Blue Panther Vs Villano V - CMLL Anniversario (19/9/08)

Ed reviews.....old lucha? I'm as surprised as you are.

I really enjoyed the recent mask vs mask match from the third and final 2022 Triplemania show by Pentagon Jr and Villano IV, the last remaining masked brother of the famous Mendoza family.  Or it least he was until he lost his mask to Penta.  During that match there was a spot where Villano IV rolled up Penta for a dramatic nearfall which was an ode to his brother, Villano V, rolling up Blue Panther to win his mask which by all accounts was something of a shocking result.  Out of curiosity I wanted to see how good that match was, so I fired up the CMLL 75th Anniversario show 

The answer is, it's very good indeed.  This is my first time watching either man, and my first impression is that Blue Panther has one of the best topes I've ever seen, and for a 48 year old that's saying something.  It's not quite Darby Allin being shot out of a cannon in it's impact, it's more graceful than that, but it packs a punch and sends his opponents flying.  The first one he pulls off in the match becomes the big highlight of the Primera Caida and a plot device that runs through the whole thing.  Panther's tope sending V5 crashing backwards into the crowd and the back of his head collides with an armrest in a nasty bump.  We get several slow mo replays and it looks more brutal each time you see it.  As the match progresses we can see blood stains on the back of V5's mask.  The first two falls get decided on DQ's; firstly V5 swipes Panther's mask off and rolls him up in a pin, but the referee spots the maskless Panther and DQ's V5 for it.  The DQ in the Segunda Caida is devilishly clever.  Mask tugging and ripping in matches like this is commonplace, and Panther has every right to go after it the way V5 has been behaving - but V5's second for the match (who I am unfamiliar with but he has a ponytail so lets call him El Hijo del Furio) has been dousing the back of V5's blooded mask with water and loosening the straps, so that when Panther goes to tug it slightly, it slips right off which the referee rules as another DQ.  Panther sells this perfectly with his body language, stunned at what happened and explaining to his second, Mistico, that he just wanted to rip at the mask to work the cut on the back of his head.

The 3rd fall sees a return of Panther's awesome topes, which has V5 crashing into the seats again, only this time there's fans occupying them to cushion his blow.  Fortunate for him, unfortunate for the women who get crushed twice by Panther's topes.  V5 gets his own back by transforming into Brock Lesnar and taking Panther to SUPERPLEX CITY BITCH, by pulling off three superplexes in a row.  Things really heat up in the final moments where Panther locks in a signature snap fujiwara armbar, but when he goes for it a second time he gets caught in a crucifix pin which costs him his precious mask.  

With mask Vs mask matches, the post match adds so much to the overall package because the emotion on display is unmatched.  Panther is crying as he unmasks, V5 is overcome with pride and respect and puts Panther on his shoulders to parade him round the ring, fans are jumping for joy in the crowd and it all gets too much for an old lady who tosses her Blue Panther mask away in disgust that her hero let her down.  As someone who often leaves football games in disgust because his team always lets him down, I can relate so much with that old Mexican lady. 

I may watch more Blue Panther in the future.  He rocked.

Teaser - Worst WWE Matches Ever - The Big Show vs The Undertaker, Great American Bash 2006

In my most recent project, I'm hunting down, reviewing and ranking the 100 Worst WWE Matches in history. For this week's blog post, I thought I would start with a teaser by reviewing a match that is in consideration.

When the project is ready to start, I'll go into more detail about the criteria when ranking these. But in short, I took into account the importance of the match, the stage the match is on, the expectations going into the match, and of course the actual quality of it. That is to save me going on cagematch, finding 100 matches of The Great Khali (more on him shortly) and chucking them on a list.

Without further delay, I present to you the first teaser of what's to come.

The Big Show vs The Undertaker - WWE Great American Bash 2006

Punjabi Prison Match

Ah the 2006 Great American Bash. Never before had I heard the phrase "elevated liver enzymes" before. But if you played a drinking game with that phrase, you'd find yourself passed out half way between a Wetherspoons and a dodgy kebab shop before the show was over. Lashley, Super Crazy, and - importantly for this match - the Great Khali all found themselves off the show for this mysterious reason. The disruption to the show didn't stop there, as Mark Henry - who was set to face the man he injured eight months prior, Batista - tore his knee eight days prior to the show. What that led to was a disjointed show held together with blu-tak, and WWE scrambling to fill up the card.

