7/8/80 CWA: Steve Wright vs. Mile Zrno
ML: Beautiful technical wrestling. Mostly a World of Sports style match with a lot of mirror gymnastic counters. They were both in their prime, and wanting to show off all their fancy escapes. It was junior or lucha oriented in the sense that much of what they did was specifically designed to be answered with an athletic counter, ballet where both were very much in step. They didn't really use strikes or slams, just locks and pinning predicaments. Both seemed to take special pleasure in escaping via kip up. Wright was also showcasing his signature cartwheel escape. This was very fluid and flowing with a high degree of skill. Zrno is the better of the two here, but this younger version of Wright was considerably more impressive than he was a few years later against Tiger Mask. This was a shorter match and lower stakes match than their 1987 title match. Unfortunately, the quality of the handheld wasn't very good, and whoever recorded it was editing a lot more bits and pieces out than in their 1987 match. ***1/2

4/13/90 AJPW/NJPW/WWF: Genichiro Tenryu vs. Randy Savage 10:49
ML: This was certainly more of a fun dream match than the intense interpromotional war you would associate with the early interpromotional matches Mayumi Ozaki & Shinobu Kandori had against AJW. Savage & Sherri unabashedly did their WWF routine in the Tokyo Dome, and it actually got over well. Tenryu met Savage doing a largely American style match, while still staying true to his stiff and aggressive persona. Savage was energetic here, and worked hard to make this a good sprint. One of the best things about 20th century puroresu is they normally had a more sports based presentation without managers and outside interference, so while I wish they didn't do the American gimmicks, it kind of worked here because Tenryu wasn't prepared for it. Sherri definitely succeeded in riling everyone up. The crowd was exceptionally loud for Japan, and the Tokyo Dome, and went crazy for all Tenryu's comebacks. Tenryu was unselfish, and on point when he got his opportunities. It was a brisk match where they got their favorite spots in and Sherri created some chaos. Savage was winning until he injured his knee landing on a diving body attack, which isn't one of his normal flying moves. He was able to stand, but not follow up, and Tenryu immediately capitalized with his enzuigiri and powerbomb for the win. It ended early, but a fluky clean finish was probably the best you were going to get since Vince doesn't know or care about how UWF changed this market. Sure, it was a little easy for a star as big as Savage to go down, but it worked because Tenryu was so proactive in taking advantage of his opportunity. ***

7/17/11 DGPW: Akira Tozawa vs. Shingo Takagi 16:02
ML: Tozawa got his first big push after returning from his American excursion in June to set up this big win over Shingo where Takagi also allowed the heel to control much of the match after jumping him at the outset. This was a good Shingo sprint. It was fast-paced paced and hard hitting, starting well enough and escalating nicely. Tozawa's early arm work was the weakest part, but it paid off later on, particularly when Takagi got backdropped because he switched position on his choke. It took me a little while to really get onto this, but Tozawa was effective enough to be taken seriously, showing aggression and throwing some big suplexes including a German on the apron, and everything Shingo did was fiery and impactful. ***

8/15/86 Stampede: Ben Bassarab & Owen Hart vs. Oriental Express 1 & Oriental Express 2 9:01 of 30:00
ML: This was an impressive dry run for next weeks classic. Certainly good, sometimes much better, but not the classic that next week's match was. Bassarab isn't one of the famous names from Stampede, but he had a promising start to his career, often teaming with Phil Lafon, Owen or Chris Benoit, and while you wouldn't rank him with those guys for a career, he could work at or above the level of any of those guys on a given day in 1986. The former bodybuilder is definitely most reminiscent of Benoit, with his aggression and mix of stiffness and athleticism. His marriage to Stu's daughter Alison Hart didn't go as well as some of the other Hart family wrestling marriages, as he had girlfriends in every town, and found trying to play loving husband and father for a few hours a week on his one day off hypocritical enough that he eventually confessed, and she eventually left him sometime afterwards. Bassarab wasn't the biggest Stu fan either, describing him as a bully who just hurt people without explaining anything that he was doing, and accusing Stu of sabotaging his chances in WWF. Owen showed good athleticism here, but the offense and gymnastics he showed here weren't nearly as evolved as what we'd see from him a year or two later. Viet Cong 1 (Hase) showed a lot of nice suplexes and bridges, while 2 (Niikura) used his "educated feet". This was probably very good considering the high pace and quality of the later stages. They ran out of time without running out of gas. Time limits don't make for the most exciting conclusions, but the fact it still felt like they had more energy and offense to show makes it feel like a long match that actually had reason to be lengthy. ***1/2 range

8/22/86 Stampede International Tag Title: Ben Bassarab & Owen Hart vs. Viet Cong Express 1 & Viet Cong Express 2 14:14 of 45:00 + 5:00
ML: An amazing match from some of the best young wrestlers of the mid 80's. Hase debuted in 86, but was one of the best rookies ever, already looking like he'd been wrestling for years. Hase is the Rookie of the Year unless you count Owen, who debuted at 18 in 1983 in the UK, and wrestled sporadically in Canada during college under a mask while competing at 76kg in amateur wrestling for the University of Calgary. He was trying to find profitable work outside of wrestling so he didn't have to join the family business, but started full time at the end of April 1986, and was named 1987 PWI Rookie of the Year. Bassarab also debuted in 83, while Niikura was the old man of the bunch at 29, having debuted in 1981. This was much higher quality bout than last weeks, and appeared to be an incredibly strong North American MOTY contender. It's really hard to judge these long matches based on the small percentage that aired, but this would have been a fast paced, futuristic bout if it was just the 14 minutes that aired, so even if the early portion was meh, it's impressive that they could put out this kind of pace essentially from the 35 minute mark. This was a more of a Japanese junior style match, even though Hase & Owen hadn't really wrestled in Japan yet, focusing on workrate and doing a stiff athletic style. Stampede always had a big Japanese influence because of their working relationship with NJPW, which was Viet Cong's home promotion, and the influence of international wrestlers such as Dynamite Kid, who had spent much of their career in Japan. This was definitely way ahead of the curve offensively, with everyone using nice suplexes. You weren't seeing any tag wrestling with this combination of pace and high level offense in the USA at the time. You might get a better burst from the Fantastics, but there would be lots of routine heels isolating a face beatdown stuff to get to the brief payoff. This was just consistently excellent no matter who was in. It was always high effort and very well executed. Bassarab has really impressed me in both of these matches with his high impact athletic style reminiscent of Chris Benoit. I wasn't just hoping for Owen to come in like I normally would in an Owen tag match. In fact, Bassarab might have been the better half of the team in either or both of these matches. He did a wicked tombstone piledriver in this one among other impressive moves. I had to keep reminding myself that they had already done several days work before the cameras even started rolling. I have no idea how to rate this when we got 28% of the match. I didn't get the idea that this was 35 minutes of Okada slumbering and they just finally did something down the stretch. The fact that there was no stalling in what we saw of a match so long makes me think it was probably awesome. Obviously, this wasn't the most dramatic match ever, as you kind of figured it was just going the distance, but there was more effort here in the 14 minutes we saw than in an entire months worth of WWF combined. ****1/2 range

