a fisherman's suplex, but then just jumped off with something between a DDT and a swinging neckbreaker that looked unsafe because Lynch crashed at an odd angle. The match was good throughout, but didn't really take off until the last minute or two. Asuka took an avalanche Bexploder, but avoided her diving leg drop and applied her Asuka lock, but Lynch rolled to her stomach, so Asuka used Lynch's dis-arm-her on her, only to have Lynch counter into the Asuka lock. Lynch was generally technical enough, but the finisher spam was kind of cheating. There weren't really transitions from Asuka's high kick to Lynch's dis-arm-her to Asuka's Asuka lock that got the submission when she did a new variation where she bridged sort of like a cattle mutilation, they just kind of cheated on that and rolled them out. This was an upset even though Asuka was the champ, and a rare example of a WWE match that utilized her skill set semi properly since they never allowed her to be the fearsome badass she was in Japan. Still, the reason Asuka came off better here was probably mostly Becky going to bat for her rather than WWE figuring something out, even momentarily. ***

1/26/20 WWE RAW Women's Title: Becky Lynch vs. Asuka 16:23
ML: They rematched at the Royal Rumble a year later, with the champion again retaining via submission. The problem with this match is it was structured basically the same as last year, but with Asuka losing this time, her always being behind the eight ball didn't work nearly as well. It might be an okay structure for people who only know Kana from WWE where Becky is the bigger star, but when you are used to her from Japan, you are just sitting there wondering why she's not buzzsawing this girl. I suppose that is difficult though when you are instead relying on the deadly hip attack. This was definitely more movement based than last year's match. What's odd is it turned into more of a strike and submission match later, when by pro wrestling "logic" they should have worn each other out enough to do the flashier stuff they did early. Lynch does a good job of passing off the idea that she's savaging her opponent without actually hitting that hard. Lynch tried the Bexploder off the apron, but wound up with a front suplex off the apron after they countered back and forth, then leaped off with a missile kick and did the Bexploder into the barricade instead. Lynch did an avalanche manhandle slam, but Asuka came back with an armbar. It always cracks me up when the announcers try to point to previous arm damage (which I'd honestly forgotten about it was so irrelevant) on a move where if applied properly, the pressure against the joint will easily pop something in your elbow or break your arm even if you are fresh and 100%. Asuka knocked Lynch out with a Kawada kick, so the referee restrained her while he took forever to see if the lifeless Lynch was indeed KO'd, then Lynch finally woke up and talked to him out of calling it. They did a better job of working the submissions in down the stretch, having to improvise and settle for other offense rather than just forcing all their favorite locks. Lynch couldn't get the winning dis-arm-her until she surprised Asuka with a spinning solebutt before Asuka could spew mist in her face. Last year's match was definitely better, but I don't think by enough to warrant a higher rating. ***

2/10/20 WWE RAW Women's Title: Becky Lynch vs. Asuka 19:00
ML: This wasn't quite a serious and focused as their PPV matches early since they wanted Kairi Insane to be relevant, but I thought it was harder hitting and escalated quicker. It didn't have as many big or special spots, but they have good chemistry, and the technical wrestling was better because they focused more on doing less spectacular things. All in all, this was probably a better if less memorable wrestling match than they did at the 2020 Royal Rumble because it was more toned down, so they relied less on the set pieces. Asuka got her Asuka lock after avoiding the diving leg drop like in their 1st match. They did their hyper finish from here, with Lynch countering into her manhandle slam for the win. Having Lynch get her revenge at the Royal Rumble a year later made some sense, but having her beat Asuka twice in 15 days was pretty sketchy. ***