Going into the Great American Bash, WWE had advertised Undertaker vs Great Khali in a Punjabi Prison match. Khali had crushed Undertaker in a way that pretty much no wrestler in history ever did at Judgment Day - a match that still feels shocking to this day. This was to be the return contest. WWE, however, never once made it clear what a Punjabi Prison match entailed - everyone was in the dark going into the show. Expectations were already low due to Khali's, shall we say, less than stellar performances. However, with "elevated liver enzymes", Khali was out and in his place was the quintessential 2006 "quick, we need a replacement guy", The Big Show. Now, putting my tinfoil hat on, it was no secret that WWE did not want Khali on live TV after Judgment Day. There were reports in the immediate aftermath that WWE wanted him on SmackDown solely to provide the safety net of editing. In fact it would be his final live televised match until early 2007. So did he truly have elevated liver enzymes, or was that a convenient excuse to get him off the card.

There's three key problems with this match that I'll address in turn:

- The Punjabi Prison match is a stupid concept.

- It's 21 minutes long.

- Undertaker and Big Show did not have great chemistry.

Let's start with the Punjabi Prison match rules. Seems straight forward enough - escape both cages, get out and you win. Kennel from Hell but less dogs, and more "razor sharp spikes" (if you like Michael Cole-isms, this is the match for you). However, there's a convoluted rule of 4 doors on the interior structure. The door will open for 60 seconds at the request of a wrestler, then permanently close after the time has expired. The problem? There's no advantage to getting out, because when you get out the other person can just open another door and get out themselves. Even in a worst case scenario where all the doors are shut, you can climb the inner cage and just step across to the top of the second cage. That means the entire first portion of the match where they're trying to build drama, is completely empty. All these flaws are highlighted in this very first debut match of the stipulation. Not ideal. That's not to say the fans didn't bite into the drama, because as soon as a countdown clock was on the screen, they popped. After all, wrestling fans love a count down.

Visually, the match sucks too. It's an ugly garish design and the "reinforced steel bamboo" was too thick to see through properly when factoring in two cages.

Secondly, the length. If you've ever seen Big Show in 2006, you'll know the sort of shape he was in. He was struggling every night, and looked bloated and out of shape. It wasn't too bad in the first half of the year when he was stuck in tag matches, but as he turned back to singles matches it was downhill. I'll always think back to the Cyber Sunday 2006 triple threat where he basically lay on the outside while Booker T and John Cena wrestled essentially a singles match because Show couldn't physically manage it. Similar thing with the Hell in a Cell at Unforgiven. So why would you give these two 21 minutes? Are we to believe that this is the allotted time that, hypothetically, the Great Khali would have received? If so, I'm very sad that this hypothetical 21 minute epic never came to be. Why give 21 minutes to two men that surely only knew they were wrestling less than 48 hours ago? I would assume this is a consequence of the shaken card - give the two veterans a long time to pad out the show, they'll figure it out. 

Undertaker by this point was starting to become a more consistent wrestler. That may seem like an odd thing to say about a wrestler who had been around for over 15 years at this point, but it wasn't until the mid 2000s that the quality of his wrestling became much more solid. However the Khali, and by extension Big Show, series brought Undertaker right back to shades of his early career they lumped with a useless wrestler and asked to make something happen. As a result, you have a slow and plodding match with Big Show stumbling around and Undertaker doing the work of multiple people to make this somewhat watchable. This is tedious. These two never had much chemistry until after Big Show's return in 2008. 

I do sympathise with the wrestlers because I think they were put in an unwinnable position - the stipulation sucks, the booking sucks, and both are being asked to go far longer than would be reasonably expected of them. I'm not going to fault the effort, they tried to pull out some decent spots, both men bleed. It's par the course for Big Show in 2006 - blood, weapons, go out and ruin your already fucked body for the fans to put on something at least watchable. Thank god he would leave the company for a couple years and come back in incredible shape.

Eventually Big Show gets out of the first cage and even manages to trap Undertaker in the interior cage, much to the chagrin of Michael Cole who can't work out how Undertaker has a chance now. Undertaker, not being a complete fucking moron, realises he can climb the interior cage to get out. While I've ragged on the rules, at the very least there's some strategy employed - even if the strategy sucked. While fighting between the cages, both men end up going through a Punjabi table - which is of course a regular WWE table but with a cloth on top. On a similar note, I despise when wrestling has weapons that can't believably be used. Why put spears and stuff on the outside? I did appreciate the hanging rope, which allowed Undertaker to practice his Tarzan impersonation.

Poor Big Show struggles so much to climb the outside cage, there's no feasible way they could have made believable "near falls" (for want of a better word), so appreciate them not even trying. But the finish of this match is an absolute mess. First of all, Khali and Daivari come out through the crowd. Unfortunately they have all the timing of Papa Shango because by the time they actually reach the cage to tease interference, Big Show and Undertaker have already finished the match. Undertaker jumps off the interior cage with a cross body. Big Show is supposed to catch him, fall away slam, and Undertaker geos through. Instead, it just looks like Undertaker hits him and Big Show takes a bump where both guys fall through the cage. What is it with Big Show and accidentally putting people through cages? The referees, for seemingly no reason outside of it being in the script, decide that's enough for Undertaker to be declared the winner. 