3/25/26 AEW Executive Vice President vs. AEW World Title #1 Contendership: Kenny Omega vs. Swerve Strickland 20:33
ML: I wasn't particularly impressed with their 2/18/26 match where Omega was lacking his old explosion and hardly using any different moves, and Swerve was content to be passable like he's been for much of the past year and a half. I don't think this hit that high of a gear either, but Swerve wasn't completely going through the motions like in their 1st match, and Kenny seemed healthier and more confident in his body. This was the best Omega performance thusfar in 2026, and Kenny being closer to his old capabilities made this bombfest just interesting enough to recommend. Omega was definitely more compelling today, using a much wider variety of moves. There was still no real flow or connective tissue here, just 20 minutes of individually good moves, but unloading their arsenals made it feel somewhat like the big match the stipulation tried to pass it off as. Though neither were in any particular hurry, Kenny's offense was performed to his usual standards, rather than the less impressive level we've seen this year. Swerve was doing far less moves, but they were bombs. Swerve hit an avalanche backdrop that looked good once they finally got enough balance to execute it. He also did a piledriver on the barricade. Omega was on the ascendancy from the outset, but as they used all their big offense to try to defeat each other, Swerve was ultimately coming closer to the victory, especially down the stretch. While it often seemed like it was only a matter of time before Swerve won, the finish saw Omega avoid the Swerve stomp and hit two V triggers followed by his one winged angel to win the right to try to carry the comedy champion to something even remotely watchable on 4/12. ***

3/8/86 WWF: Ricky Steamboat vs. Bret Hart 15:08
ML: Though Bret was a tag specialist for Vince until 1991, let's not forget he was a 6 time Stampede North American Heavyweight Champion for his father Stu before Vince bought it all up then typically welched on his end of the bargain. Bret knew what he was doing in singles, he just didn't have his direction, style, and focus yet. This was still mostly Steamboat, but Bret knew how to add to what Steamboat usually did to make it more interesting. He was also one of the most athletic heels, so he could do the sprinting in and out of the arm drag better than most of Steamboat's opponents. Both were happy to sit in a submission, but the bursts in between those portions were definitely more interesting than what they got from most other opponents. This stagnated a lot less than what Steamboat did in WWF outside of against Randy Savage, who was also a high workrate heel with a lot better than average move set. This was more technical than Steamboat vs. Savage, but it accomplished similar things, and was largely good because it kept moving. It had no real stalling, and felt a lot shorter than it actually was. Bret riled Steamboat up by jumping him before the bell, immediately drawing a reprisal with fierce chops. This was a cold match, the first of back to back nights that were unfortunately the only singles matches they ever had together, and I don't think the 2nd match was recorded. Anyway, there was no real feud here, so they didn't need to continue down the road of Steamboat getting his revenge, the more important aspect is we saw the emotional and enthusiastic Steamboat from the outset. Bret instilled more story here, having Steamboat work on his left arm in a variety of ways rather than the usual tactic where Steamboat kills time holding the arm bar after the arm drag. Steamboat is clearly the better worker in these days, but I felt like the match had more variety due to Bret. Steamboat got most of the early offense, but he kept having to work to stay on the offensive, and Bret eventually came back with a big swinging neckbreaker for a back body drop. Bret came on after this working the torso, including cutting Steamboat off with a body slam on the floor. Oddly, the heel was the one who got robbed after the rough bump, as Bret whipped Steamboat into the official on a double reversal, then there was nobody to count after his diving lariat. Bret then hit a high cross body, but Steamboat rolled through for the flash pin. While this wasn't the dream match they could have had in 1992, it's still a much higher standard than the other WWF of the era. ***

7/7/96 WCW: Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psychosis 15:18
ML: One of the greatest matches in WCW history, and one of the best PPV openers ever. This was Psychosis' second WCW match and Rey's 4th. Honestly, it would have been better if this was the WCW debut for both, because nothing either were going to do with anyone else was going to get them over to the extent they could working with each other. This wasn't just a Rey showcase despite being designed to get Rey over since he was winning the WCW World Cruiserweight Title from Dean Malenko on Nitro the next night. In fact, it was the most Rey sold for Psychosis in any of these singles matches. Psychosis even hit the first dive, his big tope over the top rope, but he hit his head on the guardrail because Rey did such a poor job of breaking his fall, prompting Bobby Heenan to say "he bent one of his horns". Rey is perfectly built to play face in peril, and his matches make more sense when he isn't just doing 15 flips with no pushback from the opponent like in some of their matches from earlier in 1996. They had all the time they needed, and were able to do the match they wanted. Most of their touring matches were more rushed, but they were able to pace things better and deliver something that looked more like a wrestling match rather than simply wall to wall aerial spectacle. Thus, the match never felt like an exhibition, as they are able to do enough setup and work around the spots to keep the action flowing and cohesive. They started a little slower since they weren't in a rush, mixing a few high spots in with the mat work. I would have started with a little more flash since most of them didn't know who they were really, but there was enough to interest the fans early and win them over in the 2nd half. The mat work here was considerably more interesting than on 9/22/95, more active, and the submissions were more forcefully applied. This match had more big bumps, even from Misterio. Psychosis took one of his massive bumps into the ring post when he ran the apron but got monkey flipped. Psychosis was more forceful in his execution here, and this stiffer, higher impact version that bullies Rey makes more sense. Psychosis was still plenty spectacular though, including a diving senton to the floor. As the match progressed, it didn't really build drama, just kept coming at you with more great spots you didn't really see from anyone else in these days. Rey did his tijeras to the floor with Psychosis on the apron. Psychosis took a bumb sliding all the way to the floor for Rey's swandive missile kick. Rey appeared to be setting up a quebrada, but added a midair somersault. Rey tried the swandive huracarrana, but Psychosis spiked him with a mid-air Ligerbomb. The match just randomly ended again with Rey countering the Die Hard Kansai into the avalanche Frankensteiner. It's pretty crazy that I consider their top 3 singles matches against one another to be their 2nd & 3rd ECW matches and this. ****1/4

10/11/96 WAR: Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 5:22 of 13:21
ML: There was a frustrating patch in this feud from after the ECW matches to before the WCW match where things shifted from being about getting both wrestlers over to really just Misterio. That's unfortunate both because it hurts the quality of the match by making it feel like a very glorified enhancement match, and also because Psicosis is the more interesting actual wrestler of the two with his amazing bumps and general craziness. These last few singles matches were more towards the match I wanted to see from them again, as it felt like Psicosis actually had a chance. He was focused on using his most spectacular offense to hang with Rey, but his size advantage also helped. What was amazing about this match is they showed up in Japan while under WCW contract, and rather than doing the greatest hits version of their match like at the Super J Cup on 12/13/95, they instead did a ton of moves they haven't used before in this series. It not only didn't feel like any of their other matches beyond obviously being a futuristic athletic spotfest, but it was the freshest thing they'd done in ages, and one of the most ambitious matches of their careers. They were really pushing themselves and their boundaries here, proving they still had tons of creativity in them. It wasn't their cleanest executed match because of that, but I kind of like when Lucha is a bit rough around the edges since the overly choreographed feel is the biggest overall problem. Unfortunately, this was heavily edited, but given the style they were doing, there wasn't going to be a lot of substance anyway, so it's not like that made it difficult to follow or anything. They seemed to be into Sabu vs. RVD here, as Psicosis did an Arabian press variation with Rey standing on the outside, and Rey did a split leg variation where he Frankensteinered Psicosis off the apron. It wasn't in the ECW vein otherwise, as they gave the chairs a break here. Some of the other big highlights included Psicosis doing a rope hanging diving leg drop and Rey giving Psicosis a tijeras over the top rope and following Psicosis to the floor with a triangle tope con giro. Rey won this put of nowhere with a flash pin, which worked better in this match than it would have in their other 1996 matches because Psicosis was always answering Rey instead of just being the bump boy. **** range