11/19/94 ECW: Sabu & The Tazmaniac vs. Dean Malenko & Joe Malenko 4:10
ML: This was shockingly fun for a 4-minute match that had Sabu two weeks after a massive spinal cord injury, Tazmaniac who was bad and clunky at this point but could throw a suplex once he figured out how to lock the opponent up, and the Malenko brothers totally out of their element. They made the most of the time they had, and just rolled out suplexes, dives and random high spots. It was basically the ECW chaos variety of what would later be classified as the Nitro junior sprint. Sabu was noticeably off here compared to any time earlier in the year, and that could be chalked up to him having no business whatsoever in the ring to begin with. In Joey Styles mind, Dean Malenko invented the dropkick to the back of the head here. Taz pinned Dean with a released Dragon suplex. The aftermath involving 911 and Public Enemy was longer than the match itself, and they had the brilliant idea of having Public Enemy spike piledrive Sabu and Grunge DDT him just in case his neck had started to heal. This was when Sabu started to become less unique because Rocco was allowed to moonsault 911 through a table and drive by Sabu through a table instead of having Paul Heyman protect Sabu's special spots.

2/14/97 MPW: The Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Gran Naniwa vs. Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku & MEN'S Teio 17:30
ML: With attempts to make inroads into AJPW foreigners not yielding anyone who stayed in ECW beyond RVD, Paul Heyman looked to puroresu indies as the last great frontier to provide him with quality matches. This was the first Michinoku Pro match in ECW, a nice introduction to what they all could do, setting up their appearance on the first ECW PPV Barely Legal on 4/13/97. With a few exceptions, these guys were much better trained then what we'd been seeing on ECW TV since the days of Guerrero vs. Malenko. They are so used to working with one another, and have such great chemistry that this was all very well done despite not being a major effort. It was an easy good match, and I could watch even their lesser matches all day, but I was honestly surprised they weren't trying a lot harder to get over given if anyone was used to having great matches for miniscule crowds it was these guys. It was all very solid and well done purolucha, but it didn't really kick in until Sasuke hit his quebrada. From there, we got the a tast of the signature urgent near fall filled big Michinoku finishing sequence, except it was only a little over 2 minutes rather than the 5 or 10 of their better matches. Sasuke & TAKA were stealing the show down the stretch with their spectacular athleticism. ***1/4

3/1/97 ECW: Chris Candido vs. Louie Spicolli 9:30 shown
ML: ECW match quality has fallen off the cliff since Scorpio left in mid November. One bright spot has been Candido returning to ECW without his anchor Sunny after his embarrassing WWF stint as Bodydonna Skip. He's been on a pretty solid run here, bringing more of a traditional technical wrestling style back to ECW. Spicolli has been pretty decent as well, a power wrestler who can work Lucha Libre sequences when he needs to, but his matches have mostly been too short to pay much attention to. For instance, his 8/3/96 match vs. Johnny Smith is one that would potentially be recommendable if it was 12 minutes instead of 5:39. These two worked well together and showed some nice chain wrestling. They did a good job here of resisting each other and countering each other's offense. It's was a reasonably back and forth well executed match with nothing too outlandish. There were no weapons, and nothing illegal except Francine shaking the ropes when Spicolli was ascending. The finish with Candido just winning the small package out of nowhere left something to be desired though. ***

3/30/97 ECW: Sabu vs. Louie Spicolli 7:56 shown
ML: This was good for what it was, but rather incomplete since it was more about the upcoming Sabu vs. Taz PPV match, which they spent the whole broadcast hyping, than Spicolli. Sabu still worked hard and brought a lot of action in the meantime. Spicolli did a good job of being a foil for Sabu. He took some of Sabu's flying moves, but he was countering the slower and more dangerous ones, pushing Sabu off the ropes or using his own chair against him. Spicolli ended a dueling chair sequence with a double leg takedown into mount punches. It would be nice if any modern wrestler actually get the action to the mat in a proper manner like this. When Spicolli was ready to Death Valley bomb Sabu through a table, Taz came in and shoulder blocked Spicolli, who dropped Sabu through the table, and went over the top rope to the floor himself. RVD came out with a chair to save Sabu, and Taz knocked the chair into his head when Sabu blindsided Taz. Taz choked out Spicolli to save Sabu for himself, then Sabu hit the triple jump the moonsault for the win. **3/4