This match is a disaster, and yet is probably an upgrade from what we could have had if WWE had gone ahead with a planned 21 minute Khali match. I find ragging on Big Show 2006 matches to be low hanging fruit because it's clear he was physically a mess. They weren't in a position to succeed, but at the same time I can only review what's put in front of me. This sucked, and if it doesn't make the top 100, it will be very very close. And yet, I don't even think it's the worst match of this stipulation, because at the very least Undertaker and Big Show have enough presence to make stuff sort of interesting even when it's not. 

Ed's Kings Road Journey - Part 2: Jumbo's final year on top

In this recap of my King’s Road Journey I skim through the rest of 1991, the final year of Jumbo being the top guy in the company.

Jumbo Vs Kobashi 24/5/91 - JIP for the last 10 minutes of the match. From the looks of things, it was probably a great match where Jumbo throughout gave Kobashi enough shine to carry on getting over with these crowds. A blast to watch, and hopefully the full version of their 92 match is right up my street.

Misawa Vs Terry Gordy 1/6/91 - GREAT match, it must be the best Gordy singles match I've seen. The blood probably helps, but this was a fun heavyweight bomb throwing match. I'm not sure this facelock from Misawa is really doing it for me, I know it gives him another weapon and dynamic to his matches but I find it slows the matches down too much and isn't too believable.

Jumbo Vs Williams 20/7/91 - Another triple crown match, and eh it's the least impressive match I've seen so far since I've been watching early 90s AJPW. This didn't have the magic of William's performance against Kobashi from 93 for example.

Hansen Vs Kobashi 4/9/91 - rewatched this after first seeing it a couple of years ago to still see if it's my MOTY from AJPW with the context of seeing the other great matches of that year. It holds firm, I love this pariing and the finish of Kobashi ducking one lariat just to be hit with a discus one seconds later still pops me as much as it did the first time I saw it.

Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi Vs Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue 15/10/91 - What the fuck did Fuchi say in his promo because this match exploded into a wild start after his mic time. Felt like the old guard (and Taue) had had enough of these young guns trying to take their spot and so there was a lot of aggression in this one. I loved the story of Misawa's nose injury, he sold it amazingly well and then Jumbo booping on the nose got a huge reaction to keep the spark in their year plus rivalry - nose selling is something we don't see a lot of these days. As the match wears on it's all about Kawada being built up ahead of his Triple Crown shot against Jumbo.

Jumbo Vs Kawada 24/10/91 - I'm not just on some biased Jumbo high here am I, Jumbo was excellent in this match right? If you're gonna have a match with a bunch of headlocks and grounding strategies, doesn't half help to add some good facial selling and Jumbo's facials are tremendous I'm quickly realising. Jumbo is very giving in how much of the match he gives to Kawada even if Kawada doesn't have many moments where it looks like he can win, he never quite lands a killer blow. I'd have this a step below the Jumbo/Misawa matches because naturally there were more nearfalls and a sense of Jumbo really can get beat in that match, but I have it above the Hansen and Williams title matches in Jumbo's 1991 run. Wouldn't mind more of this in my modern wrestling though, you don't always have to go all out with 30 minute matches and excessive finisher countouts to put on a captivating title match; sometimes playing off a hierarchy on the roster and experience vs youth can be a captivating story all the same.

Misawa and Kawada Vs Jumbo and Taue 29/11/91- This was great, and one of the best examples of working a draw but not telegraph it's coming because I was shocked when the bell rang that we were at 30 minutes already, this was breezy. Moving on from an October six man where Misawa has a possible broken nose, Misawa in November comes into this with a bruised eye and that because a focus of Jumbo and Taue's attacks. Loving these body part stories that aren't just working over an arm or leg. Jumbo fantastic again.

Misawa and Kawada Vs Gordy and Williams 6/12/91- This was the finals of the 1991 tag league.  I thought this was just ok, I can't say the pairing of Gordy and Williams did a lot for me and I only got excited towards the end. I feel like that's a team that suits shorter matches, not 25 minutes as we got here.

That's probably going to be it for my 1991 viewing:

MATCH OF THE YEAR
1) Hansen Vs Kobashi 4/9/91
2) Jumbo Vs Kawada 24/10/91
3) Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi Vs Jumbo, Fuchi and Taue 20/4/91

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR
1) Jumbo (the glue in all the six man tags, especially for his team, and his singles matches deliver)
2) Kawada (he's in pretty much every six man that bangs, the Taue feud carries my interest in the company in the first few months of the year, is great in his triple crown match, and him and Misawa look like the best team in the tag league)
3) Misawa (He has the Gordy singles match on top of his great Jumbo match too, and then all the tags)

Fenix vs WALTER - wXw 16 Carat Gold, 9th March 2019

If you've ever seen these two wrestle, you can probably imagine what sort of match you're about to see. WALTER is the hard hitting giant, and Fenix is the feisty athletic superstar. While Fenix isn't afraid of WALTER, and they establish early that he's willing to stand up to him, he's certainly overmatched physically. I liked the commentary saying that Fenix presents problems that WALTER hasn't seen before. It's a nice way of making Fenix feel special, while also turning the tables on the usual "how is the small guy going to beat the big guy?" It is very quick before that sentiment is put to bed as WALTER quickly begins to dominate the match as you would expect.