6/1/96 World Wrestling Peace Festival: Rey Misterio Jr. & Ultimo Dragon vs. Heavy Metal & Psicosis 10:59
ML: I love everything about this sprint except for the fact it was about as competitive as a Saturday morning squash. It was so much fun that it's easy to forgive it for being content to just be a flying exhibition that never took itself too seriously. The rudos deserve a medal for being so selfless, but it goes well into the territory of hurting the match more than helping it. The high flying was best in the world, sequences were excellent, the offense was tremendous, the speed and fluidity were there. If there was any actual back and forth, or even a remote possibility that the rudos could win, this would probably have been a classic. I'm finding Rey Jr. less impressive than I used to because he's really just out there to show off so often rather than to incorporate his spectacle into a compelling match. That being said, I kind of blame Dragon for this crowd pleaser not being nearly as good an actual match as the spectacle would suggest because if it was going to be such a showcase for Rey then he needed to realize he's not the flashiest guy out there, and actually take some of Psicosis & Metal's offense, which frankly is roughly as spectacular as Dragon's anyway. The exciting and spectacular fast-paced action was nonetheless great throughout, but it's kind of so egregious in it's stompery that it backfires because I want to say that Psicosis and Metal were the guys that actually stood out here for making Rey & Dragon look like a million bucks. Definigtely some of the best rudo bumping you'll ever see. Rey's most impressive dive was a diving tijeras with Psicosis on the apron, as this gave Psicosis yet another opportunity to take a spectacular bump. Metal had a miscue or two, but for the most part was right up there with Psicosis in his ability to use his athleticism to make the opponent look more impressive. Dragon pinned Metal with a tiger suplex. ***1/2

6/3/96: Ultimo Dragon vs. Psicosis
ML: This was a handheld of an independent house show in Mexicali. There was a big crowd (I don't know that I buy 5,500 but there were no empty seats), but they still approached this as a house show match and padded the time. The first fall was the best, good enough that you believed it was on its way to being a very good match. The 2nd fall was more about Psicosis' shenanigans, getting into it with the ref, and unfortunately there was no 3rd fall because he lost in straights. Dragon obviously wasn't as spectacular as Rey Mysterio Jr., but he also wasn't nearly as worried about getting his offense in, and let Psicosis do his thing. Ultimo was content to win the cat and mouse game, allowing Psicosis to beat himself by crashing into the turnbuckle or ring post. Dragon won the first fall with his la magistral. The ref was seemingly doing everything he could to not DQ Psicosis, for instance letting him get away with a low headbutt, but Psicosis was being cranky and arguing with him anyway. Psicosis was really pushing the blatant rulebreaking, and at one point the ref pushed Dragon before Psicosis could tombstone him, causing Dragon to fall on top. Due to Damian interfering, the ref didn't count when Psicosis followed with an avalanche Frankensteiner, and then did a super fast count on Dragon's small package. The action from Dragon especially was very flash pin heavy, but luckily the rest of the counts were normal speed. Psicosis did another blatant low blow after Dragon went over the top of his corner charge. Then he took a kendo stick and hit Dragon low. The ref was seemingly going to allow even this, but Psicosis pushed him down, so the ref pushed him down and awarded the match to Dragon. There were some good spots in the 2nd fall, but all the nonsense with the ref was just hurting things. ***

4/19/96 WAR: Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 7:44
ML: An improvement from their J Cup match, fluid and flowing high paced Lucha from start to finish, with Psicosis having an actual role, though still not feeling like an equal. It's not quite as spectacular when it comes to the big dives, but it's a much more consistent all action spotfest. There's no matwork here, it's all fast action with some hard strikes and high impact here and there. Though their shortest match thusfar, that made them actually keep fighting instead of just doing big dives and trying to milk 45 seconds out of them, so they ultimately delivered more highlights by not wasting time. The Extreme Lucha stuff had creeped into even their work outside of North America, with chair spots that weren't necessary, though they didn't hurt things at least. Rey quickly hit a tijeras off the apron and a moonsault off a chair. Psicosis answered with a split leg moonsault. Rey landed on the chair he sat Psicosis in when Psicosis avoided his pescado, but Psicosis was able to hit a body attack through the middle rope with Rey sitting on the chair. They teased the end of their 12/13/95 match with the fans chuckling as Psicosis took the bump from a kick into a seat on the top rope, but he avoided the avalanche Frankensteiner, only to have Rey then counter into it for the win when he stopped the Die Hard Kansai. Ultimately, the best spots of their J Cup match were better, but this felt a lot less like a one-sided exhibition. ****

12/13/95 WAR: Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis 9:39.
ML: An exhibition match for Rey to get over with the Japanese audience as the new high flying masked superhero, doing 4 dives in a bout that didn't even go 10 minutes. Rey did his greatest spots, and some new ones just because. Much of it was new and innovative for this audience, even on a great show like this. The match came after one of the most disgusting results ever where Gedo defeated Wild Pegasus to advance to the final of the second Super J Cup, getting the show back on track before the final where Jushin Thunder Liger at least won the tournament. This could have been one of their great matches, but Rey seemed to forget he had a great opponent, not just someone to base, catch, and bump for him. Very little was done to showcase Psicosis' skills to counterbalance things or give the match any kind of drama. It started out with mat wrestling like there 9/22/95 AAA match, but it came across much better because of the superior WAR production, with the closer angles and clean ring sounds that weren't drowned out by babbling heads making it feel like you were in the ring with them. Their technical wrestling felt snugger and more forceful here. This had been a very spectacular showcase of high flying wrestling in spite of Gedo, so they weren't going to steal the show just doing anything that resembled passable wrestling as they probably could have in ECW. They knew to pick this one up quickly because it was their first match in Japan and they had to get over, but for a minute or two they did a nice job of incorporating more faster paced action and power moves into what they were doing, so it didn't feel like they were just completely scrapping the technical wrestling in favor of something completely different. The action was evolving and escalating rather than simply going from one thing right to the other, but at some point around the point of Rey's 1st dive, the boomerang tope con giro, it shifted purely to lucha spectacle and there was too much waiting and staring at each other in between big spots. Rey's diving tijeras to the outside was insane, but this again became a collection of dives with mostly stalling in between them, as Psicosis got on the board with a tope over the top rope, and Rey answered with a swandive tope con giro. Both went over the top rope from Rey's high cross body, but Rey was able to hold on to the top rope to keep from going all the way to the floor, and follow with a super quebrada. The finish saw Psicosis take a jumping bump onto the top rope from a kick, get Frankensteinered off, and then take another Frankensteiner for the pin. The spectacle was awesome, but there wasn't any kind of connective tissue in the last 5 minutes, and there was zero sense that Psicosis could possibly win this. With more balance and better setup, this could have been another great match between these two, but they seemed content to just showcase Rey leaping to the floor instead. Some great great spots though. ***3/4

3/12/26 AEW: Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood & Tommaso Ciampa vs. Mark Briscoe & Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson 12:55
ML: Nonstop action with constant teaming up. The urgency and intensity that's almost always missing from AEW the past year and a half was there. This was certainly a spotfest, but it wasn't just focusing on spectacle like a lot of Bucks actioners. It was a lot more of a hard hitting rivalry match than I was expecting, particularly Ciampa vs. Briscoe, with Mark bleeding hardway. Ciampa has been a good addition because he wants things to come across more as a fight instead of a bs exhibition where they're always just obviously waiting for one another. They should have stuck with him as champ, and had Briscoe persuing him to regain instead of killing Ciampa off right away by having him drop the title to the crowd gazer 11 days later. Instead they already turned him heel - he's been here less than 2 months - though at least he fits well with FTR and so far he isn't just another guy who stalls the second he takes over. The Ciampa vs. Briscoe pairing was really making this match, and was particularly what went beyond the usual good stuff into the level of a battle you really needed to see. Everyone was working fast and hard here. They started going at it before the bell, and there was always something happening, if not two or three different things at once. There was a good spot where Mark & Nick did a Razor's edge/jumping neckbreaker combination to Dax. Cash pushed Nick off the top through a table on the floor, and FTR hit the shatter machine on Mark as one of the good near falls where there was a last second save. FTR took Matt out with a spike piledriver on the announcers table. This helped allow Ciampa to beat Briscoe with his bicycle knee. Ciampa attacked Mark with chairs in the post match, and did an avalanche psycho driller onto them. It's criminal that there's not a singles rematch between these two on the PPV given this was actually even a good AEW post match angle for once. ***1/2