4/13/97 ECW: Gran Hamada & Masato Yakushiji & The Great Sasuke vs. Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku & MEN'S Teio 16:55
ML: This was by far the best ECW match since Psicosis moved on, but at the same time, it neither set nor lived up to the amazing Michinoku standards. ECW doesn't have a great history of tag team wrestling, and this was still the best tag the promotion has offered so far even if it's not the best Michinoku has done with this group. Unfortunately, it was still so good that it opened the door to WWF hiring Michinoku wrestlers, which destroyed the small regional promotion in the process. Right from the opening seconds of Hamada vs. TAKA, it was apparent that this had a lot more energy and enthusiasm than the 2/14/97 Michinoku ECW introduction match. It helped tremendously that the worst worker in this program, the more comedy oriented crab costumed Gran Naniwa, was replaced by Yakushiji, who was a very exciting sort of poor man's Rey Misterio Jr. Yakushiji had the speed and explosive athletic bursts of Rey without the truly spectacular flips. While this was shorter than the usual Michinoku multi-man matches, this time they got at it right away and used their time a lot better. This was a little sloppy by their standards, but it was in a higher gear right away, and escalated quicker than their previous ECW outing. This didn't build nearly as well as their matches usually do though. They were highly motivated, but really rushing to get everything in. This didn't have the amount of near falls or the level of building drama as their best stuff. Still, it was an amazing proper introduction for the promotion to the American audience. The match went over well, but they also tailored it to their idea of what Americans want, which is a very high spot oriented match. Given this was ECW, they weren't wrong. Between wrestling with a broken orbital bone and having had a much bigger match against Jushin Thunder Liger the night before at the Tokyo Dome, Sasuke wasn't on top of his game here. Yakushiji was able to pick up the slack for him, and generally outshined him as the best high flyer in the match, as well as doing a nice job of being the whipping boy. Kaientai got over with a lot of excellent double teams and their natural heel charisma. ****

4/13/97 ECW: Taz vs. Sabu 17:49
ML: This match was over 2 years in the making, and given Taz isn't very good and these guys styles don't play into one another whatsoever, it was definitely no sure thing that it would succeed. If I believed Heyman's neverending hype, this would have been a big let down. I didn't have any expectations, so I was able to enjoy this as about the best match they were capable of having together at the time. They didn't do the best job switching between styles, but they did a good job of making it feel like the grudge match they'd been hyping it as for seemingly the last century. Sabu bleeding quickly from an unusual area (under the left eye) helped. Sabu tried to avoid mat wrestling after the first minute or two of his matches for the most part, but he has an amateur wrestling background and is certainly competent there. Taz has improved from his dreadful clumsy Tazmaniac level and his early I do submissions but it takes me 30 seconds to set them up Taz level into a wrestler that is still limited, but has the gimmick and push where limited isn't necessarily limiting as long as the goal is just to keep him over. More was finally expected of him here because now he had to actually have a competitive match and had to do more than a couple of suplexes and submissions. Taz was up to the task for the most part. His submission setups and transitions were in no way good or exciting, but at least Sabu wasn't just waiting around for him to figure out how to get into his own moves. Sabu was also running or jumping into a lot of Taz's suplexes, which made things easier for Taz because his offense was mostly just capitalizing on the position Sabu gave him. Taz hit an overhead belly to belly into the crowd after Sabu missed his triple jump plancha. Taz was able to do a full match without his 5 foot Goldberg gimmick being compromised. Sabu took tons of damage both from Taz and from his own backfires, but he has his moments, and it felt like he could win. He got Taz in his own big moves, the Tazplex and Tazmission. Sabu ultimately injured his own neck going through a table after Taz blocked a Tornado DDT. Taz didn't allow Sabu to recover, using every suplex in his arsenal before choking Sabu out with the katahajime, which Sabu had been the first to escape from very early in the match. The post match angle where Bill Alphonso turned on Taz after Taz already won made zero sense. If he's betting on the opponent then why wait until he's lost to interject himself? Even with their post match reveal, it would have made more sense for Alfonso to bitch to Taz about winning and have Taz attack him then Sabu save him. The turn was foreshadowed by Alphonso getting down on the floor and screaming "Get up Sabu" in his obnoxious voice, but Styles portrayed it as taunting when perhaps he should have just let it ride. The match didn't live up to the buildup, but no match with Taz, and really no match they could have presented possibly could have. Sabu is one of the only good wrestlers they even had left from 2 years ago, and that's only because WCW wouldn't allow him to be himself and use his tables. Sabu did a much better job of making Taz look good then Taz did of making Sabu look good, but that's the way Taz's gimmick has been designed and Sabu mostly vaults himself at the opponent, so he doesn't need much help. Taz nonetheless doesn't really have anything going on when he's on defense, but his gimmick normally allows him to avoid these sections for any length of time. Both did their individual parts well, and Sabu did enough for Taz to make it work overall. ***