The key aspect of this match is Fenix's mask, which WALTER goes after very early into the match. I'm torn on this, as this happens to be the best part of the match - which I'll go into a bit later. But it also serves as my main gripe for the match. It doesn't feel earned. Going after the mask is presented in wrestling, and in this match, as this extremely personal and vindictive act. I think going for it so early into the match sort of devalues that concept because it didn't feel like the preceding moments warranted it. The commentary team tried to play it off as WALTER being frustrated that Fenix got the better of a couple of exchanges, but those exchanges were brief and ultimately didn't build any momentum for Fenix, nor did they give him a near fall. 

To give an example of this concept done right, I'd go back to Rey Mysterio vs Chris Jericho from Extreme Rules 2009. That feud hadn't totally centred around the mask, but it had been hinted in promos. When Jericho goes for the mask at the end of the match it makes sense because he'd been pushed to the limit by Rey, and it was his last desperate move. That felt earned. WALTER going for the mask just felt like a move that didn't need to happen in this match, and they didn't give me a reason to believe it was necessary.

Beyond that, I had a couple of niggly issues with timing where it felt like WALTER waiting just a half second too long while waiting for Fenix to hit a move. When I say it's a niggly issue, I mean miniscule but I thought it worth pointing out.

Gripes aside, this is a terrific sprint between two wrestlers I'm a big fan of. I was surprised at a) how short the match was and b) how long it felt watching it. That's not to mean that they packed too much in, because a lot of it felt like it had time to breathe in those spots. Unfortunately I did feel that was offset by a beginning which seemed brushed off as if they wanted to jump right into the middle of the match. This again plays into my original issue about the mask spot. Some of the highlight spots were Fenix's escapability and the unique counters he had; WALTER clubbing Fenix out of mid-air;  and an absolutely beautiful top rope power bomb. 

I mentioned earlier how I was torn about the mask tearing earlier because while it's my main complaint about the match, it also leads into my main praise about the match. This match feels special because of how authentic the later mask stuff was. Fenix's mask coming off after the ace crusher felt so smooth and natural and threw me off when I watched it. The cleverness in this spot is how it delays Fenix getting the pin, causing WALTER to get enough time to kick out. It plants the idea in the fan's minds that Fenix could have won, but just got unlucky. It also adds to the strategy of WALTER going for the mask as it ultimately saved WALTER in this moment, and helped him finalise his win. The mask stuff continues to push this match, as a fan provides Fenix with a replacement mask. This may or may not have been a pre-planned spot, but I don't care and in either case it came off as a genuine and heartfelt moment from the fans to Fenix. All this escalates to the conclusion of the match which felt like a logical progression to the story they were telling.

This match left me wanting more and to see them wrestle again, so in that regard it was a success. I went into this thinking that it would be a typically great match from two people I enjoy, but I was surprised in the direction they decided to take the match. The mask spots changed the dynamic of the match which made it feel unique, and how it was incorporated makes this match stand out. Overall despite my issues, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and would love to see more between these two.

Match of the Week - Matt Riddle vs. Timothy Thatcher - NXT, 27th May 2020

Coming just days after the second ever Fight Pit match, the Discord chose the original as this week's match of the week. As WWE was still wrestling with how to handle pandemic era shows, Matt Riddle and Timothy Thatcher gave what I would consider to be the highlight match of this time period.

Right off the bat it's worth pointing out some things. The first is that this is an aforementioned covid-era match, which I've found to be difficult to evaluate because there's some inherent parts of wrestling that are different from most matches ever (for example playing off the crowd). It also makes the audible part of wrestling from the competitors far more important. Some wrestlers took to that, others did not. 

Secondly, it's weird to hear Mauro Ranallo on commentary again. It feels like that's a whole different era of wrestling, not just two years ago. 

Kurt Angle is the special referee for this match, which is fitting because one of the matches this reminds me of is Angle vs Samoa Joe from TNA Lockdown 2008. Not just because of the cage match setting, but in terms of what they were going for. The Lockdown match is much more divisive than this one, but I've always been a fan of it. When I first watched the Fight Pit match, I was extremely impressed and I'm happy to say that it has held up remarkably well. Especially given its era, where I have often been reluctant to go back to rewatch matches.