9/22/95 AAA, 2/3 Falls WWA World Welterweight Title: Psicosis vs. Rey Misterio Jr. (7:44, 3:15, 7:40) 18:39
ML: Having enjoyed their ECW matches as much, or perhaps even more than I did as a kid, I had really high hopes for this match, which I also hadn't seen in 30 years, and has the reputation of being their best match together. In theory, there's several reasons their big title match in their home promotion should have been better than their rushed undercard touring matches, but this wound up kind of being two different matches, and neither totally worked on it's own or really played into one another. This had a much different feel from the ECW matches because they were already over and had a lot more time to develop the match, so they could be athletic early without going right to the most spectacular stuff to try to force people to take notice of them. This sounds like it would make for a better match, and yes, I think there's a superior match that includes some of this stuff, but it's just not their strength. The first fall and a half was good, but these aren't the guys you want to be devoting more than half the match to technical wrestling where they rolled into a submission. In their rushed matches, you might get a minute or two of this somewhere, probably after a flashy start, and it works a lot better for them as a diversion than as the main course. The great thing about their 10/7/95 ECW 2/3 falls match was that each fall was different. This match had two falls that were pretty similar, focusing on what's essentially the weakest part of their game, followed by a third fall where they just did dive after dive to try to make up for that. This wasn't very well structured. Mixing things up would have made it more consistently interesting, and the third fall less silly and overkill. I don't want to make it sound like they are bad technical wrestlers, their setups and entries to their submissions were good. They utilized their athleticism well, and some of it was pretty nifty, but ultimately they just kind of held onto each other in some whatever sort of weird hold that doesn't appear to be doing anything in particular. They had one big flying spot planned, but Misterio slipped off the top rope. They actually appeared to be starting the second fall fast, but after Misterio immediately hit a kneecap dropkick, they just continued the submission wrestling we saw in the first fall. Things picked up a little bit before the end of the second fall, where Psicosis got a submission after hitting his moonsault. I don't think the first two falls equal anything better than three-star range, and they didn't set up the third fall whatsoever because, if anything, there's less reason for them to suddenly be able to hit all these spectacular moves. They basically saved everything for the third fall, which then looked like an overly dramatized version of their international match. The high flying was certainly next level, maybe next next level, but they didn't really build momentum because they didn't chain any of these spots together. They would do an amazing dive then played dead, so it kept taking 30 seconds to get going again, and then kind of being contrived in forcing more of the same. Considering the first two falls were mostly laying around, I wasn't expecting them to go right to the we're both almost dead stuff to start the third, but the third fall was still excellent in spite of the overselling. The 4th dive of the fall saw Psicosis accidentally take out his second Juventud Guerrera with a corkscrew moonsault attack. Misterio then faked a tope and instead hit a springboard plancha. I was certainly entertained by the dives, but when you are suddenly doing a dive a minute with half of the time between consisting of struggling to return to the ring, it starts to not feel very organic and the setup certainly suffers. Having Psicosis submit to a shoulder oriented submission after his patented turnbuckle crash made some sense, but wasn't a very interesting culmination to such a spectacular fall. This match doesn't age well because it's not really notable beyond the aerial moves of the third fall. It didn't feel as much like a Psicosis match where he was making good things look great as just a showcase for Misterio to show off where his opponent got to do similarly spectacular things. There's certainly a lot of individual things to appreciate, but the pacing and structuring weren't good, so instead of progressing and really pulling you in, it's very surface level, either awing you or being just kind of there. ***1/2

4/17/94 WCW: Vader vs. The Boss 9:18
ML: This was a stiff, fast-paced high impact brawl where Vader was busted open above and perhaps below the right eye and was also bleeding from the mouth. I prefer Boss as a heel because his punches are good, but he doesn't have much of a move set. Boss was much more impressive here given he was actually allowed to lay it in for once, and the face/heel dynamic worked because Vader has impressive offense, and has no problem providing most of the excitement despite being the heel in this hoss battle. It was a rare good super heavyweight match, and even rarer given it was an actual super heavyweight sprint. It's probably Bossman's best match outside of Japan, and maybe his best singles match anywhere. It was a little sloppy, but with guys this big, not looking slick and being perfectly clean isn't invariably a downside to the credibility. It felt more like an All Japan match because of the stiffness, and this is really what I wish Vader was able to do in NOAH because trying to sustain the level for a long singles match wasn't really working that well when he was older and more broken down. This was mostly high impact, but they took some big bumps as well, with Boss going over the top to the floor and Vader crashing the guardrail and going over into the first row. This Boss bump was awkward looking, an interesting spot where it seemed like Vader was late getting down and Boss was almost completely upright so it would have made for a great sidewalk slam setup but didn't work right as a back body drop, with Boss going over the top rope dangerously from almost the center of the ring. Vader tried to attack before the bell, but accidentally took out Harley Race with his Vader attack when Boss broke free. Vader tried to enter the ring by running the ramp and diving over the top with a body press, but he didn't clear the top rope cleanly, and Boss got the knees up. There were some big thuds like Vader catching Boss out of the air and power slamming him. Vader won with the moonsault, but Boss definitely impressed in defeat. This was the end of Bossman using his nightstick and cuffs, in story because commissioner Nick Bockwinkel stripped him of the gimmick for beating Harley Race afterwards, but in reality because WWF was threatening a copyright infringement lawsuit since WCW barely changed his name and character. I never really felt like Boss had much chance to win, but it was a fun high effort match without any wasted time. 3 stars might be more accurate, but I'll give it an extra 1/4 because it's a whole lot better than you normally get from guys of this size, and doesn't just feel like it's good with the caveat of "for big men". ***1/4