9/5/97 ECW: Chris Candido vs. Jerry Lynn 11:34
ML: Good old Uncle Eric fired Lynn while he was injured, and his brief stint in WWF was botched, so he made his ECW debut here, which was the best thing to happen to ECW all year. Nothing interesting had been going on since their first PPV, Barely Legal, but Lynn breathed some life back into the promotion. Lynn was a great opponent for Candido because Candido didn't really want to do junior style so much as a more action-packed hold and counterhold technical style. Lynn could do the athletic stuff, and would push the pace to make what Candido was doing more interesting, but he had a very solid technical wrestling background rather then simply being one of those juniors that was only there to jump around. Lynn brought a lot more speed and energy than we'd been seeing in ECW of late. This was very good and genuinely exciting when Lynn was on offense bringing the energy, but Candido slowed it down and did more of the arrogant heel routine than I was hoping he would. Candido was solid, but Lynn definitely treated it has a lot more important match than he did. On one hand, that made sense because he was trying to get over a new company, but on the other hand, he had just been in the big league so a small show in ECW was a lot bigger drop off for him because Candido was probably gotten used to it by now. The highlight was Lynn hip tossing Candido off the stage then hitting a tope con giro. Candido won with an avalanche underhook suplex. This is a bit up and down, but the ups more than made up for it. ***1/4

9/20/97 ECW: Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn 10:29
ML: The Portuguese Man O' War Aldo Montoya was shipped to ECW after he asked for his WWF release due to lack of bookings and their sending him to USWA didn't work either. Both were making their ECW Arena debut, and were working hard here. Candido is certainly a much better worker than Justin Adequate, but Credible was putting more effort in. Lynn was a lot more consistently entertaining with his offense, but Credible did a lot early and late, while throwing a few rest holds in during the body. Candido seems a lot more interested in both wrestlers looking good than Credible, who was more about getting himself over. I'm not exactly a Credible fan, but this was pretty entertaining until it just kind of ended. It was frustrating that Lynn was already 0-2 on TV, and that Heyman was totally enamored with Credible just because he was younger, but I guess Heyman saw him as a guy that might actually stay who at least wasn't totally inept like Tommy Dreamer. **3/4

9/20/97 ECW: Chris Candido vs. Lance Storm 14:14
ML: Storm was good early in his ECW tenure when he was still wrestling like he would in WAR rather than worrying about doing stupid chair shots. This was a better performance than his former partner Chris Jericho ever gave in ECW. Neither of these guys were as good as Lynn, but both were miles better than Justin Adequate. They showed good chemistry, doing a nice job of countering each other back and forth. They did nice running sequences, but then they would slow it right down. Storm did a swandive plancha, so Candido surprisingly answered with a plancha into the first row. I always enjoyed Storm's reverse elbow where he did the big leap onto the top turnbuckle. The setup for Candido's devestating blonde bombshell (avalanche powerbomb) finish was pretty clunky. Storm wobbling into the corner to knock Candido down probably should have been followed by Storm climbing for an avalanche Frankensteiner, instead of selling more and having Candido basically pull him up the turnbuckle. ***