What becomes apparent quickly is how they went out of their way to make this feel special and different. In pro wrestling, coming up with new stipulations is usually a difficult task. Most of them suck. My main critique of Rollins vs Riddle from Saturday would be that they felt like they had just a standard cage match so it didn't feel worth the stipulation. Whereas this felt worth it because it was a different style of match you'd typically see from WWE. They weren't just having a regular match but with an alternate coat of paint - they used the stipulation to present something special.

While they were clearly leaning into an MMA influenced match, make no mistake this is an excellently worked pro wrestling match with all the typical ebbs and flows you'd expect to see. Right from the get go there's an emphasis of aggressive grappling, hold exchanges, and strikes. Almost immediately they establish how the cage is a factor, including the most memorable spot of the whole match where Thatcher loses a couple teeth and gets his mouth bloodied following a kick from Riddle. I thought the visual of Thatcher with blood in his mouth and Angle holding his (fake) teeth was remarkably well done considering these things are usually hockey. Also on the subject of the cage, Riddle's use of it is phenomenal in this match. Not only when he's on offence, but he constantly used it as an out of Thatcher's submission holds. The stuff on top of the cage is nice as well - it's a well designed structure in that the platform is big enough to move on, and it's the perfect height to where you believe someone could fall off at any time.

I think this match is a great example of how even mat wrestling can portray hatred and violence when presented in the correct way. While I've often shared my frustration at wrestlers chain wrestling at the start of a match when the match is presented as a personal feud, this is a far cry from that. These two clearly wanted not only to brutalise the other, but prove they're the better man. There's a certain grittiness to the match. It feels grounded and intimate, making it feel more personal as a fight. Even aesthetically, the dark, empty NXT arena worked superbly here as opposed to the sometimes over-indulgent 2022 WWE presentation.

This is one of the best matches of covid-era WWE. I touched earlier on how important the audible side of wrestling was at this time, and these two deliver huge in that regard. Obviously the strikes look and sound incredible all the way through. Not only that, but the struggle you can hear between the submissions and grappling. I also want to point out something they didn't do because a lot of these covid-era WWE matches, particularly the big main event style matches, loved to make melodramatic stories complete with bad acting and dialogue. There's none of that here, and I'm happy to do the odd thing and praise them for not doing something. 

Ed's Kings Road Journey - Part 1: Tsuruta-gun Vs Super Generation Army

Over the past few years I have been SLOWLY making my way through 1990s All Japan and documenting my thoughts in a thread over on WrestlingClique.com.  Rather than full blown reviews, my comments were more blurb forms to try and prevent this project taking too long.  2 years later I’ve only reached mid-1994 so that plan really hasn’t worked out!  Anyway, I’m still eager to carry on watching AJPW so my King’s Road Journey will continue on this blog.  However before I get back to it, I’ll be posting my old blurbs first so that everything runs chronologically.  It’s probably going to take a dozen entries before I catch up, the first of which starts now with mid 1990 to Spring '91 and the start of the 4 pillars era.

Jumbo Vs Misawa 8/6/90 – The natural starting point of this journey.  Tiger Mask II has unmasked as Mitsuharu Misawa and looks to have the rocket strapped to him to replace Tenryu as the #2 native and natural rival to Jumbo in the company.  It’s not just a significant match with Misawa getting the surprise win, but it’s a great one with both men playing their roles so well.  Particularly Jumbo who sold for Misawa tremendously well to help get him over and build his credibility. 

Jumbo Vs Misawa 1/9/90 – Following up with the June upset, we’ve got Jumbo’s revenge 3 months later.  This one is much more of a Jumbo focused match with him destroying this punk kid that handed him a shock loss.  There’s more drama in Misawa’s pin attempts this time round as he’s already proved he can beat Jumbo.  This makes for a great 1-2 punch to help establish Misawa as the young heavyweight star of the promotion.  Ironically this match makes me want to go backwards in time to enjoy peak Jumbo more so than go forward in time to the 4 Pillars era.

Kawada Vs Taue 15/1/91 – They may go on to form one of the greatest tag teams of all time, but in 1991 these two were engaged in a brutal war in AJPW.  I loved this rivalry as it offered something a little different to the Jumbo/Misawa rivalry at the top of the card.   In fact, this probably stands out as one of the more unique matches in 90s AJPW for it’s short length and it’s bloody-faced brawl style.

Jumbo Vs Hansen 18/1/91 - This was the Triple Crown title change back to Jumbo.  This might not be as spectacular as Jumbo/Misawa, but I really enjoyed seeing the change of pace to see Jumbo in there with someone that was his size, strength and experience level.  It feels like one of the last main events of it's kind where Jumbo faces a gaijin and it's not a long match filled with excess as we move closer to it being about the next generation.  Smartly worked, really good big man match with some gritty moments, the only criticism I would have is that the ending felt abrupt and flat.  