9/18/94 WCW World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Triangle Elimination: Vader vs. Sting vs. The Guardian Angel (7:04, 23:18) 30:22
ML: This was at first contested under the three-way format that can actually produce a good match where Sting just got a bye and wrestled the winner of Vader vs. Angel. The problem is they couldn't just stop there with the rules, they had to put 15 minute time limits and get cute with the overtimes. Vader was more methodical here since he was going half an hour then in the Spring Stampede sprint against Boss, who had now been recast in the lame red attired Guardian Angel gimmick, inspired by the real-life NYC safety group, to avoid WWF lawsuit. This was rushed and nowhere near as good as their 4/17/94, which actually wasn't that much longer. It didn't feel like they were just repeating that match in any way though, it's just that this was basically a match tacked on to the Vader vs. Sting match that people really cared about. It was more of a high impact match, with more moves but less stiff striking. The finish saw Vader accidentally take out the ref with a lariat then Angel hit a Bossman slam, but Race broke the cover with his falling headbutt and Vader won with the reverse body press. This was pretty good for what it was, but wouldn't get that high of a rating standalone match. The regulation portion of Sting vs. Vader was considerably better than what happened before or after it. Vader was dominant, but Sting has the speed and power to take it too him for stretches. You believe in his ability to both stand up to and beat Vader, whereas Angel can stand up to him, but Vader is still kind of the bigger, better version.Vader upped the stiffness and intensity for Sting. I was surprised that Sting didn't get off to a much quicker start given that he was fresh. Instead, Vader was mauling him from the outset. The fans were really getting into it once Sting finally made his comeback and got himself into the match. Sting's energetic little segment of action was cut off pretty quickly though when Vader got his knees up for a splash. Sting avoided the moonsault though. They started fighting in the second ring, with Sting hitting two diving lariats and a diving press. Sting caught Vader off the middle rope into a power slam with a minute left in the 15 minute regulation, but couldn't cover. He almost got the Scorpion death lock on in the last 15 seconds, but Vader fought it off and grabbed the rope. The overtime was very slow, as they were still selling being dead from the end of regulation despite a bit of recovery time. This very disappointing 5 minute period expired just before Vader got the 3 count from his powerbomb, except the bell didn't ring when time actually expired. The sudden death had an incredibly silly rule where you just had to knock the opponent down like it was sumo. They were just exchanging shoulder blocks, which obviously was exactly what fans wanted to culminate half an hour of fairly intense action. This also didn't make much sense for Sting given Vader was twice his size. Sting nonetheless actually succeeded, but Angel coming out and jumping Harley Race to keep him from interfering had already caused the ref to try to push them back to the locker room, so he missed it. A mysterious masked man who was the same guy who hit Hulk Hogan in the leg showed up to hit Sting, and of course, the ref returned just in time to see Vader up and Sting down. It was going to be bad enough just to win on the shoulder block, which at least was an excuse for someone to lose cleanly without getting pinned, but this was extra lame. Vader was really good for the first 22 minutes, but the last eight were average and overbooked. The two match format was fine, but they should have essentially been no time limit matches, as the overtime and especially sudden death were bad ideas. Both matches were more in the throwing bombs mode, at least until the extra periods where almost nothing useful happened. Sting wasn't as good as earlier in the feud. He's was good enough, and he always gave an effort before the Crow days, but he wasn't as energetic or excitable, so he didn't pull you into his offense as much. Some of it might also have been acting, as the overtime was especially too sluggish but that was mostly by design, and the sudden death was just pretty thin. This was unfortunately about the end of the Sting vs. Vader feud that had been one of the highlights of 1992-93 WCW, as they just have one TV match after this on 10/4/94 that Sting won by disqualification. ***

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe 19:10
PA: An interesting match that came four years before these teams had the greatest cage match in history. This wasn’t one of the higher end tag team matches of the year, but was a really good one. It was well structured with a good build, well-paced with quality action all the way through. It had a fair bit of sloppiness, but anything blown was usually covered well enough, particularly as they ramped up the spots in the back end of the match. It was probably the best match that LCO had led up to this point, and the junior team followed along well. It was a breath of fresh air when compared to the recent tag matches Ito had been involved in against LLPW teams. ***1/2

12/10/93 AJW: Bull Nakano & Chaparrita ASARI vs. Yumiko Hotta & Suzuka Minami 15:33
PA: This was one of those ‘stiff the junior’ matches. Minami certainly got her shots in, but it’s mainly a good example of Hotta being incredibly reckless. Again. The Hikari match was bad, the Plum match was far worse, and this takes the cake. Unlike those matches, this was actually a good match. The start was quite fun, with ASARI throwing dropkicks and Hotta making her do 10 of them, but after the tenth one, Hotta punted her in the jaw, breaking her jaw and knocking a couple of teeth out in the process. The match was mainly ASARI trying to do things and getting stiffed for it in response. Hotta didn’t sell a single thing she did on her own, but it was fun watching ASARI try. The injury made it "memorable", but it might have been more fun had she not been holding her face together. Bull kept things competitive and helped her to get a little revenge on Hotta, setting up the Sky Twister Press, which ASARI executed properly (to the one opponent who probably deserved to take knees). After that, Bull missed the guillotine legdrop and Minami got rid of her, leaving ASARI and Hotta all alone with Hotta putting her away easily. ***1/4

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Eagle Sawai & Yasha Kurenai 21:25
PA: The Tag League was still alive in this match. Aja and Sakie were finished, but if Eagle and Yasha won they’d had made the finals. This wasn’t always pretty, but it was heated and fun. Yasha and Sakie spent most of it on the receiving end. Yasha took an enormous beating from Aja and tried to use her shinai later, but it was no match for Aja’s oil can. Eagle and Yasha did a pretty good job, the usual problem, particularly with Yasha, is that her heeling has too much comedy to take her seriously and that was present here, but they were pretty good working over Sakie. They built it well into a good finishing run though the finish itself where Yasha hits her chokeslam from the top and Sakie just pops up and hits her rolling savate kick to win was pretty lousy, not that crowd minded, they were happy to see the home team play spoiler and keep LLPW out of the finals. ***1/2

12/10/93 AJW Tag League The Best '93: Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 15:36, Tag League The Best '93 Final: Akira Hokuto & Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Kyoko Inoue 14:49
PA: These two matches are essentially one match. A two-fall match, or if you want to think of it in a traditional way, a 2/3 falls match with Hokuto and Toyota having a 1-0 lead. Had Hokuto and Toyota won the first match, they’d have won the tag league outright with no need for a final. Yamada and Kyoko needed to win two matches in a row to take the tournament. They won the first match and the two teams immediately restarted with the tiebreaker final. The tag league was never the most prestigious tournament, particularly after they started messing around with random teams (not to say it was ever a joke tournament), but there was special meaning here as it was Hokuto’s final day as a full time wrestler after losing to Kandori just four days earlier. These matches are probably the best representation of the Zenjo house style, combining the best aspects of the classic Zenjo sprint with a lot Hokuto melodrama. Its action packed, frantic, high-effort go-go style with lots of great spots and the latter part (the second match) had a lot of drama and selling with Hokuto’s knee being the main focus. Kyoko and Yamada were in a must win situation in the first match, and were the underdogs. They took their openings to get offense, but were countered often. The finishing run saw a lot of cool things and hot near falls, but by the end Toyota was isolated, and though she was able to thwart the double teaming she fell victim to Kyoko’s Niagara Driver, which not only gave Kyoko and Yamada the win, but knocked her silly and set up all the drama that followed. Hokuto tried to cover for Toyota, but Kyoko wasn’t having that and left her at Yamada’s mercy. Toyota was finally able to get away and tag Hokuto, but her bad knee became the target of the abuse. A submission was never on the cards, but it left her weakened and vulnerable to the big moves. Hokuto managed the tag, but Toyota tagged her back in too quickly. Limping badly, Yamada brain kicked her down, delivered a vicious kick to the face and hit a diving back elbow for two. Hokuto avoided a double team and Toyota intervened with a missile dropkick. Hokuto attempted a tombstone, which was reversed by Yamada. Kyoko executed a plancha and things were looking bad for Hokuto. Yamada hit her Reverse Gory Special Bomb after two attempts in the ring, but Toyota saved the match. Kyoko took over to attempt to finish herself, but Hokuto slipped out of the Niagara Driver and tagged Toyota, who hit three different kinds of moonsaults for near falls, meanwhile Hokuto took Yamada out with a dive. Toyota hit the Japanese Ocean Suplex, but Kyoko avoided a double missile dropkick. Yamada almost pinned Toyota with a diving brain kick while Kyoko held back Hokuto. They continued trying double teams, but after Toyota took out Kyoko, it was down to Hokuto and Yamada to settle it. They countered each other’s finishers but, in the end, Hokuto was able to hit her Northern Light’s Bomb to win the tag league and end her year on a high note. A feel-good win for the Korakuen fans, especially the ones who had seen her take the long walk back just four days earlier. ****1/2