10/16/97 ECW: Sabu vs. Mikey Whipwreck 9:36
ML: This wasn't quite as good as their previous matches because it started slower and was less energetic. It had to pick up pretty quickly given the amount of time they had, and it was good once it got going though. Sabu was firmly in control, but Mikey would counter here and there into one big spot. Even though tables and chairs were now rampant in ECW, Sabu having things fail so magnificently still set him apart. For instance, there was a spot where Sabu tried his triple jump, but Mikey knocked him out of the air by throwing a chair into his face. Mikey was out from February through May, but it also feels like the booking has been letting him down this year. He's just kind of stagnated because they haven't figured out what his next role is. He's not the underdog rookie anymore, but he's not really a star yet either. He's winning less by flukes, and more competitive, but not to the point where he just beats wrestlers of not. After lucking into a bunch of titles, he's kind of just regressed to being a guy who wins a lot of matches, but none of the important ones. He had some nice highlights here, but the belief of him winning this under any circumstances just wasn't there. They did try to protect him in a very clunky manner though. RVD showed up when Mikey was ready to hit his avalanche Frankensteiner, but Mikey put him through a table with a bulldog. Sabu really took out RVD with his moonsault to the floor, so Styles claimed Mikey pulled RVD in front of him. RVD held Mikey's foot when he was trying to re-enter the ring, and Sabu hit him with a moonsault for the win. ***

9/20/97 WWF: Vader vs. Owen Hart 12:14
ML: This smartly worked David vs. Goliath match was what you'd expect it to be, and turned out to be Vader's best WWE match. Everything they did made sense within this type of pro wrestling story, and was very well performed, with both wrestlers trying hard and executing crisply. This was as close as we got in WWF to the WCW Vader, a punishing beast with a monster aura who was just vulnerable enough that the fans were excited to get behind his foe. Owen played the thrilling babyface role he should have been playing when he wasn't wrestling his brother, and did a great job of working from underneath, being exciting when he did something and taking big bumps to put the opponent over when he didn't. The key to this match was that Vader's offense looked so overwhelming. Owen could use his speed and athleticism for hit and runs, but had little room for error given how much each successful attack from Vader was taking out of him. You always knew what this match was, a mismatch in size, but Owen did just enough that you could hope it would somehow be something else. Both men did a really good job of bumping and selling for each other to make their offense, which is already impressive, look that much better. Vader's body attack has probably never looked this devastating, and because of how impressive Vader seemed, Hart's heart, determination, and skill seemed all the more impressive. Vader's weight advantage was such that you already believed he could win when he hit his diving body press off the second. Owen got off to a good start, but before long Vader was mostly mauling him, the larger man winning the exchanges. Hart got a hope spot with the enzuigiri into the sharpshooter then finally slammed Vader on the third try. The finish saw Vader turn a diving body attack into a power slam, a lethal combination of Owen's athleticism and Vader's power. Obviously, it could have been better if it was a main event where Owen were more of a threat, but given the time they had, this was about as good as it was reasonably going to be. ***1/2

1/27/82 Joint Promotions: Ken Joyce vs. Johnny Kidd R7 2:05 (1st 3R skipped)
ML: Joyce wrestled his final match at 59-years-old against his student Kidd, who debuted in 1978, and this vintage Joyce match was a great way to go out. Joyce's quick technical gymnastics counter oriented style was very low impact because they never hit each other, but appendage ballet has plenty of difficulties at any age, much less near 60. He didn't succumb to any of them though, and it was another impressive performance, twisting, turning, rocking, and rolling at a high pace. It still felt like he could not only do everything he needed to, but do it effortlessly. Kidd was the gymnast here, which was fine because Joyce was great in the proactive maestro role, as shown by his great matches against Steve Grey. Kidd was on the offensive more than he probably would have been otherwise because Joyce was trying to put him over, but the old master increasingly took over as the match progressed. This was classic Joyce, and would likely be rated higher in complete form. Joyce got the flash pin win on his way out, and that's the sort of finish that works great in a Joyce match because they are about somehow trapping the opponent rather than hurting them. ***1/2