Misawa Vs Kobashi 5/4/91 - This was a handheld match from the 1991 Champions Carnival, and a really good one at that.  Short and snappy 15 minute match, started off by the numbers but then Kobashi hits a running DDT and they go off from there.  Two Tiger Drivers to win it for Misawa seems a bit excessive, but maybe that's just setting the scene for what comes later in their matches.  

Kawada Vs Taue 18/4/91 – Longer, fleshed out version of their January match for the Carnival.  Kawada wanted to powerbomb Taue on the concrete, but that backfires and he eats a Nodawa on the floor to get counted out

Jumbo Vs Misawa 18/4/91 – Might be the weakest of this trilogy but still very good.  Misawa has more confidence in this matchup now and this match has more of a back and forth, level playing field feel to things.  Jumbo kills Misawa with 3 backdrops to end this one.

Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi Vs Jumbo, Fuchi and Taue 20/4/91 - I wouldn’t be caught dead watching a 50 minute match from 2022 Japan, but this was fantastic and maybe the height of the Tsuratu-Gun Vs Super Generation Army 6 mans.  Yes you’ve got Misawa and Jumbo, but really the interesting combinations come in the form of Taue’s aggression towards Kawada, and Fuchi being a dick to Kobashi.  Great crowd, great performances, great heat and tension between the two stables.  Best trios match ever? Very likely. 

Match of the Week: Jeff Hardy vs. Kurt Angle - TNA No Surrender 2010

Flanderisation is a wonderful piece of TV tropes terminology to describe someone whose endearing qualities become a source of parody as writers continue to escalate their personality. It stems from the problem that a lot of Simpsons characters felt after the golden age of the show ended. Homer went from a lovable idiot to a sociopathic delinquent. Ned Flanders went from the well-meaning Christian neighbour to religious zealot. However the term isn't limited to the Simpsons as there are countless other examples (most of the Friends cast in later seasons would be another). And yet I find it oddly fitting to the direction of Kurt Angle's career.

Almost everyone loved Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit from the Royal Rumble 2003. At the time, it was mind blowing to see a match with that sort of finisher-counter wrestling on a major wrestling promotion. We'd seen major WWE matches with big finisher kickouts, such as the Rock vs Stone Cold, but nothing like Angle vs Benoit where the transitions between the finishers were as integral as the finishers themselves. It went on to be the template for the "WWE main event" style that still exists to this day. Kurt Angle would use that formula to develop his own style that became trademark for him: heavy counter wrestling and finisher kickouts. And while Kurt Angle remained mostly a popular and well regarded wrestler, there were certain parts of the internet that tired of this formula. Longtime residents of Wrestlingclique.com may remember this match was quite infamous at the time. I'd say it was one of the more divisive matches in the forum's history. For a long time, the subject of Kurt Angle had been the source of many debates (particularly in comparison to John Cena). And once this match happened, a lot of people used it to confirm their hatred of the Angle formula, while others maintained this was a match of the year candidate. 

That's why I chose this match as the Match of the Week. It's been a long time since Kurt Angle was a regular wrestler on TV. Gone are the days when he'd have a match with Amazing Red on Impact and have him kick out of the Angle Slam. It's with this removal from context that I'd like to look back on Angle and to see if this match truly was as contentious as it should have been, or if this was a symptom of a long bubbling discrepancy across the forum. 

This is the for a shot at the TNA World Championship, with the winner going to Bound For Glory for the title against either Mr Anderson or the Pope (wow, that is weird to think). If Kurt Angle loses, he's promised to retire.

Immediately what springs to mind is how little they let the match breathe. Taz and Tenay talk about Angle's strategy to try and ground Hardy, but that holds little weight when them almost immediately chuck that out the window in favour of throwing bombs. 

I like both these wrestlers on the whole, but can fully acknowledge how flawed both are. There is absolutely no structure or story to this for the majority of the match. This is both men showing their worst tendencies and playing wrestling in their backyard with the finisher kickouts. The best way I can describe it is two guys that thought "hey, why do we need a beginning and middle when we can get to the finish"? Within 6 minutes, Jeff had hit two Twist of Fates and Angle had hit a top rope Belly to Belly and an Angle Slam. Within 10 minutes Hardy hit a Swanton from the top rope to the floor. Hilariously, Taz comments on how the fans weren't reacting to the finisher spam by saying that half the fans are going crazy and I don't think half understand what they just saw. 

That's not to say that the pace is necessarily a bad thing - for example if the match is a sprint. Kurt Angle vs Rey Mysterio from Summerslam 2002 is a match which is a frantic sprint from start to finish with all sorts of big moves and creative counters. What separates this is that nothing is as intricate as Rey vs Angle. Those two had moves that flowed into each other perfectly. This match is just move move move move with no structure or nuance. The formula isn't there anymore, it's just a hilariously jarring bundle of big moves.