2/28/26 UFC: Regina Tarin vs. Ernesta Kareckaite 3R
ML: This is basically what you want from an undercard women's fight, high pace, high volume, lots of movement, exchanging strikes. It's not a great technical or strategic fight by any means, but no one was expecting it to be. They gave you everything they were capable of though. 21-year-old Tarin took the fight on 3 days notice, dropping down 15 pounds more than she was assuming she had to for an upcoming muay thai match, but her cardio held up well. Tarin has more power, and she was able to implement her gameplan a lot better, as simple as that may have been. She's very good in the pocket and at short range, unloading hooks. Kareckaite did a good job of walking her down, but that's not the best strategy given Tarin preferred to fight on the inside and was good at stopping, landing her hooks, then circling away. Kareckaite wasn't doing enough to push her back with actual strikes, and she wasn't doing anything to utilize her 5 inch reach advantage, which beyond not using enough kicks or any range keepers, she further negated by being square to her opponent. Tarin was definitely the better brawler, partially because she got off a lot quicker. Kareckaite was somewhat hesitant to throw the first shot in round 1. As the fight progressed, she still didn't throw at distance, but would walk Tarin down and get the first shot or two off before Tarin answered with better punches. Tarin looked a lot more relaxed out there and had more of a flowing style. The first round was Kareckaite's worst, but to her credit she fought in a much more proactive manner after that, leading the dance. Tarin started making her chase and trying to walk her into a big punch. This was a round where Kareckaite at least gave off the illusion that she was winning, but she was actually taking some pretty big shots because Tarin would stop, land, then escape before taking any more shots. Kareckaite could land first, and sometimes second, but it was killing her that she rarely did anything in between Tarin hitting her and circling away because Tarin was landing good shots and stealing every exchange. Kareckaite threw a few kicks in the third round, but this is something she really needs to work on in order to be able to score at distance and also to be less predictable. Turin didn't have any success clinching to get a takedown in the third, but she was doing a good job with the short range punches. There was big inside exchanging in the last minute, which contained the best action. Tarin's mouth was bloodied. This fight was competitive, but it's hard to say Kareckaite actually won a round, even though it's not completely unreasonable to give her the 2nd or the 3rd. Tarin won a unanimous decision 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. Good match.

FFCP 2/15/57 France: Jean Bout vs. Liano Pellacani
DC: Jean Bout appeared to be an accomplished grappler and the babyface in this match. Italian wrestler Liano Pellacani showed a lot of intensity and some very stiff forearm smashes. Bout would make his comebacks in spectacular fashion through his speedy and flashy offense. Pellacani was a very snug wrestler, but he was more than willing to bump and sell generously for the popular Bout. Things slowed down a bit as the match went on, but the intensity level was consistently high. At some point, they both tumbled over the top rope to the floor, much to the excitement of the commentator. This was definitely a memorable match, especially considering this took place in the 1950s. Excellent match. ****¼

JWA 10/13/57 Osaka, NWA World Heavyweight Title: Lou Thesz vs. Rikidozan 32:33
DC: Japanese pro wrestling would only start reaching true greatness in the mid 1970s when Giant Baba wrestled Billy Robinson, but this classic from the late 1950s deserves to be mentioned. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz, one of the greatest pro wrestlers of the 1950s, defends his belt against the “father of Japanese puroresu” Rikidozan (who was actually (North) Korean, but this wasn't revealed until after his death due to the complicated political situation between Japan and Korea). For someone who was basically the first one to properly popularize pro wrestling in Japan, Rikidozan's understanding of pro wrestling psychology was quite excellent. His moveset wasn't very unique, but he made up for it with his display of fighting spirit. He was a former sumotori, and especially since sumo is such a respected sport in Japan, it was easy for the Japanese crowds to believe that Rikidozan had a chance against this American wrestling champion. Thesz did a great job carrying Rikidozan to a memorable match. They had a pretty good match six days prior to this, but it was a 60-minute draw, and thus not quite as exciting as this more condensed match. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to really consider this 10/13/57 match the first truly recommendable match in Japanese puroresu history when you keep in mind that, thanks to Rikidozan, puroresu had only started being popular since 1954 or so. Excellent match. ****¼

FFCP 2/21/58 France: Inca Peruano vs. Jacky Corne
DC: Inca Peruano (a.k.a. Rocky Tomayo/Joe Soto) was a Peruvian wrestler. Jacky Corne was a solid but somewhat dull grappler. He showed some more fire during the later stages of the match. Overall, the match relied a lot on how Inca Peruano was dealing with the situations he was finding himself in. Considering this took place in 1958, this was quite a fascinating wrestling match. Excellent match. ****

FFCP 6/4/59 France: Jean Rabut vs. Isha Israel
DC: Jean Rabut showed a lot of intensity in combination with his tremendous technical skills. Isha Israel showed really good execution and speed, which enabled him to keep up with the tenacious Rabut. What makes this match stand out in particular is that, while it's technically advanced, it doesn't feel as showy as some of the other impressive French catch bouts from this era. Rabut's approach feels like that of a fighter trying to put his opponent to the test as much as possible until the opponent can no longer continue. And Isha played his role well as the one who is hanging in there and fighting for survival. Both men sold tremendously. Great match. ****½

FFCP 11/27/59 France: Gilbert Cesca vs. Rene Ben Chemoul
DC: The matwork was very fancy, and sometimes felt a bit too fancy (almost to the point of focusing too much on trying to show off). Interestingly enough, Gilbert Cesca executed a couple of huracarranas, which were called “ciseaux de volet” (flying headscissors) by the commentator. The match eventually became a bit grittier and less showy, with both workers showing a lot of force behind their moves. Excellent match. **** 

NJPW 2/17/94 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan: Jushin Thunder Liger & Power Warrior vs. Scott Steiner & Rick Steiner 13:05
DC: Just when you thought seeing Max Moon team up with Wild Pegasus was cool, like we saw earlier on this show, we also got to see Jushin Thunder Liger battle WWF Superstars, Scott & Rick, The Steiner Brothers! And what better tag team partner Liger could ask for in this match other than Kensuke Sasaki pretending to be a Road Warrior. This was a beautiful simulator-esque dream match of randomly epic proportions. The best part about this match is that it was actually even better than expected. Literally just five days prior to this match, the Steiners were still wrestling the Quebecers in WWF. Initially, you might think that this was just going to be one of those novelty matches that would disappoint, but, oh no, not this one. This was loads of fun and so good. Of course, the biggest concern once the bell rang was, would Rick Steiner and especially Scott Steiner even bother to sell anything for the junior heavyweight Liger? Not only did the Steiners sell for Liger, they sold like crazy for him. They must have really respected him, because the Steiners treated Liger like the great wrestler he really was. When Rick was in the ring with Sasaki, he made sure to outgrapple Sasaki. However, as soon as Rick showed some mercy for Sasaki, it was Sasaki who ironically started acting like a no-selling American (or we could say he did what Road Warriors do). The Steiners had seen that and done that, so they weren't fazed. Scott then continued his surprisingly superb selling for Liger. Eventually, they did all switch to the story of Liger being the smaller man who was in trouble, but it was done in a completely believable and realistic way, not in an uncooperative and disrespectful way. Sasaki saw this as a great opportunity to further channel the Road Warrior in him, especially since he was the heavyweight powerhouse of his team. The action moved more and more towards a back-and-forth type deal with the workers giving the crowd the impression that things really could go either way. The execution was superb, the selling was about as good as it gets for a match featuring three heavyweights in a NJPW ring in the mid 1990s. In the end, after several super exciting near-fall moments, it was Rick who scored the pinfall over Liger to get the Steiners the win. What a rare sight it was to see the Steiners, who were actually still part of WWF at the time, in the same ring as the great Liger, and what a match it was. Excellent match. **** 

NJPW 5/28/96 Nagano Big Hut, BOSJ III Block B: Black Tiger II vs. Villano IV 12:08
DC: Black Tiger II was the late, great Eddy Guerrero, as most of you probably know. Villano IV, the best worker of the Villano family, was an underrated luchador. This was his second and final tour for NJPW (his first one was a random tour in 1988), and his only time participating in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. In spite of both workers being top-notch luchadores, they actually rarely participated in the same match prior to this tour. They had been opponents in a couple of trios matches back in Mexico, and they would be part of a couple of World War 3 60-man battle royals in WCW, but other than that, their paths never really crossed. On this BOSJ III tour, this was the only singles match of the three matches they had against each other. So, this was pretty much their one and only big match against each other, which made it all the more special. The match started off with them taking it to the mat. They made the effort to actually work mat sequences, and they weren't just content sitting in holds, so that was a good start. It was certainly some high-quality lucha that they displayed. What they did looked competitive and looked like to luchadores trying to outdo each other and get the upper hand. It never felt contrived, because they were convincing in their portrayal of the struggling they went through. Guerrero would occasionally throw in a suplex to break up the matwork. Villano IV saw that as an invitation to do the same, and the hit a nice tope suicida. This opened the doors for them to keep attacking each other with moves that were potentially going to be a victory for someone or at least bring someone closer to victory. For instance, Guerrero hit a really nice powerbomb that got him a two count. Once the near falls started, they never really stopped trying to beat each other, putting over the idea they realized that both of them were in top form and able to win this match at any time. Eventually, it was Guerrero who scored the pinfall after a swinging DDT off the second rope, a popular lucharesu finisher. This was a really enjoyable match. Villano IV didn't have quite the impressive track record Guerrero had in NJPW, so it wasn't a surprise that Guerrero won, but the way this match was built up and worked always made it doubtful whether or not an upset victory was just around the corner. The work was smooth and well-executed. The moves they executed were impressive enough and yet it never felt like they were being unsafe. In other words, this was a perfectly fine and successful BOSJ bout. It never overstayed its welcome and almost made you wish for more. Very good match. ***½ 

12/6/93 AJW: Bull Nakano, Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Cuty Suzuki, Plum Mariko & Hikari Fukuoka (JWP) 20:36.
PA: JWP battling Bull was the most fun here. At the start, Cuty demanded to fight her instead of LCO, with Plum and Hikari sneaking in for a triple team. It failed as Bull decapitated them all with lariats, but they had more success later. Bull and LCO played heel with Bull being the dominant monster, while JWP were the smaller underdog babfyaces, which suited everyone best. It was really good and entertaining throughout, with lots of fun double and triple teaming. Bull was the best and Hikari stood out the most because she had the coolest spots, but everyone had their moments. LCO set the entire JWP team up for Bull to do the guillotine legdrop to all three, but everyone moved, and Bull received a train of diving footstomps in response. ***3/4

12/6/93 AJW: Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta vs. Harley Saito, Eagle Sawai & Rumi Kazama (LLPW) 15:38
PA: Kyoko got by far the biggest reaction of anyone, and the match was dependant on who was in at any given time. Eagle doesn’t provide anything of interest. Hotta and Rumi tried to have an intense kick battle but it didn’t matter how well it was executed, Rumi’s too small for it to look credible and Hotta wouldn’t sell anything she did anyway. Hotta vs. Eagle was better since Hotta had to work to hit a Tiger Driver, which was particularly brutal. Interspersed was good stuff from Harley and Kyoko, with Harley on the receiving end of a long giant swing. The latter part of the match was a really good spotfest, they really just did non-stop action and near falls. Harley and Kyoko were the best here, and Takako provided some good stuff with Harley as well. Eagle was better hitting her power moves for near falls and took a few big bumps, one particularly nasty one off a release German from Kyoko. It came down to Kyoko and Harley, Kyoko survived the Tiger Suplex but Hotta turned the tide for Kyoko, allowing her to hit her diving elbow and a Niagara Driver to win. ***1/4

WWWA World Title Match: Aja Kong vs. Megumi Kudo (FMW) 22:34
PA: Initially proposed during the Japan Grand Prix, where Weekly Pro Wrestling surveyed fans in Korakuen Hall for potential challengers for Aja Kong's title, Kudo's nomination was initially met with laughter in contrast to the big reactions for Dynamite Kansai and Shinobu Kandori. However, by the end of the match, they wouldn’t laugh again, and any doubts about Kudo's credibility were dispelled. While it’s not normally ideal for the WWWA World Singles Title match to be third from the top, it was the correct call here as they weren’t going to be able to follow the flashiness of the tag title match, nor the drama of Hokuto vs Kandori, both matches being heavily hyped rematches. It also freed them to show their best points and work a different match to what might have been expected had they been in the main event. It built like a mens match, Kudo was competitive at the start, but the early going saw Aja predictably brute force Kudo down and methodically dismantle her. When she got the chance, Kudo immediately went after Aja’s arm with a jujigatame, and relentlessly went after it. Aja sold the arm huge while fighting back with her other arm. She still tried to bully her, but wasn’t able to. One great spot saw Aja hit back with various weak strikes with her left hand and Kudo nail her with a right to knock her down. I’m not sure Kudo was ever a major threat, but Aja sure as hell made it look like she could win. Aja came back, and Kudo had to use her speed to regain her advantage. She avoided a bunch of Urakens and dumped Aja, hitting a tope. She continued to avoid the Urakens in the ring. The ref bump spot may not have been welcome, as the chorus of boos suggested, and while the bump itself was okay, referee Bob Yazawa kneeling over in the corner for a minute looked pretty stupid. The phantom pin off the rana did make it seem like Kudo could have won, and you never saw ref bumps in these days. Aja crushed Kudo with multiple urakens for a TKO, but she wanted Kudo to get back up and screamed at her. Kudo made it up at 8 and the crowd lost their minds when she countered Aja’s waterwheel drop with a sunset bomb. Kudo looked to follow up with a Tiger Driver, but Aja slipped out of it and gave her one more Uraken, no TKO this time, she just pinned for the three count. After the match, the two from the 1986 class reunited properly after five years. Their old mentor, Jaguar Yokota, who was sitting at the play-by-play table, was also crying. ****1/4