The second flaw is that this isn't a 10 minute sprint. This is a 30 minute match. Even if this match was 15 minutes, it wouldn't have been good but at least it would have been understandable. There is barely a transition in this match. The best way to describe this would be playing a wrestling video game with unlimited finishers and kickouts. I was less than half way through the video of this match, and Jeff had just hit two consecutive Swanton Bombs for near falls, and within 30 seconds Angle was back on the offence. Minutes later, Jeff is in an Ankle Lock and Taz is begging him to tap out and live to fight another day. Does my review sound incoherent and without structure? Does it sound like I'm just listing moves? Well, that's pretty much how I felt watching this. There's no struggle - Hardy is barely selling it and baiting that he might tap. Again, this is barely over half way through this match. 

I dare to say this is even an Angle formula match. One of the things that made those early 2000s Angle matches fun is the various counters. There was a struggle to actually hit finishers that made the eventual finishers more satisfying, and the kickout feel more important. This match, for a 30 minute draw, has zero struggle between moves, it felt. It got to the point where this match felt like an elaborate piss take from each guy to see how much bullshit they can pad into a match and still get a "This is Awesome" chant from the fans. 

At the twenty minute mark, they go to a time limit draw for some arbitrary reason. Afterwards, Eric Bischoff comes out to announce this match must continue so we get 5 more minutes. On restart, Angle actually employs honest-to-God strategy. He goes immediately after the ankle of Hardy to work it over once again. It might have only lasted a moment, but I'm glad that after 20 minutes there was some semblance of storytelling however short it lasted. After that 5 minutes expires, Bischoff declares that they need another 5 minutes (as opposed to just removing the time limit, I don't know?). Ironically it's these overtime periods that are the only parts I found myself enjoying because it felt like there was strategy and selling of the exhaustion. It's almost like the match was backwards - instead of the bulk of the match used to set up the finishers, the finishers were used to set up the story of the match. Bizarre stuff. Towards the end of the second 5 minute period, Angle gets busted open in a nasty way. Once Angle gets the final ankle lock in, then finally Jeff begins to sell it like he's in peril, making the last 30 seconds or so quite dramatic. Of course the time runs out, and this time there's no restart which gives us our draw. 

On the whole, I can't say I enjoyed this. It felt like the worst habits of both men. However I won't lie and I'll say that the last ten minutes were significantly better than the rest of the match. The first 20 was about as bad as an example of psychology in wrestling as you'll ever see. 

Chris Jericho Vs Bandido - AEW Dynamite (30/9/22)

I’ve seen a lot of talk online about whether Chris Jericho’s having the best year of his career in 2022.  There has definitely been an improvement in the last 12 months from where he was one of the worst wrestlers from any major promotion in 2021, but the cynic in me can’t look past him just being booked against some of the greatest wrestlers of this generation in Danielson, Kingston, Moxley and Claudio who hide his flaws better.  This week’s Dynamite main event however was a bigger test in my eyes because frankly I don’t enjoy Bandido matches.  There’s no doubting his talent, but I’ve seen enough crazy spotfest matches out of him against the likes of Speedball Mike Bailey and Flamita that I’m after something more, something deeper.  Facing a 51 year old Chris Jericho in a debut match for AEW should hopefully provide something different.

Jericho starts off by mocking the code of honour with AEW’s favourite gesture – the middle finger.  They do a really nice job of highlighting Bandido’s strengths as a wrestler which is bread and butter for any debut match.  It starts off simple enough with a suicide dive, but the dives and topes increase with rotations and difficulty as things progress.  That might not seem so special for your modern day luchador, but when he starts breaking out the moves that put over how physically strong he is, you see another side to his game.  I was surprised to see the one-handed gorilla press used during the first commercial break to a limited audience, but that was to be quickly dwarfed when they came back to TV and Bandido pulled out the 1 minute delayed vertical suplex to rush all the blood and vodka to Jericho’s head.  Philly stopped counting after 30 seconds but they popped big when Jericho was finally planted to the canvas. 

At 51 years old, Jericho is never going to hit the codebreaker or lionsault with the same smoothness as he used to, but he’s experienced enough to lay out matches that work well and improvise when an opportunity arises.  When Bandido starts to bleed through his white mask, Jericho’s smart enough to target it with some knees or punches during the transition of the match’s bigger moves which I always appreciate.  Jericho’s also good at linking movesets together – I particularly enjoyed Bandido countering Jericho’s corner dropkick into a middle rope sunset flip powerbomb, but also the X-Knee being reversed into the Walls of Jericho was a great spot too.  Some things didn’t always come off looking great, the crucifix bomb was rough around the edges, but nothing that hurt the match.  I joked when the match was announced that surely the Spanish Fly-Fallaway Slam wasn’t going to happen in this match, but here I am with egg on my face because those crazy bastards went for it.  It wasn’t picture perfect, but no-one died!