WWWA World Tag Title Match: Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (JWP) vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota 25:34
PA: The final match of the classic trilogy. They had great history to play off of and did so. It’s the most coherent of the three matches from bell to bell and everyone was in great form. Toyota, in particular, excelled as the match was tailored to her style, featuring a shorter runtime and a one-fall format. Whilst being the most action and spot oriented, it was filled with great sequences and never really went overboard so that you couldn’t follow it. However, being one fall cost them early drama. The match started in the same way the second one did, although Toyota saved Yamada but found herself in trouble. No one in the building bought it or even reacted, it’s a one fall match, and it wasn’t ending in the first 30 seconds. To that end, Ozaki and Kansai didn’t have much hope and everyone wanted Yamada and Toyota to take the belts back, especially since the league refused to book Ozaki and Kansai as a strong team (they had one defense in 8 months and weren’t even allowed to win that). Toyota was worked over early. She was stretched and was on the receiving end of a kicking from Kansai before coming back to spam some dropkicks, Kansai cut that off pretty quickly, but was taken out by an Ozaki cannonball, allowing for the tag to Yamada. A few minutes after that, we had the first great exchange between Kansai and Yamada. Kansai thought she was going to jump on Yamada and kicked the hell out of her, but Yamada ended up winning the battle, causing Kansai to bail out and restart. The match just had an excellent flow through the weardown, and built up really well. Yamada ended up winning another kick battle with Kansai, and set up Toyota to do a camel clutch, and instead of just one kick, Yamada kicked her repeatedly. Toyota tried to follow up, but her boots to Kansai’s head only upset Kansai. She attempted a boomerang out of the corner, got caught in a Northern Light’s Suplex but managed to come back with a moonsault afterward. Kansai wasn’t taking the stupid rolling cradle and shrugged Toyota off, but Yamada assisted her and she got it on Ozaki. It wasn’t long before Kansai was kicking Toyota around like a football again though. Kansai couldn’t hit Splash Mountain between Toyota escaping it and Yamada saving her. Kansai could hit everything else, including a brutal diving footstomp which allowed her to finally hit the Splash Moutain, but Yamada made the save by kicking her in the head. Another great spot followed with Ozaki and Kansai essentially doing a reverse doomsday device. Toyota took the diving lariat on Kansai’s shoulders, but managed to make it into a victory roll for a near fall. Kansai and Ozaki kept trying to finish Toyota. Ozaki took Yamada out, and they tried the Splash Mountain neckbreaker drop, but Toyota kicked Ozaki off the turnbuckle. Yamada made the tag, and her brain kick was avoided, but she came back with a stiff spinning one before doing her dumb backdrop suplex spamming. Kansai took a diving brain kick for a close near fall, and kept coming back, but it was 2 v 1. Another diving brain kick hit with Kansai on top of Toyota’s shoulders, but Ozaki saved the match. Ozaki did thwart their double teaming finally and tagged in, but with Kansai out and both Yamada and Toyota in good shape, she was on the receiving end immediately. She avoided a moonsault and Kansai recovered to assist with a lariat, leading to Ozaki hitting the Tequila Sunrise with Yamada saving the match. Ozaki’s diving body attack met knees, but Toyota’s Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex got turned into a Victory roll for two. Kansai wanted to do something from the top, but Toyota saw her early and kicked her off. Yamada held them on the outside for Toyota's quebrada but that didn’t quite go to plan, Toyota landed on the apron, and not only took a bad landing herself but kneed Kansai in the face on the way down. They did the dangerous backdrop to Ozaki, but Kansai made it in to break up the pin. Toyota hit the cyclone suplex, but it only got two. All of the near falls and the saves were just incredible, none of the stuff used in the first two matches had worked, so what was left to do? Something new. Yamada dragged Kansai out and Toyota missile dropkicked her, and back in, Toyota debuted a new finisher… and it was an absolute shocker. It was like a Japanese Ocean Alabama Slam, and it wasn’t even executed well. It was so bad Ozaki should have really kicked out and told her to just finish it with another Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex or anything else, a rookie bodyslam would have been a better finish than this. It was such a bad way for such great match and trilogy to finish. Aside from the 11/26/92 match being the best of the trilogy, I’m not sure which one ranks as the runner up; 4/11/93 was more memorable, has the benefit of a great beginning and finish, more drama with the three falls and had a stronger story since it was the conclusion of Ozaki and JWP’s mission to show they were just as good as the big league. So, it probably, almost certainly wins while taking those factors into account. However, if those things aren’t important to you, 12/6/93 is the superior match for pure bell to bell action. But who cares? All three of them are all time great matches and warrant the highest recommendation. ****3/4

Dangerous Queen Tokyo Trial: Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (LLPW) 21:07
PA: This was not the in ring classic that their first match was, but it is the captivating, emotional and dramatic payoff to Hokuto’s 1993, and her career as a whole. As a companion to their first match, it works, but it’s far better within the context of following Hokuto’s rise and fall. She began 1993 performing at her peak. She defeated Kandori in a match where she was mostly dominated, but had the determination, fighting spirit and ability to just pull it off, aided by Kandori’s own arrogance. She went through until August at her best, defeating everyone in the Japan Grand Prix, but throughout the tournament her body broke down. She had a broken back, her knee gave out against Harley Saito, all the wear and tear from eight years of injuries was also catching up with her. She fought through it against Toyota and Hotta to win the tournament, she also defeated Kazama. Her knee was so bad that it needed surgery, and after surgery came Aja; too soon for her to be competitive and too prideful not to take the match, she was picked apart and beaten, forgoing her second chance at the red belt in the process. She made the Kandori challenge and maintained insistence that she would never lose to a ‘judo wannabe’, and if she did, she’d retire. Despite her diminished physical state, Hokuto displayed enough resilience to overcome adversaries like Kazama for the second time, and Ozaki. This was the last trial, unlike in the Aja match, she was able to compete, but it was a question of if her body would hold up. It seemed like Hokuto had it all to lose, but she felt she had nothing to lose. She had to be the best, and if she couldn’t beat Kandori, then it was all for nothing anyway. Kandori had been insulted by Hokuto plenty before their first match, but the biggest insult was that she lost it and she wanted to dominate Hokuto even more thoroughly this time. The match started literally how the last one finished, with the two nailing each other in the face and knocking each other down. These were stiff shots and the first blood was drawn with Hokuto bleeding from the mouth. Hokuto went for Kandori’s leg and hit two early DQ bombs. They got into a slapping fight but Kandori just suckered her into Wakigatame, then immediately released it, wagging her finger.It was going to be a long night for Hokuto before Kandori was satisfied. Hokuto hit a piledriver, but it didn’t do a lot. Kandori started striking her with body blows, headbutts, and boots to the face, disdainful taunting her. Hokuto fired up and fought back and had some success, but Kandori got her in the same position before too long. While Hokuto was trying to make the most of her offense, Kandori was toying with her and not particularly threatened. Hokuto did some damage from the air with two missile dropkicks, and after Kandori rolled outside, she followed her and did the Northern Light’s Bomb on the floor. The games were over as far as Kandori was concerned. When she returned, Hokuto caught her with a savage spin kick. Kandori snatched a sleeper, but got jawbreakered. Hokuto went up and Kandori basically did a tiger driver from the second buckle, which got a TKO count of 9. On both occasions, Hokuto signalling for crowd support and wasting seconds allowed Kandori back in. Hokuto fought back with her own burst when Kandori took her foot off the gas, hitting a lariat and her somersault plancha. Kandori delivered a lariat in the ring, sending Hokuto crashing to the mat once again. Hokuto pressed on though, hitting a German and Backdrop suplex. She went up top for a flying body press, but Kandori rolled through her. Kandori stomped at her and Hokuto used another backdrop suplex, unable to bridge, but she did get a two count. She went up top again and Kandori and ran up, slapping her and dragging her down into a vicious kneebar. The crowd lost their minds at that, but Hokuto made the ropes quickly enough. Kandori dragged her back, but Hokuto fought her off, that’s all she could do though. She nailed Kandori with everything she had and rocked her, but Kandori had more in the tank. They slugged at each other, and it was clear Hokuto was going down, but she was going down swinging. The camera cut to Mita and Shimoda, who were bawling, with Aja, Hotta and Minami behind them - they made the finish even more than the wrestlers did. The camera caught Kandori whiffing an uppercut, which was unfortunate, but the next one struck. Kandori grabs the leg and opts to hold her down for three. Kandori’s done it, and LCO are beside themselves. Anticlimactic as the finish is, there was no other way for it to end. It’s definitive, Hokuto didn’t give up, her body did because of Kandori and all she had to do was put her out of her misery. It was about proving superiority, they had to take each others best shots to do that and they had to do it while showing the arrogance they were known for, whether that gave the opponent chances of not. Kandori got on the mic and told Hokuto if she loves pro-wrestling, to continue doing it, but Hokuto's resolve remained unyielding, driven by her stubborn heart. Initially she was to retire on 3/27/94, but that was changed to be the first of three retirement matches, starting there, going through 8/24/94 and finishing at the Tokyo Dome on 11/20/94 (though she ultimately didn’t retire there either). This didn’t top their first encounter. I don’t think it was even really supposed to, and it shouldn’t be compared directly to it. In the correct context, it’s great pro-wrestling and a great sequel. Structurally, it was odd, and there were decisions that in a regular match would have been bizarre, but within the story they were telling everything worked. It was stiff, they generally executed well (aside from that uppercut late), and it was packed with emotion and drama. The long walk was an epic and emotional scene as well, Hokuto took the walk alone, under her own power with a parade of journalists and the wrestlers in tears behind her. ****1/2