The 2nd attempt of the X-Knee connects and it’s followed up by the 21-Plex but Jericho survives it.  Sigh.  Once again Bandido feels the need to every big move he has, even when he’s losing.  If the rumours are true that he’s been offered a full time deal with AEW, then I would have liked to see a bit of restraint here as I’ve already seen the big Bandido match on day 1 so where do you go from there.  The same exact moves in the same order against Fenix? Probably.  As with a lot of 2022 Jericho matches where the going gets too tough, he has to resort to cheating so with a poke of the eye and a tug of the mask, he finds himself locking in the liontamer on Bandido.  The commentary team do a great job of pointing out that Bandido’s mask is now covering his eyes and with Jericho’s knee on his head he can’t see how close to the ropes he is so he feels the need to tap out.   Really good TV main event and first defence for Jericho, but I’m not sure I got my ‘something different’ out of Bandido.

After the match Jericho cut a promo setting him up to face other former ROH World Champions in the future.  I was surprised to see him set up a match with Danielson so soon as that felt like a natural end point of this Jericho title run, but maybe that’ll end up being Daniel Garcia.  I do find it a bit petty that they’re calling Chris Jericho the most famous ROH Champion ever, and then when listing names of former champions they leave off the name CM Punk.  Regardless, Tony Khan should make the call to Low Ki for a one off appearance.  I’m good without seeing the Dalton Castle and Jay Lethal matches against Jericho – give the people what they want from this program.

Ed

 Samoa Joe vs Necro Butcher - IWA-Mid South - Something to Prove

Longtime visitors of WC will know of this match even without having ever seen it. King Steventon had an image from the match as his sig for seemingly years. There was a time when this match, along with the Low-Ki fight, was used to show fans that Necro could do more than just garbage wrestling. This happens to be one of the very few IWA-MS matches I’ve seen previously some years ago, but I don’t recall being too impressed with it. In fact, I gave it a measly ** 1/2 rating. Looking back, I think my hang-up is that it’s not really a wrestling match nor does it have a typical wrestling finish. However, there’s a lot to appreciate about this match that I understand now. For an indie match, it has a serious big match feel to it. The crowd is going crazy throughout and color commentators, CM Punk and Eddie Kingston, are practically marking out for the entire duration. You know something is great when even Punk and Kingston are in agreement! It was treated as a brutal fight with Necro initially shoving referee, Bryce Remsberg, away when Remsburg tried to keep the pair from colliding before he could ring the bell. When Remsberg tried delaying the start again, Samoa Joe tossed him out of the ring. With that, the fight was ON. The fight didn’t even last ten minutes, but you don’t feel cheated by the short length. Every shot, kick, slam, and weapon use just looked brutal. Whether it’s because Necro is a bit heavier than Joe is used to tossing around or that Joe knew he could be extra rough, Joe just seemed to enjoy hurting Necro by botching spots. There’s a power slam spot that sees Joe failing to complete the rotation causing Necro to land directly on his forehead. Later, Joe attempted an exploder off the apron onto the floor, but again there isn’t any sort of rotation and Necro lands directly on his forehead. That second spot causes an already busted open Necro to begin to bleed buckets. Both spots are so sick, yet entertaining. Necro wasn’t against throwing out some hellacious punches directed at Joe, but the story here was Joe absolutely killing Necro only for Necro to keep getting up. Near the end of the match, Joe is even looking at his blood stained body, all of the blood solely from Necro, in disbelief that the match could still be going on. HOW DO YOU BEAT NECRO BUTCHER?! Joe then unleashes a series of brutal knees to Necro’s head, causing the Choose Death god to fall to the mat, but Necro gets up again! Finally, Joe stands back and fires off a kick to the side of Necro’s temple, dropping Necro for good. Necro Butcher tries to get up, but is unable to answer the ten count to give Joe the victory. This was an insane match and another reason why Samoa Joe was quite possibly the Wrestler of the Year. In a year where Joe had a hard hitting five star classic with Kenta Kobashi in ROH, a storytelling five star classic with AJ Styles in TNA, working a big trilogy with Super Dragon in PWG, he was also having an entirely different sort of fight with Necro in IWA-MS. This was meant to come across as a major special attraction and it succeeded. I badly miss Samoa Joe from this time period. Meanwhile, call Necro a garbage wrestler all you want, but he can tell a fantastic story through getting his ass kicked. Let this match be a lesson to always be open minded enough to give matches a second chance. You may be missing out on something great. ****

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